"What was that all about?" Pete looked up when he heard Captain Moore open the door. To say that Pete wasn't in the right frame of mind to switch gears and talk to his former training officer would be an understatement.

"That was Jean Reed leaving." He was still sitting up straight and not doing a very good job of hiding the fact that it was causing him pain. Pete reached for the bed controls and began to move into a more comfortable position.

"I could see that." Moore knew better than most how reluctant Pete was to use pain medication; he understood but at the same time, he knew that not using it could set back Pete's recovery. "When did you have your pain meds last?"

"I don't know. Time seems to run together when I'm in here." Pete, who had a protective hand over his stomach, attempted to take it off without Moore noticing.

"I saw that. Are you going to call for the nurse, or should I do it?" There was definitely an air of command in that question; they both knew it. Pete raised his hand in a gesture of surrender and Moore pushed the call button. He waited until after the nurse gave Pete his pain shot before going back to his initial question.

"Mrs. Reed seemed a little perturbed about something. Do you care to elaborate?" The fact that Moore had yet to take a seat was a clear signal that the captain's question wasn't rhetorical in nature.

"It's personal Skipper; just a misunderstanding." The attempt at evasion would most likely fail, but it was worth a shot.

"That woman was angry and so are you." Pete wasn't even aware that he was banging his fist on the bed rail until Moore tapped it with his finger. "I've known you too long to miss such an easy signal."

"She's mad that I forced Jim to become a training officer." At Moore's urging Pete gave the older man an abbreviated version of his conversation with Jean; leaving out the part about Baxter. "She'll calm down, eventually." It was spoken without much conviction.

"And…?" Moore paused, waiting for Pete to tell him the rest of what happened. He had walked in unannounced and caught Pete in an unguarded moment. Pete was well known for his ability to hide his feelings, but Moore knew Pete before he perfected that stoic front. Whatever Jean said had unnerved Pete. "I know you're not just angry. C'mon Fox, what else did she say?"

"That I was failing to protect Jim like I failed to protect Andy." It wasn't word for word, but the meaning of her accusation was clear; Andy Baxter's death was Pete's fault. He sat in the bed, staring at the wall instead of looking at his friend. Moore sighed; reaching out to rest a hand on Pete's shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault. You know that." Normally, Pete would have pulled away from Moore's reassuring touch; the fact that he didn't showed how much what Jean said had hurt Pete. "Surely Reed must have told her what happened."

"No." Pete still couldn't look Moore in the eye. "I've never even said his name to Jim; much less tell him how Andy died."

"That was almost five years ago. Don't you think it's time that you explained it to him; especially now that he is training his own rookie?" He wasn't surprised that Pete had never spoken to Jim about Baxter's death. What happened had almost destroyed Pete.

"How can I Val, when I can't explain it to myself? I'll never know why he did what he did. Maybe Jean's right." After all this time, Pete was still plagued by "what if's".

"Pete, look at me." Moore waited until he did; obeying orders was so ingrained in Pete that he didn't consider refusing. "Mrs. Reed is not right. Andy was young and impulsive; every cop makes mistakes. It can't be prevented, so all you can do is hope that their mistakes don't cost them their lives."

"Explain that to my conscience or to his widow and daughter. Would he be alive if someone else had been his training officer?" Pete's hand shook as he reached up to run his fingers through his hair. Feelings wise, Jean brought that day back in vivid detail and, in that moment, he hated her for it.

"Pete, we rode together for seventeen months, how many times did you go off on your own?" Moore wondered if Pete actually remembered all the times he disobeyed orders to play a hunch. Piercing blue eyes held Pete's attention; daring him to deny it.

"A lot more than Andy did." Pete's response held a bit of laughter in it. He had taken too many risks during his rookie year. That didn't stop until he got the confidence to express his ideas on how to handle the calls.

"It's human nature; you can't control everything no matter how much you want to. You are no more responsible for Andy's mistakes than I was for yours." Pete shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head; he understood, mostly.

