Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Another update! Yay! Best way to spend a day off, writing. :) Reviews, feedback and constructive criticism are welcome and appreciated! Thanks for reading! :)

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Chapter Eleven: Some Say We Live On A Wing And A Prayer, And A Pocket Map

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Not so much later, Lassiter's spirit lost its lightness, in part due to the fact that neither he nor Spencer could manage to get themselves loose. Their captor had left them alone and the sky looked to be losing all of its light. He cursed his overblown optimism at first and then later recognized it for the illusion that it was; while actually getting his darker feelings about his ex-wife out into the open, his problems regarding the situation with her were not to be solved when they were deep in the woods, literally tied down. Not to mention, they still had to keep up the search for Shawn, should they be able to get free.

"Stop struggling," Henry hissed for the seventieth-ish time, counting the individual beads of sweat on the detective's face. The cabin-shack itself was humid enough, hot enough for his own sweat to show through his clothing. But with Lassiter as sick as he was, Henry was growing worried Lassiter might pass out again, as he'd done once already back in the woods.

"How am I supposed to—?" Lassiter hissed back, again wrenching his shoulders to one side. His ropes only seemed to tighten, and he pressed his spine against the post in frustration. It was a vicious cycle.

"Work smarter," Henry chided. "Like me."

Lassiter tilted his head back, mockery on his tongue. "Like you," he repeated snidely. "Because you're getting so much further, rubbing your wrists raw trying to gain half an inch?"

"Why don't I just leave you here when I'm free?" Henry shot back. He gritted his teeth for losing his cool.

Carlton smiled darkly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You already tried to abandon me once." He strained against the ropes across his chest, ignoring the pain it caused his wrists, as if he could really get in Henry's face. "But now I wouldn't be able to follow you."

Henry muttered under his breath, then sighed. "Just stop it."

"You started it!"

Henry scowled for a few seconds but then his lips upturned. He laughed.

Carlton looked back suspiciously. He was too hot, too physically uncomfortable, and too angry to make sense of this. He had to wonder at Spencer breaking first; he was sure it would be him, as sick and messed up as he was.

"Jesus Christ," Henry muttered, still chuckling. "You really think I would do that? Leave you bound and injured with some crazy, heavily armed cop hater?" He couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of the argument: it was the old parent-kid trap, that threat of walking away and leaving the misbehaving child behind. It was an argument he'd had several times with Shawn, both as a child and as an adult. The latter was the most unsettling, Henry decided. The threat itself must be lost on Lassiter as he had no children—though he'd already been threatened by Henry in other ways several times today. He sighed again. "I thought we were a team?"

"Are we really?" Lassiter asked, his tone stranded between flat and distant. He came off a bit like a petulant child.

A bit like Shawn. The adult Shawn, mostly. Henry shook his head to himself.

"Carlton, now that I know the rest of your story, and have offered some crappy advice that I don't know what you'll do with, are you planning to hightail it back to Santa Barbara? My usefulness's suddenly over?"

Carlton frowned, searching Henry's presented blank face for answers. "What . . . what in the hell gave you that impression?" he finally asked. The thought had never even crossed his mind, leaving in the middle of some open investigation—woman trouble or not.

Henry nodded firmly. "That's what I thought. You want to stick this out."

"First we need to get out of here, Spencer," Lassiter growled.

"My point is, we are a team. Maybe we weren't before—and yes, it did cross my mind that I could ditch you back there after we found that body. But I'm not thinking like that anymore."

Lassiter raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Another smile cracked Henry's mouth. "It must be the bruise on the back of my head that's doing all the good thinking." He shot Lassiter a pointed look. "Or it might be the simple fact that you trusted me enough to follow me on this foolhardy misadventure."

"You mean I was desperate enough," Lassiter corrected. He'd stopped struggling, yet his pale cheeks turning pink with the heat of the stuffy shack. Or perhaps, from a fever. "And now look at us, we're in serious trouble. We have no phones, no backup, no weapons."

