Chapter Three Summary: After spending a week inside together, the twins start to get snippy with each other. Murphy manages to talk Connor into getting out to go to mass and to get some food. Murphy is embarrassed when Connor wakes him from a nightmare and leave the apartment to get space. Hours later, Connor, who had been worried, is relieved when he gets a call from Murphy's phone. But it's not Murphy. Someone has taken him...

AN: So yes, I'll be subjecting you to a multitude of cliff hangers. But I felt bad for leaving you like that, so here's a new chapter. Plus, I have a really mean chapter just for you on Easter, which happens to be my 16th birthday. This chapter is for Connor to emote. He needed to get it all out and Murphy wasn't there... So the team fills in.

Brotherhood of Saints

Weaknesses and Admissions

Candra Hastings

"So how goes it with our new friend?" Lorenzo asked as Anna slipped into the room. He was curious as to the Saint's reaction to the situation.

"Mm, well one thing is for sure. He doesn't have a very saintly mouth on him. He's a fighter, that one. Marco had a hard time keeping hold of him." Anna stretched her shoulders and brushed off something on her dress in an annoyed fashion.

"I'm sure you can fix that little problem," he commented dryly. "Have you contacted the brother yet?" He couldn't help but feel excited about the plan. It was going so smoothly. He had known Anna was capable of doing this, he just had no idea that it would go over so well.

"Actually, I just did," she grinned. "We're having quite the effect on him. I though he was going to lose it on the phone."

"Good. So what now?"

"Now is when we get to start to have fun," Anna chirped. "Connor knows baby brother is missing, but he doesn't know his condition. Now is when we let him know that his precious Murphy is unharmed. For the moment, at least."

"And when are you planning on doing that?"

"I'm on my way now," she informed him while heading to the door. "We can't have my new pet getting lonely, can we?"

"When do I get to meet him?" Lorenzo asked.

Anna shrugged her thin shoulders. "Not right now. I'm still letting him adjust a bit. He's not awake right now anyways, but that should be changing soon. I suppose tomorrow would be fine."

"Anna, tell me this. Why him? I mean, if the other is older, isn't he the one calling the shots between the two?"

"Yes, and that's exactly the point."

"If that's the point, why didn't we go after him instead of the younger brother?"

"Because that's the deal. Though they draw their strength from each other, they've become each other's greatest weakness. So the boys don't care about self-preservation? That's fine. But they need each other to exist, at this point. So, hurt one, you destroy the other. And how do you do that? You go after the baby. Big brother will break."

"You really think that just by taking his twin is going to make them stop being Saints?"

Anna laughed, and it wasn't a pleasant sound. She sounded high-strung, like her patients were wearing thin. "Of course not. These two aren't afraid of death. What they do fear is something happening to each other."

"So taking a Saint hostage is going to cause the other enough mental anguish that they'll stop?"

"No, I highly doubt it. I think that by making one suffer while the other can do nothing but sit by will do the job quite nicely. Don't you?"

B~D~S

Connor usually had a lot of self-control. Unlike his brother, who always had to be moving, he could sit still for hours.

Right now, Connor was pacing. He had to be up and doing something. If he wasn't, he would think about what could be happening, and then he would snap and lose it.

More than anything, he wished for Murphy to walk through the door right now. But he knew that wouldn't happen. Someone had his brother, and it was driving Connor insane.

He wanted to be out there looking for Murphy. Still, he knew he couldn't. As Greenly pointed out, Connor was still a target. If something happened to him, he wouldn't be of any help to Murphy.

He couldn't take being trapped in the small room anymore. His fist connected with a wall, leaving him with a hole and bleeding knuckles. "Where the hell is Smecker?" he growled at the cop sitting on his couch.

Duffy flinched at his friend's tone. "He said he was on his way."

"Well, he's takin' forever about it! They could be doin' God knows what to my brother!" he panicked, accent getting thicker.

"You can't think like that," Duffy tried to console.

"Yes, I can! How can I not? And it's my fault, isn't it?" Connor hissed, rubbing at watery eyes. "I let him walk out that door. And I knew better, too! I just knew somethin' was gonna happen!"

"Playing the blame game isn't going to help your brother. He needs you to keep it together now. He's a big boy and he made the choice to leave. It's not your's or his fault that this happened. It's whoever took him's."

Connor sank down on the couch next to Duffy, fingers knotting in his hair. His voice was quiet... Cracked... "But he's my baby brother... I'm s'posed to take care of 'em..."

Duffy frowned. "I thought you guys are twins."

Connor let out a rueful smile. "We are. Ma never would tell us who was oldest. Before Da went back to Ireland, he let it slip that I was. Murphy was so mad," he chuckled. "But he got over it mostly. I think we both already knew. At least I always acted like it."

