A/N: I just want to say sorry for the long delay between chapters, school got a little chaotic with assignments and midterms for a while, but here we go. Hopefully this will have been worth the wait for everybody. I also want to welcome the people who have alerted in the last couple of weeks. Nobody seems to be reviewing anymore though, tell me what you like, what you don't like - I welcome constructive criticism. Please? Also, I've decided that this is taking place sometime between Personal Effects and The Better Man.

Chapter 5

Spike turned around just as the petite young blonde stepped down onto the landing and put his arms out to catch her as she ran into him.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," she said quickly over and over, still not realising she wasn't alone in the stairwell anymore. She hadn't realised the panic she had worked herself into while running down the stairs. Her heart was pounding partly because of the fear for the friend that she had just left alone up in the office.

"Whoa, calm down," Spike told her calmly. "It's going to be fine, you're safe now."

He pulled open the door to the lobby and after confirming that the area was deserted with the exception of his teammates and the security guard, escorted her out of the stairwell. As he was finding a chair for her, Greg emerged from the stairs.

"Okay, Team 1, looks like we've got at least one subject in the building," Greg began. "Distraction subjects claim the man who hired them said the CEO had to pay. What companies do you have on the 12th floor?" Greg asked, directing his question to the security guard.

"Boss, we've got a witness," Spike said, standing next to the woman. "She was running down the stairs just before you came up. What's your name?" he asked her quietly, still trying to help her calm down.

"Lisa," she answered quietly, barely above a whisper. "Lisa Clarkson." After a pause, she continued. "I work on the 12th floor in the head offices of TD Bank. He- he," she stammered as Spike kneeled down in front of her, bringing himself down to eye level with her.

"Shhh, it's okay," he told her quietly. "Take your time." As he tried to calm her, he realised that he was doing what Jules normally did, interact with the people while he sat in the truck and interacted with the electronics where he was most comfortable.

He was doing his best to push the worry for his two teammates to the back of his mind and focus on what was in front of him and what he could control when he heard Winnie's voice come to life in his ear.

"Boss, their story checks out. Both Murray and Hanley are clean, not even any parking tickets. I can't reach any family members though, so no way of telling if they might know this guy outside of an internet meeting."

"Boss, we're going up," Ed said. "It's going to take us a little while to get up there. Feed us info on the fly."

"Go ahead," Greg answered. "12th floor. We'll send the floor plans to your PDAs on your way up."

"What happened, Jules?" Sam asked again, looking at the blood on the fingers that he had just run through his hair.

"There was an explosion," she answered quietly, still holding onto his hand as if she might lose him again if she let go.

"Just one?" He raised his eyebrow sceptically. "Looks more like two or three, there's a lot of damage here, Jules."

Jules looked around, contemplating the damage and trying to decide how much he seemed to remember of the day's events and what to tell him.

"There were three," Jules conceded. "It was the third one that got you."

"What kind of explosions are we talking about?" he asked as she pulled a small bit of concrete out of his hair; between the blood, sweat and dust, it was starting to mat together.

"Grenades," she answered, letting go of his hand. "Can you roll over? I want to get a better look at the wound."

"Uh huh," he grunted as he rolled over and propped himself up on his forearms. "Do you know if the rest of the team is ok?"

"They're fine. They're going to finish the call before they try to dig us out." She unzipped her tactical vest and wiped her hands on the clean part of her shirt to get off as much dust and dirt as she could.

As she scooted over to get a better look at the wound to the back of his head, she noticed a couple of drops of blood glistening on the floor where he had just been. She hated to see him injured but she was constantly being reminded of the hazards of the job they did. It was a fact that she had accepted long ago, but acceptance didn't make it any easier to deal with.

Her feelings for Sam made it just that much harder. She trusted her teammates to an extent she never would have thought possible before she joined the ranks of SRU. They were a family to her and she loved them like family, five brothers who looked out for her like a younger sister but respected her like an older sister, but Sam... Sam was different. He was more than just a brother to her, he always had been and she hoped he always would be.

"I guess this is why they don't use grenades for renovation work," he laughed quietly at his own bad joke, "they forgot to give us a door."

A small smile came to her lips as she examined the wound. He was always trying to get her to smile or laugh, even in situations where it was slightly inappropriate. No, especially when it's inappropriate, she thought, remembering the night before when he had waited for the saddest part of the made-for-TV movie they were watching to start tickling her.

"You are so immature sometimes," she said instead of giving in and laughing like he wanted.

"Can I blame it on the rock?" he asked, reaching out for the blood-speckled piece of concrete he'd noticed just a few feet away from him. "This is the one, isn't it?"

She paused from picking bits of debris out of his hair from around the gash to look at the chunk in his hand. "Sure looks like it. Are you planning on arresting it and charging it with assaulting a police officer or something?" She raised her eyebrow and let a cheeky smile come to her lips before going back to cleaning up Sam's cut.

"Wait a minute," he said as he rolled onto his side to look at her. "Now who's the immature one?

"Spike, what've you got for me?" Ed demanded as he and Wordy continued to pound their way up the stairs and were just passing the tenth floor.

"Ok, twelfth floor is taken up pretty much entirely by TD, but there's a couple of unrelated offices in the north-east corner. Coming out of the stairway you're going to have a reception area right in front of you. The subject went through there to the offices behind.There's only one other exit to that section of offices. It's at the end of the hallway if you turn right coming out of the stairs." Spike answered from his new position at the security desk. Greg had taken over with Lisa, trying to get as much information as he possibly could.

"Copy that," Ed stated. "You got video?"

"Nope, no cameras."

"K, we'll have to work without them. Wordy, we're gonna go around and cut him off. If he doesn't know that exit's there we can take him by surprise."

When they reached the twelfth floor landing, Wordy threaded a camera under the door and paused for a moment. "Hallway's clear."

"Boss, we're going in," Ed stated as he pushed the door open.

"Copy that, Eddie," Greg said, looking up from Lisa for a moment. He suddenly stiffened.

That moment was just long enough for him to see someone in a hooded sweatshirt approaching the glass front doors. "How'd he get past the perimeter?" Greg demanded.

The hooded stranger yanked open one of the doors and tossed something in before turning and running.

"Take cover!" Greg yelled as the little red ball that had been thrown in rolled irregularly across the floor.