Steve, feeling pain all over, opened his eyes. He was staring at the peeling grey-blue paint of the stairwell ceiling, almost afraid to move in case something was broken. Watson, who was halfway under him, stared to stir. He felt the younger man plant a hand on his chest, pushing him away as he tried to crawl to his feet.
"Don't move!" came a low familiar growl from above and Steve's eyes slid towards the voice.
Mike was standing at the top of the stairs, the .38 in his right hand. Watson froze.
"Are you all right?" Mike asked, his worried eyes snapping back and forth between his partner and their suspect.
Steve blinked slowly a couple of times and took as deep a breath as he dared. "I think so," he said quietly, surprised to find his discomfort was rapidly receding.
"Get up," Mike ordered Watson, who was staring up at the older man through heavy-lidded but defiant eyes.
His hand still on Steve's chest, Watson pushed harder as he staggered to his feet. Steve, grunting from the pain, shouldered the junkie aside as slowly got up, gritting his teeth in anticipation of the agony of a broken bone but pleasantly shocked when he didn't feel anything untoward.
His gun still trained on Watson, Mike slowly descended the stairs. "Charles Watson, you're under arrest for assaulting a police officer." He glanced at his partner. "Steve, would you like to do the honors?"
Grinning coldly, the inspector turned Watson around and slammed him face first into the wall. "My pleasure," he muttered coldly, slipping the handcuffs off the back of his belt. As he recited Watson his Miranda rights from memory, he could feel Mike's eyes on him and he shot the older man a reassuring look.
Steve propelled Watson away from the wall and they started down the remaining flights of stairs to the small lobby and then out the door onto the sidewalk where the patrolman from the cruiser was waiting. As they marched Watson down the street and around the corner to the LTD, Mike looked sideways at his partner, trying to suppress a smile.
Steve had glanced over and seen the look. "What" he asked sharply as they approached their car.
Mike, who had jogged ahead slightly to open the back door, muttered under his breath, "You really didn't have to chase him, you know? We did have back-up, remember?"
Steve, who had belatedly realized that the moment he had thrown himself down the stairs, grumbled, "I know… I forgot." Putting his hand on the top of Watson's head, Steve forced the now complacent junkie into the back seat. He was just about to follow him in when he noticed Mike's left hand, which he was holding slightly away from his pants. "You're bleeding…"
Mike waggled his head with an annoyed grimace, knowing he'd been caught. He brought his hand up; blood was slowly pulsing from a small gash on the fleshy part of his palm below his little finger. "I landed on the damn mirror," he grumbled.
"I think that'll need a couple of stitches," Steve offered with raised eyebrows.
"I know," Mike grunted, "but I want to get him back to the Hall first, and then we'll both get checked out, okay?"
Smiling affectionately, Steve nodded as he got into the back seat beside Watson. "Try not to get too much blood on the steering wheel, will ya?" he chuckled.
Growling good-naturedly, Mike fished the clean white hanky from his right pants pocket and wrapped it around his hand before crawling in behind the wheel.
# # # # #
"So, what did the doc say?" Mike asked when Steve strolled into the examination room. His jacket off, vest and tie undone and sleeves rolled up, the older man was sitting on an examination table waiting for the emergency room doctor to return to put a couple of stitches in his hand which, still wrapped in the now-bloody hanky, he was holding up.
"Bruised," Steve announced lightly, smiling.
"Oh yeah? Bruised where?" Mike was going to make sure he got all the information from his recalcitrant partner.
"Right hand, upper chest, left knee and head, primarily. But none of them serious and nothing I should miss any work over."
"You sure?" Mike's eyes narrowed as he lowered his head.
"Scouts honor," he chuckled, raising two fingers to his forehead. "You can even ask my doctor yourself."
The door was pushed open quickly and a young resident, carrying a small folded towel, charged into the room. "Here we go, Lieutenant, this should only take –" He stopped short when he saw Steve. "Oh, hello."
"Doc, this is my partner, Inspector Keller."
Steve nodded.
"Inspector. So, were you a part of the lieutenant's little, ah… altercation too?" He deposited the towel on a nearby table and opened it, revealing everything needed for stitching.
"'Fraid so," Steve admitted with a smile and raised eyebrows.
"Well, he'll be out of here in a few minutes and the two of you can get back to keeping the streets safe. How does that sound?"
Mike looked at his partner and grinned.
# # # # #
Mike flexed his left hand as they got into the elevator in the Bryant Street lobby. There was a large square Band-Aid covering the two stitches in his palm. "At least it wasn't my gun hand," he mused with a chuckle. "But I sure hope it doesn't mean I'm in for seven years bad luck though. I kinda figure I have maybe seven years left on the street – I'd hate to think that all of them are gonna be bad." His infectious laugh filled the car and they were both still chuckling when the doors open and they stepped out on the 4th floor.
As he opened the door to their office, Mike looked back at his partner. "So, are you up to grilling our spaced-out little felon, if he's come down from Cloud Nine or wherever the hell he was?"
Steve grinned. "You bet I am."
# # # # #
"Ooooo, are you sure you're okay?"
Steve had debated telling Mel about their little dust-up but he didn't want to start out their relationship by keeping secrets. Being the spouse of a cop meant always facing the possibility of physical injury or even death, he knew, and honesty was always the best policy, he firmly believed.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just a little stiff but nothing that a good hot bath can't cure."
"You sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure, I wouldn't lie to you, Mel, okay? So, ah, any chance you can get away early and maybe, ah… you know, maybe share that bath with me…?"