Duffy didn't say anything for a while. Timidly, as if fearing the results, he placed a light hand on the Irishman's shoulder. "We're going to get him back, Connor. There's a whole team looking for him and we're not going to stop."

Connor nodded. Though he appreciated the kind words, he wasn't going to take comfort in them until he saved his brother. Until he killed every last one of these idiots who'd dared to take him.

Someone knocked on the door and Connor's hand flew to his waistband, drawing his gun.

Duffy went to the door, his own gun at the ready. He looked through the peephole. Connor sighed with relief when the door opened to Smecker with Dolly behind him.

Connor got up and ushered the two inside. "Any word?" he asked the agent. He knew Smecker wasn't going to lie to him or try to sugarcoat anything. They had trusted him with the secret of the Saints and he had been loyal in helping them with their mission.

Smecker nodded, his face weary with stress lines. He cared greatly for the brothers and hadn't slept since he'd found out about Murphy disappearing last night. "We... well, Connor, I hate to say this, but we found the crime scene."

Connor's stomach churned. "He... He's..."

Smecker cut him off. "No! No we haven't found... a body... or anything like that. But in the ally out back, the one from Saint Patrick's Day, there was signs of a struggle."

Connor was out the door before they could stop him. Smecker knew better than to try.

Greenly was in the ally, looking down on something when Connor came down. The cop met up with the Saint. "Hey, Connor. How are you holding up?"

"I'll be fine soon as we get my brother back."

Greenly nodded. "I'm guessing you wanna know exactly what happened."

"I do."

"That's fine, but I gotta ask Smecker-"

"Tell him," Smecker interjected. He, Dolly, and Duffy joined the two in the ally.

The cop nodded. "Alright, so here's what went down." Greenly started out, "Murph's coming home, he's walking, almost to the apartment. He comes down here when..." he trailed.

"When what?" Connor asked, annoyed at the sudden pause.

Smecker could tell Greenly didn't want to deliver the bad news to their friend, so the agent took it upon himself. "When his was attacked by someone. We know Murphy put up a good fight, but we found evidence that they got in a headshot, knocking him out."

He could feel the air rush out of his lungs. Still, Connor knew he had to hold it together. "Then what happened?"

Smecker crouched down, gloved fingers trailing on the muddy ground. "See this? These tracks tell us that Murphy was dragged to the end of the ally and loaded into a waiting vehicle."

"Okay, so we know what happened. Now how are we going to get my brother back?" Connor didn't mean to be pushy with his friends, but this was Murphy.

"Well at the moment, I've got people in forensics working on this," Dolly piped up. "We've got shoe prints and tire tracks so we're working from that angle."

"Connor, have the kidnappers called you back?" Smecker asked.

He knew that they hadn't because his phone had mostly been attached to his hand for the last few hours. Still, he fished it out of his pocket and glared at the screen. He was about to put it back, no results, when it buzzed.

"I just got a text, guys," he told them, thumbing the message open. His heart pounded in his chest. "It's from Murph's phone."

The law enforcers crowded behind him, peering at his phone. None of them liked what they saw.

It was a picture message. A photo of Murphy came up. He was in a chair, hands bound tightly behind his back with rope and ankles tied to the legs of the chair. He was gagged and blood poured from a nasty wound in his hairline. Someone's hand bearing that horrid tattoo was latched into his dark hair, wrenching his head back. Still, Murphy glared defiantly back at the camera, an infuriated look in his eyes,

Connor was pissed. "I'm going to kill every last one of those sons of-"

He caught the caption under the picture. It read: Before the Games Begin.

His legs gave out. Connor sank to the ground. He didn't know how he managed to not drop the phone. He didn't know how he managed to keep breathing. He had known. He just had, deep inside his heart. They weren't going to just take Murphy.

They were going to hurt him.

He was numb, but he felt people pulling him to his feet. He felt himself walking, supported by strong arms and he was gently set down on his couch. He couldn't remember the trip up the five floors. All he could think about was what was happening to Murphy.

"Connor? Connor, buddy? You there?" someone faintly called.

"Should we smack him? Isn't that what you do when they do this?" Greenly. That was Greenly, Connor remembered.

"No, we shouldn't smack him! Just give him a little air," Smecker ordered.

Suddenly, Connor's head was clear again and he could focus. Four faces looked at him expectantly.

"Connor, you okay, man?" Dolly asked.

Yes. That was the answer that was expected. He was Connor MacManus, the Saint of Truth. Only right now, he couldn't be a Saint. The Saints weren't really individual people. They were a combined force of righteousness. Right now, he was half Saint, his match missing.