Henry studied the abundance of gear on the wall behind Lassiter's post. "Maybe not on us, not anymore, but I know where we'll be able to get a few of those things." He pursed his lips. "In this case, screw the backup. Even if cell reception was decent, or unless we can get our hands on a satellite phone, we can't expect anyone else to know where to look for us." Henry shook his head and looked towards one of the higher windows. He hated to think of his son, lost in the woods, at night, in some kind of danger, playing hunter captured by the prey.

"Screw backup," Lassiter muttered disbelievingly. "Were you ever really a cop, Spencer?"

Henry swallowed hard and refused the bait. "Who is going to come to our rescue, Lassiter? Vick? Your partner? What about Gus? Not even those park rangers you called can be counted on—one, because the call might not have gone through and two, how the hell will they know what direction you supposedly went in pursuit of the suspect?"

Lassiter wished he had a free hand to wipe some of the sweat from his forehead and temples, and also a cold cloth to press to the back of his neck. He hadn't needed Henry to lay it out stone cold for him—he already knew they were in this alone, both the getting free, getting away and finding and saving Spencer's tail. Mentally he amended that to four parts, blaming the sweat in his eyes and the bump on the head for causing his vision to swim. "Guster couldn't find his way out of a paper bag. Fine," he admitted quietly, letting his eyes close. "You're right, I'm not. That's nothing new."

Henry huffed, partially miffed and strangely, partially amused; this could easily be a conversation he could be having with Shawn, some of that teen angst defeatism mixed together with the stubborn denial that the old man couldn't possibly be right all the time. Still, it was a state that looked good on neither adults—and was utterly intolerable on Lassiter, especially in his condition.

Henry lashed out a foot, the toe of his hiking boot sinking into the tender meat behind Carlton's knee. The desired result was immediate: Lassiter's eyes flew open, he let loose a string of curses, and pulled both legs out of Henry's reach.

"What the hell is your problem?" Lassiter screamed, as vicious as a pit bull trying to break his leash. He would have given anything to put his hands around Henry's throat.

"You were going to sleep. You can't go to sleep," Henry intoned. "You might have a concussion."

"I was resting my eyes, that's all!"

"Right. That's how it starts."

Lassiter grunted, his leg throbbing with new pain. His calves and shins already had bruises from Spencer's kicks, but somehow he'd allowed himself to relax. There was no way he could sleep now, even if he'd intended to, which he hadn't. Not . . . not really. But it had felt good to close his eyes and pretend, even just for a few seconds, that he was anywhere but here.

Oh. That thought alone was enough to scare him into wakefulness; it was a rare occurrence for him to want to choose to be out of the moment, no matter how dangerous or frightening any given scenario on the job could be. As a hostage in the cemetery, it was only when he felt the gun pressed against the back of his head that he wished himself away. And sure, there were more than a few times during the whole Victoria mess that he may have wished the whole thing was less messy, or was over or gone entirely, but up until the very last second that she'd walked out the door for good, he'd wanted to be there.

He stole a glance at Henry and caught the older man looking him over with obvious concern. He hadn't seen his own face for a while so there was no telling how bad he really looked. Plus, he knew Henry knew that Lassiter claimed to never close his eyes in public, not while other people were around, yet he also knew that he'd dozed off on the drive out here, and apparently had passed out earlier in the woods, and then Spencer had woken first to find him still unconscious. He didn't feel good, or well, and did want almost nothing more than to close his eyes and surrender to even five minutes worth of unconscious blackness. Almost nothing . . . getting out of here was far more important than an embarrassing abbreviated cat nap.

"So help me, Carlton!" Henry yelled. "Stay with me!"

Carlton looked at Henry with confusion; had he dozed off again? He had no memory of even closing his eyes this time.

Henry cursed under his breath; Lassiter was fading fast. He needed to step this plan up and get them out of here soon. He'd tugged his belt through its loops until the buckle was facing the pole, and had been using the sharper edges to saw through the ropes. It was tough work; his sweaty fingers kept slipping as he tried to bridge the gap between the buckle's space and his hands behind the pole, and his constant vigilance for Lassiter's fading health often took his focus away from his important task. They had no idea if their captor was planning to come back, or what he'd do to them if that happened.

