Chapter 2: Kapolei

Waipahu was not exactly the world-famous holiday hub that Honolulu and Waikiki were, but that was hardly going to be an issue. Almost every mainstream hotel or hostel used credit card checks these days, and neither teen had one to check. Kyle and June had both been called en route and confirmed that none of theirs were missing. Nevertheless, that was where the bus they had boarded had been headed. Although they could not rule out the possibility that the teenagers had disembarked at an earlier stop, Magnum and Higgins knew their best chance of spotting them lay in the Waipahu transit centre and the possibility of camera footage. Neither one of them was particularly familiar with the transit centre there, however, so there was no telling what they might find. Higgins had asked the worried parents if they could make a list of any friends or relations either of the two teens had in the general direction of Waipahu.

"They must have a contact there: someone they're going to stay with," she shrugged, slipping her mobile back into her purse. This may be the one night of the year she could run around the island in a mediaeval costume and not raise eyebrows, but the lack of pockets was seriously grating.

"Hmm," responded Magnum, focussing on the road far more than he ever did usually. He had returned to the uncommunicative neanderthal the moment they'd got back in the Ferrari. Whether he knew it or not, it was starting to get on his partner's nerves.

"Of course, they might just be heading there to meet our alien overlords and sell the planet into unending slavery," trilled Higgins. Over the course of several animated discussions, she had promised not to tackle Magnum about how he was treating Rick. She had said nothing about ignoring how he was treating her.

"Hmm," hummed Magnum again. Then the sentence replayed itself in his brain. "Wait, what?"

"Oh, you are awake. I wondered," she sniped. "Care to tell me what's going on in there, or is it part of this top-secret case you're working on that we both know doesn't actually exist?"

"Higgy…" Thomas began. He got no further.

"I thought we had got past this, Magnum," Higgy warned. "You promised me it wasn't going to affect our work."

"Yeah, and it isn't," he shrugged. "You're throwing around ideas, that's all. When we have actual evidence, we have actual discussions. The fact I'm a little less chatty when driving is hardly a hanging offence!"

"Something is on your mind: I can tell," she pointed out. "If it had nothing to do with me, you would have either told me that already, or told me the whole story. The fact you have done neither speaks volumes!"

"It's nothing," retorted Magnum, his voice sharpening in a heartbeat. "It's one word! One word I got rattling around my brain, that won't leave me alone."

"You mean when June called Rick my husband?" Higgy pressed. She would drag it out of him, nothing or not! Better a flaming row that clears the air than sulky silence all evening.

Magnum shook his head. "No, not that. That's an easy mistake to make and she doesn't know either of you from Adam."

Higgy frowned. That was unexpected. "Then what?"

"Yet," Magnum answered, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.

The frown deepened. "What?"

"Yet," Thomas repeated. "You didn't say he wasn't your husband. You said he wasn't your husband yet."

For a few interminable moments, Juliet was silent. The word had barely registered at the time. She sat back in her seat pensively, staring at the road ahead. "Oh."

"You didn't know you'd said it?" Thomas asked, eyes flicking between her and the road.

This time it was Juliet's turn to resort to single syllables. "No."

"Did you mean it?" Thomas persisted. "I mean: is that really on the table already?"

Juliet thought about this. They hadn't talked about marriage as such, but they had talked about other things. They agreed before they even started – well, officially started – that this was serious: that they were both in it for the long haul. There was too much at stake to risk it all for anything less! They had slipped into domesticity so easily in London that it had crossed her mind, but it had never come up in conversation. Since their return, life had taken over and somehow, most nights, she had ended up at his apartment. It was ironic really: here she was with a home that could have housed their entire group and had more rooms left spare than used, yet still she chose to spend her nights in a tiny, one bedroom apartment with neighbours on all sides. "Yes," she said, finally. "Yes, I suppose it is."

