In the Aftermath of Hell

by Bamboozlepig

Pete & Jim must face the aftermath of the sniper attacks. Dragnet/Emergency! crossover. [sequel to "The Ordinary Day"] *remains on hiatus*

7. In The Aftermath Of Hell Chapter 7

ALL ORIGINAL CONTENT OF THIS STORY, INCLUDING MY OWN CREATED FANON, CHARACTERS OR OTHER SPECIFIC DETAILS UNIQUE TO MY WORK IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF BAMBOOZLEPIG AND MAY NOT BE USED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

IN THE AFTERMATH OF HELL

CHAPTER SEVEN

As I pull into the parking lot of my apartment house, I hesitate for a moment, my hands on the steering wheel and the car idling patiently, the urge strong in me to turn the Mustang around and hit the highway, opening up that powerful engine and letting the fast little car carry me into nowhere under the star-speckled sky, leaving everything far behind as I race into the forgiving night. But with a sigh, I realize there really is no escape from the Hell that was today, no matter how far or how fast I might flee, so I pull into the slot assigned to me and park, killing the Mustang's purr and pulling the keys from the ignition. Suddenly a wave of sheer bone-weariness hits me and I grip the steering wheel tightly in my hands, letting my head rest against it for a moment, closing my eyes as I try to gather my scattered thoughts. Heavy with indolent lassitude, I settle back into the seat, idly running a thumb over the key fob that is clutched in my fingers, a small, silver medallion that has St. Michael, the patron saint of police officers, etched into it. The keys jingle softly against my palm with the movement and I lean my head back against the headrest, staring up at the low ceiling of the car, suddenly rather starkly reminded of the fact that either the good St. Michael or someone else kept Jim Reed and John Gage and I from getting killed out there today.

With a stab of guilt, I realize that in today's frantic mess, I haven't properly thanked whomever it was that kept the three of us safe, so I clear my throat, my eyes fixed on the shiny medallion in my hand as I begin the words to a halting prayer of deep gratitude. "Hey…uh…I'm not…" My voice trails off and I stop, staring dumbly at the key fob as I rack my brain for the words to offer up, but admittedly, praying has never come easy to me. Sighing, I scrub a hand down my face, taking a deep breath and clearing my throat again as I start over. "I…uh…I…Damn it, why is this so fucking HARD!" I snap with frustration, hitting the steering wheel with a tightly clenched fist. I try to regroup, hoping like hell that the third time is the charm. "I…um…just want to say thanks for watching over Johnny, Jim, and I, and keeping us safe out there today, ya know?" I stop again, biting my lip for a moment in hesitation, rubbing my fingers over the engraved image of the St. Michael medallion that lies warm in my palm, then I continue, my voice halting and hushed as I slowly find my words. "And please…watch over my partner, Jim Reed, for me. He's…he's going through a really tough time right now and I don't want him to lose his way. I mean, he's strong, but I'm…I'm really worried about him and…" The words suddenly well up in my throat, clogging it with barely checked emotion, and I find that I must swallow hard a few times in order to go on, my voice dropping down into a hoarse whisper when I speak next. "He's…I…I love him like he's my kid brother, and I don't want anything to happen to him, because I don't think I could stand losing someone I really care about again…" My voice trails off a final time and with a heavy sigh, I decide to stop there, hoping like hell God heard my prayer, because I know that I can't continue any further without losing control of the vortex of emotions that are running just below my surface.

With weary resignation, I open the car door and gingerly climb out, reaching back to grab my gear bag from the backseat, as every single muscle in my body screams in pain with my movements, letting me know that come tomorrow morning, I'm going to be as sore as hell. Closing the door and making sure that the car is locked up, I plod across the asphalt parking lot, trudging up the front sidewalk and slowly climbing the wooden stairwell that leads to the upper story of the apartment complex, feeling utterly beat when I reach the top, as if it were Mt. Everest I just climbed, instead of stairs. The wooden boards of the balcony creak under my tread, and with leaden feet, I come to a stop in front of the heavy wood door of my apartment, staring for a moment at the gold numbers marked "208." It seems like an entire lifetime has passed since I left my place this morning to go to work. I know that I am finally home, yet the notion of home feels foreign to me, as if I am somehow a guest in my own apartment…belonging there, but not belonging there, for the world that I left behind when I went to work today no longer exists, except in a distant, dream-like memory of when my innocence was still unshattered. Restlessly jingling my keys in my hand, I stand there in front of the door and study it forlornly, feeling as if I have somehow shown up at the right place, but in the wrong era.

Then the brown plaid curtains at my window suddenly sweep aside for a moment, a pale face peeking out at me, then the locks on the door click frantically undone and the door flies open with a bang, revealing my girlfriend, Judy Smith, standing there in the doorway, trembling, her face drawn with worry as she regards me with wide eyes. With a small garbled cry, she literally launches herself at me, slamming into me, knocking the breath out of me and making me drop the gear bag with a thud to the balcony as I brace myself against the balcony railing to keep from toppling over it. She jumps up and down in front of me, alternately hugging me tightly and trying to kiss me frantically on the lips, her overly enthusiastic response to my arrival home reminding me of a dog that is overjoyed to greet you as if you've been gone forever and ever, even if you've just returned from taking the garbage out or retrieving the mail.

"Hey!" I exclaim, wondering why in the hell I didn't see her green Pinto out in the parking lot, because if I HAD, I likely would have given into my instinct to hit the open road in the Mustang and leave everything behind me. "Jesus, take it easy, okay? Don't knock me off the damned deck, Judy," I grumble, wincing with pain as she pushes her head against the bruise on my chest that was caused by Burnside's bullet hitting my bulletproof vest. She doesn't notice at all that I fail to return her gestures of affection, and her very presence dismays me, for I had HOPED to come home to silence and solitude, in order to decompress and process everything that has happened today on my own, without having to deal with someone else's emotions and drama.

"Oh my God, Pete!" she sobs brokenly against my chest, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist as she literally tries to bury herself into me, her body grinding against mine in her attempt to nearly climb me and get as close to me as she possibly can. "I've been so worried and scared for you!" She looks up at me with a pale, tear-stained face, her blue eyes watery and bloodshot.

"You shouldn't have been, Judy, I'm fine," I tell her dismissively, grabbing her by the upper arms and gently trying to pry her off of me, for her touch irritates me for some reason I cannot explain, other than after today's horror, I have NO desire to be handled or petted or touched right now, the very idea sending waves of loathing skittering through me. My attempt to loosen her hold makes her only cling harder and I finally give up, patting her hair in a mechanical gesture of comfort that I don't feel, unable to bring myself to hug her in even the smallest fashion. "I'm okay," I assure her again in a flat tone of voice, resenting her greatly for just being here. I give her a thin, edgy smile that I don't feel, the movement feeling strange to me, as if the muscles in my face that allow me to smile are somehow broken. "Let's go inside so that we don't bother the neighbors, okay?" I try to move in the direction of my apartment, with Judy still clinging stubbornly to me, weighing me down.

"Is THAT what you're worried about, Pete, bothering the neighbors?" she asks shrilly. She lets go of me then and backs away from me with a wounded look in her eyes as she folds her arms across her chest, shivering slightly in the cool night air. "All I wanted to do was hug you and show you how glad I am that you're still alive." Her voice holds a dual note of accusation and mournful self-pity.

"Judy, please," I sigh wearily, not wanting to get into this with her at this point in time. "It's been a really, really bad day, and I want nothing more than to take a shower and go to bed." I retrieve my gear bag from the wooden deck and brush past her then, entering my apartment as Judy follows whipped puppy-like along behind me, shutting and relocking the door as I set my bag down on the floor and take off my windbreaker, hanging it up on a peg near the door, next to Judy's green fall jacket and brown leather purse that are also hanging there on a separate peg.

"Oh, PETE!" Judy cries, throwing herself at me once more after I hang up my jacket, clearly not caring if she makes a scene now that we're inside my apartment. She wraps her arms tightly around me again, snuggling into me, her eager touch and desire to be close to me making me squirm uneasily in her grasp, set on edge by her avid wish to be as goddamned close to me as she possibly can. I sense that if she could somehow climb inside the very pores of my skin, she likely would, just to be near me. "What a terrible, awful day this has been! You must be SO exhausted, poor baby! Please, tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."

I don't answer her, instead raking dismayed eyes over the disarray of my normally tidy apartment, Judy's unwanted intrusion making it feel less like home and more like a jail cell. White clots of used tissues dot the landscape of my blue and green plaid couch and brown shag carpeting, with more tissues piled on the low-slung coffee table, next to a half-empty box of hankies. The television is on, but the sound is turned way down, the silent images sending flickering bursts of colors into the dimly lit room, for the only illumination in the room is coming from the green ceramic lamp that sits on an end table next to the couch. An untouched bowl of what looks to be watery yellow chicken noodle soup is on the coffee table next to one of my coffee mugs, the thin skim of film over the soup indicating it's long since gone cold. Judy's worry and her misery is quite evident in the debris she's left behind. "Judy, please, let go of me," I say with rapidly growing irritation, trying to pull myself free from her grasp once more. "You didn't have to come over here. I would have called when I got home to let you know I was okay."

