A.N. And here we are again! Just a tiny note this time that I had to make a tiny modification to last chapter, because though Sam hasn't been late in the show, he has been late to work once before, in the previous story Timing! Haha, whoops! So I just revised a few sentences to reflect that.

And now, without further ado, a much needed conversation! Someone's about to be set straight...

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Now

Along with several others, Ed had been tasked by Troy to contact loved ones of those in the square who had not already called in to the line set up for them, in an effort to determine their background and if there was anyway someone could have known with certainty that they would be in the square that day. He made the calls, obtained the necessary information, and if the person had not planned to be in the square, crossed their name off the list. If they had, he marked it and passed it along to another officer to chase down, while he made more calls. It wasn't easy, making those calls, because often it involved being the first to inform a loved one that their friend or family member was in peril. While Ed knew it was necessary, he couldn't help feeling that Troy had done it as a punishment for how he'd lashed out at Sam.

He was just finishing up a phone conversation with a man who had broken down crying thirty seconds into the conversation, when Ed had informed him that his brother was in the square. As he tried to reassure the man, while also ascertaining the pertinent information, Spike walked into his peripheral vision and stopped not two feet from Ed, foot tapping and arms crossed—or, as crossed as they could be, with one of them now back in a sling, much to Ed's approval.

Ed glanced at him, long enough to catch the Italian's irritated expression, and for the other man to mouth, 'I need to talk to you. NOW.'

Ed nodded and held up a finger in a 'give me one minute' gesture, and continued his conversation with the distraught brother.

Spike huffed quietly, but did nothing more to disturb Ed, apparently deciding that not interrupting him would be the fastest way to get Ed to finish so that they could then talk about whatever it was that Spike wanted to talk about.

What that was, Ed wasn't entirely sure, though given their earlier altercation where Spike had been deliberately obtuse—in Ed's opinion—his guess was it had to do with Sam. The Italian's glare was already making him grit his teeth, temper rising in response to the man's silent chastising.

Moments later, once he had finally ascertained that it had not in fact been a spontaneous outing that had taken the man's brother into the square, and instead that it was a weekly reoccurring event where the man took his daughter out for the afternoon, Ed hung up and before turning to his teammate, turned to another officer.

"Officer Florence, I have a potential lead on a victim who was scheduled to be in the square today: a Ben Gaskill who is apparently a judge. Can you follow up and check his background, pull any pertinent information? What sort of cases he's tried? Pass what you find along to Sergeant Westin."

The officer nodded.

Finally turning to Spike, Ed demanded, "Okay, what's wrong?" Though he suspected it was about Sam, he wanted to make the other man be the first to bring it up.

"'What's wrong?'" Spike echoed, a hint of disbelief in his voice. "That's really what you're going to start with? You know what! Or you should! Or maybe you actually really don't, but think that you do, because clearly you are not thinking straight!"

Ed frowned, unable to follow the other man's train of thought. "Spike, hold on, slow down, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you being deliberately stubborn and obtuse, Ed, and refusing to look at things from a different perspective!" Spike practically yelled.

Ed's eyes flicked cautiously around the room. The yell hadn't drawn anyone's attention, but he felt the need to move this conversation to a more private venue just in case. Taking the other man by the arm, he led them into an office with a door and shut it. "What the hell are you talking about, Spike? I thought this was about Sam?"

The man's face flushed in anger. "Of course this is about Sam!"

Ed tried to backtrack in order to remove the defensiveness from his voice and reign in his temper, because they were getting nowhere with both of their tempers' rising. "Spike," he soothed, keeping his voice quiet, "you're going to have to back up and explain, because I don't understand how your perception of me being 'deliberately obtuse and stubborn,' as you put it, has anything to do with Sam."

"Of course you don't," Spike muttered vehemently, "because your head is stuck so far up you're a—"

"Spike!" Ed yelled, drowning out the man's next words. So much for reigning in my temper, he thought ruefully. "That. Is. Not. Helpful," he ground out.

