A.N. And here we are again, still going! Thank you all for your amazing support!

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When Spike and Ed re-entered the main command space, a shout drew their attention.

"Hey, Ed, Spike!" Jack called, jogging up to them with Wordy and five other men that Ed knew were part of various SRU teams, some of whom had clearly come in even though they weren't on call, just like he, Spike, Wordy and Jules had. "Troy thinks you've got something with that last call you made, Ed. Spike, he could use your assistance in looking into it."

Spike nodded and quickly hurried away.

Turning back to Ed, Jack continued, "We're headed to clear the buildings Sam identified and hopefully bring this situation to a rapid and peaceful close. I'd like you to join us; I want to speed this up and more boots on the ground will definitely do that."

Ed immediately nodded, glad that there was finally something he could do to be useful. Talking with witnesses and making phone calls was important, of course, but it still left him feeling like they were no closer to resolving the situation… no closer to getting Sam out of the square and to a hospital.

After a few minutes spent reviewing blue prints of the buildings, with the first glimmer of hope lending extra bounce to their step, they jogged around the perimeter of the square, well back from the caution tape indicating the cautious estimate of the shooter's range, in order to enter the buildings from the rear.

They reached the first building Sam had identified, the tan one, and stopped outside its doors.

"Ed, Wordy, you take this building, start at the top floor and work your way down," Jack ordered, pausing outside the west most building. "Raz, Ben, start at the 20th floor and work your way up. The rest of us will head to the east building and clear it. I want us all coordinating and communicating on the same channel, so switch to channel five. I've asked Carsen and Jules to also switch to channel five; they've been scanning windows and haven't spotted anything, but we can use all the eyes we can get, and our searching might flush him out."

Ed and Wordy followed the two other men into the building, and in unspoken agreement, the two teams split apart in order to cover different stairwells.

As Ed and Wordy jogged upwards, intent on their task, Wordy was the first to break the silence.

"So, Spike must have finally talked some sense into you," he stated casually.

Since it clearly wasn't a question, more a statement of fact, Ed glanced sidelong at his friend and raised his eyebrows. "What are you psychic now? How did you know?"

Wordy let out a breathy laugh as they passed the 5th floor, "Ha, nope, not psychic, your face just isn't as apoplectic and pissed off looking anymore."

"Hey!" Ed exclaimed good naturedly. "My face did not have an 'apoplectic and pissed off' look!"

Wordy just stared at him in a silent challenge. A very small part of Ed wished the other man would trip, since Wordy's eyes were fixed on him and not on where he was going, but knew it was a foolish hope.

"Fine, but you were just as pissed off!" Ed felt the need to point out.

"Eh, yesterday yeah," Wordy agreed, "but not today, not after I had more time to think about it and realize that it was a shitty situation all around, and that we were all just trying to do the best we could."

Ed narrowed his eyes and glanced suspiciously at his friend. "Come to that conclusion on your own? Just like that? Overnight?"

"Yup," Wordy replied too quickly.

"Really?" he demanded, his tone making it clear that he didn't buy the other man's words for a second.

"Okay, no, Spike had to talk some sense into me, too," Wordy finally admitted, face breaking into a grin. "I went to the hospital last night to see how he was doing and I couldn't hide my anger at Sam from him."

Ed snorted. "When Spike wants something, he gets what he wants."

"When Spike's right, he makes others see the error of their ways," Wordy corrected. "Besides, it's kind of hard to argue with the person who was shot."

Ed had no response to that, because he fully agreed, having just come out on the losing end of an argument with the person in question. Instead, they fell into a comfortable silence as they made the rest of the climb up to the top floor and began slowly sweeping the set of offices and rooms that sat facing the square. They didn't bother also searching the other rooms on the floor; the building was supposed to be evacuated, and why would the subject move to a room without a line of sight to the square? And he clearly still had a line of sight, at least, he had a little while ago when he'd shot at the person who'd only darted out to grab their bag. It stood to reason that the subject would not have moved since then.

Just as they finished the top floor and were headed down to the next, Jules' voice sounded over the radios of those sweeping the buildings.

"Is there a team currently sweeping the 25th floor of the west building?"

Ed and Wordy paused, hand on the door from the stairwell onto the floor of the west building. The 25th floor.

Ed unmuted his mic and replied quickly, "This is Ed and Wordy, we just finished sweeping the top floor and are about to move onto the 25th, but have not yet. Raz, Ben, have you made it to the 25th?"

"No," came the quick reply. "We are currently sweeping the 21st."

"Copy that," Jules acknowledged. "Then I've got unidentified movement in the west most window of floor 25, and if it's not you all, it could be office workers who refused to follow evacuation procedure, or our subject."

"Jules, can you get any better of a visual on that movement?" Ed asked calmly, though internally he could feel his adrenaline already rising, along with another small glimmer of hope that this situation was almost over.