"Tell me, how do I convince Jean to believe that?" How Andy died is something Pete had refused to discuss with anyone besides Moore and Mac Donald; who were both his superiors and his two closest friends at the time. Now he was expected to justify himself to Jean? Pete wasn't sure he could do that.

"That I can't do, but I can maybe take your mind off it." Moore flashed a wide grin as he set a pile of folders and a manual on the nightstand. "Since you have all this time on your hands, I brought you this month's training reports and….the manual so you can study for the sergeant's exam."

"Thanks a lot Val." He didn't mind working on the reports; that was part of his job, but studying for the sergeants' exam? By mutual agreement, he didn't protest studying and Moore didn't push the issue.

The captain stayed for another twenty minutes, discussing Pete's recovery, the book he was reading and anything but Baxter. Val had done all he could on that front; it was up to Pete, Jim and Jean to work it out.

O~O~O

"You have to be grateful for the little things in this job. After all, she only swore once." The look on Larry's face was priceless when the prim and seemingly proper old woman accepted the ticket with a "piss-off officer".

"It's only a five dollar parking ticket." Almost every other day, Adam-12 was being dispatched to ticket cars parked across the street from a recently opened church. With no off-street parking, the residents were constantly complaining about church members parking in the street instead of the parking lot. The problem was about more than the weekend masses; cars showed up for daily masses, bingo and other church functions. Issuing a few parking tickets seemed the perfect opportunity to let the rookie get his feet wet.

For the first six weeks of his rookie year, Jim was under the mistaken impression that writing parking tickets was the sole responsibility of the officer riding shotgun. If he hadn't seen a senior officer writing a parking ticket, Jim might never have found out that he had been had. When he called Pete on it, the senior officer grinned and said "busted".

Jim sighed as he stopped the unit at the fourth red light in row. He had forgotten why Pete hated driving on Ventura Blvd; the stop lights weren't coordinated to allow a decent flow of traffic. If you hit one red light, you hit every one.

It happened right in front of them. A Mini Cooper in the opposite lane floored it and blew through the stop light. The big box truck from the side street didn't see the small car until it was too late. He couldn't avoid broadsiding the speeding car; pushing it into a parked car. Jim hit the reds and told kasak to radio in the accident; requesting back-up and an ambulance.

The truck driver was able to exit the cab without help. He appeared shaken but not hurt; seeing that, Jim ran to the other cars. The force of the impact had crushed the Mini Cooper. It didn't take a doctor to see that neither the driver nor the passenger was still alive. Some things never get easy.

A voice in Jim's head told him to keep the rookie away from the car. Jim had seen other rookies react badly to the first time they saw a dead body; he wanted to spare Larry this one. "Try to get the traffic moving."

Kasak continued to approach Jim and the crushed car, intent on relaying the e.t.a. of the ambulance and back-up. Reed wasn't fast enough to block Larry from seeing inside the car. For a moment, the rookie stared at the couple; it had been an ugly crash. Whether it was the mutilated bodies or the sight of blood, Larry took a step back, looked at Jim and vomited all over his training officer's pristine uniform.

What was it Pete said about strangling a probationer?

Jim looked down at the uniform Jean had gotten up early to iron for him and bit down an angry response. He knew it wasn't Larry's fault; he had thrown up during his first DB call too. Pete had warned him to leave the room before "barfing" because detectives react badly when someone throws up on a crime scene.

Larry had gone to the curb to finish puking into a garbage can while Jim was using his handkerchief to wipe as much of Larry's lunch off his uniform as he could. That was the situation when Mac arrived; he knew he shouldn't laugh, but a small chuckle did escape.

"You know Jim; you really need to work on keeping your uniform cleaner. What would Pete say if he saw you like that?" It was at times like this, when joking seemed inappropriate, that it happened. Call it gallows humor, black humor, whatever. It was a police officer's way of holding onto their sanity.