Spike crossed his arms again, wincing slightly as it pulled at his shoulder. "Fine, then tell me this. What the hell happened at the end of shift yesterday?"

Ed narrowed his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about, Spike—"

"Cut the bullshit, Ed!" Spike interrupted, calm façade snapping. "I tried calling Sam this morning before all of this started and he wouldn't pick up, not only would he not pick up, he clearly deliberately did not pick up, which struck me as odd, but it wasn't as strange as the fact that he didn't even come to the hospital! There's no way Sam would let his own self-guilt—which I am confident he's feeling strongly, even though he shouldn't—stop him from checking on me! I couldn't figure it out, until I got to the scene here today and witnessed you and your behavior towards him, and now I'm starting to suspect that it is most definitely the culprit! What did you say to him? Did you tell him to stay away?"

"I didn't say anything to him!" Ed defended himself, though he knew it was a lie. "And what do you mean by 'my behavior towards him?'"

"What do I mean? What do you mean what do I mean?! What the hell was that back there?" Spike demanded, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder, in the general direction of the command post.

"What was what back where?"

"Ed!"

"Spike!" Ed countered. "There's been a lot going on! I'm not being obtuse, you're just going to have to be a little more specific!"

Spike took a deep breath. "Care to tell me why you ripped into Sam when he called in? Care to tell me why you tore into your teammate when he's just trying to help? Care to tell me why you publicly denigrated your friend when his life is in danger?"

"So this is about Sam."

"Yes, Ed," the other man agreed through clenched teeth, "this is about Sam, but it's also about your stubbornness. We'll get to that later, first, answer the questions: what was that back there, and what happened at the end of shift?"

It was Ed's turn to cross his arms, the defensiveness returning to both his voice and posture. "I spoke out against someone whose poor decisions caused a bad situation to get worse and because after yesterday, I no longer trust Sam's judgement, not when his actions put my friend's life in danger," he stated clearly, mimicking Spike's emphasis on the word friend. "And as to what happened at the end of shift, the only thing that happened was what needed to happen: I very thoroughly communicated to Sam my opinion of his actions yesterday during the end of shift briefing."

Spike stared at him in disbelief. "Ed, Sam's actions yesterday were a little unorthodox—there's no questioning that—but they were ultimately commendable and don't warrant your callous treatment of him or you 'thoroughly communicating your opinion of his actions,' which I know actually means yelling at him at the top of your lungs!"

"I'm not treating him any differently because I want to, I'm doing it because I don't want anything like yesterday to happen ever again, and telling him so in no uncertain terms seemed like the way to go! He was trying to prove a point, deliberately going against me because he thought he knew better!"

"Are you kidding me? You think he was trying to 'prove a point?!'" Spike echoed incredulously.

"Yes! And it all went to hell in a handbasket because of him!"

"Ed!" Spike cried in disbelief. "It was not Sam's fault!"

"Of course it was, Spike!"

"No, it wasn't! He wasn't trying to 'prove a point' or best the great and almighty Ed Lane, he was just doing his job!"

"The hell he was! I don't understand why you're fighting me on this! You of all people should understand, should be angry at Sam!" Ed exclaimed in frustration, gesturing at Spike's injured shoulder.

"Exactly, Ed! Of everyone involved, if anyone has the right to be mad at Sam, it's me! Which should give you a pretty big clue that you're in the wrong, Ed, because that's just it, I'm not mad at Sam because I don't have a right to be and neither do you!"

"He shot you, god dammit!"

"He fucking saved your life, Ed!" Spike exploded, shoving Ed backwards with his one good arm. "Don't you see that?! If Sam hadn't taken that shot, you would be dead on the sidewalk in front of that store!"

Ed blinked, taken aback by the fire behind his friend's words. "No, Spike—"

"No, Ed, you listen to me," Spike growled vehemently, grabbing onto the front of Ed's shirt and pulling him close. "You were less than ten feet away. Ten. Feet. No way was Grayes gonna miss from that distance. Did you not hear his gun go off? Because I sure did; it blew out my hearing for a nice long spell, but it would have blown out your brains if Sam's bullet hadn't hit him first and caused his shot to go wide, Ed!" Spike finished, shaking Ed and causing him to stumble slightly.

