Epilogue

Mark pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he moved around the kitchen, preparing a meal to celebrate Steve's discharge from the hospital. While he worked, his son was sitting propped up on the sofa next to Jesse, and the two of them were watching a hackneyed science-fiction movie, making rude comments as it progressed. Amanda was attending a parent-teacher conference but would be joining them shortly.

Mark's joy at Steve's return home was muted by the confirmation that he'd recently received of Elise's murder. Obviously judged too great a threat as her husband's probable confident, she had been killed as she returned home after their dinner. Mark mourned her death, but remembered with gratitude and pleasure the time they'd spent together. However, nothing could entirely dim his relief at Steve's recovery.

After cooking and carrying for Mark while his foot had been injured during their stay at Dr. Hart's house, Steve was now thoroughly enjoying the role reversal. Still not allowed to bear much weight on his leg, he held court, ordering his friends to fetch and carry with fiendish glee, perhaps realising also that Mark needed to feel useful.

Mark listened in amusement to the amiable bickering coming from the other room.

"You're wrong, the shape-shifter took the form of the jelly creature to illustrate his psychological vulnerability."

"No, no, no, it was a ploy, pure and simple, -- camouflage so he could destroy the fur creatures."

"What sort of detective are you? It was an accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's the tragedy of the movie."

"Premeditated homicide! I'd have him on method, motive and opportunity."

"I thought you'd have more compassion for those framed and on the run."

"I was innocent!"

Amanda arrived at this point, and Mark was glad he couldn't hear the conversation deteriorate further. They chatted quietly as she helped him prepare a salad that was the one healthy component in a meal of meatloaf and baked potatoes slathered in butter and sour cream at Steve's request. They served the food onto plates and carried it through on trays.

Amanda looked with disfavour at the movie still showing on the television.

"If we're eating in here, that has to go off," she insisted.

There was a chorus of protests from the two men. "It's a classic," Jesse exclaimed.

"Classic junk!" Amanda returned firmly. She held out her hand. "Give me the remote."

Steve instinctively buried the remote control between the cushions behind him, out of her easy reach.

After frowning at him for a moment, she marched over to the set and turned if off manually, but as she turned in triumph, the TV clicked back on behind her.

Amanda had to struggle to keep a straight face, but parental experience prevented her mouth from twitching, and she successfully presented Steve with her most quelling glare before turning back and again switching off the set. She missed the sight of the remote coasting through the air in an abrupt change of ownership, so when the screen switched back on and she spun round accusingly, Steve held up two empty hands with an expression of cherubic innocence.

She quickly switched her focus to his partner in crime, but the evidence had already disappeared, and Jesse's face held even more limpid virtue. Amanda lifted one eyebrow in recognition of the challenge before swiftly yanking out the plug and waving the end gently in front of the now blank screen.

Mark started laughing at the byplay, a deep, relaxed chuckle. Amanda winked at Steve, and his mouth creased in acknowledgement as they both enjoyed the sound that had been missing for too long.

"Here's your consolation prize." Amanda handed out the trays, noting that Jesse's enthusiasm was not as marked as Steve's. Jesse turned to his friend, a gleam in his eye as he watched Steve struggle one-handedly with his meal.

"Do you want me to feed you?" he asked innocently.

"Only if you want to lose a hand," Steve replied pleasantly, without looking up.

Jesse snatched back the proffered limb in mock alarm, and soon there was only silence as they all enjoyed the meal and the company.

Afterwards, Amanda was regaling them with a poem CJ had written that his peers had thoroughly enjoyed but had been received with less appreciation by the administration of his school, when the doorbell rang. It was Chief Masters and, for a dizzying moment, Mark's heart stuttered as a vivid image of his previous visit flashed cruelly in his mind, a nightmare brought to life that would never be forgotten. There was a formal reserve quite unlike his usual hospitable manner as he invited the Chief in.

Mark had never specialised in psychology, but he possessed a keen insight into the intricacies of the human mind, its motivations and capacity for self-delusion. Yet, Masters remained something of an enigma even to him. Mark didn't doubt the Chief's courage and competence, merely his priorities. He and Steve almost certainly owed Masters their lives. He had helped them, to the detriment of his own safety, escape from the hotel room and had later come to their assistance on the roof, and Mark was deeply grateful for his ready acquiescence and capable follow-through to his rescue plan. The Chief's evident grief over Canin's death had banished the unworthy suspicion that he had engineered the man's demise to rid himself of a potential political embarrassment, but Mark still found himself unable to accord full trust to the Chief; maybe his ambitions and the power of his position precluded such confidence.

