So, that surprised no one eh eh. Well, it wouldn't be Cal, would it?

But at least he's not alone, he's got backup this time.

Tori: he really did try, if it hadn't been for the family at risks he probably would have stayed at the office.

Now, I guess you want to know what happens next?

He had been looking at pictures of the house for so long that finally being there, in front of it, gave him some major deja vu vibes. Cal stared at it through the small binoculars the efficient Agent Miller kept in the car, looking at the swing set and plastic slide in the front yard, the family van parked outside the garage and a small pink bicycle abandoned on the drive. Picture perfect, the all American house for the all American family…except it was all too quiet and silent to appear as anything as eerie.

"Can't see any movement," Cal huffed as he put down the binoculars. "Like, nothing at all."

"Well, if we're right I'm not surprised," the agent answered, him too taking a look. "So, how do you want to play it?"

Cal had to stare down the man sitting next to him inside the car, still pleasantly appalled that he was there with him. Not that Reynolds had shared many details as to why he had chosen Miller as the first backup to bring in, but judging by how he had presented himself Cal would have guessed that the long-time collaborator had not expected his colleague to be a component of chaos. He had been the first one to be surprised when Miller had suggested they couldn't wait too long, that a whole family might be in danger, but he had jumped on the opportunity to slip out with Miller the moment they had the chance.

Cal had left his phone behind to avoid getting an earful from Gillian, while Miller had been screening his calls and purposely ignoring Reynolds'. It was ironic, in a way; they were both badass enough to sneak out and drive to a house where a psychopath was probably holding a family hostage, but neither of them looked forward to being scolded like children for their actions. As far as Cal was concerned, sitting through a sermon wasn't going to change anything anyway; they were already there, they were not going to leave and the FBI knew where to find them.

Which was all well and good but didn't answer Miller's question.

"We could just sit here and keep an eye on it, until the cavalry arrives," Cal mumbled then.

"We could," the agent agreed, then nodded thoughtfully and pointed at something outside the window. "You see that?"

Cal followed the invisible line traced by his finger, pointing at the minivan. He didn't see it at first, he had a good grasp of investigative techniques but it wasn't his primary background, so he zoomed in on trying to figure out what might have been out of place with the vehicle. He could see the plate, the 'children on board' stickers on the rear window, a stuffed animal, and then he saw the mud on the tires, thick and dry.

"The mud?" Miller nodded. "What about it?"

"It rained the night Warton came to the office, hasn't since. Might be nothing but," he took another look through the binoculars, as if to check on something, "there's mud smudged on the plate, covering nearly half of it."

"And that seems pretty deliberate," Cal observed then.

"Does to me," Miller huffed, then his phone buzzed and he took a quick look at the screen. "It's Loker, he spoke with Reynolds. The sports centre was a bust, they're heading here now."

Miller didn't add that their escapade had been outed, it was obvious already.

"So, waiting here is still an option?"

"Maybe."

They sat in silence for a while, taking turns with the binoculars to look at the house. They had parked the car as far away as possible to still be within viewing range, careful not to announce themselves and hiding behind some vegetation. Cal had thought about passing that bit of information on to Gillian somehow, to let her know he was being carefully inconsiderate and wasn't going to barge in the Wagners' residence himself…but the truth was that the longer they sat there digging holes in the seats of the car with their butt cheeks, the less he thought he could have made good on that kind of promise.

"What if we see him? Coming in or getting out?"

"I could take him," Miller asserted, and for some reason Cal had no doubt about it, although they both knew it probably wouldn't have been the best approach.

More waiting and staring, tension filling the car like a silent and deadly gas.

"There's only two of us," Cal said then, as if talking to himself. "I mean, you do count for two but I'm more like a minus one right now."

"He knows you. The second he sees you, that family in there is at risk."

"And how would we approach the house in the open without him seeing us?"

They were playing a stupid game, a dangerous one too, and they were fully aware of it. They were giving each other reasons to stay put and keep waiting, at least on the surface, because in reality what they were really doing was voicing out all the cons so that they could find solutions to get around them.

"We could carry on with the estate thing," Cal suggested then, shifting the balance a bit. "You know, just to get to the door and speak with her in person, see if what we picked up from the call matches her behaviour in person."

"It would make sense, I could be a very stubborn real estate entrepreneur who doesn't take no for an answer. But you'd have to come close enough to see her, right? Or whoever comes to the door."

"I don't have to be," Cal grinned, holding up the binoculars, and Miller started to nod slowly.

"I could keep the phone in my pocket, so you could listen," he offered, officially switching from trying to find a reason to wait to making active plans. "I have a spare phone in the dashboard."

