Chapter Three: Prison Sentence?

It was unfortunate that none of them had realized until after Roy and Giles left that Roy's car was the only one that wouldn't raise red flags with local law enforcement. Ed, Wordy, and Sam tossed around ideas for the rest of the long, anxious evening, but in the end bowed to the realization that they'd have to use Zach Callaghan's car to pick the undercover detectives up. Any cop worth his salt would recognize the tactical nature of Team One's trucks and the Sergeant flatly refused to consider involving Farmer Hodgkin and his wife any more than necessary.

Early the next morning, Ed checked his phone, scowling at the lack of contact from his brother, then hesitantly asked Jules' father for a ride to the station. Callaghan winced, but nodded and grabbed his breakfast to go, though he waited until Mrs. Hodgkin pressed a toast and bacon sandwich on the officer before leading the way to his car. Though the Sergeant's stomach was twisting with a painfully familiar anxiety, hunger soon won out over fear and the sandwich disappeared in minutes.

Ed strolled into the police station, doing his best to look more annoyed and irritated than worried. Striding up to the front desk, he waited for the man – the sheriff, according to the desk's nameplate – to look up from his paperwork.

"Help you?"

"Hope so," the lean man replied. "My brother and his friend were supposed to meet up with me last night, but they never showed."

The pen paused, the sheriff casting a brief glance up. "You here to report them missing, sir?"

Ed see-sawed one hand. "Maybe. See, thing is, sometimes Roy finds himself the local bar and gets himself in trouble."

The sheriff, brunet with a fairly neat mustache, nodded, catching on. "You're here to check the drunk tank."

"Yeah."

Setting the pen down, the sheriff turned to a row of folders and files. As he rummaged through them, he asked, "What was the name again?"

"Roy Lane." Frowning in thought, Ed added, "His friend… George… Gilligan… Something with a 'G'. I think his last name is Onasi."

"Giles," the sheriff filled in with a tiny chuckle.

"That's the name," Lane agreed at once.

For several seconds, the man flipped through the paperwork inside the files. "Well… Sorry to disappoint you, but they got moved over to the county jail in Sinclair."

"Moved? Why?"

"Don't know, sorry."

Yeah…right…and I'm the Easter Bunny. Rather than call the man on the obvious lie, Ed scowled heavily. "Well, can I get an address?"

"Sure thing."

The Toronto officer watched the sheriff jot down the address for the Sinclair county jail on a Post-It note and nodded thanks when the man passed it over. Address in hand, Ed headed back to Callaghan's car, stomach twisting into fresh knots. How had a simple drunk and disorderly turned into a trip to the county jail?

The Sergeant voiced the question as Jules' father drove towards Sinclair. The other man shrugged. "Maybe Roy and Giles kicked up too much of a fuss?"

"No." The word was firm, with no give to it. "They wouldn't do that, not after what happened to Greg."

Callaghan cast him a sidelong look. "Julie told me your brother once went undercover solo and just about got himself killed."

Ed winced. "He did," the Sergeant acknowledged, tone soft with regret.

For a long minute, the bald man gazed out at the passing fields, full of crops and animals. To open up to a stranger was anathema, but he trusted Jules. Every day. She trusted her father, so maybe he could too. Even so, his every instinct was to huddle in. Hide his hurts and his history from anyone outside his family – blood and chosen. But the wounds from Greg's death were festering, building up pressure and emotional poison. The longer he went without his friend, the more his emotions churned, the more his grief engulfed him. Talking about Roy, even if it exposed him, was safe. Easier, by far, than talking about Greg beyond the basics.

"Roy and I, we never got along growing up," Ed admitted. "He got away with everything, but if I came in a minute after curfew, I got grounded. Didn't exactly make for a good relationship." One shoulder hiked. "We weren't talking much, even before his partner was killed. My team was on that call; we ordered them to stand down, but they went in anyway. Jerome got shot and coded on the table, so Roy got all the blame."

Callaghan whistled low, but kept quiet.

