Anna tightened her knees around John's to keep his leg from moving as she applied the antiseptic. "Can we trust her?"

"I don't think we can trust a single person who's claimed to want to help us on this case but-" John hissed and tried to pull his leg away from her but Anna's hold only firmed into a vice. "That hurts."

"Stop complaining." Anna carefully cleaned grit from the burned area. "You're worse than Henry."

"Any idea where Mr. Talbot is?"

"Hopefully getting us our stuff and cleaning up the mess we left in a room rented under bogus names." Anna looked up from her first aid. "But I do hope he's alright nonetheless."

"Is it bad to say part of me was glad they got him in the hand?" Anna raised her eyebrow and John shrugged. "If Talbot can't use his hand it means he can't shoot Green before we get him to face charges."

"It's true but unkind." Anna dabbed a little harder to make John wince. "Although I do admit there are some benefits to Henry being temporarily out of action where this case is concerned."

"Some." John's fingers brushed the top of his head and Anna paused in her physic when he winced again.

"Did they get you there too?

"I think I got grazed." John lowered his head and Anna tipped hers up to see.

"Your hair's definitely singed." She carefully combed through his hair. "And you do have some cuts here."

"Are you going to…" John mimed pouring the antiseptic over the area but Anna just took his ears in her hands to maneuver his head so she could dab at the cuts with the cotton swabs. "Stings."

"In theory, that means it's working." Anna released him after a moment. "Take care when you shampoo but you should be fine."

"Thanks." John nodded at his leg, still stretched out and within Anna's grasp. "And what's the diagnosis there doctor?"

"That you've got a rather nasty road rash and it'll sting for a few days." Anna pressed two finger to the area and John flinched. "And you'll bruise up a few not-so-lovely colors but, otherwise, you've not broken anything. As far as I can tell, anyway. Then again, I'm no doctor."

"You're not bad at pretending to be one." John moved his leg from her grip and Anna set about clearing away the first aid equipment spread over John's kitchen table. "Done this before?"

"I had basic training in it when I worked with Henry. Before, you know." Anna capped the bottle of antiseptic. "But it's been one of the nicer things about the job I do now, not much use for sowing anyone up on the fly."

"Did that often, did you?"

"Often enough that it…" Anna shrugged, "It's a past life. It had its moments but, otherwise, it belongs where it is."

"And when it gets out?"

"Put it away again."

"Not sure we're all as good at compartmentalizing where something belongs as we'd like to think." John stood, walking around on his leg until he did so without hitching his gait. "I'm sorry to've wrecked these trousers."

"Favorite pair?"

"Not really." John sat back down, keeping his leg stretched out. "Mostly I just hate the idea of having to go shopping."

"Hate shopping?"

"It's a pain." John nodded at Anna, "But I'm guessing you've got stories about how much you hate it too."

"Because I'm a woman?"

"Because, as my ex-wife once said when we were still together, buying clothing for women is like trying to appease pagan gods, you'll always fail." John sighed, "But that's not the question we need to ask ourselves."

"No?"

John shook his head, "What do we do now?"

"You mean now that there's a man with half the head he should have in a hotel room or a body bag somewhere and a possible suspect hiding out in one of a half dozen warehouses?"

"That's the long and the short of it."

Anna let her head fall back as she slumped into the chair for a second before she righted herself to look at John. "We have to find him. If that's where he's hiding then we've got to turn over every loose brick to make sure."

"I've a feeling we'll have to run over the length and breadth of this country with a fine-toothed comb to get this bastard put away where he belongs."

Anna stared at John, wondering if her dead-eyed stare peered back at her through his eyes. "Where do you think that is?"

"Sorry?"

"Because Henry's convinced Green belongs in the ground with a bullet, or bullets, between his eyes." Anna chewed the inside of her cheek. "You told me he talked with you, before we started this little charade with the hotel, and I wondered… If you'd…"

"Come over to his side?" John shook his head. "For as much as there's a rage that boils inside all of us at the kinds of things criminals get up to and get away with sometimes, I don't believe in vigilante justice."