"No you wouldn't," she says firmly, rubbing her cheek against my chest, clinging to me like a damned barnacle sticking to a ship, refusing to release me. "I know you, Pete, and you wouldn't have called me until tomorrow morning. And I had to know tonight whether you were okay or not." Her voice when she speaks is low and hoarse, rubbed raw from crying. "When I heard about the sniper shootings and that the LAPD SWAT team was handling it, I knew right away that you and Jim were probably involved. I was frantic with fear for the two of you, knowing that you both were likely in serious danger out there. I love you so much, and I don't want anything to happen to you, you know. I always worry about your safety out there, honey, but especially today, when I knew you were likely in harm's way. That's why I wish you'd quit the force and go into something safer, like selling life insurance or working in a bank." She gives me a purely calculating look that indicates she's been pondering THIS subject for quite a while now. "In fact, Daddy was just saying the other day that one of his agents is going to be retiring at the end of this year, and he said the job is yours if you want it, that he's willing to train you. Why don't you at least consider it, sweetheart? I mean, sure, we'd have to leave California and move to Colorado, but we could do it, I know we could. I can get my old job teaching at Wilson Elementary back, and Daddy could start looking for a place for us to live out there NOW, so that when we DID move, our house would be just waiting for us. We could stop over in Las Vegas and get married, or we could have a quick ceremony here in Los Angeles before we moved, and that way, we'd be embarking on a whole new life together." She hugs me tight once more, giving me a pleading look. "What do you say, honey? Should we move to Colorado and start a new life, with you as an insurance agent, and me as a teacher?"

"I need a drink," I mutter sourly in response, grabbing her by the upper arms and finally breaking her tight embrace as I brusquely push past her, ignoring the stunned, slightly dismayed look she gives me. Stalking into the kitchen, I turn on the light and head straight to the cupboard where the bottle of Jack Daniels is at, opening the cupboard door and removing the bottle along with a blue glass tumbler. I unscrew the cap on the whiskey and pour some of the amber liquid into the glass, then I quickly down it with a fast flick of my wrist, the whiskey burning my throat as it goes down, making me cough slightly and my eyes water a bit. It settles warmly in my stomach, creating a small inner glow within me that does little to dim today's events.

Judy has followed me into the kitchen and stands in the doorway, watching me with a small frown of displeasure. "Pete, you know I don't like you drinking hard liquor, especially this close to bedtime," she chides, then she enters the kitchen and comes up behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist and resting her head against my back.

"I'll drink whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want," I tell her evenly, as I pour more booze into the glass. I stand there at the counter, sipping the whiskey, my eyes landing on the saucepan atop my stove that has the same watery yellow soup in it that's in the bowl out on my coffee table, and I shudder a bit at the idea of eating it. Food doesn't sound good to me right now, but the whiskey sure does. Instead of giving Judy's hands about my waist a reassuring pat like I probably should, I keep one hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle of Jack Daniels, the other wrapped around the glass, silently resenting Judy's presence rather greatly, wondering how in the hell I can get her to leave in a way that doesn't hurt her feelings.

She is quiet for a moment, clearly debating whether or not to argue with me over the issue of my drinking, then she speaks, her chin resting against my back. "The bomb squad was at my house and here at your place, to check for explosive devices, Pete. Everything came out okay, but do you know how frightening that was, to see that happening and not really know why or what's going on?" Her voice sounds small and wan, and she's still apparently shaken by the fact that the bomb squad had to check her house out for any of Burnside's booby traps.

"I'm sorry, Judy. Did David see any of that?" I ask dully, not turning around to look at her, keeping my gaze fixed on the yellow tiled backsplash behind my stove, hoping like hell he didn't, for I would hate to think that he was witness to something like that, just because Judy is dating me.

"No," she says. "When I heard about the sniper shootings, I had Denise pick him up at school and take him back to her place, since I wasn't really sure what was going on. I asked her to keep him overnight for me and get him off to school in the morning, so I could be at home in case…" Her voice trails off a moment, hushed by barely checked emotion that quavers in her tone. "In case there was some news about you or Jim. David begged me to let him stay with me, but I told him I wanted him to go with Denise, just to be on the safe side. I'll call her in a little bit and have her wake him up to tell him that you and Jim are okay." She hesitates, unsure of how to broach the next subject. "I mean, you and Jim ARE safe, right? According to the news, the sniper's been neutralized, and neither you nor Jim got hurt in the incident, did you?"

"Relatively speaking, no," I tell her dryly, taking a swallow of whiskey. "Not physically, anyway." I turn away from her then, forcing her to break contact with me once more when I move back out to the living room. I set the bottle and the glass on the low, dark wooden coffee table and I turn to her with a small scowl, intending to send her on her way so that I can finally be alone. "Look, Judy, why don't you go on home? As you can see, I'm fine. Jim's fine. We're all fine. End of story." I spread my hands out in mute supplication. "Please, just go home and let me be by myself for tonight, okay?"

"But I don't want to leave you, Pete," she says in a soft, annoying whine, standing in the middle of my living room with her arms folded across her chest, a pleading look on her face as she regards me unhappily. "Not tonight. And please don't make me." She comes over to me again, standing on tiptoe to kiss me on the lips, not noticing that I don't kiss her back, then she wraps her arms around me once more, nestling into me. "I don't wanna ever let you go, Pete," she whispers. "I'm going to hold on to you until the end of time."

I've finally had it with her damned clinginess and need to constantly touch me and hang on me. "Will you let GO of me, damn it?" I snap with sharp irritation. "I really don't want to be hugged or touched right now, Judy, can't you understand that? I'm not in the mood for it!"

She quickly drops her arms from me then and backs away from me, giving me the same wounded look from earlier, hurt welling up in her blue eyes and trickling slowly down her face. "I'm sorry," she says softly, sadly. "I just wanted to be close to you, to show you how much I love you and how glad I am you're still alive, that's all."

Feeling like a lousy fucking heel then, a stab of shame and remorse jabs at me for treating her so badly, because I know it's not really her fault she's being clingy, it's just a natural reaction to want to be close to someone you love, especially after an incident like today. "Look, it's not you," I tell her wearily, waving a hand at her in an attempt to make minor amends to her. "I'm not in the best of moods right now, and I'm afraid I'm not very good company tonight. I stink to high heaven, my head is killing me, every muscle in my body aches, and I'm tired as hell. All I want to get a nice hot shower in and then go to bed and sleep, and not wake up until the 1990's, at least." Picking up the tumbler of whiskey, I take one last swallow before setting the glass back down, then I turn and head into my bedroom, flicking on the overhead light. I stop at my nightstand, opening the top drawer, unclipping the off-duty weapon from my belt and tucking it into the drawer before shutting it. I could lock the drawer if I wanted to, to keep the weapon safe, but I don't feel like doing it tonight. I go over and sit down on the edge of my bed, kicking off my shoes as I work tired fingers at the buttons of my shirt.

Judy stands for a moment in the doorway, watching me silently, almost shyly, then she enters, coming over and sitting down next to me on the bed, the springs creaking softly with our combined weight. "Yes," she says with a little laugh, putting a light hand on my back as she evidently forgives me for my pissy attitude. "A shower would be good for you, Pete, for I have to admit, you ARE a bit on the ripe side. You smell like sweat and dust, and gunpowder and copper."

I freeze a moment, my fingers in mid-unbutton as I realize what she means with the reference to metal. "That's not copper you smell, Judy, that's blood," I tell her tersely, swinging my head around to look at her, the rather perverse comment slipping from my mouth before I can stop it. I should regret making it, but I don't, my fatigue and my stress and my irritation with her taking a toll on my conscience. "I've had blood all over my hands and my clothes from all the injured victims we pulled out of that park today," I tell her with a bit of anger riding my voice, holding my hands up to show her. "In fact, back at the station, I had to wash what blood I could from me before I could even come home."

She pales at the callous, uncouth remark, her eyes going wide in horror as she puts a trembling hand to her mouth. "Oh my God, how horrible, Pete! It must have been SO awful out there for you and Jim today!"

"That's putting it mildly, Judy," I tell her in annoyance as I stand up, shrugging the blue pinstriped oxford shirt from my shoulders and tossing into the wicker hamper that stands next to the bathroom door. Keeping my back turned to her, I pull the white t-shirt free from my pants and yank it off over my head, tossing it into the hamper next. I run quick fingers through the pockets of my chinos and empty them, dumping my keys, my wallet, the leather folder containing my departmental ID, my Swiss Army pocket knife, a handful of loose change, and a pack of Juicy Fruit gum on the top of my bureau. Tugging on my watch, I pull it off of my wrist and lay it on the bureau, too, next to the dish that holds the dimes for the laundromat. I unbuckle the brown leather belt at my waist and slide it through the loops of my pants, hanging it on a bureau knob, before I unzip the fly on my pants and step out of them, throwing them into the hamper atop the other clothes. The whole time I've been undressing, I've been patently ignoring Judy, hoping that she'll take the hint of my abject silence and chilly posture, and go home, leaving me alone.