XXXX

Rick dodged a werewolf, then a zombie, a tray of empty glasses in his hands. They wobbled a bit, but nothing fell. He made it back to the bar without further undead incursions, though there was one moment a pirate nearly careened into him. No more rum for that one! Behind him, the crowd was dancing to Thriller. There was no question he'd booked the right band. They'd kept the bar buzzing all evening. The kid he'd promised to keep an eye on was gone now, and his service dog with him. He'd texted his dad to come pick him up when the noise started getting louder and the crowd denser. By the look of things, he'd had fun though, and Rick was glad of that.

He set the tray down on the bar and started unloading the empties. June was sitting nearby with Kumu, scanning the crowd and talking directly into each other's ears. It was the only way to hear anything now: the party was at its peak and the music at its loudest. In an hour or so, the crowds would start to thin and disperse, heading home or, possibly, to a club somewhere. That was when their own little party was supposed to start. Shammy would be here by then, and hopefully Jules would be back with the wandering teenagers in tow. Thomas too, of course.

Thomas.

Part of him hoped Thomas would stay for the party. A big part of him. Most of him, really. There was just this one tiny little, miniscule iota of his being that dreaded what might happen if he did. Sure, they were brothers, and they loved each other like brothers, TC had that much right, but he knew his brother. Thomas wasn't okay with things. With him. Juliet dating someone else might have been difficult enough for him. If the way Rick had felt watching her with Ethan was any indication of what Tommy was going through right now, he would hardly choose to be around them. Even though, on the rare occasions the three of them were in the same room together, Rick made a point of keeping his hands to himself. That wasn't the problem though, and he knew it. He should have said something to Thomas first.

A glass slipped through his fingers and smashed on the floor. Rick swore and dived to scoop up the fragmented remains. Almost immediately he swore again and resurfaced holding his hand. Blood oozed between his fingers faster than he would have liked.

"I got it, Orville," called TC, arriving with dustpan and brush at the ready. "Go get that cleaned up."

"I can help," offered June, hurrying round to the other side of the bar. "I'm a nurse: it's what I do. Where's your first aid kit?"

"There's one in the kitchen and one in the office," replied Rick.

June nodded and filled a clean glass with water. "Your office will be easier: you can sit down, for starters."

Once in the office, attempting not to bleed on his paperwork, Rick sat down and let June take charge. The first aid kit was a decent one: it had to be when you were an FOM! June cleared a space on the desk and set to work. Rick winced a bit, but not much. He'd had far worse.

"Thank you for doing this," muttered Rick. "It was stupid of me: my mind was on other things."

"Things like your girlfriend?" June smiled. "You don't get on with her partner much, do you."

"That's just a recent, temporary thing," Rick shrugged. "Tommy and me, we go way back. We served together: he's my brother. We're just having a hard time adjusting to new realities, him and I. It's sorta through him that I got to know Jules, but he wasn't expecting it when we got together."

"You and Jules knew each other for a while before you became a couple?" June asked, keeping her patient's mind off the pain and the blood.

"Years," nodded Rick, mulling something over. "She was a little different back then though. More walls. Hey, can I ask you something personal?"

"I reserve the right not to answer, but go ahead and ask," shrugged June.

"When you lost your husband – Anthony's father – how long did it take before you felt you were over it? Able to fall in love again? To, maybe, get engaged again?"

June sighed and looked at him. "Those are three very different things," she replied. "I don't know that I'll ever fully be over it. I know I'll never stop loving Anthony's father. But that doesn't stop me loving someone else. Let me guess. Those walls you mentioned: Jules lost someone close?"

"Her fiancé," nodded Rick. "He was murdered too."

June nodded. "Don't let that stop you. If she's not ready, she'll tell you, but remember that "not ready" is not the same as "not ever". I wasn't ready the first time Kyle asked me. We agreed that when I was, I would ask him. Took me just over six months, but then something just clicked. I realised I had been given a second chance to find love, and I was wasting time. I went down to the store where he works right after I had finished my shift and asked him right there in front of everyone, customers and all. We've never looked back."

"So, just… be patient, is that what you're saying?" Rick queried. "Don't worry if she sometimes remembers him or talks about him."

