[AMY LAWLESS' POV]

Lawless Residence

"Can two people really work together if they don't connect? Never talk? Is it possible—is it healthy—to continue a relationship like that?"
"Are you seriously discussing him in bed?"
"Sorry."
"Talk about whatever the hell you want at the dinner table, Mr.," Amy said. "But when you're spooning me let's be a little more focused."
Work already took up too much of her husband's time.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
"Passable."
"How do I love thee, let me count the ways?"
"Better."


[AARON LAWLESS' POV]

Rachel K. Dawes Municipal Building

GCPD Dual Headquarters

"Goddamn him,"
"Why?"
"I had to pull an all-nighter. I had paper-work up to my ass after his little locker room incident."
"Wait, Connolly started a fight?"
She snorted. "Hell no. That was some prick from xxx, with a little help from Dumb and Dumberass," she jerked tersely to Milton and Bradley, sheepishly filling out statement forms. "But your partner, he sure as hell ended it."

"Wait, Connolly beat someone up?" How the hell-?
She tossed him a can, neatly wrapped in an FBI evidence bag. "Took down a whole locker room."
"What's this?"
"A WE specialty. Capsacin. With a tear gas additive."
"Military-grade pepper spray—?" Aaron gaped.
"Nope. It's official use is hippopotamus repellant," she snorted. "It's perfectly legal, as he explained, and our little friend carries it with him at all times. Some jock started a fight in the showers, and Connolly pulled it out. Asshole turned it around, made your partner spray himself in the face…got too cocky and lost control of the can. So Connolly let him have it. Right in the nuts."

"He maced him in the balls?" Lawless asked, feeling sick.
"And anus. Oh, wait. That was me."
"Paltron!"
"Fuck you, Lawless. Some asshat teabags and maces your partner and you're shedding a tear over him?"
"You ass-fucked a police officer with a can of mace—on city property!—and you're PROUD of that fact?"
"Yeah. I crammed a can of chemical irritant up some Asshole's rectum. I ass-raped a jock on city property in front of twenty of his fuckhead friends. And you know what? If he has the balls to take me to court, I'll plead guilty."
"Jesus, Paltron—"
"Jackass had it coming. Diffused through the whole locker room and I sent xxx into the pool."
Lawless paled. "Paltron, that was tear gas-"
"Yeah," she snorted. "You should've seen their faces when they hit the chlorine."
"Goddamnit, Paltron," he said sternly. "It's not funny."
"Twenty dick-head jocks against one naked, scrawny twerp? It was goddamn hilarious. Assholes had it coming. And I only had the one can of mace."
"Paltron, you can't just—"
"Don't tell me what I fucking can and can't do. Those bastards tried to pick a fight with unfair odds against a fellow officer. Call it hazing, call it pranking, call it 'boys will be boys' or some shit…I call it fucking hateful and sexual misconduct and I won't stand for it under this roof." It was the military training in her, he'd always thought. She'd bend over backwards to help a fellow officer in need—she'd taken a bullet for him before, lied on Montoya's and now Connolly's paperwork, even eschewed the truth under oath—but she was absolutely, goddamn ruthless to anyone who turned on her own.

"What are you going to do?"
"Already done." She said firmly. "Asshole is fired, and I'm nailing his ass for assault against an officer, reckless endangerment, sexual misconduct, and hate crime. And since his buddies all just stood around and watched, I've got their asses on neglect and accessory. Bradshaws's going to try to plead them out, Garcia's going to have a media circus, Gordon's going to have a coronary, and I'm going to have dickwad's balls in a jar on my desk. They'd make a great paperweight if they were big enough."

"Wait, hate crime?"

"Bastards called him a fucking fag. Targeted him because he wouldn't use the communal showers."

…Conolly's gay.
"Connolly's gay?"
She snorted. "You think of another reason to avoid the communal showers?"