Cal, who like Miller had been keeping his eyes fixed on the house until then, slowly turned around to look at the man. He tried, he really did, to find a counterattack, a fault in his proposal, a crack of any kind that would render Miller's plan useless. But he couldn't find any; it was perfect, he could wait in the car at a safe distance, watch and listen from there and even, should things go south, drive away and leave Miller in the dirt. Of course, he wasn't going to do that because he didn't think there was going to be any need for it. All Miller had to do was to walk up to the door, ask a few questions and make himself scarce the moment the occupants would have been annoyed by his insistence.

Cal dared to think that even Gillian might have found that approach safe enough, but he knew he was too cowardly to run it past her beforehand. It was easy to convince himself that they didn't have the time: yes, they had heard Mrs Wagner's on the phone which meant she was alive, but there was no way of knowing if everybody in the house was safe. Besides, Reynolds and the FBI were more than one hour out to their location.

"Ok," Cal said then with a fierce nod. "Let's do it."

He called it, with little to no regret, and they both committed to it right off the bat. Ca took some time to think about what questions Miller could ask and what he had to say. He knew that the person opening the door was not going to be in the right disposition to last long before slamming it in his face, either because everything was indeed normal and they didn't like strangers preying on their home, or because Warton was there and their lives depended on keeping people away.

They rehearsed the conversation a couple of times, Cal adding directions on body language here and there and judging by Miller's quick learning the scientist thought he could take an educated guess about at least one book the agent had in his private library. Then, when they felt about ready, Cal looked him up and down and grunted something, realising there was no way Miller could pass as anything but a federal agent with the way he looked. Regretfully but understandably, Miller removed his jacket and tie, slipping the gun and holster off his belt along with the badge. Cal could tell the man felt butt naked without those, but he was willing to be a little uneasy for a while for a greater good. Then Cal got out of the car, and found a hiding spot from which he could have a good view of the door and picked up the call from Miller when he dialled in.

From his observation point, Cal awkwardly kneeled behind a rose bush and brought up the binoculars, lodging the phone between his cheek and shoulder. He watched Miller drive around and go back on the dirt road leading to the house, then coming back towards the building making sure the engine of the approaching car was heard by the occupants. For a moment, Cal was overtaken by the sheer terror that that was a horrible idea, that they should wait and hope that maybe Warton would come out so that they could go in and help the family. But things were in motion, and he did believe they could get a good pulse of the situation without making things worse for the Wagners. After all, the only thing they were trying to do was to confirm Warton was there, and nothing else.

Feeling suddenly short of breath, Cal was well aware of the fact that he was biting at his bottom lip but he couldn't avoid the tension. On the magnifying lenses he watched Miller stop the car near the house, carefully avoiding the kids' toys, then get out and perform his best 'I hope I'm in the right place' routine. To Cal he still looked too stiff to pass as an estate agent, but he was doing his best and could have fooled someone else. Miller kept looking around, hands in his hips, nodding to himself as if was evaluating the surroundings in terms of property development and profits, then finally made it for the door.

Here goes nothing, Cal thought, and watched on.

Miller climbed the two steps to get to the door and knocked, through the phone Cal could hear that he went for an upbeat 3-1-2 combination and thought it was well played. Hiding away in the agent's pocket, the phone didn't pick up any noise from the other side of the door and Cal had to wait a while before hearing some rustling and the sound of the door opening. Mrs Wagner opened the door, which was the best option because he could have a better comparison with the previous call, and Miller followed the script to the T. Cal watched and listened, seeing and hearing no sign of annoyance on the woman's face but only fear and an overall fidgeting disposition. Miller was being polite but sleazy, like a real salesman would be, but Cal could tell that he might have been offering the woman a million dollars and she would have missed it. Mrs Wagner wasn't really listening, too busy looking behind her shoulder any chance she got, clearly distressed about the visitor. Her words said that they weren't interested in selling, but her voice, face and body were screaming "leave me alone!" with everything she had.

Cal wished he could talk to Miller somehow and call him back, the woman was on the verge and they could make some serious damage, but the agent clearly got there himself. He stepped back, apologising for the insistence and quickly letting her know he wouldn't bother her anymore. Then he went back to the car, not looking back, driving away with no further interest for the woman or the house.

Limping through bushes and grass, Cal abandoned his position and walked back, staying low just in case someone might be watching from inside the house. He had to walk back quite a bit, grinding his teeth and wishing they had stopped to pick up some off the counter medication, needing to catch up with Miller where they could be out of sight. When he did, he snuck back into the car and immediately caught the worried expression on the agent's face.

"She was a train wreck," he stated then. "You're the expert but she looked scared out of her mind to me."

"Yeah, she was," Cal mumbled, looking back at the house with a whole different appreciation. "He's in there. Like, right now."