"I sat Roy down and told him he had to make it right." The sniper let out a snort. "So he goes undercover solo to take down the weapons dealer who put that shotgun on the street."

"Not exactly what you had in mind, was it?"

"Not hardly," Ed agreed. "But you know what? It worked. It was crazy and dangerous and it worked." Stopping, Lane let his head drop, swallowing hard. "Giles…he was working with us, but he'd had a run-in with that weapons dealer before. Had special dispensation to work solo 'cause of that run-in. Once Watson was dead, that expired and he knew Roy needed a new partner, too."

"So they ended up partners?"

A slow nod. "Was a bit bumpy at first, 'specially with us, but we started patching things up. Still rubbed each other wrong, so it was slow." Until Suzanne and McKean and everything else that had come crashing down. After that… As if someone had thrown a switch somewhere, he'd finally realized. Roy was his brother; Roy had almost died. Twice. Whatever squabbles they had, it was nothing compared to almost losing his brother.

Once the aftermath of McKean had died down, he'd invited Roy for a family dinner, honestly expecting his brother to refuse. But Roy had come and after that, well, the brothers had been wary and uncertain of each other, even as they started rebuilding a relationship. It would never be what it could have been, would never be what Ed had with Greg or Wordy or Team One, but bit by bit, layer by layer, he and Roy were becoming brothers. Brothers in truth, not just by blood. The Roy who'd gone undercover, bitter and grieving, bore only the faintest resemblance to the brother who stood beside him now. Oh, Roy still missed Jerome and always would, but he'd moved forward. Gotten a new partner and earned auxiliary Team One status. This Roy would never again take the chances he had back then because he knew. Knew his life was important and valued, that to lose him would rip yet another hole in his big brother's world.

"Look, he wouldn't do that to us. Giles wouldn't either. They're too good to blow an undercover op like this."

Callaghan frowned, somehow understanding that Ed had no intention of explaining himself further. "Okay," he murmured and yet there was something in his face that made the knots in the Sergeant's stomach wrench even tighter. Whatever was wrong, Callaghan already had an idea of what it was. Somehow, Ed didn't think that meant anything good for his brother.

Zach Callaghan followed the tense SRU Sergeant into the Sinclair county jail. Ed stalked up to the main desk, expression a mix of annoyance, irritation, and concern. An officer hastened over, easily identifying the lean man as someone looking for a potentially incarcerated friend.

Leaning against the counter, Ed drawled, "Hi, I'm looking for Roy Lane and Giles Onasi. The sheriff in Lyndhurst Flats said they'd been transferred here."

"All right, let's see what we've got, Mister…?"

"Ed Lane."

For several minutes, the other man worked his computer, a scowl appearing and growing deeper the longer he worked. On the opposite side, Ed studied the man. About Greg's height, with that same half-bald look his friend had always carried off with aplomb. This man had lost more of his hair; the remnants made a sad attempt to appear brown, but were more of a light gray. Pale blue eyes narrowed at the computer screen, a partial snarl of frustration surfacing, but the officer looked as though he spent more time chasing donuts than criminals.

At last, he shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Lane, but I'm not finding either one in the computer. They weren't transferred here. You'll have to go back to Lyndhurst Flats."

Ed opened his mouth to bluster, only to have Callaghan jab him in the side with an elbow. "Thank you for checking, Officer," he said, stepping on the taller man's foot to keep him quiet. "We'll do that." Then he dragged the Sergeant outside, not stopping until they were back at his car.

Lane yanked his arm free and landed Callaghan with a truly deadly glare. "What the hell was that?"

"Get in the car. They aren't here and they never were."

"You know something."

"I know we're wasting time, now get in the car."

Fear rose, wrapping bands of iron around his soul. He wanted to pin Callaghan to the wall and shake him until he explained, but they needed to get back to the team and start figuring out how to get his brother back. He couldn't lose anyone else. Not after Greg.

Wordy blinked in surprise when he spotted one solitary sedan pulling into the driveway. An uneasy feeling stirred in his gut – if something happened to either Roy or Giles… Well, he wasn't sure what would happen, but it wouldn't be anything good. Their team was barely holding on as it was.