"So, maybe while you're taking a shower, I could fix you something to eat, huh?" Judy offers, breaking the stiff-necked silence, clearly ignoring my hints. "I can go warm up the soup I had earlier, if you'd like. It's chicken noodle from a can, since I didn't feel like making homemade chicken noodle soup tonight. Or I can make you a turkey sandwich."

"I'm not hungry," I tell her shortly, bracing myself against the bureau and hopping on first one foot, then the other, as I take off my socks and wad them up, throwing them into the hamper, too, making the shot quite easily for once, instead of missing the basket like I so often do.

"Maybe you will be by the time you get out of the shower, huh?" Judy says hopefully. "I mean, you've gotta eat SOMETHING, Pete."

I shrug and give her a noncommittal grunt, opening the top drawer on my bureau and pulling out a clean white t-shirt and a pair of fresh boxer shorts. I turn then to her, for once my near-nakedness not bothering her like it normally does, for the sight of me undressing in front of her makes her shy, and her shyness always makes me embarrassed, therefore I usually wind up getting undressed in the near-dark whenever I spend the night with her. "Look, Judy, I'm not kidding, I really don't want…" I begin.

"Oh my GOD!" Judy shrieks, interrupting me as she catches sight of the rather colorful, tennis-ball sized bruise that is on my chest, right over my heart. She leaps up from the bed and rushes over to me, her hands at the sides of her face in wide-eyed horror. "What in the world HAPPENED to you, Pete?" she demands, starting to reach a hand out to touch the bruise.

"Don't," I warn sharply, brusquely knocking her hand away. I shake a finger at her. "Don't touch it. It's really sore."

She catches sight then of the white square of bandage on my knee that covers the cut I got on the rebar. "And what happened to you there?" she asks fearfully, giving me a worried look.

"It was all injuries I got in the line of duty today," I tell her, refusing to elaborate further, for I know that if she hears how I got the bruise, she'll go to pieces, and I simply cannot deal with her emotional drama right now, it's just too much for my own already-overloaded emotions to handle. "It all looks worse than it really is. It's nothing to get bent out of shape over."

"I think I have a right to get bent out of shape," she says resolutely, wrapping her arms around my waist and snuggling into me, resting her head on my chest, careful to avoid the bruise. "Especially when my beloved Pete gets hurt like this."

"Judy, PLEASE!" I snap with heated frustration, pushing vainly at her in an attempt to free myself from her clutches. "Let GO of me so I can go get a shower!"

"Alright," she says softly, evidently taking no offense at my tone or churlish attitude. She gives me one more squeeze then she lets go of me, starting across the bedroom to the doorway leading to the living room. "Maybe you'll feel better after you've had a nice hot shower and gotten something to eat, huh?" She gives me a hopeful smile.

"I wouldn't count on it," I warn in irritation. "I'm telling you, Judy, please go home. I'm not fit company tonight at all, and I really want nothing more than to just be left alone, so I can deal with what happened today in my own way."

"But I want to help you," she protests. "I want to help you get through whatever you need to get through, in order to start healing, Pete. I'd be a very poor girlfriend if I abandoned my man in his darkest hour of need, after all."

"What I NEED is complete solitude," I tell her with dismayed despair. "I don't WANT you here, helping me to get through this. I can get through it on my own, thankyouverymuch."

She damnably ignores me, smiling beatifically at me. "Go get your shower, sweetie, and then we'll talk," she chirps happily. With that, she trots out to the kitchen, and moments later, I hear her banging and clattering around in there, preparing a light snack for me to eat when I get out of the shower.

Sighing heavily with annoyed displeasure, I grab up my old pair of sweatpants that are on the green Windsor chair in the corner next to the bureau, and I stalk into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it behind me as I turn on the light. While I doubt Judy would dare to breech the privacy of the bathroom, I'm not taking any chances. Given her desire to cling to me now as it is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she came in and wanted to assist me in taking a piss or soaping my back up in the shower…tasks that I OBVIOUSLY am quite capable of handling on my own. Stepping out of my boxer shorts, I lay the clean pair of boxers and sweatpants on the little metal stand that holds my towels, then I quickly use the toilet, flushing it when I'm finished. I reach into the glass-enclosed shower stall and turn on the water, twisting the knob so that the shower will get as hot as I can stand it, purely craving the steamy heat to drive the aches and pains from my sore muscles and take my weary mind from the troubles at hand.

While I wait for it to warm up, I open the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink and search out the aspirin bottle on the shelves within. Finding it, I uncap it, dumping two white tablets out into my palm, then I replace the bottle on the shelf, turning on the cold water tap as I toss the chalky tablets into my mouth, quickly catching water in my cupped palms to wash them down with. They melt a bit on my tongue, leaving behind a sour, acidy taste that makes me grimace with disgust. Turning the cold water tap off, I focus my attention to the white square of gauze bandage on my knee, carefully picking at the tape that holds it there, wincing as it plucks and pulls at the hair on my leg, studiously working at it until the bandage is finally free from my skin. In ouchy retrospect, it might have been wiser to let the water from the shower loosen up the tape before I took the bandage off, but hindsight is often a painful twenty-twenty. I toss the square of bandage in the trashcan next to the sink, rummaging in the medicine cabinet for the metal box of band-aids that is within, locating it and searching through it to find a band-aid big enough to cover the cut on my knee. Finding one, I put the box back on the shelf and grab the white tube of first aid cream, laying the band-aid and the cream on the edge of the sink so that I can redress the wound when I get out of the shower. When I close the medicine cabinet back up, I'm careful to avoid my eyes in the mirror, unwilling yet to meet my gaze for I know I won't like what I see peering back at me from the depths of my soul. Dipping my hand under the shower stream, I determine that the water is just to my liking, so I step into the white porcelain tub, sliding the frosted glass door shut behind me, hoping like hell the shower can wash all the day's horror from me, sending it swirling down the drain forever.

The hot, steamy water pounds and needles at me in a pleasantly sharp spray, and I draw my breath in with a hiss as the water hits both the cut on my knee and the bruise on my chest, making them sting and throb with pain. Glancing down, I notice with disgust that the water rinsing off of me and swirling down the drain is definitely grey with concrete dust and grime. Closing my eyes, I duck my head under the shower head, and with my eyes still closed, I blindly reach for the bottle of Prell shampoo that sits on the built-in shelf in the shower stall, finding it, opening the plastic bottle and drizzling some of the thick green liquid into my palm before I set the bottle back on the shelf. I rub my palms together and sweep the shampoo through my hair, lathering the strands vigorously in a thick pouf of bubbly suds. I scratch at my scalp with my fingers, feeling the cement residue rasp against my kneading fingertips as I scrub at my skull. I duck my head under the spray again, rinsing off the foamy suds and most of the grit, but when I run my hands through my hair, I still feel little bits of dirt sliding against my hands. With a sigh, I grab up the shampoo bottle again and repeat the process once more, finally rinsing the dust from my hair the second time around.

Grabbing the blue washcloth that hangs on a nearby rod, I pick up the bar of Ivory soap and lather the washcloth up, scrubbing briskly at my skin, the fine particles of dust rubbing harshly against me as I try to rid myself of the grimy residue, along with the smell of cordite and blood that stubbornly clings to me. I notice with dismay that the water that rinses off of me still runs grey, so I redouble my efforts, scrubbing so hard that my skin feels raw and tingly, until the last vestiges of soap that swirl down the drain finally run clear, my to my relief. Draping the washcloth at the back of my neck, I turn around, letting the water sluice across my neck and shoulders, as I tug on the ends of the washcloth, tightening it against my neck in an effort to loosen the knot that is sitting there. Then I take the washcloth and unfold it, draping it across my palms and holding it up to my face, breathing in the fresh clean scent of laundry detergent and Ivory soap that is on the terry cloth. With the washcloth still pressed to my face, I turn back around to the shower spray, tilting my head back and letting it pound at my face, my eyes closed as I try to breathe in as much of the thick steam that I can, in an attempt to clear the thick stench of blood, death, cordite, and dust from my nose.

I'm rewarded with the sensation of something popping within my sinuses, and suddenly a thick river of gunk begins to drip down the back of my throat, nearly making me gag. Despite the fact that I know Judy wouldn't like me hocking loogies in the tub, I do just that, bringing forth and spitting out thick clots of greyish phlegm, trying to get it out of my system so that I don't end up swallowing the horrid stuff. My head rings from the exuberant effort, spinning me into a light swirl of dizziness, and I sway a bit, steadying myself with my palm pressed against the blue and white shower tiles. Hanging the washcloth back on its rod, I lower my head under the shower spray, closing my eyes as the warm water rains down on me, and I silently plead for it to purify me, to wipe clean the blackly poisoned, tainted slates of my heart and my soul and my mind, but all it does is start to turn lukewarm on me, then chilly, and with a small yip of dismay, I quickly turn the shower off before I freeze to death. I stand there for a moment in the tub, dripping and cold and shivering, then I slide the glass door open and step out into the steam-filled bathroom, grabbing a plush green towel from a nearby rack and wrapping myself into it, savoring the warmth it provides me.

There is a knock at the door and the knob rattles, startling me a bit. "Pete, are you okay in there?" Judy calls, sounding concerned. "You've been in there for a while now, and I'm getting a little worried."