Connolly's gay. Dawning comprehension. Suddenly all that tension between them made perfect sense. "Oh."
She frowned. "Not you too, Lawless."
"No, no, not like that. I don't have a problem with gays, and you know it."
"I know it?"
"Paltron, we've worked together for six years."
She raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And I've never had a problem with-"
"-me." She finished. "All this time you've assumed I'm a lesbian. How touching."
Lawless flushed. "You're not?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well, no-"
"Exactly. And that's what I told the Judge. I don't give a shit if he is or he isn't, if those bastards acted on the thought that he was with the intent of harming him based on their homophobia that's a hate crime. And since it's state property, those federal prisons, they be lookin' real nice this time of year."

"Don't you think that's a little…harsh?"
"I don't write the laws, Lawless. I just take great pleasure in enforcing them."
And ignoring them, he didn't add. "You just handed 20 officers their balls,"
"And I'll do the same to any IA beaurocrat, DA, or judge who tries to stop me. And then later, when someone asks them if it's a good idea to fuck with one of my officers under my roof on my watch, they can pull down their pants and show them exactly how fucking bad an idea it really is."

They picked the wrong commanding officer to mess with. Someone more political would've seen it as bad PR. Someone more xxx blah, blah blah. And though her sexuality might be in question, and her femininity non-existent, there was no denying that Gwen Paltron had a formidable maternal instinct with at do not fuck with me or mine sign written in blood a mile high. It was hardly her fault some perps were too stupid to heed.


[AMY LAWLESS' POV]

Preschant Residence

"Naveen is my husband. Aaron is yours. I should like to think this makes us friends."
"Just like with Jess."
"Yes,"
"And so if he leaves me, you'll do the same thing you did to her: conveniently forget."
"When Aaron and Jess divorced both Naveen and I were devastated."
"But you're not her friends. You're his."
"He was our friend first, yes. And Jess left him."
"He told me he had a drinking problem."
"Is he drinking again? Are you concerned?"
"No."
"Then I'm afraid I don't understand the problem with your marriage."
"We never see each other any more! Not since—"
"Since that man," Poonam Preschant shuddered. "We do not speak his name."
"There's never time for us. For me."
"Are you so hurting one of you cannot stop working?"
"One of us," Amy said bitterly. "You mean me."
"You want your husband to give up his career?"
"Why should I?"
"You are a wife and a mother," Poonam pressed her hand passionately. "Of course it must be you."
"Wrong answer."
"Pardon?"
"I said wrong answer!"
"Amy, are you alright?"
"No. No I don't know what's wrong with me. I've got a good life. A nice house out in the suburbs. A good man who comes home to me at night and doesn't pressure me for sex. I've got an adorable baby and you know what, it's everything you could ever ask for and it's enough to make me fucking sick!"
"Amy!"
"No. Not anymore. I used to be Amy. Then I got married and I became Amy Lawless, and sure, why not, it's just a name, right? Well wrong. I'm Mrs. Aaron Lawless now, I'm Mrs. Aaron Lawless to you, Mrs. Aaron Lawless to everyone, Mrs. Aaron Lawless to my own fucking husband—!"
'Has Aaron said anything to you?"
"No. No, he never says anything. He doesn't have time to say anything."
"Then it is perhaps you who should do the saying. To him."
"He would hate me."
"Oh, Amy. Why?"
"For being…for being a bitch. And whiny, and ungrateful."
"Ungrateful?"
"I have the perfect life," Amy sneered. "And I hate it."
"You do not hate it," Poonam corrected gently. "You have reached the point in your marriage where the feelings have gone, and you must move forward if you find you love each other, or—"
"Or what?"
"Or not."
Amy laughed bitterly. And suddenly it all made sense. "Is that what you told her? Told Jess all those years ago?"
"Yes."
"And she left him."
"She left him."
"On your advice."
"No, she merely thought about what I had to say."
"Oh, I was wrong then. You see all this time I thought it was my fault I wasn't happy. Turns out, it's yours."
"It is not my fault!"
"Does Naveen know?" Amy shouted. "Does your fucking husband know what you did to his best friend? To his marriage? To his life? My husband thinks he's a killer because of you—!"
"Do not blame me for your husband's indiscretions!"
"Poonam, xxx, is there a problem?" Naveen entered the veranda, concern and confusion marring his usually smooth brow.
"No," the Indian woman said, dark eyes flashing. "Mrs. Aaron Lawless was just leaving."
"You're damn straight I am."


