Archive of Our Own

The first time Mike sees her is in the Federal Detention Centre in Richmond, Virginia, through two glass windows and a corridor between them. He stops in his tracks, literally, because he's expecting to see Mason, but the woman in the other room talking to Troy and Turner is definitely not Jennifer Mason. She has the same dark hair, which had been enough to fool him at first, being as his head hasn't hit the pillow for longer than a couple of hours over the last few days and during his many waking hours he feels like his feet haven't touched the ground. The similarity ends at hair colour though, because this woman's is longer, curly and clipped back away from her face. She's thinner than Mason, wirier some might say, taller too but from the look on her face as she talks to Turner and Troy, and definitely from the looks on theirs, she's more than capable of holding her own with them.

Mike's intrigued by her appearance because, let's face it, he loves a mystery. But when the mystery looks like that...

He's distracted when Ryan Hardy comes up to him, asking a dozen questions and wondering where Mason is. Mike doesn't have all the answers - see the aforementioned lack of sleep, distraction by a knockout across the way, and talking to one of his FBI heroes as an equal. When Hardy can't get them from him, he goes straight into Mason's office and Mike keeps one eye on his computer and the other on that room because Turner and Hardy in the same room is always entertaining.

Maybe a touch too entertaining for Troy though because he slips out of the office like a man who's just been given a reprieve from death row and comes into the command centre and over to Mike. "Who's that?" Mike asks, cutting straight to the chase and Troy follows his gaze, eyes narrowing when they return to Mike.

"Our new boss," he says succinctly and Mike's surprised without being surprised.

"What happened to Mason?"

Troy snorts. "Back to Quantico. Apparently the higher ups don't like it when you let a consultant break someone's fingers in interrogation." He jerks his head back towards the office. "That's Debra Parker. She runs the Alternative Religions Unit."

It's the official title, but Mike can read between the lines. "So it's a cult now?"

"Looks like. We just can't call it that. Media." Troy injects more disgust into that three syllable word than should ever be possible. Mike nods, gazing across the corridor thoughtfully as he studies Parker who now looks to be laying down the law to Hardy. He's so engrossed in figuring out the dynamics of that conversation - hey, he's in the BAU for a reason all right? - that he almost misses Troy's exclamation of disgust. "Oh no, man. Don't even go there."

Mike frowns, looking at his friend, wondering what the hell he's talking about. "Go where?"

Troy shakes his head, lowers his voice. "Man, it is bad enough watching you fawning over Ryan Hardy's every word. Don't you even think about getting all schoolboy crush over the new boss lady. It's bad for your career, not to mention my blood pressure."

"Your blood pressure has nothing to worry about," Mike scoffs, even if he's uncomfortably aware that that might not be entirely true. "Where does that even come from anyway?"

Troy lifts one eyebrow and stares him down. "Please. She's exactly the type you go for. Besides, you're standing there, all can't keep your eyes off her and you're practically drooling."

Mike opens his mouth to deny it, but then Mitchell comes over with reports of bodies at a sorority house at Joe Carroll's old university. Troy looks at him with dread and goes across the hall to Hardy and Parker, while Mike goes to his chair to grab his jacket, all thoughts of their conversation forgotten.

*

Debra hangs up the phone from the Director, closes her eyes and allows herself one brief moment to wish that she'd never been assigned to head this task force. As the agent in charge of the Alternative Religion Unit, she had never fooled herself that her unit's work lay mostly on the academic side, and as someone who was primarily an academic, that suited her just fine. This task force, however, is far from academic, and if she'd doubted that before then the scene that had confronted her earlier on in the sorority house had removed any confusion she might have felt. It's been a long time since she'd seen a crime scene that bad - if ever - and she has a feeling she'll be seeing it all over again tonight in her dreams.

Things today haven't been made any easier, she reflects, by the presence of Ryan Hardy. Oh, she knows he's an expert on Carroll, but she also knows that even without what the original case cost him, he's definitely a renegade, probably a head case and possibly an alcoholic. Debra's fairly sure, even without being a psychologist, that the impact of Sarah Fuller's death is weighing heavily on him, and Turner and Troy Riley both argued that he should be nowhere near this case.

Debra's not so convinced they're wrong, but as she'd said to them, and to Ryan, Joe Carroll has some sort of plan involving Ryan in place, so like it or not, they'd all better learn to work together.

She rubs her hands over her face, because sitting in here thinking isn't going to get her anywhere and she's about to stand and head into the command centre when there's a knock at her door. "Come in," she calls, and when the door opens, a youthful face pops through the cracks. He's so youthful looking, in fact, that it's on the tip of Debra's tongue to ask when did they let interns join a task force like this, and it's only when she sees the FBI credentials around his neck that she stops herself. Well, she tells herself that she stopped herself - the truth is, when she looked at his face properly, she saw the bluest eyes she's ever seen smiling back at her and in a move most uncharacteristic for her, not to mention most unbecoming of an agent in charge, she actually lost track of what she was about to say.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Ma'am," he says and she makes a mental note to stop people calling her that immediately. "Mike Weston. We didn't want to interrupt you when you were on the phone, but...well, there's Chinese food in the break room if you're hungry."

When she'd been standing in the middle of the sorority house, Debra had thought she'd never want to eat again. The instant she hears Chinese food though, her stomach gives an embarrassingly loud gurgle. She hopes Weston didn't hear it but his lips curl up in an impish smile and she shakes her head accordingly. "I guess I can't refuse that," she allows, looking around for her purse. "Who do I owe.."

Weston cuts her off with a wave of his hand. "We're kinda easy going...everyone just throws whatever they have into the pot, someone counts it, orders accordingly, and people grab whatever they feel like." As he talks, they're walking out of her office and down the corridor and she's staring at him in amazement.

"That actually works?" she asks and he shrugs.

"No-one's starved yet." Then they reach the break room door and he stops, bites his lip as he tilts his head. "Though it looks like you might actually be the first."

Sure enough, the table looks like a plague of locusts have been at work on it and Debra takes a deep breath, goes to pick through the wreckage. "Chicken in oyster sauce, my favourite," she says, hopeful at the label on one container. She looks inside but there's nothing left. "Lots of people's favourites," she guesses. The next container holds out more hope. "Sweet and sour pork..." But when she looks inside, the red reminds her too much of the sorority house and her stomach flips accordingly.

"We have beef and black bean sauce, almost full," Weston says, holding up a container and Debra reaches for it eagerly.

"That'll do," she decides, grabs some rice and chopsticks to head back to her office. Thanks, Weston," she says, looking back at him as she walks to the door.

"Any time." He's grinning at her again, those blue eyes locked on her and it makes Debra want to smile right back.

Then she reminds herself who she is and where she is and she makes herself walk out the door.

She swears she feels his eyes on her back as she walks down the hall and she's not sure she minds.

*
No good deed goes unpunished as Mike soon finds out, because when Troy sees Parker heading back into her office, food in hand, when he sees Mike emerging from the break room immediately after, looking after her as she walks down the hall, he shakes his head.

"Man, you have got to be kidding me," he mutters when Mike gets closer to him. "Didn't I tell you not to do this?"

Mike frowns, holds his hands up as of to physically ward off the accusations. "I showed her where the food is," he replies. "What, you want her to starve?"

"No...but I do want you to not be checking out the boss's ass when she's walking down the hall. Guess I'm outta luck on that one, huh?"

Mike opens his mouth to deny it, thinks better of it because, let's face it, he can't, and makes his way back into the command centre to trawl through yet more footage of Joe Carroll's prison visitors.

It doesn't take long before he gets somewhere and when he says somewhere, he's underselling it. He finds footage of the three devotees they are looking for, and the nanny's leads them to her driver's licence and real name. Not to mention an address in nearby Petersburg, which Parker sends him, Troy and Hardy to check out. Mike will admit to a moment of schadenfreude when he sees Troy's reaction to that: he looks like his reaction to being in a car with Ryan Hardy and Mike would be to throw himself out of it while it's moving at speed. He must manage to reign in the impulse, even if he does some more muttering under his breath when Ryan disregards the constitution entirely and breaks and enters to get them inside the house.

Troy gets the last laugh though, because when a masked man in a very creepy Edgar Allen Poe mask attacks Ryan, he delegates the job of informing Parker to Mike. "Shouldn't the senior agent do that?" Mike wonders, because the whole breaking and entering thing will not go down well, and Troy just arches a brow.

"And you know what they say flows downhill, don't you?"

Mike does indeed so he steps outside, takes a deep breath and punches in Parker's number. She answers with a crisp, "Weston?" and he takes another deep breath before he launches into, "We're going to need agents at our location. We disturbed one person here, he's in the wind, but not before taking down Hardy...and this was definitely a meeting place."

There's a pause. "Was someone there to let you in? Or should I not ask?"

Mike weighs up his answer, finally settling on, "Best you don't, Ma'am."

Her answer to that is poetically unrepeatable and Mike swears he'll get Troy back for this.

*

"Good news? No dead puppies!"

Debra keeps a purposely straight face as others around her shake their heads but inwardly she is smiling at Weston's assessment. It wouldn't do for the agent in charge to be seen smiling at such levity though, so she just continues looking around the walls of Emma Hill's house. Or she tries to, anyway - Weston won't let her, walks right up to her and adds, "Bad news? I think it's time to use that word nobody wants to use."

Which, she thinks, is a pretty ballsy way to talk to your new boss of only a couple of hours, but this isn't the time to call him on it and it's certainly not the place. Not when he's right. "So," she says, looking around her. "We have a cult." She doesn't miss the glance Weston throws to Hardy, realises she might have sounded a little bit too enthusiastic, but it's the truth, confirming the feeling that she's had all along. She's had enough practice to recognise a cult from a long way off, but this house has cult written all over it - literally. The walls are covered with the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, with drawings of Poe that are as lifelike as they are creepy, but not as creepy as the Edgar Allen Poe masks that are everywhere, or the painting of Joe Carroll styled as Edgar Allen Poe that hangs in pride of place on the wall. The whole house has a claustrophobic air about it and every time Debra looks around, she sees something new to make the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

All things considered, Weston's initial quip is a momentary welcome relief.

Hardy confirms that the man who attacked him definitely wasn't Jordy and begins to talk about what the house represents but Debra has her own ideas on that, cuts right across him as she thinks out loud. " Carroll's speaking to people through Gothic romanticism," she says. "There's a pathology to today's internet techno bred minds -it's created a vacancy in our humanity. Find the ones with additional disorders... jackpot." She looks over to that painting that she personally finds creepy as hell, Joe as Poe, but she can see the love that went into it, the love of a true acolyte. "Enter a handsome charismatic man who can touch them, make them feel their lives for the first time... conditions them. The only way to truly live is to kill. Or some crap like that." Glancing over at Hardy, he looks like he doesn't know whether to agree with her or call for her immediate arrest and she has to fight back a grin - it's time he realised that she wasn't just called in because she was some name on a list. "I run the Bureau's Alternative Religions Unit. Did I not mention that?" She shrugs. "Cults. My speciality."