"And we might have alerted him."
"We don't know that," Cal knew he was being delusional but couldn't help it. "If they've been locked in there since Saturday they must have gotten other calls. Even if they called in sick friends and family would have checked on them."

"So what do we do now?"

Cal thought about it for a second, huffing and puffing.

"Can you call the local police, get them out here?" He asked. "I don't see a way to get in there without escalating things but maybe if we make a big show of it Warton might be scared off."

"Isn't he a psychopath?"

"That he is, but going out in a blaze of glory wouldn't fit his profile."

Miller nodded as he thought about it, him too wondering if they hadn't been better just waiting and monitoring the situation.

"We need to call Reynolds," he said then. "We tell him what we found and that it is urgent. He might be able to send someone sooner, or have an idea on the next move."

"Right, let's do this."

Miller sighed, knowing when he said 'we' he really meant himself, then he got out of the car and took his phone. Cal did the same, sharing his need to be out in the open for what promised to be a very uncomfortable conversation, leaning on the roof of the car. He had Miller's spare phone in his hand, fidgeting around with it and with the thought to use it to call Gillian. He knew she was probably in the car with Reynolds and would have heard him talking to Miller, and even though he wasn't naive to think he could do some damage control he did feel like he owed it to her. He looked at Miller, pacing around and relaying to Reynolds what they established, having to interrupt himself more than once due to what Cal imagined being raging outbursts from the agent on the other side of the line.

Then he sighed and looked down at the phone in his hand once more, his fingers moving by memory and dialling Gillian's number. She didn't pick up immediately and he wasn't surprised, she was probably listening to Miller and Reynolds and would have probably not paid immediate attention to a call coming from an unknown number in the midst of all that. But he wanted to give it a try, he had the feeling that she'd welcomed hearing from his very own voice that he was ok.

He was about to give up calling and switch to a text, at least to let her know it was him, when something came from behind crashing into him, whiplashing his neck forward and smashing his face on the roof of the car. Cal flopped down immediately, the hit on his forehead and nose shooting daggers of pain through his brain, immediately followed by a blow to the back of his spine, and the only thing his mind could grasp before he slipped into unconsciousness was the loud bang of a firearm.

They could see the emergency lights, red, blue and white, colouring up the skies in the early afternoon. They could see the sirens on top of the vast array of vehicles gathered around the property: police cars, fire department, ambulances, unmarked cars. And then there were people, lots of people, all moving around with something to do and yelling orders at each other in a Babel of jurisdictions that could not have been helpful.

Gillian didn't see any of that, her eyes and mind filtering all of that away and scanning the seemingly invisible crowd looking for one person. Even though she knew he wasn't going to be there.

They had heard the gunshot over the phone, a muffled cry of pain, some rustling noises and a soft thud before it all went silent. Reynolds had called out his colleague's name, then Lightman's but neither of them had responded: instead, what they had heard had been Warton's snickering voice saying 'thank you for the gift, it'll make do' before the line dropped.

Reynolds had wasted no time calling back, instead moving things along to get police out there immediately and then pushing on the gas. Gillian appreciated the effort, but she knew it was a useless one. The drive there was excruciating, she had never felt more helpless in her life and all she could do was wait to be transported to a place where she was going to be told that Cal was gone.

In the dire situation she was facing, as Reynolds had to surf through other vehicles to get his car as close as possible to the Wagners' house only delaying the inevitable, Gillian found a brief and passing moment of solace when she spotted the family, all four of them, gathered in the back of one of the ambulance. Whatever Cal had done, whatever had happened to him, he had managed to get them out of whatever trouble Warton had been keeping them in. It wasn't much in terms of consolation but at that moment she had to cling on to anything she could.

Once the car stopped they got out, looking at each other and then at the chaotic scene around them, then Reynolds seemed to spot what he was looking for and motioned her to follow him. They made their way through officials and emergency personnel, Reynolds holding up his badge and Gillian trailing behind, until they made it to one of the ambulances where Miller was about to be loaded on and taken away. When he saw them, he seemed to forget about the large bleeding wound in his arm and the bandaged head, both looking rather painful, and immediately showed regret and shame.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice slugging in pain and apology. "I didn't see him coming-"

"It's ok, don't worry about it." Reynolds tried to calm him down, although he knew the apology was directed more to Foster than to him. "Warton?"

Miller nodded, still silently pleading with Gillian for forgiveness. She nodded in response, more to make him stop than anything else, thinking that no matter how heartfelt the apology was it wasn't going to do any of them any good. Thankfully, the paramedics let them know they had to take him to the hospital and put an end to the difficult interaction. Gillian would have liked a few more minutes with him, she needed to hear what had happened exactly and what really happened to Cal, but Miller clearly needed to go.

