Mike's eyes were bright with tears as he stared at his battered partner. It took several seconds until he could get control of his voice. "Are you okay?" he whispered, "You look terrible."

Still smiling, Steve pulled his lips away from his teeth, revealing the wires the held his jaw together. Mike caught his breath, and closed his eyes briefly, unsettled. When he looked at Steve again, his expression reflected just how deeply affected he was by the damage that had been done to his young friend.

Steve put a hand lightly on Mike's chest then raised his forefinger in a 'wait' gesture. He picked up the pad and pen he had brought with him, wrote something then held the pad up for Mike to read. I'm okay. This is all superficial. I'm gonna be just fine. He smiled as broadly as he could then winked.

Mike stared at him for several seconds then began to smile. "So this is how we're gonna have to talk to each other for the next little while, hunh?" he asked lightly. Steve nodded and began to write again. Mike sighed then chuckled, "Great. It's like waiting for a translation at the U.N."

Steve held up the pad again. The doctors said I can start talking tomorrow. He grinned and bobbed his eyebrows, gratified to hear Mike laugh.

With a happy snort, Steve sat on the edge of the bed, once more resting his hand lightly on his partner's chest. He nodded at Mike's right shoulder.

"I'm okay," the older man smiled reassuringly. "They told me I lost a lot of blood, but I got it all back now – well, not mine, of course - and they're gonna let me out of here maybe tomorrow." His smile disappeared as he paused and they stared at each other, remembering. "We were lucky."

Steve nodded, then he picked up the pad and wrote again. When did you get to be such a good shot with your left hand?

Mike chuckled mirthlessly. "What is it you young people say? 'Necessity's a mother'?" His stare turned inward. He took a deep breath then looked up at Steve almost sheepishly. "I just couldn't let him, you know…" He felt a slight increase in the pressure of Steve's hand on his chest. After swallowing hard, he managed a wry smile. "I probably couldn't do that again in my life… but I'm sure glad I did it then."

Smiling, Steve wrote Me too. With an affectionate chuckle, Mike reached up with his left hand and gently touched his partner's battered face.

# # # # #

Olsen closed his office door and circled the desk to sit. "Okay, gentlemen, fill me in. What have you got?"

Haseejian took a deep breath, glanced at Healey, then sat forward. "Well, Captain, everything we know about what happened from both Mike and Steve completely jibes right up until the last few minutes, but before we get to that." He flipped open the file in his lap. "We finally got an I.D. on our 'victim'," he paused, realizing he was having a hard time keeping the contempt out of his voice when he said the word, "a known junkie and all-around scumbag named Charles Washington Pettet." He held out a mugshot for Olsen to see.

"He has a record, of course, mostly petty stuff – possession, disturbing the peace, squatting, simple assault but, unfortunately, nothing involving the use of a firearm. And he's been hospitalized twice in the past six months for over-dosing."

Healey took over, reading from another file. "Amongst the drug paraphernalia we found in his apartment were traces of cocaine, heroin and something called Phencyclidine," he sounded it out slowly then glanced up into Olsen's questioning eyes. "It's known on the street as PCP. According to the lab boys, it can cause 'paranoia, hallucinations and a desensitization to pain'. Some say it can even cause someone to have 'superhuman strength'." He finished with a shrug.

Haseejian took up again. "We tracked down the caller who reported 'shots fired'. It was this guy who lived down the block. Seems that the occasional gunshot or two in that area is not unusual, and no one called after the first series of shots – the five into the walls of the bedroom – but after the second group of shots were heard – which would be the one that hit Mike and then his two into Pettet – this guy thought he should call the cops. And that would be the call that Madsen and McKinley responded to."

"Ballistics confirmed that the only fingerprints on the Magnum were Pettet's and the only fingerprints on the .38 were Mike's," Healey continued. "All five shots from the bedroom walls were recovered, including the one that went through into the neighbours living room, and we even found the slug in the kitchen wall – it was under a shelf - the one that hit Mike.

"And we finally have the autopsy report." Healey pulled the papers out from the back of the file. "The toxicology report isn't done yet – it'll still take a couple of days – but it does help us with one question we had. Turns out the first bullet that hit Pettet, the one in his left side, entered at such an angle that it went above and behind his heart and wasn't immediately fatal. The second shot, the one in the sternum, was the kill shot." Healey looked up, and both he and Haseejian met Olsen's eyes evenly.

"That helps to explain some things, but not everything," Haseejian picked up the thread. "It means that Pettet wasn't killed outright with that first shot, and it is possible that in his 'altered state' that he was able to get up and make a second attempt to attack Steve – however, it doesn't explain how, falling backwards after that second shot, the knife managed to end up under him." He paused and took a deep, frustrated breath. "We still have a huge problem with that, Captain."

Olsen stared at his detectives noncommittally, but they knew he was running through options. "And Steve doesn't remember anything about that?"

"No, sir," Haseejian shook his head, "he said that all he saw was Mike look past him and then the shot. He remembers looking over the side of the bed to see Pettet laying dead on the floor, but he doesn't remember seeing a knife anywhere near the body. Now that doesn't mean there wasn't one, but it doesn't help us any. And the fact that the knife was found under Pettet when his body was lifted, well…"

"So," Olsen began slowly, "what you're implying is that Mike shot an unarmed man?"

"Well," Healey dragged out his words, not wanting to give voice to the nagging worry that was plaguing them all, "to be fair, he was bleeding out, seconds away from unconsciousness, his partner had just been attacked and stabbed and Pettet had a knife is his hand when he went down… doesn't it seem likely that when Pettet managed to get back on his feet, that Mike would think he still had the knife in his hand, whether he did or not? I mean, isn't that almost the textbook definition of 'mitigating circumstances'?"

The three cops stared at each other in silence, weighing Healey's words. Finally Olsen sat back and sighed. "Okay, guys, let me call Gerry O'Brien and I'll ask him to get in touch with you. I want you to run all this past him and see what he thinks, and then we'll go from there, alright?" As he stood, he shook his head sadly, "I really hope we're just over-thinking this but we gotta make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure Mike doesn't pay for this anymore than he already has. But," he added with emphasis, "nothing gets swept under the carpet and nothing gets suppressed, do you understand what I'm saying?"

Both sergeants nodded as they got to their feet as well. "And if he says we don't have enough to go with 'self-defence' or 'justifiable homicide'?" Haseejian asked.

Olsen looked at him sharply, then deflated, shrugging sadly. "Let's, ah, let's cross that bridge if and when we come to it."