Sarge… Internally, the brunet cringed, as he always did whenever his thoughts brushed against the gaping hole in their world. Everything he'd done for them and they'd just walked away and let him fall. None of them, except for Ed, had been willing to hang tough and not give up. Not a single member of the team had questioned the overnight change in behavior. Never wondered why the bottles of alcohol were only in Sarge's locker and bedroom. None in the fridge or the car. No boxes with additional bottles squirreled away…what kind of alcoholic only had a couple bottles – all unopened? The clues had been there, they just hadn't bothered to investigate. Or even look.

"Word, team meeting."

Wordy nodded and headed inside, somehow not surprised that the car had pulled up and parked while he'd been lost in thought and grief. Sarge had tricked them all, but they had let him. Taken everything at face value instead of digging for the truth. That was on them and they'd spend the rest of their lives paying for that decision.

His teammates were already assembled in the same room they'd used for strategizing the night before. Spike and Lou were huddled over a laptop while Sam and Jules were in opposite corners, one with a book and the other with a magazine. Lou glanced up from whatever he and Spike were looking at. "That took longer than I thought."

The team leader shook his head. "They came back alone, guys."

Attention snapped to him. "What?" Jules demanded, almost dropping her book. "Where are they?"

"That is what we're gonna find out," Ed announced, stalking into the room and to the head of the table. Wordy waited for Callaghan to enter before shifting to be behind him, between the dark-haired man and the door. Spike half closed the laptop, Lou sitting at attention. Sam and Jules rose from their chairs and swooped in to bracket their Sergeant, both glaring at the likely source of the problem.

He fidgeted. "Julie."

"Jules," she hissed, not an ounce of give in her voice. "Where are Roy and Giles?"

Callaghan reeled, completely caught off guard by the venom in his daughter's words. After a moment, he swallowed, eyeing the angry Toronto officers. "There's… There's a few things I might've left out," he admitted. "Have any of you ever heard of Judge Roland Paxton?"

"Don't know, don't care," Ed snapped. "Where's my brother?"

At the deadly glares he was getting, Jules' father gulped. "I think they're in the county prison."

Roy winced at the pained expression on Giles' face when the prison guards demanded they remove their civilian clothing and change into gaudy orange jumpsuits. For most of their clothes, the demand was more annoying than anything else, but for Giles' precious, priceless dragonhide jacket, it was a different story.

"Look," Roy intervened, "Can he keep the jacket? His late wife gave it to him." When the lead guard started to sneer, the brunet stepped forward, glaring. "She was murdered and his son was kidnapped. Came back over a decade later with a real bad case of Stockholm's."

Giles flushed, but Roy didn't care. Not if it meant his friend could keep the jacket. The guards paused, their leader thinking the matter over before he glanced at Onasi. "Please," the Auror whispered, flushing brighter still.

After a minute, the leader grunted. "Give it to me and I'll get it back to you once you're inside."

Both undercover officers grimaced, but knew better than to argue. Instead, they retreated to the changing rooms. Roy spared a moment to be grateful Giles had taken the opportunity during the prison transport to heal his injured shoulder. The detective changed rapidly, trying to ignore the vivid orange of the jumpsuit – it didn't work. Gazing at his own clothing, Roy wondered if he would ever see any of it again, then picked up the pile, shoulders slumping. Before he could head back out, Giles rapped on the wall next to the thick tan curtain that formed the changing room 'door'.

"Decent."

Poking his head in, Giles flushed yet again, but murmured, "Thanks."

"Didn't work."

One shoulder hiked. "Maybe it did, maybe it didn't." He paused, then smirked. "Now give me your clothes."

"I don't swing that way," Roy snarked, even as he obeyed.

"Yeah, whatever," the Auror retorted, leading the way back to the guards. Once back, Onasi turned over Roy's clothing, then his own, and finally his jacket. The clothing went in bags, already labeled with their names, and the jacket was tucked away before the partners followed the man towards the prison's shoe supply. Roy was rather surprised when the man behind the counter proved to be a prisoner instead of a guard.

