Author's Note: Yo…yeah, sorry it's been so long that you probably forgot who I was…Um, Mea Culp—Nah, guys. I am sorry, but had family to help take care of last week along with a lot of work (YAY! No, seriously, work=money in my menial jobs while I'm trying to get my REAL dream job), so writing for no money went by the wayside. Anyho, how 'bout them Olympics? Even devoid of having a family member competing this time around, they're pretty aweso— So, thanks to all who have been reading, reviewing, following, and being patient with me, (*silently and metaphorically kicks herself*) this story. Only a little more left, which I'm hoping to get done before the end of August, because after that, stuff's about to get real with the cops. (And most of you have no clue what that means, so I'll just leave you to your ponderings).

I don't own Flashpoint, Pygmalion, or My Fair Lady.

Glasgow

Chapter 11: Sorry I Made a Mistake

Day 3

5:42pm, Offices Ted Sands, Attorney At Law

As Greg sat reading through old arrest reports, he thought back to the moment when he had arrived at his apartment nearly an hour later than he had promised Spike, dreading the discussion he would have to have with the man.

When he had arrived at his empty apartment, both inside and out, he had been somewhat relieved. He had had no inclination to believe that Spike had simply stood him up on his request for help in establishing a case for an appeal for Ed; his beliefs in team loyalty and devotion were confirmed when he had arrived at Spike's apartment to find the man had, thankfully, simply slept through his alarm clock. Spike's flustered expression as he'd answered the door had brought a small smile to Greg's face.

"Boss, sorry," Spike breathed out in a huff. "I know I was supposed to be at your place over an hour ago, but, oh man…" he trailed off, seeming to deem no excuse he could ever offer worthy enough as an explanation for letting his teammate down.

Greg smirked lightly. "No, Spike. Really," he paused and frowned at himself, his feelings of guilt returning to the forefront of his thoughts. "I was actually late getting back to my apartment anyway."

Spike caught sight of his superior officer's frown for the first time. He furrowed his brow and waited for Greg to elaborate.

"Spike, I should be the one apologizing," Greg finally continued. "Jules," he sighed and shook his head. "Jules had a complication, and I," he paused to shake his head at Spike and give him a sad, nearly flat-lined smile, "I knew about it before you left. Saw her doctor running in the other direction over your shoulder."

Spike remained silent, but his eyebrows returned to a natural position. Greg felt the need to resume his act of contrition.

"I know I should have told you, not left you out of the loop from something serious, but I just…" Greg found it hard to end his thought. "I just didn't think you needed to hear that. I figured I was protecting you or something."

Spike began to smile softly, but stopped as a thought occurred to his freshly awakened psyche. "Is she okay, Boss?"

Greg shrugged, shook his head, allowed a slightly dejected look to rise to his visage. "I waited long enough to get an update that the surgery was going well and nearly over, but," he breathed out deeply and shook his head up to the ceiling, "I didn't want to let you or Ed down. I didn't want to let anyone down." Greg scoffed, raised his hands, and gave a self-referential disgusted smile. "But, I just seem to keep doing that."

Spike's brow resumed its previous furrowed position while Greg continued. "I can't comfort Sam, can't assure Raf that the work of the SRU isn't completely useless." He began to shake his head more violently as the disgusted look on his face grew to utter self-hatred. "I'm lying to you; Ed's taking matters into his own hands, because I'm not man enough to do something more drastic within the department. And Jules," the look on his face turned from disgust to dejection. "I didn't make sure she was covered. I didn't give her a spotter or make sure the uniforms had the area contained." He began to nod his head as if conveying some learned knowledge. "As the leader of the SRU team on the scene, it was MY JOB to make sure those auxiliary forces were coordinated and doing what they were supposed to do. But, I didn't. I completely failed her, and the sad part is, the only person I would really trust to give me an honest and full assessment of my actions and command decisions IS her."

Unbeknownst to Greg, Spike had begun to smile back at him. Greg continued his self-destructive rant without even catching sight of it. "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, because I think I've just been relying on her to tell me for the last few years."

At the conclusion of his words, Greg looked up at Spike as if he had forgotten that the younger man was even in the room. "I'm sorry," he began before seeing the smile on Spike's face. He frowned in confusion rather than self-hatred.