She takes a certain delight in the fact that she's rendered him speechless as she turns around and walks off to explore the house some more.

The team continues searching the house, which takes a turn for the even more macabre when they reach the basement. Troy reports having found nine people's handwriting and four people's prints, and names of Poe's women adorn the wall, as well as Sarah Fuller and Claire Matthews who are side by side. The name of Emma Hill's mother is also there and to everyone's horror, when Weston pulls at a piece of wood, the entire section of wall opens and a woman's dead body falls out. Weston looks like he's about to throw up and Debra's not far behind him and it takes Hardy to notice that Sarah Fuller's name is beside that of Joe's ex-wife. That realisation, and what it implies, has Debra ordering anyone who can hear her to make sure that Claire Matthews is safe and much of the operation then decamps to her house.

Because of course, they realise too late, Emma gave Jordy the plans to Claire's house so he knew just how to sneak in and just where to hide and he's able to take Claire hostage in her own bedroom. It takes some fancy talking and some fancier shooting from Hardy - and make no mistake, Debra's going to be asking Troy Riley just where Hardy got that gun from - to save Claire and capture Jordy.

It's also when Debra gets to see another side to Weston, when they're listening to excuses from the police guarding the house about how Jordy got in. "We didn't know," one of them says and Weston takes the words right out of Debra's mouth when he snaps angrily, "It's your job to know!" It's a complete one-eighty from anything she's seen of him so far today and she files the information away - their exuberant puppy can be quite the attack dog if he has a mind to be so.

Much later that night, when almost everyone else has gone and she's done her part to build a rapport with Joe by giving him an Edgar Allen Poe book, Debra is in her office, decorating. Which is not as nice as it sounds, being as she's pinning up crime scene photos and index cards with her observations on them. Maybe because of the kind of day that it's been, she jumps when there's a light knock on the frame of her open door. "Sorry, Ma'am." It's Weston, all puppy like again. "Didn't mean to scare you."

She smiles, waves away any upset. "Weston, you've got to stop calling me 'Ma'am'. It's making me feel like I'm ninety."

"Sorry, Ma'am." His eyes dance when he says it and Debra feels a flutter of something low in her belly. "I'm just heading out now, pretty much everyone else is gone...I just wanted to check you were ok getting back to the motel?"

Debra nods. "I'll be fine. Thanks, Weston."

He looks as if he's about to say something else, then just nods, taps the doorframe once and starts off down the hall.

Debra looks at the empty doorframe for longer than she should before going back to work.

*

Twenty four hours later, she's wishing for that feeling again and can't believe such a short amount of time has passed- it feels like she's aged a hundred years at least.

Starting off the day with an interview with Jordy Raines - who, as Hardy said on the way back to the prison, was completely nuts - had been frustrating enough. The man made little to no sense and when he broke into song - "The Greatest American Hero", seriously? - she'd actually been pleased when Ryan had decked him.

Neither the pleasure nor the punching would go in to her report.

Then there was meeting Joe Carroll.

She'd read all the reports, viewed news footage of the man, but that didn't compare to sitting in front of him, listening to him. Hardy can talk about his brilliance in front of a class of students, how charismatic and charming he is but all Debra can see is the psychopath beneath the veneer. She's seen that before, with cult leaders; she should have expected it.

Except that she's honest with herself - or at least has been to enough therapists over the years - to know that she was already rattled when she went in to talk to Joe. Because she'd interviewed Maggie Kester, wife of Follower Rick who'd cried and sworn black and blue that she didn't know anything about what Rick was involved in, that they were separated and she was scared and so in need...

Debra had listened to her and she'd seen her mom and her sisters and she'd swallowed the whole sorry story, hook, line and sinker. She'd believed Maggie and she'd sent her back to her house under protective custody.

She'd believed Maggie and she'd been duped and now Troy Riley was dead - Maggie had slit his throat and he'd bled out right there on her kitchen floor.

Debra's been an FBI agent for a long time, and she's known agents who have died in the line of duty.

But this is the first time she's ever given an order that resulted in someone's death. She doesn't like the feeling, and she certainly doesn't like the feeling of being duped.

She's livid - with Joe, with Maggie but most of all with herself.

She stays in the office for as long as she can, which in itself brings the unwelcome and frustrating news of the suicide of Jordy Raines, and she reads and reads, details of Joe's crimes, details of his followers' lives, because she will not be fooled again, damn it, she will not lose another agent to this man. She reads until her eyes burn with tiredness and only then does she get into her rental car and drive back to the motel.

The Godwinn Inn parking lot is quiet at this hour of night and Debra is on high alert as she makes her way towards the door. Maybe that's why she sees it, a rental car that she recognises, with someone sitting in it.

Weston.

She frowns, because he didn't come back to the jail tonight, not after trying and failing to save his friend - she's not that cruel. She'd sent him back here to get some sleep but instead he's sitting in the parking lot, eyes wide open, staring into space. She's alarmed, thinking the unthinkable and she crosses to the car quickly, raps on the passenger side window. He jumps, hand going to his waist for his gun, which makes her jump too, holding her hands up, palms facing him. "Weston, it's me," she says, though she's not sure how well he can hear her through the glass. He relaxes though, puts the gun away and he's already leaning over to open the door when she's halfway through motioning for him to open it.

She slips into the seat, takes her time to really look at him before she speaks. The exuberant puppy of yesterday is a distant memory, and kicked puppy doesn't even come close to describing how he looks now. His face is puffy and pale, eyes are haunted and rimmed with red and Debra feels a pang of guilt because this is on her. She was the one who told Weston to keep an eye on Hardy, just like she was the one who'd ordered Hardy to go back to the motel and sleep it off. She should have known that Hardy would ignore her and head straight to Maggie's house and she should have known Weston would do anything to help his hero.

"You ok?" she asks gently. There's no point in ripping him a new one, asking what the hell he'd been thinking. Things have gone too far for that.

To his credit, he's honest with her. "No," he says and his voice almost breaks before he takes a deep breath to control himself. "I tried...I tried to keep the pressure on the wound but there was so much blood..."

Debra winces. Hardy had told her how he'd returned from chasing the Kesters to find Weston beside Troy's body, hands covered in his friend's blood; she'd tried not to think too hard about the image. Now she can't get it out of her head. "There was nothing you could have done, Weston," she says quietly. "Maggie hit an artery..."

"I know that. In here." He taps his forehead. "I just can't get it through to the rest of me, you know?"

A rueful smile tugs at Debra's lips. She knows all too well. "Yeah."

Weston must hear something in her voice because he tilts her head and looks at her hard. She knows the second it hits him; she can see the realisation dawn in his eyes. "Is this the first time..."

She nods quickly, cuts him off, doesn't want to hear the words said out loud - bad enough they're in her head. "I've ever ordered someone to their death? Yeah." She stares out the windscreen to the lights of the motel lobby beyond, swallowing against the lump that's rising in her throat.

"There was nothing you could have done differently," he tells her and she glances over at him then, lifts one eyebrow. She knows that's not true but if he disagrees, he doesn't argue with her, just tries another tack. "It wasn't your fault."

"I know that," she tells him, copying his earlier move and tapping her forehead. "Up here." She lets the rest go unsaid and he nods. He gets it.

There's a moment of silence where she looks back out to the motel. Then Weston speaks again, voice a bare whisper. "I just keep seeing the blood, you know?" Their eyes meet, hold, until he looks down at his hands. "I tried to wash it off but I can still see..." He starts picking at his cuticles, at the flecks of dry blood embedded deep within and Debra acts without thinking, reaching over and covering his freezing hands with both of hers.

"Weston," she says, firmly. "Stop."

He lifts his head, looks into her eyes, stares at her like he's seeing her for the first time.

Then he kisses her.

Taken by surprise, Debra freezes for a second, where time seems to stretch and she's able to recognise that this is a Very Bad Idea and that they really should not be doing this. She even brings her hands up to push him away but then he tilts his head and his mouth opens slightly, his tongue touching her lips and...

Oh.

Her hands are suddenly tangling in his hair and pulling him closer and she's responding hungrily to his kiss. His lips are soft, warm and, she finds out, insanely talented, sending shivers of desire down her body as they move against her lips, across her cheek, down her neck, then back to her lips again. Close as they are in the front seat of the car, it's still not close enough and Debra rakes her fingers through his hair, feels him moan against her neck...

Then the beam from car headlights sweeps across them and the spell is broken.

They break apart, slowly, as if waking from a dream and Debra thinks that Weston looks like she feels...lips swollen, heart racing and she's panting, and Jesus, all he did was kiss her and she's feeling like this?

"That..." Weston's voice is shaking and not, she thinks, with upset. "That was inappropriate of me."

Debra shakes her head, knowing that it takes two to tango and she was a willing participant. "You're traumatised by the loss of a fellow agent," she hears her voice saying from very far away. "We both are...we're not thinking clearly."

"Yeah." Weston's voice shows his doubt. "Something like that."

She stares at him, and him at her, while their breathing returns to normal, then she gestures to the motel. "I should..."

He nods, hand already on the door handle. "I'll walk you." She's about to protest, but he gives her a look that makes her words die in her throat.

They get to the foyer without incident, into the lift where they discover they're going to the same floor. The close quarters of the lift have Debra's heart rate increasing and she sees Weston's index finger fluttering a tattoo against his leg.

They reach her room first and he looks down at her and she has to stop herself from reaching for him, pulling him inside and finishing what they started.

Maybe he feels the same because he steps close to her, lifting a hand and stopping it in midair, just short of her cheek. The imagined touch still makes her tremble and she's actually disappointed when he takes a step back, says, "Good night, Agent Parker."

He waits until her door is open and she's halfway in before he moves away and she closes the door behind her before she changes her mind, leans her head against it and takes several deep breaths.

It's a long time before she falls asleep.

*

Mike passes a fitful night that night, full of dreams that have no basis in reality, or worse, ones that are a terrible amalgamation of reality. He dreams about himself and Parker in the car, kissing her, pulling her close, going even further than they had, but suddenly she stops and there's an awful sound and she is clutching her throat as blood pours from a wound.

He wakes up gasping for breath and is almost afraid to go back to sleep.

The next day, he's going over the analysis of the video of Joey and his kidnappers, talking about where they might be. He's on the phone to Parker, who is with Hardy at Claire Matthews's house, and he's grateful for the distance because between the bad night's sleep, the loss of his friend and the fact that he practically attacked her, his boss no less, he's not quite sure how he feels. He does know he feels even worse when his eyes wander across the command centre to Troy's picture.

"You ok?" He must have zoned out for a second there because Parker's voice is suddenly gentle, almost non-regulation and he pauses for a while before he answers her.

"I'm good," he lies. "All good here."

There's the briefest of pauses before Parker replies, "Keep me posted" and hangs up.