"Not a fan of Batman are you?"

"That's…" John shook his head, "That's a different beast isn't it? Because he's not killing his villains and they're not… Batman doesn't hunt down your average criminal. He-"

"Beats up people failed by a system that could've given them better care from childhood or perhaps made sure they were properly medicated?"

"Oh," John made a face, "You're one of those."

"One of what?"

"I wouldn't go as far as to say-"

"If you use the words 'social justice warrior' I might have to reconsider where I decide to dump antiseptic."

John raised his hands, "I wasn't going to say that and I wouldn't because that's not what I think."

"The what do you think?"

"I think there comes a point, even in the interrogation of media, where we have to realize that an element of fiction must exist for the story to thrive. An element that could be solved by a perfect world but then where's the conflict?"

"You're saying if Batman decided to put his money into social programs instead of wearing a suit and dressing like a bat then he's not living in the world of the comics created for him?"

"He was an answer to the American Depression and told the every-day person that somewhere out there a billionaire existed to help the poor and the downtrodden." John shrugged, "It's more that he hasn't aged well with a world that puts everyone under a microscope."

"If only the microscope was as closely adjusted to focus on the issues we're dealing with." Anna pulled one of her legs up onto the chair, hugging it to her chest. "If someone had taken a better look at Alex Green when he was young instead of allowing his father's money to act like a screen for his misdeeds then maybe he would've gotten the help he needed."

"Or the straitjacket." John snorted and then shrugged. "But you're right. And the reason I might've used the term you didn't want me to mention, is because it tends to go hand-in-hand with the kinds of mismanaged focuses that lead to people like Green slipping under the radar."

"The tragedy of living in a world where there are far too many problems and not enough solutions for them." Anna rested her chin on her knee. "But I think we're not enough for this one."

"Feeling a little worn at the edges?"

"Don't try and tell me, after I watched you writhe through antiseptic, that you're not ragged and bruised."

"I'm man enough to admit I think we bit off more than we could chew." John paused, "It's like mochi."

"What?"

"Those glutinous rice balls you get at the Asian market. The ones with the fillings inside." John mimed it out and Anna nodded slowly as she tried to follow his thought process. "Given that we're used to a wheat and corn-based diet, we bite into those things expecting an immediate dissolve on the tongue but, instead, you have to chew and choke on it as you watch your life flash before your eyes. All the while wondering, 'do I really die here, in my kitchen, choking on a rice ball?'"

"I think I'm struggling to put together how your very relatable story deals with us feeling like we've been put through the ringer and then run through another cycle on high spin."

"We went into this case thinking we were dealing with a psycho. That all we had to do was diagnose his predilections and then nail him to the wall. Open and shut… For as simple as that seemed at the time." John raised his hands, gesticulating with them as he continued speaking. "But then we found out he'd targeted the girls run by Mason, we had to get Blake involved, Talbot konks us over the head and tells us that Special Branch has a thing for Green, we've got to work around Vera and the angle she played with Vyner, before weaving into this masquerade with Green's father before he loses half his face and all of his brains."

"We're choking on the glutinous rice ball." Anna nodded, dragging her lip through her teeth as she dropped her leg to grip the edges of the chair and lean forward. "And now we've only added another layer of insanity to it by working our way through the derelict and condemned warehouses by the docks for traces of a similar grimy and despicable man."

"Hit the nail on the head there."

Anna rocked a moment before forcing herself to stand. "Well we're sitting ducks for the moment. We've got to make sure Henry gets us in the clear before we can act and since you're technically out until day-after-tomorrow on leave, we might as well try to regain some of our lost sleep."

"I was wondering," John stood as well, wincing a moment as he straightened. "If it might not be a good idea to try to kick this higher."

"What?"

"I'm wondering if we've mucked this up." John put his hands on his chest, "What if we've made all this worse?"

"You think we should hand this case over to someone else?"

