A/N: Jenn and Donnie sat on a wall, Jenn and Donnie had a great fall… can anyone out there put them together again?

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The metal clip board clattered on the floor when Hawkes dropped the medical chart he was holding as soon as he heard the animal-like howl coming from Angell's room. And although he had never heard it before, he had a very good idea of who it was, and he wished he could run faster, just to get there in time, before Flack did anything stupid.

He found him, holding to the door frame for dear life; mouth open, anguished cries he didn't know he was emitting pouring out alongside with his soul. Feeding line was torn again, as evidenced by the trickle of blood coming out from his already messed-up nose, but he didn't seem to notice that, either, as his eyes were fixed on the empty bed before him,

"Jennifer!!"

For a moment, Hawkes thought Flack reminded him of Rocky Balboa calling out for Adrianne, except he was a hundred pounds lighter and twice as beaten down. Then medical training kicked in and he reached the tormented man, ready to aid him.

"It's all right Don…"

"Jenn! Where's Jenn? Jenn's not there, Hawkes! Where did you take Jenn?"

Hawkes had signaled a nurse to bring a wheelchair and was now trying to get Don to sit down on it.

"She's okay, please… listen to me… she had a seizure and we took her down for a cat scan and she's now under observation at ICU…"

"I have to go there…"

"Please, Flack… you're in no condition to be doing this… your heart is weak and…"

"My heart's broken…"

Hawkes misunderstood. "No, Don, you haven't had a failure or an attack yet, you're just weak…"

"My heart's broken… she can't fix it now… she has to wake up and fix it cause it's broken… it broke back there and I can't fix it without her…"

Hawkes's heart went out to his friend; it was painful to see the emotional devastation showing here and there through the physical cracks of a beaten body and a battered spirit.

Flack looked into his eyes, pleading. "I want to see her. Take me to see her…"

Hawkes knew it was useless to argue with him.

"Let me just clean you up, huh?"

"N-no!"

"Come on Flack… just a bit of cleaning up… you wouldn't want Jenn to see you like this and get all worked up again, would you?"

Hawkes felt bad for resorting to emotional blackmail, but his conscience felt a bit better when it worked. Flack stopped fighting him and sat still as the nurse cleaned him up and readjusted the lines that had been torn out. As soon as he felt the nurse finished, he tried to get up.

"Let's go" Order.

"Hold it… we have to use the wheelchair..."

"No, no wheelchair" Demand.

"No wheelchair, no ICU. No ICU, no Jenn. Got it?"

"Got it…" Growl.

Hawkes wheeled him down the corridor and into the elevator, while Flack sat very still, nervously taking in his surroundings. Hawkes hated to admit it, but he missed the detective's quick, wry wit and sarcasm and his infamous one-liners. He wondered fleetingly if commenting dryly on DNA would bring at least a smile to Flack's face, but decided against it. He just wouldn't be able to bear the lack of response he feared might meet his own joke.

Flack started to show some animation as soon as they wheeled into the room where Jenn laid. He gently grabbed her hand as soon as he got near enough to do so; quickly forgetting Hawkes was there in the room.

"Hey baby" he whispered softly, "no fun scaring me like that, you know. To be honest, Jenn, I'm getting tired of talking to you and you not talking back. That ain't fun, either. I miss you kiddo. Please Jenn, you gotta come back. I promise I won't get on your case much for pulling that stupid martyr trick on me. You make me look bad Angell… big bad cop hiding behind his petite female partner… I have a reputation to keep, woman, and you're not helping my case one bit…"

Hawkes hated to interrupt, but he was feeling like an intruder and he had to take Flack back to his own room.

"Don… we can't stay here for long…"

"I'm not leaving her"

"Flack…"

"I mean it Hawkes. I don't care if it's against hospital regulations. Screw hospital regulations… throw my badge at them… threaten to sue… I don't' care what you do, I'm not leaving her…"

Hawkes sighed. He'd known it was going to be worthless to argue.

"I'll see what I can do…"

"While you're at it, see if you can get us a bigger bed… and pizza delivery from Gino's would be nice, too"

Hawkes did not bother to answer, but a huge grin graced his face as he left the room. There might be a chance for them of getting Flack back…

"I… I have something to show you…"

Danny looked up at Adam, and he could swear the lab tech was more nervous than usual.

"What is it?"

"Tox screens came back"

Adam handed Danny the results.

