SM OWNS ALL THINGS TWILIGHT

AN: Thankyou so much for your lovely reviews about the last chapter. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Want to say hello to the several new readers that have joined this crazy ride. Welcome and thankyou. Please keep doing what you do and pushing that button. Your comments make it all worth it and make me smile like an idiot all day!lol. Now, to address a point several of you have raised and hinted at…yes Carlisle and Mae will be having a baby. But nothing serious baby/pregnancy related will be happening for a few chapters yet. I did say that I had another case for them. This chapter is the start of that will be busy with that and finding a new house. They will however, be doing some babysitting for little Danielle and a little baby making practice. Hope that's okay.

So two little notes for this chap.

For those of you who don't know, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hicock were famous in the mythology of the Wild West for being good with guns.

And Met Police Sergeant's are often called "skip" by other officers as they are regarded as the men who "skipper" (captain) the shift of officers they are in charge of.

Sorry, Lecture over, but don't want anyone getting confused.

ESME POV

"Okay folks, as we go into the twenty second, and final round…Cala...mae…ty Jane Cullen is leading with twenty one, clean head shots to Wild Bill Whitlock's twenty…however, our very own Texas cowboy, is leading twenty one clean rounds to twenty, in the precision shooting rounds…so there is still everything to play for…" Emmett boomed down the microphone.

Jasper and I exchanged eye rolls as we reloaded our weapons and stepped into the booths. Thanks to some hard and intense training with Jasper and Carlisle, I had passed my physical and psychological with both the CIA medics and the Met doctors. The only test I had still left to pass was my weapons recertification. For the last three months, I had been on 'light duties', recovering from my injuries. I had been splitting my time between the SCI and my own office, doing paperwork, writing reports, collating intelligence and if I was very lucky, interviewing people. I totally understood and welcomed the chance to heal both physically and mentally from the traumas of the previous year, but now I was restless, bored. I needed the challenge of being in the field on the frontline. I needed to prove to myself, and the people I worked with, that I could still do it, still had the edge.

But I wasn't going to be going anywhere, until I had the piece of paper saying that I still had the ability to defend myself and others with a gun safely. There were several officers in the MET's armed response team who wore glasses, but they and I, had to be able to pass a series of tests on the range without glasses. So for the past three months, I had been wearing my glasses not straining my eyes whilst also trying to improve the grip on my damaged hand. It had healed, but my grip was still weak. Danny had worked out some exercises for me, and Jasper, who had to retake his own weapons test at the same time as me, had been helping me on the firing range.

Now, under the shrewd eyes of Sergeant Potter, the man in charge of the firing range, Jasper and I were taking our tests alongside five others. The range was housed in the same large complex as Emmett's pathology lab and he had come down to give us 'moral support'. How that had ended up with him giving a running commentary of our progress, to the other officers who had already finished and those who just so happened to be hanging around, we suspected it had something to do with the money Jasper had seen changing hands. As Jasper and I had done enough to pass our test's ten shots ago, we were taking the extra shots out of a sense of friendly competition and frustration with ourselves for not being perfect.

Closing my eyes for a second, I took a deep breath to centre myself as the final target rattled noisily into place.

CARLISLE POV

"How much, more money do they want?" I hissed.

"More than we can give them." Michael from Scotland Yard's finance department replied tightly

"But if we stop using the doctors from the Welbeck Medical Centre to look at the prisoners in custody, the next medical centre with qualified police doctor's is nearly ninety minutes away for fuck's sake. That means a ninety minute hold up in officers processing prisoners with possible injuries and getting back onto the street. Christ, as if the drunks on Friday and Saturday don't slow things up in custody enough as it is."

"I am aware of this Carlisle…"

I let the annoying little man ramble on. Fuck! I was a policeman, a thieftaker, not an accountant. But dealing with budgets and staffing levels was becoming a bigger and bigger part of my job.

My eyes fell to my computer screen, where Mae had uploaded a picture of the view from the hammock on the deck of the Island house as my screen saver. God, what I wouldn't give to be back there now with Mae, rocking gently in the warm breeze talking about everything and nothing. As I suspected, we had found several houses with great decks in the garden, but the gardens themselves were either too small or too overlooked, and the rest of the houses they were attached too weren't much better. The rooms were too dark, the kitchens too small, the stairs were too steep, the bathrooms too cold. But it was early days, and whilst we knew that it wasn't the house, but the people in it that made a home, a neither Mae or I were willing to settle for just anything when it came to our future family home.

Suddenly, Michael's monotonous done was interrupted by Sergeant Warner, the uniformed officer in charge of the custody suite today bursting through my office door. The usually calm and controlled man was pale faced, shaking and blood pouring down the side of his face from a split eyebrow

I didn't even bother to explain, I just slammed the phone down on Michael the accountant.