There was already one body in the woods—and their captor could have been the one to dump it there. He may even be the killer. A chill moved through Henry. As scary as it was to be here, restrained as they were, it was much more terrifying to think they might be killed. If they were killed, no one would be left to help Shawn. Keeping an occasional eye on Lassiter, Henry bore down on cutting his ropes, sawing frantically, praying he was making a dent. As soon as he got his hands free, he could find a knife in that pile of stolen goods and turn Lassiter loose.

He hoped the detective could stand and walk on his own, maybe run, if they had to, because he didn't think he had it in him to carry Lassiter any great distance. Lassiter might have the flu but Henry'd been conked on the head too and might have a concussion as well. Yet, neither of them had thrown up yet, and Lassiter, for all his worrying behavior, didn't seem disoriented or amnesic. Sleepy, sure. Feverish, perhaps, but that had another cause.

"Don't look at me like that," Lassiter said with a frown.

"Like what?"

"Like you think I'm about to die. It's creepy."

Henry chuckled under his breath. "I can't believe you're telling me what's creepy. You, with your all planned out, whole end-of-the-world cannibalism and mating strategies."

"It's not creepy," Lassiter defended. "It's practical. You didn't make the list, by the way."

The door to the cabin opened, letting in more natural light, and their elusive captor walked inside, not acknowledging them in any way. He was a thin man about Shawn's height, Henry noted as he watched the man go to the wall of supplies at the back, picking up various things Henry couldn't make out. But while the man's body type resembled Lassiter's lanky form, this man lacked Lassiter's muscle tone—not to mention the fact that this man, with his grizzled appearance of shaggy white facial hair, long nails and well-worn clothing, must be over sixty and probably homeless. He smelled like dirt, and smoke, and blood, and rot—at least, this was what Henry got in the wave of odor as he went past. Still, he'd gotten the drop on both of them and managed to get them here. Henry frowned to hide his embarrassment. He must be getting old; Lassiter's excuse of the flu was a much better one.

Lassiter, with his back to the man, tried to look over his shoulder as much as his restraints would allow. It wasn't much; all he could really make out was a crop of white hair and a dirty baseball cap out of the corner of his eye as the man passed by. He caught Henry shaking his head in his direction, a subtle warning to not infuriate this man until—and if—they learned more. He gritted his teeth and shook his head back.

"Hey! Hey, you, you sick scum sucking bastard!" he yelled. "What do you want with us?"

"Carlton!" Henry hissed. "Shh!"

"You'll let us go if you know what's good for you!"

The man turned around. Henry gasped. He was holding a long-bladed hunting knife in his right hand. "Carlton, shut your face," he warned quietly. The piercing blue of each man's eyes warred a quick stare-down before Henry whispered, "Knife."

The man approached. His skin was tan, weathered by the elements. As he got closer, Henry noticed his eyes, also blue, seemed unfocused. Their captor stopped at Lassiter's post—and without warning, backhanded the detective with his left hand. Henry jumped, startled, watching Lassiter's head slam against the post.

Lassiter gasped, trying to decipher what hurt more in those few seconds of awareness—his cheek or the back of his head. He glanced at Henry, who looked just as startled as he was. He cursed under his breath, blinking his eyes furiously to avoid the sting of tears and dizziness of bumping his head in that tender spot again. Their captor knelt down next to him and placed the hunting knife against Lassiter's sternum, above the rope around his chest. "It isn't safe," he told them with the rasping of a long-time smoker, looking from Lassiter to Henry. He tapped Lassiter's sternum with the blade. "They'd take a man's home right out from underneath him."

Lassiter looked down at the blade and then back at Henry. "Do something," he mouthed.

Henry cleared his throat. "What do you mean, uh? I don't know you're name. Can you tell me your name? What do you mean, it's not safe?"

"It isn't safe out there," their captor repeated softly, looking outside at the fading light. "I have to make a fire. It's getting dark. There're cops out there. Cops who need to be stopped."

Lassiter glared at Henry, who shook his head again.

"And mountain lions," the man continued. "They don't like the fire, but I need to keep up with the light." He shook his head, moving the blade up a few centimeters towards Lassiter's throat, and then actually looked Lassiter in the eyes. "He was trying to get me to leave. But it isn't safe."