It's a small consolation to him to know he's not the only one acting jumpy, because suddenly Hardy is too, ignoring his phone ringing on more than one occasion. When he finally does answer it, he goes out into the hall and the next thing Mike knows, Parker is following him out and Hardy is storming away down the hall. "What's going on? Where is he going?" he asks and Parker looks over at him.

"I don't know," she says. "Go find out."

Mike frowns. "You put me in the role of snitch before and I didn't like it."

Parker's eyes move back down the corridor where Ryan has just vanished. "He just took a call and now he's out of here. Something's up."

"Well, who called him?"

"Someone named Jenny." It's all Mike needs to hear to have him running after Ryan, because he knows who Jenny is and it's not a huge leap of faith to guess what might have just happened.

He catches up with Hardy on the stairwell and the older man doesn't break stride when Mike calls, "Where you going so fast?"

"Parker tell you to follow me?"

Oh, so it's like that, is it, Mike thinks, deciding two can play at being a smartass. "Yeah and I gotta say I'm starting to feel used. She thinks we bonded but we both know you don't bond." A pause, where he grabs Hardy's arm "So you going to Brooklyn?"

"Why would I be going to Brooklyn?" Hardy's eyes are sharp, dangerous, but Mike's not backing down.

"It's where your sister lives." He gives just enough information on Jenny so that Ryan knows he's not bluffing, stopping only when he sees the look on Ryan's face. "Is that where Maggie is?"

Hardy spins him around, slams him against the wall so hard Mike's teeth rattle. "Does Parker know where I'm going?"

Mike doesn't answer. Instead he asks, "Did Maggie threaten your sister?" And suddenly, Ryan sags, lets go of Mike's shoulders.

"Maggie has Jenny. She wants revenge for her husband."

So Ryan Hardy goes off to be a maverick hero yet again, Mike thinks, knowing how well that's worked out the last couple of times. "Everything Joe told us checks out," he says. "She's a wanted serial killer. You can't go on your own."

"It's my sister."

"So let me go with you, please. I didn't tell Parker about Jenny. She doesn't know anything."

Hardy looks to be considering it, reminds Mike, "You'll get fired."

Mike doesn't miss a beat, words falling automatically from his lips. "Actually I think I'm traumatised from the loss of a fellow agent. I'm not thinking clearly. I'll probably get off with a warning."

Hardy looks like he appreciates that but either way, he lets Mike go with him. Which is how Mike ends up sneaking around the perimeter of a Williamsburg restaurant, sneaking in to discover that Maggie has Ryan tied to a table, with magnets duct-taped to his chest. Even from across the room, Mike can see Ryan is in a bad way, the magnets doing a number on his pacemaker, so he comes out from his hiding place and takes great pleasure in shooting Maggie Kester dead, untying Hardy and his sister and calling for back up.

It's only later, when he has to call Parker that he has second thoughts about the whole escapade.

"Weston, where the hell are you?"

With that as her opening salvo, Mike thinks maybe he's going to get fired after all. "We're in Williamsburg."

"So you're with Hardy? And what's in Williamsburg?"

"Hardy's sister. Maggie Kester took her, used her to get Hardy here...she was looking for revenge. She's dead...Ryan's getting checked out by the EMTs, turns out the magnets were to disrupt his pacemaker...she wanted to kill them both."

There's a long silence while Parker digests that. "Tell me you had backup from local PD. That you didn't go in there just the two of you." There is absolutely nothing that Mike can say to that and his silence on the subject speaks volumes. Parker explodes. "What the hell were you thinking?" She is mad enough to spit nails and Mike is very glad he's in Williamsburg and she's in Virginia. "Maggie Kester is a serial killer, armed, dangerous, insane; you knew what she was capable of and you went against God knows how many regs..."

"You told me to find out what was up with Hardy." Mike interrupts her, knowing he's taking his life in his hands but figuring what the hell, in for a penny and all that.

"Find out." Parker bites the words at him. "I didn't say anything about going completely off the reservation..."

Mike interrupts her again, this time with the ace up his sleeve. "I got Maggie's cell phone," he tells her. "There are messages and emails still on it...I need to get it back to the command centre, but I think I might be able to get something off it. This could be a lead."

"Don't think it gets you off the hook," Parker says sharply. "I want you back here, with that phone, and Hardy, first thing in the morning, are we clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am." The response is automatic and he swears he hears a huff of disgust before she hangs up on him.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he goes to find Hardy. He's just finished with the EMTs and Mike fills him in on the cell phone, what he might be able to get off it. Hardy looks pleased, asks "Does Parker know?"

"Oh yeah." Mike chuckles inwardly; she knows all right. "She still chewed my ass out. I'll get suspended over this." Hardy nods, looks apologetic and Mike tells him they should get going. Hardy nods, but asks if he can have a minute with his sister first.

In so doing, he calls him Mike for the first time.

Mike smiles, watches Hardy - Ryan - talk to his sister and he knows this whole thing was worth it. Taking out his cell phone, he types a quick text message.

"My actions were inappropriate...but I'd do it again."

He presses send before he can think about the wisdom of it and just as he gets to his car, his phone vibrates.

"Good night, Weston."

He smiles the whole way home.

*

The next day, he's at his computer station bright and early, so bright and early in fact that he opens up the whole place. He's logging calls and chatter and email from Maggie's phone, looking for any stray bit of code when he hears Parker's voice. "Weston." He turns and she's standing at the door, and she still looks pissed. "My office."

Mitchell shoots him a "Poor you" look as he walks by her and he hopes that means that she doesn't notice that, as he follows Parker, he's totally checking her out. A voice in the back of his head that sounds remarkably like Troy Riley tuts; he doesn't care. Besides, for the first time since he's known her, she's got her hair out, all long and curly and he's always had a thing for women with long hair. "To say nothing of women who can kick your ass," Troy-in-his-head reminds him and once again, he can't disagree.

"Where are we on Maggie's cell phone?" she demands and Mike takes a deep breath.

"It's not good news," he admits. "I'm searching for a buffer gap, fragments of code, anything I can get my hands on basically... but it's starting to look more and more like a long shot."

"Dammit." Parker rubs the bridge of her nose, looks down at her desk. "OK, stay on it..."

Mike can't help himself; he has to ask. "Does this mean I'm not suspended?"

Parker gives him a glare that could freeze water. "Oh, don't remind me," she tells him. "You deserve to be suspended for that little stunt yesterday. But you did your thesis on Carroll at the Academy... and you're pretty good with computers... turns out you're too valuable to be on the bench." Mike can't help the grin that appears on his face; it's nice to hear that from your boss. It gives Parker the wrong idea though because she holds up one finger to him. "Don't get any more ideas," she orders and he nods, bouncing on his feet a little.

"Yes Ma..." He stops himself. "Agent Parker."

There's the briefest flash of a grin on her face when she waves her hand to dismiss him; it vanishes so quickly that he almost thinks he might have imagined it.

He knows he didn't.

*

After the disappointment of Maggie's cell phone being a bust, the news that Joey Matthews was able to call his mother electrifies the FBI headquarters and Debra and Hardy surround Weston's computer terminal, watching the young man's fingers fly across the keyboard as he tries to trace the call. It's not easy, Weston tells them, technobabbling about a scrambling algorithm and a virus and Debra can feel her head starting to hurt. The original location he got was Dutchess County in upstate New York and Hardy is all ready to head there right now, but Debra nixes that idea. Weston has told her that he can't be sure of anything because of the virus and she's not about to invest manpower in searching over eight hundred square miles in a wild goose chase. Which is when Carroll's lawyer turns up, which makes Hardy even crazier and Weston looks at Debra, shakes his head. "It's gonna take me a couple of hours to work through this mess," he tells her and she takes a deep breath, brings her hands to her face.

"Hurry. Just... whatever you have to do, Mike. Just hurry."

She's so frazzled that it's a good hour later before she realises what she called him, that she's started thinking of him sometimes as Mike rather than Weston and when the hell did that happen? She figures it was sometimes between That Kiss - and yes, it deserves capitals - and the hours of not knowing where he and Ryan were, the fear that she'd just ordered another agent to his death. She doesn't have much time to reflect on it though, not today, not with this case and especially not when she walks into the command centre and every television screen shows Carroll's lawyer giving some cryptic Poe-laden speech outside the prison. Hardy is convinced that it's a message to his Followers; Debra hopes he's wrong but the way this case is going, she knows better. So even though Mike has only managed to narrow down the search field a little, she makes the call, brings them into her office.

"I've got a helicopter ready to bring you to the nearest landing strip," she tells them, Weston looking totally calm, Hardy like he can hardly believe she's doing this. Then again, neither can she. "Local PD will assist you and the Albany field office is on standby," she continues. "You will stay in contact with me at all times." She places as much emphasis as possible on the last three words and Hardy nods. "You understand?" Weston is looking at the floor and after yesterday's debacle, she's not letting him away with that. "Agent Weston, that was for your benefit."

At that he blinks. "Yes, Ma'am."

She just about manages not to roll her eyes; he's definitely showing off for Hardy. Turning away, she grabs a badge and gun from her desk, deputises Hardy who can't get the gun in his hand, sign the paperwork making it official quickly enough. He hustles out the door, Mike hot on his heels, and Debra watches them go, hoping that she's done the right thing.

Just as he gets to the door, Mike turns around, meets her eyes and for once, he says nothing, just nods once.

Strangely enough, it makes Debra feel better.

*

Mike's not exactly sure if Parker is learning to trust Hardy or if deputising him was just an ass-covering exercise, but he thinks she's done the right thing. They arrive at Dutchess County, find the local PD all too ready to help them, even if they can't quite believe that their quiet little town would have anything to do with Joe Carroll. One of the deputies who meets them is Ava: young, blonde and pretty; the Troy voice in Mike's head perks up when he first catches her eye. "See, man?" Troy-in-his-head says. "There's more ladies out there than just those in the FBI...ladies who don't happen to be your boss..."

Mike shakes his head, plays nice and yeah, ok, maybe he flirts a little because that's what Ryan probably expects him to do. But while Ava is pretty, and seems really nice, Mike finds his mind wandering to darker hair and darker eyes and he tries to keep his mind on the job because that's easier than trying to think about what his other thoughts mean.

But when they find the farmhouse - white with black shutters, when they know exactly where Joey is, and that Ryan is inside there with three armed killers, and Debra Parker comes into their command centre, all dark-eyed intensity and furious questions?

Ava is forgotten, because there's no comparison.

*

When Debra arrives at the mobile command centre, she makes a beeline for Weston straight away, demanding the latest update. It turns out it's even more of a mess than they thought, with Joey definitely inside and Hardy probably trapped there too. A phone call to Weston's cell from Hardy's phone confirms as much and it's when a female voice begins to speak that Debra interjects, trying to form some sort of communication with Emma Hill.

She searches for something to say to her as she works her way through Hostage Protocol 101; what she finally comes up with, just as she senses Emma is about to hang up, is, "Nice art by the way."

"What?" Emma is taken aback and Debra's well aware that there are more than a few heads being turned in her direction. Still though, she continues on.

