A/N: Sorry about the gap between posts-working at getting it down to something reasonable. Needed a bit of inspiration to get this one wrapped up so I went to a museum and laid on the ground under a blue whale. Problem solved. Take care, oh and I still don't own Skins.

Emily heard the familiar pop of a pistol firing and dove for the first bit of cover she could see: a cluster of three trees at the edge of the walking path, their trunks nearly touching one another. She pulled Katie after her, using her momentum to throw Katie to the ground behind the trees. Emily simultaneously crouched and pivoted around to check how Katie was faring. Her sister's eyes were darting back and forth without focusing on anything in particular, her breaths coming in quick, shallow succession. She didn't seem to be hit at all, though. Another report echoed through the park and a spray of woodchips from the tree closest to Emily's right shoulder exploded past her field of vision.

Emily shuffled to her left and hazarded a glance around the copse, quickly finding their attacker—and his assailant near the railing above the Harbour. Cook and Baze were locked in a furious struggle, their college friend attempting to disarm the larger man. Emily saw Cook stiffen his hand and chop it into the small of Baze's back, their right arms entangled in a fight for control of the pistol. Baze jerked forward involuntarily from the blow, but smoothly countered with an elbow to Cook's face.

The blow elicited a shout from the smaller, pugnacious man who released his grip on Baze's wrist. As Baze turned to line up another shot in Emily's direction, she saw Cook launch himself at Baze's midsection, tackling him to the ground. The gun discharged at random across the Harbour as the two spun, hit the railing, and landed on the ground in a writhing mass of limbs. Emily withdrew behind the trees, checked that Katie was still breathing—her eyes were squeezed shut as she tried to block everything out—and shifted so that she was peering out from behind the tree hit moments earlier by Baze's errant gunshot.

In the brief seconds as Emily transitioned from behind one tree to the other, Cook had established position on top of Baze, knees squeezing against his abdomen, arms locked with Baze's right wrist as he smashed the hand bearing the pistol against the lowest horizontal metal pipe of the railing. Emily glanced up and down the path, seeing several people running away from the fight; a couple fools stood around filming on their smartphones. A loud curse brought Emily's attention back to the struggle. Cook was reeling backwards, hand pressed to his temple where blood was starting to seep out from behind his palm—Baze had smashed Cook's head against the railing while they fought for control of the pistol.

Cook roared again and reengaged the taller man, launching upwards into Baze's torso and knocking him back against the railing. Emily's heart leapt as she saw the pistol disappear over the edge towards the waters below; Cook finally succeeded in bashing Baze's hand against the metal hard enough to dislodge the weapon. Furious, Baze retaliated by pivoting to trap Cook's arms between his body and the railing and smashing his left elbow directly into Cook's neck. Emily gasped as his head snapped back and then, just as it was returning to it original position, Baze struck with his elbow a second time. Cook staggered towards the copse several steps, clearly in a daze from the rapid blows, and struggling to suck in sufficient breaths. Emily could see him doubled over, one hand pressed to his chest, the other sliding a pocket knife out of his pocket and snapping it open just behind his right hip and hidden from the other man's view. Baze stalked after him, hands up around his chin in a defensive posture.

From over Emily's shoulder, distant sirens pierced the sudden silence of the park. Benton Baze flicked his glance away from Cook for a moment to assess the new development. Seeing his opportunity, Cook struck.

In a blur of movement, the fight was over. Cook took a deep breath and lunged forward off-balance, whipping the knife around in his right arm. Baze instinctively ducked and brushed his left hand past his face, deflecting the attack; simultaneously, he stomped his right foot down on the exposed back of Cook's right knee. Emily watched her friend collapse to the ground in pain as Baze took off at a sprint down the Harbour.

Emily raced from out behind the trees and knelt over Cook, hands shaking as she awkwardly tried to figure out some way she could assist him. Amidst a series of gasps and curses as he cradled his knee, Cook spat out, "What're you waiting 'round here for? GO!"

"Fuck's sake, Cook, I'm not leaving you lying out here. Baze can wait. Can you walk?"

Cook shrugged and started to leverage himself off the sidewalk. He was barely upright before his knee buckled underneath his weight and Emily darted underneath his shoulder to keep him standing. Emily bit her lip and shook her head.