Spike chuckled softly. "Ya know, Boss, for an incredibly intuitive person, you can be pretty obtuse sometimes."

Greg flicked his eyes and furrowed his own brow. "What?"

Spike sighed as if he was about to explain something to a 15 year old who just never did his homework. "Sarge, just this morning weren't you the one to tell ME that none of this was my fault?"

Greg simply stared at him blankly in reply.

Spike's jovial expression turned to one of confidence in his beliefs. "None of this is your fault either, Boss. You didn't cause the uniforms to not contain the area properly; you didn't make Raf feel inadequate in this job; you didn't make Ed beat-up the assailant like Batman the vigilante; you didn't really lie to me, because you didn't know for sure what was going on; and, dear Lord, Boss, you sure as HELL didn't make Sam fall head over heels for Jules." He smiled at this last thought. Being true friends with Jules longer than most of the others on the team, he was glad she'd finally found someone to treat and love her the way she deserved to be.

"Boss, you don't have to take care of everyone and carry our weight all the time." He placed a hand on Greg's shoulder in a similar manner that Greg had done with him earlier in the day. "We're adults and have to take care of ourselves sometimes. We have to live with our own decisions. Sure," Spike scoffed and borrowed one of Jules' patented eye rolls, "we're gonna need help with stuff, especially because we're a team. Of course you feel like you need Jules to tell you what to do right now; you're just used to her input at work. You rely on her just like you relied," Spike paused for a second to smile sadly, but with the joy of happily remembered friendship, "on Lew. Just like you rely on Sam and Ed to take a good shot. Just like you rely on me to know all the new computer programs and technology that only geeks really know about," Spike said with a shrug and grin.

"My point is, Boss, if in fact, which you so well convinced me of this morning with your 'mad negotiating skills' as the kids these days would say," Spike paused to catch the resulting smile on Greg's face at the thought of Dean having used a phrase like that in the past, "this is just the way the world is. We just have to accept that we can't control everything, that we're not responsible for everything and everyone." Spike shook his head. "There's no reason why you should be exempt from that, Boss."

Greg had smiled, but internally kicked himself at the thought of reneging on his early morning promise of remembering that he need not be Atlas with the world, or even Team One, on his shoulders. Spike was right; although he was the leader of the team, and the person who held the most responsibility towards it, he had to realize that the true purpose of the team was to act as a single unit. Not one person had to shoulder ALL of the responsibility. He realized he'd been putting more responsibility on Jules in her critical state than she really deserved. He realized his own self-doubts had to be dealt with by he himself at this juncture, not someone he'd come to rely on far more than she'd ever even known.

And so Greg had resolved to spread the responsibility of taking care of the various members of the team. He'd resolved to do his fair share, but not attempt to save the world single handedly.

And thus was his mindset as he, Spike, and Ted sat in Ted's legal offices as they worked together to piece together an appeal to have the decision of Ed's bail hearing over-turned.

"Got it," Spike enthused, fully bringing Greg back into the moment. A smile stretched across his entire face at his brilliant success.

"What is it, Spike?" Greg asked as he moved to look over Spike's shoulder at the screen of his computer. "Please tell me you finally got into Taylor's file. Any parking ticket Ed might have given her could explain her animosity."

Spike scoffed. "Oh, way better than that, Boss. I got her son's sealed arrest files opened." Ted narrowed his eyes at Spike; any illegally obtained information would not help their case, and he knew Spike was great at hacking into various and sundry systems. "Don't worry, Ted," Spike replied catching the look on the lawyer's face. "I've already called in a favor to have a judge legally unseal the records." He shrugged. "Just figured we could get a jump on things faster this way."

Ted narrowed his eyes farther, un-scrunched his face and tilted his head in thought, then shrugged. "Yeah, okay, I'll buy that."

Greg chuckled at the exchange between the two younger men. "Spike?" he prodded.

Spike shook himself back into his focused mind-set and turned his attention back to the screen. "So, we already know that Taylor contributes to a political action committee that advocates the reduction in power of the police force, but now we have a reason why." Spike turned around to smile broadly at the two men standing behind him, once more celebrating his own success. "It seems her eldest son had a few run ins with the law." As Spike returned his attention back to his screen, his grin turned to a frown. "Apparently, he was arrested a few times for drug infractions. But, he was killed in a shoot-out on the last bust."

