A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews so far! You guys are the best! I'm having way too much fun writing this – you really shouldn't encourage me, you know. (Okay, I don't really mean that – keep the encouragement coming.) This chapter's a bit longer because it got away from me a bit but I don't think you'll mind in the least. (PS – Sorry for the harsh language, kiddies – I've upped the rating accordingly. Remember, these aren't words that are to be used in polite conversation or in front of your parents, so govern yourselves accordingly.)

Perhaps the reason you don't see the previous two examples as anything more than mere coincidences is because these were childhood incidents in the lives of Bobby and Alex and are therefore not entirely reliable. After all, they happened long ago. Perhaps you'll be persuaded to acknowledge the hand of Fate if you learn of something that happened later, something that happened closer to here and now.

Something like this:

A wiry young man in his late twenties rushes into an emergency room in midtown Manhattan, his shaggy brown hair falling into his face and causing him to repeatedly comb it back with nervous, shaking fingers. He is wearing smoky glasses with oval frames and a beaten leather jacket, his jeans covered in engine grease and his Army boots scuffed and much abused. He rushes up to the receiving desk and demands the attention of the stout, gray-haired nurse working there.

"I'm looking for my friend," he utters hastily, words twitching and leaping nervously from his mouth. "Somebody called and said he's been brought here. He's a cop."

"What's the name?" the nurse asks, unperturbed and unhurried in her manner. This serves only to incite more panic on the part of the young man.

"Goren," he cries. "Bobby Goren. Can you tell me where he is? What's wrong with him? Was he shot?"

"I don't know the status of Officer Goren," the nurse tells him calmly. "He was brought in about an hour ago and I believe they've taken him up to surgery."

"Surgery!" the man exclaims. "For what?"

"I can't answer that…" she begins to say when he cuts her off.

"Dammit - what's a guy got to do to get answers around here?" he demands, face reddening with anger.

"Sir, you're going to have to calm down," the nurse intones sternly. "I will try to…"
She begins to offer paltry assistance when a voice from the seating area calls out, "Hey Lewis! Over here!"

The young man turns quickly away from the nurse and makes his way over to the scruffy looking man who has called his name. There is a trio of these ragtag characters seated in uncomfortable faux vinyl chairs, each holding a steaming cup of black hospital coffee that smells rather like the crude oil it resembles. They rise in unison when Lewis approaches, garnering a few stares from the people around them who wordlessly examine their torn jeans, discolored t-shirts and beat-up jackets with an air of distaste. It's understandable, as the men look particularly rough around the edges - one sports a full Fu Manchu, one has a pale white scar on his temple that goes up into his black hair and vanishes (it looks as though it was made with a knife), and the other is merely unkempt, his brown hair shaggy and face covered in thick stubble. Yet around their necks are shiny police badges and they carry about them an air of authority and poise, though at present their demeanors are also visibly shaken. It's easy to see that these men aren't used to being worried about anything and they don't enjoy the feeling.

"Sandoval!" Lewis cries, striding up to the knife-scarred Latino man who called his name. "What happened to Bobby?"

"Shit, Lewis – man, I don't know," Sandoval replies with an angry shake of his head. "One minute we're working a deal in this warehouse – simple buy and bust, nothing fancy - and the next minute, this junkie comes running in the door, high on God knows what, and screaming that Armageddon is upon us."

"Armageddon?" Lewis repeats blankly, voice still fearful.

"It was freakin' weird, man," the stubbly one chimes in, running a hand over his sandpaper chin in confusion. "He's got a gun, he's waving it at everyone in the room and we're all standing there with our mouths hanging open."

"Except Goren," Fu Manchu speaks now, voice filled with admiration.

"Yeah, except Goren," agrees Sandoval. "He backs away from the dealers and starts trying to reason with the guy – asks him all friendly, 'Hey man, what's wrong?'"

"Meantime we're trying to get behind these thugs because they're working their way out the door," adds the stubbly officer again. (His badge identifies him as Officer Lisi.) "So we slip around behind and they don't notice because they're watching Goren try to work this guy."

"It was something to see," acknowledges Sandoval, admiration in his tone. "Goren's inching towards him and talking all calm, asking him how he knows that Armageddon is coming. He starts to make shit up on the spot - even says that he's seen the signs but he wasn't sure if he was right. So the junkie stops waving the gun because he thinks he's found some sort of friggin' kindred spirit."

"But then the dealers look at us and we know real quick that our cover is blown," frowns Lisi. "They start running for the door and we grab them – Thomas here took down two at once."

He indicates the barrel-chested man sporting the Fu Manchu when he says this and Thomas nods and says, "Yeah, but the minute we took those guys down, all hell broke loose."