"Be patient, yes," June nodded, "but be clear too. Tell her what you want from this. She has to know there's a decision to make if you want her to make it. And let her talk. Talking about those we've lost helps, you must know that. Especially when it's someone close, and even more so when we lose them suddenly. It reminds us that they were there, they existed, they mattered to us… and we mattered to them. It hurts to remember losing someone we've loved so much, even if, like me, you believe they've moved on to a better place now. Talking about them hurts too, but it's like lancing a boil. It lets out some of that pain until we can remember them without feeling the world crashing down around us, or the unwillingness of our lungs to operate or our heart to beat. Talking about them helps get the pain and the loss and the anger out of our way so that we can reach the good memories of them, the ones we want to treasure, without feeling like we're picking up shards of broken glass every time we remember them."

"Yeah," frowned Rick, looking down at his hand, "I can relate to that. I've never lost someone I was in love with, the way Jules was, but I've lost family."

"Loving them didn't stop you loving others, did it?" June pointed out.

"Well, no, but…"

"Love is love," shrugged June. "It's not about more or less, it's about yes or no. Do you love her? Does she love you? Whether it's romantic or platonic, it only matters that you're on the same page. After that it's all just about trust and communication."

XXXX

There was no guarantee that Anthony and Maria would have disembarked their bus at Waipahu transit centre, but it was the only stop Higgins and Magnum were even vaguely sure would have security footage. In other words: it was worth a try. There was no guard shack at Hikimoe Street, however, and that meant there were no security cameras either. At least, none pointed in the right direction!

Magnum groaned and turned to Higgins. "Plan B?"

Kyle had sent over the names of as many contacts in the Waipahu area and beyond as he could think of that either Anthony or Maria knew. There weren't many. Magnum held out his hand for the list. Higgins passed him her phone and pulled out her laptop. As she endeavoured to identify possible routes from Waipahu, she shuffled in her seat, elbowing swathes of fabric out of the way of her hands.

"Why are you in that get up anyway, Higgy?" Magnum enquired. "I didn't take you for the damsel in distress type!"

"I'm not," she muttered, tucking a stray lock of hair back into her wimple, "and I'm Maid Marian: hardly a damsel in distress! She saves Robin as often as he saves her, by my count."

"Yeah, but still…" The penny dropped. Rick and Higgy. Halloween. That haunted house case. "Oh. Right. That Maid Marian. You two weren't together then, though, were you?"

Higgins looked round with a slight frown. "Of course not! It was the last time either of us dressed up for Halloween though, and I teased him a little. No: if we were an item back then we would have said something."

"Would you, though?" Thomas queried.

Higgins' eyebrows rose.

"Sorry. Forget I said that," Thomas sighed. "It was stupid of me."

"Precisely," murmured Higgins, turning back to her laptop. "Right, we have so many options they could just about be anywhere on the island by now."

"Let's assume they're headed in the same direction then," suggested Magnum.

"Without security footage to verify we can't even assume they took the bus as far as this! Maybe they're in Aiea or Salt Lake!" Higgins argued, throwing up her hands. "We have nothing to go on, Magnum!"

"We have their dad's list, that's something," he shrugged. "Look, Higgy, just put yourself in their shoes. You're running away from home. You're scared, but you're together. You need somewhere to sleep that won't ask too many questions. Where do you go?"

"Me? A homeless shelter," shrugged Higgins. "I can be whoever I want there and nobody need know any different."

"That's more difficult if there's two of you," he argued, "especially if you have parents who might send out an amber alert."

"Okay, where would you go?" Higgins enquired.

"Well, my first choice would be some friend whose parents were out of town for a while," he surmised, scrolling down the list from Kyle. "From this it looks like I might have three options: one in Kapolei, one here in Waipahu, and the third in Makaha. I say we check them out, starting with the one here and working our way out to the one in Makaha."

Higgins shrugged her eyebrows. "Might as well. It's not like there's anything else."

"What's wrong?"

Juliet looked at him askance. "What do you mean?"