"At your house? In the attic, the murals on the ceiling." Even now, she can see them in her mind's eye. "The women. Leonore, Annabel Lee. You're a very talented artist."

Emma pours scorn through the phone. "What do you think you're doing?"

Debra presses on. "I used to draw, when I was young. I gave it up." The memory of what made her give it up, of the attention her talent had garnered her and where it had led rises up in her throat but she pushes it back and continues, with no discernible pause, "But what I like about your work was all of the faces resemble your mother."

"Is that negotiator talk? It won't work, lady. I killed my mother."

With that admission of what she'd already assumed, Debra feels the tiniest spark of triumph but she doesn't let it show. "I know," she says. "Most of us only dream about doing it. There have been so many times I wanted to whack my mom." She's aware of Weston looking at her sharply, but she can't think about that now, figures she'll play it off, if asked, as negotiator speak, all made up for effect. "You must miss her. Your art suggests you do." And then, gentler, and if Weston's looking at her at all, he'll know she's not making this up. "I know I miss my mother all the time."

"Screw you. You don't know anything."

"Actually I know more than you may think." But Emma hangs up with a click and Debra drops her head in frustration. She tries to tell herself that it was a good start, that she's sown the seeds of, if not quite a rapport, then at least something but she's not sure. Emma Hill, it would appear, will be a tough but to crack.

She moves away from the desk unit, the better to gather her thoughts, her composure, but she's rattled because she can't stop thinking suddenly about the last time she saw her mother, nine years ago. Arriving at Serenity Hills, looking around her in amazement because it was all just like she remembered it. Seeing Dale, feeling her skin crawl in revulsion, stepping away from his touch. Batting away his questions, knowing why he was saying what he was saying, knowing he was still trying to manipulate her, even after all that time. Walking into the education centre and seeing her parents for the first time in fifteen years...

"Hey, what was that all about?"

Weston's voice startles her out of her reverie and she looks up into a pair of blue eyes, a furrowed brow and for some reason, it feels like there's more to his being here than just curiosity on his part. Dragging herself back into reality, away from the past and wishful thinking, she tells him, "SWAT and HRT are still an hour out. I was trying to stall whatever it is they may be planning to do."

Mike nods, then asks, "Is it true about her art? It's all her mom?"

"Every single painting, mural, sketch looks like her mother. I suspect she's completely traumatised by having killed her." Debra knows all too well the cost of a mother's rejection but she's also studied enough to know that acting out that rejection the way Emma did causes as many problems as it solves.

Mike is still trying to understand. "Why unravel her?"

Debra shrugs. "Trying to bring her grief to the surface. To remind her she's human, she has a conscience. It might make her rethink a choice she's about to make."

"Sounds like her mother did a number on her." Mike shakes his head and Debra can't help it, she feels herself slipping deeper and deeper into the past. "Mine sure did," she says and this time she sees it, can't miss it, the flash of concern in Mike's eyes. "Parental influence defines us."

She can feel a weight around her neck, heavy like the necklace she used to wear and she can see herself, fourteen and ever so innocent, walking down that long hallway, knowing who - what - was waiting for her...

She pushes the memories away; she can't afford to wallow in the past, not when the present has troubles enough.

It gets harder, though, with Emma's next call. Debra's no first timer at this, she knows when she's being played and Emma gets more belligerent more quickly this time. It could be Debra's imagination but she's convinced that Mike's chair creeps ever closer to her as the conversation continues and by the time Debra is accusing Emma of replacing one controlling parent with another, she can literally feel him beside her.

Emma's final words on this call - "We cannot choose our parents but we can break free of them and that's what I did." - sends her spiralling back nine years, to a hard wooden chair in the education centre, sitting across from her parents. Her mother, accusatory, reminding her of how she ran away in the middle of the night, how she cost them their standing in the community - cult, she wants to shout, call it what it is. Her father, more conciliatory and had she always been closer to him, thinking she wanted to come back and God help her, for a moment she'd almost been tempted. But she didn't belong there and she knew it, had worked too long to put herself back together again...

"Agent Parker." Weston's voice is sharp, like he's said her name more than once but a glance at him shows not impatience but genuine worry on his face. She shakes herself back to reality.

"Emma's stalling. Did you check that email?"

Weston shakes his head. "No, we're still trying."

"They contacted someone." If there's one thing Debra is sure of, it's that. "They're buying time."

"I'll stay on it." He begins to turn away then stops, looks at her, then left and right as if he wants to be sure that no-one will overhear him. "Hey, I'm probably out of line, but...are you ok?"

Truth be told, it probably is out of line for him to ask her that, her being his boss and all, but considering not too long ago they were pulling at one another's clothes in front seat of his car, Debra's inclined to cut him some slack. It's actually nice, she thinks, the idea that someone is looking out for her. So while it's hard to smile and toss off a jaunty reply, it's not so hard to give a small smile, to tell him, "I'm good...all good here."

Something lights in his eyes and she knows he's remembering where, and when, those words have been used recently. "OK," he says, giving her a little nod before he moves away.

He's back at her side in less than five minutes, a cup of something that's supposed to be coffee in his hand. He hands it to her and she takes a grateful sip; it's steaming hot and made just how she likes it.

Yep, she could definitely get used to that.

It turns out that that cup of coffee, that feeling of contentment? That's as good as it gets for the rest of the day. Because once SWAT gets there, things start to move and the direction is all downhill.

Weston goes on site with SWAT, who are none too happy with Debra's insistence that they wait until they can assure the safety of the civilians in the house before they move. They give in to her authority though, keeping a perimeter through the evening and into the night, until the door flies open and a bleeding Meghan Leeds, kidnapped by Paul Torres, stumbles out. Everything happens quickly after that but when Debra is assured that Hardy, Joey and Emma are all out of the house, that only Paul and Jacob are inside, she gives the order to take the house without a second thought but when the dust clears, things are not good.

Ryan and the girl that Paul Torres kidnapped are both safe, but Joey and Emma had both disappeared before SWAT went in. Worse, two of Joe's followers killed two SWAT agents, took their outerwear and arms and helped Paul Torres and Jacob Wells to escape.

They are actually worse off than they were before and Debra is standing on the front porch of the farmhouse wondering what the hell just happened when Weston comes toward her. Her heart skips, and not in a good way, when she sees him because he is walking slowly, rubbing his chest and Debra crosses to him quickly. "Weston, you ok?"

Weston's face when he answers is a cross between disgusted and nauseated. "Turns out Ava was in on it," he says. "She shot me and took Emma and Joey."

"Shot?" Debra looks him up and down, sees no evidence of blood and he pulls his jacket off. With some relief, she sees the bulletproof vest underneath, sees the slug embedded in it, just over his heart.

Weston looks down, sees the mark and shudders, looks up and shouts at a passing local officer. "Hey, get this to ballistics, would you?" He strips off his vest, hands it over and shrugs as he looks back at Debra. "I'm pretty sure it's gonna trace back to her service weapon but..."

"We might get lucky."

Weston scoffs at Debra's assessment. "We could sure use that."

Debra closes her eyes for a moment against the flashing lights of a dozen and more patrol cars, tries not to think of the amount of explaining, to say nothing of paperwork, that's going to have to be done on this. When she opens them again, Hardy is approaching her, with a hundred questions about how this went so wrong so fast, how he thought she had SWAT at the ready. She tells him about the two dead agents, feeling herself getting upset as she does, hating herself for it but not being able to help it because she's been rattled all day.

Weston runs interference, backs her up with some questions slash observations of his own. "They planted a police officer in town," he says, frustration ringing in every syllable. "They have tactical resources. Who are these people?" Hardy either can't or won't answer the question, walks away from the farmhouse and Weston calls after him, "Ryan, you ok?"

Debra shakes her head, watches him walk off and feels sorry for him because if she feels this bad, she can only imagine how he's feeling. "Let him go."

They watch Hardy walk away, then Weston turns to her. "How did Joe Carroll bring all these people together? Where did they come from?"

Debra shrugs, knowing this is her speciality, knowing she should have a good answer for him. "Cult mentality is one of unity. It's human nature. We all want to belong. It's a primal need."

It's psychologically accurate and Debra knows from both academic and personal experience that it's true, but there are some things that Weston can't understand and he shakes his head, walks after Ryan. Debra turns back to the house and just like that, it's ten years ago again and she's talking to her parents for the last time. She tells them she forgives them, that she loves them, but when they look up and see Dale standing behind her, when she sees the fear on their faces, she knows that it's a battle she can't win. She remembers standing and walking away, knowing it would be so easy just to turn around, walk back to them, to him...

And then, just like that, it's fifteen years previous and she remembers the last time her mother hugged her, the last time Debra allowed her to. Remembers being bundled back down the hall towards Dale and the bedroom, remembers his touch, his hands on her shoulders, sliding lower...

A hand on her shoulder makes her jump and she turns to see Weston standing beside her, looking down at her with worried eyes. He says her name, once again in a tone that makes her think it's not the first time he's done it and she gives him a weak smile to indicate that she's back with him. "We've done all we can here," he tells her. "They found us a motel just down the road... you look like you should get some sleep."

It's once again not the most politically correct thing to say to your boss, but once again she doesn't point that out, just shakes her head. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen," she says, more to herself than him and when he squeezes her shoulder, she realises he hasn't dropped his hand. She looks up at him, into his eyes and what she sees there makes her heart skip, her stomach swim, all those clichés she's been trying to deny every time she looks at Weston. "Let's go," she says, eyes locked with his, knowing she's asking for more than she should. She knows, she just doesn't care.

He stares, as if he's trying to make sure he's hearing what he thinks he is and then blinks once. Just once.

"No problem."

He leads her back past the mobile command unit to one of the local PD cars where a deputy is waiting for them. Weston offers her the passenger seat but she lets him have it, slides into the back behind the driver. The ride back to the motel is silent, Debra's mind still wandering years in her past, her stomach churning as flashes of that first night, the others that followed it, burn through her memory. She tries to focus on the here and now, on the drive, how long it's taking, on Weston, still with no jacket on, sleeves pushed up, forearms bare. Every so often, out of the corner of her eye, she catches him glancing back at her, eyes concerned, brow furrowed.

Once again, she feels like she's got someone looking out for her, and once again, she thinks she likes it.

They check into the motel, are given rooms just across the hall from each other and Weston, ever the gentleman, walks her to her door, making no move that can possibly be construed as untoward, no matter what might have passed between them up to now. He's leaving this up to her, she thinks, waiting for her to change her mind, do something, anything. He waits until she's turned the key and she's standing in the open door, then he turns to leave but before he can, before she can think better of it, she reaches out, says his name, "Weston," and curls her fingers around his arm.

He looks at her hand for what seems like a long time, long enough that she thinks she might have made a mistake. Then he looks into her eyes and she knows she hasn't. He takes a step closer to her, then another and another until there's only a breath between them and, like he did in another motel hallway an all too short lifetime ago, he lifts his hand to her cheek. This time, he makes contact and his touch is warm, sure and so heavy that her eyes flutter shut. She takes a deep breath and hears, as if from far away, him say, "If we're going to do this...I think you'd better call me Mike."

