A/N: Sorry for the delay, real life has this annoying tendency to get in the way. Extra long chapter this time to make up for it, and hopefully the next one (which will either be the last or the penultimate, we'll have to see) will be out within a few days. There's some POV jumping; hopefully it's clear enough who's thinking what and when.

Also, as a quick note, I got some feedback that wasn't entirely on board with Marlo's role in the previous chapter. I totally get that, and when the back 11 episodes come out, we may very well find out she's in on all of it and just as dirty as we suspect the commissioner to be. But I found that didn't particularly work for this story. Marlo is generally a gray area for me, anyway; and here, she did something helpful and proved she had a conscience, but it doesn't necessarily mean she's a reformed hero. Like I said, I understand how other people might see her as being unequivocally evil, but I don't share that viewpoint. I hope that makes sense.

That having been said, we continue. Let me know what you think; I hope you enjoy.

Hana Keyworth has been ready for this day to end since before it started. Back-to-back depositions this morning; a prolonged union arbitration session immediately afterward; and now this disaster of a contract, at which she's been cringing for what feels like so long that the words are beginning to swim before her eyes. In retrospect, she probably should have had her assistant order her some lunch, as she's consumed nothing but coffee since sunrise – but right now, all she wants is the boxed pizza she's at least 60 percent sure is still in her freezer, consumed from the comfort of her own sofa.

All I wanted was to be a journalist, she finds herself thinking several times a day. Truly, it was pretty much her only goal from Grade 1 through undergrad – and yet she found herself in law school after pressure and unambiguous threats from her corporate-attorney father. Unable to shake the idea of speaking for those without a voice, she took a job with a firm specializing in human rights and labor law; she hasn't regretted for one moment renouncing mergers, acquisitions, and her father's approval. Some days, though, the paperwork and technicalities seem to overwhelm her ideals to the point that she can barely recognize them anymore.

Screw it, she thinks. This contract will be just as bad tomorrow, and maybe I'll be less hungry. She gets her desk in some semblance of order and rises, but just as she's reaching for her coat on the back of the door, her intercom buzzes.

She groans, but realizes resignedly that she's going to have to walk past her assistant's desk on the way out anyway. Unless going out the window is an option. Seventeen stories isn't that high a jump, is it?

Carrie's voice crackles through the intercom. "Hana, there's a couple of people here to see you, and they say it's urgent."

So is my empty stomach. She rolls her eyes and holds down the talk button. "Have them make an appointment for later this week. Or maybe Scott has time to see them, he's here late tonight."

Quickly, Carrie's voice returns. "Nope. It has to be you, and one of them is saying they aren't leaving until they speak with you."

Oh, for the love of… She flops back down in her chair, slouching as low as possible while still being able to see over the desk. "Send them in."

A moment later, she hears the door click open and a determined-looking brunette enters, followed by a guy with a leather jacket and a five-o-clock shadow. Hana looks at them with as much patience as she can muster – which isn't a lot at this particular moment. "Please sit down," she says unenthusiastically. "What can I do for you?"

The brunette leans forward. "We need help exposing corruption in the police department."

Hana laughs uncomfortably. "Okay. Well, thanks for not beating around the bush, but I'm not really sure what you want me to do. Or how you know about this alleged corruption, or what it specifically is that may or may not be happening. See, so there's a lot of holes here, and it's after seven, so maybe we can meet in a few days and I can…"

"Surfacing Truth," the brunette interrupts. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

"Shit," Hana mutters involuntarily. "I mean… yes." She sighs. "It's a blog."

"Your blog," the other woman counters.

Hana sneaks a glance at the guy, who's looking back at her expectantly. "Do you speak?" she asks him, past the point of filters and politeness.

He raises an eyebrow. "You wrote about DuraCorps and TPS a couple years ago. But it goes a lot deeper than that, and I think we have proof."

Hana takes a deep breath. "Give me one second." She presses the talk button. "Carrie, we're gonna need a couple of takeout menus in here."

"So it's pretty clear he's after you," Hana says bluntly around a mouthful of noodles. "And the connection to Joseph Linken is suspicious enough to at least get people talking. But his serving on the board of Armour North isn't enough in and of itself to prove a connection to the mob."

"What about the cash deposits?" Andy presses. They've been at this for over an hour now, and it's starting to feel like they're moving backward.