Carlton remained still, stone-faced even as the flat of the blade touched his bare skin. He felt, of all things, a sneeze working its way into his nose, but he knew he couldn't sneeze in this man's face no matter how justified it might be. He had been right—this man's mental state was unstable, volatile, enough to make him dangerous, maybe even a killer.

Henry beat him to the punch. "Are you talking about the park ranger? What did he do to you?" He didn't like what he was seeing, and tried to get the man's attention focused on him instead. "What did you do to him? Can you tell me your name?"

The man reached his free hand to pat Lassiter on the top of his head, causing Lassiter to flinch, and the blade found its way to his cheek. "You're darker than he was," he murmured. It could have been deception, the empty, childish look in the man's eyes as he regarded Lassiter, but Lassiter couldn't make out any true malicious intent—not even any intent at all. Still, there had to have been some intent to harm them when he came across them in the woods.

"Why did you bring us here?" Lassiter whispered, searching the man's eyes for any sign of lucidity, wondering if there had been any when the man slapped him.

"He was on the trail," the man offered, without further explanation. He moved the knife away from Lassiter and let his arm rest at his side, standing up. He didn't look at either of them, just straight out the door. "It just isn't safe out there."

"You need to let us go now," Lassiter ordered quietly. "This is insane. Untie me. Untie us."

Their captor looked at Henry. "I have to build a fire. It's getting dark. I have to kill the animals." Henry eyed the knife and then nodded. This man wasn't going to give them anything that made sense, and Henry would feel better once he was out of their sight. Their captor tipped his dirty hat at Henry and left. Henry realized with a jolt that that was his hat. Was. He shook his head.

"He's gone," Lassiter informed him a few seconds later as the cabin door closed softly. "He reeked."

"Are you okay?" Henry asked. Carlton's cheek was bright red—an anomaly against his very pale skin—but the man had missed his mouth; his left hand was obviously not his dominant one.

Lassiter made a tsking noise, as if that was the stupidest question he'd ever heard. Then he sneezed. "I'm fine," he replied nasally after a moment. "You didn't think he was really going to cut me, did you?"

Henry shrugged against his bonds. "I honestly don't know what to think. Other than that guy isn't playing with a full deck."

"You think?" Carlton shot back. He could feel a bunch of angry words in his mouth, wanting to use them to tell Spencer off, berate him for his uselessness. He blew out a long, hot breath instead. No matter how much he might want it to be, it wasn't Henry's fault he'd just been slapped and held at knifepoint by some Grade-A homeless crazy. "Jesus. Do you think he killed that park ranger?"

"Maybe. He does have enough tools here. An arsenal," Henry stated. "Plus, he got the both of us with brute force."

Carlton shook his head slowly. "I think he got lucky. He surprised both of us; I barely had a chance to fight back before he got me too. It's pathetic, he's all sinew."

Henry sighed. "Well, at least we know that when we do get out of here, we can take him."

Carlton raised an eyebrow. "Do you think that might be soon?"

"I'm doing the best I can here," Henry grumbled. "It's not like—"

"Hey!" Carlton scowled. "Don't you think I would have wrestled him for that knife if I could have?"

"All right, I know!" Henry used his "larger-than-life" voice, the one he'd reserved for under-seventeen Shawn. The one that showed who was the boss.

"Shit," Lassiter muttered. "We got nothing out of him. No name, no reason he grabbed us, no good reason why he won't let us go."

"We did get a lot of good reasons to put a considerable distance between us and him," Henry muttered back, still slowly but surely working on his bonds.

"He's just . . . a squatter, a thief," Lassiter continued. "I'd bet he's not even a survivalist. Just a mentally disabled lunatic."

Henry raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like Lassiter to be so generous about any criminal, from the two-bit ones all the way through the psychopaths. "He also assaulted and kidnapped us, Carlton, and now he's holding us hostage, and he might be a murderer."

Carlton squinted at Henry and frowned. "I didn't forget, Spencer." As if to prove it, he began struggling against his ropes again. "You forget he was talking crazy while holding a knife to my throat."

"Stop that, it's not helping," Henry said. Carlton's face was again growing flushed from even the minimal exertion. "I'm serious. You're going to end up with cut up and bruised wrists if you don't stop." With a huff of frustration, Lassiter stopped, sagging against the post again. "And for your edification, I did not forget. I was right here, watching it, and I didn't like it."