"Sorry Sir…"

"What the fuck's happened skip?" I demanded rounding the desk and lowering the man forcefully into a chair.

"The lads got a call… to a guy doing his nut in the middle of St Francis Shopping Centre, they managed to get him in the back of the wagon, but the fucker's going apeshit in the yard. He's taken down five of my lads already and mace is doing fuck all…Sir, I need you…to sign off on using a tazer to take him down…for his own safety…as well as ours…" the Sgt stammered in a breathless rush.

"He's high?" It was a stupid question, but I needed to make sure all our backsides were covered for when the incident was investigated, which it would be. In extreme situations, we did have the power to Tazer a prisoner into submission, and although this seemed to very obviously, be one of those situations, the independent investigators would do everything in their power to make the police appear in the wrong.

"He…he's as high as a fucking kite sir, but…I've never seen a high like this before…"

"Okay…" I began, but was stopped from going any further by Jake appearing at the door looking grim faced.

"Custody just called, the crazy guy, he's just collapsed in the yard…he's not breathing."

ESME POV

"What can I say? You taught me everything you know?" I crowed teasingly at Jasper. He had fluffed his final shot, whilst I had nailed my final precision target with two sets of beautifully grouped shots. My head and eyes were throbbing a little, but I felt fucking amazing. I was coming back!

I was loving every moment of the time Carlisle and I were having as a couple, but he had fallen in love with a woman who loved and was good at her job, and as much as he worried about me, I knew he knew that and would be proud of me.

"I hope you know…you have just cost me a fucking fortune…" Emmett growled at Jasper as he walked up on us. "You…have never…ever…lost on the range…to anyone…"

Before Jasper could answer however, a deafening loud and shrill alarm ripped through the air.

"That's one of the emergency panic alarms…" Jasper said, his body immediately tensing. As well as the gun range and path labs, the huge complex also housed hard and soft interview rooms and technical units

"Someone's hit the panic button in the mortuary…" someone called.

"Rosie!" Emmett stammered, literally knocking people down as he raced for the door. Rose moaned about Emmett getting under her feet, in the flat that they were now pretty much sharing and at work, but it was only half hearted, they seemed to actually enjoy working close together in the labs.

Emmett, Jasper, me and the three officers who had followed us, were bought to an abrupt halt on our sprint down the corridor, by the sight of a shocked looking Rose coming out of the elevator carrying a cardboard holder of coffee's from the shop down the street. Jasper lead the officers on to carry on investigating the reason for the alarm.

"Oh thank god…" Emmett groaned crushing her to him in a hug.

"I…went for coffee…Em…can't breathe…and what the hell is that damn noise?" she demanded, cringing in pain at the force of Emmett's hug and the loud noise on her sensitive hearing.

"Someone hit the panic alarm in the morgue…" I said slowly so she could read my lips.

"MAE!" I heard Jasper's voice bellow down the hall from the morgue.

"Stay here." I called over my shoulder to Emmett and Rose as I took off at a sprint towards the morgue and Jasper.

In the morgue, trays of equipment had been overturned and one of the officers that had followed Jasper into the morgue was unconscious on the floor, whilst the other was trying to sit up from where he'd been knocked to the ground.

"Go…" he hissed, motioning me towards the open fire escape door.

Emerging out onto the landing of the escape that ran down the side of the building and led to the roof, I heard rather than saw Jasper above me.

"Listen man…you stop this now and we can talk…you have a chance to stop yourself doing something that'll totally fuck up the rest of your life…"Jasper said slowly, calmly.

There was a snort of sarcastic laughter.

"What the fuck do you know? You don't know me…You don't have any fucking clue…how fucked up my life is…" a young man, who sounded absolutely terrified, almost screamed at Jasper.

"Help me…you've got to help me…please…" came the slightly strangled sounding whimper of another male voice.

"You're right, I don't know you…I don't know your situation…but is it really that bad, that the only way out of it, is by throwing yourself and an innocent man off the roof? It's a long way down man…and once you step off, there's no coming back…" Jasper said calmly.

"It'll be quicker…and a lot less painful than what he…he'll do to me…" the terrified young man sobbed.

"Mae…what the fuck is going on? And where's Jazz?" Emmett demanded as I came back into the room.

"I told you to stay out of here!" I snapped at Emmett, before turning to Sgt Potter who had come into the room with some other officers.

"Is there access to the roof from the other side of the building?" I demanded.

"Yeah, there's a fire escape, in the techno lab."

I quickly issued orders for Potter to get ambulance and fire services in place at the base of the building, and have a few of his armed response team ready to follow me up onto the roof.