"I'm saying we might not be in the wrong to consider the possibility that if we burn out then there's nothing to be done." John used his hand to motion to the bedroom a floor above them. "Even if we crashed for the next twenty-four hours, we've drained. And if you're not then I am. I'm tired, I'm bruised, I'm road burned, and I'm wondering if there's not a decent bit of trauma I've yet to confront just waiting to give me nightmares."

Anna studied John for a moment before nodding. "I understand."

"Then you feel it too?"

"I didn't say that." Anna stood straighter. "I've been on Green's tail for a long time. And while I'll admit the last… What feels like an eternity haven't exactly been the methodical chase sequence I'd practiced before, it's still the best chance I have to putting a bad man away for a very long time."

"I'm not saying-"

"I'm not giving up." Anna bit on her tongue as John's face fell. "I didn't mean to… I didn't say that because I think you're giving up. I just… I can't leave this here and expect someone else to clean up the mess I've made with this. And to do otherwise, to me, would be-"

"You think I'm giving up?"

Anna met John's eyes. "I think you're making a human decision. I think you're reasoning is sound and-"

"Do you think I'm giving up?"

"Part of me does, yes." Anna crossed her arms over her chest. "Whether or not it's warranted is none of my business because it's not about me. This is about what's best for you."

"What about what's best for you, Anna?"

"How'd you mean?"

"You can't stand there and tell me that your mind's right." John's hands gestured about, animating in proportion to the emotion in his voice. "You can't tell me that studying serial killers, even if it's not this one, hasn't put you off a little. That this case is only gotten worse as we've found bodies and scenes strewn with destruction before watching it happen before our very eyes."

"It's all about compartmentalizing and allowing it-"

"That's bullshit and you know it." Anna almost clacked her teeth together in surprise when John's voice barked at her. "You know it's not just locked away somewhere for examination later. The mind doesn't work like that. And while I've not got fancy degrees or years of experience in this like you do, even I know that the things we scraped off our conscious mind, just so we can live with ourselves, store like sludge that seeps and creeps its way into our thoughts."

John took a breath, "I don't pretend to know the damage you carry and I've got more than enough baggage for me to be sure I'm not throwing stones at anyone else's glass castles, but I do know that you're probably not as fine as you think you are and certainly not as fine as you hope you are."

"You think you know me?"

"I'd like to think that." John paused, calming slightly. "I'd like to think we know each other well enough to say, right now, that the fact you've chased this man down for a decade or so means that you're not quite right. And the fact that I've not backed down from a case I was trying to close three months ago means I'm not exactly a hundred percent either."

They stood, staring at one another, in the kitchen as the sounds from the street seeped through the windows. Anna shuffle din place, rubbing her hands over her arms as if to distract herself from the weight of the words resting between them. It took her a moment or two, the fog of thoughts forcing her to break the barrier to fin sentences, but eventually she spoke.

"Do you want to quit this case?"

"No, because I'm stubborn and stupid." John almost reached out a hand, retracting so his fingers folded into his palm before he touched her. "But I think we might both take the next twenty-four hours to really consider the ramifications if we don't get out before we're too far gone."

"Before we take the final three steps that separates us from the kinds of people we're hoping to catch and put away?"

John nodded, "I don't think we've been fair to ourselves on this case, Anna. And if we're going to finally put ourselves first then now's the best time… Before it's too late and we're so far gone we'll never get ourselves back."

Anna let her arms fall to her sides and she nodded, "Then I think we need to do that alone."

"I-"

"I'm not saying your wrong and I'm not saying you're right." Anna put up a hand to stop him. "But I don't know if I agree with you."

"I wasn't going to deny you the chance to figure this out with yourself. I was…" John shrugged, "I just wonder if it's smart for you to leave."

"You think someone's staked out my hotel room?"

"I think if we're in the same vicinity then we'll probably rest a little easier knowing that there's another set of ears to hear and an extra set of eyes to see." John shrugged again, "I'd sleep easier knowing you were here."

"Do you have a spare room then?" Anna pulled at her clothes, "And something I might fit because I don't want to wear this anymore."

"I might have a few things." John cringed, "If they're mine you'll have to roll them up more than a few times."