She smiles, almost laughs, but then his lips make contact with hers and it's not a laughing matter anymore. His hand lingers on her cheek, the other resting on her hip for a moment before sliding around to the small of her back and pulling her closer. She winds her arms around his neck, pulls him into the room at the same time as he's pushing her in and kicking the door shut behind him.

He pushes off her jacket, unzips her top and lets it fall to the floor; her fingers find the hem of his shirt and she helps him take it off. She winces as she does because vest or not, Ava's bullet left a nice bruise right above his heart, one that's a livid shade of red and is already beginning to turn purple. The thought of how things could have turned out were he not wearing a vest sends shivers down her spine and she leans forward, presses her lips against the mark.

Weston - no, she corrects herself, not Weston. Not here, not now, not like this. Mike actually groans and she feels him break out in goose flesh beneath her fingers. "OK, no way that should be as hot as it is," he says, voice raspy as he cups her face in both hands, bringing their lips together again.

From then, it is an easy few steps to the bed, footwear removed on the way, the rest of their clothes following soon after. He traces paths along her body with his fingers and his lips, exploring every inch of her and the only time that he pauses in his efforts is after he mutters, "Condom," and has to find his wallet. Even though it's a bare minute, she feels the loss of him and when he returns having tossed the aforementioned item on the bedside table, she pulls him on top of her, her hands reaching between their bodies, making him moan again.

"Jesus, Debra," he mutters. That's all he's seemingly capable of saying and she takes great delight in finally having figured out what renders the man speechless. A couple of minutes later though, when his eyes are all but rolling back in his head, he seems to decide that turnabout is fair play because he pulls back from her, puts his own hands to work, followed by his lips.

She comes with his name on her lips and when she comes back to earth, his face is hovering above hers wearing a supremely satisfied smile.

"Thank you for not calling out Weston," he says, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes and this time, she does laugh.

"Do you ever stop talking?" she wonders, and he shrugs.

"Sometimes," he replied and does just that as he begins kissing his way down her neck. Her eyes close again and she blindly reaches for the condom, ripping it open and rolling it on him before guiding him to her. He slides into her slowly, leaning over her and resting his forehead against hers when he can go no further. "OK?" he asks and when she can catch her breath, she nods, whispering one word to him.

"Move."

He grins, doesn't have to be told twice and before long, Debra feels herself close again. She knows the exact moment Mike realises it too because he gets this determined look on his face that's sexy as all hell and proceeds to make sure that she's gasping his name all over again before he follows her over the precipice.

When their breathing returns to normal, he gathers her into his arms and she closes her eyes as she rests her head against his chest. One hand traces patterns on her back, the other plays with her hair and Debra sighs, feeling utterly content. "You all right?" Mike asks her, and she smiles.

"It's been a long time since I've been this all right," she murmurs, and she's surprised at how true it actually is, just like she's surprised that she admitted it. Then again, she's been sailing close to the wind on admitting a lot of things today. Maybe Mike realises that because he moves his head back a little, looks down at her, brow slightly furrowed. She braces herself for the questions that she's sure are about to come, but once again, Mike surprises her.

"There's a lot you keep back," he says and she blinks, surprised. "It's ok... I get that. I'm not going to push you for answers you're not ready to give, Debra. Just... just know that I'm here if you need someone." A suspicious lump forms in her throat and she swallows hard, because this? Not what she was expecting. "That was too serious," she hears him say and she shakes her head, even if she's not entirely sure he's wrong. He tightens his arms around her, presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Go to sleep," she hears him whisper.

She expects it will take her a long time to fall asleep; it doesn't.

*

Debra - and he supposes after what they've just done, he's allowed to think of her as Debra, not Parker - falls asleep first, and tired as he is, Mike fights sleep just a little bit longer to watch her. Her long dark hair spills over the pillow, cheeks flushed pink either from sleep or from them. Her breathing is deep and even, her face utterly relaxed, a complete contrast to any time he's looked at her in the last twenty-four hours.

She looks beautiful and Mike finds himself thinking that he could get used to seeing her like this.

Pulling her closer, he presses a quick kiss to her lips before he turns out the light.

The last thing he sees is her lips turning up in a smile.

It's far too soon when his cell phone rings, waking them both up. He listens, says "Yeah" a bunch of times before hanging up and turning to Debra who is still wiping the sleep from her eyes. "That was local PD. They've finished at the farmhouse, they want to let us know that they're available to escort us to the airstrip whenever we're ready."

Debra nods. "Ah, the old 'run you out of town on a rail' phone call," she says and adds, off his questioning look, "I run the Alternative Religions Unit. You think people like seeing me coming?"

Mike shrugs, tries to keep from smirking. "I don't know, I thought it was pretty awesome."

Debra blinks and he sees in her eyes the exact moment she realises what she said and how it sounded. Her cheeks flame scarlet, her mouth opens and closes and she finally gives up and laughs, burying her face in her pillow for good measure. She has, Mike thinks, a great laugh; he'd throw double entendres around all day, every day, if that was the result it yielded.

When her giggles subside, she lies back and looks up at him, shakes her head. "Weston-" she begins and he interrupts her before he can even think about it.

"Mike."

She sighs. "Mike." She stops, shakes her head again and he brings his palm to her cheek, tilts her head to look at him.

"Look, Debra, if you're trying to make this awkward, let's not, ok?" She blinks but nods. "Last night was amazing. Spectacular even. Let's just agree on that first." He leans forward, brushes his lips over hers briefly, then does it again. "And if you don't want it to happen again...well, ok. But if you do? I'm more than ok with that."

Debra's smile this time is huge, almost slightly amazed, like she can't believe the conversation was this easy. "OK," is all she says and he can't help himself, he reaches for her, pulls her to him and kisses her properly.

Things are just getting interesting when reality - a lack of protection for him, a phone call from the director for her - decides to intrude and by the time she's finished trying to explain the clusterfuck that was the raid on the farm house, he's already half dressed and pulling on his shirt. As she dresses, he's on the phone to local PD, arranging a ride to the landing strip and miraculously they are standing in the motel lobby waiting when Ryan saunters up, looking as shattered as Mike has ever seen him look.

Ryan doesn't speak en route to the helicopter, or on the way back and once they reach the landing strip in Virginia, he takes Mike's car keys from his hand without a word and drives off. Mike's sure he's off to Claire's house, which is fine except he's now turning around looking at Debra who is staring, worried, after Ryan.

"Can I get a ride?" he asks her and this time, she gets the double meaning straight away. Of course, the fact that they're alone so he can waggle his eyebrows suggestively when he says it probably helps.

They go to the motel first, both needing to clean up, change clothes and despite his teasing, Mike doesn't need to be told that things are different here, that they are back on the clock. It still doesn't stop him coming up behind her as she reaches her room, whispering, "I suppose a quickie in the shower is out of the question?" and stepping back just so he can see the look on her face.

"Yes!" she answers but with a laugh in her voice and when he nods, steps away, she reaches out and after a quick look left and right, pulls him into a kiss. It's enough to leave him breathless when she lets him go, walk backwards into her room with a evil grin on her face and dancing eyes.

They shower and change - separately - in record time and Mike's actually disappointed when he raps on her door to see that she's fully dressed, make-up applied and is ready to head out. They go to the prison first and find Ryan there so he and Debra head back to the Matthews house while Mike starts in on deciphering some of the data from the farmhouse.

Of course, things start to go to hell in the meantime, with Joe Carroll winning his appeal to be transferred out of Virginia due to Eighth Amendment violations and the next time Mike sees Debra, she's arguing with Warden Montero about his plan to allow the transfer to go ahead. The warden doesn't listen to her, all set to move full steam ahead and Mike, Ryan and Debra all agree - something is up.

Even so, Mike still manages to make time to see Debra, not Agent Parker. After the news of the transfer comes through, after they get word that she'll sit in on the exchange, he knocks on her door, slips in unnoticed. In his hand, he's holding a carton of Chinese food and his opening salvo is, "Excuse me, Ma'am? Food's here."

That's said out in the corridor where people can hear, just in case. Once the door is closed, Debra shakes her head. "I didn't put in..."

"Mitchell took five minutes and got it done," Mike tells her. "Here you go...chicken in oyster sauce."

She looks delighted and that smile, Mike knows, will get him through the rest of the day. Opening the carton, she takes a deep breath, savouring the aroma, then looks doubtful. "I should leave some of this in the break room," she begins and she's right because that's what they always do, but this is different.

"I, ah, ordered an extra carton specially," Mike tells her and her jaw drops slightly and she stares at him like she's seeing him for the first time. Mike shrugs. "I thought you might need to keep your strength up."

He's teasing and she's grinning again and he backs out of her office before he says anything else.

Turns out that's the high point of the working day. He watches her get in the armoured truck escorting Joe Carroll to a different prison, tries not to be nervous because they are being escorted and it's the safest convoy in America at the moment. Except he can't help but think that there have been times in the last couple of weeks when they all should have been safe, but they weren't.

Besides, even if he weren't worried about something happening with the convoy, he's got Ryan beside him and Ryan's spidey sense is tingling off the charts. Mike might be tempted to dismiss it as paranoia but he agrees with Ryan - something just doesn't feel right.

As the day goes on, they're proven right. A lead on Warden Montero's kidnapped daughter has them stopping the convoy and lo and behold, Joe's not there. A search of the warden's car yields nothing and it's only when Joe's lawyer, Olivia Warren, calls Ryan and they listen to Joe killing her that the full extent of Joe's plan becomes clear. Ryan and Mike chase him but lose him, Ryan seeing him taking off in a helicopter that radar soon loses. Their one small victory is to take one of Joe's helpers into custody but with no Joey and no Joe, Claire being taken into protective custody, Mike thinks this could well be their worst day yet.

One look at Debra and he knows she agrees with that assessment. She's frazzled at the mall, livid back at the command centre and when she excuses herself to take a call from the director, she looks like a woman off to the gallows.

She doesn't emerge from her office for a long time and when she does, her face is drawn. No-one asks her what was said and when she ascertains there are no fresh leads she takes the unprecedented step of ordering everyone home for the night, something about fresh eyes in the morning. Mike makes a show of clearing out with everyone else but knowing she'll be last
out, he waits for her in the car park, walks over to her when he sees her heading for her car.

He's a little worried he might startle her but when she sees him, she manages a smile. "Nice to see a friendly face," she observed and he winces.

"That bad?"

Debra rolls her eyes. "Worse. We're getting a new boss, as of tomorrow...someone with more field experience than I have." Her tone is dry and Mike figures she's quoting directly. "Getting nowhere is bad enough...but we're going backwards."

Mike wants to tell her she's wrong but can't, so he tries another tack completely. "It'll be better tomorrow," he tries and she shakes her head. "Tell you what," he says, an idea coming to him. "Follow me."

