AN: I never thought I'd write another Fugitive fic but then back in September I watched that One Scene with Richard and Sam in the car and bam here we are. My muse hijacked my brain to write this nonsense over other, more pressing projects. The things I do for favourite fictional characters. Buckle up for some angst, y'all.

Bon appetite!

'Someone stood beside,
A hand upon my shoulder
I knew the touch was kind
He drew me near and nearer.
We neither spoke one word
But the beating of our own two hearts
Was the only sound I heard.'

"I Wandered By a Brookside" ~ Eva Cassidy

~OL~

"Uh, Sammy? We got a problem."

Samuel Gerard barely tugged off his coat, infused with October air, before Cosmo stopped him at the bullpen door. He fidgeted in his loafers, like a kid waiting in the principal's office. A funny look for a man also strapped with a gun holster.

"Problem?" Sam barked. Cosmo and Poole shushed him, arms waving. She hovered over Cosmo's shoulder along with Newman.

Sam lowered his voice. "What do you mean a problem?"

His mind popped with images of escaped felons coming back for revenge. Wasn't unheard of in their line of work—just last month a colleague was mugged in broad daylight for pursuing said criminal a decade ago. Things had been slow lately though, no cases or fugitives for two months. Just paperwork.

"Maybe not a problem." Noah motioned him inside with a curious expression, torn between humour and worry. His lips rippled. "The opposite of a problem actually, but he freaked out security. It helps that he's blissfully ignorant about it."

Sam finally caught on. His hand eased away from his sidearm. "He?"

Noah didn't answer, just led him on a corn maze weave around desks to Sam's at the back, by the wall of windows. Other marshals in the office worked through the last of lunch hour. But every so often their eyes flicked to Sam's desk. Poole quietly shooed away a security guard.

Biggs and Henry already stood off to one side, arms folded. Henry in particular wore a soft-eyed look. Not one Sam saw very often outside of case-related victims or for Noah when their rookie had a hard day.

Sam took all this in with one snap of eye contact before his gaze landed on a slumped bundle in the visitor chair.

His boots stuttered to a halt. "What the hell?"

"That was my reaction too," Biggs consoled him.

Together, the six marshals stared down at Richard Kimble, head pillowed on a stack of Sam's invoices, arms around it in a protective but rather cozy bed. Dead to the world.

"How long's he been here?"

Cosmo shrugged. "Twenty minutes or so. Dropped in outta the blue and said he wanted to talk to you. I told him you wouldn't be back until the end of lunch break but he insisted on waiting."

Sam heard the unspoken truth. "Parked himself and wouldn't leave, huh?"

Henry grumbled. "You try negotiating with a guy who's jumped off a two-hundred-foot dam."

I have. That went unspoken too.

Sam rounded the desk and caught a sliver of exposed face. Mellow slant to Richard's mouth—dark circles under his eyes. Wispy hair finally washed of its dye and back to chestnut brown.

"How does he know where we work?" asked Poole.

"I gave him my business card outside the courthouse, after the official pardon." Sam's voice floated, absent even to his own ears. "Plus my home number. We went out for a beer a few times, just to chat and decompress, but he never…he was shy when I offered lunch with us here."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, doing the math. They caught Richard at the Hilton only seven months ago and he'd been a free man for half of that, medical license reinstated and reparations paid in full by the state after a formal judicial review.

Cosmos's eyes were all for Sam, knowing. "Just beer?"

"Coffee too, coupla mornings at his new place."

"Ah."

"He makes a mean banana muffin."

Cosmo grinned. "I'll bet."

"Alright, party people. Break it up." Sam flapped his hands. "Show's over."

His team dispersed with only mild huffing and a few last stares. And they really were the best, when they weren't nosy puppies. Sam waited until the sound of keyboard typing, papers, and phone lines filled the bullpen before sitting across from Richard, so he wasn't looming over him. He spared his own moment to study the drooping profile, not on edge a lick at having his back to the room or being in the belly of the beast.

"Richard?" Sam laid a careful hand on an elbow peeking around his monitor. He kept his voice low. "Hey, Doc. I'm back now."

Richard didn't wake like most people, groggy and bleary eyed. His head shot up a few inches, though his elbows remained on the desk. Asleep to awake in half a second. "Hunh?"

