It is an established fact at the SRU—Spike is one of only two officers trained in tactical driving, not counting Holleran. The other being Ed, who is mysteriously MIA. Nobody thinks much of this fact, for they rarely use the kind of advanced training required for certain maneuvers.

'Rarely' apparently being today.

Spike usually drives the command or ordinance disposal van to a call, trundling along a few blocks behind them, but today he's off like a rocket. He drives the lead SUV and hardly takes his foot off the gas in the entire fifteen minute drive there.

A drive that should take at least twenty five.

Jules braces herself on the dash when they fly around a hairpin corner. The tires skid, not that this bothers Spike much. He compensates smoothly with a counter spin of the wheel and they stabilize.

It's always mesmerizing on the scant few occasions she's gotten to watch him do this, the difference between her reckless, Vin Diesel blast through the US border two years ago and his maestro sling of the steering column in real time. He's even talking to himself while he does it, half distracted by worry and irritation.

"This is insane," he mutters. "My own nightmares can't compete with it."

It's tricky, going at this speed, but Jules uses the laptop to make sure she changes all the lights along their route to red to increase their speed. Spike nods gratefully at her and revs the engine, using the e-brake to lock the tires and therefore clip corners, buttonholing them to avoid the need for reduced speed around a ninety degree angle.

Their rear tires leave black arcs on the pavement.

"He sounded fine on the phone, right?" Jules tries to keep her teammate calm. "Neither he nor Constable Milkos are injured. It's all good, Spike."

"Are you kidding me? It's a bomb call—on his very first day!"

"You had a bomb call on your first day. And a kangaroo."

"That's different." Spike looks flustered for the first time, though his driving doesn't indicate this in the least. He veers around a delivery truck. "That was my first day at the SRU. Not my first day as a cop ever."

Jules prods his shoulder with an incredulous snort. "You were only a 'typical' patrol cop for a year before you joined us! You were so green you still had the textbook coming out your ears!"

"It's not the same thing." Spike sounds less confident this time.

Jules doesn't get the opportunity to argue her (completely correct, thank you very much) point further when they squeal up to an alley across from a local theater.

"Have you called Greg?" Spike asks while grabbing his disposal kit.

Jules finishes strapping on her vest and slides out. "Already done. He says he'll take his lunch break early and come over if he can."

"If he can?" Spike freezes, crestfallen and stunned. "Isn't he concerned at all?"

"Of course he is, Spike, but he knows that not only is this a part of the job he'll have to get used to Dean facing—he also knows that you've got his son's back. Who better to watch over Dean during a bomb call than you?"

This one seems to be the thing that short circuits Spike's mind. He stands there for a moment, pliers in one hand, bag in the other, and looks much younger than he should.

Then he takes a big breath in through his nose. "I can't believe this is actually happening."

"You and me both," says Jules, grim. She doesn't point at out that this may be the first of many such calls.

She watches Spike run over to the two officers in blue, Milkos back near their patrol car, reporting on the radio, and Dean a few feet away from the dumpster.

Jules is about to follow…when she spots Ed leaning against his own car. She stares at him, wondering if he's an apparition that will poof away the moment she gets too close. Of all the places to find him, this is not where she expected.

Ed has both arms crossed, faint smile on his face. Eyes hidden by sunglasses. She takes her time approaching him, resting both wrists on the hilt of her rifle.

Then she too leans beside him, butt on the hood of his car.

"Hello, Ed."

"Good morning, Jules."

"It's a lovely day and we should be getting cherry blossoms soon."

"Mmm," Ed agrees, dancing around the elephant with equal dexterity. "They're predicting High Park will be particularly nice this spring."

Jules spares a moment to watch Leah, Leslie, and Thatcher stake out a loose perimeter, even though other officers have already cleared the area and there's no immediate human threat present. The culprits of this bomb are long gone.

"You got here fast."

Ed says nothing to Jules' words, the light and teasing tone. Spike has started up an animated conversation with Dean, badgering the affronted, newly minted officer about any hidden injuries.

"You know." Jules crosses her ankles. "When I was five years old, on my first day riding the school bus, my dad was so scared that he drove along behind it every day for a week."

Ed's mouth quirks higher. "Is that so?"