Magnum chuckled. "This is not the never-say-die, indomitable, British stiff-upper-lip, utter stubbornness I have come to expect from you Higgins! You almost sound like you don't actually want to find these kids!"

Higgins sighed. "Let's just say I'm feeling a little conflicted."

"About what?" Magnum pressed. "They're kids and they're missing!"

"They're teenagers who have clearly deliberately planned to run away," she pointed out. "They're not little kids who have got lost! You saw their backpacks."

"Okay," he shrugged, "but they're not adults yet, either of them."

"Don't you at least think we should find out why they ran away?" Higgins queried. "I mean: there might be some very valid reason for their absence. Do we really want to drag them back if that's the case?"

"If that's the case, probably not," he agreed, "but, if that's the case, they're probably still gonna need our help. Besides: the easiest way to find out why they ran is just to find them and ask them."

"That I grant you," sighed Higgins, "I just feel like we're missing something obvious here."

"Well," shrugged Magnum, "we can try to work out what that is while we check these addresses. Come on."

The first of the three was a house on Hulahe street. It was swathed in utter darkness with no car in the driveway. All the same, after a full inspection of the exterior, Higgins knocked first. It was well after ten o'clock and heading for eleven. The occupants may well just be in bed. If those occupants happened to be the teens they were after, and they tried to head out the back, she and Thomas could easily catch them up. When no response came to the persistent knocking, she stepped back and let Magnum pick the lock. She was faster, but he needed the practise.

Inside, the house had that silent stillness that all unoccupied houses seem to have. Nevertheless, they quietly worked their way through each of the rooms, meeting back at the door. Higgins shook her head. Magnum just shrugged.

"One down, two to go," he murmured, leading the way back to the Ferrari.

XXXX

Rick looked down at his hand. It stung a bit, particularly when he forgot about it and hit the wound on something, but the bandage was holding up well against the rigors of the job. June had left, now it was clear the teens were not going to turn up at the bar, and Kumu was chatting with Shammy, in full costume as Doctor Everett Scott. TC was busy with a customer. Rick looked down and flexed his fingers again. It was the ache more than the sting that was bugging him. He had some painkillers out in the car though.

"Hey, TC, you okay here for a minute?" Rick asked, nudging his friend. "I'm just gonna nip out to the car and back."

"Yeah, no problem, brother: I got this," nodded TC.

Rick ducked out through the back door. His car was parked close by, but he had barely reached the door when he heard the low murmur of voices. He frowned. There were plenty of reasons why two people might take themselves somewhere quiet and at least reasonably private, but this didn't sound like one of the more innocent ones. He tipped his head to the sound and edged closer, listening. His jaw tightened at what he heard. Not here. Not around his bar. He was not having that happen here. The question was: what to do about it? If he went for backup, the dealer and his customer may both vanish into the crowds. If he tackled them alone, he risked taking on two people, at least one of whom was very likely armed. He chewed his lip in thought and pulled out his phone. The first text was to TC.

"Get out here ASAP. Quietly. Minor problem."

The second was to Katsumoto.

"Drug dealer behind bar. TC + me on it. Will hold them here for you."

By the time the text sent, TC was by his side. Rick showed him the text he had sent Katsumoto and signalled where the dealer was. There had been some haggling over the price, but it sounded like his current deal was nearly done. TC nodded and followed Rick around the corner. The buyer was fast on his feet and already turning away, but it was the dealer they were really after. TC grabbed him and pinned his arms. Rick deftly removed the knife that had made its way into their quarry's hand.

"You picked the wrong bar to pollute, pal," snarled Rick.

"This here is our bar," growled TC, "and we don't take kindly to cowards like you poisoning our customers."

The dealer looked from one to the other of them. "So what? You gonna beat me up? Won't be the first time, and you'll only end up wishing you'd stayed out of it!"

"We're not gonna beat you up!" Rick scoffed. "We're the good guys! Nah, we're just gonna tie you up and wait for a detective friend of ours to come collect you. Oh, and we'll lock you in the walk-in too, just in case you got any more of these little babies on you." Rick spun the knife in his fingers. "Here's hoping it's a quiet night for him, or who knows how long you'll be in there!"

