Steve wasn't surprised when he saw the Bronco parked in front of Mike's garage, as he pulled his silver sportscar into the nearest parking spot a few houses down the road. With a loud rattle, the engine of the ailing Porsche turned off and he reached over to the passenger seat to grab the thick case file along with his beige overcoat.
The rain had never let up, and the cold damp air was giving him the chills as he got out of the car and walked toward the DeHaro house, ignoring the thick mist hanging in the air like a silk towel, obscuring his view of the bay.
All lights were turned on at Mike's place, making him feel like he'd just returned from college, eagerly awaiting the welcoming family-style atmosphere. And for all intents and purposes, Steve was looking forward to seeing his best friend again.
But timing couldn't have been worse.
With the file firmly tucked underneath his arm, Steve climbed up the double set of stairs to Mike's front door, having to take several breaks in between when he ran out of air. Finally, with his heart racing and palms sweaty, he knocked twice, not surprised when the door was opened within a few seconds.
"I see you still remember the address."
Mike's voice lost its cheery tune the moment he saw his pale features, his cordial smile disappearing along with it.
"Are you alright? You look like death warmed over. Come on in."
"Yeah, I'm fine…", Steve gasped too fast and entered the warm comforts of Mike's living room, taking a moment to lean against the nearby wall, "Just forgot how many stairs you have."
Taking a couple overdue breaths, he waited for his best friend to close the front door again, hoping the dizziness would vanish by then. When the stars still danced through the living room before his eyes, Steve tried a calming smile to buy himself time, a gesture his old partner knew too well to believe.
"Are you sure you're ok? Do you want to sit down for a moment?"
He flinched when Mike's warm hand appeared on his chest, right above his newest scar. Trying to slow his breathing and hoping the Lieutenant wouldn't feel the incessant throbbing from his strained heart, Steve closed his eyes for a moment and finally nodded in defeat.
"Sitting down sounds great. It's been a long day."
He couldn't shake the feeling of nostalgia when Mike helped him out of both, his overcoat and black dress jacket, before slowly guiding him over to the lime colored couch, decorated with brown and orange pillows.
The scent of books and coffee emanated from every corner of the narrow house, and the soft cushions of the furniture invited the unsuspecting visitor to lean back and relax. It was an atmosphere Steve hadn't enjoyed in a long while, his own apartment having turned into more or less of a storage hub, holding teaching documents, unopened moving boxes still after all these years and other relics of a past he cherished more than life itself.
Until that fateful day happened.
And normality, as he knew it, vanished for good.
He woke up from his daydreaming when he felt the back of Mike's hand on his cheek, carefully checking his temperature as he set a glass of water down on the small dining room table ahead.
"They're making you work overtime again?", the Lieutenant asked worriedly, not expecting an answer as he pointed his chin at the kitchen, "Dan's changing right now and we've got pizza ready. You should eat something, you look terrible. When was the last time you ate?"
"Mike, you can quit the fussing.", Steve turned his head, desperately trying to avoid eye contact with his best friend, unwilling to let him see the storms going on in his mind these days, "Like I said, it's just been a few hectic days."
"A few hectic days never used to make you look pale like that…", the Lieutenant countered and straightened out again, "You're still taking your meds, right? For your heart? You're having all that taken care of?"
"All taken care of, no worries.", hoping to bypass the uncomfortable situation, Steve gestured toward the manila file folder he'd placed on Mike's dining room table, "Now, can we please get to this. It's after midnight already and I gotta be back on campus by 8am tomorrow morning."
"I thought you're not teaching during the summer."
Nodding sheepishly as he leaned into the couch a bit more, feeling his heartrate slow down significantly, Steve sighed.
"I may not teach right now but the work doesn't stop. I need to finish some of my own papers and lesson plans are due in a few days. Max is adding a couple new courses this year and I may be teaching one or two of them, depending on how my other classes fill up. Plus, let's not forget, Lenny and I will be back at headquarters shortly to run Psych Evals. I need to convince him that it's time to stop babysitting and at least let me handle the informal one-on-one mental health discussions. And you know how Lenny is about that…"
"Well, I'll admit I am going to miss seeing him during that whole transition…he's helped us tremendously throughout the years. I am sure the Hospital is happy to have him back full-time in a couple more years.", Mike said absent-mindedly and sat down on the couch next to him, "But I'd be lying if I said I am not looking forward to having you around again. It's been a long four years. This place just isn't the same without that cheeky smile of yours, Buddyboy."
Steve heard his best friend's voice quiver when he said those words, the set of bright blue eyes glistening against the living room light as he stared straight ahead at some distant spot along his bookshelf, jaws clenched tightly.