"I'm fine," I call back wearily, sighing with irritation as I realize that she's still here. "I'll be out in a few minutes."

"Good," she says through the door. "I've got something fixed for you to eat when you do." There's a hesitation, then she rattles the knob again. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asks.

"I'm fine, damn it!" I snap in frustration. "I'll be out in a bit!" I hear her plod away from the door then, and I begin to briskly dry myself off, my muscles still aching a bit but not as bad as before, while the aspirin has started to kick in and ease the headache that pounds at my temples. When I finish drying off, I hang the towel back up on the rack, then I whisk a comb through my damp hair and quickly and mechanically brush my teeth at the sink, the minty taste of the toothpaste taking the bitter taste of phlegm from my mouth. I slap some first aid cream onto the cut and then cover it with the fresh band-aid, then I get dressed, slipping on the clean boxers first, then the sweatpants, pulling the t-shirt on over my head. Grabbing up the dirty boxers, I unlock the bathroom door and step barefooted out into my bedroom. I glance around for Judy as I throw my dirty shorts in the hamper, but she's evidently returned to the living room, so I reluctantly trudge out there, finding her seated on the couch, watching the tv once more.

She looks up as I enter the room. "Did your shower help you any?" she asks with a smile. "I sure hope so, honey. You're kind of being a bear tonight."

"Some, I guess," I tell her with a nonchalant shrug, slipping into my brown recliner instead of the couch, still not wanting to be close to Judy right now. I note with a bit of relief that she hasn't dumped out my glass of whiskey and I reach over, picking it up and taking a swallow of it, settling back into the recliner, resting the glass on my stomach with my hand wrapped around it. "And I think I'm allowed to be a bit of a bear, in light of today's hellish experiences," I say a bit dourly.

She gives me a hurt look when I sit down in the recliner. "Don't you want to sit next to me?" she whines. "I won't bite, I promise."

"Yeah, but I might," I tell her humorlessly. "Given the mood I'm in."

She cocks her head. "It sounded like you were…uh…spitting phlegm in the shower," she says with a tiny frown. "Were you?"

I shrug. "So what if I was?" I snark. "It's my damned tub, I can do whatever the hell I want in it."

She screws up her face in abject disgust. "But that's just nasty, Pete, hocking and spitting like that."

"My sinuses popped and started draining while I was in the shower," I tell her a bit snidely. "And I sure as hell wasn't going to swallow the crap that was draining down."

Having cleared away her mess that was in my living room, Judy points to one of my blue-flowered china plates and matching bowl that are sitting on the coffee table, the plate containing a turkey sandwich on white bread, while the bowl contains steaming chicken noodle soup…from a can. "I made you some soup and a sandwich," she offers helpfully, giving me a shy little smile. "Maybe you should try to eat something, huh? I don't imagine you've had very much to eat today, after all."

"I'm not hungry," I tell her with rising irritation. Resolutely, I fix my gaze on the muted flickering images of the tv, the channel turned to channel twelve, California's Public Televison station, Judy's favorite, because it's SO educational. I stare sightlessly at the program, not really giving a goddamned as to what it's about, but hoping like hell Judy will take the hint and LEAVE, before my thoroughly pissy attitude gets even worse than it already is, and I wind up taking it out on her more than I already have. Her concern and her desire to be with me is touching, to be sure, but it's getting goddamned annoying, in a sickly, cloying way.

"Well, but maybe you should still try to eat something anyway," she tells me, matter-of-factly. "Even if you're not hungry, Pete. You need to get something solid in your stomach."

"I have," I reply in a short tone of voice, holding up the glass of whiskey as I flick my gaze to her. "I've got some whiskey and a couple of aspirin in my stomach."

"But Pete…" she starts to protest.

"Look, Judy, I'm NOT hungry," I say sharply. "And after what I saw out there today, it's no goddamned wonder, either. Hell, I may NEVER get my appetite back after today."

She falls silent then and looks down at her hands, nervously twisting the little gold-and-ruby ring that is on her right ring finger, a birthday gift from her deceased husband. "What was it like out there, Pete?" she finally asks in a tiny little voice, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her ring. "I mean, what was it REALLY like?"

I stare at her for a moment, stunned and sickened that she'd even have the nerve to ask me that, knowing that I can't, nor would I, reveal the details of an open case. "Judy, I can't answer that, the investigation is still ongoing," I tell her, anger at her ballsy inquiry prickling just beneath my surface, threatening to explode. "I cannot disclose the details of an active case like that to you, and you should know better than to even ASK me that."

"I…I don't want the details of the investigation, Pete," she says softly, giving me a worried, sorrowful look. "I just want to know what it was like…I mean, was it scary, was it awful, was it gruesome…what did you experience out there today?"

I lean forward in my seat and fix her with an icy glare, realizing that she wants to hear the gory details of what I went through, like every other goddamned woman I've ever dated, firmly denying their interest in the minutiae of my job, while avidly hungering for the salacious, gossipy details that will satisfy their secretly morbid curiosities. "Okay, you wanna know what it was fucking like out there, Judy?" I ask angrily, muted rage crackling in my voice. I ignore the wince she gives at the word 'fucking' and continue, my tone rising. "You REALLY wanna know what it was like? It was sheer fucking Hell, Judy, sheer fucking Hell. A lot of innocent people DIED out there at the hands of a madman, and Jim Reed, John Gage, and I had to go in to try to rescue them, and now I DON'T want to discuss it with you any further, got it?" I stare at her, my eyes meeting hers in clear defiance, daring her to protest or push me any further on the subject.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry," she offers regretfully, still twisting the ring. "I…I just had to ask, so I could get an idea of what you went through, in hopes of helping you to cope." Then she points to the gear bag that is on the floor beneath my jacket hanging on the wall. "I unpacked your bag for you," she says a bit proudly, gesturing to my gear that she has carefully laid out on a newspaper on the floor next to the bag. "I figured you'd want to clean the dust and dirt off of them before you wear them again."

"Thanks," I tell her shortly, flicking my gaze back to the tv set again, not entirely grateful for her kind gesture, for I dislike it when she roots through my stuff without my permission. As intensely private as I am, I consider it an intrusion. "I could have done that myself, you know."

"I know, but I wanted to do it for you, Pete," she says hesitantly. "I figured that way, you didn't have to worry about getting your gear bag unpacked tonight."

"Yeah, I suppose," I tell her a bit grudgingly. I admit, I'm ashamed of my churlish attitude, for while it's always a given that whatever hell you endure on the job, it stays at the station and you don't bring it home to your family, but that's a helluva lot easier to preach than practice. And Judy's refusal to leave me alone, despite my utmost wish that she do, only serves to annoy me further, for she evidently doesn't grasp, or doesn't WANT to grasp the idea that I want privacy and solitude, in order to deal with what I've seen and experienced today.

She gives me a curious look, frowning slightly. "Funny thing is though, I didn't find your badge anywhere in the bag. Did you lose it or did it somehow get damaged today?"

"No, it's…" I begin, then I stop, for I don't want Judy to know that I've quit the force, the only job I've had for the last fourteen years, the only job I've ever really known. I know she'd be supremely happy with the news, but I'm sure as hell in no mood now to make Judy happy. "I left it back at the station, that's all." Which really isn't TOO much of a lie, if you stop and think about it, because I DID leave it back at the station…albeit on Mac's desk and with the threat that I've quit.

"Oh," she says, wisely deciding to leave it at that, much to my relief. She clears her throat. "By the way, you had two phone calls earlier while I was waiting here for you to come home."

"Oh?" I ask flatly, unable to drum up any curiosity or enthusiasm. "From whom?"

"One was from your mom," she replies. "They heard about the sniper on the news up in Seattle, and she wanted to know if you were okay. You should probably call her and let her know that you're alright, Pete, she was pretty worried."

"I'll do it tomorrow," I brush her off. "It's too late to call them now, and my dad will have a fit if I bother them this late at night, just to assure them of my well-being." There is a strong note of bitterness in my voice when I speak, a bitterness I cannot help, and Judy gives me a quizzical look, unaware of the dynamics within the Malloy family, for I haven't introduced her to them yet, the dynamics OR my parents. "Who was the other phone call from?" I ask tiredly, rubbing absent-mindedly at my forehead.

"Some woman named Evie Donnelly," she says. "She gave me a number for you to call her back at; it's a Seattle number, I think."

I frown slightly at the mention of Evie's name, wondering why Evie had called me. "Did she say what she wanted?" I ask cautiously.

Judy shakes her head. "No, she just wanted you to call her and let her know you were okay, that's all. She said she was a friend of yours from back in the day, and she'd heard the news about the sniper, too, and was worried that you were involved." Judy's face creases with concern as she gives me a slightly uneasy look. "Who is she, Pete?" she asks carefully, not hiding her curiosity at all. "I don't remember you saying anything about an old friend named Evie Donnelly from back when you still lived in Seattle."

"That's because she's ancient history," I tell Judy grimly, but I refuse to tell her any further, that Evie is my ex-wife, for I haven't felt like revealing that part of my past yet to Judy. For one thing, I don't feel like the two of us are quite at the 'reveal all' part of our relationship; and for another thing, I have a sneaking suspicion that Judy might be jealous of the life I once shared with Evie, even though that life has been over for a long, long time.