The ingrained fight-or-flight response clenched Sam's stomach. He firmed his grip. "You're alright, Richard. We're okay. No fires."

Richard glanced around, blinking for a few moments. A staple's indent marred one cheek. In the rumpled tweed jacket and jeans, he didn't look very formidable. Not like Chicago reporters described him when he escaped a year ago, a danger to society.

If only they could see this epic bedhead and medical ID upside down on his lapel.

Something in Sam's gut melted. He covered it up with a tap to Richard's arm. "What's shakin', Doc?"

"Hopefully nothing." Richard rubbed his forehead and the indents away. "Nothing but thunderstorms all week are starting to make the RNs squirrely."

Sam couldn't help a grin either. "My rain gutters are overflowing."

"Sorry for falling asleep on your…" Richard glanced down. "Expense reports."

"Bah. Saves me from having to deal with it. No one talks about the mind-numbing parts of federal investigative work, you know that?"

Richard quirked a brow. "I can believe it. How're my cranberry lemon muffins treating you?"

"Delicious as ever." It was true. Sam had inhaled two this morning and had to force himself away before he ate a third.

"I like baking." That sappy, quiet smile again. The one Richard flashed Gerard over pints at the bar or coffee in the park. "I find it soothing."

Sam's hand was still on Richard's arm, he suddenly noticed. He only did now because it relaxed at the chitchat. And what a novelty—Richard at ease thanks to the voice of a man who tried to shoot him last year. In the very bullpen where they hunted him.

Sam ruffled the tweed elbow. "My office too, apparently."

Richard, to his credit, didn't flush. He just nodded.

Sam again eyed the bloodshot eyes and dishevelled hair. "Anything in particular you came to talk to me about?"

Richard finally noticed the subtle stares—Sam made a mental note to train him on the finer points of situational awareness—and that he was surrounded by twenty-two federal marshals. That he fell asleep in the lion's den.

Sam tensed, ready to calm a panic response.

But Richard just shook his head at himself. "Didn't mean to cause a stir."

"Doc, I've learned you never do anything halfway, good or bad."

An old joke at this point. Both men smiled, and it struck Sam again what a privilege it was to be trusted by this man. A friend, nearly. In fact, Richard had welcomed a kind face before and after the second investigation to declare him a free man.

"You said I could come by any time."

Sam's turn to blink. "You can. Of course you can, Richard. You're welcome here any day, no matter what we're doing. Just surprised us, is all."

Richard ran a hand through his thick mop. "I was in the area anyway picking up groceries and figured I'd stop in to say hello."

Sam noted the lack of grocery bags or even food marts in the immediate area and nodded anyway. "Well, hello. And may I just say you're allowed to give building security a heart attack anytime you wish. It keeps them humble. Best part of my week, hands down."

Richard rolled his eyes but gave in to a broad grin at Sam's husky chuckles. "Happy to be of service."

~OL~

"This is not your kind of place."

The tiny espresso cup paused halfway to Richard's lips. "Why not? What is my kind of place?"

Huffing and puffing from all those gleaming marble stairs, Sam flopped into a cushioned seat beside Richard. Murmured conversations at tables around them echoed up to chandeliers high above. The velvet rug under their feet alone cost more than Sam's car.

He shimmied the red scarf off his neck and threw it onto the table by their knees. Also marble. "You're a joe and burgers guy, like me."

Another of those rare smiles lit up Richard's face and this time struggled to reach his eyes. He set down his cup. "Got me pegged as usual."

"Then what happened to our plan of beers at the Palermo? Why invite me to a hoity toity café?"

Richard helped Sam shrug off his coat, then pointed to the adjacent wall. His eyes twinkled. "Because it's not just a café."

Darkness settled outside. The whole day had dragged. To be fair, Sam's only task for eight hours straight had been negotiating a jurisdiction dispute over the phone, for a joint-state marshal operation coming up.

But still. He was tired, and therefore slow on the uptake. As such, he squinted for a long time at the wall before it clicked.

A young couple circled around, arm in arm, and Sam's eyes widened. "This is an art exhibit too."