Yet Mark noticed, with a mixture of frustration and amusement, that Steve didn't seem to entertain the same reservations, greeting his superior with his customary respect. In some esoteric police system of weighing such things, all debts and accountability between the two had been paid off. Mark's jaw tightened imperceptibly; he still felt there was a reckoning to be paid for the Chief's actions on the roof, though it was more likely he would collect from the instigator of the proceedings - his son.

Somewhat maliciously, Mark offered the Chief a helping of meatloaf. Four faces regarded Masters expectantly, but, with a polite inclination of his head, he rejected the offer.

"Thank you, I recently ate."

Four pairs of eyes searched his impeccable attire for verification, any crumb or minute stain that might substantiate his claim, but in vain.

A ghost of a smile seemed to cross the man's face at the intent scrutiny before he got down to business. "Detective Archer sends her best."

Steve's eyes brightened at this reminder that his friend and colleague had not only survived, but was expected to recover completely from her injuries. He'd seen her briefly in the hospital, but she'd been asleep during his visit.

Mark chimed in. "I saw in the papers that there had been a successful series of arrests at the docks and a large shipment of drugs impounded."

"Latiere's final revenge from the grave," Masters confirmed.

"What of the ...er ...other information garnered from the notebook?" Mark put it as delicately as he could.

The Chief's lips tightened, clearly unhappy discussing the ring of corruption within his department with civilians.

"We had proof for only a few arrests, but several officers have resigned recently, encouraged by the suggestion of a personal IRS audit."

Steve nodded grimly, the delicate whiff of cover-up unpalatable to his nostrils, but loyalty to the LAPD advocating tolerance.

Mark had several more unanswered questions ready for presentation, but Masters beat him to the punch, asking, with his eyebrows tilted in polite enquiry, "Dr. Sloan, would you and the other good doctors mind if I talked to your son alone for a minute?"

Mark met his eyes challengingly, indicating tacitly that he did mind the exclusion, but innate good manners brought him to his feet. "Jesse, Amanda?" They cleared up the plates, taking them into the kitchen.

Masters watched them go expressionlessly, then turned back to meet the wry eyes of his officer -- an expression that seemed to indicate that privacy was more an illusion than fact.

"It's good to see you looking better, Lieutenant," he commented.

"Thank you, sir. I'm looking forward to getting back to work. There's only so long I can lie here decorating a sofa before even a desk starts to look good."

"Well, as to that," Masters cast a sardonic look towards the kitchen and raised his voice slightly, "I will have to leave the date for your return to work in the capable hands of your doctor." He didn't miss the grimace from Steve. "Nevertheless, when you do return to work, I presume you wish to return to Homicide?"

Steve attempted to keep his expression neutral. "Yes, Sir. Will there be a new Task Force, Sir?"

Masters regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment, and when he replied, Steve thought at first that he'd changed the subject. "Ross Canin was buried last week. There was also a memorial service for Detective Bobby Ross who died in the line of duty." He looked straight at Steve and, for a moment, Steve could almost see the weight of responsibility bearing down on his superior. "I know you believe I pushed him over the line, but undercover work is a legitimate tool and has long been used by the department."

"Actually, Sir. I don't know if he was pushed, slid or jumped over with both feet, but the truth is he stomped on the line and obliterated it and that was nobody's choice but his own."

"Ah," Masters nodded pensively, but made no further comment although Steve thought that the invisible burden of command had eased somewhat. The Chief stood up smoothly.

"Lieutenant, I will see you back at work when you've been cleared for such an appearance. I'll see myself out. I don't think your father has forgiven me for the... incident on the roof."

Steve smiled wryly. "Actually, I think I'll be the one who pays for that. Thank you for coming, Sir."

"Then I'll wish you good luck." With a final nod, Masters started to leave, turning back at the last minute to add. "I'm sorry to hear about the death of Elise Latiere. Please pass my condolences along to your father."

At the sound of the front door closing, Mark appeared, dish rag in hand. "That was a quick visit," he observed. "Well, it's getting late, Jesse and Amanda are getting ready to go."

Steve said goodbye to his friends, but as Mark showed them to the door, he eased back on the sofa feeling unaccountably depressed. His leg ached, his arm itched, but it was the fate of Bobby Ross and Elise Latiere and a corresponding sense of failure that hung heavily on his mind.

He was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice Mark's return, and his father stood watching him for several moments, a crease of concern marring his forehead as he caught the weariness and despondency on his son's face.

Picking up some supplies in the kitchen, he returned to Steve's side. The younger Sloan pasted on a smile for his benefit that didn't fool his father at all, and fended off Mark's hand as the doctor attempted to assess his son's temperature.

"How're you feeling?" Mark asked, checking up as much on Steve's emotional wellbeing as his state of health. However, picking up on his son's response before it was made, he stuck a thermometer into Steve's mouth, cutting off his answer, not wanting to listen to his son spout the customary 'I'm fine' when he obviously wasn't.