Debra raises an eyebrow. "I know my way to the motel," she points out and he gives her a grin.

"Trust me," is all he says and after a second's pause, she nods.

Before long, he pulls into the parking lot of a small all-night diner a little beyond the motel and she pulls into the space beside him. She's frowning when she gets out, looks at him questioningly and he holds up both hands, palms facing her. "I know what you're thinking," he says. "But you need a break from the prison and the motel."

Debra tilts her head in acknowledgement, eyes flicking between the diner and his face. "You're not wrong there," she allows finally and he grins, falls into step beside her and when they get to the door, he pulls it open, lets her go in first. A small but genuine smile lights her lips and the troubles of the day seem much further away.

"How did you find this place?" she asks when they're sitting in a booth, looking around her. He pulls a menu out and slides it across to her.

"Troy," he replies simply and the memory of his friend for once doesn't hurt. "The guy could sniff out a place like this from ten miles out...not that you'd know it to look at him. He dragged me here that first night we were all up here...most nights after too."

Debra's eyes grow darker as he speaks. "How long did you two work together?"

"Two years...ever since I joined the BAU." Mike swallows. "He was a good guy."

"I know."

Remembering what happened the last time they were alone and talking about Troy, Mike grabs another menu that he knows by heart, pretends to study it so he won't lean across the table and cause a public spectacle. Debra clears her throat and he hears her shift in her seat. "So, what's good?" she asks and that one he can answer.

"Their pizza is amazing...we always used to split one with ham, cheese and pepperoni...except Troy would have pineapple on one half." He mock shudders. "That's just wrong."

"Obviously." Debra makes a face, then grins. "Sounds good to me."

The waitress comes over and Mike orders for them, adds on a beer for himself and turns to ask Debra if she'd like one too but she beats him to it with a fervent affirmative. "So," he says when the waitress has left. "Why alternative religions?"

He regrets the question the instant he sees her face freeze and slam closed. Her lips tighten and she looks down and to the right - remembering something. "Long story," is all she says and he doesn't push her any more than that.

"I spent three years with the protective custody division before I made the BAU," he tells her and she takes the out, seizes it as her fingers seize the beer bottle the waitress places in front of her.

"Why the BAU?"

Mike smiles, raises the bottle to his lips. "According to my mom?" he replies, "It's because I was born nosy. She says I always wanted to know what was going on, who was doing what... I think I drove her and my brothers nuts when I was a kid."

"You're the youngest." She says it with the air of a guess that's not a guess and Mike has to give it to her.

"Of four boys," he confirms. "And I don't even want to know how you worked that out. What about you?"

Debra's face is cautious but slightly more open than a couple of minutes ago. "Three girls," she says quietly. "I'm in the middle."

Mike nods, picks at the label of his beer bottle, not needing to be in the BAU to know that she doesn't really want to be talking about this. He ends up telling her instead about his first case for the BAU, how Troy had been his partner who showed no enthusiasm for the over-eager rookie shadowing him. They'd worked well together though, had stayed partners and ended up becoming friends. By the time he's finished the story, the pizza is sitting in between them and Debra is smiling again. "I wish I'd known him better," she says and Mike nods.

"He taught me a lot," he says, then adds, "Even if he didn't appreciate having to keep reminding me not to be checking out my boss's ass when she was walking by."

Debra keeps her face perfectly still. "Please tell me it was my ass he was talking about and not Section Chief Strauss's," she says and Mike almost chokes on his pizza.

"I think I just lost my appetite," he says and her lips twitch as her eyes dance with mischief. This, Mike decides, is a whole other side to the oh-so-serious Agent Parker, and he thinks he could get used to seeing it.

They pass the next hour trading stories of FBI life, and only when Debra is yawning does Mike reach for his wallet. "Let me-" Debra begins and he shakes his head.

"I insist," he says. "You can get it the next time." From her nod, he assumes there will be one and he likes the sound of that.

He walks her to her car, presses her up against it and gives in to the impulse he's been fighting all night, bringing his lips to hers and kissing her. Her arms slide around his neck, her fingers moving up through his hair and she presses herself against him with this little breathy moan that he swears she did on purpose just to drive him crazy. He kisses her until he realises that kissing her any more would lead to places they can't go in a parking lot and he pulls back, says, "See you back at the motel?"

She bites her lip and nods and he spends the whole drive back thinking about what's going to happen once they're back there.

When they reach her room, this time she pulls him inside and it's nothing like he imagined.

It's better.

*

Debra wakes the next morning when her alarm shatters the silence of the room and she reacts without thinking, reaching over and smacking it off. When she lies back down, she smiles as Mike, still more than half asleep, puts his arm around her waist and pulls her back against him. His grip manages to be both strong and gentle at the same time, and his body is warm against hers. She closes her eyes, takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

She wants to remember this feeling, to get her through the rest of today.

Mike moves his head, lips finding the side of her neck and she shifts, rolling onto her back so she can see him, kiss him properly. His fingers trace patterns on her cheek, down her body and around to the small of her back as she arches against him and even though she knows she should be getting out of bed, for once in her working life, she doesn't.

Lazy morning sex, she discovers, is the best way to start the day.

Later, when she's resting with her head on his chest, his fingers never still against her skin, she's the one who moves first. Mike gives her that look, the one she's already coming to recognise as a look he gives no-one else but her, and even then only when they are alone. "I'd suggest playing hooky but I'm fairly sure that's out," he says and in answer she leans forward to brush her lips over his.

"Believe me, I'm tempted." After yesterday, the idea of staying in bed has never been so appealing.

"Rain check," he suggests, pulling her back to him for another kiss. "You can cash it tonight."

Debra grins as she rises and his eyes rake over every inch of her exposed body. "Deal," she says. Then, when he shows no sign of movement, "You're enjoying the view?"

He actually leers at her and she's never seen someone look cute while doing that. "Oh yeah."

If she puts an extra sway in her hips just for his benefit, she thinks that's entirely justified and he certainly has no complaints.

Which makes a change from when she enters the prison because there complaints are all she hears. Their new boss, Nick Donovan, has nothing but complaints about the investigation in general, Ryan Hardy in particular. Ryan doesn't take too kindly to being sidelined in the case and demonstrates it by unleashing a torrent of what Debra can only describe as sass at Donovan. She can see Mike trying very hard not to let his amusement show and she can't meet his eyes because, hell, if she wasn't in the position she's in, she'd be having the exact same reaction - Ryan Hardy can be downright wickedly funny when he wants to be.

When Donovan can't get anywhere in interrogation with David, the Follower they captured, who says he'll only talk to Ryan, Debra can practically see Ryan clapping his hands with glee and Donovan is practically grinding his teeth as they walk into interrogation. Debra ends up beside Mike, watching on the monitors and now that Donovan isn't around, Mike isn't trying to hide his amusement. "This should be fun," he murmurs to her, sotto voce. "I've got ten bucks that says Donovan decks Ryan by lunchtime."

Debra frowns, not because of what he said but because it's all too plausible. "No bet."

Mike grins wickedly. "We could bet other stuff..." He lets his voice trail off suggestively and the look Debra gives him stops him in his tracks. "Or not."

On the monitors, David, if that's even his name, is in full whack job mode and Mike laughs in sheer amazement. "This guy is nuts! Look at him!"

"You don't find us," David says in response to one of Ryan's questions. "We find you and we're everywhere. We're your sons, your daughters, husbands, your wives, neighbours, fathers, mothers...and soon, more will be dead tomorrow."

It sounds familiar and Debra is saved from having to place it by Ryan. "Now you're just paraphrasing Ted Bundy," he says, before glancing at Donovan conspiratorially. "He's paraphrasing Ted Bundy," he repeats and beside Debra, Mike makes a noise in the back of his throat.

"Very poorly, I might add," he says, glancing up at her and she looks down at him, raises an eyebrow.

"You're enjoying this way too much," she decides and he just shrugs.

"It's not the movie I'd like to be watching with you, but I'll take what I can get," he says quietly so that only she can hear him and she concentrates on the interrogation screen so that she won't blush too much.

That of course, turns out not to be a problem when David does something completely unexpected, leans down and puts his head on the table. Debra frowns, hears Mike saying in surprise, "What, he's taking a nap now?"

But then David lifts his head up and his hand is bloody and his lips are too and his head snaps back and he's foaming at the mouth and she realises what's happened.

She says a very bad word and then herself and Mike are both running for the interrogation room.

It's too late though - by the time they get there, David is dead.

Later, when they're piecing it all together, trying to make sense of it, Debra takes no measure of comfort in the fact that Nick Donovan, having had his first taste of the whirlwind that can be the Carroll case, looks like he is wishing he'd never arrived here. Mike gives them the coroner's report, which she's already half guessed; a cyanide tablet hidden in his hand. That's when Mitchell comes in with a report on David, including confirmation of identity and Ryan reaches for it, only to be intercepted by Donovan, who lays a smackdown of his own on Ryan.

Ryan doesn't look happy but doesn't say anything and it's only when Debra walks into the command centre a little later to see Donovan looking pissed, Mike following him out the door and Ryan looking actually guilty that the hairs start to rise on the back of her neck. "What's going on?" she asks and Ryan looks over his shoulder to where Mike and Donovan have just vanished.

"I think I got Weston into trouble," she's told, and she has to take a deep breath, bite her tongue not to say something sharp to him, especially when Mitchell pipes up and tell her what they did. Then again, Mike should probably have known better than to hack into the boss's email, but Debra's starting to understand that when it comes to Ryan Hardy and this case, Mike's more than willing to bend the rules; she's willing to admit that maybe she is too.

When Mike comes back in, he looks angry rather than guilty and he goes straight for his jacket, tells them that he's being sent home. Ryan takes umbrage, gets in Donovan's face and tells him that it's a bad call. He offers to go, takes responsibility for it, even tells Donovan that they can't do their jobs if he's withholding information. Donovan's not for turning however, and when he walks away, Debra looks at Mike, feels sick at the look on his face. She wants to overturn Donovan's decision, tell Mike to stay, she really does, but she doesn't have the authority any more. "Look, just go back to the motel," she tells Mike, her palm itching to be placed on his chest, some form of comfort, or reassurance, she doesn't know. "And....we'll talk in the morning."

Mike goes, Ryan still muttering darkly as he leaves and Debra shakes her head, resolving to stick her head into the lion's den that is Nick Donovan's office just as soon as he calms down.

A few minutes later, just long enough, she estimates, for Mike to get to his car, her phone vibrates in her back pocket. Pulling it out, she reads the text message. It's short, only two words. "Sorry, Deb." She sighs, takes a deep breath and sends a message back.

She goes back to the command centre, gets involved in looking back over the security footage from the mall, trying to spot any possible followers and it's only when she sees Ryan leaving in a hurry that she goes over to Mitchell, asks her where he's going in such a hurry.

Mitchell has no way of knowing that her answer makes Debra's blood run cold. "Mike's not answering his phone... Ryan got me to ping it, it's at the motel. He's going to check it out."