"Close." Richard's eyes drank in paintings on each wall. "This is an art gallery. You can buy them."

Sam turned to look at Richard. "Now why would I want to buy art?"

"You're right, this isn't your kind of place. Should I ask them to put on a Broncos game so you don't fall asleep?"

Sam swatted Richard's knee for that. And Richard snickered at it, like this was the highlight of his day. Not a flinch or gasp to be found. Sam sat back, pleased.

He threaded his hands behind his head and enjoyed the scenery, namely rich people or college hippies oohing and aahing over art he probably couldn't afford and Richard gazing in wonder at everything like he was five years old.

"Art, huh?"

Richard didn't lose his enthusiasm, but he also wouldn't look Sam in the eye. "It was Helen's thing. Yet somehow I inherited that love for colour and movement on a canvas."

Sam kept his posture nonchalant, glad Richard couldn't hear his heart tick up a few notches. It was the first time Richard had ever mentioned Helen to him, outside of case-related contexts. The heat of Richard's knee bumping his felt keen, sharp.

"Can't say I get it." Sam nodded at landscape portraits nearby. "But they are beautiful. Thanks for inviting me."

Richard snorted. "Oh please. You're not grateful I tricked you into coming to a 'hoity toity' place."

"It's growing on me," Sam admitted. "I'd like it even better if they have food. You eaten supper yet? It's late."

Richard checked his watch. After eight. "No, haven't had time since I got off shift at the hospital."

They were both loose, relaxed. Sam should have passed it off or made a joke. This was the wisest choice when they both looked so wiped.

But that quiet voice in Sam's investigative brain sprang to life. "What time was that?"

Richard didn't catch the tone. An interrogator's tone. He'd twisted to study a ballerina still life behind them. "Three. I'm easing back into the OR this week."

If Richard hadn't been so distracted, he never would have said it. Sam sensed the truth of this like the foreign heartbeat against his knee.

"Let me guess—you're like me and don't enjoy cooking."

Richard refocused. His brow crinkled. "I love cooking."

"You've been off since three this afternoon." Sam said it slowly, picking up on lines around Richard's mouth. Stress. "Why didn't you go home and eat something before meeting me?"

The rosy, excited hue high on Richard's cheeks paled. "Oh, uh…I just had a lot of running around to do. Didn't see the point in driving all the way home and then all the way back into town."

"Running around?"

"Just oil changes and stuff like that. Shopping for my neighbour's birthday."

More shopping and no bags. Sam even checked behind Richard's chair, in case he missed them. Nothing.

Still, it possessed a modicum of logic. Richard's house was a twenty-five minute drive from downtown, in the suburbs. Maybe killing five hours wasn't that much for him.

Then again, Sam personally vetted all of Richard's neighbours and he'd never spoken a word to them, as far as Sam knew. Richard would fail a polygraph right now just for that.

"Okay." Sam let it go and patted Richard's hand. "What type of supper are we feeling to go with all that artistic refinement you got going on?"

Richard stood. "Oh no, I invited you here. Let me pay. I can afford it now."

"We'll split."

Richard accepted the compromise with a sigh. Good. He was learning Sam could well match his stubbornness.

They ordered a plate of gourmet (gentrified) nachos to share. The server promised to bring over their food soon. Sam got ready to head back to their table—not that anyone would want to steal his beloved scarf—but Richard veered off towards the walls.

"See anything you like?" he asked Sam.

Sam tilted his head at an abstract block painting. All in reds and blues. "This one, if I turn it sideways. Reminds me of my nephew's Lego structures."

"Very funny."

"Who said I was kidding?"

"This one's my favourite." Sam would have teased Richard for the obvious deflection if his voice hadn't sounded so fond. He followed Richard's eyeline to a small piece in the corner. Overshadowed by giant counterparts on either side. "It looks like…like the kind of place where everything is quiet."

The impressionist-meets-pop-art landscape depicted trees growing out of a river, roots threaded in artful Celtic designs around each other. The sun spilled bronze light over the canopy.

"It really does." Sam stood by Richard's shoulder and the peace of that imaginary space hushed the air in a bubble around them.

To Sam's amazement, Richard stood with his hands folded for another two minutes. Like an old appraiser pro.