"You're not fine," he informed him tartly. "Whenever you say that, it means that you are so not fine that you're probably on the verge of collapse."

"Then what do I say when I really am fine?" Steve asked dryly.

Mark's eyes twinkled. "I've never yet asked you the question when you really are fine."

"Maybe you should, you could use the practice." Steve's inchoate smile tapered off as he changed the subject.

"Dad, the Chief told me about Elise Latiere. I'm so sorry."

The playful teasing was wiped abruptly from Mark's countenance to be replaced with an undecipherable expression, but the light that usually sparkled in his eyes was dimmed, and Steve could sense the muted sorrow that he surprised on his father's face several times during the last few days when Mark had thought himself unobserved.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he blurted out as he realised that Mark had known for some time, then kicked himself as he felt his father withdraw slightly at the question.

Mark was an intensely private individual, not given to sharing his pain, yet over the years, Steve had learnt how to infiltrate his defenses, sliding past his reserve with stealth, approaching the problem obliquely. That question had all the subtlety of a bull elephant in heat.

Mark rubbed the back of his neck, a self-conscious gesture Steve rarely saw his father use. "I suppose," he confessed reluctantly, "that I wasn't sure if I was ready for this conversation."

Steve straightened up, shuffling over on the couch in silent invitation for his father to sit next to him. Almost absently, Mark obliged. "Actually, it's more in the nature of an apology than a conversation."

By this time, Steve was itching with a curiosity that wasn't immediately gratified as Mark didn't immediately continue, but sat staring blindly at the back of the sofa as if lost in memories.

Casually, Steve moved one hand to his father's knee, trying to encourage without pressure. Mark looked up, his eyes bright with an emotion Steve didn't recognise.

"When your mother died," he began slowly. "I wasn't there for you or your sister. I was too lost in my own grief to help you with yours."

Steve tried to conceal the shock he was experiencing, and a frisson of alarm tickled his spine. This was a topic they had never really broached, and he was at a loss for its introduction now. He bit back the instinctive 'I don't understand' that rose to his lips and tried to look encouraging, ignoring the instinct to avoid the conversation in favor of concentrating on his father's needs. Anyone else might have believed that Steve had kept a poker face throughout this exchange, but Mark effortlessly followed the muted emotions in those eyes as blue and fathomless as a mountain lake. Bemusement and wariness he'd expected, but he was touched by Steve's obvious willingness to follow his lead. He took a deep breath. The subject was now uncovered and lay exposed and raw between them, and he had to take it to its conclusion.

"I met Elise a few months after your mother died." Although Steve didn't move, Mark could feel the increase in tension in his son and hurried on. "I missed your mother so much. It was a relief to have someone I could talk to about her. Someone who didn't know her...or me, before. She was willing to listen. She was very unhappy herself, her marriage was...difficult. I think it was that shared loneliness that brought us together."

Steve dropped his eyes, overwhelmed by too much information to process and suddenly finding himself neck deep in the murky emotional waters in which he usually avoided so much as paddling. Long buried feelings of desolation resurfaced.

"Steve," his father's voice broke through his absorption as if reading his mind. "It wasn't an affair. We never... you know. It was just two lonely people finding comfort in such mundane activities as talking and playing tennis."

Steve nodded, accepting his father's words with relief. His own inadvertent and unintentional affair with a married woman was fresh in his mind and left him in no doubts as to where he stood on that issue. He was sure he had inherited those values from his father so had no difficulty believing him.

He looked up again into Mark's anxious face, understanding how difficult it must be for him to have introduced this topic. He bit back the instinctive reassurance of absolution, knowing that his father deserved more than facile words of forgiveness.

Mark was the rock of his life, although predictable only in how amazing he could be. Steve depended on his father's courage, compassion and irreverence. It was easy to forget that beneath the genial surface there was a complex and fallible man.

For a moment, superimposed on those beloved features he knew better than his own, he saw his father as a younger man, with hair not yet as distinguished a white and lacking the jaunty mustache. Mark had been more serious back then and, even through the filter of his own preoccupation during that time, Steve could remember the pain and loss that bled into his father's expression after the death of his wife. He could only be grateful to anyone who'd helped his father overcome that tearing grief.

"I wish I could have known her, thanked her." His sincerity was evident, and his gaze clear and untroubled as he met his father's anxious eyes.

Mark didn't seem convinced, worried that he'd missed the point.

"I should have been there for you," he repeated.

His father might have changed noticeably in the intervening span but, as the two images merged together again across the years, Steve noticed one unfailing constant, the love reflected in his eyes. He knew, with certainty, that his father had nothing for which to apologise.

