Mike had no idea how long he had been lying there, trying to breathe slowly and shallowly, still not sure if any air was able to seep through the rubble all around him. He knew it would be hours until he would be found; if the building had completely collapsed, like he was sure it had, they would have to begin search and rescue operations from the top down. And he was definitely down.

Awkwardly, with only one usable hand, he had turned the collar of his black topcoat up to cushion the back of his head against the cold floor. The brim of the fedora was pulled down over his face and he was keeping his eyes closed as a precaution; the fine concrete dust was continuing to drift down. And in the stillness and the silence, he thought of Steve. There were so many similarities between Bobby's life story and that of his young partner besides their ages and the proximity of the towns they'd grown up in. He knew Steve had had a strained relationship with his father, and that he'd had a high draft number, which had turned out to be a blessing. And he also knew, because they had talked about it once, that the idealistic Freedom Rider hadn't made up his mind about what he would have done if his draft number had come up, whether he would've reported for duty or fled to Canada as a dodger.

He swallowed heavily, trying not to think about what might have happened to the partner who had surprisingly become his best friend, continuing to hope that because he had been on the top floor, he might have been able to survive unscathed. It was a hope he wouldn't let go of, not until he knew for certain one way or the other.

He felt his right hand shaken gently and suddenly all his senses were on alert. And in spite of everything, he smiled. "Are you there, Bobby?"

There was a soft snort then a quiet, "Yeah… I'm here, Mike."

The older man squeezed back. "Good… good. How are you feeling?"

"Okay… I guess. I still can't feel my legs."

Mike swallowed heavily. He knew that wasn't a good sign. "Well, once they get us out of here, the feeling'll come back." He hoped he sounded more optimistic than he felt. "Listen, ah, you were telling me about when you got drafted. Do you feel up to talking some more?"

There was a slight hesitation before he heard, "Sure… what do you want to know?"

Relaxing, Mike smiled again. "Tell me what it was like, being over there…"

# # # # #

He was sitting on the back bumper of one of the firetrucks, watching the small crane lifting chunks of broken concrete and twisted metal away from the edges of what once had been a very big building. But surprisingly, from this vantage point, the pile of rubble was smaller than he had expected, which was encouraging.

His head wound had been cleaned and bandaged and his leg was now being locked after. In the dark all around him people were milling about: cops, firemen, people dressed like construction workers, which he assumed they were. More were arriving all the time. From the snippets of conversation he had overheard, this was, as far as anyone knew right now, the biggest disaster site in The City. And larger cranes, ones that would tower over the pile and be able to remove the debris at the top, were on their way as were lights that would help illuminate the entire area.

It was too dark to see his watch, and he didn't want to expend the energy, but he was pretty sure it was the middle of the night, that the rising sun was still hours away.

He could hear someone nearby talking loudly but his attention was on the fire captain that had helped him down and was now standing nearby, conversing with several of his men, gesturing at the building. He felt someone taping his right knee and looked down into the expectant face of the ambulance attendant looking after him. The stern-faced young man had his eyebrows raised. "Did you hear me?" he asked.

Steve shrugged slightly. "What?"

"I said, you're going to need stitches, and I can't do that here. You need to go to the hospital."

Wincing, the cop shook his head, raising his voice. "I'm not going anywhere! Just - just do what you have to do… tape it up, I don't care, but I'm going back up there -!"

"Hey!" The fire captain's voice cut through the air and they both stopped, looking at him as he quickly approached. "What's going on here?"

The ambulance attendant snorted. "He needs stitches in his leg, he should go -"

"I'm not going anywhere!" Steve interrupted angrily.

The captain raised both hands. "Quiet, both of you. Nobody has time for this." He paused briefly, glancing at the young detective almost sympathetically before turning his attention to the medic. "What can you do for him here?"

There was a brief moment of defiance, then the attendant sighed. "I guess I can pull the edges together with surgical tape and wrap his leg tight." He shrugged helplessly.

The captain looked at Steve. "Does that work for you?"

The cop nodded sharply.

The captain dropped his hands. "Okay, fine. Can I get back to work now?"

Both young men nodded.

# # # # #

"But when I got home… I didn't know what to do…"

"I can understand that," Mike said softly. "War changes everybody…"

"Were you in the war?"

"World War Two? Yeah, I sure was. I was a Marine in the Pacific."

There was a brief hesitation. "Did you kill anybody?"

Mike swallowed heavily. "Yeah…" he answered softly, "I did."

"It feels horrible, doesn't it?"

"Yes… yes, it does…"

They fell silent for a long time.