So was he alright? The Saint would say yes, because the Saint was always okay. He had to be. He was a beacon of strength. A symbol of holy power. But Connor MacManus? He was just a man. A man can be damaged, can have weakness.

And right now, without his brother, Connor was all he could be.

"No, I'm not," he admitted quietly.

The cops were thrown. They'd never heard the proud, headstrong Irishman sound so destroyed. They knew he was having a hard time dealing with this, and they didn't blame him at all. Still, the admittance bothered them.

"Can I get you anything? I can make a run out for coffee if you want," Greenly offered, even though he hated being a delivery boy.

"I just... I just want my brother," Connor croaked, head falling between his knees, fingers knotting in his hair, shoulders slumped in defeat.

None of them knew what to say, but Duffy tried to be comforting. At the station, he was used to talking to victims, but he was never friends with any of them. "We're going to get him back, Connor. He'll be home soon enough."

"I'm scared," Connor admitted, head down. "The last time this happened, I almost lost him..."

"What do you mean, the last time this happened?" Dolly asked.

But Smecker knew. Though he didn't know what had happened in that room in the basement of Yakavetta's house, he'd seen the body of their friend, Rocco. He taken note of the two empty chairs, blood staining the steel cuffs. He knew that they had somehow escaped, but they hadn't really been the same people.

Connor looked up at them all, not really sure if he should say. The whole situation was a painful memory, but Connor really just needed to... not be strong for a little while. It had all become too much for him to handle alone. If he had Murphy, he would be able to confide in him, but now he was alone...

So he let it all out. He would never tell this story again, so he decided to tell it all "Smecker had just figured us out, decided that we were doin' the right thing. Murph, Rocco and I had decided that we needed to hit Papa Joe at his house, believin' it would be just him alone. I was wrong."

Dolly, Duffy and Greenly were totally enamored with the story. They had heard from Smecker that the boys had gone after the mob boss and that the mission had failed. But that was all. They assumed that something went wrong and the boys just decided to try again later. They didn't know what had really happened.

Connor seemed hesitant to move on, but Smecker knew that he needed to get it off chest. So he prodded him on a little. "I found out they had all his guys there and went as fast as I could to help. When I got there, you boys were gone."

Connor nodded. "Yeah. We... we went in that night, but we got overrun. We fought back, tried to get away, but they had Rocco and... they had... had Murphy... I just couldn't fight back when they had them."

"They took us to that room... cuffed us to the chairs... Murph tried to fight back, kept shootin' his mouth off. That mouth always got 'em in trouble. Earned a nice little beatin' for it. But he kept on fightin', just like always."

"They tried to question us. We wouldn't talk. They shot off Roc's finger... well, the other one. Then they... killed him. We couldn't stop it. It was like all the air was knocked out of me..."

The silence was heavy. Dolly coughed uncomfortably. Then he asked the question they all wanted to know the answer to. "How did you two get out of there?"

Connor chuckled darkly. "That's the thing, isn't it? See, we knew if we didn't get out of there, they'd kill us next. So we got out... but it cost us. Cost us dearly..."

"...I had to... It was Murph's idea, and I hated it. Still, I knew it was our only shot. He managed to pull himself in front of me and he... he told me to do it... 'Do it, Connor' he said. And I did. I had to. And I will never forgive myself..."

"What'd you do, Connor?" Greenly whispered, half afraid of the answer. He knew it wasn't good if it had Connor so upset.

"I broke it. Broke my brother's hand. He told me to. I didn't wanna... I tried to think of something... anything else. But he just told me to do it. He just... gave me that look that asked for my trust that he was makin' the right choice. And so I did it. I had to break my brother's hand so that we could get out of that hell hole."

Connor's eyes were misted over, his mind back in that room. There he was again, listening to his brother's muffled screams as his boot came down time after time, crunching the bones of the person he cared about the most. Connor had never told Murphy, but he still every once in a while dreamed about it, all through the night, breaking his brother.

"Connor!" Smecker called. He'd seen the young man's mind drift to somewhere else and they needed him to pull it together. "Connor, I get this is hard but you have to snap out of it or Murphy is going to die!"

Connor's head snapped up, eyes focused intently on Smecker's, eyes narrowed in determination "I won't let that happen. I promised him that I would take care of him," he said with a trembling voice.

"Then get off this couch and let's go find him."

Connor got up. He walked over to the wall where their rosaries hung. Murphy had forgotten his and Connor thought it looked much too lonely when he donned his own. He took his brother's rosary from the wall and wore it as well. He was going to return it to it's owner if it was the last thing he did.