"Does killing somebody get easier the more experience you have on the job?"
"No…it actually gets harder."
Steve swallowed the bile rising in his throat once again as he recalled one of the most haunting conversations he had over the past few years. Cradling his head in his elbow on top of a stack of file folders piled high on his desk; he took a deep breath, feeling his knees grow weak.
Mike's latest visit had shaken him to the core.
Torn between the grief for Rachel's murder, and seeing his best friend again after what seemed like an eternity; an old scar had ripped wide open deep inside him, releasing long lost emotions he wasn't ready to face all over again.
Long after his last lecture was done with, leaving the corridors of the study hall in a temporary state of complete silence; he'd managed to keep busy working up lesson schedules for the fall.
And he'd succeeded for the longest time. That was, until the stern voice inside him could no longer hold back the memories flooding his weary mind.
They were good memories for the most part.
For those precious few years, he was allowed to partner with the best detective San Francisco had ever seen, learning more about life and family than he'd ever imagined. He even learned to trust unconditionally, where the demons of his past had turned him shy and unwilling to let his guard down.
Unfortunately for him, as his walls crumbled, allowing him to care for his partner more than anybody else in his life, another unwelcome emotion washed in along with it.
It was fear.
Fear that one day, he would lose his partner to something he couldn't stop from happening. Fear that his own hesitation at a young, innocent looking face, could cause him to make a wrong call. Fear that his regret would never be as strong as the grief and hatred he'd feel in his heart, if Mike were to get killed over his mistake.
In the end, Steve was decidedly glad he had been the one to take the bullet that had long been coming their way.
Exhaling slowly when he felt the unwelcome moisture build up on his jacket sleeve, his mind raced back to the fateful conversation he had with Dan about firing that gun. And how he felt he could make a bigger difference here on campus, where yet ironically, he still was carrying.
A shudder ran through his body as he remembered the shock on Barbara Ross's face as he called out her name. How her beautiful eyes captivated him for a brief moment, reminding him of a wild doe in the woods. How he stood there dazed, hesitating for the fraction of a second too long.
And then suddenly, he saw the flash of light and felt the impact against his chest.
The same one that robbed him of all his thought.
In the end it was those fateful moments he'd spent lying on the sidewalk and pondering life that scared him to death. As the sirens slowly approached and breathing became unbearably hard, he envisioned the terror in Mike's face if he saw him like that. Almost certain that he was fatally injured; he prayed that his friend wouldn't have to deal with that image for the rest of his life.
As he felt the warm blood pool beneath his clothes and chest, Steve blamed himself for getting into this situation in the first place. And the effect it would have on everybody around him.
He vaguely remembered coming to on the ride back to the hospital, sensing his partner nearby, feeling strong arms cradling his body as Mike begged him to keep fighting. There were screeching tires, sirens that tore through the silence, trembling hands caressing his face, his breaths growing weaker as the smell of copper surrounded them.
Steve was sure he was going to die in his partner's arms that night.
And had that been the case, his last conscious thoughts would have been filled with guilt and disappointment for letting Mike down, for allowing what Lenny warned him would happen to become bitter reality; for failing his best friend.
Subconsciously running his hand over the large scar on his chest, he slowly straightened back out and took a deep breath, grateful to still be able to do so. As his eyes drifted across the cluttered office to his box of cigarettes, he clenched his jaws at the downright stupid way he'd acted around Mike.
After years of caring guidance from the Lieutenant, he'd let go of all the discipline Mike had instilled into him and resorted back to some confused and immature version of his younger self.
What a complete and utter jerk he had been.
And all that for what? To guard the fact that he still felt ashamed for quitting the police force after two long years? As if somehow it was Mike's fault that he couldn't find the strength to fire a gun when need be? That instead of continuing to work through his issues, he'd decided on the easy road he always knew how to take; running away from the problem hoping that it would somehow erase the past and any pain that came with it?
None of that was Mike's fault, and yet he'd put up his walls around the man he used to trust with his life. The men he worked with side by side, who believed in him long before he ever did.
As if the shame about his misguided attempts at keeping his past separate from his new life wasn't bad enough, hoping to move on from the grief and guilt of an amazing thing coming to an end way too soon, the fact that some manic serial killer had chosen the inopportune time to target Berkeley and himself only made things worse, forcing him to expose his innermost struggles in front of way too many people.
Opting to trade the cigarette for a piece of gum before calling it a night, Steve reached into his desk drawer, when he heard the door to his office creak.