AN: Sorry this took so long, over a year. If you guys are still reading this, I hope you enjoy it, and please, let me know so I can continue. I plan to finish this story within the next couple of weeks, so again, let me know. Enjoy!

Chapter Ten

When he went to work that day, Bunker's conversation with Maggie followed. He couldn't shake it, couldn't let go of the things she'd said. She told him outright, as calm as someone reciting the time, to kill his brother. How could she have been so glib about it, so direct, and at ease? How could she have been surprised he refused?

Despite their differences, and the pain and torture Calvin had put him through, Bunker couldn't kill his own brother. The love they shared as kids, their life growing up, and the way they spent every day leaning on each other through the years would forever keep him from being able to take his own brother's life. The only way he could even fathom something so dark is if his life literally depended on it. And even then, Bunker couldn't be sure.

As he pulled into his spot at work and threw his truck into park, Bunker had a sudden bought of clarity. The startling realization hit him fast, and hard, to the point it shook him.

Maggie was playing him.

Suddenly, everything started to make sense. He remembered her visiting him just after Cora left, when she brought groceries. One of the first things out of her mouth was I called the hospital every week while you were there. The statement would have been fine on its own, but when he said he hadn't known, she replied with I asked them not to tell you. If she didn't want him to know, then why bother telling him now?

And then she touched him, gently and tenderly on his cheek. She gave him some bullshit about him and Calvin being so similar and different at the same time. He thought that it was a compliment or something, but now he wasn't so sure.

She came at a time when he was vulnerable and needed attention. She appealed to his need to be around someone who cared for him. He was broken, and Maggie swooped in. She gave him everything he wanted at the time and when he was comfortable, she came to him with her real plan. She'd been manipulating him from the beginning.

Maybe that wasn't the truth, and some part of him swore it couldn't be, but what other conclusion could he come to? His theory seemed to fit too well, to fall too easily into place, and that disturbed him, because he didn't know what to do.

Over the last couple of months, whether he meant to or not, Bunker had grown to care for Maggie, if not love her. There had always been the familiar connection before, and the feelings brought on by that, but what'd happened recently was different. He was weak and she prayed on that, telling him everything he needed to hear to make him compliant. But still, some part of him, that heroic part, refused to believe his paranoia. She was just a damsel in distress, at the end of her rope, nothing more.

With a sigh, he pushed open his truck door and headed into the building for his shift.

Cora was still sore. It'd been a week since she and Carrie got into their fight, and while her ribs were on the mend, they were still broken. It'd take a few more weeks for the pain to stop, but she was getting better. She could breathe easier, and even walk without her body feeling like her bones were rattling in her skin.

She was lying in bed staring at the ceiling of her hotel room. For the last twenty minutes, she'd been trying to identify the stain above her. Was it coffee? Was it blood? Did a junkie somehow manage to actually projectile vomit that high? She didn't know, and the longer she stared at it, the more she realized she needed to get out of the room.

With a groan, she rolled off the stiff mattress. Grabbing her jacket, Cora left her hotel room without a single idea as to where she planned to go. She just started walking, internally hoping her feet would carry her wherever she needed to be. She didn't need the hassle of her motorcycle's natural rumble jostling her healing insides.

The people of Banshee weren't special. The town wasn't unique or particularly interesting. It was just another city, for the most part, trying to be everything else.

Cora had traveled to a dozen countries in her life. It was a byproduct of being born into a military family and following that career path. She'd been to green cities where it rained every other day, white cities always draped in snow. She'd been to the safest, and the most dangerous in the world. She'd been to the hottest cities, and the dirtiest. Hell, she'd been to literal warzones before, and fuck all if Banshee Pennsylvania didn't try to be the exact same thing.

How could a city that was so small it still had street fairs on a regular, yearly basis somehow manage to be the site of multiple mass shootings and horrific murders? It seemed impossible, and yet, Cora had been there for some of it.

So, again, Banshee wasn't anything overly special, but it sure as hell tried to be. It's like the city accepted anyone, everyone, in hopes of something better, but all they got were the psychos.

With her hands in her pockets and her mind blissfully emptying as she walked down the sidewalk, Cora relaxed and let herself enjoy the moment as best she could. She should have been paying attention, though, a fact that was brought to the foreground quickly, and violently.

