AN: I discovered the fanfiction app but there are features I haven't figured out yet...lile how do you do linebreaks? I had to go back to desktop version for that.


He'd originally joined the force with the intention of one day becoming the lead defective of the homicide unit in Centennial, Colorado. His father had been in a large unit and his father had been in a large unit.

Michael had been at the top of his class, with the credentials and the marks expected behind a name so established in the community of law enforcement. He'd joined Centennial right out of the academy and joined the homicide unit within his first six months on the job.

His first official case had changed everything.

He'd told himself he'd get used to these things, he just needed to get a stomach for it. The whole purpose of his job was to bring people to justice who'd done wrong, make sure they couldn't hurt anyone else.

His first case was a seventeen year old kid, only a handful of years younger than himself, killed in a knife fight.

In Centennial, Colorado, the only thing a seventeen year old should be worrying over is if he's breaking his parent's curfew or not.

He sat at his desk, shared desk, unable to think straight after a fourteen hour day that was only going to get longer as they returned to the main offices to look over reports, witness statements and cross reference those statements.

"Carwood, you in on this?"

He scrubbed his hands over his face. "In on what?"

"The bets on the race this weekend."

"Uh-" He hesitated, thinking it over in a daze as he reached for paperwork in front of him. "Yeah. Put me down."

"For how much?"

I dunno yet...I'll tell you when I get paid Friday."

"On who?"

"I dunno, Dan. Let me look at the line up later."

"Ok..." Dan had raised a brow. "So all we know is that you're in..."

"I've got nearly a week."

"Yeah...I'll give you that..."

He'd made a lot of money on that race.

It didn't make up for the fact that they couldn't track down this kid's killer.

Months passed, then a year.

"How can you have witnesses and be unable to-"

His senior partner had raised a shoulder in defeat. "Sometimes it happens."

Michael couldn't get past it. It had quickly become a cold case and there was nothing he could tell the boy's family.

Other cases they were able to solve within weeks, sometimes months, but with every box of evidence that was added to the back room labeled cold he felt the optimism for his career choice slip a little further and further down the cracks of the wooden floors beneath his issued, polished black wingtips.

His badge meant less and less with every month that past, and he couldn't let go of that first case, or any of the others that had followed that they'd been unable to provide closure to families.

He'd stopped going out with the guys after shift and was frequently found rifling through old reports more often than not.

It was one such evening that he'd been returning a lid to a box of evidence when he'd been approached. He'd slid the box back on to the shelf before nodding faintly in greeting. "Lieutenant."

His superior leaned an arm against the shelf, glancing over the boxes before turning his focus on him. "Good company?"

"The dead can-"

"Can only tell us so much." He finished. "You can't let this consume you."

"Sir, these people-"

"Michael." The Lieutenant addressed him informally. "I'm having you reassigned."

"What?" He'd taken a step back in surprise. "He'd never misstepped, never spoke out of turn, always did as he was told...a reassignment was looked upon usually as punishment. What had he done?

"I just think you need some time, you know, maybe look in to other areas to serve."

"You're unhappy with-"

"You misunderstand. You're an incredibly talented officer, but you're too new to the force, too young to be looking like the detectives that have been working in the unit for fifteen years..."

He let his hand fall from the box he'd put back in place, standing at ease with his hands behind his back and his feet shoulder width apart as he finally looked to the Lieutenant straight on.

"You're transferring to a buddies' jurisdiction out of state."

"I'm not even staying here?"

"It's only going to be six months. As soon as your finished you can pick up right where you left off here."


Five years later he still hadn't made it back to Colorado.

Radiator Springs was much smaller than where he'd started out, but he preferred the quiet setting where his biggest concern was the occasional out of town hot rodder that made a stink driving through town.

The few hot rodders who called the town home usually put them in their place before he ever had a chance to turn the light on the cruiser on.

