'Oh, every time is so far,
Every time is so far
To get back to where you are.'

"All This Time" ~ OneRepublic

"Are you sure?"

Wordy scratches his head. He types Dan's profile of the attacker again, taken from his statement, eyeing the four people pressed together over his shoulder. "I'm telling you, Greg. There are no current Ontario gangs who use bee or wasp tattoos for branding purposes."

"What about former gangs?" Sam suggests. "Ones we've successfully put an end to? Could be a resurgence."

Wordy tries that too. Leans back to a chorus of frustrated sounds. "Nope."

"So it's not gang related." Jules gestures to the screen. "This is obviously a new player, someone who just happens to have a bee tattoo."

Greg has another idea. "Try prison records. Tattoos are often catalogued there in case convicts escape and need to be identified."

Everyone holds their breath while Wordy types it in, even Dan. He's oddly invested in this case now. He doesn't seem too worried that Wordy will technically have to book him for illegal gambling and pass him off to Vice. Wordy assured him they'd put a good word in to reduce his sentence.

"Sorry, guys. There's a prisoner here with a mantis tattoo, tons of spider ones too. No bee, though."

"For a grand total of, wait for it…" Dan does a flare with his hands. "Nothing. My bee tip was completely unhelpful."

Greg makes a 'maybe so, maybe not' motion with his head. "It was more helpful than your description of every white man in his mid thirties."

"Hear, hear," Wordy mutters.

Sam sighs. "Time to start calling tattoo parlours, I guess. Best place to start."

"No, it's not!" Jules practically bristles, but there's something else in her expression too, something dark. "Ed is bleeding out from a gunshot wound and who knows what else when it comes to Spike—and we're just sitting here, typing!"

The group stares at her. Though Jules is a force to be reckoned with, she is the epitome of controlled fire, grated and secure for whenever it's needed.

This is…this is an outburst. Greg hasn't seen one of these in years.

The professional veneer coating all of them begins to crack. Sam visibly riles himself back together, but Wordy's eyes grow even more open, not only vulnerable but asking that Jules witness it.

"Jules," he says, quiet. "Ed wasn't shot."

Her voice loses some of its heat, only to reveal the fear lingering underneath. "You don't know that. Just because we didn't find a casing…"

"If we didn't find a bullet, that means it would still be in his body."

Jules puffs out a noisy breath. "Which means there would a ton more blood. Yeah. I'm sorry."

"It's Spike and Ed," says Wordy with a kind smile. "We get it."

"No, you don't." Jules' nostrils widen with a harsh breath and her neck is red. "We keep failing them, again and again."

"I read the transcription." Sam ducks his head to catch his wife's eye. "You didn't fail them. You offered help and Ed turned it down. That was his call. It was Spike's call to ignore orders and run after him."

And hit his squelch button in the process. Greg still isn't over that one. Dan saw Spike's hip hit the table in its slide by, pressing the button and silencing their radio contact.

"We all would have done the same thing, especially if Spike heard Ed in distress." Jules shakes her head. "I need a minute."

With that, she's gone.

The four men shift uncomfortably. Sam's eyes follow his wife in her silent march out the door, Wordy's gaze is far off somewhere in the imaginary physical space of his friends, and Dan glances unsurely between them all. He's wise enough not to speak.

Wordy blinks, then lifts a brow at Greg.

He waves the man off. "Nah, I got her. Keep trying to find our mystery insect man. Sam, you're technically second-in-charge of this investigation. Leah's working on the kidnappers' vehicle—maybe you could run our third mystery man, the con artist, through the database?"

Sam nods, but he doesn't move right away. "Boss?"

The way Sam says it is small, the sound of the early days. It's a dusty memento, taken down off the shelf of their relationship like a child's long-lost but still beloved stuffed animal.

Greg's heart gives a leap, a quick one-two that has him curbing the urge to reach up and rub his chest.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"I promised Spike, the day we booked Kyle Hurley, that he'd never have to feel scared in that way again."

Wordy's fingers still over the keyboard. Greg's heart bottoms out, a roller coaster of motionlessness that leaves him breathless.

A muscle ripples in Sam's jaw. He whispers, "I promised."