Hana shrugs. "Someone's giving him cash. Could be the NAC gang, could be his mother. No way to track that." She closes the manila folder into which Andy and Sam have compiled every piece of information they have. "Look, I know a guy who might be able to help, if I can get in touch with him. This is sort of his thing."

Andy and Sam exchange looks; Andy's pretty sure they both know where this is going. "This guy – how do you know him?"

"He commented on my blog and we got to talking online," Hana says. "His name is Ted, and he's a little 'wake up, sheeple' for my tastes sometimes, but he kept alluding to all this evidence that's pretty similar to what you two are talking about. I haven't heard from him in a while, though, which is weird."

Andy's heart sinks. "It's been about three weeks, hasn't it."

Hana looks up. "You guys know where he is?"

"Remember the interrogation-room suicide we talked about before?" Sam asks hoarsely. "Suspicious circumstances?"

"Not to mention, all of his hard drives were blown to smithereens," Andy adds.

Hana shakes her head incredulously. "Okay," she says. "Okay. I don't know how, but we're gonna get this guy."

As they walk into work the following morning, Andy's not feeling as optimistic as she was a couple of days ago – they're not progressing as quickly as she knows they need to, and impatience has always been a difficult thing for her to temper – but it is somewhat reassuring to know that they have yet another ally in this fight, one who's as motivated as they are. Equally encouraging is the fact that Oliver assigns her and Dov to desk duty today; her staff sergeant's infinitesimal nod as she looks back at him after studying the board confirms that it's not coincidental.

(Of course, if this ordeal has taught her anything thus far, it's that nothing can be taken as coincidence anymore.)

They're initially busy with phone calls and visitors, but as things begin to lull mid-morning, Dov casually motions to her. "McNally, can you come take a look at this for me?" he requests in a tone that, to anyone else, would likely seem nonchalant.

She rolls her chair over to his side of the desk and glances at the computer screen. "What is it?"

He clicks 'play' on what appears to be interrogation-room surveillance. "So every 24 hours, this footage automatically uploads to a backup server. It takes between three and five minutes, depending on connection speed, and the cameras are down during that time. But it's usually set to upload at 2am, when we're pretty unlikely to have someone in there."

Andy watches a too-familiar recording race by in triple time: Sam speaking with Ted McDonald, Santana slamming McDonald's face into the table, Sam and McDonald speaking again… and is then jarred by the sudden image of McDonald lying there, bloodied and lifeless. She looks at Dov quizzically.

"That day, someone reset the upload time to 6:15pm," he explains in a low voice. "I don't know who, but looking at the time log history, I can tell you that it was done about ten minutes before."

"Right about when the bomb went off," Andy surmises. "Great. Another technological glitch, just what we need."

"Hey, Andy," comes an awkward voice from behind her. "What are you guys looking at?"

In the time it takes Andy to startle, Dov manages to minimize the window and open the main Intranet page. "What's going on, Duncan?" he says evenly.

"Not much, you know? Been a pretty slow day." He shrugs. "Uh, Andy, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"You planning to record me without my knowledge this time?" she shoots back, not looking up.

Duncan flinches imperceptibly. "No. But it's kind of about that, you know?"

Andy rolls her eyes and turns to Dov. "Cover the desk?"

After they find a quiet corner (and Andy makes Duncan turn off his phone in front of her), she looks at him with thinly veiled irritation. "What?"

He begins hesitantly. "I was never… I was never that great at anything when I was a kid. Like, I wasn't horrible at sports, but I wasn't getting picked first or anything like that. And I've never been a school kind of person. But I tried my best, and my mom was okay with it. Then she married Alonso when I was twelve, and he was definitely not okay with it. Nothing I did was good enough for him, so he kept getting me all these 'opportunities' I didn't want and then I didn't do so hot with those either. I hate him, okay? He makes me feel like I'm nothing."

"I don't know, Duncan," Andy retorts. "He seems to be sticking up for you pretty well around here."

Duncan shakes his head. "It's because he doesn't want me to embarrass him. Not 'cause he actually cares. Look, I…" He bites his lip, and damned if it's not hard to avoid feeling sorry for him. "I would deal with whatever from him, as long as my mom's happy. She wasn't for a long time after my dad split, you know? But then I found out about… about this." He holds up his phone so that she can watch him turn it on and move through to select a video.

The view is partially obscured, but Andy can clearly see Santana and the back of his conversation partner; she concludes Duncan recorded this from outside Santana's home office.

