I do not own nor claim ownership to any character in this story. It is a fictionalized account of what might have happened after the episode ended. No copyright infringement is intended.

Cold Case

Sabotage

Too Late to Apologize

He sat in the back of the speeding Philly PD car, his hands tucked tightly between his knees. His eyes stared vacantly at everything and nothing. His ears were filled with the shriek of the car's siren and the squall of the police radio. He heard his address announced over the airwave to the first responders - fire and ambulance personnel were being dispatched - along with the police. He heard references to words like bomb, explosion, property damage, casualties.

He didn't hear anything about fatalities. He clung to that like a drowning man would cling to a life perserver. If he heard that dreaded word before the car reached his home, he'd be as lost as the drowning person who let go of the floating circle.

Just a few minutes earlier, he'd been standing in the train station, watching as the homicide department captain had walked carefully up to his brother. His older brother was sitting alone on a bench in the empty waiting area, the one their father had helped build.

The Captain displayed a deep, sincere sympathy to his brother. Compassion as deep as a well poured from the policeman as he'd walked up to the unknown danger his brother presented, talking to him as if they'd known each other for years.

The train station had been evacuated when the homicide squad determined his brother was there and had been responsible for a series of bombings - two of which had been fatal - that had occurred in Philadelphia over the years. The last bombing had been intended to harm him, but he'd not gone to the gym the day the men's locker room had been bombed and another man had been injured in his place.

The assembled police officers believed another such bomb was hidden in the wooden box his brother held in his lap. The SWAT team and Philly homicide officers had formed a human barricade between him and his brother. He could only see his brother's pale, drawn face. His brother's expression was blank, as if he'd given up. His brother didn't even look his way or acknowledge his presence.

The homicide captain watched as his brother's hands caressed the box. They talked of things being made to last and how that wasn't the case any more. There was a tense moment when his brother lifted the lid of the wooden box. Instead of a music box filled with deadly projectiles, the Captain saw his brother lift a wallet sized picture of a little girl from the interior.

The captain knew enough of the case to know the serial bombing suspect had lost virtually everything that mattered in life; his job, his marriage, and his daughter. His little girl had died much too young from an ugly disease that ravaged her little body until she had nothing left to give to the cancer.

The captain made a 'weapons down' gesture, indicating there was no bomb. Everyone had believed his older brother was going to blow up the train station, but he knew better. His brother would never destroy their father's handiwork. He revered the type of quality craftsmanship their father had created throughout his life, including in the construction of the train station.

The blonde detective who'd questioned him about his brother and their relationship pulled her cell phone from a pocket. He watched as she tensely waited for an answer. He heard her growl a fierce order to whoever received the call to get his wife and child out of the house. There was more waiting as soon as she gave the order.

He immediately knew where his brother had left the bomb. The moment the thought was out, the blond detective's eyes widened with shock and concern. She held the cell phone away from her as a loud explosion issued from the earpiece.

At that very same moment, his brother rose from the bench with his arms held in the air, palms out in a gesture of surrender. He sank to his knees, but not before he spoke quietly to him, acknowledging his presence for the first time. His dead blue eyes never left his younger brother's face until he was surrounded by the Swat team.

He couldn't believe it! How could his brother harm his own flesh and blood - his niece? How could he harm his sister - in - law? 'It was me you wanted! Not them! They're innocent!'

He struggled to get past the officers to his brother, wailing at the top of his lungs at his brother. The Hispanic detective and a uniformed policeman grabbed him by the arms and forced him against a far wall.

"Calm down!" The young detective hissed. "I don't want to have to arrest you, too! You've got to think of your family!"

The detectives words finally made sense to him. His family. Or whatever was left of them. Members of the SWAT team secured his brother's wrists behind him and reading his Miranda rights to him. The two detectives exchanged glances, then hurried him out to a squad car.

The blond had tapped on the window to get the uniformed officer's attention. He unlocked the backdoor of the vehicle and he was unceremoniously shoved inside. "Follow us to his house!"

He could barely breathe through the knot of fear that was tightly wound inside him. He couldn't speak or move. His entire being was centered on his wife and child, praying they were all right but fearing the very worst.

Beth Ross stared unbelievingly at her husband. "You can't be serious, Nick! He wanted to kill you! He tried to kill your daughter and me!"

"I know that. But he's still my brother. I need to know why Alessandro wanted to kill us! Why he would want to kill Mia!" Luke explained patiently.

