Disclaimer: As before. Again, the Ray and Zoë interaction is specifically from the show.

Author's Note: I was working like crazy to try to get this chapter finished before I left the world of the internet far behind me, but then I withheld it due to lack of reviews (three, really?!). Then today I felt sorry for you all, so I trekked off to find an internet connection, and here you go. So in return, I'd love it if you could leave me lots of reviews. This chapter hasn't quite ended up how I thought it would, I sort of wish I'd just left out the whole Zoë thing, I don't think it adds to the story, but I've started it now, so I've got to finish it off. I hope you weren't too bored by it – it was part of the show so that's why it's there. But don't worry, by the end of the chapter, I get back to the point again.

Reining in his temper, Ray soon found that talking more gently to Zoë was enough to coax most of the story for her. Her father, who Ray, needless to say, remembered as being a fairly violent, unlikeable character, was responsible for her present state. Through her tears, and winces of pain as Ray carefully set a cast on her broken arm, she told him that her and her father had had an argument, and she'd stormed off to a friend's house. The next day, she'd found him waiting, predictably furious, for her after school. Then he'd dragged her home, and done his best to make her sorry for her defiance.

Ray felt a pang of guilt as she spoke. Had he walked away too quickly last time? He should have known that no untroubled fourteen year old would get dressed up and go out to pick up guys twice her age. She had obviously been looking for some sort of escape. And now he knew what from. He wondered if he had handled things better, let logic rather than damn lust govern his thoughts, that he might have been able to prevent this. Although that wasn't the only situation recently where such a philosophy could have prevented such pain.

Then he got real and remembered that he wasn't that superhuman or influential. But he could help her now.

'Isn't there someone you can call? So you don't have to go back home,' he asked.

Zoë shook her head. 'There's my sister, but she lives in San Francisco. She… escaped. Dad used to beat her too.'

Ray had finished applying the cast, and sat back in the chair. 'Well, in that case, I'm calling the cops. You can't go back there if he hits you.' His tone was decisive.

'No,' Zoë said quickly. 'You can't do that. You don't understand, that would just make him worse. They'd only take a statement or something, they wouldn't do anything. Then I'd have to carry on living with him, and he'd just hit me more.' She spoke with a plaintive desperation, and Ray believed her. A lot of these abusive types were like that; all charm when the authorities were sniffing around, then twice as bad behind closed doors because of it.

Then she looked up at him appealingly. 'Can I move in with you? I have nowhere else to go.'

Ray sighed. He'd been wondering when she would start on that. He gave her a stern look. 'Don't even try that with me Zoë. Believe me when I say I'm not in the mood. I shouldn't even be seeing you, let alone treating you. I definitely am not going to be living with you.'

God, wouldn't that just be cosy? he thought. Michael and Neela, him and Zoë. It was the stuff of nightmares.

'But Ray…'

'No buts. No more of that talk at all. Now, I'll go and see if I can find you some food, okay?' He glared at her until she acquiesced with a reluctant nod. 'Good, I won't be long.'

He was returning a short while later with a tray laden with as much junk food as he could persuade the cafeteria to give him, when Inez called out to him. 'Ray, I called the cops on that Zoë Butler kid. Social Work as well.'

He stopped abruptly in his tracks, losing a bowl of some sort of pudding. 'You what?'

'Well, she's an obvious abuse case. They needed to be informed.'

Ray groaned and rolled his eyes, which Inez picked up on instantly. 'Why shouldn't they have been called?' she asked, hands on hips.

'It's kind of complicated –' he began.

'In what way?' she cut across him.

No, there was no point even beginning to explain. Better to let her think she had done the right thing, then go for a bit of damage control behind the scenes. 'Oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it is an abuse case. Physical, non-sexual. You were right to call them.'

Inez looked surprised at Ray's lightning turn around. 'I was?'

'Yes, of course. Like you said, an obvious abuse case.'

'Yes. Right. Anyway, the cops should be here to interview her in about half an hour, then I expect Social Work will place her somewhere for the night.'

Ray hurried back to the room where Zoë was waiting. 'Zoë, we've got to get hold of your sister. Social Work are on their way –' She looked outraged. 'It wasn't me who called them, okay? But we're going to have to get you out of here quickly.' He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and offered it to her. 'Call your sister.'

Half an hour later, he had bundled Zoë into a thick warm coat he had found in the lost property box that Jerry usually guarded diligently, and led her out in the snow to the ambulance bay. There was a cab waiting.

'Now, your ticket will be waiting for you at the airport. It's an Alaskan Airways flight, leaving at seven thirty.'

'But I can't just leave,' she said, biting her lip in worry, and looking every inch the scared girl she was. 'What about school, all my things?'

'Give me your keys,' he ordered. 'I'll sort your stuff and get it sent on to you. And you'll have to contact your school, arrange a transfer.' Dipping his hand into his pocket, he withdrew a small bundle of cash and put it into her hand, ignoring her as she shook her head.

'For the cab,' he explained. 'And something to get you started.'

'Ray, I can't take your money.'

He began to manoeuvre her gently in the direction of the cab. He wanted to get this over and done with as soon as he could, so he could be right there and therefore innocent of any suspicion when the police came to find her gone. 'You can,' he said in a tone that brooked no argument. 'Besides, not all of it's mine. I got some of the richer docs to pitch in.' He'd gotten Pratt and Morris to empty their wallets, promising to pay them back as soon as he had the cash on him. It was only a couple of hundred bucks, but it was the least he could do for the kid.