"He'd threaten to make me ride on the roof rather than let me stink up his car." The fact that Pete would actually say that made it all the more laughable.

"Either that or insist that you strip down to your boxers. I'm sure he'd let you use the blanket from the trunk to stay warm." It was obvious that Mac was trying to stay upwind of Jim. "Go take care of your rookie. I'll handle this."

Larry was sitting on the curb, head down as he tried to control the dry heaves. Vomiting on his training officer was the worst part of a very inauspicious first shift; inwardly, he was wondering how he would explain to his classmates that he got fired on his first day. Larry only looked up when Jim got down on one knee and reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Larry nodded, although he continued to tremble; a fact that bothered him.

"I'm sorry Sir. I couldn't help it; those poor people." Larry wipes the tears from his eyes. Why had he cried? It wasn't like he hadn't seen dead people before. "Your uniform is ruined. I don't blame you for being angry."

"Don't worry about it; I'm not angry. Now, my wife might have a different reaction because she's the one who will have to wash it." As much as Jim wanted to put some distance between him and the horrible smell, it wasn't possible without taking off his uniform and tossing it in the garbage. "Every cop I know has thrown up during a shift; especially on your first response to an unpleasant scene."

"But, I was in the army. I've seen dead people before."

"It's different." It was Pete who explained it to him; Jim, a veteran, expected to be able to handle seeing death too. "In the army, in a time of war, you are prepared to see people dying. While it's unpleasant, it's a given; here, death is unexpected. Their deaths are the brutal result of a mistake. That's why it shocks all of us."

"Did you throw up on your training officer?" Larry was embarrassed, dejected and mad at himself.

"No, but there were times I wanted to." The remark got the intended result; Larry laughed. Pete had been hard on Jim when it came to his training; harder than other training officers. His friend's reputation of being a hard-nose on procedure was well deserved. Pete wasn't doing it out of anger though; he had pushed Jim to be the best cop he could be. Was Pete right about him being ready to be a training officer?

"Sergeant Mac Donald is taking over here. Let's go back to the station and get out of these uniforms. Jim held out a hand to help Larry stand up from his perch on the curb. "It's close enough to end of watch that we won't have to go back on patrol. Now you get to learn how to close up the log book and finish the report on the accident."

O~O~O

"Flowers? You're supposed to sneak in some junk food." While Jim was a welcomed sight, something was definitely off; Reed knew Pete's steadfast rule against anyone bringing him flowers. If Jim was….things hadn't been that bad for Jim and his rookie, had they? Remembering his first day with Jim, Pete found the idea of Larry causing problems extremely funny.

"Bad day Partner?" There was no way that Pete could keep a straight face.

"He heaved on me!" Jim set the flowers on the nightstand, right by Pete's head. His partner laughing at him didn't improve his mood.

Heaved?" Pete shrugged his shoulders and flashed Jim a grin; he was enjoying this too much.

"Puked, barfed, vomited, spewed, up-chucked and regurgitated all over my uniform." It wasn't like Jim blamed the kid, but his friend, his partner, knew it would happen at some point.

"All at once, is that even possible?" Pete made an attempt to take this seriously, but he couldn't stop laughing. Jim had never thrown up on him. "Did it not occur to you to get out of the way?" The dark clouds that had been hovering over Pete since Jean's visit were starting to clear.

"No, I thought he'd appreciate a stable target." Jim was a study in exasperation; one arm flung up as he glared at Pete.

"That was nice of you to stand still. Projectile vomiting usually misses a moving target." Yes, Pete knew he was pushing it, but it has been weeks since Pete had this much fun. He brushed aside the curiosity to know why the kid threw up. "How was the rest of the shift?"

"He locked the shotgun and keys in the trunk of our unit. That's how the shift started." Jim was starting to smile; it had been funny, in an annoying way.

Pete didn't want to ruin this moment; there was time later to speak to Jim about Andy, Jean and her accusation.

"Ah, the joys of being a training officer."