"You were there for the fight?"
"For the beginning and end of it. After it got ugly we ran upstairs for help."

Help, in this case, being Paltron.

"She discharged her gun twice just to settle things down a bit, then gave them a lecture that was the exquisite definition of sexual harassment-"

" 'I'd cover my cock, too, if I didn't have one,'" Milton grinned. "Her exact words."

More pieces. But what did it mean-?

"Hey, man, just one thing I don't understand," Bradley said when they were alone. "We took the Kid's bag. Just for fun, you know? To see what he'd do-"

"To get a good, long look at him and make fun of him," Lawless finished testily.

"Yeah, well, semantics. I had a hundred bucks says they messed up his circumcision. But here's what I don't get. What's he doing with mace in the locker room, anyways? Kid told Paltron he carried it in his bag because he lived in the Narrows, safer than drawing a gun and announcing you're a cop, you know?"

"So?"

"So you work with him every day, man. You see him come in. You see him leave. When the hell have you seen that Kid carrying that bag?"

What's he doing with mace in the locker room, anyways? When the hell have you seen that Kid carrying that bag?

"He doesn't," Lawless breathed.

"Yeah," Bradley returned. "I know. And that can only mean one thing: That slick little shit planned the whole thing, and he had the balls to lie to Paltron and get away with it. Not that xxx didn't have it coming, but he maced him in the family jewels, Lawless. Jackass is probably going to lose them."

Jimmy Connolly effectively castrated a classmate and sent 20 others to the ER…and bluffed the leanest, meanest motherfucker he'd ever met.
Lawless shuddered. Underneath that sickly sweet, sincere exterior, was his partner secretly a sociopath?
…But could it only mean one thing? Or was there another, hidden explanation?

Lawless Residence

Aaron comes home, finds her angry, been drinking.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" She quipped, toasting him. "Everything's just fucking peachy!"
"Naveen said you had a fight. With Poonam."
"More of a disagreement, really," she shoved the bottle at him, sopping chardonnay down his shirt. "So pour a glass. Take off your clothes, and fuck me."
"Amy!"
"What?" She snapped as he pried the wine glass from her fingers.
"How many drinks have you had?"
"Those bottles were full when I brought them up here."
"What was your disagreement over?"
"Less talk, more stripping."
"Amy!"
"I said I wanted you to fuck me. Or am I just too damn ugly after having your stupid baby?"
"Is that what this is about? You and Poonam's disagreement?"
"No. That was whether or not she's a bigger cunt then Gwen Paltron."
"I've worked with the woman for six years, so I'd have a hard time believing that."
"Yeah, well, you would say that. Naveen's your friend. I'm just your stupid wife."
"I don't think you're stupid."
"But you're still going to take his side."
"Naveen doesn't have a side. From what I heard he's as clueless as I am about the whole thing."
"But you're still going to make me apologize."
"You're not a child, Amy. You're my wife. And I love you. If you say you and Poonam had a disagreement and she owes you an apology…well, I expect her to solve it like an adult."
"So we don't have to go to dinner with them Saturday?" she pressed. "Or ever?"
"It was a pretty big disagreement then," Aaron's face fell.
"You have no idea."
"Do you…want to talk about it?"
"For the thousandth time, I want you to have a drink, take off your clothes, and fuck me."
He stared down at the three mostly empty bottles. "I'm pretty sure at this point what you're asking me to do is illegal."
"Fine," Amy snatched one away, throwing back her head and guzzling it down like water. "Then I'll have another drink, I'll take off your clothes, and I'll fuck you."
"I'm pretty sure that still qualifies as spousal rape if I've said no."
"Bite me," Amy said, unbuckling his belt with no small degree of difficulty. "And leave the fucking lights on."