"This isn't going to work." She nodded towards the water. "Let's get you over to the rail and I'll be right back, alright?" Haltingly, the two shuffled to the rail and Emily extricated herself from underneath Cook's right arm. Jogging back to the copse of trees, Emily crouched down next to Katie, still sitting in shock where Emily placed her several minutes earlier.

"Katie? Katie, are you alright?" Emily's brow furrowed and she squeezed her sister on the shoulder. As if waking up from a short, but deep nap, Katie jolted at her touch, blinking and searching Emily's face for the answers to a hundred questions Emily hadn't asked.

"Ems?" Emily watched the first tears begin to coalesce and her sister's eyes start to water and she pulled Katie into an awkward but heartfelt hug, squeezing around her shoulders.

"It's me, Katie, it's okay. He's gone. You're safe. We're safe now."

Katie pushed back, took a steadying breath, and peered out around the trunk of a tree to survey for herself. "Is Cook okay?"

"Knee. He needs help walking. Where's the car?"

"Couple streets over that way," Katie said shakily, pointing back the way from which Emily originally arrived. She frowned as the wail of sirens rose in pitch. "Cook can't be here when the fuzz arrives."

"No, he can't," agreed Emily, her mind registering the irony of her comment immediately—and just as quickly dismissing it. Family and friends first, always. "Look, you two get out of here and get Cook back to the safe house. I'll take care of the police. Can you do that, Katie?"

Katie turned back around and canted her head slightly. "Sometimes it's like you think I'm hopeless. Have some fucking faith, Em."

WIthout another word, Katie stood and hastened over to give Cook assistance in limping along the Harbour towards their vehicle. Emily walked slowly behind her and turned in a large circle, hands fidgeting in front of her as she waited for her colleagues to arrive on the scene. Up the hill in front of a cluster of rocks in the park, Emily noticed another bystander she hadn't seen earlier still filming what was going on down along the water. Emily frowned; 'filming' was a strong term for disinterestedly holding her smartphone out, lens pointed down towards the detective, while slouching triumphantly against the rocks behind her.

Emily jolted out of her worrying about Cook and Katie. What in the world? Her cinematographer stood lazily and wandered up the slope just as a group of Bristol's finest raced around a bend in the path to Emily's left, pulling her attention back to the violent events of a few minutes prior. Even as she began talking to the highest ranking officer to arrive on the scene, though, her gaze darted back up to the outcropping on the grassy slope of the park; ghosts didn't just appear in broad daylight and Emily wasn't sure it was anything more concrete than that.

Naomi wasn't sure if the walls of the small office were soundproof, but right now, with the way Erik was screaming every expletive he could conjure up while throwing the surprisingly sturdy wooden chair against opposite walls, she really hoped that they were the most soundproof walls ever invented. Somehow, though, she doubted it.

In the corner, a small muted CRT television was rolling footage of a place Naomi was all too familiar with: the gentle slopes and rugged old buildings of Castle Park in downtown Bristol. Judging by the provocative banner across the bottom of the screen, however, it was no tourism ad. Above a scrolling list of under-performing stocks, black block letters announced 'VIOLENCE IN BRISTOL-SHOOTER ON THE LOOSE.' Naomi was leaning against the short end of the long table dominating the room, trying her best at lip reading what precisely the on-scene reporter was saying as the closed captioning lagged behind by a good five to ten seconds and included a distracting amount of Wingdings and poorly punctuated sentences. Apart from the fact that the footage they were about to show was particularly graphic (they said this about three dozen times), she'd gathered that they had no concrete information on the shooter, but the cell phone footage supplied to the station by a helpful citizen told Naomi—and Erik—all they needed to know about the targets.

Hence his attempts at destroying the chair. Naomi narrowed her eyes as they looped the cell phone footage again, concentrating on the two females huddled behind trees on the right side of the video while two men grappled brutally for a weapon. She didn't think a stranger watching would be able to peg the Fitch twins as the women in the video due to the distance and the fact neither looked directly at the camera, but Naomi knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. She was positive Cook was one of the two fighters starring in the news reports too, but the media hadn't established that little detail quite yet, either. And Erik didn't know about their covert support of her on-the-lam college friend, not yet, at least. This was bound to make that secret infinitely more difficult to keep than it had been the last six months.