"Speaking of making phone calls, I did call Denise while you were in the shower, so she could wake David up and tell him that you and Jim were okay," Judy says, sliding the plate containing the sandwich across the table to in front of me. "At least try to eat a little bit of something for me, okay, Pete?" she urges gently.

I study her for a moment, realizing that she's going to keep harping at me to eat unless I make an attempt, so heaving a weary sigh, I lean forward and pick up half of the sandwich and begin to nibble unenthusiastically at it, in hopes of shutting her up.

Judy watches me with a delighted smile as I pick half-heartedly at the food. "I put tomato and mayo and lettuce on your sandwich," she tells me happily, as if I don't already know. "It's nothing to write home about, I'm sure, but at least it's something for you to eat. And maybe when you finish it, you'll want the soup. If it's cooled down, I can warm it up again."

"Yeah, maybe," I tell her noncommittally, lacking the desire to engage in any conversation with her. We lapse into an uncomfortable silence, as she watches me eat and I stare blindly at the tv without the flashing, muted images registering on my brain, wishing her gone.

"Well, I heard about the sniper shootings on the radio at school during recess, while I was in the teachers' lounge taking my coffee break," she says finally, clearly trying to dispel the uneasy atmosphere between us. "When they said that the S.W.A.T. team was being mobilized, I knew that you and Jim were likely going to be involved in some capacity. And then when the bomb squad…"

I hold my hand up to stop her. "Judy, PLEASE," I grumble. "I do NOT want to hear anything or discuss anything about what happened today, got it?"

She studies me for a moment, then she nods, standing up from the couch. I feel a brief glimmer of hope as I think perhaps she's finally going to leave, but she picks up the paper napkin she put next to the sandwich plate, unfolding it as she comes over to me, tucking it into the collar of my shirt with a patting, motherly air. "There," she says with a smile, stepping back a bit to inspecting her handiwork. "You're getting crumbs on your shirt, dear. And you don't want to go to bed with crumbs now, do you?" Instead of returning to the couch, she sits down on the arm of my chair, draping an arm around my neck and shoulder. "Gee, you're sure not much for conversation tonight, are you, honey?" she asks with a nervous chuckle, stroking a strand of damp hair away from my face with her fingers.

"I told you I wasn't in the mood for company," I tell her with irritation, ducking away from her touch once more. "I really would rather be left alone right now, Judy, to be totally honest with you."

"Maybe," she says. "And maybe you need someone by your side right now, more than ever." She leans over, kissing me on the top of my head. "What say after you finish eating, we get into bed and snuggle? We don't have to have…uh…DO anything if you don't want, dearest," she offers, blushing slightly. "Romance-wise, I mean. We'll just get under the covers and hold one another, that's all."

"No," I tell her firmly, shaking my head, putting the remains of the sandwich down on the plate. Snuggling with Judy is the LAST thing I want to do on God's green earth, for I'd rather eat tinfoil and wood splinters, rather than be close to her. "I'm not going to bed just yet, and when I do, it's going to be alone."

"But you just said earlier that you were really tired, and all you wanted to do was get a shower and go to bed," she protests a bit. "And I took a vacation day from school, just so I could spend tomorrow with you, since I know you're on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation into this incident. We can sleep in as late as you like, and I can make you waffles in the morning, and in the afternoon, maybe we can take in a show…"

"Judy, I'm going to be really busy tomorrow," I tell her with sharp-edged frustration, as I realize that she views my paid leave as some sort of vacation from my job, instead of what it really is…work, but without the steady hours of the usual shifts. As long as we've been dating, too, you'd think she'd know that, but apparently not. "I won't have much time at all to spend with you, I'm afraid. I've got to attend a news conference tomorrow morning, and then afterwards, we have a S.W.A.T. team debriefing with Sergeant Baron, and I don't know how long I'll be dealing with those two events. And I'm sure that there will be more meetings in the hours and days to come, with the departmental brass and the feds, since they've now been called in to help get a handle on this whole fucking mess."

"Pete," she chides with a wince. "You know I don't like you swearing."

I stare at her for a moment, anger flickering within me at her prissy attitude, threatening to ignite once more. "Judy, it's been one helluva long, fucking, shitty-ass day, so I'm entitled to say whatever the hell I want. If you don't like it, there's the door…use it, goddamnit," I tell her with annoyance, gesturing to the door with my hand and glaring at her.

She gives me a slightly hurt pout, then she sighs, shaking her head. "I suppose I can forgive your use of foul language this one time, given the extreme circumstances of today's events," she says. She points to the remains of the sandwich on the plate and the soup grown cold in the bowl atop the coffee table. "Is that all you're going to eat?" she asks with mild dismay.

"I told you I wasn't hungry, Judy," I tell her, plucking the napkin from the front of my shirt and wiping my mouth on it, then I wad it up and drop it onto the plate.

"But you didn't eat very much," she observes. "Not even enough to fill a bird up, honey. You'll be getting hungry in the middle of the night, you wait and see, and then you'll be rooting through the refrigerator in search of something to eat."

"It already IS the middle of the night," I point out. "And I keep telling you, I'm not…"

"Yes, I know, you're not hungry," she sighs, sounding a bit irritated with me, the first sign that my pissy attitude is beginning to wear on her. She stands up from her seat on the arm of my chair and picks up the plate and the bowl. "I guess I'll go throw these out, if you're not going to eat any more than that." She gestures to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table and the glass tumbler I still clutch in my hand. "Are you done with those?" she asks.

"No," I tell her, shaking my head. "I'm not."

"Well, at least let me take the bottle of whiskey back out to the kitchen and put it away," she says with annoyance. "I mean, surely you're not going to drink yourself into a stupor tonight, are you, Pete?"

"And what if I am?" I challenge, giving her a defiant look. "It's my apartment, Judy, and I can do whatever the hell I want in it, including getting shit faced drunk, if I feel like it." I take a swallow of whiskey, as if daring her to deny me my rights within my own apartment.

She studies me for a second, a frown twitching about her thinly pursed lips, then without another word, she turns and carries the dirty dishes into the kitchen. Moments later, I hear her running water to rinse the plate and the bowl out, the sound of her stacking them in the dish drainer to dry making a clattering, clashing noise.

While she's busy in the kitchen, I get up from the recliner, my drink still in my hand, and go over to the tv set, turning the channel off of whatever the hell boring crap it is that's playing on public tv and onto channel five, hoping to find out what out movie is playing on Late Night Cinema. The channel is on a commercial break, so I sit down on the edge of the low-slung wooden coffee table to await the end of the break.

Judy returns from the kitchen and spies me there, coming over to stand next to me, draping her arm around my shoulder once more as she bends down and nuzzles her face against my damp hair. "C'mon, sweetie," she wheedles gently, lightly trailing her nails against the back of my neck, playing with the hair at my nape. "There's nothing to watch on television, so let's go to bed, okay?"

I shake her off. "You know I don't like you hanging on me when I'm trying to watch tv," I grumble irritably.

"Fine," she snaps, going over and sitting on the couch instead, folding her arms across her chest with a huff, giving me a dirty look. "You certainly are not in the best of moods tonight. Maybe I SHOULD go home and leave you to yourself."

"So what's stopping you?" I reply sourly, giving her a sharp glare of my own before staring once more at the tv set, my drink clutched tightly in my hand. "I told you I didn't want company tonight, yet you persist in staying here, for some damned reason that I can't understand."

"That's because I'm TRYING to be a good, loving girlfriend to you," she says tightly. "And to be here to comfort you after such an awful day."

I hold the drink up with a mirthless smile. "This is all the comfort I need right now," I tell her tersely, then I notice with relief that the commercials finally end and the show returns, apparently an action thriller about…about…what the hell? With slow dawning horror, I realize that what I'm watching is not an action thriller, but news footage taken of today's sniper situation.

"It's the news, Pete, and surely you don't want to watch that, do you?" Judy immediately protests.

"Why are they showing the news this late, anyway? It's after eleven o'clock." I murmur in shock. I stare at the muted images, for I have no desire whatsoever to turn the volume up to see what the bubbled-headed bleach blonde reporters, Christy Roberts and Bob Anders, are saying about the incident, their professionally emotionless faces already telling me that they are clearly more thrilled with revealing the salacious and gory details of Burnside's dastardly attack to the avidly curious public, rather than focusing in on the lives he's so brutally damaged and ripped apart. But I know that by tomorrow, they will have snagged a juicy interview or two or ten with the wounded survivors of the attack, along with the mourning relatives of the deceased, just to trot those poor people's wretched emotions out for rabid public consumption.

"Pete, all the local channels have gone to live continuing coverage since about five o'clock this afternoon, after it became apparent that what was happening out on Granite Court was really serious," Judy tells me softly. "They're trying to keep the public updated as to what is going on. They keep rerunning the same footage they shot earlier, over and over again, along with the press conference Mayor Bradley held at around seven this evening." Leaning forward, she puts a hand on my arm, giving me a worried look. "Surely you don't want to see this, do you? Knowing you like to watch a little tv before going to bed, I purposely turned it over to Public Television on channel twelve, so you hopefully wouldn't catch a glimpse of the news footage. I thought it would bother you if you saw the images the reporters were able to get."

