Title: Till We Meet Again

Disclaimer: Slash, language, violence, character death, sexual content, angst.

POV: Danny

Chapter Eleven: Conspiracy

Somehow Jack convinced me to stop drinking and spend all my time looking for the evidence needed to lock away Martin's killer. Maybe it was because he spent that night of the funeral with me, watching over me and trying to get me to understand that alcohol didn't solve anything. I'd been down the road before and now I felt ashamed that I'd let myself get caught up in drinking boozes again. We mutually decided that I should attend a few AA meetings just to be on the safe side. I still wanted to yell at Jack, to tell him that I believe Martin's death was still his fault. But part of the blame belonged to Martin's father, too, for letting these events play out. Had they let Martin stay behind in the office he'd be alive right now and we'd be enjoying one another's company.

Jack handed me a thick folder and a box usually used to hold evidence. "This is all we have on the O'Leary boys, Mr. Vladislav, and Martin's death. I want you to spend your desk time going through everything here, you hear me?"

I nodded in understanding. I was on a week of desk duty, no field work, they didn't trust putting me out there just yet. They said that I was unstable and in shock about the death of my friend. Whatever made them feel better so that they could sleep at night. Jack was the only one who knew how deeply I was hurting, the others still thought Martin was merely a good friend. It amazed me really. Martin and I had been afraid to let Jack know about our relationship, fear that we'd get shunned and end up fired. But Jack appeared to be very supportive of the whole issue. He'd ask me questions about the things we did together and laughed when I told him about the time I kissed Martin in front of the woman in his apartment building. He never once said that my love for Martin was wrong. In fact, he said that he believe it was a good thing. He believed that had time allowed it to go on our love would have changed him, making him more headstrong and tough, forcing him to leave his almost reclusive self behind. If only time had allowed it.

The others spent as little time as possible talking about Martin. If they didn't have to bring to him up, they didn't. I knew they were hurting too but they didn't know the man the way that I did. Even if we hadn't been sleeping together our friendship ran deeper than the friendships of our co-workers. I'd never heard Sam talking about spending time with Vivian or Elena outside of the office. Maybe outside the office they weren't really friends. That made my relationship with Martin even more special.

That first day on desk duty was hard. By noon I was alone in the office and the silence was difficult to handle. I kept telling myself to concentrate on the evidence, to find something so that Martin could rest in peace. I read about the O'Leary brothers and their background; how they had come to America from Ireland with their parents. Their father had been a respectable man in his community but the boys fell into the wrong crowd and literally ended up on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. There were records of complaints filed against the boys, none of which ever went anywhere. Any problem the boys encountered with the police was soon forgotten, tossed away into the trash pile.

Anton Vladislav wasn't a saint either. There wasn't as much about him as the brothers. He'd been raised in a bad family and followed along in the family business; which just happened to be racketeering and murder. He'd been the main competition for the O'Leary boys and neither party liked their standing. Of course, Anton didn't kill Martin, he'd been killed first. Maybe if I could prove that Sean killed Anton things would start falling into place. That wasn't likely to happen. The only evidence left at that the scene of Anton's death was the dead police officer. There hadn't been any bullets or even shell casings. All the fingerprints in the vicinity came back to the dock workers and they all checked out as honest people.

I leaned back in my chair chewing on the butt end of a pen. Something had to be here, anything that would help me catch the killer of my lover. Something had to fall into place and help make sense of all this murder. I sat there, listening to the ticking of the clock on the corner of my desk. There had to be something, there's no such thing as the perfect crime. That's when the box fell off my desk. It had been sitting there for hours atop a pile of folders. The contents of the box scattered onto the floor and sheets of paper slid from a few of the folders. I crouched down to pick them up and put things to rights.

This was the first time I looked into the box and something caught my eye, a tiny sheet of yellow paper. I plucked it from the bottom of the box, taking in the torn edges and smudges of ink. At first I thought it was a sheet from a legal pad, plenty of which we had in the office, but upon closer inspection I found that the yellow color was very faint. The paper didn't look familiar or even feel familiar. Written in a mix of English and some language I couldn't figure out was a message of some sort. I understood the first word clearly. It said "FBI". Had I found the missing link? Why had this piece of paper been overlooked? Perhaps it had been tucked away inside something else and no one had seen it, which would make perfect sense.