"Well, well, well, two newbies to our happy little family?" the blond drawled, leaning on his counter. A generous layer of scruff covered his lower jaw, just shy of being a beard, and his hair was just as messy.

"Shoes, Pink," one of the guards ordered.

"As you wish," Pink replied, not at all phased by the guard's rebuke. "Shoe sizes, gentlemen?"

"I'm a size ten," Roy said. Jerking his thumb at his partner, he added, "He's ten and a half." Let the guards – and Pink – draw their own conclusions. As a half-blood from a fairly affluent family, Giles' three custom-made pairs of boots fit perfectly – and had been made for him by a cobbler who'd known the family for years. No standard shoe sizes involved…the only reason Roy knew his partner's shoe size was because he'd once dragged Giles to a shoe store for sneakers. The wizard had finagled his way out of buying any sneakers, but not before the store employee measured his size.

Pink cast him a bit of leer – idiot – and vanished into the stacks behind the counter to find the requested shoes. The detective kept his chin up, ignoring the snickers and sniggers from the guards. Giles glanced between his friend and the guards, expression twisting in confusion and bewilderment; Roy made a mental note to educate his partner on a few of the seamier aspects of techie life.

Coming back, Pink thumped a pair of shoes on the counter, a pair of socks tucked in one of the shoes. "Here's your size ten," he announced, leering at Roy again. Then he turned to Giles. "I'm terribly sorry, but we've just had a run on half sizes. You'll have to wear two pairs of socks instead." So saying, he dropped another pair of shoes on the counter and added the socks a moment later. Still confused, Giles bundled socks and shoes while Roy collected his own and the detectives were herded away from the shoe supply to a cell containing two bunk beds adorned with ragged sheets and pillows.

The shorter brunet waited until the guards left – without giving his jacket back – to ask, "What was that about?"

Roy grimaced. "They think we're…together."

"Because you know my shoe size?"

"That and the jacket," Roy admitted.

"Oh." Giles considered the idea a moment. "Well…we are together."

His partner almost choked. "Not like that," he hissed. "They think you like me the way you liked Morgana."

It was Giles' turn to choke, his face almost turning green as he finally grasped what Roy was saying. "That's… That's disgusting."

"I know," Roy muttered. "I don't like it either, but it might come in handy."

Giles went brick red, but didn't argue, though he still looked green around the edges. "Now what?"

"Not sure," his partner replied, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "You still got your you-know-what?"

"Yep," the Auror confirmed, tapping his forearm where his disillusioned backup wand holster lurked. A smirk surfaced, one Roy eyed with trepidation. "Did I ever tell you what I got on my Transfiguration and Charms NEWTs?"

"You did something," Roy hissed, realization dawning. "Skip the bragging and get to the point, Onasi."

The smirk grew wider. Then Giles reached down into the jumpsuit's shirt pocket and pulled something out. A careful tap dropped the object's invisibility spell, revealing a small black beaded bag. The Auror tapped it again and it disappeared. "You know," he remarked, "They should really keep a better eye on their laundry. Never know what might happen to it."

Roy blinked. Then he snickered. "You mean?"

"Yep."

At that, the detective started laughing. Trust Giles to be three steps ahead of him. All that effort to keep ahold of Giles' precious dragonhide jacket and it hadn't even been necessary. Wiping tears away, he glanced up. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Onasi countered. At the startled freeze, he cocked his head. "When do you think I did the spells?"

"You're an idiot," Roy breathed – that close to the guards?

Giles snorted. "Not like that," he drawled, crossing his arms. "I didn't even know they were gonna take our stuff. While you distracted them, I did a preservation spell on those bags to keep the transfiguration from wearing off too soon."

"You're still an idiot."

"They never noticed. Not my first time doing this, you know."

Roy paused, considered that, then tipped his head in acknowledgement. After three years working tech-side, Giles almost certainly had a few more tricks up his sleeve than most wizards did when it came to sneaking magic under techie noses and security cameras. "Top or bottom?"