He knocked Richard's elbow. "She really loved art that much?"

"She loved colour." Richard's smile at last touched his eyes, if only for a moment. "And possibility. Humans expressing themselves for no other reason than to communicate joy."

"Hmm."

They devoured the nachos much faster than either expected, if their gapes at the empty platter later were anything to go by. The conversation made time fly faster, all about Noah's latest girlfriend, who he met online, and how Richard still couldn't get the hang of his new garbage disposal and the atrocity that was the latest blockbuster. Sam hadn't felt so relaxed in ages.

"Shoo." He eyed a clock on the wall. "It's almost ten. I'd better go."

"Sure you don't want to stay for dessert?" Richard made it sound like an offer, but Sam heard a pleading wisp in there.

He looped on his scarf and let Richard lean against his shoulder some more, where their combined weights pressed together. Drunk with exhaustion. "Some of us gotta work tomorrow."

"Tell me about it." Richard fought a wilt in his eyelids. "They keep booking me for four am shift starts."

Sam whirled around so fast Richard had to brace a hand on the cushions before he fell over. "Richard—what the ever-loving hell are you doing drinking this much coffee six hours before your shift?"

Richard flitted a laissez faire hand. "Calm down, Sam. Clearly you've never met med students. This is nothing."

"You should be at home. Asleep."

Richard didn't say anything for another long minute. He blinked at a weird painting of a deconstructed face. "Probably."

Something about the tone raised hairs on Sam's arms. That quiet voice in his mind started up again.

He clasped Richard's forearm. "Richard? Can you look at me? This is really important."

Richard dragged dull eyes back to Sam's face. That espresso wasn't doing anything.

Sam made sure he had actual eye contact with real awareness before he spoke. "When I said you can call me anytime, that didn't just mean at work."

"What?" Richard's nose scrunched on one side.

Three degrees and the doctor could be an A grade idiot.

"Call me at home, Richard. Anytime."

"…At home."

"That's right."

"Anytime of day."

"There you go. Took the scenic route but here we are."

Richard didn't rise to the joke. He just sat up and pulled on his own coat, a wool one this time. His badge was still clipped upside down.

The pink misted back into his cheeks. "Thanks, Sam. I hope you know that goes both ways."

"I do know." Sam didn't mean for it to sound so heavy, but those words between them would never be the same. "I know it. Will you be alright to drive home?"

"Yes, Mom."

"I'm just saying. I have enough paperwork on my desk without incident reports about you in a car accident."

Richard threw Sam's coat at his face. "Just for that I'm bringing you lasagna this week. To prove I can drive tired and that I'm a decent cook."

~OL~

You'd think a president had been shot.

Voices scurried to and fro by Sam's chair in a frenzied yet controlled chorus, the perk of professionals who dealt with chaos at a moment's notice. Poole's heels thwacked on the office carpet in counterpoint to Henry's bassline steps. At least Newman and Biggs weren't here to smother him, out working a cold case lead.

Someone pressed a freezing weight against Sam's head. "Hold the ice pack there. Is it chilled enough?"

"Maybe we should grab some Tylenol."

"Meds aren't a good idea."

"Why?"

"Not until we talk to—"

"No!" Sam interjected when Cosmo reached for his landline. "Don't you dare dial that number."

"Come on, Sammy." Genuine sweat coated Cosmo's forehead. Sam's own throbbed harder. "Just for a second. Just to see if anything's wrong."

Sam tried to stand but three sets of hands shoved him back in the chair. Henry was the most forceful, caring bastard. "What if he's wrist deep in someone's aorta?"

"Then we'll leave a message," Poole snapped.

Thoroughly outvoted, Sam lost the battle when the room started to swim. He must have groaned because the voices reached a fever pitch. Someone wailed about calling an ambulance.

"I don't need…an ambulance…"

Cosmo completely tuned out Sam's voice, phone to his ear. "Yeah, hey, is the doc there? I'm trying to page a vascular surgeon on staff…"

Sam also lost time somewhere. One moment Poole stood before him, pinching his wrist to take his pulse, and in the next blink she vanished, halfway across the room. This was definitely not how he imagined his afternoon going and he'd be lucky to survive 'til tomorrow with the league of mother hens.