XXXX

Kapolei was a little further west of Waipahu, and the address Kyle had provided took Higgins and Magnum into a fairly recently built part of town. They pulled up outside a house at the far end of a cul de sac, set a little further back from the road than some, with a large driveway that now included a red Ferrari.

"It's like Brookside with palm trees," commented Higgins, climbing out of the car and looking round.

"Say what now?" Magnum chuckled, throwing her an odd look.

"British soap opera from long ago," replied Higgy, rolling her eyes. "Don't even know if it's still on the telly!"

There was no chance they had the address wrong: you could hear the music from the driveway.

"Okay, how much do you want to bet our teenage runaways are in there, partying it up with their buddies?" Magnum chuckled.

Higgins tipped her head to one side. "I don't know, Magnum. Remember the backpacks?"

"Costumes for the party and an overnight bag," laughed her partner. "Come on: didn't you ever sneak out to one of these things when you were in school?"

"I was in boarding school, Magnum," Higgins reminded him. "What chums I had were in there with me and if any of the daisies had any such parties, we certainly did not get invited!"

Magnum stopped in his tracks and looked at her. "Daisies?"

"Day girls," Higgins explained. "Girls who attended during teaching hours then went home again in the evening."

"Huh," he opined. "And they didn't get on with the girls who didn't?"

"Ah, no, not exactly," laughed Higgy. "No, the reason my chums and I were never invited to such events was more a matter of class than anything else. We were scholarship girls, all four of us. We had a room to ourselves. We kept out of the way of the little princesses who thought they ruled the place, and we wiped the floor with them in every test we ever sat. I didn't wait until I joined MI6 to start learning to fight!"

"All four, huh?" Magnum chuckled. "Please tell me one now solves crimes and the other two own a bar!"

Higgy raised an eyebrow at this. Rick had made the same comparison back in London when she had told him the story. Of course, he had already met the one who solved crimes. He still hadn't told her what Jane had said to him that day, before the bus incident occurred, but she thought she could guess. The memory of the bus flashed across her mind again and her footing faltered.

"Higgy?"

Magnum's voice broke the fragile bubble of her reverie and Juliet looked round. "Hmm? Oh! No, no pub, I'm afraid. One does work for Scotland Yard though. Her name's Jane. She helped us with the London case."

"Oh," murmured Magnum. His brow wrinkled and he looked away. "Hey, what just happened there? One minute you were okay and smiling, the next you weren't. Was it something I said?"

"No," Juliet shook her head and paused. They were about half way up the driveway. "No, nothing like that. It's just…" She tailed off, unsure how much to share with Thomas. He had always been a good listener, but he'd never had to listen to her talk about Rick before. And with things as they were…

"What? What is it?" Thomas frowned. He had stopped walking when he noticed she had. Now he walked back the few paces to her side. "It's about Rick, isn't it?"

"I had no idea how much I cared for him until I thought he was gone, I swear," promised Juliet, watching her partner like he might bolt at any second.

"He told me you thought the bus hit him at first," Thomas admitted, letting his mind go over that phone call for the thousandth time and more. "That a problem, brother?" The words echoed in his mind like the cry of some accusing raven. "He said you were a little shaken by it."

"That's an understatement!" Juliet sighed, her brows flitting upwards again. "When did he say that?"

"When he called to check in, just after you two had got back to your flat," replied Thomas. "Why?"

"Ah, well yes, I suppose that would rather cover it," she admitted. "It wasn't until later that he found out just how much it had affected me."

Thomas tipped his head to one side and frowned, watching and waiting patiently.

"I was in an alley between buildings when the bus went past the end of it," Juliet began. "He was chasing our murderer and was just at the edge of my view, then the bus went by and he was gone. Time just seemed to stand still. It was like the world stopped. I couldn't breathe. I was sure my heart had stopped beating. Then the bus was gone and he was there, standing in the middle of the road with car horns blaring. It was like somebody had pressed pause, then play: sound came back along with everything else. I may have had a minor meltdown then, and when he got back to me I said some pretty horrible things to him. Things I had to apologise for later, along with one or two other things that happened in between."

