Trent had a hard time remembering the last time he felt this bad. Well, he was having a hard time remembering much of anything. His head and neck were aching fiercely, and when he looked in the mirror he could see the dark red marks under the skin on his neck: thumb marks just below his Adam's apple, fingers splaying around the sides. His mother would kill him when she saw these.

"Mr. Malloy?" He turned his gaze from the glass in front of him to the woman standing in the doorway. "How are you feeling now? You shouldn't be up just yet." Her heels clicked on the tiles as she moved into the room. Trent self-consciously tucked the back of his hospital gown closed and shuffled back to the bed.

"What happened to me?" he asked. His voice emerged as a bare whisper. He understood suddenly how fire breathing dragons must feel. That is, if they were real. His pain certainly was, though.

"All we know definitively is that you were..." she trailed off, obviously not sure how to word it.

"Throttled?" she jumped at hearing Carlos' voice behind her.

Trent smiled at his friend, unable to laugh because of the fire in his throat.

"Sir, you can't be in here," she replied hotly.

"It's ok. I'm family. Trent, tell her I'm your brother."

The woman turned toward the blond man, who nodded stiffly, smile growing bigger as he noticed Carlos blatantly checking her out. He obviously liked what he saw: petite frame, amber skin, and long flowing tresses. Trent nodded again.

She turned back around to face Carlos. "Dr. Chase."

Carlos shook her hand and introduced himself. "Carlos Sandoval."

"Sandoval? I thought you were brothers?" she asked haughtily, confident she had caught him in the lie.

"Different fathers," Carlos winked. "Obviously." He went to stand next to his friend. "How are you feeling?"

Trent shrugged and grinned sheepishly, touching his head.

"He was found breathing, but passed out, by the medics," Dr. Chase said. "It looks as if he was choked, but..."

"But?" Carlos prodded.

"But he was left breathing. He was meant to survive this attack."

"You're a detective now?" Carlos teased her. "Funny, so are we."

Dr. Chase blushed and her stunningly beautiful face grew stony. "Whoever did this to him had him cleanly. There's no sign that Trent even fought back. He could just as easily be dead right now as alive."

Trent made a face. "Why can't I remember?" he forced out.

"That's common in a trauma. Especially in a trauma where blood flow is disrupted to the brain," she rattled off possibilities, "and given your obvious high fitness level I'd say you didn't even see it coming." Trent grimaced. "I'll get you a board to write on," the doctor continued. "Your neck will be sore for a couple of days." She left the room as quickly as possible.

Carlos whistled when the door closed behind her, and Trent laughed in spite of the pain.

"Mary thinks you're cute," Danae broke the silence suddenly. She needed to return to the morning's crime scene, as her lab had come to a dead end with the evidence she had collected earlier. Carlos wasn't about to let her go alone.

"Mary?" he asked.

"The intern."

Carlos made a face. "That's a little young, even for me."

"Well there's Phil, too," she offered pleasantly. Carlos laughed, and out of the corner o of his eye he could see her relax slightly. "He's not really my type either." Ever since she'd been introduced to him, Danae had been on guard. Carlos would be willing to bet she was always on her guard. It made him wonder just how dangerous Roger was.

"Your emergency went ok I take it?" she ventured.

Carlos glanced at her. "Yeah, everything's fine."

She nodded, and Carlos pulled up to the taped-off scene. "Is this a bad part of town?" she asked as she hopped down from the Durango.

"Relative to what?" Carlos asked. Her look suggested that she really didn't know how to answer. "It's not gang turf, so it's not known for violence or drugs. But it's a poorer neighborhood. We used to get calls of domestic violence, drunk driving, theft."

"Used to?"

"When I was on the force," he explained.

"The victim's watch and wallet were left on his person. That's kinda weird, yeah?" She set up a tripod near the body outline and adjusted its height.

"What are we doing?" Carlos asked as she gave him one end of a piece of twine.

"From a footprint we found near the body, we can guess the height of the shooter. However, given the angle of the bullet...it doesn't add up." She positioned Carlos, who simulated the shooter and ran the twine from him, through the loop on the tripod and finally taped it to the wall, where the bullet had been found earlier. Danae came around behind him and began adjusting the twine, trying to find a reasonable trajectory. "The bullet passed straight through the body," she muttered.

Carlos instinctively ducked and turned toward the sound of a discharging gun. His own firearm was drawn before he was completely crouched next to Danae. He scanned the building tops, searching for the shooter, but saw no-one.

"Carlos." Danae put a hand on his forearm. He looked down at her and swallowed back a rush of bile. He never could get used to blood, and there was a lot of it.

"It's going to be ok," he told her, fumbling for his phone.

"Carlos, look," she said. She moved her hand, which still held the twine. It was now taught and in a straight line. "My shooter was right here!" She wore a triumphant look on her face that struck Carlos as entirely inappropriate and surreal, given the situation. She closed her eyes, then, and put a shaky hand up to her wound. "Damn, this hurts, ya know?"

Carlos snorted. "Yeah, I know. Hang in there." He gave the 911 dispatcher their location and helped Danae apply pressure to the bullet hole. It had passed through the large muscle between her neck and shoulder. Nothing vital had been hit, luckily.

"What a day," she murmured.

Carlos slipped out of Danae's hospital room once the officer had arrived to take her statement. He hated hospitals. For that matter, he really hated this hospital, which he had visited twice today alone.

He found Trent asleep in his room, and was about to leave when his friend spoke.

"That you, mano?" he whispered.

"Yeah."

Trent sat up wearily and looked at the clock. "What are you doing here?"

"Danae got shot. Sniper."

"Well you seem only mildly frustrated, so I assume it was a bad sniper?"

Carlos laughed slightly. "Who sends an incompetent sniper to whack your ex-girlfriend?"

Trent smiled. "Amateur." There was a pause; the situation wasn't actually funny, and the two men were exhausted. Joking was just the only way to deal sometimes. "Unless..."

Carlos looked at his friend and cocked an eyebrow as if to ask unless what?

"Unless they weren't aiming for her."

"Jealous ex tries to whack the new guy? Possible but not likely."

"Old enemies with an axe to grind try to whack an ex-cop? Possible and likely. Just keep an eye out." Trent settled back down and closed his eyes.

"I know what you mean." Carlos sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Something doesn't feel right about this one."

"Pump the girl for info," Trent yawned. "If she's on even half the medicines I am, it'll be easy."

"Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

Leaving Trent's room, Carlos literally bumped into Dr. Chase. "Don't they ever let you go home, doc?" he asked her, using their collision to stand close to her and put a hand on her forearm.

She smiled wearily at him. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Well let me know. I'll take you out."

"Oh, well in that case, I think I have Thursday night free."

Carlos adored the way her cheeks flushed and decided to goad her by kissing her hand. "I'll see you then, doc."