A/N: The Lord is my Sheppard, I shall not be afraid…

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The print. The fucking fingerprint was going to be his downfall. Had it been one of his guys, he could rest more easily, certain in the fact that the evidence would find its way into a different file, forever lost. But this was Mac Taylor and his lab rats, and they were the worst kind of cop there was: the honest ones out to do justice no matter who fell down. If Jenn had been awake, he would have considered asking her for a small favor, but he couldn't be sure where her loyalties laid now. He couldn't even be sure if she was going to make it.

On second thought… wouldn't it be best if she simply didn't make it at all?

X xxx X

"And that's still bothering us…"

Flack had been half listening to Stella, his constant watch on Angell's vital signs still uninterrupted.

"Huh?"

"We haven't been able to figure out how Nico knew where to find you and… Flack? You okay? Don!"

Something clicked inside the detective's memory. Something that had been there all the time, but had not emerged to the surface… until now.

"Angell…" he muttered, "Angell told him…"

Stella was shocked.

"You mean to tell me that Angell told Nico where you two would be?!"

"What? No! Not Nico…"

You could hear a pin drop as Flack paused before revealing his memory.

"Jenn told Rick Silva we were going to the Oyster's Cult to practice…"

By the time Stella left the hospital, a warrant for the arrest of Rick Silva had been issued and Mac was heading over to Vice Headquarters to deliver it personally.

X xxx X

"He's never going to forgive me"

Lindsay wished she could offer more support, but deep down she knew Danny was right: the damage he'd done was not one to be forgiven… or forgotten, any time soon.

"Danny…"

"Please don't say it, Montana. It'd be a lie and we both know it. If roles were reversed, I wouldn't forgive him, either. I just don't know what got into me…"

"Danny… what we saw on those tapes… it wasn't easy to watch… you love Flack like a brother, seeing him get hurt, hurt you as well…it's normal to want to hate the person that harmed him… but in this case…"

"It looked as though she was enjoying herself…"

"Have you stopped to consider that her pretending to enjoy it might be the difference between her being in a coma instead of Flack?"

Danny didn't answer. He simply couldn't.

X xxx X

Flack was out of the hospital for the first time in ten days, and back in the precinct for the first time in two weeks. It felt like an eternity, and it certainly looked like it to him, his surroundings totally alien, his old desk had abandonment written all over it; hers had been removed and placed somewhere else. It was as if they'd never been there at all.

He surveyed his surroundings carefully, getting used at looking at things with just one eye, getting used to wearing an eye patch that casted a ghost shadow that disconcerted him. He was also getting used at the reaction he caused on people; most of his old co-workers stood aside, avoiding him, uncertain as to how to treat him. Those who approached him were either too ashamed to look at him n the eye or too enthusiastic about waiting for him to come back. Either way, they all seemed to know that, in all honesty, neither one of them would work in there again.

At least, Flack knew they weren't coming back. Ever. If he was there today was simply because someone (Mac? Cap? Sinclair?) thought it'd be a good idea to have him there while Silva was questioned. On second thought, it had probably been Sinclair's idea; neither Mac nor Cap would be this dense or insensitive.

Flack stood behind the one-way glass watching Mac and Stella push as Silva shoved back, ebb flow and tide, eternal game of cat and mouse. The man had an answer for everything, but the investigators seemed to have question for everything other, as well. It'd be only a matter of time before Silva slipped and then Mac and Stella would be on him like sharks. And he was supposed to witness that. His mind had been somewhere else the entire time. He looked at his watch. It had taken longer than he had anticipated; he calmed himself down thinking it'd be any minute… any moment, really.

Silva made a mistake. Four phones rang almost simultaneously. Lots of screaming ensued, but Flack simply closed his eye, glad it was finally over. A tired smile crossed his scarred face when he heard Stella, in a voice far shakier than he'd have expected, tell Silva they got him for the murder of Detective Jennifer Jezebel Angell…

X xxx X

The next couple of days were a whirlwind of activity around him, but a blur in his mind. He had politely declined speaking at Jenn's eulogy and had adamantly refused to see her inside her coffin. He wanted the Jenn that lived in his mind and heart, the one resting there was a stranger to him and he had no interest whatsoever in meeting her.

Just as they had at the precinct, most people avoided him. And he was thankful for that. Lindsay had kept Danny away from him, her sorrowful eyes full of apologies for the both of them. And Flack was thankful for that. Stella had done a wonderful job tying his black tie and adjusting his right arm on a sling and making the patch feel less foreign on a face he hardly recognized as his own. And he was also thankful for that.

But above all, he was thankful that Jenn was no longer suffering.

X xxx X

The text message was from a number he did not know, and he didn't care. It told him what he wanted to know and that was all that mattered. Half an hour later he was walking quietly into the holding cells at Headquarters. Two nameless, faceless cops at the door gave him a silent nod and walked away.

Silva looked up from his cot when he saw the door open. He stood up like lighting when he saw who it was. A tremor of fear shot through him; he had been expecting this, not wanting to believe it might actually happen. He closed his eyes, fully expecting to feel the pain of a bullet ripping through his flesh.

