Hey Guys,

Thank you to everyone that has read and reviewed so far. There's just a few chapters left of this story, so thank you all for sticking with it.

Chapter Thirteen

"Damn him." Flack drew on the cigarette, the smoke settling in his lungs, his hands shaking with cold and frustration, the shadows lengthening behind them as they leaned against the cruiser. "Damn him."

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know." Angell shrugged, leaning forward, resting her hands on the cruiser, the sleek metal cold and deadly beneath her hands. "Hold him overnight on the Potter shooting?"

"It wont work, Angell."

"It might. We can sweat him. He's an old man, Don. He's not up for a night or two in Rikers. We can break him."

"And while we're doing that…" He broke off, shaking his head, taking another long drag of his cigarette. "It wont work, Angell. I know him, I know his family. You wont break him, not like this."

"How much longer can we hold him for?"

A memory of the Auld Man's anger flicked, burning, unbidden through his mind. The shiver chased through his body, of what he had done, cuts and bruises, burns painted across the unresisting, compliant flesh.

He couldn't let her suffer the Auld Man's anger. Not for this, not for him.

"Don." Her elbow dug sharply into his side. "How much longer?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"You okay?"

"Yeah." He took a last drag, and dropped the butt on the ground, grinding it beneath his heel. "Just thinking."

"You cant protect her all the time, Don."

"I know."

God, did he know. He still had nightmares about his failures.

"Don…"

He pulled his coat tighter around his body, the cold settling across his body as the sun sank, bleeding beneath the horizon.

"Where are you going, Flack?"

"I'm going to have a drink. You comin'?"

"Yeah."

xxxXXXxxx

His phone rang, incessant and savage, frustrated and angry at being ignored. He lifted the phone, glanced at the number, her number, illuminated across the display screen. He pressed the ignore button and let the phone fall back on the polished wooden table, lifting his glass, studying the fiery amber liquid inside.

He didn't want to talk to her. Couldn't talk to her, not until he knew that Nick was okay.

It was his fault.

He took a mouthful of whiskey, grimacing as the bitter liquid slid down his throat. Trying to drown the guilt and the recriminations beneath the alcohol. Burn through it like a bullet through flesh.

He grimaced. He hadn't meant to think of that.

He tossed back the last of the whiskey, signalling at the barman for another drink. He could feel his head starting to spin, the noise of the bar drifting to him through cotton wool, voices echoing and throbbing around him.

It was his fault that Nick had got shot. It was his fault that Nick has got shot, was clinging to life in a hospital room.

'Coward.'

His fault.

It should have been him. It should have been him there with that witness. It should have been him, staring down the barrel.

'Coward.'

His phone started to ring again.

Ignored.

Forgotten.

xxxXXXxxx

"Who the hell leaves a bomb under a goddamned car in the first place?"

"Someone who wants to make sure they don't leave any evidence behind." Hawkes shrugged, looking up from dumpster diving to watch as the bomb squad swarmed across the innocent appearing car, working frantically.

"Or someone who wants to make sure he takes a few extra people with him." Danny leaned against the dumpster, shaking his head. He could feel the cold drifting around him, drawing down his spine with cold fingers.

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the numbers flashing in front of him, green and evil, mocking, haunting. Counting down, falling over themselves like his life tumbling in front of his eyes.

His shiver was only partially caused by the cold.

So much he still wanted to do.

So much he wanted to say.

"You okay, Danny?"

"Yeah." He shook his head again, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Just want to…"

Just wanted to go home, see Lindsay and….

"You know, if you gave me a hand here, we might get done quicker and we'd both get out of here…"

His voice trailed away as his hand closed around something hard and dark, buried beneath the rubbish, cold and heavy with sin and death.

"Hawkes? You find something, Hawkes?"

He nodded, dragging it out of the dumpster, the rubbish still clinging to it like fingers trying to pull it back, hide it from the world.

The smell of gunpowder clung to it, like a fading, faint perfume, almost overwhelmed by the power of the dumpster

"boom."

xxxXXXxxx

"I have sinned, Father." He smiled, bitterly, cruelly. "God, I have sinned."

"There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, my son, if you let the Lord into your heart."

He laughed, the sound as cold as frost, as falling snow, echoing mockingly around the empty chapel. "No sin, Father? No sin? I have done things that would make you turn away from me in shame."

"My son…" He could almost see the forgiving, patronising smile, painted across the priest's face. "There is nothing you can have done that would make me or the Lord turn from you. If you open your heart to Him, He will forgive you."

He will forgive you.

The setting sun shone through the narrow windows of the chapel, bathing it in the soft, gentle light, falling across the confessional box, leaving the shadows sprayed like blood and darkness across the walls.

Leaving him in the shadows, in the darkness.

Cold, unforgiving, cast aside from the warmth of God's embrace.

"No, Father." His voice was as cold and as dark as the shadows around him. "He wont."

xxxXXXxxx

"You off tonight?"

"Yeah." Katherine scrawled her signature across the bottom of the last of the charts and pushed them back across the admit desk. She stretched, easing stiff and aching muscles, rubbing at the back of her neck, feeling it corded and thick beneath her sensitive fingers.

It had been a long day, a long shift.

"Lucky you. I'm here til after midnight. Third Saturday in a row. I don't know who I screwed over to get that."

"You must have pissed off Stewart."

"I must have. Night, Dr. Callaghan."

"Night."

She walked out of the ER, the wind and the cold sliding around her, slipping around her, embracing her like a lover, slipping beneath her coat with cold, delicate fingers, caressing her skin.

Her phone beeped, indignant and angry at being ignored for so long. She fished it out of her pocket, and flipped it open, listening to the message.

"Hey, Kathy, it's Don. Listen, I know you're going to argue with me about this, but can you stay at mine again tonight? Please, Kathy. I know you're going to…"

She snapped the phone shut, standing in front of the ER doors, her breath frosting out in front of her. Wavering, shifting from foot to foot, isolated in the fragile street lights. Walking a few steps, first in one direction, then the other.

"Dammit."

Decision made, she turned on her heel, walking towards the subway station.

xxxXXXxxx

The scene was sinking slowly into darkness as the sun set, the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles illuminating the scene, their lights bleeding together.

They worked quickly, trying to process both the vehicle and the car before the light faded and the scene slipped into the night.

They worked quickly, gathering what evidence they could, collecting shells from the floor of the bar, scattered across the stained and damp floor like a child's careless play things. Collecting prints from the dash and steering wheel of the car, in the desperate hope that something would lead them to the shooters.

In the half darkness, the flickering, intermittent light, his phone started to ring.

Forgotten and ignored, her name illuminated across the display screen.

'Lindsay.'

xxxXXXxxx

He watched as her as she got onto the subway train, slipping onto the train after her, just as the doors closed, snapping shut behind him like the doors of a trap. Watching her as he leaned against the door of the train, pretending to read his newspaper.

He watched her as she sat on one of the hard uncomfortable chairs, the padding poking through the ripped and torn covers, resting her head against the vibrating window, her eyes closed, the vibrant hair falling across her pale cheek.

She looked exhausted.

He smiled to himself as he watched her.

Don Flack's little red head doctor sure was pretty.

End of Chapter Thirteen