"You know," Aaron said later, stroking her hair. "You really ought to get in fights with my best friend's wife more often."
"Shhh," she rolled over. Placed a hand over his lips, blue eyes sparkling."I can think of six way more interesting things you could be doing with your big fat mouth right now."
"One," Aaron whispered, the stubble of his beard prickling around her mouth. "Two…" his tongue found each of her ears, her nipples, her…


Selina's POV:
Holly getting ready to leave.

"Why stay here? You can't feel all that guilty about killing Shillings. It's bullshit. Not after what you did to Sylvia."
"I stay here because I have to."
"What does that mean?"
"Careful, Holly. You're sounding like a snitch again."
"Don't you want to be free?"
"I will be."
"You're up for parole in twenty years, Selina."
"But the statue of limitations runs out in two," she purred cryptically.
Realization. Selina, you clever bitch. Confess to one murder, and save yourself from serving time for the second. What with her 'good behavior', 'extenuating circumstances' and the shitload of evidences about corruption and scandal, Selina Kyle was looking at parole in paradise in less than twenty-four months time.
"You're smart. Smarter than they are. Why even confess at all?"
"What if…what if someone did two things. Terrible things. One they felt guilty about, one they didn't. And let's say if they confessed to the one they felt guilty about they'd hurt someone else. Someone they loved. Someone who trusted them and they couldn't bear to lose or know they'd been lied to. If that person then confessed to the same crime, served the same sentence for the first instead of the second…at the end of it, would they be still be absolved of their sins? Would that be atonement?"
"I…I don't know," Holly stammered as Selina kissed her goodbye.
"Neither do I," Selina whispered. "Neither do I."
"This cop friend of yours…you going to marry him?"
"That's not who he is."
"Then what?"
"He's—" her voice broke. "He's the one person in the world I would never fuck. Never."


"As much as I'd love to stay in bed all day, my partner's in the hospital. I should probably go see him."
"Be that way," Amy grumbled.
He kissed the back of her well-rumpled head. "Last night was amazing."
"Mmhgh," she nestled into the pillows.
"I'm serious."
"Hhmmgh."
"If only I'd known the key to fantastic sex was just getting a girl drunk, I'd've been doing this years ago."
"Har, har," Amy sat up, massaging her temples and groaning from the headache. "Don't get any ideas, Mister."
But he wasn't really listening. Her big breasts had spilled out over the sheet, still raw with love bites and suddenly he'd remembered their taste and gone hard—
She blushed. Pulled up the sheets. She was embarrassed? Ashamed?
"Later," he whispered, both equal parts wistful and wounded at once. He bent and kissed her cheek, taking his leave.
He never could remember when exactly it was she'd gotten so self-conscious. On their first dates he'd been a blushing, bumbling bachelor with an untrimmed beard and a gut gone flabby from too much desk work. She'd been so young, so beautiful, so carefree and high on life…
He stared morosely ahead at the taillights of traffic lining the interstate into Gotham, wondering how his attentions had become so unwelcome. When had the tables turned?

A doctor seems him in the atrium, stops him to chat.
"The skin transplant?"
"My wife told me. No HIPPA identifiers!"
"Lawless, just mentioning the case is a HIPPA identifier."
"The hospital, name, age, region and room number of the patient were never identified in the course of our conversation."
"To to hell with it, you bugger. How have you been? What brings you in?"
"Ophthalmology. Got a buddy of mine from the force here with some pretty nasty burns."