Debra spends the next few minutes eying up the clock, trying to figure out how long it will take Ryan to get to his car, then out of the prison grounds, then to the motel. Quicker than she expected, her phone rings and she jumps, answering it as quickly as she can. It's Ryan, and his assessment is terse. "Weston's not here, his room's been tossed. They've got him."

Debra thinks, and luckily Donovan agrees, that she should head to the motel to check it out and she gets there in record time, meets Ryan in the parking lot. Mitchell has already sent surveillance footage of the car park to his mobile phone and sure enough, there's Mike, being bundled into a car. Mitchell, on the other end of the phone, lets them know who they're dealing with, a combination of ex-military and Blackwater and even if she weren't in the FBI, Debra would know that that's not good for Mike. Terror rises up in her throat and she forces it back, stays completely and utterly calm - after all, she's an FBI agent and whatever her connection to Mike might be, her becoming hysterical is not going to help.

Her one concession to fear comes when Mitchell is relaying details of nine potential license plate matches, one of which is an abandoned shipyard at Newport Harbour. Ryan, quicker at the maths than Debra is, works out that the time stamp on the surveillance video matches up with the time it would take to get to there and is all ready to go there, but on the other end of the phone, Donovan objects, reminding them that it's his call.

"So, make it!" Debra snaps, because she's had it up to here with bureaucratic bullshit and people on her team being in danger or dying. Ryan gives her a look like he's surprised with her but a little bit impressed too, and on the other end of the phone, Donovan is silent for a moment.

Then he gives them the go ahead.

She barely lets him finish the sentence before she says, "Let's go," and heads for the car.

*

When he follows Donovan into his office, Mike knows he's in trouble. Even so, being sent home is still a shock and Donovan makes no bones about the fact that there is no guarantee he'll be back tomorrow - the words "becoming a habit" are mentioned and if Mike's honest, worried as he is about his own jacket, he's worried that all this will reflect badly on Debra too.

When he tells her and Ryan that he's being sent home, Ryan is fit to be tied, while Debra looks stricken. He meets her eyes, not sure what she's thinking, and when she tells him to go back to the motel, she sounds more stressed than angry.

Just in case, when he gets to his car, he takes out his cell phone, sends a text message. He keeps it brief - "Sorry, Deb" and he's barely away from the prison before a reply comes through.

"Take the day. It'll be forgotten tomorrow. See you tonight. D."

He's not so sure he believes that - Donovan had been pretty pissed - but the message still makes him smile.

By the time he's back at the motel though, any urge to smile is long gone as he thinks about how he's going to fill a day where he has far more valuable things he should be doing. The sight of a gang of men hanging around the parking lot has alarm bells going off in his head, and even the woman waiting for the elevator makes him nervous - she seems nice, but then again, so did Ava. He decides to forgo the elevator, take the stairs and he's relieved when he makes it to his room.

It's only when he walks inside and sees a man and a woman there that he realises he's in a lot of trouble.

One glance at the man reveals him as a match to the sketch of her Follower that Claire Matthews provided and when he grabs Mike, Mike knows that her assessment that he was ex-military was probably right. The man's built like a tank and knows how to fight and while Mike's no slouch in that department, he's outmatched and outnumbered. He does his best but in short order the room is trashed and he's being bundled into a car.

He's brought to an abandoned shipyard warehouse, damp, cold and more importantly far away from any help. There, a tall blond man calls the shots - the mysterious Roderick, Joe's second in command. He wants to know where Claire is and even though Mike tells him he doesn't know, he doesn't believe him.

So Roderick makes him fight with Charlie, who bloodied him good and the thought dances absurdly through Mike's mind that, if he gets out of this, he will watch a proper movie with Debra and it will not be "Fight Club."

Roderick orders Charlie to rest, asks Mike again where Claire is. Again, Mike tells him he doesn't know but when Roderick starts telling him his life story, a horrible thought comes to him, what if they know about him and Debra? What if they did this to her to get him to talk? He reminds himself that she's safe, that she's back at the prison, that he's just being paranoid.

That's when he and Charlie are each given a steel bar to fight with and he pushes all thoughts except survival out of his mind.

Then Charlie gets a good hit in and there is only blackness.

When he wakes, Roderick is talking again and Mike's got a headache that won't quit and, he thinks, probably a concussion. Roderick tells him that this won't stop until he's dead but Mike sticks to his story - he doesn't know where Claire is. Charlie wades in with his fists again until Roderick orders them apart, hands Charlie a knife and throws another on the ground in front of Mike.

Mike goes for the knife.

And Charlie stabs him in the gut.

It hurts exactly as much as Mike thought it would and he feels himself growing weak, his knees giving out. Strong arms hold him up and the woman from the motel is in front of him, yanking back his head, holding a knife to his throat...

He closes his eyes, feels proud he didn't give in, didn't betray Claire.

Wishes he'd got to have that movie night with Debra.

Then there is a gunshot and feet running and he hits the ground hard. There's a familiar voice and he hardly dares hope. More gunshots, more running and someone is pulling him into a sitting position and it's Ryan.

He's talking, telling Mike that the ambulance is on its way, and Mike hears the words, "Stay with me, buddy," as the darkness closes in.

He tries to stay conscious because Ryan has to know, it's important that he knows. "I didn't tell them, Ryan," he gasps out. "I didn't tell them anything."

Ryan continues to keep him upright and Mike can feel him pressing something against the wound in his side, which hurts like hell and fights off the unconsciousness he can feel approaching. It's then that he hears more footsteps, one set moving quickly on their direction and he tenses, sure someone is coming back to finish the job.

Then, through the dark of the warehouse, through the fog in his vision, he sees her.

Debra.

If his face didn't hurt so much, he'd smile because he didn't think he'd get to see her again. He hears her swear softly when she sees him and Ryan, hears her footsteps quicken as she runs over to them, drops to her knees in front of them.

"Jesus," she breathes when she sees the blood and he tries to look at her, tries to tell her not to worry, that he's going to be all right.

But his vision swims and darkness claims him.

The last thing he sees is her face.

*

When Debra walks into that abandoned warehouse, when she sees Ryan holding an obviously injured Mike, sees the amount of blood smeared over Ryan's hands, Mike's clothes, for a second she's sure she's going to faint. She's an academic, not used to crime scenes and even though the sorority house - and doesn't it seem like that happened months ago - was bad, even though there's less blood, this is worse.

Because this isn't a stranger.

This is Mike.

She kneels in front of them, puts her hand over the wound, tries to slow the bleeding and Mike looks up at her, eyes making contact with hers for just an instant. She swears she sees something flicker inside them, some emotion, and his mouth opens like he's trying to say something but then his eyes shut and he slips into unconsciousness.

The ambulance seems to take forever to get there and she and Ryan are taken away from Mike, talked to by Donovan who's not happy about how things went down, but does tell them that the EMTs reckon that Mike has a concussion and blood loss but that he's going to be ok. He's going to be taken into surgery and Ryan insists on going to the hospital, thinks someone should be there when Mike wakes up. Of course, he takes the car they came in, which means Debra gets to endure a car trip back to the command centre with none other than Donovan. The ride consists of stony silence which is awkward on many levels, and it's not made any easier when combined with the fact that the silence gives Debra far too much time to think about things.

Like Mike, and how things could so easily have been different.

Like how he could have died today and how easily he still could - nothing is certain, Debra knows, until he's out of surgery.

The command centre is horrible, with people pale and shaken, worried about Mike, worried about their own safety, worried about Donovan taking his mood out on them. Debra does only what she absolutely needs to do then she gets into her car and has every intention of going back to the motel and trying to sleep.

Instead she finds herself at the hospital, standing in the doorway of Mike's room as he sleeps and Ryan watches over him. She enters quietly, closes the door behind her and she can't take her eyes off the pale, still form in the bed. "How long has he been out?"

"About an hour. The surgery went well," Ryan tells her. Debra nods, so busy on keeping her knees from buckling with relief that she nearly misses his question. "He kept saying I didn't tell them anything... what was he talking about?"

"Claire's location." Ryan turns, looks at her, surprised, then back at Mike.

"He knew the whole time?"

"Yeah." Debra smiles sadly. "He spent three years with the Protective Custody division in Quantico...he has the clearance. He's the only one who does know where Claire is. " And look at what it cost him, she thinks to herself.

Ryan looks back to Mike and as she stands there, stares at him, looks at the bruises and the stitches and the wires, something strange happens in Debra's heart.

An ache, the like of which she's never felt before.

A need to, quite simply, hold on to Mike and never let go.

Shaking, she turns, leaves the room, hopes Ryan doesn't notice her reaction. When he doesn't follow her, she figures she's safe, finds a ladies' room where she splashes water on her face, tries to bring her breathing under control.

Because this doesn't happen to her. Not to Debra Parker. She keeps her work life and personal life separate, and if she's honest, her personal life is pretty much non-existent, certainly from a romantic perspective. She's been to therapy, knows all the reasons why and she just figured that between trust issues and intimacy issues, she'd never really be able to let herself fall for anybody.

Then Mike Weston came along with those blue eyes and that smile and he'd been in her bed and in her heart before she even realised.

Damn it.

She waits in the ladies' room until she stops shaking, then drives back to the motel where she showers, gets into bed and tries to sleep. It takes her a long time to drop off and she tries to tell herself it's got nothing to do with the fact that she's sleeping alone. It hasn't been long enough for that.

When she finally does sleep, her dreams are horrific: scenes of her and Mike in her bed, tangled in the sheets and each other, until he pulls away with a terrible sound and there is blood everywhere...

She wakes up in a sweat, heart pounding and when she sees the time, she knows there's no point going back to sleep. Instead, she dresses and goes back to the hospital.

Ryan is still there, pretzeled and asleep in the chair, looking very uncomfortable. Crossing the room to him, she taps him on the shoulder, gives him a second to come to. "What time is it?" he mumbles, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Early," Debra answers. "Why don't you go back to the motel...get some sleep in a real bed, a shower...you look like you could use it." Ryan looks at her, then back at Mike and she knows what he's thinking. "I'll stay," she tells him, pressing her rental car keys into his hand. "Besides...we've got a briefing later with every agency with letters you've ever heard of...lots of questions."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "There always are."

He puts his hand on her shoulder as he walks past her, squeezes lightly. It's an odd movement from him but Debra doesn't mind...it makes her feel like she's not alone, makes her smile as she sits down beside Mike. She watches his chest rise and fall, eyes travelling over his body as she watches for the slightest sign of discomfort and she knows when he's going to wake when his hands start clenching, making fists in the bedclothes.

"Mike?" She leans closer to him, notices that his eyelids flutter when she says his name. "Mike, can you hear me?"

After what seems like an eternity, his eyes open and that first sliver of blue is the best thing she's seen in ages. His tongue runs over dry lips and he manages to whisper, "Hey..."