"Things like?" Thomas pressed. He wasn't usually this pushy when Juliet had something on her mind, but there were things he wanted to know. He had no right to know them, and he didn't really expect an answer from either of them if he asked them directly, but maybe he might get enough information here to satisfy at least one point that irked him.

Juliet paused, looking down at her hands. She nodded to herself, as if having come to a decision. "I couldn't sleep. All I could see was that bus, every time I closed my eyes. It was like a part of me was stuck there in that fraction of a second where I felt the world imploding around me. I can only remember feeling like that once before: when I found out that Richard was dead." She let the words sink in for a moment. "But this wasn't Richard, it was Rick. And I never expected to feel like that again. Not even for one of my friends. I had to try and get it out of my head, so I went through to the kitchen and started cleaning. Some inane, overdue task that I could focus on without having to think too much. He heard me, came through, asked what was going on. I told him, at least I told him I couldn't stop seeing the bus, and I reached out to him. I reached out to him, Thomas, not the other way round. I hugged him, then he put his arms around me. I don't know who kissed whom first: we both thought it was ourselves the next morning. Maybe we met in the middle somewhere. Either way, we kissed. Dragging myself out of that kiss was one of the hardest things I have had to do, but I did, because I knew I wasn't in the right headspace and I didn't want to wake up next to him the next day and wonder if he was only there because he thought I needed him. Needless to say, there were a series of awkward conversations the next morning where we each tried to apologise to the other, but things had changed between us and no amount of apologies could change them back. And no matter how much he tried to apologise, it was my fault, not his, that things changed. My fault he was there. My arms that went round him first."

"You really had no idea you felt that way about him?" Thomas asked after a moment.

"I knew I felt something for him," Juliet shrugged. "It wasn't what I'd call love. I was fond of him, of course. I trusted him. There were… moments, shall we say, when I'd looked at him with other eyes. He does scrub up very well, in his uniform, even if he does make the most bizarre sandwiches and can't sing for sixpence!"

Thomas frowned. "I feel I should know this moment, but I don't."

"You were busy being kidnapped," Juliet supplied. She frowned down at her hands again. "You know I haven't even told him that yet. We've talked about love, but not… not anything else. Really didn't expect to be telling you that before him!"

"Why are you telling me this?" Thomas asked, scrutinising her averted face.

Juliet shrugged. "It felt like you needed to know. Like I needed you to know. I was the catalyst. I started this. Not him. He would have gone on for I don't know how long without saying anything if I hadn't. He asked me about you, you know. He asked if there had ever been, or might ever be, more than friendship between you and me. My answer was no. I told him you were like a brother to me. An annoying little brother, to be precise. I still believe he would have walked away from this if I'd said anything else. You should know that. You need to know that."

Thomas was silent for a moment then shook his head and started walking again. "You know I'm older than you, right?"

"And your point is?" Higgy quipped, falling into step beside him.

Magnum chuckled. "So: I think the teens are here, you think they're not. Care to make it interesting?"

Higgy pursed her lips and considered this. "Okay," she nodded. "Winner gets to drive the Ferrari wherever we end up headed next."

Magnum laughed. "You're on!"

The drive to Makaha took just over half an hour, and Higgy loved every minute of it!

XXXX

Katsumoto wasn't quite as hacked off as usual by the civilian arrest at La Mariana. In fact, he was almost cheerful. A colleague went about the intricacies of arresting the dealer formally while he took down Rick and TC's statements himself.

"Nice to get one of the real monsters off the street at Halloween," he joked. "Is this the first time you've had drugs show up here, or just the first time you've been able to catch them?"

Rick shook his head. "We haven't spotted anything before tonight, but we wouldn't have caught this guy if I hadn't had to duck out to the car for some painkillers." He waved his bandaged hand in evidence. "If we had any clue this was going on, you'd have been the first to know."