The unique sobriquet, once an often-used term of endearment, had become a relic of the past; an artifact buried beneath layers of change and maturity, to be cherished dearly but never used again, for the person fitting that description no longer existed, whether Mike wanted to admit that or not.
Steve associated so many emotions with it, mostly pleasant, some downright scary, that hearing it after such a long time overwhelmed his weary soul on that late evening.
They sat there in quiet friendship for many long moments, listening to Dan taking a shower behind closed doors, both men breathing in the same rhythm, as each one of them tried to come to terms with the changes that had happened to the once iconic duo.
Changes that Steve feared might not be entirely reversible.
And as much as he wanted Mike to understand what had happened, the events that had turned him into a mere shadow of the enthusiastic, witty and genial rookie cop some decade ago, he couldn't bear troubling his best friend's worried mind with those petty details.
Mike's job at SFPD's Homicide Division did enough damage to that gentle soul and he would do anything in his power to shield the Lieutenant from any undue drama. After all, Steve was more than capable to fight his own battles. That much he learned as an 8-year old boy growing up in a verbally abusive household.
"You never used to be so quiet."
The Lieutenant's voice was steady and warm when he said that, deep blue eyes still staring straight ahead, not wanting to pressure him into an answer.
"I didn't need to before. Now I do."
Steve tried to keep his response casual yet cryptic and leaned his head against the couch, letting his eyes drift up to the ceiling of Mike's living room and fighting the urge to take a nap when his exhausted body screamed for it.
"You're not going to give me this whole Psychologist-spiel, are you? How you need to listen to your patients? Let them do the talking. Keep your responses vague. Ask open-ended questions and then just nod quietly?", Mike countered with a disapproving grunt. When Steve only grinned, the Lieutenant shook his head and continued, "You know exactly what I mean…At least that hasn't changed yet. You still like to beat around the bush when it comes to certain things."
They fell quiet again, almost too quiet.
As Steve closed his eyes for a brief moment, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere of the cozy house and Mike's reassuring presence by his side, he drew in a deep breath, trying to swallow the overbearing anxiety that had become his constant companion over the past few months.
Beyond the paralyzing fretting over his pulse rate, monitoring the intensity with which his heart was beating, wondering if he'd be able to last through another attack without a trip to the hospital…beyond all that was that very realistic fear that his heart might eventually grow too tired from the constant strain and stop beating altogether.
And no matter how often Doctor Hicks assured him that this outcome was highly improbable thanks to his youth, that he was driving himself crazy over something that wasn't going to happen, it sure didn't feel that way to Steve each time an attack occurred.
With that in mind, how could he even begin to explain to Mike what going throughout his day with that kind of dread weighing down his soul could do to any halfway sane human being? How it was driving him into a bigger psychosis than that damn shooting four years ago? How each time his heart skipped a beat from all the scar tissue affecting its performance, he subconsciously held his breath, hoping he wouldn't drop dead in the middle of the road?
"Mike…have you ever been so scared about something that it robs you of your sleep almost every night?"
Steve nearly jumped out of his skin when the candid question escaped his lips entirely unintentionally. Thoughts and fears that he'd buried so deeply within, and yet, while he was around his best friend, they bubbled to the surface like hot tar and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.
He stayed perfectly still, even holding his breath and secretly hoping that Mike wouldn't acknowledge the embarrassing outburst, that somehow, they could move on to the next topic, pretend he'd never opened his mouth.
But instead, the Lieutenant turned around on the couch, far enough to face him, a set of concerned blue eyes scanning him top to bottom, attempting to peel back the many layers of false confidence Steve had skillfully crafted around himself.
Mike drew in a deep breath and was about to say something when they heard the guest bedroom door open, making room for a freshly showered Dan Robbins, his hair still damp on the edges.
Using the opportunity to recreate some comfortable distance between himself and Mike's bloodhound intuition, Steve tried to get up to greet the young Inspector, when Dan cocked his head and gestured for him to stay put, before sitting down across from them in the rocking chair.
"Am I the only one who feels like it's been a heck of a day?", the young man mumbled absent-mindedly, entirely oblivious to the nervous tension spreading between the two men across from him, as he sipped on a cold cup of tea still awaiting him on the living room table.
"Well, it's time to get to work then, gentlemen.", Mike countered hesitantly, never taking his eyes off his best friend, until Dan pulled the chair closer and disrupted their silent standoff.
Grateful for the temporary distraction to his unintentional admission of fear, Steve ran a hand across his red tie, his fingers tracing the beginning and end of the long and painful scar going down the middle of his sternum, before he cleared his throat.
"I've spent quite a bit of time looking over your three murders…I…ehm…I even cross-referenced it against a couple other cases from the area in a two-hundred-mile perimeter…and you may not like what I have to say."