"I'm fine," he lied.
"You've got the chemical equivalent of first degree burns on your face," Lawless corrected him. "And corneas. So no, Jimmy Connolly, you're not fine at all."
"It hurts," Connolly finally conceded. You couldn't see it through the bandages, but there was no mistaking from the quaver in his voice there were tears in his burning eyes.
"That's unacceptable," some asshole didn't explain how to use the PCA, probably wrote down some stupid protocol without bothering to ask for patient feedback. "I'm calling the nurse to change your pain meds."
"No,"
"Why?"
"I'm fine, Mr. Lawless. Please go away."
"You're not fine. You're in pain. Tremendous, unbearable, entirely preventable pain. You aren't impressing anyone, if that's your aim. I am not impressed, not amused, not remotely respectful of that choice. I will not think less of your for using medication, I do not think more of your refusal."
"I'm fine," his partner insisted. "Please—"
But Aaron Scott Lawless knew guilt when he saw it.
"You think you deserve this? For fighting back in self-defense? Are you judging yourself because everyone else refuses to?"
Yes, his silence said.
"Why?" Lawless finally demanded. "Why."
"I deserve this. To hurt. I'm weak, a-and selfish, and bad."
"Did you plan that attack?" Aaron asked sharply. "Or were you simply prepared?"
"I fought back. When I knew I wasn't strong enough! I should've, should've just taken it! Then no one would've gotten hurt. But she hurt him, she hurt all of them, everyone got hurt instead of just me and it's all my fault!"
"Those assholes picked a fight with you. They humiliated you. They. Hurt. You. What they did was reprehensively, irredeemably morally Wrong. Your actions were entirely justified. You don't need to feel sorry for them."
"Yes I do. Because I know what it's like to, to, to be hurt, and humiliated, and, and I let it happen anyways! And that's worse! Kn-knowing what that's l-like a-an-and doing it anyways is so much worse!"

Simply hurting them? Or—? Jimmy Connolly had been blind by the time Paltron had pulled that stunt, but the word had spread through GCPD personnel like wildfire. But Paltron was right—all those idiots were claiming XXX fell, and that's how he wound up with a can of mace crammed up his rectum. XXX was still in an induced coma with skin grafts on his scrotum.
"Those people—those bullies," Lawless amended, changing his tactic. "Finally got what they deserved."
"No one deserves that," the boy whispered hoarsely. "No one."


Bradley comes down from the bunker. "Lawless!"

Eugene Bradley was pale as a ghost. "Bradley, what the hell!"
"C'mon, man, you were a doctor, you've got to get up there now-"
"What is it?"
"Connolly. I think he's having some sort of seizure-"

"Bradley, you idiot, have you ever even seen myoclonus?"
"Don't get all pissy just 'cause you know big words," Eugene grumped. "I watch enough TV I think I'd know how to spot one."
"And what do you think that is?"
"…Not one?"
"What the Hell is it?"
"I don't know yet," Lawless cautioned lowly.
"You don't know?"

He'd seen it before in pictures, read case files reports. Glassy eyes, panting, the shivers that threatened to tear ligaments and bones. Fear Night had had some nasty after-effects, and while most recovered from the psychological damage, there had been preliminary reports of relapses. Like the return tripping from xxx that could strike at random, years later, the xxx toxin's effects had been reported to return.

And Jimmy Connolly lived in the Narrows. He'd had confirmed initial exposure. They also hadn't found every reservoir of the stuff. Some of Falconi's shipments hadn't been accounted for-missing inventory from the docks, and some of the toxin hadn't been completely boiled out of the plumbing. There'd been an outbreak only this winter, 2 high school students, snuck into the boiler room in their run down school to have sex…they found the bodies five days later when the stench became unbearable. The girl had bludgeoned her partner to death with her bare hands, then broke her cervical spine running into the walls in fear. Both her shoulders had been dislocated from lifting a xxx off it's hinges in an attempt to escape. If it had been any consolation to the teen's parents, they probably hadn't suffered physically. (Effects similar to PCP-adrenaline rush so high that pain didn't register) They'd still died screaming.

