Author's Note: I kind of think of Sands' 'team' as something like Mission Impossible. More then one officer who worked together on an operation. And I promise to stop with the dreams and flash backs. ;)

Thanks to Scarlett for beta reading this! Means a lot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sheldon Jeffrey Sands or another characters from Once Upon A Time In Mexico, they belong to their respected creators, I just let them come play. ;)

Chapter 3

She lay there, propped up against the hot stone wall, feeling her life fleeing her body. She'd watched Monterio march Sands out of the alley, with Sands not so much as lifting a finger to fight back. Maybe he was in shock, who knew. All Cerise knew, was he'd walked out of that alleyway and left her to die. Left her with his unborn child, dying slowly inside of her. She slid further down the wall, and sank onto the ground, arms wrapped around her midsection, where the bullet had struck, ironically, right under her left breast.

It had happened all at once. Sands and Monterio had been arguing over the lack of information and the immature judgment that was going into this operation, when Monterio turned on her with a 22., shooting her at near point-blank range. She heard Sands shout, 'No!', as she stumbled, falling against the wall. Helplessly, she looked on, watching as Monterio targeted Sands - her partner, her lover - stopped him in his tracks, eyes darting from the gun to her. She lay there, listening to the loud footsteps echoing through the alleyway as they walked away.

Cerise jerked awake with a start. She moved the arm draping over her eyes and groaned, rolling over on the mattress. She'd only laid there a few moments, but before she knew it, she was fast asleep. Cerise sat up, sitting there for a long moment, until she'd gathered her strength. Getting up, she moved around the expensive hotel room. She walked over to the TV and turned it on, tuning into a newscast, streaming live. She watched it as she picked up her gun and began checking the 9. mm's clip.

Within twenty minutes, Sarah Darcy was pulling up through the gates of the air force base that served as HQ. The white coats were already there, pulling the back door open and lifting Sands out. Sarah sat there, immobile, for a long time, watching them wheel the gurney inside. When she finally decided to leave the car she was met by Sand's authoritative officer on the operation. NOT that he followed orders much.

"What the fuck happened?! I told you not to fucking go out there, Darcy. You're not a field officer!" Matinieze shouted.

Sarah shrugged. "I wasn't going to abandon Officer Sands when he'd called saying he was being shadowed, and that his operation was in danger. As you pointed out, Sir, we had no open officers to go and back him up, so I did. He was in that..." she nodded towards the gurney, when I found him."

Matinieze swore, and gave Sarah a piercing look. "This will go on record and you'll have to deal with consequences, Darcy!" With that, the older man turned on his heel, strolling into the building. Sarah followed, silently.

But she didn't follow Matinieze to his office to wait on news of Sands' condition, the fallen officer had long since passed out again, and Sarah was nervous nervous about his chances of survival, but she owed it to his Cherry, to get the news across. She headed straight to the Operations Information room and cleared out the rookies, then opened a direct line to Cerise Stone's cell phone.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­In a hotel in Mexico City, as Cerise Stone watched the newscast unfold, her cell phone rang. There were two possibilities. It was HQ telling her to pull out, or it was her agent. She answered. "Yeah?" she asked in her musical, British accented voice.

"Darcy here," came the reply.

"What's up, Sarah?" Sarah Darcy never called her, she called Sarah, so there had to be something going down.

"Remember the Barillo Cartel infiltration?"

"How could I forget, the aftereffects are on the news as we speak," Cerise answered.

"Remember the Officer in charge?"

"Sheldon Jeffrey Sands....." Cerise answered softly, almost painfully, dreading creeping in.

"He's in trouble...he...got caught. The white coats are with him now, and it looks bad...."

Cerise was motionless and silent for a moment, then suddenly shouted, "FUCK! I've got to clear out! This line isn't safe." She hung up with that, everything dawning on her at once. Her agent wouldn't be contacting her. Chances were, her agent was dead. Cerise had been working a intricately woven operation, in sync with Officer Sands' operation... her results greatly depended on his results. Although, Sands had no idea that this was the case.

If Officer Sands had gotten caught, it was only a matter of time before the same happened to her. She grabbed her holster and headed for the door. The moment she opened it, she was met with a shower of bullets. Slamming the door, she side stepped out of the line of fire and watched the holes riddle the old wood of the door.

She looked around the third story room before sprinting to the window. Another round of bullets assailed the door. and Cerise threw the window open, looking out. Somewhere, she heard a mariachi band playing. It was, The Day of the Dead.

Cerise swore. This was to be her last operation. After this, she was going back to D.C to become an team analyst, so she could raise her daughter... their daughter. "Oh you better live, Shelly," she growled, "So I can ring your neck for all of this!"

She slipped out the window, the band playing an intense rhythm backdrop to her escape. She shimmied sideways on the ledge, grabbing the lip of the decorational outcropping that covered the outside of the building. Hand over hand in the hot sun, she pulled herself towards the drain pipe. As she grabbed it, she heard the door to her room forced open, and voices enter the room. A moment later, a head poked out the window and scoured the area before spotting her. He began shouting in Spanish, "She's escaping, she's escaping!"

So much for staying on the Delgado Cartel's good side. A gunman appeared, and as Cerise slid down slowly (it seem slow to her at the time) she pulled a pistol and opened fire. She took a shoulder hit, but this caused the gunman's aim to be off, and he shattered the braces holding the drain pipe.

It tumbled backwards,and Cerise went with it.. "FUCK!" she shrieked, as the pipe came loose from the building. She hit the ground in relative safety, ducked another wave of bullets as she took off sprinting. She ran towards the center of the city, intending to disappear into the Day of the Dead celebration. At the same time, she pulled her cell phone out and called HQ. Matinize answered. "I'm being shadowed, repeat, shadowed. With intent to kill!" Cerise screamed into the phone over the noise of the fireworks. "NEED BACK UP!" She heard the line fade away, and threw the phone in anger.

She blended into a mass of women, watching every possible exit and entrance of the city's center. The minutes ticked by. There were two other officers in her area. Mac Harly and Rick Dupre. Both Officers she trusted with her life. Both officers on cartel operations. So the only problem now, were either alive?

She got her answer when she spotted Mackenzie Harly in the crowd. Mac had to be Cerise's best friend. They attended the Farm together. Mac's eyes scanned the crowd, but it wasn't hard for her to find the British red head. The two women began weaving their way towards each other, pushing through the crowd. They were half way to each other when a massive amount of fire works went off. Cerise gave herself away by ducking and backing into a wall. She didn't move until Mac reached her, adrenaline pumping in her veins, her heart beating uncontrollably.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Mac hissed in Cerise's ear when she'd reached her.

"I've been burned." Cerise replied, lips close to her friend's ear. Mac turned her head to look at her, wide-eyed. "It gets better, I'm not the only Officer." Cerise continued.

"Who else?"

"Officer Sands..."