To Henry's surprise, Carlton chuckled. "What?"

Carlton shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing."

"Don't crack up on me yet, old man. We're getting out of here, I promise. And in the mean time, try not to pass out on me, okay? As soon as I can, I'll take a good look at the back of your head. And that cut on your face."

"You're a doctor now, Henry?" It wasn't malicious, just a half-amused comment.

"Just shut up, will you? We have to make do, we're in the middle of the woods."

"I know, I know," Carlton muttered. "But I'm fine." He ignored Henry's grunt.

Instead of watching Henry, Carlton craned his neck to look at the ceiling, and the windows, and silently ran through the nonsense the man had spouted. It helped to keep him focused and awake, and gave him something to consider other than his pain, his sickness and his fears. It had taken every ounce of self-control he'd had not to spit on the man when he touched his head. It was such an odd gesture, as were the accompanying words. "You're darker than he was." What the hell? Darker than whom? The dead park ranger? Someone else? A cop? And darker in what way? Manner? Attitude? Coloring? The gesture was nearly familial, like some older brother mussing up his younger brother's hair.

Carlton gritted his teeth and tried to push that thought away. He hoped that the man wasn't secretly a psychopath who took them to recreate some family he killed a long time ago.

Earlier, he hadn't been trying to be "nice" when commenting about the man's criminal career. He was just making an observation from what little they'd seen and experienced of their captor. Still, was that adamant "It's not safe" crap meant as a warning to them, or a protection? But hell, tying up two men in a cabin to protect them? Protect us from what? He shook his head and immediately regretted it; pain radiated up from the middle of his back to the top of his head, forcing him to close his eyes and moan. He wished he had some of that heavy-duty cold medicine, the good stuff that made him feel physically off—if that was even possible during a bout of the flu—for a few hours as it worked its way through his system. Or maybe four or five ibuprofen he wouldn't mind right now either.

"Lassiter!"

Carlton opened his eyes. "Not sleeping. In pain. Is that okay with you?"

"Not really, no. But that's not why I want your attention."

Carlton regarded him quizzically. "What's so impor— Oh. You did it."

Henry grinned, pulling his arms free of the post. He took a few moments to rub his wrists and arms, trying to encourage circulation as his fingers tingled with numbness. "Just a second. I'm going to go find a knife so I don't have to use my belt buckle to cut your ropes too."

Carlton's mouth dropped open. "You sneaky bastard! That's your definition of 'work smarter', Spencer? That's actually pretty sick."

"Hey, I told you not to struggle," Henry countered, maneuvering himself onto his hands and knees so he could use the post to stand up. His joints popped and he groaned at the stiffness in his muscles as he moved them for the first time in hours. He looked to the wall of stuff, searching for their stolen packs. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Carlton doing just that, struggling again, anxious to be out of his ropes. Shaking his head, he went to the back of the cabin.

"Will you hurry up, please?" Carlton grumbled after what seemed like a good five minutes or so of waiting. "Did you get lost back there?" He heard Henry clear his throat, but nothing followed, so he pressed, "Come on, Henry. We have no idea when that old crazy coot is going to come back. And if he's going to cut me for real this time or try to make us eat the bloody guts of some dead squirrel."

"I know," Henry replied quietly. He'd found their packs amid others, and had been restocking both with bottles of water and beef jerky, granola bars and anything else he could put his hands on—stuff, he surmised, that may have belonged to much unluckier hikers. He'd moved a blanket and was in the act of stuffing it into his pack when the sight underneath made him pause.

Henry just stared at the smashed-beyond-all-recognition pile of scraps. With a chill he hastily swallowed, he realized that there were more than two crushed cell phones here, but he didn't let himself think about it too long. He grabbed the pieces which most closely resembled their former phones and dropped the blanket back over the pile.

Henry carried their packs to the post where Lassiter was still tied and grunted as he lowered himself back to his knees. As much as his joints protested standing up, going down was no better. The older he got, the more his body felt its age, and he didn't like it one bit. With his son in the business he was in—and with all the trouble Shawn got into on an almost weekly basis—he wanted to be sharper and stronger and able to join in to help the way a much younger man in top shape could.