When he looked up a second time, Richard burst through the bullpen door. He honed in like a drug dog on Sam sprawled across a wheelie office chair.

Except he wasn't Richard right now. He was Dr. Kimble, black leather bag in one hand and stethoscope still around his neck, cheeks flushed from autumn air. A spare pair of blue latex gloves bobbed out of his back pocket. Nothing like the art-smitten man in the café last week.

The wild eyes though, those were all Richard's.

The doctor bolted over and set a hand on Cosmo's back. "Hey, thanks for calling me. We need to get him somewhere dimmer."

"The conference room." Cosmo darted into motion, wheeling Sam through the oak doors and into the—mercifully—darker space. Quieter too. "There ya go, Big Dog."

"I'm fine," he rumbled.

"Uh-huh." Richard knelt in front of Sam, the others gathered in a semi circle at his back. "Keep your eyes open for me."

Had he closed them? Strange.

"Sam."

"That's my name. Don't wear it out."

Richard snapped on the gloves and shone a penlight in Sam's eyes. It felt like staring down an oncoming train, all bright needles and nerve ending noise. Richard ignored the swearing to shine it in Sam's mouth next, of all places.

"What happened?" he murmured.

Cosmo fretted over the doc's shoulder. "One minute he's walking back from the little boy's room and the next, poof."

Richard stopped an inspection of Sam's skull to glance over his shoulder. "Poof?"

"Poof! He stumbles into a coat rack and whacks his head on the wall. Whiter than grandma's pearls."

Those acute eyes locked back on Sam's face. "Lost your balance?"

"Just felt dizzy."

"What kind of dizzy?"

Sam's hands shook, he saw in his peripheral vision. "Wasn't aware there's more than one kind."

"Does your head hurt?"

"A bit. Like it's being squeezed."

Sam bobbed in an achy kind of haze, shivering slightly, so he didn't fight it when Richard stuck a thermometer in his mouth and palpitated lymph nodes under his ears. He saw how the doctor was accomplished at his craft, quick but thorough with his assessments. To an outside observer the whole thing should have been strange, Richard so close in his personal space and breathing near his nose, but Sam simply slouched, at ease.

A little furrow deepened over Richard's right eye when he removed the thermometer. Then his mouth wobbled.

"So what is it, doc?" Cosmo's anxiety compelled him to tap the crown of Richard's head. "Concussion? Poison?"

"Low blood sugar?" Poole suggested, ever rational. "He did skip lunch today."

"The sandwiches smelled weird." Or so Sam's roiling stomach declared.

"My money's on a brain tumour," said Henry.

That wobble blossomed into a full smile. Richard sat back on his heels. "Afraid it's nothing so exotic. Not even a concussion from the bump into the wall. I think your boss is coming down with a nasty flu strain."

A gasp. An ungainly pause.

"The flu?" Cosmo threw up his hands. "You never get sick, Sam!"

Richard startled at the physical gesture. Sam's eyes flicked to the motion and narrowed. "Sorry to disappoint, kids."

"I'm just saying, you're practically invincible when it comes to colds."

"Not fair," Poole agreed in a dry tone. "But I'm glad it's not something more serious."

Richard's eyes softened at the team's back and forth. "Think we could get some privacy? I need to discuss OTC medication options with your boss."

Cosmo grumbled but complied with Richard's 'suggestion,' leading the procession out the door and closing it. Richard unwound at the sudden quiet.

Without the distracting noise of his kids, Sam picked up on details he'd missed in the initial drama. Like the way Richard's hands shook a little too. Or how the collar of his shirt was crinkled on one side but not the other.

Or the oval bruise along the underside of his left jaw bone.

"Sorry they called you away from work."

Sam's deep, even voice unspooled remaining tension in Richard's back. He dug through his medical bag. "It's no problem. I was actually hoping…I mean…it felt nice to be asked. To be trusted by your team enough for this. Although Renfro made it sound like you were actively dying."

Sam scoffed, fond smile giving him away. "He's one of a kind."

Richard held up the stethoscope. "I just want to listen to your lungs before I give suggestions for a trip to the pharmacy, make sure it's nothing bacterial."