At Ed's shocked gaze, Spike's stance softened and he released his grip on Ed's jacket in order to shift his hand to the other man's shoulder. "Yesterday was a shitty situation all around," he continued more quietly. "There was never going to be a good outcome, and you did your best to change that. I know that. I know that. You did everything you could, but nothing was going to change that man's mind. That's not on you, Ed. It's not your fault," he stated, squeezing Ed's shoulder gently. "But it's not Sam's fault, either. Sam did everything right, despite what you think. There were no good options, but when that gun moved from me to you, Sam found the best one he could and he took it."

"He still shot you, Spike. You were hurt because of him," Ed declared, unwilling to let go of his anger so easily, desperately trying to get Spike to see his side of things, even though he could feel the foundation beneath his argument weakening with every word from the bomb-expert.

Spike nodded. "That is a fact, I won't deny it, but I would take what amounts to a graze on my shoulder over a bullet to your head any day. He made the right call."

"He disobeyed orders. He broke protocol," Ed protested weakly.

"So did you when you stepped out from behind that shield!" Spike countered. "You analyzed the situation and you made a choice, what you thought was the best choice, but it was still a choice that made you break protocol. Sam did the same thing, the difference is that you shouldn't have put him in that position in the first place! If your only defense is that he broke protocol, protocol is pretty clear in that situation! When negotiations have broken down and the subject threatens an officer, Scorpio should be given! And as you were the lead negotiator, it was your job to grant it! By denying it, you forced his hand!"

Both men fell silent, breathing hard.

Spike's brutal admonishment gave Ed pause and forced him to reconsider his position. Sam had disobeyed orders and Spike had been injured because of it, there was no changing that fact, but as Spike pointed out, hadn't Ed made similar calls in the past, not to mention the questionable choices he made yesterday? In the end, all of the members of Team One had walked away from that call only mildly scratched, because of Sam's quick actions. Ed was starting to see that now. So why had he reacted so poorly and attacked Sam so ruthlessly?

It would be easy for him to say it was just because Spike had been hurt and he'd therefore seen red, that the events before the shift had even started had colored his perspective. While that was true, and factored into the massive snowball effect that made a mess of their team, sharing those as the reasons with Spike was the easy, coward's way out. If he were honest with himself, he knew the main reason he'd been so dead set on blaming Sam, on believing Sam had deliberately injured Spike, was because he himself hadn't wanted to admit that maybe, just maybe he'd been wrong.

Pride's a bitch, Ed thought to himself ruefully, fully aware that pride was something he struggled with frequently. Unfortunately this time, his pride had led him to deeply hurt a friend.

"You're right," Ed admitted finally.

Spike's eyebrows shot upwards. "Excuse me?"

"I mean it, I'm not messing around, you're right. I was wrong to step out from behind that shield, I was wrong to hold off on calling Scorpio, and I was wrong to get so overly involved that I couldn't see past anything but doing everything I could to keep that man alive, even when you were at risk."

"No, Ed," Spike shook his head, "you weren't wrong to put yourself in harms-way, we've all taken personal risks like that. You were maybe a little wrong to hold off on calling Scorpio, but you weren't wrong to want to do everything you could so that Brad Grayes would live; I understand you didn't want any of us to deal with that kind of guilt, of taking a father from his kids. No, where you went wrong is when you lashed out at a teammate, a friend, who'd just made an impossible decision that most definitely saved his team, but meant he shouldered the guilt that you were trying to save everyone from."

Ed looked away, blinking rapidly in order to keep his eyes dry, unprepared for Spike's raw, emotional reprimand. But Ed knew it only hurt as much as it did because he recognized it as the truth.

He cleared his throat and turned back to Spike. "Okay," he responded gruffly, "you're right again. I owe Sam an apology."

Spike nodded. "And you're not the only one. I do, too. The whole team does."