"At this point I'll walk around in a pair of flannel pajamas."

"Then you might be in luck."

They perused John's closet, and spare clothes left over from Vera or his mother, and found a few things for Anna to wear. At least until she could return to her hotel room or retrieve the fake suitcase with her real clothes from Talbot. But once both had showered and changed they could find energy to do little else but munch on the few leftovers in John's fridge before falling asleep where they stood.

Anna woke up a few hours later, the gray light providing little indication of time, but her half-dead phone blinked an early time with some missed texts as she slipped from the sofa to find a charger in the kitchen. John still snored lightly on the chair, a tartan blanket stretching over him to barely cover his feet on the ottoman, and Anna found a light that would not force him awake.

Scrolling through the messages, tapping out perfunctory responses in some cases, Anna finally opened one from Talbot. The innocuous message began with what appeared to be an autocorrected typo but Anna converted it on the back of a receipt on John's counter to decrypt the rest of the message. Checking her work, Anna tapped out her response before sending it and leaving her phone to charge so she could go to John's side.

The brush of her hand on his shoulder had John's eyes opening with a start and he fumbled in the blanket to sit up. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Anna sat back on the sofa. "Henry texted me and I thought you might want to know."

"If he texted you then he's not in prison."

"He's with Special Branch and they've patched up his hand but your wish came true," Anna lifted her shoulder, "He can't shoot with it."

"Wish it came without him having to look into possible hospitalization but I'll take the breaks we can get." John leaned back in the chair. "What else?"

"Green never showed up for the plane and, as far as any of the communication between Green and his son, there's no trace of the younger Green anywhere." Anna slumped back slightly into the sofa. "They're at a dead end."

"At this point we should charge admission."

Anna gave a little snort, "Maybe. But he'll be by some time later today, to drop off our things, and give us any news he manages to squeeze out of Green's entourage before they figure out how to explain the mess they made in the hotel to their superiors."

"Makes me curious to know how much Green's superiors knew about his activities where his son was involved." John sighed, "How far these buggers go to cover up the things that could've been solved with intervention… Or more self-control is truly mind boggling."

"Cost-benefit analysis and, at some point, sunk cost." Anna took a breath, "But that's neither here nor there at this point. He's dead and we can't change the past."

"So we're stuck with his mess."

"The nail's hit on the head." Anna adjusted to lay longways on the sofa again. "I thought you'd want to know."

"Makes me almost afraid to check my phone now." John pulled the blanket back around him. "If I ignore it, will the problems go away."

"You're on leave so, technically speaking, they're not your problems until you go back to work." Anna dragged her blankets back over herself on the sofa. "So don't worry about it until you have to I say."

"Good advice." John closed his eyes, "And there's the bed upstairs if you want it. It might be better than that sofa."

"The sofa's fine." Anna burrowed under the blankets, "Just go back to sleep."

The second time around they both woke up to someone knocking on the door. John took point with it but Anna got up anyway, fussing with the state of the sitting room until John reentered, carrying their bags and guiding Talbot. He wore a sling and his bandaged hand looked twice its regular size.

"I know," Talbot held up his undamaged hand. "I'm lucky they didn't get my face or any of my quality features."

"Very funny." Anna sat on the sofa and offered Talbot a weak smile as he took his place on the other end of it. "You look about as bad as I feel."

"I, unlike the two of you, haven't had multiple, consecutive hours of sleep." Talbot sagged back into the sofa with a sigh. "But that's about to change."

"Is it?" John sat on his chair, busying his hands with folding the blanket there. "Did someone take you off the case?"

Talbot nodded. "As much as I'd like to see this to the end, and see if I could plug Green with a shot from my left hand, I've… I've lost the clearance for it due to the possible medical issue." Talbot cringed, "There is also the small factor of witnessing the death of Nigel Green… And, however inadvertently, being a part of that. So there's to be an inquiry, a lot of ass covering, and probably some pay raise to keep me quiet about what I know now."

"Then we're on our own?" Anna brought her knees to her chest. "Special Branch won't step in on this?"