"Said he was worried about my safety even though he knew it was illogical."

"I know how that feels."

Jules bumps his shoulder. "I bet you do, you old worry wart."

"Did you just call me old?"

The warning tone would make a rookie scared but Jules laughs. "You arrived on scene so fast because you were already here! How long have you been tailing Dean's first shift?"

Ed shrugs, stalling the inevitable truth. He doesn't look the least bit sheepish or ashamed. "Since it started. Milkos didn't even notice that he's had a pursuer for the last three hours. We'll have to chat about that."

Jules snorts. "You big gummy bear. You're as nervous as the rest of us."

Ed just hums in reply.

It's temping to rib him some more for being such a dad about the whole thing, and Jules is about to, when the sound of heated voices grows too loud to be ignored. While other officers race around, coordinating with the buildings on either side to evacuate, Dean and Spike stand at the epicenter of the tornado, both red in the face.

"…Then why won't you listen to me?" Spike snaps. "You will not stay here while I defuse this bomb."

"Oh yes, I will."

"Only one man downrange. That's the rule, and I know you know it."

"I'm not leaving, Spike."

Spike bristles. "Then I'll have Ed handcuff you to that lamp post."

Jules immediately reacts to the harsh words, and so does Ed. They zip over wearing open mouths and high brows, Ed already with one hand reached out.

Spike doesn't get angry often, and when he does it's a vapour, an illusionist's special effect to redirect the eye. It was usually used, in the past, to keep people at arm's length, always lacking any real substance.

However, this fulmination is sheer, old fashioned ire and it's as rock hard as the ground under Jules' boots.

Spike seldom, if ever, expresses anger through yelling. Not when it's been directed so often at him to manipulate and control.

His tone is a brick wall, thrown up right in Dean's face. The younger man shifts, blue uniform still just a little bit too big on him, like it's been stretched out by someone else, and Jules is struck again by the image of a child playing dress up. It fits him a lot better than it did at his graduation, though, and he's bulked up enough in the arms that it doesn't stand out if you weren't looking for it.

This doesn't help much when Spike is still a good head taller and towering over him.

"Okay, okay, okay." Ed inserts that arm between them. "Everybody cool it. Spike, why haven't you assessed that bomb yet?"

Spike doesn't remove his glare from Dean. "Because someone will not follow protocol. I refuse to do any defusion with him standing so close to it."

There's a funny twist in the hands at his sides and Jules realizes, with a sudden pierce of sympathy, that Spike is holding himself back from touching Dean. Respecting his little brother by trying to remain professional and not embarrass him here, in front of all these people by hugging him. Heaven knows they humiliated him plenty at his graduation, taking photos and cracking donut jokes.

Spike is scared.

Jules has no such qualms about professional distance and takes off her glove to set a palm on Spike's neck. It's warm compared to the early spring air. She kneads into it with her thumb, taut skin easing the longer she does it.

"Run us through it again," says Ed, kind but direct like he would with anyone else.

Dean points to the dumpster. "We were helping a homeless lady move her cart when it got stuck. Then Milkos spotted a set of multi-coloured wires sticking out from behind the dumpster, which we slid out carefully to get a better look. It doesn't have a timer but there are large blocks of C4."

"And you called us?"

Dean shakes his head. "I contacted the bomb disposal unit first, but they're defusing a package at a bus terminal over an hour away and I knew they wouldn't get here in time. So I called Spike."

Spike sucks in a sharp breath. "Blocks, plural? How many?"

"At least seven."

Jules is no bomb expert, but even she knows what this means. "Sixty feet isn't a minimum safe distance, is it?"

Spike closes his eyes to think for a moment. He makes a frustrated sound, the red draining away from his face. "Not even close. A full city block or two would be better. A bomb this size can take out someone over three hundred feet away."

There's a quick jilt of motion, Dean turning and shading his eyes to silently count all the people still standing around or being evacuated from the theater and surrounding business offices. His lips move without sound, face falling. Something like awe and something like dread ooze together in his eyes.

"Then I'm definitely not leaving you," he says.

It strikes Jules that, like Spike, this is a scary first for Dean too.