Naomi peeled her eyes off the screen to check her mobile for any contact from Emily: nothing, the same result as the last fifty checks. She hadn't even realized that Emily was out of London until an aide whispered something about the still-developing story to Erik and he relayed it to Naomi in the middle of deposing the same SSI executive from that morning at a quarter three in the afternoon. She reached a natural break in her questioning five minutes later and called an end to the day's festivities, earning a scattering of chuckles from the crowd, before she and Erik sequestered themselves in this conference room and tried to get reconnected with Bristol.

Getting reliable information on the stunning lunchtime events was surprisingly difficult in Naomi's impatient opinion. Katie didn't answer her phone; her chief of staff couldn't get any of his staffers to respond either, and Naomi didn't want to call Emily if she was involved in searching for the shooter or fulfilling other detective duties. Besides, she was supposed to be pointedly angry with Emily for her own secret-keeping and quasi-illegal efforts to shield Naomi from their own skeletons. Surely life-threatening, gun-wielding assaults demanded their simmering feud be put on the back burner for a moment?

Finally convincing herself that it was high time to dial Emily's number, Naomi brought her mobile up from its resting place on the table one final time—and jumped a foot in the air when the device began vibrating and ringing of its own accord. Naomi released a massive breath she didn't realize was stuck in her chest and jammed the mobile between her right shoulder and ear.

"Ems? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Katie's less fine; Cook is almost fine."

"Fucking bollocks, that," came a loud voice through the phone. Apparently Emily was not engaged in proper detective duties after all.

"Sounds like you're all just one big happy family."

"He'll make it," insisted Emily breathlessly. "We're headed back to the house."

"What the hell happened, Emily?" Naomi noticed Erik slowly picking up the chair and resting on it casually, arms crossed over the back. He motioned for her to place it on the table and place it on speakerphone, but she couldn't let him find out about Cook this way. Absolutely not.

"You want the long or short version?"

"I want the true version," Naomi responded tersely. So much for the back burner.

Emily paused, her discomfort nearly palpable through the phone, before continuing. "Ri...right. I got a call from Cook this morning during your session that I come back to Bristol straight away because Katie had a panic attack last night out at the house and he didn't think she should be alone without me here. I took the train back; when I met them at the Harbour I thought this guy was watching us and we started to leave but he pulled a gun. Cook attacked him and Katie and I got out of harm's way. Naomi, this guy."

"Yeah?" whispered Naomi, suddenly feeling like she was in outer space with no oxygen and couldn't breathe. Something about the way Emily's voice dropped at just mentioning his existence chilled Naomi's bones.

"It's the same guy that destroyed my moped and that chased Katie last spring. The same guy we saw on the street when your offices were burned..." The chill was rapidly giving way to an uncontrollable spinning feeling and Naomi slumped against a bland off-white wall, eyes closed. "Naomi, it's the same guy I ran into at Temple Meads a couple days ago, the one who was in the background of Matt Moore's press conference, and that was in London yesterday and today watching the hearings."

"The guy who works for Ross? That we think works for him, I mean?"

"One and the same," said Emily tersely. "His name's Benton Baze, and apparently now he wants Katie and I dead."

"You're positive it was him? I mean, what if—"

"Naomi, it was him. I've seen him more in the last five days than I've seen you or Katie, yeah? This whole trying to investigate a guy who's hiding out of the country doesn't work if his thug is right in our backyard harassing us. He won't stop until we do something about him."

Naomi pressed the heel of her free hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. "Which is?"

Emily emitted a sound somewhere between a squeak of surprise and a gasp of disbelief. "Which is you put these fucking hearings on hold until people aren't shooting at me and my sister!"

"Emily..." Naomi replied wearily, hating Emily's words despite them being her foregone conclusion upon asking the question in the first place.

"Naomi, don't you fucking dare. I love you and you're about to make political pitch to me?" Emily transitioned into a perfect mimicry of her fiancée: "'We can't let anyone intimidate us, Ems. What we're doing is more important than either of us'...Well, you know what? Fuck history, Naoms. I just want you and I alive and married and fucking happy. And if Baze is standing in the way, I'll find a way to make him move. But you can't keep pressing this if we're constantly under attack and unable to fight back. Is that too much to ask?"