He opened them again when he heard the noise of a chair been dragged on the floor. He saw the man that had come in, a broken man, a man who ought to be dead, sitting in front of the ratty table in the center of the room, motioning him to join him.

Flack saw Silva mentally searching for guns.

"I ain't packing" he simply stated.

Silva sat down.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to ask why"

"Why??"

"Yeah. I want to know why you did it."

Silva seemed to be pondering his answer. In truth, he was making a quick analysis of the man in front of him. He wasn't packing at waist level, that was true, but there was always the chance of an ankle holster or a pocket knife. Even if that was the case, it was too soon for him to be used to seeing through just one eye, so his aim was sure to be off. Besides, his hand and upper arm were still on a cast, resting on a sling. Silva decided the man posed no threat to him, whatsoever.

"Because I could. Because I was tired of giving my everything and getting nothing back. Because I was damn better than Thompson yet the cocksucking bastard was next in line for the throne… take your pick"

"So it wasn't personal?"

"No"

The lie hung in the air between the man who knew the truth and the one who hadn't the faintest of clues.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"Not really"

Silva shrugged and watched with apparent disinterest as Flack got up, faltering, from his chair.

"So basically you destroyed my life and everything I loved about it for a corner office…"

Silva did not like the way Flack had said that last line. He didn't like the way the man was now pacing up and down his cell, coming closer to him with every turn.

He liked it even less when he felt Flack's left hand on his shoulder; the weight of the cast resting on his back was nowhere near comforting.

"Did you make it Detective 3rd based on your assumptions?"

The question threw Silva off. He had expected everything, except this.

"Mostly. A leap here, a bound there. Gut feelings leading the way every now and then… you know how it is…"

"I used to think I knew how it is. Then I started working with CSIs. And I learned that my gut feelings were zilch without the evidence backing them up. And that's where you failed, Silva. You and Nico. You assumed you were smarter than us. You assumed Jenn died without ever waking up…"

Flack let the implication sink, almost enjoying the way Silva's eyes widened when realization hit. Too shocked to notice that Flack's left hand was now resting on his neck, Silva only managed to shudder when he felt Flack's warm breath next to his ear.

"You assumed I was harmless because you assumed I was right-handed…"

All it took was a snap of the wrist, leverage provided by the thick, heavy cast.

He left the holding cell, meeting no one. Hours later, a text message would inform him that there had been a brawl at the showers and Silva had been found dead, hanging from a shower rod. Guilt, no doubt, had led him to this. End of the investigation.

X xxx X

Flack held his service gun in his hand, marveling at its weight and how well it seemed to fit there. Legally, he ought to have turned it in along with the badge, but nobody had come right out and asked for it, so he still held on to them as memories of the past and things that were no longer there, nor would they ever come back.

He'd crossed the line, not once, but twice, and he was no longer worthy of carrying the badge he had sworn to uphold for a town he had loved more than life itself. But he'd done it once, and he'd do it all over again because he had loved her more than he had loved the town or the badge.

Jessica Jezebel Angell, never to be Jessica Flack, had regained consciousness for fourteen minutes and forty-eight seconds. A blink of an eye for some, perhaps, but for him the only eternity he'd ever have; long enough for him to propose and her to accept, long enough for her to tell him Silva had been there and had struck the fatal blow, long enough for her to ask him to set her free.

He'd have given her anything she asked for, and this had been no different. Who cared if it broke his heart? The moment she slipped back into coma he knew she wasn't coming back. So the last thing he did before he left for the precinct was make a tiny loop on her IV line… tiny loop formed a tiny bubble. By the time he left, loop straightened out, bubble was making its way slowly into her blood stream…

He had loved, and he had been loved. That was enough.

He looked at the gun in his hand one more time as he took another swig of whisky. He sighed. "Not like this" he thought, "not like this". He knew what he was doing, decision taken the moment he heard Jenn had died, but he'd changed his mind on the how a couple of times.

Another swig. The tumbler, nearly empty, hovered dangerously on the nook between his thumb and fingers that the cast had created.

He put the gun back down, nestled it lovingly inside its box and closed it for the last time.

He took the badge, allowing his fingers to trace the ridges before carefully placing it on top of a closed box.

He took the bottle of whisky and poured another pint or two into the tumbler. He tightened the lid and placed it next to the box, a silent comment on how the bottle and the badge seemed to go hand in hand in a city that never slept.

He shook the little jar; only two, three at most, left. That raised the count to nine, or maybe ten. He hoped there was magic in those numbers. A swig of the jar, a longer swig of the tumbler; two empty objects put to rest next to the items already there.

With a sigh, he lay down on his bed, pulling the blue pajamas she had worn the last time she'd been there close to his chest. If he closed his eyes, he could still smell her there; a smell so clean and free of the smell of death and pain it made him teary-eyed. He buried his face in the fabric, allowing the memories to envelop him and carry him away. In the end, it had been the lace, not the leather, who had found the way into his heart.

"I'm coming, Jenn" he thought, as consciousness began to loose all meaning. "I'm on my way…"

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A/N: Thanks for reading, reviewing and accepting to take this ride into the dark side with me. Please close the door on your way out…