"Why the hell not?" I snap, angrily shaking her hand off of me. "I've witnessed all the fucking horror of today from the inside, why not see what the rest of the world saw on the outside?" Resolutely, I defiantly turn my gaze back to the tv and watch the muted images of hell playing out before me from an outsider's perspective with somewhat perverse interest. First there's a shot from the ground, from the corner of Adamson Avenue and Oaktree Drive, looking east down the street towards the Granite Court area, the houses of Shale Court on the right, with the Office Furniture Warehouse and the AutoZip used car lot on the left, while the parking ramp for the Granite Court building is in the near distance. The snouts of Adam-12 and Engine 51 can just barely be seen poking through at the intersection of Adamson and Palmtree, while neither the crew of Engine 51 or Reed and I can be visualized, for we're clearly standing well out of range of the camera. The shot was evidently taken fairly early on in the attack, for there are no street barricades erected yet, just the squad car of Adam-11 pulled across the intersection and halting traffic, as Bob Brinkman and Dave Russo work crowd control, their faces grim and determined as they stroll the line, keeping everyone behind the fluttering yellow crime scene tape that is strung from their car over to two telephone poles that are on opposite sides of the street. In the distance, the Armadillo rumbles slowly past, heading back into Burnside's battlefield with Gage, Reed, and I aboard, and the camera quickly zooms in on the rig like a bee lighting upon a flower, the gun-metal grey hull of the rig flashing a blinding silver in the bright sunlight. I wonder with morbid fascination at what point during the rescues that shot was taken, for I know it wasn't too long into the rescue ops that the fire truck was pulled across the intersection in an attempt to block the media from taking shots of the rig as it exited the battlefield. There's a brief shot of both the owner of the used car lot and the manager of the furniture warehouse giving an interview to the reporters, along with some random shots taken from the other perimeters set up, these of various ambulances and other rescue vehicles arriving at the scene. But those shots are quick, for apparently Mac put the order out to the cops standing sentry at the main arteries of Morris and Palmtree, Morris and Oaktree, and Adamson and Pinetree, to keep the media and the public from clustering there while the action was still ongoing, to prevent anyone from impeding emergency traffic or getting camera shots of the victims and the rescue ops.

The footage then jumps to aerial images taken by Channel Five's helicopter before Mac ordered them out of Air Ten's airspace, the chopper and the camera swinging over the lush green grass of Granite Park, and I realize with sickening horror that you can clearly bodies of the dead and wounded littering the grass like bright broken rag dolls, their stuffing spilling out in clots of bright red. "Oh my God," I murmur thickly, wondering just how in the fuck they were able to get that close without Burnside shooting them out of the sky, then it occurs to me that maybe he didn't want to, that maybe he wanted the gory publicity, to cap off his going out in a blaze of glory. The aerial footage still rolling, the camera pans across the street below the Granite Court building, showing to the public the carnage and horror that lay there on that white pavement that ran violently red with the spilled blood of innocents. The camera isn't close enough for the viewer to really ascertain any minute details of the dead and wounded, but still, I would hate like hell for a family member of someone that was a victim of Burnside's attack to see this footage and know that their loved ones were suffering or dead. I'm actually surprised that the station didn't edit that footage out and chose to show it as is instead, for it's tasteless and tactless and downright disgusting; but then again, so's the goddamned news media, preying on the freshly slain carcasses of today's tragedy like the greedy vultures they are. They're probably thinking of winning the Pulitzer Prize with this story, earning it on the stacked bodies of the dead, the wounds of the survivors, and the tears of the family members left to mourn their loved ones. "Goddamn," I mutter, closing my eyes, sickened by what I see. "Goddamn it all to fucking hell."

"Turn it off, Pete," Judy implores me, and I can hear the tears in her voice. "Please, just turn it off. You don't need to see this, honey, not at all."

I ignore her, opening my eyes and fixing them on the tv once more, unable to tear myself away from the gruesome images playing silently out before me. There's one final distant aerial shot, evidently taken as the chopper was leaving the area, this one of Burnside standing on the roof of the Granite Court building, the rifle looking toy-like and harmless on the tripod he has it attached to, and he stands there passively, watching the chopper leave before he leans back over the rifle once more, focusing in on continuing his murderous rampage once more. I swear to God it looks like he's smiling, but the shot is too far off for me to really tell; however, knowing Burnside, he probably WAS smiling, delighted with all the terror and chaos he was creating.

Then the action picks up at footage of the medical teams setting up the triage area in the empty lot behind the furniture warehouse store, the doctors and nurses hurrying around in their green scrubs as they set up the necessary equipment to try to save the lives of those wounded by Burnside. Ambulances sit idly by in the background, so this footage was evidently taken before we started bringing the injured victims in. The camera pans up to show a blue and white medevac chopper landing in the triage field, then I see Chet Kelly, Mike Stoker, and Marco Lopez unrolling and draping long sections of grey-brown tarp across the chain link fence that surrounds the vacant lot, ostensibly to keep the nosy media from getting a glimpse of the hell that was triage, once the wounded started coming in from the battlefield. As the news camera of Channel Five is rolling, still focused on the now hidden triage area, a man carrying a news camera with the logo of Channel Two's On-The-Spot Coverage hurries over to the fence and kneels down on the ground, carefully aiming the camera at a small, one-foot-sized space near the bottom of the fence that the tarp hasn't quite covered, with the intent of getting a shot of the frenzied attempts to save lives in the triage area. Brinkman runs over and viciously yanks the man to his feet and brusquely shoves him back behind the barricades and crime-scene tape, clearly yelling at him all the while. "Good going, Brink," I toast my compatriot with grim amusement, downing the rest of my whiskey with a healthy swallow, hiccupping and wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, holding the now-empty glass loosely in my fingers. "I'd have kicked that guy's ass all the way back to the barricades, AND busted the camera for him with my bare hands," I mutter, watching as the camera then shows the ambulances leaving the scene with the wounded aboard, their sirens screaming soundlessly, their lights flashing frantically, then a shot shows one of the medevac choppers taking off from triage, swinging low over the crowd and kicking up gritty dust as it banks and heads towards one of the hospitals.

"Pete, how much more of this are you going to watch?" Judy says from the couch, and I risk a glance over at her, seeing the tears rolling quietly down her face as she gives me an imploring look. She dabs at her face with a hanky. "This can't be good for you to see this, honey. It was bad enough you lived it, I don't understand why…"

"SHH!" I hiss sharply, turning my gaze back to the silent tv once more. The footage transitions back to the Adamson/Oaktree area, this time showing the crowds standing behind the barricades, Channel Five's Action News Reporter, Christopher England speaking stone-faced and grimly to the viewers watching the horror unfold from home, then the camera suddenly jerks and jars violently, panning first up to the bright blue sky overhead, then back down to the pavement, then to the crowds as they flee in terror westward down Adamson, the camera bouncing rather sickeningly as the cameraman and the reporter also flee, the faces of the people etched sharply with panic and fear. The camera halts then and swings back around to the Granite Court area, showing a huge grey-white-black cloud of dust mushrooming menacingly up into the bright blue sky, the blown-up parking ramp now reduced to collapsed rubble in the distance, Engine 51 completely obscured from view by both the rubble and the dust. "Jesus Christ," I murmur in awe, running a hand down my face as I stare at the excited Christopher England as he tries to convey to the anchor desk and the viewers at home just what in the hell happened.

"Okay, I think you've seen enough," Judy says sharply, starting to reach over and turn the tv off.

"Leave it on, damn it!" I snap at her angrily, pushing her hand away. With the fire engine crushed down by the rubble, the street is somewhat visible once more behind the spewing water main that broke in the explosion, and there's a quick glimpse of the group of firefighters from Station 51 hurrying along the cement-strewn pavement, the stokes holding Captain Stanley being carried between them; then there's another shot, this one of Reed rushing towards the Granite Court building, his rifle clutched in his hands, and seconds later, I chase after him, holding my own rifle, as we bravely go into battle that one last time to kill Burnside, nearly meeting our own deaths when we did. There's another shot of us in the deepening twilight, as we trudge wearily back to the command post, the crowd behind Christopher England cheering and clapping for us like we're celebrities or rock stars, simply because we killed a man today. A night shot from Adamson and Oaktree is next, the floodlights brightening up the Granite Court area like it's high noon, the beams still scattered with hazy, drifting dust, while the geysering water main continues to erupt mightily in the foreground. In the cracked glass windows of the badly damaged Office Furniture Warehouse, the emergency lights of the squad cars of Adam-11 and Adam-12 glow and wink brightly, startling red and yellow flashes of color in the grey, colorless night. Farther off in the distance, at Adamson and Chicory, the headlights and emergency lights of Adam-14 shine, the red top lights looking eerily like glowing demon eyes of a Devil that is regarding the entire tragic mess with malicious glee and pleasure.