A boy suddenly appeared, racing out of the door to a small shop. His sneakers gave him little footing and his speed only aided in his tailspin. Without warning, he smashed into Cora's injured side, his head banging directly into her ribs. Blinding white light flashed in her eyes as she let loose all the air in her lungs in one long cry of pain.

Cora stumbled forward, barely managing to catch herself on the nearest light pole before toppling to the ground. She clung to it's rough, foe-concrete surface while her mind raced, and her body pulsed.

"Oh my god!" a young woman gasped as she ran forward. Cora opened her eyes and through the gathering tears barely made out the image of a blonde woman grabbing the young boy by the shoulders and pulling him aside. "What did you do?" she asked the boy sternly.

Cora blinked. The tears glided down her cheeks, instantly chilled by the autumn air. It was a temporary relief against her heated skin. Given how hard the boy had hit her, and how much pain she was in, Cora was fairly certain her face was bright pink.

With clearer vision, she saw the blonde woman looking at her with abject fear in her eyes. She was probably worried Cora might sue, or lash out. In truth, she didn't have enough control over her body at the moment to consider either.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she apprehensively stepped forward.

"Fine," Cora practically choked on the word.

She pushed herself upright, but felt the blood immediately flee from her head. It left her dizzy, disoriented, and forced her to take a stance leaning up against the nearby car. She propped her hands on her bent knees, kneeling forward to better catch her breath.

"I'm fine." She repeated, though her voice held no power or strength.

"I'm so, so sorry." She said. "Sit down." She told the boy firmly, pointing to a bench against the exterior wall of the shop he'd run from. He looked sad, and a little scared, but did as she commanded. The blonde's attention returned to Cora shortly after. "Did he hurt you?"

She approached with her hands outstretched like she wanted to help Cora right herself, or somehow take away the pain. It was a ridiculous thought, but Cora understood it. It was the natural human reaction when they felt responsible.

"No," Cora said. She took in another long breath but instantly regretted it. She hissed in pain as she clutched her side.

"Shit," the blonde sighed. "We need to get you to the hospital. You might have bruised ribs or something."

"Not bruised." Cora replied. Her voice was slowly growing in strength, as was her ability to concentrate when she met the blonde's eyes. "Broken." She said.

"How do you know that?" the stranger asked in a deadpan tone. The odd shift caused Cora to arch a brow. If she didn't know any better, the woman seemed to think she was lying.

"Because I broke them last week." Cora told her with a sharp edge. The blonde flinched. "And your kid smashed his head right into them."

Any kind and worried expression left the blonde's face the moment she realized Cora was actually hurt. Before, the concern was possibly genuine, but easily given. Now that real, tangible injuries were involved, she seemed to turn into a different person.

"You should be more careful."

Cora's brain couldn't immediately take in what she'd just heard. It was so ludicrous that she actually had to stand upright, just to look the woman who'd said it in the face.

"What?" she asked. She wasn't entirely certain she'd heard the stranger right.

"You should be more careful." The blonde repeated in that same monotonous, borderline agitated tone.

What left her mouth was probably meaner than it should have been, but Cora wasn't in the mood, especially when the situation was being made out to be her fault.

"And you should watch your fucking kid better. He's running around like a menace."

"You can't talk to me that way." The stranger snapped.

Cora bit down on her bottom lip, hard, to keep from saying the things running through her mind. How the conversation had suddenly grown contentious, she didn't know, but she didn't have to stay a part of it.

Shaking her head to herself, Cora pushed away from the car. She looked over the blonde one final time, giving her a derisive scoff before turning her back on the whole thing. She made it only two steps before hands shoved into her back, forcing her to stumble forward and nearly fall again.

"Hey!" the blonde said angrily. "Don't walk away from me."

Despite everything in her screaming to turn around and hit this woman, Cora was determined to take the high road. So, without acknowledging her, Cora began to walk again.

Passersby began to notice the "scuffle".

"Hey!" The blonde shoved her a second time. "I'm talking to you. You think you can call my son a menace and just leave?" Again, after regaining her footing, Cora kept walking. The crowd was growing. "Hey!"