"Why would he give Angell epinephrine? There's no indication in her records that she had heart problems during her stay there…"

"Probably… well… I mean… just to keep her alive? She took quite a beating and… uh… well…"

"You're probably right, Adam. Lord knows that sicko bastard wouldn't give up on his fun so easily"

Danny tried to give the results back to Adam "You can give this to Mac at the briefing"

"Uh… you haven't checked Flack's…"

Danny's senses fired into overload as he scanned the second page he'd missed the first time around.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ! Are you sure these are correct? "

"Ran them twice already. I-I didn't believe them myself. Those levels of sidenafil citrate… I mean…"

"I know… enough to keep an elephant going for three days… fucking miracle he didn't go into a cardiac arrest! His BP musta been goin' through the roof when the doses hit in…"

"I don't think it was one doses…" Adam shrunk a bit when Danny's penetrating gaze looked at him straight in the eyes, "Look at how the levels show spikes… my guess is that he was given several shots over a period of time… Barbeito would know better than to overdose him…"

"I'm sure the sonofabitch would find OD'ing on Viagra amusing…"

"Uh… Danny?"

"What is it, Adam?"

"Well… uh… why would he give Flack that? I mean, he's young and… well... uh… I don't… "

Danny sighed. He knew why, and it haunted him. He didn't feel the need to give the young lab Tec more stuff to keep him awake at night. "Let's just say Nico wanted to make sure Flack would perform at will, ok?"

Adam nodded, not particularly eager to have a more detailed explanation. There were rumors flying around the whole lab; rumors that he refused to believe, but rumors that left him very uneasy. He had a vivid imagination; he knew how to connect the dots in order to get the whole picture even before there were enough dots to make out a preliminary shape. And near fatal levels of Viagra on a victim of a case were rumors of rape and sodomy were flying around were too big dots to ignore.

Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. Everybody was assembling at the conference room for a briefing on the case, and he rushed there, tox screen reports in hand. When he slid into the room, Mac was starting.

"I want to start by thanking you all for being here. I know this hasn't been an easy case, and I know it's hard to forget these are our friends and coworkers we're talking about here. But because it's them, we're going to get to the bottom of this case, leaving no stone unturned, until justice can be done. Stella?"

The curly woman took over.

"We know that both Flack and Angell met with Brian and Robert March at the Oyster's Cult at 19:30 hours and were there practicing their cover story for at least an hour and a half before Barbeito ran into them and took them away soon after that."

Lindsay took over.

"According to witnesses, all four of them were very surprised to bump into Nico there, and leaving in such hurry had not been part of the plan. We interviewed the locals and the employees at the club and it seems that Nico wasn't a regular…"

"So we have reason to believe that their encounter wasn't casual?" Mac asked

"It would appear so. The bouncer Stella and I interviewed seemed to think that Nico had gone into the bar specifically looking for someone. The bartender corroborates that idea; she says Nico stood at the entrance looking around and headed straight towards them as soon as he spotted them. The waiter and one of the people partying with March mentioned Nico didn't waste time asking for a drink, or sitting down. He got a hold on Jenn and the three of them were out of there in less than 5 minutes"

"So he went in there looking for them. What happened next?"

"Apparently Brian and Robert followed them back to Nico's place. According to dispatch, Brian called Agnetti at 22:10 to let him know what was going on. We believe Agnetti told them to stay put while he orchestrated a raid" Danny reported.

"Agnetti called Cap Patterson and in turn he called me at twenty three hundred. What happened to Brian and Robert after the phone call?"

Hawkes stepped forward. "Either they got tired of waiting and decided to go in by themselves, or they were discovered and escorted into the house. There is no evidence in their car that shows signs of struggle, so that part we might never know for sure. According to Sid" he continued, taking out some photos and the ME's report, "They were the first victims, shot execution style in the house's foyer. The bodies show no sign of trauma or anything else that suggest they might have been tortured, so their deaths were swift and relatively painless… not exactly Nico's style, which suggests someone else was calling the shots at that moment"

"Is there a time of death?"

"Sid says between ten and midnight, which is why we think they were dead even before Agnetti and the raid team arrived"

Mac nodded and kept quiet for a moment. He took a deep breath before continuing. "What happened next is up to us to establish a time line and discover what happened. The forensic evidence is too much or not enough and I don't think we'll ever get an accurate timeline of the events. We can, however, establish two different crime scenes and work our ways from there."