Not the bomb, though that carries with it lots of unsavoury connotations and memories, but the fact that he's never seen Spike defuse one in real life before. He's heard the stories, of course, made funnier by the team's hamming it up and Aussie jokes—but this isn't cushioned by fuzzy distance. It feels terrifying, up close and personal, and they're oh so helpless to do a thing about it.

This is his brother. About to walk over to that dumpster, all by himself, and clip wires attached to a bomb. With no guarantee it will work and they'll ever see him again.

"It gets easier to watch," Jules reassures him, right at the same time Spike growls, "This is not up for discussion."

"Of course Dean's not leaving." Ed glances between them, one shrewd eye on Dean's victory fist pump. Ed jabs a thumb over his shoulder to catch the boy's attention. "Because he's going to do his job and help with evacuation efforts."

Dean's joy deflates at the exact moment Spike restarts his protests. "Ed, no offense, but it isn't safe for any of you at this distance. You need to be down the street…way down the street."

It's almost comical, in that black humour, absurd way their job is sometimes, to see both Dean and Spike firing up to argue with Ed over a very obvious command decision, solely based on trying to keep each other safe.

Dean isn't overwhelmed or ready to cry. He's a hen with tousled feathers, psyching himself up to throw down with Ed if it means satisfying his conscience.

Jules loses her own breath for a moment: this is the same boy, freshly twenty-two, who played Mario Kart with Sam just a few nights ago, who annoys Clark while he practices for symphony auditions, who likes to steal Spike's sneakers just so he can sharpie cartoon doodles on them. The contrast to this hard faced rookie is like seeing stars.

"That's too bad." Ed's voice is clipped. "Because we can't retreat until all civilians are out of these buildings."

Spike, knowing from bitter experience when he's lost the battle, just nods his head to his team leader—unhappily—and walks away towards the dumpster. Not without one last, turmoil-filled look over his shoulder.

Dean follows him with forlorn eyes.

Situation handled, Ed's posture softens. "Come on, Dean. I'm putting you and Milkos in charge of the theater's first floor lobby. See if you can speed their evacuation efforts along."

Dean nods, walking side by side with them, but he's still watching Spike fade away in the distance. "He could die."

Jules and Ed exchange a quick look. They're far too experienced and they love him too much to offer false reassurances.

"Yes," she says, slowly. "He could. But there's no one better trained, Dean. Spike knows what he's doing and we get calls like this all the time."

The information does not seem to comfort Dean. His eyes are on them now, these seasoned officers on either side who make up a slice of his family. Who have embraced him and played pick up soccer and given him noogies. "You guys let him go out every day, knowing he may not come back."

It's not an accusation, more an amazed observation, peppered with devastation. There's something else in there, something much sharper, like a piece of metal impaled inside the fleshy wall of his heart.

Jules recognizes it at the same time Ed does. She draws in a quick, alarmed breath and grabs at Dean's bicep to stop his determined steps. So does Ed, stepping in front of them both.

Ed, in an unintentional mirror of Spike, resists touching at the last second. His hand stays hovering somewhere on the periphery of the boy's personal space bubble. "Dean Parker—even if something does happen, you are not responsible for it. You hear me?"

Dean blinks at him, a touch fearfully. "I called him. I brought him closer to this."

"It is not your fault." Jules punctuates her words with a light shove to his arm. "And I know for a fact that Spike doesn't blame you either."

This actually pacifies Dean a hair, his stance relaxing. He nods when Milkos waves him over. "We put the public's safety first, right?"

There's well hidden conflict over these words in Dean's eyes and in that moment, Jules hates them too.

She clears her throat and forces her grip on his arm to go slack. "You got it."

Then Dean manages a tiny grin that is clearly fake and clearly for their benefit. "Just a normal day, right?"

No. This sentiment reads on Ed's face too. Not even remotely.

What the man says instead is, "You bet! Good luck."

"Let me know if anything changes. Just keep me posted, please."

"Of course, Dean." Jules squeezes his bicep once and then steps back.

Once he jogs out of earshot, Jules casts Ed a dry look. "If this is a normal day, I'll die before I reach forty."

Ed starts to smile. The moment of levity is broken, however, when Spike's voice filters through in their ears over all the police chatter—

"Uh…guys? I think this C4 is booby trapped."