Lisi frowns. "The junkie started screaming about Armageddon again, screamed that Goren was the devil and ran at him with the gun. I couldn't see what happened from where I was, but the next thing I knew I heard a shot and Goren was on the floor bleeding."

Lewis inhales deeply as he takes in the story, his face pale and lips pinched tightly together. He speaks aloud but his words sound more like a thought: "Leave it to Bobby to think he can talk his way out of anything."

"They say the bullet went clean through," Lisi shrugs, trying to sound helpful. "They've taken him up to surgery but they're telling us they think he'll be okay."

"Stupid," Lewis mutters, flinging his wiry frame into one of the chairs and resting his head in his hands.

"Hey man," Sandoval puts a hand on Lewis's shoulder and starts to say something else before he is interrupted by a balding man in a tight gray suit who strides up to the group and barks, "Sandoval!"

"Yes sir," Sandoval straightens obediently, though his eyes narrow suspiciously.

"You three," the suited man scans the police officers before him like a drill sergeant sizing up recruits, "have some explaining to do. What happened out there? How the hell did Goren get shot on a simple buy and bust?"

"Look," Thomas starts to say but is cut off with a wave of the suit's hand.

"Not here," he hisses, gesturing that the three should follow him to a quiet corner of the waiting area, which they do with only slight resentment visible in their postures.

Lewis, meanwhile, stays put, running nervous fingers through his stringy hair and tapping his foot in an uncontrollable rhythm against the floor.

Meanwhile, the emergency room doors hiss open to admit two more police officers – detectives, as indicated by the gold shields on their overcoats – who bear between them a large black man with what appears to be a broken ankle. He is limping and struggling, his progress impeded by the handcuffs holding his arms behind his back, and he is yelling at the top of his lungs that the police are out to kill him.

(Lost in his own worried thoughts, Lewis makes only the barest note of this.)

"What seems to be the problem?" the stoic nurse at the front desk asks the detective nearest her, a handsome Irish-looking man with a square jaw and brown hair that has begun to go gray at the temples. His right eye, however, is puffy and starting to swell – he's obviously been punched recently.

"Mr. Davis here just learned that he isn't Superman," the detective replies sarcastically. "He leapt out a second story window and landed on his feet – for a second anyway."

"Should have come peacefully," intones the detective's partner, a lanky blond man with sharp eyes and features. He shakes the prisoner's arm to emphasize his point, then adds, "Or better yet, don't kill your ex-wife just because she's getting remarried. Then we don't have to come after you in the first place."

"I'm telling you, I'm innocent!" cries Davis, struggling helplessly against the detectives' hold.

"Save it for your arraignment," says the square-jawed detective.

"He's a murder suspect?" the nurse asks nervously.

"Don't worry, I'll be with him the whole time," the blond detective assures her. With a grin, he adds, "My partner here will take care of all of the necessary paperwork."

"Yeah, I love paperwork," mutters the partner.

"Hey, you're on the fast track to becoming Chief of Detectives, Jimmy," the blond detective's grin broadens. "I'm just helping you along."

"With friends like you, Murray," Jimmy shakes his head, but leaves his thought unfinished. "With friends like you."

"What do we have?" asks a scrub-clad doctor, approaching the unlikely group.

"Probable ankle fracture," the nurse replies. "He's a murder suspect, though – the detective here will have to go with you."

"My lucky day," the doctor says dryly. He gestures for an orderly to bring a wheelchair over and the detectives drop their prisoner unceremoniously into it so that he can be wheeled to x-ray. Davis protests loudly at this and his cries can be heard all the way down the hall. Beside him, Murray turns and makes a face and Jimmy, who chuckles and gives a tiny wave of solidarity.

Still chuckling, the detective turns away from the nurses' station with the idea of heading to the waiting area to start on his paperwork when he is stopped in his tracks by a call from the balding man in the gray suit who had earlier been chastising the Narcotics squad for the wounding of one of their own.

"Jimmy Deakins!" calls the balding man, striding up to the detective, whose chuckling quickly dies.

"Malloy," Jimmy nods courteously, though his eyes have narrowed in suspicion. He asks openly, "What's the rat squad doing down here?"

"See, it's this kind of attitude that gives IAB a bad name," frowns Malloy, pulling back the hand he had been preparing to offer to Jimmy to shake. "We're not out to get you, you know. We're cops too."

"If you say so," Jimmy frowns, unconvinced. "But you haven't answered my question."

"You didn't hear, huh?" Malloy says. "Narcotics officer was shot on a simple buy and bust this morning. He's in surgery now – should recover fully."

"That's two in the last week!" gasps Jimmy, disbelieving.

"Don't remind me," Malloy shakes his head. "It's getting to be a dangerous proposition to be a cop at the moment. Look at you even – somebody gave you a hell of a shiner."