Samuel Braddock, all jock with a smart head on his shoulders—a switch flipped to the biggest worrier and tender heart when innocent people are involved.

His heart of gold blinds even himself sometimes. A family resemblance, it seems, where he and his brotherhood with Spike are concerned.

Greg rests his hand on Sam's shoulder, along with a considerable weight to underlie the words he is about to say. "You won't break it, Sam. You're a man of your word and this time is no different."

Sam's eyes plead. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because we'll be here to help you keep it." Greg tries out a smile. Sam doesn't mirror it, but his shoulders uncoil a few inches. "All of us."

Wordy takes up the hint and gives a sloppy salute. "No cane or tremors are going to keep me down."

"Why do you so many of you cops have canes?" Dan asks.

Wordy doesn't miss a beat. "I'll take Rude Questions for two hundred, Alex. Try again."

"Actually…I may have an idea about where to track that bee tattoo."

"Now that's what I want to hear." Wordy's eyes spark with hope. "Lay it on me, Lucky Dan."

Greg, chuckling, leaves them to it with another significant look at Sam. The halls are empty this late, nearing three in the morning, and it helps that they've set up shop in the SRU library, if it can even be called one. A tiny archive office off the main evidence locker filled with textbooks and training videos.

A place SRU officers rarely go if they can avoid it.

Jules hasn't gone far, just to the breakroom. After a day of throbbing pain, Greg is grateful for this small mercy.

She's leaning back against the table, facing a perfect view of Toronto at night, especially from this higher vantage. Though she's in charge of Team One now, her mind seems far away. Arms folded, her ponytail coming out on one side. Legs crossed at the ankles.

Greg perches beside her, both hands on the top of his cane.

Jules doesn't look at him. He doesn't look at her. It's a balanced moment, a ballet dancer on those tiny boxes of wood in their point shoes spinning for the world to admire before they fall back on their feet.

The room feels weightless. So does Greg.

"I've been meaning to ask," he starts, eyes on a woman in the office building across from them, working the night shift. A stock trader by the looks of it. "I came in to take Kyle's statement, when Ed got too emotional during the interview."

'Emotional' being a more delicate word than rage, more discreet than Ed suddenly yanking at Kyle by his shirt collar, just once, before he could stop himself. Kyle's haughty behaviour, brazen even while being arrested, hadn't helped any.

Jules shifts. "Is there a question in there?"

"He had bruise, Jules, on his chin. An almost perfect replica of the one on Spike's chin."

Jules says nothing. She uncrosses her ankles to plant both feet on the floor. The motion sounds suspiciously stomp-like.

"Eye for an eye, Jules?"

"Something like that."

Greg's lips twitch. "How very Old Testament of you."

He gives her a moment to roll the memory around in her mind. He himself will never forget the day Dean found out about the abuse, his eyes flaming with horror, the way he'd turned beet red and destroyed Greg's flower bed in his fury. How Spike had thrown him that crooked smile and said absolutely nothing, letting the boy get it out of his system.

How Greg had found them hours later, curled up on the sofa in front of a Columbo rerun.

"Spike breaking his nose wasn't enough for you?"

Jules inhales a breath that inflates her shoulders. "Better to punch Kyle, I figured, than my new drywall."

"Jules…"

She turns to Greg then. "I'm not like Sam, boss. I don't doubt that we'll find them and get them back."

"Great." Greg stops, because he knows what her fear is.

She deserves to say it.

"My fear," Jules continues, in a calm tone that is somehow infinitely worse than the shouting, "is how they'll be when we find them. That the longer we waste time, the less likely they'll be okay. That they'll recover."

Greg wants to reply; a dozen or so possible phrases come to mind, with the intent to comfort. In the end, he looks at Jules, opens and closes his mouth a few times, and says, "I'm worried about that too."

Jules takes her own memento off the shelf. She tilts her head until it leans on Greg's shoulder, tense at first and then, once she realizes he's not going to shove her off, resting fully.

Greg wraps an arm around her. She's warm, smelling faintly of soap under the sweat and gunpowder. Greg closes his eyes into her hair, wishing he had a spiky head on the other shoulder and a best friend badgering them while snapping photos.