Then there's a shot of the black refrigerated truck that was pressed into service by the Medical Examiner's Office, the semi headlights sweeping across the hanging dust and picking out bright puddles of water that remain from the now-shut off water main, and I can see various detectives crossing the street, going into the park to begin the tedious and terrible task of identifying and removing the bodies of the deceased. I see a small clump of men going into the area, too, and with a start, I realize it's Sergeant Friday, Bill Gannon, Captain Moore, Jim Reed, and I, returning to the Granite Court building in order to begin putting together Charlie Burnside's dark final moments on this earth. There's a shot of the outside of Central Station, Val's dark unmarked car pulling silently into the driveway, followed by the unmarked grey Ford sedan of Friday and Gannon, while another shot shows the outside of Rampart Hospital and Central Receiving, those two shots taken during the daylight yet. The scene then shifts to the hasty news conference that was held at City Hall earlier, by Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Edward Davis, and Sheriff Peter Pitchess, all three men looking rather grim as they begin to address the news media and the public, their lips moving in silent words of solace and comfort, reassuring the public that the rescues of the wounded have been successful, the bad man has been ultimately killed, and now all that is left for the city to do is pick up the shattered pieces, mourn for a bit, and then go on, hoping that what horror happened out there on Granite Court today will soon be just a distant memory. I stare at the three somber-faced men with utter disgust, thoroughly despising them, for they offer meaningless words of compassion and comfort to the wounded and families of the dead, meaningless words of praise and commendation for the 'heroes' involved, and other meaningless words that are designed to assure Joe Q. Public that while what happened here is indeed a horrific tragedy, the city and it's brave citizens will prevail and eventually recover.

Reaching over, I turn the tv off with a violent click of the dial. Wordlessly I sit there, glaring at the blank grey screen, turning the empty glass tumbler over and over in my shaking hands, my grim-faced image reflected back to me in the curved glass of the set, utterly seething with sick indignation and righteous white-hot anger. Infuriated, I consider the images I've just seen, all trotted out so casually for the morbidly curious public, as if it's nothing more than a lengthy commercial for committing murder via sniper attack, or some sick fucking movie that only a diseased mind could think up. I'm pissed right now…pissed at the greedy, vulture-like media for preying so readily on the tragedy, offering up the footage and various shots like a grotesque smorgasboard of horror; pissed at the talking heads of Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Ed Davis, and Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter Pitchess for acting so grim and concerned, pretending to sympathize as if they knew what it was like out there in Hell, when not a single goddamned one of them even bothered to come out to the horrible fucking scene to SEE what it was like…but most of all, I'm pissed at that miserable little fuck Charlie Burnside, for taking his pissy little problems and his misplaced rage and his goddamned fucking gun up onto the roof of the Granite Court building in the first place, using the innocent people in the park below to vent his anger upon, shooting them down like they were nothing more than clay pigeons or ducks in a shooting gallery. My emotions roil and tumble violently inside of me, anger, sorrow, hatred and disgust fighting for domination within me, all of the emotions so strong, they're nearly overpowering.

"Pete," Judy says quietly, leaning forward to touch my arm once more, tears running down her face as she regards me solemnly, concern written all over her features. "Are you okay?"

And Judy's unwanted presence is the final fucking straw…I cannot deal with myself right now, let alone her. "Get out," I tell her in a low, menacing growl, for I know that if she doesn't leave, I will turn my anger and my rage and my deep dark sorrow upon her, using her to vent in a way that would make her hate me forever…not by physical brute violence, for I would never EVER hit a woman, but by throwing angry, lashing, stinging words of hurt and hatred at her. And I know from my own experiences, that words often hurt worse than physical abuse, for they linger in the brain and the memory and the self-confidence, long after the bruises of physical force have faded away, popping up in jeering, ghostly echoes when you least need them.

"I'm not leav…" she begins.

"I said 'Get out'," I warn again, putting more menace in my tone to make an impression on her that if she doesn't leave NOW, both of us will regret it. I turn to look at her, my eyes flashing dangerously with rage. "If you know what's good for you, Judy, get out."

"But Pete, I don't want to…" she starts, worry on her face.

That does it, I finally snap. "GET OUT!" I scream at her, my white-hot anger rapidly flushing my face, reddening it in a fevered heat. "GET OUT, GODDAMNIT, JUST GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" Enraged, nearly blinded senseless by my anger, my resentment, my black-souled sorrow, I throw the empty blue glass tumbler I'm still holding in my hand as hard as I can against the door of my apartment with a shattering crash, the glass exploding wildly upon impact, the shards scattering to lie winking upon the brown shag carpeting.

"PETE!" Judy cries in shock, leaping to her feet from the couch, her eyes wide with fear. "What is WRONG with you?" She reaches a hand out to touch me, but I flinch away.

I come to my feet then, my hands clenched in tight fists of rage as I turn on Judy, my pulse pounding a jungle-drum tattoo madly inside of my head, my blood boiling violently in my veins. "GET OUT!" I snarl, glaring at her through slitted eyes. "JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, JUDY!" My hands at my sides automatically clench and unclench with my anger, my breath rasps harshly in my throat in gasping pants. "I don't want you here!" I growl hoarsely. "Can't you understand that, goddamnit? I DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"

She stares at me for a moment in open-mouthed horror, tears still streaming down her face, then with a harsh, choking sob, she rushes to grab her coat and purse from the peg on the wall next to my jacket. She quickly unlocks the front door, yanking it open, her feet crushing the remains of the glass tumbler into the carpet with a crunching sound, then with a hard slam of the door, she is gone, her hurried footsteps echoing a moment on the balcony before fading away.

I stand there in my living room, breath heaving, staring wildly at the door, knowing that I should go after her and tell her I'm sorry, but damn it, I can't, I just can't. I didn't want her here in the first place, and despite my efforts to try to get her to leave, she persisted in staying, and so now I can't help but feel this is partially her fault. But she certainly didn't deserve my rage and my angry outburst just now, and I know I'll wind up begging forgiveness from her in the hopes that she'll grant it. With a heavy sigh, I go into the kitchen and grab the plastic garbage can, returning to the living room to pick up the shards of sharp glass from the broken tumbler. Kneeling on the floor, I pick the pieces up carefully, trying not to cut myself in the process, and when I have the larger chunks picked up, I return to the kitchen and get a dampened paper towel to pick up the smaller shards. As I'm pressing the wet paper towel to the carpet, I feel a sharp sting as a small sliver of glass somehow manages to prick my palm, not deeply or seriously, just enough to cause a bit of blood to well up in bright red beads across my hand. With a weary groan, I sit back on my haunches to study the cut, swiping the sticky beads of crimson away with my thumb, watching as more beads ooze to the surface of my skin, glittering and brilliant. I stare at it with unseeing eyes…my blood…their blood…so much blood of the innocents slaughtered today in Burnside's massacre…And suddenly, just like that, I am back in Hell once more, the images flickering gruesomely before my blind-struck eyes, playing out like a horror movie before me…

CLICK

…the young teenage girl leaping back out of the Armadillo to retrieve her purse that she left behind; Burnside's bullet blossoming into a red flower on the t-shirt over her heart, her black hair flashing out behind her as she crumples to the ground; Johnny Gage leaping out of the Armadillo to try to save her, refusing to leave her, even though he knows beyond hope that she's dead on the pavement; he rages at Jim and I after we force him back aboard the Armadillo for leaving her behind, while her friend sobs in terror in the back of the rig…

CLICK

…the terrified preschool children being handed to me, one by one by one, their little faces pale with shock and terror, some of them so gruesomely injured that it's a wonder they have even survived this far; their warm blood slipping and sliding across my hands and coating my palms and fingers like…like chocolate syrup as I place them as gently as I can in the back of the rig; and their eyes…wide, frightened eyes with a world-weary, thousand yard stare that is much too old for children that young …it's their eyes that stick with me the most as they try hard to comprehend in their childlike minds just why in the hell their happy trip to the park turned into the picnic from Hell, just because Charlie Burnside decided to end all that was good in their short little lives with his goddamned rifle and his goddamned rage…

CLICK

… Jim Reed gently cradling the gravely injured little girl in his arms, her tiny body bloodied, her small arm hanging just by the stringy sinews and tissue at her shoulder, the bone poking up splintered through her pale skin; then her head suddenly explodes in a mess of grey, white, and red, splattering all over Jim's vest, and spraying in a fine mist of gore into the air behind him; he drops to the ground with a sharp gasp, making me fear that Burnside has shot him, too, and he refuses to put her limp form down until I finally take her shattered body from his arms and lay her on the soft grass myself, as Burnside's bullets whiz over our heads, reminding us that he's still up there, like a malicious, mythic god; I grab Reed by the vest and shove him into the rig, knowing that he hates me for making him leave the dead girl behind, but he hates Burnside even more for doing this, and God even worse than that, for allowing such a tragedy like this to happen in the first place…