"You've always been there for me," he insisted. "If once, a long time ago, you also needed time for yourself, there's nothing wrong with that."

Steve searched for the right words, willing to venture into deeper emotional water than usual to remove the uncertainty from his father's face. "Besides, in a strange way it actually helped." He puffed a deep sigh as he realised he'd just added confusion to the uncertainty.

He was no good at expressing these things, and his hands waved in the air as he tried to elaborate. "If you'd just shaken off Mom's death, it would have been worse, I wouldn't have known what to feel. The depth of your grief sort of gave me permission to grieve too." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the intensity of emotions swirling around them, but grimly determined to finish. "You've never let me down, Dad, not once."

Mark's eyes were suspiciously bright and, in a transparent move to give them both space, he got up to prepare drinks for them both in the kitchen. When he came back, he was bearing two steaming cups of cocoa. "It's too late for coffee and this is more soporific."

Steve heaved himself into a sitting position, then accepted the cup.

"So," Mark said in bright tones. "I have no more apologies to make." He paused expectantly, but Steve merely sipped his hot chocolate, nodding with deliberate obtuseness. He had no intention of voluntarily touching that can of worms, never mind opening it. Under the pretense of deep involvement in the enjoyment of his drink, he cast around for a way to seal the lid and bury it deep enough to be out of Mark's reach. In his mind's eye, he could see the writhing mass of worms each attempting to inch its way to the surface, but the fanciful image provided him with inspiration.

"You're right," Steve dropped his head, pretending defeat. "There is something we need to talk about." Then, just as Mark was assured of victory, he continued in quite a different tone as he launched his counter-offensive. "What were you thinking? Setting yourself up for Canin to snatch. I distinctly remember saying 'no bait', but what do you do? Dangle yourself on the end of the line, screaming 'take me'!"

He looked up in time to catch his father's expression crumple from anticipation to consternation. Evidently that lapse in self-preservation had slipped his mind. "I wouldn't exactly say I was the bait," he backpedaled abruptly, "more like the fishing rod itself, a sort of conduit between the hunter and hunted."

"Fishfood!"

Mark paused, thrown by the exclamation, not sure if it was a commentary on his attempt at self-exculpation or a further reference to his status as bait.

"I took every precaution," he stated virtuously.

"Precautions!" Steve snorted, thoroughly enjoying being able to take the high ground for once, and suppressing a grin at the feeling that he was channeling one of his father's better efforts. "Surrounding yourself with crooked cops who have a good reason to bump you off is not a precaution."

"I wouldn't exactly call..."

"And arranging to waltz off with a murderer!" Steve overrode his weak protest.

Here he overstepped the bounds of caution since it reminded Mark of the original point he'd been trying to make and he rallied strongly. "That wouldn't have been necessary if you hadn't got yourself kidnapped."

"You're changing the subject," Steve cut in hastily.

"Me change the subject! You changed it first."

"Did not."

"Did too!"

They each tried to hold on to their expressions of righteous indignation in the midst of this puerile exchange. Steve cracked first, giving way to the mirth bubbling up inside, and Mark soon followed.

"OK, truce," Mark allowed. "I won't walk into any more hostage situations if you agree not to indulge in any more heroic last stands."

They shook hands solemnly, eyes meeting in the understanding that they were toasting something more than the superficial agreement their banter had led to. It was the acknowledgement of a journey completed.

Mark didn't release Steve's hand, sliding his other arm around his son for a quick hug. "Come on, let this old man help you to bed."

Steve was sleeping in the guest room to spare his leg the exertion of stairs. "Old!" he snorted, allowing his father to pull him upright. "You're not old. Although now I know what you'll look like when you are. I think Lucas got it just right...except the teeth maybe."

"And the hair." Mark proudly patted his abundant white locks. "You on the other hand...well, I hate to tell you this, but baldness is usually inherited through the maternal line and your Grandpa Al - bald as a coot by the time he died."

"Wait a minute, you told me..."

"I lied."

"Are coots really bald?"

"Well, this one was. Would you prefer as bald as an eagle?"

"Now I know they're not really bald, merely an understated elegance on top. I could live with that."

"How about as bald as a baby's..."

"Dad!"

As they limped down the hall, it was easy to see that they leant on each other, a partnership of support that had helped them survive this diversion from their path. They had met adversity with a shared strength and a mutual trust and a deep abiding love that had brought them through - brought them home.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to all of you who've made it to the end of what proved to be a much longer story than I expected when I started. Enormous and tumultuous applause to Nonny for her heroic efforts in wading through each chapter and editing -- thank you, my friend. An especial and very grateful thanks to those who've reviewed. I loved reading your comments and in such replenishing feedback lie the seeds for future endeavours!