"How do you know it wasn't my wife?" Jimmy retorts smartly.

"Hmph," Malloy shakes his head in reply, then returns to the subject at hand. "Well, believe me, this guy didn't get shot by his wife."

"Sounds like if this guy's smart, he'll find himself a new division after he recovers," Jimmy comments with a frown. "Get off the street."

"Oh believe me, this guy's smart," Malloy tells him. "Ex-military, well-read, and has a knack for getting right down to what makes a person tick. The guys in his squad call him a chameleon – you stick him undercover and you can't pick him out as a cop if you try."

"Like I said," Jimmy repeats, "if he's that smart then he ought to have no trouble getting into another division."

"I guess they tried to promote him last year and he wasn't having anything to do with it," Malloy adds, tone gossipy.

"Situation might have changed now," Jimmy tells him pointedly.

"Guess it leaves to be seen," Malloy shrugs. "So long as he doesn't end up like that cop that got shot at Rockaway Beach on Monday. Doolin, I think it was."

"Shot on a routine traffic stop, wasn't it?" Jimmy asks.

"Yeah," Malloy nods grimly. "Tough case, that one – left a wife behind, they'd only been married two years."

"She's a cop too, isn't she?" Jimmy asks.

"Yeah – works Vice out of the three-six," Malloy nods. "Had to pull her off the street to tell her the news."
"Tough break," Jimmy shakes his head sadly.

"Have to see how long she stays on now," Malloy adds.

"Dammit," Jimmy mutters, more to himself than Malloy. "If this job doesn't kill you, it will certainly drain the life out of you."

"No shit," Malloy agrees emphatically. A pause before he changes the subject by adding, "But last I heard things were looking up for you. There's rumblings downtown about you moving your office to One PP. Major case, is it?"

Jimmy rolls his eyes in annoyance, the right one moves painfully and causes him to wince. "Don't believe everything you hear."

Malloy sees that he has struck a nerve and prods a bit more: "Come on, Deakins – I heard that taking the lead on the Thomkovich bust sealed your fate. The Chief of D's has appointed you his latest golden boy." A wicked gleam comes into his eyes, then: "Who'd have thought that old Jimmy 'Who Needs to go by the Book?' Deakins would ever make it to the big time."

"Can it, Malloy," Jimmy hisses menacingly.

"What?" the IAB detective is clearly enjoying the moment, his face a mask of feigned innocence. "It's just a sign that you're mellowing in your old age, Jimmy. No more shiners for you. Congratulations – I'll see you around One PP."

And with that, Malloy departs, giving a wave of his hand over his shoulder as he walks out through the hissing emergency room doors.

Fuming, Jimmy is finally able to make his way over to the seating area, where he takes the chair that was recently vacated by Lewis (who has gone upstairs to see Bobby in recovery). And as he settles into the uncomfortable framework, Jimmy suddenly realizes how tired he is and how sore his muscles are. His eye throbs and he thinks that he should go ask the nurse for some ice – once he gathers the strength to move, that is. He and Murray chased their suspect but for a few blocks – two and a half, to be exact – before they cornered him in his apartment and watched him take a flying leap out the window. And yet Jimmy Deakins feels as though he's just completed the New York City Marathon; his shins are sore, his shoulders ache, and he can feel his knees start to stiffen as he reclines.

He starts to wonder then if maybe moving up to Major Case wouldn't be so bad. The talk he's heard has had the sheen of reliability on it; the promotion offer may well be on its way.

It's merely a kernel of a thought at that point, born out of exhaustion, soreness, and his recent argument with Malloy but remembering the stricken faces of the Narcotics squad that he viewed upon his arrival and thinking of the newest police widow who may or may not return to the force causes the thought to root and take hold. After all, it could easily have been him or Murray admitted to the ER on this day – they charged into Davis's apartment with no idea whether he was armed or not. What's more, they hadn't particularly cared. They were bent on doing their jobs, on bringing in the man whom they knew to be guilty, and they'd gone for it. Doing things by the book be damned! Malloy is right about that – Jimmy is a fan of results, not regulations and today he has the shiner on his eye to prove it.

And yet regulations might just keep him alive, might enable him to watch all three of his daughters graduate from high school and college and walk them down the aisle when they marry.

One Police Plaza, here I come, Jimmy thinks resolutely to himself as he waits in the seating area for his partner to emerge with their suspect. The offer isn't on the table yet but he has an answer ready for it when it does. And he will tell his wife of his decision when he gets home– right after he asks for some Advil for his aches and pains and some ice for his eye.

Lastly, Jimmy Deakins says a silent prayer that the wounded Narcotics officer will also make a life-altering decision when he recovers and that the widow of the slain officer will have the strength to carry on. He figures it's the least he can do.