With a renewed spark of hope I took off toward a special office containing a man who knew his way around quite a few languages. The resident translator was a handy person to have around, especially since I really only knew English and Spanish, and the foreign language was definitely not Spanish. I found Mr. Hearse sitting behind his desk looking over a folder of who-knows-what. He looked up in surprise to see me standing there, a stupid grin on my face.

"Are you busy, Dean?" I asked with hope that he wasn't so that I could utilize his knowledge.

"That depends, what do you need?" His voice carried just the slightest hint of a British accent.

I held up the piece of paper. "Can you translate this really quickly? It's very important."

He shook his head. "Sorry, Danny, but I've got to translate this stack of letters in the case of a dead judge. Your little scrap of paper will have to wait."

"This is more important than that, Dean, it could be the key piece of evidence in Martin's death," I said laying the piece of paper right in front of him.

Interest sparked in his eyes. "Well, in that case, it's very important. I liked Marty; he was a good and honest guy. Let's see what we have here," he said as he picked the paper off his desk.

For the umpteenth time I checked my watch, waiting for Jack to return to his office. I had to share with him the truth of the note and what Dean had translated. That stupid piece of paper was going to break the case wide open. Unfortunately I had been sitting on the leather sofa in Jack's office for two hours. I'd tried calling him but his voice mail was all I ever got. The others hadn't returned to the office either. Lunch had come and gone and the end of shift was drawing ever closer. Eventually Jack would have to return and I would be ready to prove myself worthy.

I checked my watch again. Only a few seconds had passed. Then I saw Jack walking down the hall and I practically jumped off the couch. All the news that I held in my hands couldn't be contained any longer. The feelings of anger and disappointment and pain all came rushing back to me as Jack opened the door to his office.

"Danny, something I can do for you?" He asked as he noticed me there, waiting for him.

"I did it, Jack, I broke the case. We can put Martin's killers behind bars," I stated. "Actually, Dean helped me a bit but still, the case can be solved. I know who did it."

"Really? Care to give an explanation or are you just going to tell me that it's solved?"

I held up the piece of paper which was now secured in an evidence bag. "This was in that box of evidence you gave me. I figure it was tucked away inside something else and no one ever knew it was there. But when the box fell off my desk it came dislodged. It gave me all the answers I needed to solve the case."

Jack took the paper. "What the hell does this thing say?"

"Basically it says that Mr. Fitzgerald is an FBI director and that Martin, his son, works in the same building. From what I can tell this was part of a list of bigwigs in the FBI and what their children did. It got me thinking. Someone wanted to piss off the FBI, get in a good shot or two and show that they weren't worth messing with; someone who hates law enforcement of any kind."

"That's a long list and you know that," Jack interrupted.

I shrugged. "But I know who wrote this and that's all that matters."

He handed the paper back to me. "Who wrote it than?"

"The O'Leary brothers, well, one of them. The other language is Irish Gaelic. My guess is that when they learned Martin worked in the Missing Persons department they staged Cory's mysterious disappearance. It gave them a chance to blame Anton Vladislav and get near Martin. It all makes perfect sense," I explained. Then something else dawned on me and I felt horrible. All the energy seemed to seep from my body. My high spirits were dashed.

"What is it, Danny? Something wrong?"

"It's all my fault. That first time that we met with Sean O'Leary he asked me why Martin was quiet and a bit standoff-ish. I told him why, I told him that Martin had recently been shot on the job. It's my fault."

Jack put a hand on my shoulder. "Shut up. You solved this case; we now have the proof that we need to get the O'Leary boys in for questioning. How much you want to bet that Cory has made a miraculous reappearance? This is good, Danny. You have no idea how good this is."

I looked at him, tears trying to escape my eyes. "I may have solved it but it's not going to bring Martin back. He's gone."