Three shoves was too much. Her body moved on autopilot at that point. The moment she forced to take a hard, stiff step forward to save herself from another shove, Cora spun. She barely caught a glimpse of the woman's face before her hand swept angrily across it. Some part of her brain still seemed to be coherent, though. It managed to keep her hand open instead of clenching it into a fist like she wanted to do so badly.

The sharp, angry snap of the hit echoed off the nearby building. The blonde's head jerked to the side. She was stunned into silence, her mouth gaping open. A large, red, raised handprint was plastered across the side of her face, a perfect impression as far as Cora was concerned.

There were a few chuckles and oooo's from the small gathering that surrounded them.

"Don't ever touch me again," she hissed through her teeth. The blonde gradually managed to face her again. Cora wasn't surprised to see her eyes watering. "You hear me?"

The blonde didn't speak, though Cora doubted she really could. Most people's brains seemed to restart when they're slapped.

"Fucking bitch," Cora growled under her breath.

She turned, with every intention of returning to her hotel room when someone else called out. The deep, masculine voice was familiar and it made her stomach turn.

"The hell's going on here?" Bunker demanded as he jogged up to the crowd. They parted for the cop and when his eyes fell to the women involved, the filled with panic. They danced between Cora and the blonde, making the dark-haired young woman wonder if she'd be arrested again. The blonde did have evidence of a fight, after all. "Maggie," he said to the blonde.

Cora's stomach fell. She'd struck someone he knew. That wasn't good.

Bunker walked past Cora and to the blonde who was now silently weeping. Cora shifted to watch the scene and couldn't help but roll her eyes. She was fairly certain the waterworks only appeared when Bunker did.

"What happened?" he asked her.

The blonde continued to cry as she reached for him, burying her face in his uniform. He hesitated to hug her, glancing briefly to Cora before he did. It was an odd thing to do, and didn't make much sense. And then, when Maggie whimpered Bunker's name, a startling and sickening realization hit Cora. This was the chick he was seeing.

She couldn't help but scoff and rolled her eyes. The desire to leave expanded ten-fold, to the point she'd rather stab herself in the temple with a rusted spoon than remain.

Bunker seemed to sense her impending departure and spoke up. "What happened here, Cora?" His tone was stern and agitated.

"Ask your fucking girlfriend." She replied harshly.

Cora saw him flinch and his body tense at her declaration before she walked away. No one stopped her that time.

Roughly an hour after returning to her hotel room, while she lazily ate some chips from a bag on her stomach, there was a knock on her door. Cora knew it was Bunker. At least, it bore to reason it'd be him.

She picked up the bag, set it aside, and rose to her feet. She opened the door, but didn't linger, just opened it enough so he could walk in after her. He did.

Sorely and slowly like she was an old woman, Cora lay back down on the bed, retrieved her ice-pack, leaned it against her side like it'd been before, and continued eating her chips. She looked up at Bunker with a blank expression while he seemed angry.

"What happened?" he asked with that same stern tone.

"What'd your girlfriend say?"

His jaw clenched. His weight shifted on his feet as he altered his stance, planting his hands on his hips in the stereotypical "cop" way. She arched a brow at the sight.

"That Hank accidently bumped into you, he said he was sorry, you called him a 'fucking menace', and when Maggie tried to get you to apologize, you slapped her."

Cora's hand hesitated inches from her lips, the chip she'd planned to eat still clamped between her fingers. She stared at him blankly, her mouth closing slightly as she did.

"I'm sorry, what?" she asked. He repeated Maggie's statement, and it was just as unbelievable the second time as it'd been the first. "You're kidding, right?"

"It's what she said." He told her plainly.

"And a lie." Cora replied as though it should have been obvious.

"Then tell me what happened, 'cause she's the one with the hand mark on her face."

"Cause I slapped her." Cora told him simply. He scowled. "She pushed me, three times, while I tried to walk away. She's lucky I didn't fucking deck her."

Bunker's head dipped. He looked like he was trying to put the puzzle together, but was missing half the pieces, so the picture was little more than a jumbled mess of shit.

"Start from the beginning." He said. He sounded so much like a cop that it bothered her. He'd never used that voice with her before.