They watched as he was loaded on the ambulance and driven away, and Reynolds couldn't help but stare at Foster as she watched him go. As usual she was keeping it together, mostly, but he could see the cracks in the way she was slightly rocking on the spot and fidgeting with her fingers. Once more, he wished she would just let go, cry or whatever more dignified version of a mental breakdown someone like Gillian Foster could have. He took a step closer and put his hand on her shoulder, knowing the comfort he could provide was but a drip in the ocean and realising the only way he could help her was by moving things along.

"Let's go talk to the family," he suggested, relieved by the way she immediately shook out of her blunt stupor and nodded.

Gillian walked behind him on unsteady legs, more than once bumping into people and barely noticing. They got the Wagners, the whole family crammed in the back of an ambulance looking shocked but physically ok. When she saw them, Gillian's brain easily slipped into work mode and she started to pick up on small things. She saw ligature marks around their wrists, the children too, they looked tired and dirty and like someone who hadn't had a good sleep in a while. All considered, it might have been like looking into a mirror, including the shell-shocked faces and tensed behaviour, drained of any physical and mental energies.

Reynolds showed his badge and made the introduction, as nicely as he could asking what they could tell them. Mr Wagner did his best, telling how an armed man had broken into their house on Friday night. He had shown up in their bedroom, holding a gun and letting them know that the kids were tied up and alive, and they would stay that way if the parents behaved. He had moved the whole family to the basement and tied them up together, then he had been coming and going without them being able to tell how many times and for how long. Mr Wagner told them that he would bring one of the adults out of the basement when he was home sometimes, to prepare food for the others and be on hand in case someone called or came at the door. They had no idea who the man was or what he wanted from them, they thought he had used their car sometimes but they were sure he had one of his own that he had kept in the back, so that it wouldn't be seen by someone arriving at the property.

Reynolds listened to all of it, thinking about the terrible experience they had been through and once more cursing himself for not having listened to Lightman sooner. Gillian, on the other hand, was past blaming herself for not siding with Cal more decisively, although still far from thinking he hadn't had a choice but to do something, and for the first time since that thing had started she decided to be selfish. Under different circumstances she would have been extremely sensible to the ordeal they had been through and handled them with care, but there was one thing she absolutely needed to know.

"Did you see what happened?" She asked then, waving her hand at the scene in front of the house. "The people who came before?"

Mrs Wagner nodded, briefly consulting with her husband before he got out of the rig with the kids, stepping away a little. Then she looked at Gillian, who waited for a sign before climbing into the ambulance with her and trying to smile reassuringly, hiding her impatience.

"It was this guy, the estate agent… Well, I guess he wasn't really an estate agent," the woman mumbled, shaking her head. "After he drove away the man inside the house took me to the living room, gagged me and tied me up to the radiator. Then he left from the back door but I could see out of the window, saw the car leaving. I'm not sure what happened, the car seemed to have left but after a few minutes I heard a loud noise, I- I think it was a gun, maybe?" Gillian nodded, encouraging her to go forward and partly reassured to hear that the one injuring Miller had been the only shot. "Then I saw the man coming back down carrying something big and heavy on his back. He put it down when he got to the porch, then I could see it was…it was a man, not the same."

"Was he alive?"

"I-I think so but I'm not sure. I'm sorry," the woman whined, seeing how that faulty observation affected the woman in front of her. "I think he was just unconscious, he must have been given what happened next."
"W-why? What happened?" Gillian was struggling to keep it together, desperately needing to hear that whatever had happened to Cal he had still been alive.

"The man who was here, he went to get his own car and put the other man in the trunk before he drove away."

"The man who stayed here for the past few days," Reynolds jumped in, wanting and needing to leave Gillian time to process, using his phone to show Mrs Wagner a picture of Warton. "Was this him?"

She nodded yes but didn't have to, the look of shock and fear on her face said it all for her. Gillian sighed, her jaw clenching even though she knew it was coming. Then, to pile up on her own misery, she took her one phone with shaky hands and browsed through it to pull up Cal's profile picture from the group's website.

"Is this the other man, the one Warton left with?" she asked.

Mrs Wagner looked at the picture, taking a little longer but eventually confirming with another silent nod.

"He saved us, didn't he?" The woman asked then, forcing a distraught Gillian to look up from her phone to give her attention. "Him and the one who got shot, they saved us."

Gathering strengths she didn't know she had anymore, Gillian displayed a smile that looked creepy as hell to Reynolds who knew the whole story but genuine to the woman who yes, had just been saved by Miller and Lightman's inconsiderate actions. Then Gillian asked if they were all ok and said they should probably go to the hospital for assistance, eventually climbing out of the ambulance. Thinking that was why she'd never find the limit in Cal's penchant for taking risks and going out on his own; because no matter how crazy the things he did could be, he would always end up helping someone.

Well...that went about as good as expected, didn't it?