Concillatory to families of victims or not, it was bad news for responding EMS workers or police. Or me, Lawless thought. If this was truly a xxx toxin outbreak, the rest of the building would be having effects any second now and his young partner would be the least of his worries. But if it was a relapse…

…the slight young man before him could take a magazine to the gut and run two miles before his brain would know he was dead.

"I don't know," Lawless repeated. "But I think it's best you both stayed back."

Tries to talk to Connolly. Connolly screams, and tries to break past him. Bradley runs forward to help and gets severely bitten on the arm for his troubles. Connolly gets away, but Lawless manages to grab the back of his pants, rips them down in a tackle. Milton waddles lazily forward and tazes Connolly's neck, and Lawless in the process.

"Shit, Fred!" Lawless gasped.
"Sorry, man."
"After all that, you just goddamned tazed him? How the hell does that even work?"
"Electrophysiology," Lawless grunted. "Overstimulated muscle can't contract, doesn't matter if you can't feel pain when you're paralyzed."

Paltron barges in. "What the fuck?"
"This uh, this isn't what it looks like."
"He dead?"
"No, just…tazed," Milton said weakly.
"Well don't just leave him there. He doesn't add much to the décor."
"Oh, and Lawless?" She asked sweetly.
"Yeah?"
"Next time the three of you decide to gang rape someone, don't do it on federal property. You know how pissy paperwork makes me."

"Y-you t-tazed me? W-w-while I was s-sle-sleeping?" Jimmy coughed. "You're such a jerk."


Jimmy Connolly was young. Raised at Sister's of Mercy. One of the sole survivors of the foster-home fire. At the age of fifteen he'd disappeared from Child Protective Services, run away like so many before him in search of a better life on the streets. At age 18 he'd enrolled at Gotham State University after obtaining his GED, on a full ride from the Wayne Legacy Foundation.

Three years missing. Gone.
No work. No employment.
One of the most beloved children in Gotham City had disappeared without a trace, without a whisper, for three years.
How?

…And why?

Court records did reveal underage activities with AFTE, with charges for possession on school property expunged from his (sealed—it was still Gotham City, after all) juvenile record. Jack McClain had shot himself in the foot with that one…

Jimmy Connolly was small. Shy. Afraid. But goddamned determined, as evidenced by his GCPD file. He'd barely scraped a pass through Academy, failed the fitness test seventeen separate times, applied for every open position, had extensive—and dangerous—underage involvement in criminal justice. But he wasn't ready. He'd shot a kid, shot a kid and came back to the force, it'd taken several weeks but he'd asked—demanded—his gun back.

…and he still hadn't been ready.

Aaron Lawless respected Crispus Allen, Renee Montoya, Nora Fields. Didn't know Dan Murray per se, but he had a high opinion of the incorruptible FBI District Head. They'd all spoken highly—if not briefly—of Connolly's many merits. Entirely dismissed his flaws. But enthusiasm and honesty, hard work and intelligence didn't make a person ready. Didn't make him capable. Couldn't make him competent. Didn't convey the emotional maturity necessary for an officer of the law, let alone a responsible adult.

In fact, since working together, the only opinion with anything akin to his own impression had belonged to Dawes:

I was first introduced to Jimmy Connolly during my career as Assistant District Attorney. Since that initial encounter I have been consistently appreciative of his unwavering honestly, sincerity, and strength of character. I am well acquainted with this young man from a professional standpoint, and understand he has overcome severe hardships in his life. However admirable I find these traits, I would have reservations recommending him for your program due to his age and lack of experience. Jimmy Connolly can be extremely mature for his age and peer group but interacts quite poorly with them, as well as psychological services. I believe he seeks to act in other's best interests but I frequently find him to be lacking in social discernment. As a legal professional, I feel there are personality traits that Jimmy Connolly exhibits due to his youth and poor socialization that must first be met before I can recommend him for matriculation to your law enforcement program. -Rachel Dawes, ADA
But Dawes was dead. There was no way to ask what she'd seen in him that the others so clearly couldn't. He'd respected her, never truly admired her. Appreciated her relentless professionalism but never her cooly abrasive personality. But her perception had been so similar…what had the young prosecutor seen that the others couldn't?
"No one deserves that. No one."

