"Are you alright?"

Swallowing hard, Steve nodded faintly, as he watched Mike enter the scene, his features unreadable and his voice frighteningly sterile. He tried to make eye contact, only to meet his old partners blue eyes in seemingly cold indifference.

"Yeah I'm alright.", Steve answered casually, as he felt Mike's hand grasping his elbow tightly.

"I got shot at-", he continued when the Lieutenant hauled him around forcefully and pushed him chest first against the cab of the Porsche, nearly making him hit his chin on the roof.

"Not another word.", Mike growled, his strong fingers digging into the center of his back to keep him firmly in place. Even from his distance he could sense the intense anger radiating through every pore of Mike's body- and for once, it scared the hell out of him.

Both, humbled and deeply worried about the lie his partner had created about the current situation, Steve decided it was to his best interest to keep quiet and play along nicely.

"Thank you so much, Sergeant Ferris.", the Lieutenant finally said, his voice cordial as ever now, "Your men did wonderful. I am so sorry about the misunderstanding when it came to one of our undercovers. Sometimes these cases get away from us. I hope we didn't cause you any undo trouble. I'll be sure to have my department send a detailed letter of apology to yours."

"Don't worry about it. No trouble at all, Lieutenant Stone…Sorry about the damage to the Porsche. Looks like it didn't hold up quite as well as our patrol unit. I will say, your men know how to drive. For a minute I thought we were chasing Mario Andretti.", the officer answered behind his back as Steve tried to glance around, only to feel Mike's grasp tighten, "Here's his gun back. Do you want me to remove his cuffs?"

"No, that won't be necessary, not yet anyways. Might as well stay in character in case we're being watched from afar.", Mike noted and pulled him away from the Porsche, "I'll take him downtown with me. If you could do me a favor though and tow his car back to Berkeley. Looks as though one of the tires might be going flat."

"You got it, Lieutenant. Let us know if you need anything else."

As Mike slowly chaperoned him away from the Porsche, Steve risked a glance down at the car, not sure what flat tire his old partner was talking about, as they all seemed fine. On the downside, his rear fender was bent outward and scratched up heavily.

So much for damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Watching most of the squad cars turn off their lights again and leave the scene, Steve was surprised when Mike pushed him against the driver's side of the waiting Galaxy, continuing his role play unaffected.

As the same strong hand returned to the center of his back, Steve took a deep breath, trying to stretch his strained shoulders against the tight cuffs. Even if Mike noticed the move, he didn't care much about it. Instead, he pulled out his black notepad, slapped it onto the roof of the tan sedan and sighed in frustration, as he wrote down some notes.

"You...eh…you're going to leave those cuffs on?", Steve tried casually, only to find himself confronted with Mike's angry glare. Nodding slowly, the Lieutenant released a faint grunt before turning his attention back to his notepad.

"Until I get my temper back under control…yes…"

"Somebody shot at me…tried to kill me in the parking lot back at Berkeley. They were at my office and then lured me into the open.", Steve whispered and leaned heavier against the Galaxy when he felt his legs beginning to shake at the thought of how close he'd come to add to the ever growing list of murder victims across town, "I…I saw them drive off in a red firebird and gave chase. I figured if I could attract enough police attention, we could apprehend our killer."

Tapping his pen aimlessly against the white notepaper, Mike's mind seemed miles away, before he cleared his throat again.

"And that worked out rather well, now didn't it…", he growled and glanced back over to the two remaining patrol units, "Stephen, you are starting to have an uncanny ability to make a bad situation worse."

"And just what would you have wanted me to do, hm?", he argued, finally running out of patience.

Straightening back out and pulling away from the tan sedan, Steve approached his old partner, only to have Mike poke an angry finger at his chest.

"Use that bright mind of yours, for god's sake.", the Lieutenant retorted furiously, "Whoever is killing all these people is playing you. And you're ever so eager to let them. You should have called the police, not go after them yourself. You're not a cop any more. And you didn't have the authority to do this…You could have gotten yourself killed, damnit. And maybe that was the whole plan."

Steve fell silent when Mike's candid words started to sink in. As the unwelcome worry about the bigger picture of this case fell into place, he became nauseous.

"Somebody is trying to get me framed for all these killings…and what better way for the killer to get away than to have me die in a fiery crash during a police chase…"

Nodding, Mike pointed his thumb back at the intersection where a tow truck was arriving to take his Porsche away.

"And you came pretty close. I wish you had seen the pickup truck that barely missed you as you went careening across the street. He almost t-boned that small car of yours and would have killed you. That was beyond…foolish."

Falling silent, Steve glanced at his boots, trying to organize the maze of thoughts in his head. As his trained mind covered his last two years at Berkeley, trying to identify anybody who would have a good motive for what was happening, he never noticed Mike's warm hands appearing on his shoulders, seemingly trying to calm both of them down.

"You're staying with me tonight.", the Lieutenant finally said and forced him to look up, "Somebody is obviously out to kill you and I am tired of being worried sick about your safety. Besides, I need you in on this investigation to find out who has a motive for this…this killing spree. So, you better get your Inspector cap back on, Professor."

Knowing that this wasn't a debatable request, Steve nodded, before a faint smile spread on his lips.

"Only under one condition…three actually.", Mike's eyes darkened instantly and the hands on his shoulders tightened their grasp, clearly expecting another bout of defiance, "Take off the handcuffs, give me my gun back and let me drive the old tank."