The other eyed the bunk beds, then shrugged. "I'll take the bottom; you're taller."

"Point," Roy muttered…the beds didn't look long enough for his lanky frame.

The mattresses were lumpy and hard, the sheets just as rough and ragged as they looked. Roy didn't complain at all when Giles cast Cushioning and Anti-Pest spells on the beds, though the detective was careful to stand between his partner and anyone in the hallway. The Auror kept his wand hidden and made sure none of the spells had any visible effects. With nothing else to do, the men took turns working out in the cell's tiny space, casually debating on a few movies Roy had dragged Giles out to see. Though the Auror had put up quite a fight before Spike and Lou teamed up with Roy to trick the half-blood into a movie night; after that, Roy hadn't had any trouble convincing his friend to see other movies.

From his perch on the top bunk, Giles opined, "I like the older stuff. Explosions and um…"

"Special effects?" Roy offered, pausing in between sets. "CGI?"

"Yeah, that. It's cool, but the older stuff is just fun." The Auror made a face. "I mean, why do they think people talk like that? Ruins the whole story."

"Some do," the detective panted in the middle of his last pushup. He stopped long enough to finish, then used a quick shove to get back to his feet. "Talk like that, I mean. There's a reason we say someone can swear like a sailor." Shuffling back to give his friend space to get off the bunk, he continued, "I know what you mean though, buddy. Sometimes it's like they swear just to make themselves look cool. Some people like that; they think it makes movies 'realistic'."

"Realistic," Giles echoed, eyes wide. "I've never heard any cops swear like they do in the movies."

Roy rolled his eyes. "That's 'cause we usually don't. Spike told me once that an SIU gal called swearing a 'loss of control'."

"What do you think?"

The brunet shrugged. "I used to swear more," he admitted. "But, ah, Jerome's wife didn't want us swearing around the kids, so we stopped." He considered. "Makes it easier to talk to civvies, too. Don't have to watch what you say if you aren't swearing anyway."

Squirming down off the bed, Giles remarked, "The older movies…they don't swear as much."

"Most of 'em don't," Roy granted. "Some of 'em are worse than anything we've seen, though. Usually the R-rated ones."

Onasi made a face, then changed the subject. "So how'd they do the special effects in the older movies?"

The detective shrugged and scrambled up out of the way as Giles opted to start with a set of crunches. "The animated ones are easy," he explained. "They're basically all drawings."

"Drawings?" Giles blurted, jerking upright.

"Yep. Anything they wanted to do, they just drew it in. Easy-peasy." Roy tilted his head, thinking. "Some of the shots might've needed something more; we can look that up when we get out if you want."

Scooting back into position, Giles nodded. "What about the other type?"

"Live-action?" The detective slouched, musing. "Models, stuntmen, setting things up just right." He snickered. "Who knows, maybe they had a couple wizards helping. They do call it Industrial Light and Magic."

The Auror laughed, knowing just as well as his partner how unlikely such a prospect was. "So…all the old animated movies you showed me, they're remaking them with real people?"

One shoulder hiked. "Seems like it," he agreed. "Some of 'em are really good, but don't tell Ed I said that."

Giles cast his friend an evil smirk. "You're just making sure Izzy will like them."

Roy laughed, nodding gleeful agreement. "So…Lord of the Rings marathon when we get outta here?"

"Gundam Wing," Giles countered. "Giant robots, explosions, what's not to like?"

The taller brunet groaned, covering his face. "I've created an anime monster. Next you're gonna want Zoids."

"Hunt for Red October?" the Auror asked hopefully. "That guy from Clue is in it."

"Fine, fine…but whatever you pick, we're doing Lord of the Rings next, got it?"

"Copy that, partner." Giles considered, then asked, "And after that we can do G-Saviour, right?"

"All those lousy reviews and you still wanna see it?" Roy demanded.

"Live-action Gundams," the Auror replied, as if that explained it all.

Sadly, Roy realized, it probably did.