Greg blew a sharp breath out and nodded his head. "Let me guess, Taylor filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer who made the fatal shot."

Spike nodded and continued to frown. "Yep, but it was found to be a good shoot, and the case was dismissed."

"So, the prosecutor has a grudge against cops. She probably should have recused herself from this case based on that, but an opinion, even based on prior experience, isn't enough to argue that," Ted replied in defeat.

Spike grinned darkly and shook his head. "That's not the kicker. Apparently one of the previous arrests of the kid was done by Ed when he was still a regular patrolman." He scoffed in disgust. "The woman has a personal grudge against him."

Greg shook his head and returned Spike's dark smile. "So Judge McDuff was using this case to help his 'Tough on Crime, No Matter the Criminal' campaign to be retain his seat as a judge with the administration that's trying to replace him, and now we find out that Prosecutor Taylor not only has a long line of cases against cops, but she has a personal vendetta against them, Ed in particular." He turned to Ted. "You think that'll be enough?"

A smile etched the young attorney's face. "By Jove, gentlemen, I think we've got it."

Spike simply brightened his grin at these words, but Greg, giddy from the impromptu team's success chuckled and patted the young man he had once saved on the back and replied, "Come on, junior. I bet you don't even know what that's a quote from."

Ted frowned and furrowed his brows before answering in confusion, "Um, every TV show ever made?"

Greg smiled and face-palmed, not even condoning the thought of enlightening the young man that it was originally from Pygmalion, the stage predecessor to My Fair Lady. "Kids these days," he jokingly grunted softly.

Ted smirked and scoffed in jest. "Whatever, other Grandpa," he labeled Greg remembering the epithet he'd previously given Ed. He folded his hands in a praying motion and replied in a faux innocent, high pitched voice, "I only wish to one day be old enough, wise enough, and as good of a leader as the great SRU Sergeant Gregory Parker."

Spike nodded his head in agreement to Ted's joking words, signaling with his eyes that Greg should take them seriously.

Greg caught Spike's messaged and ginned in return. Wisdom was an ever growing thing, and something that could be gleaned from more than one person or source.

6:13 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

As Sam sat, pointedly separated by five chairs from Collin, in the same Purgatory he'd been assigned to for most of the past three days, waiting to have his chance to once more visit the sole, involuntary reason he was here, he thought about the latest update he'd received.

The surgery had gone well; the bleeding was stopped and not only did the swelling not increase again, it was continuing to recede. Sam had worn a smile the length of his entire face at the revelation of this news. So elated was he that he failed to notice how incongruent his reaction was in conjunction with that expressed by the doctor relating information to him.

The bleeding was stopped, the swelling was going down, but apparently Jules was starting to run a fever.

At the relation of this one simple five letter word, Sam's face had fallen once more. He looked at Collin, a safe distance from him, and caught a mirrored response. So, the man had been a bastard once, he'd thought for a brief moment. That didn't mean he was really an uncaring bastard by nature.

The doctor had gone on to elaborate how difficult it was for a person in a state such as Jules' to fight off a fever, how difficult it was to treat. He warned that this was the complication that sometimes claimed the lives of victims of traumatic brain injury, even after they had survived the initial impact and resulting abrasive treatments.

So now as he waited, his agony of the entire day returning after the brief reprieve he had been given in the form of the information of the success of the surgery, he thought about how Jules was now not only in the Limbo of uncertainty, but also experiencing the fiery burning of a hell from which she could not escape, so trapped was she by her own brain.

He turned his attention back to the man next to him, the sole member of Jules' family he had ever meant. He thought back to his previous thought about how one moment of poor judgment, a moment allowed to proliferate out of sheer stubbornness and fear of reconciliation, did not make a man inherently evil. He also thought about the importance of support systems and how amazing it was that Jules had made it through so much with only the help of a surrogate family, a family that knew so little of her past and what triggers such a past could engender. In the world one inherently evil bastard had created with a piece of construction equipment, that support system might not be enough for her. Not enough for her if she—

"Collin," Sam called, stunning the man into looking up at him. "They're saying it doesn't look good," he said in a soft tone, devoid of the dejection of one who would believe such an evaluation.

"Yeah," Collin simply answered.