Lassiter sneezed and brought him out of his mini-rumination. Henry pulled out his Swiss from a pocket in his pack and opened the largest blade. As he began sawing at the ropes around Lassiter's wrists, the detective sneezed again. "Carlton, you've got to stay still. I don't want to be the one to end up cutting you."

"I can't help it," Carlton muttered thickly, sniffling.

Henry rolled his eyes and decided to cut the rope around Carlton's chest first. It broke away quickly; with a long huff, Carlton leaned forward for the first time in hours. Henry turned his attention back to freeing Carlton's wrists, making a mental note of wrapping the detective's wrists with gauze later, when they were out of here. His own wrists were circled with red from the bonds, but minimally chaffed. The marks should fade in a few days. He guessed Carlton's would need about a week. Antiseptic and gauze, he added silently. "Got it."

Lassiter moved his arms, which felt like sore noodles attached to his shoulders. His chest felt like he'd received the crush of a seatbelt during a car accident, and he touched it gingerly with one palm. Ungracefully, he wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, not having anything else handy.

"Can you get up?"

He looked up and saw Henry standing above him again, a wary expression on his face. "I'm fine," he grumbled, mimicking Henry's earlier method of standing, trying to ignore the way his wrists throbbed, his muscles ached. He tried to protest as Henry's arm swooped under his armpit and helped pull him up, but it was over too fast.

"Shit," he muttered, running his eyes up and down the cabin's overstuffed back wall. "Who the hell is this guy?"

"Let's not stick around to find out, okay?" Henry said. He picked up Lassiter's pack and handed it to him, not liking the way that Lassiter still had his hand on the post to steady himself. He pulled his own pack onto his shoulders.

Carlton stood still, taking in breaths through his mouth with his nose too stuffed up to do the job. He felt lightheaded, which he wasn't expecting, but knew he had to get himself together because this might be their only shot to run. He let his pack hang off one shoulder and followed Henry—who had given him a hard "get your ass in gear, old man" look—to the cabin's door. He touched his cheek, still hot, and then the back of his head, which was very tender. There was a trace of blood on his finger tips, but he hoped the cut was superficial. He didn't think he could sit still and allow Henry to sew up his head, if it came to that.

He gasped when Henry's hand clamped down on his upper arm. "Why aren't you moving?" Henry chided.

"I thought I was." It was the wrong answer, and earned another hard glare from Henry. Henry tightened his grip and pulled Carlton towards the doorway. Henry pushed the door open slowly, keeping Lassiter out of sight in case their captor was just outside.

Breathing a sigh a relief, Henry saw that they were alone, surrounded by tall trees on all sides. There was no sign of a fire or a camp site in the small clearing around the cabin; Henry didn't know if the man slept indoors or if there was another empty cabin nearby he'd taken over for sleeping. "Come on," he told Lassiter, and stepped outside.

It wasn't as dark—or as late—as he'd thought, but the air had a sharp tinge of ozone that he didn't like. He tried to see the sky but the trees were too thick above them.

"Where are we?" Lassiter asked beside him, looking around.

Henry shook his head. "We can't be too far from where we were. Not if he had to bring both of us here."

"So, then, which way?"

"You can't leave. It isn't safe," a raspy voice announced from behind them. Both men jumped and turned around. Henry stepped in front of Lassiter. Their captor now wore a grubby fishing vest and a pair of dripping wet rubber waders. The hunting knife dangled from his belt; a shotgun was clutched in both hands, pointing at the two of them. "Go back."

"You're not keeping us here," Henry retorted sharply, still raising one hand in surrender. "Not a second longer."

"Henry," Lassiter hissed behind him. "Gun."

"They'll just take your home, they'll take your self-worth," the man said. "They'll try to make you pay."

Henry leaned back, pressing his mouth to Lassiter's ear. "In three seconds, we're out of here. Turn and run as fast you can." Not waiting for a reply, Henry grabbed Lassiter's pack, still only halfway on his shoulder, and hurled it at their captor. The force of the heavy pack hit the man square in the face and knocked the gun out of his hands. At the same time, Henry whirled around and pushed Lassiter to do the same and the two of them scrambled for the trees.