Oddly, having Zoë around for the day had made him forget everything else that was going on. He wasn't sure if it was because she was the first challenging (although possibly for the wrong reasons) case he had worked on in ages, or because of who she was, but he hadn't found himself thinking about Neela anything like as much as he normally did. And that had to be a good thing; well worth a couple hundred bucks at any rate.

He saw tears pooling in her eyes, and against his better judgement, he found himself giving her a reassuring hug. 'It's going to be okay Zoë, I promise. Your sister will be right there at the airport waiting for you when you land.'

'Come with me,' she sniffled.

He felt encouraged that he didn't want to run away so much that her offer sounded like a good one. A few days ago, it might have done, but not now. After last night with Neela, as normal, relaxed an evening as they had ever had, he felt a hope that hadn't been there before that at least some sort of friendship was going to be salvageable.

'You know I can't do that,' he told her as gently as he could.

'I'll be eighteen in three years.'

'Yeah,' he chuckled softly. 'And you'll have forgotten all about me.'

'No, I won't,' she replied seriously.

She looked like she was about to say more, but she was prevented from doing so by just about the only interruption that Ray didn't want right then. From across the ambulance bay, they heard an angry shout of 'Zoë!' from her father.

'Quickly,' Ray said. Tugging her around, careful of her broken arm, he opened the door of the taxi and bundled her inside it. Her father was there too now, and he was hammering on the window. Ray grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him away from it. Without looking around to see the cab drive off, he threw Mr Butler to the ground.

'She's gone,' he said harshly. He had an overwhelming desire to simply spit on the man lying on the snowy sidewalk. Whatever man could do what he had to his own daughter didn't deserve any more respect than that.

Mr Butler began to struggle to his feet, spouting threats, but instead of taking what was coming to him like last time, Ray suddenly felt weeks of anger and frustration bubble to the surface and he couldn't control himself any longer. It might not be Mr Butler's fault, but at least he was no innocent victim. Ray gave him a vicious kick in the stomach and forced him back down with a foot on his chest.

'Don't you ever bother either me or Zoë again, or I will call the cops on you so damn fast you won't know what's hit you,' he hissed, his voice full of menace. And just as with all bullies, Mr Butler looked terrified at the prospect of a taste of his own medicine.

Ray was sorely tempted to make the punishment last a little longer, but he felt the rage die within him as soon as it had flared. With one last heavy shove with his foot, he walked away.

As he got back inside, he looked at his watch. His shift ended an hour ago; it was definitely time to go home. Not that home was any sort of a sanctuary, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Neela would be excited because of her surgery elective, and he felt he probably should be around. He still didn't know exactly what promise he had silently made to Michael yesterday morning, but whatever it was, he didn't intend on breaking it, and that probably meant being wherever Neela was. And it had to be better than this awful place anyway.

When he stepped in the front door of the apartment though, he wasn't so sure. When he was a kid growing up in Baton Rouge, there had sometimes been hurricanes that had blown in from the Caribbean and hit the city. The storm itself was terrifying, but what had always left him awestruck was the sense of utter devastation they had left in their path. You could walk down a street you had known your whole life and not recognise where you were. Their destructive power knew no bounds. And that was the exact same feeling as he had coming home that evening.

The first giveaway was Neela's coat lying on the floor, not neatly hung on one of the hooks by the door. She never didn't hang her coat up. Then her bag was also on the floor, resting abandoned at the foot of the wall, half open and some of the contents spilling out, almost as if it had been hurled at the wall, or perhaps someone standing near it, then left to slide to the floor.

Almost scared to go further, Ray picked his way over the first signs of wreckage to investigate. Sure enough, in the kitchen, broken pieces of what looked like it had once been a plate, in fact, he suspected it was the plate he ate his breakfast off this morning, and had left unwashed on the sideboard, crunched under his feet. A glass lay on its side where the plate had been, in a pool of water that presumably it had contained.

The lounge next. It was in darkness, but he flicked the light on. Just as he noticed the figure of Michael sitting on the couch, his back to him, with his shoulders hunched and head in his hands; a thoroughly dejected pose, Ray realised he could hear a sound he also associated with post hurricane devastation. Crying: noisy, undignified sobs that were coming from the direction of Neela's room.

What the Hell had happened?

'Michael?'

The figure on the sofa didn't move, and for a minute Ray didn't think he was going to answer. He wasn't even sure if he had heard him. Then, 'Ask her.'

Without pressing the other man further – he would rather hear it from Neela anyway – he hurried to her room. Without pausing to knock, which he had never neglected to do before, he pushed the door open and rushed in.

'Neela, Neela what is it?'

He knelt on the bed beside her, where she was lying, hunched into as small a ball as she could make herself. He saw, although didn't register, her hand on her stomach, as if she was protecting it. When she didn't say anything, he tenderly lifted a lock of hair away from her face and stroked her soft skin soothingly. He wiped away some of the tears with his thumb, but they were falling too thick and fast for him to make much of an impression.

After a while, he asked again. 'Neela?'

'Oh Ray,' she sobbed, her breath hitching in her throat, 'he's going.' Ray waited for her to explain, although as he did so, his mind flashed back to Michael standing on the stairs, in full military get up, looking guilty, the unspoken promise to look after Neela, and in that split second before she continued, he knew exactly what she was going to say.

'Michael is going back to Iraq. Tomorrow.'