Cora told him what happened, what really happened, but he seemed to struggle to believe it. For a moment, she wondered if she'd glanced too easily over everything and should have included more than the basic plot points.

Silence followed her statement. It lasted for a couple of minutes, long enough it began to annoy her.

"You don't believe me." She said solemnly.

"I don't know." He replied as he, to her surprise, took a seat at the foot of her bed.

She scowled at the back of his head. Cora wanted to be angry that he didn't immediately jump on her bandwagon, but she wasn't entirely shocked by it.

"It's easy to figure it out."

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "How?"

"Ask yourself two questions." She said simply. "One, as far as you know, am I the kind of person who verbally attacks a kid and then slaps his mom for no reason? And two, does she seem like the kind of woman who'd make something up to get sympathy or attention? Or, here's a crazy thought, ask one of the twenty people who saw the whole thing."

From his profile she could see him glowering, but it was true. In the end, it didn't matter if he believed her or not (though that would have been nice) because other people had seen it.

"I didn't get a chance." He said. "They all walked away while I was trying to comfort Maggie."

"Hm," she mumbled. He didn't speak again, so she chose that opportunity to ask something she truly didn't want the answer to. "She's the one you're seeing, isn't she?" He didn't respond, but his shoulders slumped. That was all the information she needed. "Yeah, I figured."

"It's complicated." Bunker finally said.

"Okay," she answered unsurely. She had no idea how the situation could be complicated if they were dating. Either they were, or they weren't. There was no middle-ground. This was one of those few times a situation was black or white, no gray.

Bunker let out a heavy sigh and fell back onto Cora's bed beside her, causing it to bounce when he had. His hands were on his head as though he was trying to ebb a headache.

Cora watched him for a moment, waiting to see what he was going to do, if anything.

"I feel like I'm being pulled in a thousand directions." He mumbled before letting his arms fall to his side. He rested his hands on his stomach and a moment later, his brows furrowed. "The hell is on your ceiling?"

Cora snickered whether she meant to or not. The random divergence in the conversation and the tone with which he asked the question was simply a perfect mix.

"Your guess is as good as mine." She replied.

He nodded lazily. "How long are you going to be in town?"

She shrugged a single shoulder. "I don't know. I've already finished my business."

His brows twitched together again. Cora wondered sometimes if he realized he did it. It was perhaps the easiest tell, a clear sign that he was sad or disappointed, hurt, even. It made her feel a little guilty, but it was the truth. With her business of finding out who kill Doug over, there was nothing keeping her in Banshee, especially with Bunker otherwise engaged.

"You have any Tylenol?" he asked after a lengthy silence.

"Headache?"

"Yeah," he sighed.

"Yeah."

Cora didn't have the name brand, but a knockoff that worked well for her. She rolled off the bed to the other side so she wouldn't have to crawl over Bunker to do so, and entered the bathroom. She'd left it on the small vanity in there since that was the last place she'd been when she took some.

When she returned to the bed, she handed Bunker the bottle. He gladly accepted it and opened it up while Cora retrieved a bottle of water she hadn't opened yet. Sitting on the bed beside him again, she offered him the water.

"Thanks," he said under his breath.

In quick succession, he tossed back a pair of pills, and downed a large gulp of water. He took a few more afterward before screwing the cap back into place.

"Thanks again." He repeated.

Cora nodded with a little smile.

Another bought of silence filled the air. Neither of them seemed capable of doing anything about it, either.

So badly, Cora wanted to reach out and hold his hand. She wanted to lean against him, closing the distance between them as a result. She wanted a lot of things, but refused to move. It wasn't her place, especially now that she knew he wasn't single.

"I should get back to work." He finally said, turning just enough to look at her.

Cora shifted too, but noticed he wasn't looking at her at first. Instead, his gaze had darted away, dancing over her face for the slightest of seconds before locking to my eyes again. He forced a small smile, and she did the same. The awkwardness was damn-near suffocating.

Bunker stood and left her hotel room shortly after. Never, since they'd met, had they sat so uncomfortably in the same room. Excluding their fight, this had been the first, and she didn't know what to do with that. They weren't even that uncomfortable when they'd initially met, and that was in the middle of a gun fight.