He wants to feel home.

"Sorry about bailing," says Jules. "I'm team leader. I need to be on my A-game."

"It's been a rough few months." And isn't that the understatement to end all understatements? Greg rubs her shoulder with his thumb. "You ready to go back?"

"Yeah." Jules lifts her head. "Let's do it. Thanks, boss."

It's a good thing they do, because when Greg gets his first glimpse of the library again, Wordy is standing, on the phone, and Dan hops up and down, actually jumping, with a dopey grin on his face.

Dean has joined them, and his wide eyes match the quietly mouthed, no way.

Leah stands off to the side, showing Wordy something on a tablet for reference.

Wordy talks fast and low, but it's enough for Greg to catch the APB request.

"You found them?" He stares at Leah. "You found the vehicle?"

Wordy hangs up. "Rook doesn't have a current address, couch surfing, but his uncle owns a house painting company."

Leah smiles, a wicked grin. "Guess what vehicle I found heading out of town on traffic cameras? Especially when said van was reported stolen this morning and had the back windows spray painted over?"

Greg walks over and kisses Leah's cheek. He's so overjoyed he wants to jump too. "Thank you!"

She blinks, dazed, while Dean snickers.

Jules taps the footage. "You lost them?"

"There are no traffic cameras after you leave city limits," Wordy confirms.

Greg catches on once he recognizes a landmark in the silent video file. "Cottage country? Why would they take Spike and Ed there? Does Rook's family own any property?"

Wordy shakes his head. "That's just it, Greg. They filled up at a gas station, the last place a camera caught them, and barreled into the woods."

It's been a long day. Greg is running on adrenaline and desperation. He needs a coffee, a shave, sleep. So it's entirely probable he misheard those last four words. Right?

"The woods?" asks Dean. "You mean…you saw them head towards the lake house area?"

"No, I mean they pull out, head down the road, and then turn off into the brush."

Jules regains some colour in her face. She snaps into leader mode with an actual snap of her fingers. "Wordy—where does that brush lead if it were to come out somewhere else?"

Wordy sits back down to type this into mapping software. His hands shake more than Greg is used to seeing, thanks to his own lack of sleep and stress, but his eyes are a hail storm. He's probably also overdue for a dose of medication.

It takes Wordy a few tries to zoom in correctly. None of them say anything about it, and Greg is lovesick for them all over again.

This family of mismatched people won't give up. They never leave each other behind.

Wordy's chin does a funny jolt backwards. Eyebrows scrunched and mouth firmed into a confused shape.

"What?" Jules leans on the back of his chair. "Where would they be?"

Then her own jaw goes slack. She blinks a few times. "This can't be right."

Dean pushes in at her shoulder. "I don't see what's so…oh. Oh man."

Greg doesn't have to look. His gut sinks like a load of bricks, the impossibility of how big this net just became. "Please tell me they didn't take Spike and Ed where I think they did."

Leah mutters to herself, jotting furious notes. Jules is already on her cell, calling a number they haven't had to use in a very long time. Years.

"This can't be possible," Dean explodes all at once.

Peter appears at the door, knocking. "There's a call for—"

"I mean, surely someone would have stopped them!" Dean waves at the screen. "There aren't even any dirt roads going through it, are there?"

"Not that law enforcement knows of," says Wordy.

"Uh." Peter takes another step in. "I'm sorry to interrupt but this can't wait."

"Peter," says Greg, massaging his aching temples. "We're trying to figure something out here, okay? Whoever is calling can't be more important."

"With all due respect, sir, this is more important."

The confrontational tone catches everyone's attention in an instant. Jules even pulls the phone down from her ear.

Greg studies Peter, an officer he trained. Quiet, shy, but steadfast in a way that made Ed like him from day one. Greg too—Peter is honest to a fault. Though only a part-time dispatcher, they all love him.

It hits Greg for the first time that maybe Peter feels this injustice as keenly as they do, that he's struggling with losing these people he's heard in his ears every shift for the past seven years.

When Greg does little more than continue his codfish impression, Peter gathers his courage to say, in a solemn tone that sets everyone's alarm bells off in a choir that Greg can almost hear—

"The FBI's on the phone."