"I was them stepping in but now, with a rather public death…" Talbot shook his head, offering Anna a conciliatory 'I'm sorry' expression. "They've overplayed their hand and lost rather badly. Now they're going to try and save themselves."

"Sounds like the government at work."

Talbot only offered a shrug at John's comment. "At this point I'm inclined to agree with you. I feel this whole debacle was handled poorly from start to finish and if any of us survive it with even an ounce or ourselves intact it'll be a minor miracle."

"How very comforting."

"My dear Mr. Bates," Talbot stood. "I believe in minor miracles the same way I believe in minor gods. You never know when they'll come to help you and, more often than you think, they do grant a boon or two to the good guys."

"Is that what we are?" Anna's voice sounds small, even to herself. "Are we really the 'good guys' in this?"

"I think we're better than the buggers that made it our problem." Talbot offered her a hand and used it to pull Anna into a hug. "May our paths not cross like this again. But, if they do, you'll have my help. No questions asked."

"Same." Anna patted his good arm as she stepped back. "Take care of yourself Henry. I'd hate to have to patch you up again."

He offered her a smile before giving John his hand. "Mr. Bates, it's been an unexpected pleasure."

"No hard feelings?" John shook Talbot's hand as he stood to match them.

Talbot shook his head as he released John's hand, "None whatsoever. And, if you were a different person, I'd offer to hire you. But you're doing good work where you are and you'd only hate what might happen to you if you worked for me."

"I'll make no comment on that."

They stood awkwardly for a moment before Talbot laughed and walked to the door, "You two take care. And… And try not to let this one get to you."

When the door closed, leaving Anna and John alone in the house, Anna let out a breath. "Bit late for that advice I think."

"Maybe." John sighed, picking up his suitcase. "But he's not wrong."

"Then you're…" Anna trailed John to the base of the stairs, "Then you're going to get yourself let off the case?"

John stood at the top of the stairs and shrugged, "I'm still not sure. Part of me says the smart thing is to walk away from this as quickly as possible. Another part of me can't bear the idea that I'd hold myself responsible for this if that bastard was loose and I could've done something but…"

"But you don't know."

"No, I don't." John nodded and Anna occupied herself pulling at her fingers. "But, as you said, we've got time to decide that. And I'm going to use it to unpack a bit so I don't feel like I'm taking a holiday in my own home."

"I think I'll change too." Anna pointed toward the bathroom, "Mind if I use it or do you-"

"All yours."

Anna dragged her bag into the bathroom and immediately set about changing into clothes that were her own. Armor that made her a little taller, a little stronger, and a little more determined. The kind of armor she needed for when she exited the bathroom to find John standing there.

"Did you-"

"Vyner's dead." John handed Anna his phone and she blinked away the picture sent in the messages to read what was below. "He looks just like all of those girls and they found him in his flat."

"Green's work?"

"All evidence to the affirmative." John leaned against the opposite wall in the corridor as Anna continued to read the message. "He's telling us to come and get him. It's so blatant it's almost mad."

"And he's even left an address." Anna handed the phone back. "Which makes me suspicious."

"It made Chief Crawley and Tom suspicious too." John tucked his phone away and shuffled in place a moment before speaking again. "I know… I know what I said earlier, but Chief Crawley wants us there."

"Aren't you still-"

"He wants us in the operations van."

Anna rolled her shoulders, "It'll keep us on site but we won't be the first through the door this time. It's not ideal but-"

"But we should be there. For the people who will be first through the door." John took a breath, "I'm still not decided, but I can't say no."

"I figured." Anna took a breath, "Give me five minutes and I'll drive us there. Unless there's another timeline I'm not-"

"You driving might be best. My…" John steadied himself, "I'm not exactly feeling myself about all this and I'd feel better if you drove."

"It'll be my pleasure." Anna paused, "Do you think we should've told Chief Crawley about the location Angela Bartlett gave you?"

"By the time I wanted to, I got the message." John shook his head, "Let's hope this doesn't blow up in our faces."

"Here's to hoping our luck's finally changed."