"Oh ho ho, you naughty boy…" Her throaty laughter always got his heart racing. "Of course I would love to but I can't get away tonight, not with Tony letting me go on Thursday for the long weekend…"
"I understand," Steve said slowly, trying to convey his disappointment over the phone, but he started to laugh.
"Don't worry," she chuckled, "we can share lots of baths at the cabin in Tahoe, right? Hey, wait – it does have a bathtub, doesn't it?"
"I don't remember," he said, trying to picture the cabin he hadn't been to in several years. "I think so. Anyway, if it doesn't, two in a shower is pretty sexy too…"
"Ohhhh, you better believe it…." she purred.
Laughing softly, he leaned back in the chair, and was just about to retort when he noticed Mike standing beside his desk, staring at him under raised eyebrows. Clearing his throat, Steve sat forward quickly. "Ah, listen, ah, I have to go. I'll, ah, I'll call you tomorrow… Yeah, he sure is," he said sotto voce, glancing up at his partner. "Yeah, me too." He hung up the receiver, swallowing heavily before raising his head and meeting the blue eyes. "That was Mel…" he said softly with a slight smile and a feeble gesture at the phone.
Mike tilted his head. "I certainly hope so…" he muttered enigmatically as he turned towards his office, trying to hide his grin.
# # # # #
They trudged wearily back to the inner office, Mike with his hands tucked into his back pockets, Steve rubbing the nape of his neck and trying to suppress a yawn. Mike stopped at the door, stretching his back muscles before turning to face his partner. He sighed loudly. "Well, that was a colossal waste of time, wasn't it?"
Dropping heavily into his chair, Steve put his feet up on the desk and chuckled. "Well, at least we can cross the little shit off our list."
Mike snorted. "Well, there's that. But we can still charge him with assault." He tilted his head, staring at the younger man. "What do you think?"
Steve frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm not going to press charges, he just pushed me down. It's up to you…"
Steve stared at his partner warily before a slight smile began to curl his lips. "Let's cut him loose."
Mike's face was suddenly split by a wide smile. It was what he was hoping to hear. Other than the obvious – that the young man was a junkie – Watson didn't have a record. And neither of them, it seemed, wanted to give him one. "Good plan." Chuckling and shaking his head, he turned and walked to his desk.
Sitting forward and pulling his telephone closer before lifting the receiver, Steve shouted towards the inner office. "You know this means we're now back to square one with three cases, right?"
"I know," came the resigned commiseration from the small, glass-walled room.
# # # # #
"Hey, I hate to do this but can you do me a favor and pick me up at Gino's Garage over on 25th near Indiana tomorrow morning? I want to drop my car off and have them check it out, you know, for the weekend."
"What, you don't think it'll make it to Tahoe and back?" Mike chuckled as he turned the LTD onto Union and braked to a stop before the blue-gray apartment with the white trim.
"Har-dee-har. It'll make it, no problem, I just want to get the oil changed and that kinda stuff."
"And maybe have it vacuumed…?" Mike muttered under his breath as Steve opened the door.
The younger man turned back. "What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing," Mike said quickly. "So, ah, I'll pick you up there at 7?"
"Make it 7:30, okay? They don't open till then." He had stepped out onto the curb and was just about to close the door.
"7:30? Who opens a shop at 7:30?"
"Italians," Steve answered with a chuckle as he slammed the door. He could hear Mike's laugh as the car pulled away from the curb.
# # # # #
"So do you need me to take you to that non-conformist car place of yours?" Mike asked with a smile when Steve returned to his desk mid-afternoon. They had both been busy in different parts of building most of the day, Steve in Records and Mike going to bat for his squad with the brass in the plusher fifth-floor offices. Neither of them had been having a good day.
"No, thanks," Steve sighed heavily as he dropped into his chair and ran a hand through his hair, trying not to yawn. "No, Lee has to drive out that way tonight and he said he'd drop me."
"Well, that's good 'cause I just got a call from Jeannie and she managed to make an earlier bus and she's going to be home tonight instead of tomorrow." Mike sounded like the cat that ate not only the canary but all the other birds as well.
Steve sat up, grinning. "Hey hey, that's great. So she'll be home a little longer than you thought."
Mike had moved to his office door and was leaning against the frame. He waggled his head slightly. "Well, it's just one more day but I'll take it. And it also means you're off the hook for coming grocery shopping with me tomorrow."
"Awww, and I was so looking forward to it, I really was," Steve bemoaned theatrically.
"Yeah, right," Mike chuckled. He turned back into his office.
"Hey, uh," Steve called and he spun back. "So what do you need Mel and me to bring on Thursday?"
Mike shrugged. "A bottle of wine… and your appetites?"
# # # # #
"Mike!" Jeannie called as she jumped off the bottom step of the bus and hurried towards her waiting father, who was leaning against the hood of the tan LTD. He pushed himself up and wrapped her in a bear hug, growling, then pushed her away to stare into her face, grinning. He pulled her close to give her a big kiss then held her out again.
"You look wonderful, sweetheart."
"So do you," she laughed, wrapping her arms around him again. "It's so good to be home, even if it's only for a few days this time."
"Hey, a few days is better than nothing, that's for sure." He pointed towards the bus. "Let's get your suitcase and get outa here."
Slipping her backpack over her shoulder, she wrapped her hands around his arm as they moved closer to the side of the bus, waiting for the driver to take all the baggage out. She looked up into his face, grinning. "So, Mike, who is this Mel you told me about?"