It was an evening warmer than usual and the girls had left the boys to their contest of whose ever had it worse, sitting under the neon of the V8.

"He's got us beat, man. He's even got a picture of the kid." Ramone had lamented, and like curious schoolboys, those that weren't sitting leaned over his shoulder to look at the cropped family photo of Michael's first official case.

"Never found the weapon, never found a solid suspect-" He cut himself off and leaned forward against the table. "Maybe the doctor can answer this one-"

Jesse only watched him patiently, having grown used to the ribbing after a year of medical school.

"The official written report had the cause of death being a fatal knife wound, but the actual wound was round."

Ramone, Jesse, Jon and even a few of those listening in all looked to each other in confused silence.

"A knife wouldn't-"

"Exactly! How can an official report-"

They all started firing off questions and arguing between themselves, speculating over what could have happened and how, until Ramone finally spoke over the group.

"Where'd it happen?"

"Colorado..."

"No man! Like, where in town?"

"Uh..." Michael hesitated, surprised he'd forgotten specifics to such an important case. "It was...down on West Center..."

"Surrounding buildings...local businesses..." Jon asked.

Michael sat up a little straighter. "Grocery was a few blocks down but there was a garage- no it was in front of the garage."

Ramone had jumped up at that, running back to his place and the conversation lulled a few moments as he flipped the photo between his fingers. The others had asked to see it again, and he spoke of what he knew of the kid's background and what the family had told him of the plans he'd made for a future that would never happen as they passed it around.

They nearly jumped when there was a clatter of something heavy hitting the top of the picnic table.

A curved tire iron rest in the middle of the table and Jesse was the first to reach out and pick it up, tapping a finger against the end that tapered to a point before testing the weight with one hand.

"That'll do some damage..." He glanced up at Ramone. "Can't even count the amount of accidents with one of these..."

"You kidding? I almost took a finger off with this once."

Michael looked between the two before reaching out and grabbing the iron from them. With a muttered curse he'd jumped up from the table and went running for the nearest phone.


Lieutenant Clark, or more recently Captain Clark, held Ramone's tire iron that Michael had taken back to Colorado with him.

"You want to reopen a case based on what a couple guys drinking around a table said?"

"I'm not even within your jurisdiction, sir, but we know what we're talking about. Wasn't the witness to call it in a mechanic for the garage in the first place?"

Clark eyed him a moment before holding the tire iron out. "You know the specifics better than I do." With a sigh he adjusted his belt. "Go ahead. See what you can come up with."

He stood nervously on the porch steps, nervous may not have been the word for it, closure certainly wasn't the word for it and that's all he'd wanted with this case.

He still hadn't found it.

A middle-aged woman answered the door, looking him over with apprehension before speaking. "Can I help you?"

"Mrs. Evans?"

"Yes?"

He could tell his presence was unwanted, she barely had the door open far enough for them to speak informally. "I'm Officer-...My name is Michael Carwood, Ma'am. I was an officer investigating your son's death-"

Nearly eight years ago...

"Robby?"

He nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. I wanted to come speak to you personally and let you know we've found the one responsible. I just came from getting a confessi-"

He wasn't able to finish as the woman had flung the door open and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing in to the front of his uniform. Michael could only stand awkwardly for a moment, a good foot and a half taller than the woman, before patting her back carefully, barely able to discern anything that she said.

He should have felt better. He'd done his job.


He'd been offered a position with Centennial, a raise in pay and rank but had turned down the offer in favor of where he'd been serving the last few years.

Sitting past the edge of town in his cruiser, staring out across the scrub brush as the heat rose in waves, he was forcefully pulled from his musings by a few familiar looking cars flying past toward Ornament Valley.

With an exasperated sigh, he flipped on the light and started up the siren. He'd take a couple friends with egos too big to fit in their cars over hours of looking at evidence any day.

He'd have to have a word with said friends though, he was pretty sure they'd made his cruiser too slow to keep up.