The two homicide detectives assigned to guard his family had managed to get to them in time to save them from physical injury from Alessandro's pipe bomb. He had cleverly hidden it in an old fashioned music box that played 'John Henry'. Somehow, he'd managed to get into Mia's school and gotten it to her.

Mia had been fascinated by the box, and by the music it played. Fortunately, she'd not opened the box before she got home, otherwise the end result could've been much worse.

The front of their home was heavily damaged. The fire department had boarded up the front for them, and after being treated on the scene, he and his family were released by the Philly police. They were now holed up in a suite at an upscale hotel.

Nick had just informed his wife that he intended to go visit his brother, Alessandro, the minute he was allowed visitors.

Beth had never met his brother and his family. The death of her niece, Sofia, and Alessandro's divorce from his wife had happened before she married Luke.

He'd told her about his brother, and the let downs that had occurred after his job had been 'outsourced'. How Alessandro had tried to keep their parents' home from being bought and demolished for a technology company that was never constructed.

"I helped Alessandro when I could, but the costs just kept mounting. Sure, I had a good job, but I was getting tired of his constant requests for help. I finally told him I wasn't paying the mortgage any longer and he disowned me," Luke explained.

She felt that Alessandro didn't deserve her husband's attention, not after trying to kill them. She looked at him in continued disbelief. How could he betray them?

"I'm not betraying you!" Luke cried. "I'm just trying to understand!"

"Then go find your answers!" She spat, rushing into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

Luke sat in front of a thick glass partition. There was a telephone receiver on his side. A similar telephone receiver rested on the wall opposite him, where Alessandro would eventually sit.

A buzzer went off and his brother appeared, clad in an orange jumpsuit. Alessandro stood in the open doorway, staring at him in disbelief.

For a moment, Luke feared his brother would turn away. To his relief, Alessandro walked slowly to the chair and sat down. He stared at Luke for a few minutes, until Luke picked up the receiver. Alessandro picked up the opposite receiver and held it to his ear.

"What do you want, Lucas?" Alessandro's voice was flat and uncaring.

"You know what I want. I want to know why."

Alessandro stared at him. It was cold stare of disappointment. "How easily you forget, little brother."

"Forget what?" Luke roared.

"We were supposed to take care of each other. Remember how I provided for you while you were in school, earning your degree after our parents died?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

Alessandro shook his head. "I could've just let you flounder; made you have to work your way through school instead of paying your way so you could get good grades and a high paying job. Then things went bad for me, and you weren't there. Where were you when I needed you?"

"I was there! I helped you after the divorce!" Luke protested.

"Before that. When Sofia was sick. I begged you for help with her medical expenses, but you were too busy with your job and wooing your girlfriend to be bothered with us! We were the 'poor relations' that might shame you in front of your high class lady! You didn't return my calls, you never came to visit her, you didn't even come to the funeral!" Alessandro roared angrily.

Luke didn't know what to say. What could he say? He'd heard the pleading note in Ale's messages, but had turned a deaf ear to his brother's troubles. He had been away with his new wife on vacation when Sofia died. They couldn't get back in time. When they returned from their honeymoon cruise, Alessandro refused to accept his calls. Letters were returned unopened.

Luke had finally gone on his own to see Ale at their parent's home. He was jobless and alone. He seemed to have his mind on other things, and when Luke said he wouldn't help pay the mortgage anymore, Alessandro had ordered him out of the house and disowned him. He'd only told his wife the condensed version of the story.

He shook his head and took a deep breath. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference now, but he felt a need to try to make his brother understand his side of the story. "I - I tried to contact you when we got back -"

Alessandro shook his head. "I don't want to hear it, little brother. You were too busy enjoying the fruits of the work of others. The problems of me and my family meant nothing to you! Sofia died a horrible, painful, lingering death because you didn't care to help! No one wanted to help! No one listened, so I made them listen!"

Luke stared at his brother in horror. It all made sense to him now. All the bombings were retribution for being treated like a non person!

"Why did you target Mia?" He croaked.

"Why do you think, little brother? You had everything I once had. The love of a good woman. A child who adored you. A home. A job. I realized after you didn't show up at the gym that killing you wasn't the right answer. You wouldn't suffer like I have. But if I killed your wife and child, you would know what I felt, because you would live how I lived!"

Luke recoiled from the hate and anger in his brother's words. Tears ran down his face as he stammered an apology.

Alessandro slammed the receiver back on its' holder and stood up. Lucas craned his neck to see his brother's face. He didn't need to hear Alessandro to know what he said as he turned away.

"It's too late to apologize."