"Sandburg-"

"Don't say it." Blair reminded himself the kid was new. He reminded himself he'd been this green not so long ago himself. He reminded himself that blood washed out, most of the time. "Just let me shower in peace, Zare."

"I really am..." Travis Zare had been stationed in Major Crimes for just three days and he was starting to understand all the winces he'd seen when he'd announced his new posting. "Your partner is going to kill me isn't he?" A cake run, the Captain had said. Take Sandburg, go and calm down the demonstrators. Just don't let him get hurt, or Ellison will cut out your entrails. Travis only hoped being covered in pig's blood didn't count as getting hurt. "Sorry."

"Don't. Let us never speak of this again." Blair opened his locker and dug around for shampoo. He had to wonder who's brilliant idea it had been to put a group of PETA radicals in the same convention hotel as the North Western Cattle Farmers Association. "I hope Naomi doesn't hear about this. She'd never live down her little boy being attacked by an animal rights group. I'm Jewish, you know. I don't even eat pork!"

"She moved so fast." Travis hadn't know little old ladies could move like that. "They're never going to let me live this down, are they?"

"Not a chance. Ask them about the vending machines some time." Blair finally found a bar of soap but it jumped out of his hand and skittered under the lockers. "This is not my day. Listen, Zare, why don't you go check on our friends in Booking. And ask Joel to keep an eye out for Jim. We don't want him seeing me like this, do we?"

Blair dropped to the floor and felt around for his soap. Travis tried not to think what an overprotective ex-Special Forces officer could do to him. Blair was absolutely soaked in blood, while he'd managed to escape with just a few splatters. "At least let me pay for your dry cleaning."

The door to the locker room swung open. "Has anyone seen- What the fuck did you do to my partner?"

Trevor found himself thrown against the row of lockers and realized what this must look like to Ellison. Oh, god, he's going to kill me and they'll never find the body.'

"Jim, put him down!" Jim had been alone all day, and this morning Blair had helped him dial all the way down to normal, which meant all he smelled was blood. He couldn't type it. "I'm fine. Put him down."

Jim dialed up and did a quick check. The Guide was fine. He let go of Travis and the other man collapsed weak-kneed to the floor. "Alright. Somebody better tell me what's going on here."

"I'm just going to go..." Transfer. Yeah, that sounded like a plan. He'd get far, far away from Jim Ellison, just in case Sandburg had a scratch on him somewhere.

Jim waited for the other man to flee then tugged on a bloody strand of Blair's hair. "Not yours. I should apologize to Zare."

"You think?" Blair pushed Jim aside and headed for the showers. Jim heard water hit tile and the smell of blood started to fade. "Listen. I need a favor. We brought something back from the protest with us."

"You mean someone."

"No, I mean something."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I can't believe this."

Simon was already standing in front of the cell when Jim arrived, also failing to believe what he was seeing. "Jim, please tell me why there are cows in Booking?"

"Sandburg."

"Why am I not surprised?" The two calves in the holding cell smelled and Simon just wanted them to be gone before Williams caught wind of this, (no pun intended.) "Animal Control refuses to put them in their normal trucks, so we're waiting for someone to drive in from farm country."

"Sir-"

"Jim, I was having a meeting with the Commissioner when these two arrived. Now listen. I want them gone, gone, do you hear me, before he walks through here on his way out. I have to get back up there before he comes looking for me, so you're going to cowsit."

"But, sir-"

"Don't but, sir me. They're your problem now."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commissioner of Police Allen Williams was playing with Simon's supply of paper clips when he finally managed to get back to his office. "Let me guess. Ellison and Sandburg. Something bizarre, perhaps even beyond belief?"

"Always." Simon sat back down in his chair. "But despite all the strange-"

"Banks, in the past six months, describe a few of their high profile cases." Williams did not look happy.

"They're still working the Shiva case, but they shut down that bank robbery ring."

"The Brotherhood of Bank Robbing Mimes, you mean. Mimes who came to Cascade all the way from Florida to test their skills against your two detectives, if I remember the deposition right."

"When you say it like that, it does sound..." Simon cut himself off. "There were also those car thieves."

"Butlers obsessed with classic trucks. They stole... Sweetheart, is that the name?" Detective Ellison hadn't slept for an entire week when his truck had gone missing. "And let's not forget the group of masons they upset. The ones who bricked them into that abandoned warehouse scheduled for demolition."

"Commissioner, with all due respect, you cannot fault them for attracting all the weirdos. We do give them our toughest cases."

"Be that as it may, I'm starting to consider them a safety hazard. I understand the Koreans have sworn a vendetta against Sandburg because he arrested their leader."

"That's-"

"The leader was wearing fishnets and corset at the time. The tabloids ran the pictures on the front page. Sandburg has shaped into an excellent cop, I will give you that, Banks. But he's a danger on the streets. Putting those two together generates this cloud of bad luck and weird cases. Need I remind you what happened the day Sandburg started his ride-along?"

"You cannot blame Brackett on Sandburg!"

"I can. The boy is trouble. We need to get him off the streets and into a nice safe desk. There's a research position open. They'd love to take him off my hands."

"You can't do that. This department needs him." Simon had never thought having an anthropologist on staff would be so useful. And that was only the stuff Sandburg could do that Simon let himself think about. "Jim needs him."

"We can promote Ellison. This whole Sentinel thing has been more trouble than it's worth." Allen had put up with a lot and he was at his limit. "One more disaster and we're shipping that boy to Olympia."

"You're talking about splitting up my best team. My team with record high closure rates."

"As good as they are, they're not worth the expense it causes to clean up their messes. Have you heard all the Due South jokes?"

"It's my policy to ignore them, sir."

"Well, I'm not. One more incident, Simon, and I'll have to split them up." Allen dropped the paper clip chain back onto Simon's desk. "One more thing before I go. What was the emergency?"