"I can't see into the room; the glare's a bitch and the blinds are mostly down, I wouldn't have noticed anything except that I just happened to be looking right at that window when the blinds shifted like someone bumped them. I don't think it was just movement from the air turning on or anything, because they'd still be moving if that were the case."

"Copy that, we're in the southeast stairwell about to enter the 25th floor. We'll proceed directly to the southwest office and have a look."

Quietly, they eased out of the stairwell and stalked down the hallway, pulses skyrocketing at the prospect of both encountering the subject and putting an end to this situation.

When they reached the final door on the hall, Ed motioned silently for Wordy to try the handle. The lack of movement of Wordy's wrist told him all he needed to know: locked.

He looked up at his partner, and a wordless conversation passed between them. Wordy was a wizard with lock picks, but if there was someone in that room, if the subject was in that room, he might hear them in the lock. On the other hand, they had not brought a hand held battering ram with them, and if they tried to breach by force and miscalculated, it may take more than one hit, again alerting the occupant that they were there.

Conversation complete, they came to a decision. Both prepared to enter, guns at the ready, with Ed off to the side of the door and Wordy a few steps back. At Ed's nod, Wordy took two steps forward and aimed a kick directly beside the door knob. Ed didn't even have time to be relieved that all it took was one blow and the door was open—cheap construction—before he surged into the room, immediately announcing their presence as SRU. His eyes swept it quickly, taking in everything in seconds: the small sitting area to the left, the bookshelves to the right, the desk directly across from the door, right up next to the window, and most importantly, the man lying on top of the desk, facing the window, eyes staring down a scope.

The noise of the door bursting open and slamming into the wall was enough to cause the man to flinch and throw a look over his shoulder, eyes widening, before he immediately turned back around, and tried to reposition his eye on the scope, looking for a target.

"SRU drop your weapon!" Ed shouted, now feeling Wordy's reassuring presence just to his side.

The man continued to lie there, eye trained down the scope, tip of the barrel swinging left and right.

"You have nowhere to go and no target to shoot in the square!" Please let there not be a target in the square. "But if you pull that trigger, we will be forced to take lethal action! Put your weapon down and step away from the window!" Ed ordered, moving farther into the room.

The man picked his head up ever so slightly, no longer pressing his eye against the scope. The first words out of the man's mouth were not what Ed expected. "Took you long enough," he spoke calmly, beginning to lower the gun.

Ed frowned at the man's odd choice of words, but continued to press forward. "That's it," he encouraged as the subject placed the butt of the gun on the desk, leaving it resting in its tripod. "Now slide back towards me off the desk, slowly, and keep your hands where we can see them."

Without complaint, the man did just that.

The moment his boots hit the floor, Wordy was stepping forward to cuff him, without Ed prompting. Once the man was secure, Wordy immediately conducted a full body search, but found nothing except for a phone. No ID, no keys, nothing.

"Unlock this," Wordy demanded, holding the phone out to the subject.

The man stared at him coolly and shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think I will."

"It's fine," Ed broke in, "We can deal with it when we get down to command center." He took a step back and directed into his coms, "Attention teams sweeping the buildings, the search can cease. We have found and apprehended the subject. Repeat, subject is neutralized."

A relieved chorus of "copy that" and "thank god" echoed in his ears, before he switched to the main channel and radioed the main command. "Command, we've found the subject on the 25th floor of the west building and he's in custody. We're bringing him down now. The square should be cleared for paramedics to enter and attend to the victims immediately."

"That's great news, Ed," Troy's relieved voice responded. "We'll start the evacuation process right away. Any ID on the subject? Is he talking?"

"Negative on the ID, the subject is refusing to cooperate," Ed informed the Sergeant, glaring at the former shooter, who merely stared back at him, expressionless.

"All right, well we'll figure all of that out when you get back here. And damn, all I can say is I'm glad Sam was right. You've got one hell of an officer on your team, Ed, I hope you know that."

Yes I do, I just hope I still will at the end of the day. Ed was very aware that Sam might choose to walk away after the events of yesterday and today. And Ed wouldn't blame him. He just hoped dearly that Sam would have the opportunity to make that choice, because if he did, then Ed would have the chance to convince him otherwise, to make amends and set things right. And more importantly, it would mean Sam was alive to make that choice. Ed didn't know the full extent of Sam's injuries, but he knew they couldn't be good; he'd gone a long time without medical attention with a shot to the chest, all the while sitting in the sweltering heat and sun.

"All right, let's move," Wordy ordered the subject.

The two SRU officers began to escort him down the hallway, but as Ed glanced at the man's face, he was disturbed that the man was no longer expressionless; he was smiling. Not just smiling, grinning. It disturbed him, and he couldn't help thinking back to the man's first words. 'Took you long enough.' What an odd thing to say after being caught… As much as Ed wanted to believe this was over, were they missing something?

"Hey, cut that out," he snapped. "You've got nothing to be happy about."

But the man just kept smiling.

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A.N.2. At last, some resolution... maybe? Sorry, not sorry! :)