"Sure I wouldn't have been second? Third maybe?" Gordy grinned.

"Maybe once," shrugged TC, with a teasing smile, "but we know you better now. Besides: Tommy and Higgy are off on a case somewhere anyway!"

"There's been an increase in the drugs trade recently," Katsumoto informed them, slipping back into his formal self. "Keep an eye out: where there's one, there's probably more. You're gonna need to watch out for other things too. This guy isn't exactly top of the food chain. When he said you'd regret this, he probably meant it. His bosses will hear what happened and, when they do, might want to take some kind of revenge. You need to be careful."

"Duly noted," nodded TC. "What are we talking here? A couple of heavies showing up with baseball bats or…"

"I don't know," cut in Gordy, shaking his head. "These drugs aren't coming from the usual sources. There's a new player on the island, and they're untested. We have no idea how they'll react. I do know that any new player challenged for the first time will want to make an impression, so watch your back."

"Any leads on who this new player is?" Rick asked, watching the dealer being carted off in handcuffs.

"Do you really think I'd tell you if I had?" Katsumoto asked. "These guys are dangerous! I can't have you two running all over the island trying to track a group of drug dealers down! Especially not while Magnum's still trying to track down The Collective on his own!"

"Wait, he's doing what now?" Rick's eyebrows shot up. Was this the case Thomas had said he was working on? It had been two months and no sign of the group. Surely he had dropped it by now? Then again, it was Thomas, and Thomas in need of a distraction at that!

"You didn't know?" Gordy frowned.

"You think he'd be doing this alone if we did?" TC shot back.

"Fair point," sighed Katsumoto. "Look, I tried to warn him off it: I really did!"

"Tommy's gonna do what Tommy's gonna do," shrugged Rick. "Believe me, I know that!"

"Yeah," muttered TC. "Hey Gordy, if TM's headed for trouble, give us a heads up, okay?"

"Will do," Katsumoto nodded, he looked around at his departing officers. Time to head back to base. "Mahalo, guys. Remember what I said."

"Head on a swivel, copy," Rick called back.

TC watched Katsumoto and his team leave then looked back to Rick. His friend was frowning at nothing, chewing his lip, and tapping the pack of painkillers against his uninjured hand.

"Stop it," TC sighed. "Thomas is responsible for his actions, not you."

"I didn't say a word!" Rick protested.

"You didn't have to, brother," retorted TC. "You get the same look on your face every time TM comes up with an excuse to get out of being in the same room as you. It's his issue. Not yours. He'll come round. Just give him time."

"I don't know if you've noticed," grumbled Rick, "but Tommy's coping mechanism seems to be taking on a far-right terrorist group single-handed! I give him much more time, and he's gonna go get himself killed!"

"Come on, man: when have you ever known Tommy to get completely out of his depth?"

Rick turned an eloquent look on TC.

TC rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, forget I said that."

"We gotta talk to him about this!"

"How 'bout I talk to him about this," TC suggested. "That way he can't…"

"Can't what?" Rick asked, his frown deepening. He crossed his arms and met TC's hesitant gaze. "Can't make Jules feel like she's stuck between a rock and a hard place?"

"I was goin' for he can't say Higgy's only agreein' with us because she's datin' you, but yeah, that too," Admitted TC with a sheepish shrug.

"Great!" Rick slumped back against the wall.

"Look, we all know Higgy will side with whoever has the best, most logical, most sensible argument," said TC, waving a hand at thin air in lieu of Higgins herself. "We all know that! Tommy too! He's just not in the right place to recognise that just now. He'll come…"

"Yeah, I get it," snapped Rick, pushing himself up off the wall. "He'll come around! Give him time! I'm gonna go serve some customers. Seems it's all I'm good for these days!"

The door through to the bar swung shut, and TC swung his eyes heavenward, offering up a silent prayer for patience. At least, when she'd been dating Ethan, it was only Higgy that had been stuck between a rock and a hard place! He breathed in deeply, let it out slowly, and followed Rick back into the bar.