# # # # #

"What are you doing back up here? I thought for sure they were gonna ship your sorry ass to the hospital when they saw you." Neil looked up with a quick grin when Steve finally it made it back up the ruins to where the digging was concentrated. The middle-aged guard straightened up briefly, straining in the darkness to stare at the fresh bandage on the cop's forehead. When Steve opened his mouth to retort, he threw up his hands. "I know, I know, you're not leaving till we find your partner." His right hand shot out and he gripped the younger man's shoulder, squeezing. "Neither am I." He felt a shudder under his hand and squeezed again then flashed another quick smile as he turned back to the dig. "Well, you look a little better anyway… cleaner."

Suddenly overwhelmed by the spontaneous, and totally unexpected, solidarity, Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then got back to work.

# # # # #

"So, ah, so who's Patty?"

They had been quiet for quite awhile before Mike squeezed Bobby's hand again, feeling the long fingers curl around his own. There was a warm laugh.

"Ah… Patty…" A soft sigh in a brief pause. "When I got home from 'Nam, it didn't feel like I fit in anymore, you know? The vets, they weren't treated very well… we were hated…"

"Yeah, I remember…"

"I'd changed over there. I was against the war when I came back… went to all those anti-war protests they had here… I didn't go home, back to Merced; I couldn't face my father. I knew he wouldn't understand…"

"So what did you do?"

There was a long pause. "I didn't do anything," Bobby said finally, softly. "I felt… isolated… alone. It felt like only other vets knew what I had gone through, nobody else. And I had no skills, I'd never had a real job." There was a deep sigh. "So there I was, twenty-five and living on the streets… and now I've been living on the streets for six years…"

Mike felt his hand squeezed and he smiled sadly to himself. "That's a long time…"

"Yeah, it is…. But I'm not alone, ya know…. There's a lot a vets on the streets… a small army." There was a short, ironic snort and Mike's smile got a little wider, hoping the troubled young man could hear his soft, appreciative chuckle. "I, ah, I started doing drugs… to forget, you know…. And it worked. I did forget. But it got out of hand…" He squeezed Mike's hand tightly and the older man held his breath. "I started doing heroin…"

# # # # #

He was slightly hunched over, accepting a chunk of concrete to pass along to the person behind him, when a wave of dizziness washed over him suddenly. He swayed dangerously, feeling the concrete block being pulled from his grasp, a startled voice yelling "Hey!", and the strong grip of hands on his upper arms as the world swam and his knees buckled. Before he knew it he was sitting down, his head being forced between his upraised knees by a gentle hand on the back of his neck as he felt people crowd around him.

As he waited for the spinning to stop, there was a flurry of activity around him that he barely clocked then two strong hands gripped his shoulders, they were pushed back slightly and his head was raised. Neil was staring at him, and even in the dim illumination from the headlamps and occasional flashlight bouncing around, he could see the worry in the dark eyes.

"Enough, all right?" Neil said sharply, shaking the younger man's shoulders lightly to make sure he had his attention. "I know you don't want to stop, but you're putting yourself, and everybody else up here," he gestured around them with his head, "in jeopardy right now. You understand?"

Steve stared at him with as much defiance as he could muster then he sagged slightly, closing his eyes and nodding slowly.

"All right." Neil's tone softened and his grip tightened slightly. He glanced to his right then stared into the green eyes watching him pleadingly. "Look, ah, there's a good spot just over there where you can be out of our way but still around… until you feel better enough to chip in again… okay?"

After receiving another reluctant nod, Neil smiled. He helped the injured young cop to his feet and they moved unsteadily several yards away. Steve sat slowly, with the guard's help, then Neil quickly disappeared, scampering over the rubble towards the other end, returning about a minute later with something balled up in his arms. "Here," he said, as he shook out the beige raincoat that had been discarded hours earlier. He leaned down, draping the coat over Steve's shoulders and pulling it close around his neck. "That should keep you warm till you feel strong enough to get back to work," he chuckled, ruffling the cop's dirty and disheveled light brown hair before he turned away.

# # # # #

"Are you still an addict?"

There was another soft snort. "No…believe it or not. And I have Patty to thank for that…"

"Why? What did she do?"

"Saved my life… literally and figuratively." There was a warmth in his tone that made Mike smile again.

"How did she do that?"

"She took my kit away."

"You're kidding? Just like that?"

Bobby chuckled softly, as if remembering something fondly. "Yeah, just like that. I was pretty strung out when she met me. She'd been living on the streets herself for over ten years by then. Her husband had died a coupla years before. He was a drunk and they had no savings and she couldn't pay the rent and got tossed out on the street. But she stayed straight, she stayed sober. I don't know how she did it but she did it…"

Bobby stopped talking suddenly. After the rush of words, there was a sudden intake of breath, a sharp gasp, and Mike felt the fingers around his hand tighten with an almost bone-crushing intensity. Mike held his breath and waited, straining to hear anything that would tell him what was going on.

After several long tense seconds, the fingers gripping his own relaxed and there was long loud exhale and then silence. Mike waited, his heart starting to pound. "Bobby…?" Still more silence. "Bobby!"