"It was just a fling," Santana is saying on the video, his voice tinny but unmistakable. "She needed someone to care, hold her hand, you know how all of that goes. It's fine for a week, but now she's pregnant? This needs to go away. Now."

"Make her sign a confidentiality agreement. Then reinstate her. Give her a job someplace good," the other man suggests. "She'll get the message. Keep your mouth shut or your career is over."

Santana nods, but still appears uneasy. "I don't know that I can trust her even if she signs something. Not exactly the most stable woman, you know?"

"There's your argument, just in case," his confidant responds. "And if the opportunity arises to take care of things further… well, we have some ideas." Both of them rise and shake hands, but before the camera angle shifts abruptly to the carpet and the video cuts out, the second man turns around toward the door.

Andy manages to transmute her gasp into a deep inhale mid-breath. "Duncan," she says coolly, "I'm going to need to borrow your phone for a minute."

As she sends a copy of the video to Hana, Duncan offers quietly, "I have others. You know, he meets with all these people in there. I can't really put anything together about what he's doing, but… I don't know. Maybe you can."

Andy glances up from the screen. "How did you know we were looking into this?"

Duncan swallows thickly. "It's, uh… well, like I said, I got others."

"Others?" Andy looks back through the contents of his albums, and the video she just watched is the only one listed. "Where?"

"On the Cloud," Duncan explains. "They're backed up, secured. If you got something important, you have to keep it safe."

Something important. Andy feels her eyes widen involuntarily. "Okay. Duncan, I have to go, but if you can send those to that same number, that would be really, really helpful." She hands him his phone. "Look, I don't know why you're trusting me with this. But you're doing the right thing."

"I know," he says with more confidence than he's exhibited in weeks. "Look, I kinda got dragged into being a cop, but now that I'm here, it's the first thing I've ever really wanted to do well. And I'm trusting you 'cause… it's what I should have done from the beginning."

Her smile might well be the first genuine one she's ever given him. "Thanks."

Andy heads down to the front desk at a rather fast clip, writing Hana's mobile number on the back of a crumpled receipt from her pocket as she goes. She hands it to Dov and murmurs, "Ted McDonald must have backed his stuff up someplace. Some offsite server. Find it somewhere, and if you have trouble" – she taps the scrap of paper – "call her. But don't tell anyone else."

As soon as she sees his head begin to nod in acknowledgment, she's back up the stairs, headed for the D's office, but stops short as two familiar voices come into earshot.

"Nice to see you as always, Detective," Santana's saying as she eases herself into prime eavesdropping position behind the corner.

"Likewise, Commissioner," Sam responds. "What brings you to 15 today?"

"Oh, just visiting Duncan. He's had a little bit of a rough start around here, but I think he's turning a corner." The slickly false doting in his voice is making Andy want to vomit.

"Great." Andy's not sure if Sam's about to punch the guy in the face or be sick himself. "That's… that's good to hear."

"You know, it's a special thing, Sam," Santana continues. "Fathers and sons. There's really nothing like that relationship, is there?"

Sam makes a noise in the back of his throat that Andy assumes is meant to be both agreeable and noncommittal.

"You know, it's too bad that sometimes things go sour. Your father's got a little time left in Millburn, doesn't he? That must be tough."

Oh no he didn't. Andy is biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, fist pressing against her mouth.

"Sure," Sam says slowly. "But you know, that's what we do. Uphold the law. Break it and there are consequences. Right?"

"Oh, of course," Santana responds solicitously. "Of course. And I know you were just a kid at the time, so I'm sure it was very difficult. But you know, in general, it's important to make sure that people who are convicted should actually be serving their sentences. That's why I'll be speaking with the Crown Attorney about reopening some select cases. Taking a closer look. We all need to work together and make sure justice is being served, don't you think?"

"Sure. Sure, of course."

"Yeah." Andy thinks the conversation's over for a moment, but then Santana resumes speaking. "By the way, how's Officer McNally doing? After the explosion?"

If I wasn't going to throw up before…

"Fine, sir, thank you for asking," Sam replies. Superficial politeness in his tone aside, Andy can tell he's positively livid.

"Good, good," Santana says with a patronizing chuckle. "You know, it's amazing. She's got some luck."