He approached the board. "On the right side, we have Detectives Flack and Angell", he said, writing their names. "On the left side, we have Agnetti and the raid team"

He turned to face the team. "What we know is based on surviving witnesses' interviews and what we could find at the site. Officer Rubens's statement tells us they went in through the back door, not finding any other door open. That they went into a corridor where there were several doors, also locked shut. That they arrived to point where the corridor split in two, so they separated in order to investigate. Next thing he knows, all hell breaks loose and Richardson is pushing him down to the floor while bullets rain upon them. Five dead, including Richardson, and five wounded. Medical reports on Pauline Simms and Herbert Wong say they're still touch and go, so death count could increase"

Stella stood up to contribute. "Nico set four heavy duty machine guns, each in every corner, each one with 350 rounds each. They were rigged to go using a weight sensor; the moment five or more people came into the room they'd start shooting. Deadly ingenious, I'm surprised half of them made it out alive…"

"The other half of the team, lead by Agnetti and Potts, followed to corridor into another room. Inside, they found several of Nico's "slaves", including the Senator's godson, and they didn't seem happy to see them, or so seems to think Officer Guzman. What happens next is a bit hazy, as lights went out the moment the door closed behind them, but it seems that nails flew and boards parted and blades started coming straight out of hell…" Adam blushed a bit when he noticed the look Mac was giving him. "His words, not mine. Anyways, we've been over that room and it seems that Nico loved his weight sensors. This time around, it was nail guns. Also, the room had a double floor. The lower one was rigged with all sorts of sharp objects and blades, so when the boards of the upper floor flipped open, those who had escaped being nailed to the wall, simply slipped down unto the blades…" He noticed Lindsay shivering and looking away from the photos he had brought with him. "I have the feeling that this trap was meant to inflict pain and not kill…"

"That's why most of them escaped with only serious injuries. Only six casualties out of a group of 16; Agnetti, Potts, Lupin and Rogers, plus two John Does. My guess is that the slaves knew how the room worked and tried to get out of the way."

Hawkes came up with the autopsy reports: "Agnetti was caught by the nail guns and sustained multiple penetration wounds. Cause of death was brain rupture caused by one nail that went through his left eye; death was immediate. Potts died following procedure; once the nails started flying, he hit the floor; once the boards started moving he couldn't get back to his feet and was impaled on the blades below. Cause of death; massive blood loss. Lupin caught a nail on his carotid and Rogers sliced his femoral artery; they both bled to death in less than five minutes. The John Does died of similar causes."

"Meanwhile" Danny continued, "Silva and other two agents found Nico's personal torture chamber with four DOA John Does strapped down to different structures. All I can say is that Poe would be proud of this guy's ability to place pendulums in rotating arches."

"DNA had shown no matches yet; we're waiting for the FBI to allow us to play with their records, but you know how long that can take…"

"Are you telling me not a single sample matched to anything or anyone?"

Adam squirmed a bit under Mac's gaze. "Well, uh, not exactly. We found traces matching Nico and one Steve Kim, who was working for him… and we also found samples that match Flack and Angel…"

Adam was quiet. He was sure no one in the room actually needed to know that he'd found Flack's blood on the spikes inside the Iron Maiden, or that the DNA on one of the stretching wheels lead him to believe that that's how Angell had broken her lower spine… nor did they need to know that he'd found traces of their DNA on several penetrative devices. It was on his report, he'd never leave that sort of information out, no matter how painful, and Mac would eventually read about it, but his dedication to the job did not include saying it out loud. Because saying it out loud meant that it was real, and no reality that horrendous should be ever brought to light. Adam was no stranger to abuse, Lord knew he had his share of scars on his back (most of them cigarette burns), but this… this went beyond abuse and far beyond what he was willing to try to understand. So he kept quiet.

Mac looked at the board in front of him and sighed. The easy part of the job was done, and he couldn't stall any longer.

"Guess it's time we tackled what happened to Don and Jennifer…"

He woke up with a startle, uncertain as where he was. He had no recollection of having fallen asleep, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't seem to focus correctly with his right eye. He blindly looked around, trying to assess what had happened, but found himself unable to move. Looking up, he finally saw something vaguely familiar… Jennifer! Why was she standing in such an unnatural position? And where were her clothes? Then he saw the wheel move and he heard a sharp crack and a howling scream echoing in the room…

Flack almost fell of the wheelchair in his panic. It took a moment or two for him to realize he was at the hospital. He looked up desperately and let out a sigh of relief as he noticed Jenn's sleeping form on the bed next to him. Still breathing hard, he carefully went back to the memory that had awoken him. It scared him; no, worse than that… it terrified him… he couldn't shake the memory now, as he could feel it all so clearly; him bound to a vault, Jenn tied on a spoke wheel, someone pulling on his hair to lift his head so he'd take a good look at her.

Then Nico's voice whispering close to his ear:

"Like what you see… COP?"

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A/N: Hmmm… wonder how Nico found them out?