"I'm sorry Em, I didn't mean to snap, Jazz is on the roof with the guy…or one of the guys that did this…" I said waving my arm round the wrecked morgue.

"Is Tom up there as well?" Rose asked.

"He's our assistant, new guy…Rose said she left him…supposedly doing an autopsy on this guy, but it looks more like he butchered him…" Emmett growled. Casting glance at the body that was on one of the metal tables that ran down the centre of the long room, I saw that instead of being opened in the usual way, the stomach had been almost hacked open by someone in a hurried panic.

"There is someone else up there, that I'm guessing is Tom. Shit! What the fuck is going on?" I growled running a hand through my hair, a gesture, that people would all tease me I had picked up from Carlisle.

"The guy on the roof is freaking out, so I'm going to go try give Jasper a hand. While I'm gone, can you take a closer look at the body…see what makes it of so much interest…"

"Be careful Mae…" Rose said touching my arm.

"I will…" I said squeezing her arm back and giving her what I hoped was a confidant smile.

"Agent Cullen, my boys are ready when you are…" Sgt Potter said coming back through the door, holding out a Kevlar vest for me to wear with one hand and a weapon for me to use with the other.

My phone burst into life at that moment. I had to ask Sgt Potter to answer it as I was busy putting my vest on. Emmett was double checking and tightening every strap.

"Um Agent Cullen…it's DCS Cullen…" Sgt Potter said a little awkwardly.

"Mae…why is Potter answering your phone? And why the hell are you and Jazz still there? You did pass your test?"Carlisle asked cautiously. His voice echoing loudly through the handsfree

"Yes I passed." I snapped. Emmett, Rose and Sgt Potter tried and failed to hide their sniggers. "Flying colours, Jasper and I are still here, because a crazy has attacked a body in the morgue before dragging Em and Rose's assistant with him up onto the roof. Jasper's up there now trying to talk him down…I'm just on my way to give him a hand." I said matter of factly.

"Shit! Okay, I guess that means that you won't be able to help me sort out the shit storm that's just hit here."

"How bad?" I asked snatching up the phone and placing it to my ear.

"Death in custody…okay…call me if you need me…not that you will. You can handle this Mae, you know you can…" Carlisle said seriously. " A crazy roof jumper and a mutilated body…couldn't have picked a better case…to ease yourself back into things gently…" he teased. But beneath his teasing I could hear his confidence, love and support very clearly.

"Just be careful…" he said a little roughly.

"Always am." I replied. A brief, charged moment of silence fell between us, before Carlisle simply hung up. But he hadn't needed to say anymore. He had told me everything I had needed to hear, and more, and I loved him even more for it.

The boy, and he really was only a frightened boy, was in his early twenties, tall, with a body that had been ravaged by addiction to hard drugs. However, he also possessed the inner strength and desperation that junkies have when they think that their freedom and connection to another hit was threatened. So I knew he wouldn't be afraid to use the weapon Jasper had let me know he had.

We wanted needed this kid alive, to find out what the hell was going on. And the more I heard of his conversation with Jasper, the more I began to believe that he was so afraid of the mysterious "him" and what he would do to him for failing, that if he was spooked by the sight of Potters armed men following me onto the roof, he would deliberately do something to get himself shot.

So whilst Jasper had kept him talking and facing away from the edge of the roof, I had snuck up behind him and catching tight hold of his gun arm, swiped his feet from beneath him. Jasper had moved like lightening to move Tom out of the way and give me room to drop the gunman to the ground.

"Drop it…kid…please don't make me hurt you…because I will…" I snarled as I repeatedly banged his arm, still clutching the weapon hard to the ground. He fought me, but finally I had him under control.

"You should have shot me…why…why didn't you shoot me?" the young man had whimpered as he was led away. He looked truly terrified and despite everything I had seen and done, despite what he may or may not have done…I was still not so hard hearted, that I couldn't feel pity for a young kid, who was finding out the hard way, what happens when you get involved with real "gangsters," and not the pretend ones he saw and heard about in the media.

"So, it's been awhile…but Agent Mae Marshall Cullen is baaaack…" Jasper said dramatically. "How does it feel? You think you're ready to start kicking some serious criminal butt?" he asked as we walked across the roof.

How did it feel?

I felt sorry for the kid and there was obviously something serious and screwed up going on here, but I had been filled with that addictive rush that comes from commanding a team, taking down a bad guy, making a situation safe. The buzz had been made all the sweeter by the fact that I had had to get a little physical. I hadn't panicked. I still had the moves, the ability, the strength. It had been awhile, but my muscles and limbs had drawn on memory and followed my commands.

"Hell Yes…Bring. It. On."