And upstairs in the same hospital, Lewis speaks to his groggy friend, who has just had successful surgery to repair a nicked artery:

"I heard a couple of guys talking downstairs, Bobby," Lewis says softly, "and they said if you were smart, you'd be looking to transfer after this."

Bobby's eyelids are heavy but he's able to focus on his friend's face. "What if I'm not smart?"

"Hey man, this is serious stuff," Lewis breathes. "You could have died."
"Mm-hmm," Bobby agrees weakly. "Could have died that time when we were seventeen too."

Despite himself, Lewis chuckles at the memory. "I told you the steering was sticky on left turns – you should have listened."

Bobby smiles then too and closes his eyes for a brief moment before saying, "I don't know if I'm cut out for any other division, Lewis."

"Awful weak argument, Bobby," Lewis frowns. "Those guys said you were offered a promotion last year but you wouldn't take it. Why didn't you? You wouldn't be here today if you had."

"My team counts on me," Bobby tells him plainly.

"Yeah well so does your mom – and I'm not going to be the one to tell her that you got killed by some junkie," Lewis ups the ante.

"If I transfer, they'll put me in a suit, you know," Bobby ignores his friend's threat.

"So wear a damn suit," Lewis shrugs, easing back in the chair that he's pulled up beside his friend's bed. "You'll look better in it alive and walking around than you will dead in a casket."

"You know how much suits cost in the big and tall section?" Bobby counters.

"Bobby," Lewis frowns warningly, though he can tell that he's making headway.

"You chip in, man, and I'll consider it," Bobby backs down.

"Deal," Lewis pulls a tarnished quarter out of his pocket and drops it into his friend's hand, the one not attached to the IV.

Bobby chuckles and says, "Cheapskate."

Moments later he is asleep.

And in the years to come, while Bobby Goren is racking up the most successful conviction rate of any detective in the Major Case squad, he'll often open his battered leather notebook and catch a glimpse of that very quarter, taped to the inside flap as a reminder of the day he first considered a change in his lifestyle. It had taken another three years in Narcotics – another three years of being constantly on guard and aware of his own mortality – before he made the switch, but that day in the hospital had definitely been the turning point. As he ponders, he'll loosen his tie, sit back in his chair, and make a mental note to call Lewis and take him out for a beer. They'll reminisce about their wild younger days – including that time when they were seventeen – and on a rare occasion they might even talk about the day that Bobby was wounded. Lewis may even go so far as to say that if he hadn't heard those two faceless men speaking in the waiting room, it wouldn't have occurred to him that Bobby was eligible for a promotion, that Bobby had options other than what he was doing.

"It's those guys that gave me the idea," he'll say, clinking his glass against Bobby's.

And in his office just out side of the bullpen where the best detectives in the city – including Bobby Goren – work on some of the most difficult cases presented to the NYPD, Captain Jimmy Deakins (it says "James" on his nameplate, but he'll always think of himself as Jimmy) will look out and watch his top detective ruminate on the clues in his latest case. He won't remember the name of the Narcotics officer who was in surgery that long ago day when he made the decision to move his work off of the streets of the city and into the offices and boardrooms to ensure the safety of himself and his family. He won't remember the officer's name because he didn't know it, didn't think to ask for it. At the time it hadn't seemed important. Still, while he watches Bobby Goren work, sometimes he'll think about that nameless Narcotics cop and hope that he went on to lead a successful life.

It never occurs to him to ask Bobby about his days in Narcotics. In this case, two and two may equal four, but neither man is really interested in such simple math when there are cases to be solved in what the mayor deems to be a timely manner.

So there you have it, dear reader – a more recent and timely example of the ways in which the inconsequential can quickly and silently become life-altering and all powerful. Two people needn't even have direct contact with one another in order to set the future in motion – sometimes the chain is far more complicated an intricate than that.

Don't believe me?

You can always ask the widow of poor Officer Doolin, that other police officer who was slain so tragically just before Bobby was wounded. She stayed on the police force, stayed because she's never wanted to be anything else and doesn't know how to anyway. She too changed on the day that Jimmy Deakins and Bobby Goren's paths crossed for the first time – the very day of her husband's funeral. On that day, she too decided to get off the street, to use her brain to catch criminals instead of her body – to be safe.

And as long as they're partnered, Bobby Goren will make sure that she stays that way. And as long as the two of them are in the command of Jimmy Deakins, he will remind them that their lives are more important than their jobs.

What? Too coincidental? I've already told you that there is no such thing. The tapestry of life has threads that are so intricately woven that we mere mortals cannot see the pattern when we look at the whole, only when we look at its parts.

Let's examine one more of those parts, just to be sure…

TBC