"Knock yourself out." Sam untucked his shirt from the belt so Richard could slither his hand up underneath. He'd warmed the disk in his palm, now a pleasant heat on Sam's back. He dutifully inhaled a few deep breaths while Richard shuffled it around. "Really, it means a lot that you'd drive all the way over here. My own GP wouldn't."

Richard looked up, surprised. He popped the scope out of his ears. Something in his eyes was open, younger than his fifty-one years. Sam's heart skipped a beat.

If chasing this man across a combined total of two thousand miles wasn't sufficient proof that Richard kept Sam on his toes, one of the only people in Sam's life to ever do so, Richard's next move sure was.

He removed the stethoscope and his shaky hand—only to roost its gentle weight on Sam's shoulder. "You're the only friend I have in the entire world right now, you know that?"

Being roundhouse slapped would have astonished Sam less. A man he once hunted was now the person he talked to the most on a weekly basis. And lately it had been almost every day. No matter how professional Sam was at his job, you didn't lose a fire-forged kinship like that overnight.

Winded, Sam braced his elbows on his knees so they were at eye level. "And Kathy."

Richard snuffled a laugh, suspiciously wet sounding. "Yeah, but she…no one else gets it. Not like you."

"Because I almost shot you multiple times."

"But you didn't really, did you?"

Any wooziness vanished at the intense eye contact. Sam's throat ached now along with the rest of him.

"You knew the glass at the prison was bullet proof," Richard insisted. "You knew it wouldn't kill me. You just wanted to open the door."

"I still regret it." Sam confessed this in a hoarse whisper. "I should never have fired my gun at an unarmed subject. I know better. I was frustrated."

"Why? Besides the obvious."

"Because I wanted to talk to you." Sam's mouth moved without consulting him, spilled things he didn't talk about even with his team. "In reviewing your case, something didn't sit right. You were telling the truth, I just had to prove it."

That tremor again. Richard wavered on his heels and this time Sam braced his opposite shoulder, forming an ouroboros of stability. Sam watched Richard close his eyes for a second, the dip in his mouth relieved.

Why Richard would be relieved to take time off work without pay and risk his job just to handle a sick US marshal who almost shot him was beyond Sam. He couldn't fathom it.

But he was thankful. He wouldn't trade Richard's faith in him for the world.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who had a rough day."

Confusion clouded Richard's features before Sam brushed a light thumb over the bruise. Richard's eyes widened. "Is something there?"

"A slight shiner."

"Oh." Richard didn't blush, like Sam expected from some accidental blunder. "I didn't realize…"

Sam pumped his shoulder. "Cage match in the lunch lounge or something?"

"No, nothing as exciting as that." Richard's eyes darted to either side. Sam tried to catch his gaze again and failed. "Just a patient. She was fevered and hysterical. A flying elbow clocked me before orderlies sedated her."

Sam's stomach twinged. The exact same feeling he got interviewing Nichols at his convention that day. Sam blamed it on the flu.

"Our glamourous jobs."

Richard chuckled at the commiseration, but Sam knew him too well by this point to take it as genuine. Strain coiled behind Richard's spine once more. Sam hated it. Too familiar, yet too unfamiliar in the last three months.

"Being a marshal is a lonely job. Wives don't love the odd hours. Or that I can't have kids."

Richard didn't ask why. The words worked, however, and his eyes came back around. "You do, though. Have kids."

Tears rushed to Sam's eyes before he even registered them. He blamed these on the flu too. No one had ever understood him that fast.

"They're lucky to have someone who cares so much." Richard's voice was muted.

Sam grunted and pulled himself together. "Yeah, well. The point I'm trying to make is that maybe I haven't had a someone I can count on in a long time either."

"Good friends are hard to come by."

"Amen to that."

Like Richard didn't ask about why Sam couldn't give a woman kids, Sam didn't ask about the haunted grief in Richard's eyes over a man he'd known for three decades, who betrayed him for a paycheck.

"I'm glad you're…" Richard leaned into the hand still on his shoulder. "I'm glad you're not averse to befriending someone you hunted."

"We'll be lonely and sad together," Sam quipped.

Richard didn't laugh, but the tremors in his fingers calmed, and that was enough for Sam.