CLICK

…the gentle voice of Johnny as he tries vainly to soothe the whimpering, frightened preschoolers in the back of that hot and stinking Armadillo, the calm and compassion in his voice making me realize that he is one helluva guy for braving the danger, just to do what I already know he's mighty damned good at, and that's saving lives; while the kids huddle in the rig, whining like whipped puppies, the stench strong of blood and piss and shit and vomit; the preschool teachers just as frightened as the kids, unable to process in their adult minds what sheer Hell they've walked into; the young teacher slapping me on the face and spitting on me as I help her out of the rig once we arrive back at the triage area, her fear and her anger directed not at me, but at the evil man who has perpetrated all this horror with such cold, calculating decisiveness…

CLICK

…the badly injured college kid that has his guts hanging out of the open wound in his belly, the slithery pale intestines looking so much like a coiled snake swathed in red blood; Johnny's assurance that the kid is still alive and will make it back to triage, so we load him onto the rig, trying vainly to keep his innards from spilling out of his body as we move him, but it's too much, for he dies in the back of the Armadillo before we even leave the battlefield, twitching once on that hard metal floor that is slicked with blood, his soul leaving his body as the teenaged girl in the rig realizes she's looking right at Death and begins to scream shrilly, frantically, her cries of stark terror and shock ringing stridently within the tight confines of the rig, bouncing eerily off of the metal sides like a scream for the end of the world…

With a low despairing moan, I come to my feet and back slowly away from the door, as if that will make the horror movie stop. Closing my eyes and swaying a bit on my feet, I press my fingers to my temples, rubbing there, trying to scour the images away… there is blood…so much blood…so much terror…so much pain…so much suffering…so much sadness…so much senseless death… but they continue to flicker unbidden on the dark screen of my eyelids, unspooling, unfolding, the scenes playing out like a vivid tapestry of death and horror and Hell…

CLICK

…John Gage at the long metal slide that is in the park, a happy piece of playground equipment that should always be used joyfully by innocent children, but it's not joyful or happy or innocent now as he tries frantically to save a little girl that is so obviously dead, her blood foaming up through the gut wound as Gage does gentle chest compressions on her, swearing that he's seen her take a breath, when we both know that it is utterly impossible for a child so small to survive such a gruesome injury; when I pull him away from her, he lashes out at me, swinging in fury, clipping me on the side of the face with his bloody fist, his rage and his horror at what he's seeing out here today needing someone to hurt and that is me…

CLICK

… …the tiny infant girl lying brutally murdered upon the blanket, her wee little hand severed grotesquely from her body, her fingers still tightly clutching her small rattle; while next to her, her toddler brother lies face down, and when I turn him back over, his face is nothing more than a gory mass of splintered bone, stringy tissue, and shattered grey brain matter, and I know…I know that there is no hope for those poor kids, and I'm beginning to wonder if there's actually any hope for any of us, for the bodies seem to just keep appearing as if in some sort of gruesome assembly line...pick one up from one place, there's another one lying elsewhere to take its place…on and on and on and on...

CLICK

…the angry shrieking woman in the back-end of the Armadillo, screaming madly because I left her dead son and daughter on the blankets where they died; the woman leaping wildly from the back of the rig to return to her precious children, her only thought not that we were rescuing her, but leaving her kids behind; she spits and claws at me like a wildcat when I go after her and try to drag her back aboard the rig and safety, then there's the crack of Burnside's rifle and she's no longer fighting me as her body slams back hard into mine, and I drop her limp to the emerald-green grass and fall on my knees next to her, puking my fucking guts out, blood blossoming viciously over her heart from the bullet that Burnside drove into her, the same bullet that slammed through her striking me in my Kevlar vest, stopping mere millimeters from my own heart…

CLICK

…the frantic woman that stops me in the triage area once we've brought an end to Burnside's bloody rampage, begging me to tell her that her daughter and two small grandchildren are still going to be coming out of that park alive, even though we all know that all that is left in the battlefield now are the broken bodies of the deceased; she implores me to give her that one tiny thread of hope to still cling to, and I cannot, for as she thrusts a picture of the daughter and grandkids under my nose, I know instantly that it was her daughter that leapt from the back of the Armadillo and tried to return to her kids, the same woman that took a bullet for me; when I can give no other answer to her than a token "I'm sorry", her thread of hope breaks and she realizes then that there will be no more survivors coming out of the park alive, and she strikes out at me, her horror and her sorrow and her deep black anger making her lash out with a fist, hitting me in the exact same spot where the bullet that killed her daughter struck me, in a strange twist of irony…

CLICK

…my partner, Jim Reed, on the rooftop of the Granite Court building, down on his knees in front of mass murderer Charlie Burnside; Burnside grinning maniacally as he holds a gun to Jim's head with one hand, and a detonator for the bomb Burnside wears around his chest in the other; while Jim looks resigned and stoic, as if he's accepted the fate that we are about to die at the hands of a madman, because after finding out that Jean wants a divorce, what does Jim have to live for now anyway?; and I can dredge up only a weariness and an innate sadness that my life finally going to end this way, because all the shock and the anger and the terror of earlier was driven out of me the moment I came onto this roof and found my partner on his knees at gunpoint; then Air Ten flies by the three of us to distract Burnside's attention for a second, and Jim uses that opportunity to rear back and hit Burnside in the torso while grabbing the detonator out of his hand…Burnside's body toppling over the side of the building before Air Ten has even completed its manuever…and then what is left of that miserable little fuck, Charlie Burnside, is lying crumpled and broken on the street below, his madness and his terror and his power reduced to nothing more than a shattered bag of blood, bones, and tissue…

CLICK

…Jim Reed drawing his foot back to stomp on Burnside's already-crushed skull after we've done the walk-through with Val and Sergeant Friday and Bill Gannon, his hatred and his rage nearly making him no better than Burnside, until I pull him back from the brink, and then Jim spits on Burnside's body to show him what he thinks of the man, in one last effort of defiance and hatred; and in Jim's eyes I see the same things reflecting back to me that I know are in mine…bitter despair,vile loathing, black anger, heartfelt sorrow, goddamned gritty pride, and the absolute relief that the whole horrific situation is finally over with, thank God and Amen; yet there is no hope in Jim's eyes, only a jaded bitterness that is much too old for a kid of 28, and it's the bitterness and the anger that makes him order me to stop the car so that he can walk the rest of the way home, his back bowed, his head bent, his spirit broken, as he strides down the street, trying so hard to fight the goddamned demons on his own…

And it is that image than finally drives me to my knees on the floor, whimpering softly as I try to forget all the gruesome horror and the awful tragedy and the goddamned fucking Hell that was today. The dam breaks inside of me then as I kneel there, all of the pent-up emotions of black rage, icy sickness, vile loathing, acid hatred, and dark sorrow whirling together inside of me like a violent rushing wave of water, and I huddle into a tight little ball on the floor, crying and sniveling and bawling my fucking eyes out like a goddamned little baby, my voice hoarse with choking sobs that rasp in my throat, tearing themselves ragged from my body like ghosts souls of pain and anguish and suffering. I lay there, weeping harshly…for all the innocent lives lost out there today, brutally gunned down because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; for all that survived the attack and will carry the scars of Burnside's actions forever in on their bodies and in their minds and within their souls; for the men of Station 51 that were forced to rescue their own injured Captain from the crushed hulk of their engine after Burnside brought the parking ramp crashing down atop it; for Johnny Gage riding into battle with us, each and every time, without hesitation or complaint, proving that he is just as goddamned gutsy and brave in facing down a sniper's bullet as he is fighting flames; for myself, because what has happened today has shocked and shattered even my jaded and cynical heart, the sheer brutal violence of today's attack shaking my faith to the very core and foundation, and as it is, I have allowed my emotions to sweep over me and get the best of me, culminating in the screaming match with Mac and throwing my badge on his desk and walking out on the only job I've ever really known and truly loved doing…

But most of all, it is my partner, Jim Reed, that I lay there and weep so hard for; the young man that has grown under my careful tutelage from a gawky and awkward probationer that was worried over putting a minor ding in the squad car, into a fine and highly competent police officer, well-skilled and trained and fully capable of handling anything thrown at him…except this Hell. How Jim is going to deal with all that he's seen today, all that he's experienced today, I don't really know, because I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with it all myself, to be honest. Time was, a horrific scene such as this would have sent us to Leroy's for a few beers, talking it over and venting to one another with the freeing help of booze, but now…I don't know. And it makes me afraid, very afraid, for Jim's heart and soul and sanity, because the guideposts and touchstones he used to fall back on to support him when it got bad are no longer there, now that Jean has summarily decided to end their marriage. I will be there for him as best I can, but I know that even I cannot work miracles and pull rabbits out of hats, making all the pain and the suffering and the sorrow go away, disappearing them into thin air with a wave of my magic wand, even though I wish to God I could, for ALL of us. I wish that the searing hot tears that are spilling from my eyes and flowing down my face would cleanse my own heart, my own soul, my own mind, washing the day's horror off of my spirit like the shower washed away the dust and grime and blood, restoring my innocence and my hope to me… hope...the only thing that was left in Pandora's box after she foolishly opened it. But I fear now there is not even hope left to me, for how can such a fragile emotion exist in a world like this, one that has other malicious and evil Charlie Burnsides out there planning god-knows-what, one that has such misery and suffering and death, one that has such godawful fucking HELL like today was…how can hope even SURVIVE in a world such as this?

And it's an answer that refuses to come to me.