Naomi exhaled loudly and opened her eyes to look helplessly across the room at Erik. Every professional instinct Naomi possessed told her that giving in to Ross and his intimidation tactics was the absolute worst possible course of action if she wanted to keep on the offensive and make meaningful progress against the corruption, arms dealings, and smuggling her she'd grown up hating as a heinous by-product of a violent, flawed world system. Nevertheless, her heart broke at the prospect of alienating the woman she loved even more than the week's events had already done. She cleared her throat just as Emily was skeptically asking after her.

"No, it isn't. We'll postpone til Monday, but I think it's best I stay here til tomorrow. We won't be a convenient target in one location together and I can have Erik get extra security set-up at the flat."

Naomi could perfectly visual Emily nodding slowly in agreement as she responded, "You know, that's the first smart thing you've said in days. Night, Naoms; love you."

Naomi heard the line click off before she could respond in kind, but couldn't help the whispered 'love you too' that escaped into the stale air of the conference room. After everything they'd endured this week, sass would have to suffice. Naomi supposed it was better than the alternative Baze had in mind.

Loads better.

Emily dramatically dropped her mobile back into the cup holder of Katie's car as the three of them raced north. As she checked behind her before switching lanes, she caught Cook eyeing her warily in the rear-view.

"In case you haven't heard, Cook, hasn't been my week for safe driving. Best not to distract me, alright?"

"Didn't think I was. Rough call, sounded like."

"How's 'bout you don't eavesdrop on my calls and I won't tell you how to stay out of trouble, yeah? We both win."

"Christ, Ems, he's just concerned. Relax." Katie spoke from the front passenger seat without turning, feet propped up against the windshield. Emily rolled her eyes and looked out the window at the passing wilderness as they drove away from the city.

Undeterred, Cook continued with something Emily pegged as a statement more so than a probing question, "So you think Ross is behind it."

She glared frostily at him in the offending mirror. "You have another idea?"

"I don't know, anyone else's life you've ruined recently that would want you and Naomi to suffer?"

At that, Katie struggled to an upright sitting position. Fixing her outfit, she whirled on Cook. "You seriously think Tony might be doing this? Seems a bit far fetched to me."

Raising his hands in mock surrender, Cook shrugged. "Just offering it as a possibility, luv. Maybe it's you's that needs relaxin'."

Emily zoned them out as they began to bicker. There was no way Tony Stonem was responsible for what Baze was doing, was there? He'd been as near to amicable as one could be the last they'd spoken before he was incarcerated. Emily's theory—suggested once to Naomi and then dropped at how ridiculous it sounded even to her—was that he wasn't nearly as upset with his arrest because it meant Naomi and Emily could continue whatever vendetta he had against Ross, only with the latter's disgrace being a daily front page reminder of the cost of abusing position for personal gain to all of Britain instead of the blip Tony's apprehension made amidst the general election and Cook's escape. Tony wasn't stupid; Emily was vaguely aware of his enterprise at working the system as best he could to ensure his accelerated release. With the army of lawyers Emily imagined he could afford, it was only the molasses-slow appeals system standing between Tony and a probation-hued beach sunset somewhere.

Emily nearly missed the turn-off to the safe house as her thoughts drifted from Tony back to the afternoon's events in Castle Park, especially her videographer. A tap on her shoulder tugged Emily's thoughts back into the car as she looked up into the mirror at Cook questioningly, his face masked in shadows from the trees as the car disappeared deeper into the forest.

"What, Cook?"

"I was saying, even if you know it isn't him, what harm can come from asking anyhow?"

Without responding, Emily parked the car at the top of the slope and, with no assistance from Katie who vehemently refused to return back inside the safe house after the previous evening, carried Cook down the path and into the cabin. Emily helped him to the sofa, noting the half-empty gin bottle lying on the floor near the fireplace and the Indian food still littering the center table.

"Didn't bother picking up the pieces last night?" she asked grimly.

Cook took in the same scene and reached a different conclusion, jutting out his bottom lip and shaking his head, "Nah, just bothered to pick up the important ones."

Emily nodded. "You really think I should go talk to him?"

"Who, Tone?" Cook shrugged and turned on the telly. "Not like he's goin' anywhere, is he?"

Emily frowned and patted Cook on the shoulder as she turned to leave. "No, guess he isn't."