The way he'd said it—

"No one deserves that. No one."
Like he knew—
"No one deserves that. No one."
But—
But Jimmy Connolly was never the plaintiff of a criminal or civil case. Nor the defendant—
And—
….and ADA Rachel Katherine Dawes had prosecuted the sex crime of the century, People v. Santy, behind closed doors and away from the media's eye to protect the underage victim. It'd seemed strange, even after Santy's death, all those other confessions…the identity of 'Johnnie Doe' had never been leaked, not to the media, not even to the jury, not once on the court transcripts finally available to the public records office. Who on earth, he'd remembered thinking, could possibly be that prejudicial? Why hadn't Surillo just moved the trial to eliminate bias—?

…Unless that bias had no bounds. Unless that identify was celebrated, instantly recognizable, prejudicial no matter where you moved the courtroom in the entirety of the United States, unless that victim was—

(It couldn't be, he was being paranoid, stupid, an author's, a detective's tired mind playing tricks in the dark, making connections where there weren't any—)
But that gut-jarring realization just wouldn't go away. Aaron Scott Lawless flipped hurriedly through his partner's personnel file:

Name: Connolly, Jimmy
Rank: Detective
Division: Homicide
Status: Active
Date of Birth: 12/13/2008

12/13/2008. He'd been a missing minor, homeless on the streets, living in the Narrows near that center where Kevin Santy had preyed on not one but twelve underage victims over the course of seven years…

12/13/20008. Johnnie Doe reached his majority during the middle of the trial, but still his name hadn't been revealed to the slavering press…

12/13/2008. Jimmy Connolly had been a patient of Leslie Thompkins…and he was with her when she died.

12/13/2008. Jimmy Connolly had befriended Nora, Stacey, Montoya, even Anna Ramirez…in short, every woman in the goddamned precinct but Paltron. Never said a word to his academy mates, not until they cornered him in the showers and he maced his tormenter in the genitals.

….he'd brought the mace in. Purposefully. For pre-emption? Or Protection?

And the most damning: his partner had night-terrors. Jimmy Connolly rarely slept, and when he did, he woke up screaming.

Jimmy Connolly had worked with AFTE. Jack McClain. Daniel Murray. And Kevin Santy took a .357 to the gut, bled out slowly in an alleyway in the Narrows, died alone, in agony and afraid…cold case. Molester murdered. Justice, quick and dirty, the GCPD unspoken honor code.

"Jesus, Jimmy," Lawless breathed.

But Dawes was dead. Surillo was dead…And if McClain or Murray had pulled that trigger-or worse, given the Kid a gun for protection- there was no way they'd confirm and implicate themselves or a molested kid in a homicide. There was no way to know. To be certain—

Yes there was. He'd have to ask him outright.


THE CONFRONTATION
Aaron figures out Jimmy was the Johnnie Doe from People v. Santy, confronts him with the evidence from Leslie Thompkins' journals.
"You had no right! No right!"
Jimmy tries to run away, Aaron chases him, catches up, holds him.
"He was my friend! He was my friend and I trusted him—I told him, an-and he r-r-raped me!"

Did you kill him? Aaron wanted to ask.
Would you blame him if he had?
Would anyone?

Lawless puts the pieces together from Rachel Dawes' letter, pulls the Santy case records. Confronts Jimmy in the car. "You had no right!" Jimmy runs away from him into an alley, Lawless follows. He tries to climb a fence to get away, but Lawless pulls him down and holds him.

"Santy wasn't the first," Lawless said. "Tell me."
"M-my dad."