A/N: And here goes nothing...
She hears the various snippets of conversation all day long, and she doesn't pay much attention, because it never seems to matter. The only time she really pays attention is when the Chief of D's is talking, because, after all, she works for the guy, and it wouldn't do to be caught off guard.

"…yeah, I heard there were a couple officers down…"
"Damn shame. I tell you, anyone with a gold shield is a moving target these days…what squad?"

"I heard Major Case, but I'm not sure."
Suddenly, Carolyn's head snaps up, and she stares intently at the two people who are speaking. They're unaware of her as they continue on with their conversation.

"I suppose we'll find out soon enough…any idea who might've been involved?"
"Heard something about that hothead they pulled in from the island couple of years ago."

Carolyn gets up at this point, not caring if they've noticed her listening. Glaring at both of them as she leaves the office, she runs for the elevator as soon as she's out of sight, and waits, impatiently, for a moment before deciding to take the stairs to the eleventh floor.


Wheeler sits in the captain's office, fighting the desire to give in to what she really wants to do, which is hide her face in her hands and cry. But as it is, there's blood on her clothes, and Barek's going to kill her, and to say that she's in shock is an understatement.

"What happened?" Ross asks, and his voice breaks into her thoughts, forcing her to look up. There's quiet for a moment, as she struggles to find the words she's looking for, but in the end, she gives the answer that's most likely to piss him off, because there isn't anything else to say.

"I don't know," she says, and isn't surprised to hear a hitch in her voice. All her time on that task force, and she'd never seen any one of her colleagues shot, but now…She goes on, before she can dissolve completely into something she isn't sure she wants to figure out. "We were walking…he said he wanted to walk, that it wasn't that far from here, and all of a sudden, he goes down…I didn't see anything."
Suddenly anger takes over whatever emotions had been there before. "Don't take me off this case." It's more a statement than a question, an order, she thinks wryly as Ross looks at her for a long moment before shaking his head.

"I won't," he says, "But I don't want you out there by yourself."
"I have Goren and Eames," says Wheeler, and wonders if she's speaking too soon, but the office door opens and in comes Eames, followed by her partner, and both of them look furious, and scared at the same time, and it rattles her even more, because she's never seen them like this before.

"You two," says Ross, before any of them can speak. "To the scene. Wheeler, go home and change your clothes, come back if you want."
They leave. Wheeler looks at the older detectives, and they look back at her, before leaving, without a word.

She goes home and changes, but instead of going back to the squad room, she goes to the hospital.


When she looks up and sees Wheeler there, she's half tempted to yell, to tell her to leave, that she has no right to be there, but Carolyn is nothing if not someone who knows how these things go, and she knows somewhere inside that mind of hers that Wheeler does have a right to be there. She is, after all, currently Mike's partner.

"You know, I think it'd almost be better if you did yell at me," Wheeler remarks after a long moment of silence, but Carolyn shakes her head.

"I have the feeling you've already been put through the wringer on the work front," she says, quietly. "Maybe later."

"I didn't even see them…" Wheeler trails off, knowing that she sounds upset, and hating it. "He said he wanted to walk…damn it, I should've just told him we were gonna drive…"

"Suppose you could say it's my fault he wanted to walk," says Carolyn, shaking her head. "We did that a lot when we were partners."

"Told me he never liked walking before he met you," Wheeler mumbles, staring down at her feet. Carolyn eyes the younger woman for a long moment, a soft laugh escaping her as she does.

"He didn't," she says. "I used to tell him he was only going to get fat if he kept eating like he does and driving everywhere, so he finally stopped fighting me when I told him we were gonna walk."
Wheeler looks up, an amused look crossing her tired face. "You really said that to him?" she asks, and Carolyn nods.

"You should've seen his face," she says, relieved that they can talk about the good moments instead of dwelling on this. "Thought he was going to have a fit."

This time, Wheeler is the one laughing softly. "Yeah, that sounds like him."
Silence falls between the two of them, awkward, but somehow comfortable at the same time. When Wheeler's cell phone goes off, she looks at the caller ID, and leaves the room, leaving Carolyn on her own.


It's how Goren and Eames find her when they arrive at the end of the day. They have come, but Wheeler has not returned.

"Ross sent her home," says Eames, by way of explanation. "She's not…handling this well."

Carolyn snorts. "Lovely," she says, sarcastically. "She's not handling this well…hell, no one's handling this well, and all the damn department can do is…never mind." She trails off, frustrated, and motions towards the waiting room doors. "No one will tell me anything."
"Maybe there isn't anything to tell yet," Eames remarks, slowly, but Carolyn shakes her head.

"There's got to be something. He's alive, he's dead, still in surgery, recovery, whatever…" She trails off again, sounding close to tears. "I can't do this."
"It doesn't look like it was random," says Goren, without thinking. "Could be related to a case."

Eames gives him an annoyed look, but Carolyn nods. "Could be," she says. "It's…already all over the department."

"We were going to call you," Eames tells her, quietly, "How did you find out?"
"Heard some people talking about it upstairs," Carolyn mumbles, staring at her hands. "They were making comments. I went down to the squad room before I could say anything to them."

Silence falls. She realizes her hands are shaking and tries in vain to make them stop, but it doesn't work. "I wish I was still on the eleventh floor."

But she can't be, and she knows it, and even if she wanted to be, it'd never work, because she's heard Eames griping about the 'new captain' as they still call him, behind his back, anyway, and she knows just from what she's heard that he probably wouldn't allow it. Especially not now.

"I'd suggest getting the Chief of D's to make an exception, but I doubt he'll run with it," Goren remarks, finally. "I don't think he likes us much."

Carolyn bites back the desire to laugh, but doesn't confirm or deny this statement. "It'll get better," she says, finally, more to herself than to the other two detectives. "It has to."

But it doesn't, and she knows it, and this is the problem.


By the time the doctors come, hours later, when darkness has fallen over the city, and the streetlights have come on, and most people are at home, asleep, Deakins is there.

"The surgery went well," say the doctors, to him, rather than to the detectives, who aren't really family, and neither is he, technically, but somehow, he ended up being listed as the one having authority to make the medical decisions concerning Mike, and so he listens, and so do the other three. "He's in recovery now. You should be able to see him by morning, but he'll have to stay here for a while."

And then they're gone. It dawns on the four of them as they sit there that it is morning, even if it isn't light outside, but none of them move.

"You lot never could keep yourself out of trouble, could you?" Deakins asks, after a moment, and shakes his head as he goes on. "What happened?"
Carolyn says nothing. Goren and Eames exchange glances, and proceed to fill him in, as much as they know about it, which isn't much, considering that no one saw anything, and the only witness is Wheeler, but none of them really think she saw anything, either.

Deakins shakes his head again, once the other two trail off. "Makes me wish I was still out there with you lot," he says, without looking any of them directly in the eye. "Probably wouldn't have done any good."

"You're here now," says Carolyn, the first she's spoken since he showed up. "That's better than nothing."

"I second that notion," says Eames, and then, "We're gonna find this guy. I don't care how many cases we've got to drop on someone else, we're going to find who did this."

There's silence. Carolyn looks at the other four and can't help but think that it's the 'real' Major Case Squad, reunited again, because for that year where it was the five of them together, everything seemed perfect, and now, everything's been turned upside down, and inside out.

And now, one of the five is hanging in the balance, and only time will tell if he'll be able to join them again.