Andy waits until the conversation concludes and Santana's well clear in the other direction before emerging. Sam's as pale as she's ever seen him, trauma room notwithstanding, and is staring into space as he rhythmically flexes and loosens shaking white-knuckled fists. She approaches him from the side in the hopes that he'll see her from his peripheral vision and not startle; it doesn't work.

"Sorry," she whispers, resting what she hopes is a calming hand on his arm.

He nods once. "You heard?"

"Everything. Sam, you were a kid."

"I was when he went in," Sam says in a monotone. "Had plenty of time to correct myself."

"It wouldn't have mattered," Andy insists. "The reason he's still in there is totally different from why he ended up there in the first place."

"And if they get him a crooked enough lawyer, he'll argue that he wouldn't have been able to kill that guy if he hadn't been incarcerated in the first place. Not to mention, if they subpoena you…" He shakes his head. "I'm done."

"You're not," she contends. "I think we might be able to get ahold of Ted McDonald's files. And we might have some pretty convincing videos of Santana meeting with some of the people we're trying to link him with."

At that moment, her phone vibrates. It's a text from Hana: Got them all, we're gonna nail him. Working with your boy on getting into Ted's Cloud. Chin up.

She exhales. "Okay, we definitely have videos. And the one I know about for sure is Santana talking to someone about Marlo being pregnant. About blackmailing her into silence so she can keep her job, and 'taking care of' her if need be."

Sam looks up. "Who? Who's he talking to?"

Andy bites her lip. "Sebastian Cho."

"I'm sorry." It's at least the tenth time Oliver's apologized since they've entered his office. (He's also sworn a blue streak, smacked the desk, and left what's likely to be a permanent mark on the back wall by throwing a paperweight at it.) "I made a mistake, you two. I thought we could trust him."

"Not your fault, man," Sam says yet again, but Oliver shakes his head vigorously.

"I was wrong, I should've known better, and maybe if I weren't stuck up here all day in this fucking office…"

"Oliver!" Andy implores. "It's not your fault. The guy is playing everyone, probably has been for a long time."

Oliver stops pacing; nods after a beat. "Yeah. Yeah, he probably has." He takes a seat. "But it explains why Santana went after you with Gallant when he did."

"It's not stopping there," Sam mutters.

"Yeah, I know," Oliver concedes. "And I don't know why you won't tell me what else he's saying…"

"Because the less you know, the better," Andy interrupts.

Oliver shoots her a look before continuing. "But, what I do know is that you two need to get out of here. Let Epstein and me and that lawyer work on things from here for a while. I'll put you both down for vacation time for the rest of the week, and we'll talk. Keep each other updated. Anyone asks, I'll tell them you were both having a lot of residual stress from the bombing and needed to take some time."

After silently conferring, they nod. "Okay," Sam says. "Just you three, though. I know we've had some help along the way from different people, but obviously we need to keep this a pretty tight circle."

"Believe me, I'm not inviting anyone else into this," Oliver says grimly. "Go. Seriously, go somewhere. The beach, the mountains… just get away from this."

(What could potentially happen if they don't remains unsaid. Andy's not sure if that's better or worse.)

Enough of her essentials are at Sam's place that they only need to make one stop. After throwing some things into a duffle, they head out to the highway – after a thorough check of the interior and exterior of the truck for bugs and bombs that Andy would normally find comical in its overkill.

"He wouldn't be that stupid anyway," Sam remarks as he pulls onto the highway. "The car-bomb guy is dead, he wouldn't want the attention it would bring to take us out like that."

(Still, they double back and change routes a few times until they're reasonably convinced no one is following them. Andy's convinced the GPS lady is starting to sound exasperated.)

"Where are we going, anyway?" she asks once they've been on the road for nearly two hours.

"Ever been to New York?"

"City? No," she says.

"State," Sam clarifies. "Finger Lakes are supposed to be nice, thought we could go relax."

Andy snorts. "Because that's going to happen."

"Hey, you never know." Sam shrugs. "If nothing else, it's pretty well out of the way."

"True." Andy looks up at him. "Hey, I know this sucks. A lot. But if there's anything else I can do…"

"You've done plenty," he assures her. "You're here, right?"

"Mmm," she agrees, her gaze drifting toward the window as they slip into silence.

"Actually," Sam says after about fifteen minutes, "there is something you can do for me."

"What?" she asks, turning to face him.

He glances over at her, their eyes locking. "Marry me."