"She survives," Sam said with confidence, as if he was stating that that was the only possible eventual outcome of this situation. "It's gonna be a long road home for her. I think she deserves the support of her family."

Collin nodded and smiled in understanding of what Sam was ordering him to do. "I'll try the phone first, but I think I might have to be on the road to Alberta soon."

Sam nodded as he watched the second eldest Callaghan sibling walk out to make a call. Secretly he knew he just wanted to be alone with Jules when he was allowed the time. Secretly, so secretly he was yet to admit it to himself, he knew that he needed this alone time to potentially say goodbye.

8:57 pm, City of Toronto Jail

After only a couple of days, Ed was sad to admit that this routine of organization and regimented lack of freedom was now becoming familiar to him.

It was the end of the day and the prisoners awaiting trial for their 'sins' were being lead from the common room where they were allowed to watch one television station or play a carefully supervised game of cards (after all, previous occupants of this fine establishment had found creative ways to turn simple playing cards into deadly weapons) back to their small barracks-like cells.

As Ed walked in the middle of a group of men supervised by only two tired looking guards, a man in front of the group collapsed as he clutched his stomach and began to make retching noises.

As the guards jumped to assist the fallen man, four men surrounding Ed pulled him into the showers they had just passed, away from the sight of the guards or any surveillance cameras. Ed sighed as realization rose to his mind. He was weary rather than afraid.

"So," a large, burly man with tattoos all around his neck and sporting a shaved hair cut similar to Ed's breathed through a dark smile. "How long did you think you'd get on before we all figured out who you were, Lane? Or," his smirk turned deadly, "should I say, OFFICER Lane?"

Ed began to hold up his hands, out of habit, to attempt to negotiate with the men around him, but before he could, the ring leader who had just spoken punctuated his statement with a strong right hook to Ed's jaw.

"Oufff," Ed exclaimed involuntarily.

"Keep it quiet, pig, or else we'll have to knock you out sooner, and well, that just wouldn't be as fun, would it?" the King Pin warned in his question as the three other men began to beat Ed violently with their own fists and feet.

He tried to defend himself from the onslaught, but the accumulated assault of four experienced ruffians was too much for him to handle and he soon found himself cowering in pain on the floor.

"Not so great without a team of pigs, is it, Lane?" the leader questioned while he simultaneously kicked the wind out of Ed's gut.

As the four men pulled back, allowing time to catch their breath from their exertions before they began their collective onslaught once more.

To their great surprise, Ed smiled and, almost inexplicably, began to laugh. His captors were caught off guard, but that did not deter them from continuing their harsh treatment of the police officer whose cover had apparently been blown.

Ed's smile and soft laugh began to deepen into guffaws as more and more aggression was applied to his unprotected body.

It was ironic, really. He was being gang beaten into the same bloody pulp that had landed him here. Yet, he did not yell, beg, or scream for mercy. He merely found the whole experience comical, because as opposed to the ballsack excuse for a human being whom he had beaten, he knew his reasons were virtuous. But, he also knew that no one would prosecute these men for their prison assault, which was worse than that which he'd given to Carter Huxley, because it was just business as usual in the clink.

And that was just So. Damn. Funny…to Ed.

Beatings and the motivations behind them meant nothing to people like him, and Jules in her unconscious state, who lived in a Limbo adverse to civilized society.

Ed's laughs at the absurdity of this state of being echoed throughout the hallways of the detention center, becoming the only signal to the guards that something was amiss.

12:59:59 pm, ?

…sam…

Author's Additional Note: One of the things that threw me about this chappy was Greg needing a catharsis. Finally, it occurred to me that he and Spike needed to have some weird bromance by which they negotiated each other to a catharsis, because, let's face it, I love negotiation and can't let a story go without one, even if it's within the team. Also, yes, Ed got the "Hell-o Operator" kicked out of him. That had to happen; and he needed to find it hilarious as all heck. Oh Jam…oh dear. Also, when I came up with the Greg chiding Ted about the Pygmalion line, I realized I DIDN'T even know where that originally came from. Thanks to Tirsh for her mad Google skillzs and the ability to find that out while I, a wee grasshopper, am still learning the ways of the Search Engine Samurai.

Please leave a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, story, or life in general. I'm not too picky.

Peace,

Eals