Ed frowned in confusion.

Spike sighed. "Are you really oblivious to the fact that you had it out for him the moment he set foot in the Barn yesterday? And that—I'm ashamed to admit—we all pretty much followed your lead and tore into Sam at every opportunity? What was going on, Ed? I haven't seen you and the Boss act like that towards him since…" he trailed off, clearly trying to dredge up a memory, before he continued, "since I don't know when. Probably since he joined the team. For Christ's sake, not only did you and the Boss put him on Sierra when that call did not warrant one—though thank god you did—you chose his perch! Without a second thought, you turned your back on him, we all turned our backs on him… and I can't figure out why… why?" Spike asked, voice lost.

The other man's words caused Ed to remember Libby's scathing words last night, telling him teammates should always have each other's backs. Telling him that apparently she—who had known Sam for only the blink of an eye as compared to Ed's years of acquaintance, of friendship with the man—knew Sam better than Ed did, because she knew Sam would have done all he could to do the right thing, to fix things. While Ed had only leapt to assume the worst of the man.

He knew Spike had a point, that Sam had only been treated this way years ago, back at the beginning of his tenure on Team One. And it made Ed grimace to think of how poorly they welcomed him into the fold, how they'd forced him to swim on his own while practically tying weights around his feet and giving him no helping hand, no guidance. But as bad as it was reflecting on what had happened years ago, when Ed barely knew Sam, it was worse to realize that without even knowing it, he'd slipped into an old pattern. What did that say about him, about Team One? That all it took was one shitty day for them to write off a member of their team?

He let out a long breath, uncomfortable with these realizations, before admitting quietly, "I honestly don't know, Spike. He was late and that made me mad and I guess it snowballed from there." There was more to it, Ed knew it was more than just Sam being late that had caused him and Greg to turn on the man, but it wasn't something he felt he could share with Spike now. It wasn't the time. And honestly, it no longer seemed important.

"That's it? Just because he was late?" Spike demanded, clearly unconvinced.

"Yes." No.

Spike eyed him silently for a moment, waiting for Ed to continue, to stop lying, but when Ed kept his mouth shut, the other man sighed and asked curiously, "Do you even know why he was late? It's not like him, and I never even thought to ask."

Ed shook his head.

Spike nodded, as if he'd been expecting the answer. "Well we should have. And all of this, it can't happen again, Ed. Sam doesn't deserve that kind of treatment, and it's clearly something he's taken to heart in the last twenty-four hours. He practically shut down when he found out you and I were on this call, and he refused to talk to me even after Jack finished discussing the situation with him. If this happens again, I think he'd walk away from it all and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't blame him."

Ed nodded, rubbing his hand over his head in frustration. "Yeah, dammit, we really screwed this one up."

"I just hope we get the chance to fix it," Spike murmured quietly.

"Of course we will," Ed exclaimed. "I know the situation's bad, but now that Sam's narrowed it down for us, we should be able to locate the subject soon and end this whole nightmare."

"'Soon' may not be quick enough for Sam," Spike muttered as he turned to head out the door.

Ed frowned and caught the other man's good arm. "What do you mean, Spike?"

The Italian turned back to him, clearly debating whether to share something with Ed or not.

"What aren't you telling me?" Ed demanded, authority creeping back into his voice.

"After your verbal lashing," Ed winced at the rebuke, but Spike ploughed on, unapologetic, "when Jack continued speaking with Sam, he found out that Sam's been shot."

"What the hell, Spike, why didn't you say something earlier!?" Ed yelled angrily.

"Because you needed to get your head out of your ass and understand that the truth is that Sam did nothing wrong. I didn't want you to do it because you felt pity or concern for him, because that wouldn't have gotten at the root of the issue," Spike explained calmly.

And what an ugly, rotten root it is, he lamented, wondering how they were supposed to fix all this.

Aloud, he declared, "We need to get him out of there."

Spike finally grinned, wide and genuine. "Best thing I've heard you say all day, Ed. Now let's go save our boy!"