Tears spring to her eyes as a lump rises in her throat but she can't stop the smile that spreads across her face, and it's a feeling she's not used to, this joy. "Hey, yourself," she replies, scooting the chair closer to the bed, taking his left hand in both of hers. "Can I get you anything?"

He gives the barest movement of his head from side to side. "Just you," is all he says, squeezing her hand.

That feeling she felt a few hours ago, when she'd first come here and was standing in the doorway talking to Ryan returns, and it's amplified by what she sees in his eyes when he looks at her. It gives her the feeling that whatever this may have started as - stress relief, friends with benefits, a no strings roll in the hay - it's not that any more.

For either of them.

And maybe, just maybe, it never was any of those things. Maybe it was always going to be this. It's a thought that both thrills and terrifies her.

"Ryan was here," she tells him. "I sent him back to the motel."

"I woke up earlier, saw him." She must look surprised because Mike continues, "Didn't wake him... 'sides, you're prettier to wake up to." He's slurring his words slightly and it makes her smile. The impulse vanishes when he continues speaking. "I didn't tell them..."

She nods, one lone tear escaping and sliding down her cheek. "I know," she says. "Claire's safe." She lifts one hand, reaches out to touch his face, push back his hair. "And so are you."

He nods, eyes closing again. He fights to keep them open. "Knew you'd find me," he mumbles.

Debra swallows hard, kisses the back of his hand. "Go to sleep," she tells him but he already has.

He stays asleep until Ryan comes back to collect her and her tears have dried by then into a steely resolve to get the people who did this.

"Let's go," she says, leading the way back to work.

*

If she'd known then how the day was going to go, she might have thought twice.

The multi-agency briefing was as horrific as she'd expected it to be, only slightly beaten by being taken aside by Donovan afterwards to be told that the operation will henceforth be run out of DC. It's a demotion, one that Debra takes damn personally and it knocks her off her stride a little.

Finding a woman named Claire Matthews harpooned to death in a diner doesn't make the day go any smoother, as they're drawn into a hunt for every woman in the Richmond area who has that name. They fail to protect all but the last one and Debra decides to take that as some sort of victory. The fact that Ryan shoots and kills Louise Sinclair - identified on video as one of Mike's kidnappers, identified by Ryan as the woman holding a knife to Mike's throat when he'd found them in the warehouse - is another one, and when Donovan makes the comment that they should have tried to take her alive, Debra bites her tongue and says nothing. Her only regret about Ryan shooting Louise is that she didn't get to do it herself. Besides, they have Amanda in custody and that, for her, will do.

Ryan doesn't take kindly to Amanda being shipped off to Washington for questioning, asks Debra how the whole Washington running things makes her feel. Surprised into honesty, she answers, "Like a failure," and Ryan's response is a further surprise.

"Yeah, well...you shouldn't."

She laughs in amazement later on that night when she sits beside Mike's bed, tells him the story of the day. "I'm not used to him being friendly," she finishes and Mike grins at her.

"Must be the effect you have on people," he says quietly, looking past her for a moment to the open door, to the FBI agents on either side of it. Obviously satisfied that neither of them are looking, and they'd have to come into the room to see anything anyway, he reaches out and touches the back of her hand with his.

Taking the hint, Debra scoots the chair over slightly, then turns her hand palm up, closing her fingers around his. The new position of her body hides their joined hands from view of anyone glancing or walking in, and even though Debra knows she's potentially playing with fire - Donovan could walk in, for Christ's sake - she can't seem to care at the moment.

It's been a long, crappy day and Mike's touch warms her soul considerably. As does the smile on his face when he sees what she's done.

"So," he asks after a moment. "When will they start interrogating the Terminator?" Debra tilts her head, blinks once and he looks at her like she's the one who's suffered the concussion. "C'mon... someone hunting down all the women named Claire Matthews? Or Sarah Connor?" She stares some more, shakes her head and he almost looks amused. "You've seen "Terminator", right? 1984, Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

Debra nods because now the reference makes sense, but only because of what he said. "Nope," she says, shaking her head and his jaw drops comically.

"OK, when all this is over and done? We're having movie night at my place and fixing that hole in your education."

Debra lifts an eyebrow, the hell of the last few days making her brave. Or crazy, she'll figure out which later. "You asking me on a date?"

He grins, but his eyes are serious and never leave hers. "Yep."

A smile spreads across Debra's face. "I'll bring the popcorn."

Mike's grin grows broader and he leans towards her, stopping as a grimace of pain crosses his face. He flops back against the pillows, blanching and before she can think, Debra's up on her feet, looking over her shoulder for a nurse. "I'm ok," Mike grits out, his arm closing over her wrist and she's doubtful but she sits back down.

"Are you sure you don't need-"

He nods, lips set in a thin line. "Painkillers are wearing off is all," he says through gritted teeth. "I'm fine. Honest."

She doesn't believe him any more than she did any other time he's told her that but she lets it go, takes his hand in hers again. "I never should have told you to leave," she mutters, more to herself than him and his fingers tighten on her hand.

"Donovan's the boss now," he reminds her. "You had to back him up." She opens her mouth to argue; he doesn't let her. "Besides...it could have been worse." She tilts her head, doesn't know what he means and he continues, eyes burning into hers, "Deb, they were waiting for me. For me. Because they knew I knew where Claire was...they would have waited there all day because they knew it was their best chance to grab me. The only reason I was there so early was because Donovan sent me home."

Suddenly, Debra knows where he's going with this, and her stomach turns.

"That's also the only reason I was alone...because if they'd tried to grab me that evening, I would have been with you. They would have taken us both and used you to get me to talk."

Debra shakes her head. "You wouldn't have..."

"I would." Mike's voice is definite. "When I think of what they're capable of, think of you..." His voice breaks and he looks down at their joined hands. After a long moment, he clears his throat and his voice is noticeably hoarse when he continues. "Look, I know we're not...I don't know what we are. But I know I couldn't have stood back and watched them hurt you."

Somewhere during that whole speech, tears had begun to creep down Debra's cheeks. When he finishes, she leans forward, presses her lips against his gently. Closing her eyes, she rests her forehead against his, breathes in and out slowly.

When she sits down again, her eyes are not the only ones that are wet but she's able to smile at him.

She doesn't know what they are either, but they are something, and for now, that's enough.

*

Mike spends most of his days in hospital asleep, sometimes naturally, sometimes because of the pain meds. He doesn't actually mind that though - he's never been a fan of hospitals so sleeping through his time there is fine with him. Besides, the more time he spends asleep during the day, the more energy he has during the times late at night, when Debra comes to see him.

His reasons for being grateful for that are two-fold. One, he doesn't want her to worry about him - this case is giving her enough to worry about, he won't be an added burden on her. And two?

Well, two is because he just likes spending time with her, however they got there.

It's a surprise to him in some ways, because it's not as if theirs is a traditional relationship - can you even call it that, he wonders, when it's a handful of nights interspersed with days chasing the lowest of humanity? But no matter how they met, no matter what they do for a living, the fact remains that in what he thought were his final moments, she was the person he thought of.

That has to mean something, right?

And if he knows anything about women, the way she's looked at him, acted with him when she's been here?

It's not just him.

She can usually summon a smile when she's there with him, so it comes as a surprise when he wakes up one night - the early hours of the morning, really - and sees her sitting by his bedside. "Hey," he says, wondering for a moment if he's dreaming, but when she startles, when she looks at him and he sees the pallor of her face, the dark circles under her eyes, he knows he's not. "What happened?"

She takes a deep breath in, lets it out slowly and when she rises from the chair, sits down on the bed beside him and takes his hand, he's very afraid. A glance at the door shows that it is closed, something she never does. Dread is building in his chest and she says the words very slowly, very quietly. "They got Claire."

Mike's head reels like he's been hit by another steel bar and the wound in his side flares with pain. "How?" he croaks and Debra's eyes are dark as she explains how a call got hacked, how Ryan went to see her, helped her escape but still couldn't manage to keep her away from Joe's followers, worse yet, that she chose to get into that car.

"She wanted to see her son," Debra concludes. "It's what a mother's love is supposed to be."

She sounds sad when she says that and Mike remembers the other references she's made to her mother, when she had the same look on her face. He slides one hand up and down her arm, some small measure of comfort and she gives him a wan smile. "We're tracking as best we can...but it's a pretty remote area...it doesn't look good," she adds and he shakes his head.

"Where's Ryan?" he wants to know and if possible, Debra looks even more stricken.

"Gone."

Mike is taken aback. "What do you mean gone? Gone where?"

"He says he's out, that he's not doing this anymore...he's gone back to Brooklyn and he's not answering my calls."

Which goes a ways to explaining why he hasn't seen her in the last couple of days: she's been trying to put out a dozen different fires. But Mike knows, they both know, that they can't do this without Ryan.

"You need to get him back," Mike tells her and her jaw drops, shoulders rising in indignation.

"Don't you think I know that? He's not picking up his phone, what, you want me to go to Brooklyn and drag his ass back here?"

"If that's what it takes, yeah." Mike's jaw is set. "And if you won't go..." He starts to pull himself up, but the wound in his side makes itself know and he falls back, gasping, against the pillows.

Debra half catches him, half pushes him back, eyes wide as she looks down at him. "Just calm down, ok? You're going to rupture your sutures, and I've had enough blood around me lately."

"You have to get him back, Deb," he tells her. "We need him to get Joe...to get Claire back. Otherwise, what was it all for? What was this all for?"

She nods, bites her lip before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Once spoken though, the thought takes root in Mike's mind, begins to grow.

What was this all for?

*

Debra spends that night thinking about what Mike said to her, about how much they need Ryan on this case. She's in full agreement with him, and the longer she lies there, unable to sleep, the more she's convinced that someone - her - needs to go to Brooklyn and, like she said to Mike, drag him back to his senses. When she gets up that morning, she showers and has breakfast, all the while trying to figure out what argument will get Donovan to sign off on her going there but it turns out she doesn't need to make one. They've discovered that the server where Joe's recruitment video is coming from is somewhere in New York and Donovan sends her to check it out, telling her that Turner and his men are already there. She nods, heads to the helipad to be choppered to New York and en route, she sends a text message to Mike.

"Off to New York to try to locate Joe's server. Taking a road trip to Brooklyn."

She's worried she might wake him, but a couple of minutes later, her phone beeps with a reply.

"It's a sign. If you believe in that sort of thing in Alternative Religions." There's a smiley face at the end of it and she finds herself grinning as she climbs onto the helicopter.

It's a short enough journey to New York, and once she lands, she finds the rental car they've organised for her and drives straight to Brooklyn. She finds Ryan's apartment with no trouble, rings the bell and when he opens the door, she's shocked at the sight that greets her. White t-shirt, boxers, bleary eyed and reeking of vodka, she starts with small talk, asking after his friend, then cuts straight to the chase with him. "You can't just disappear, Ryan," she tells him, walking past him into the apartment. The smell of alcohol sends her head reeling and she tries not to show her distaste, doesn't think she does a very good job of it. "Please... put on some pants."

He gives her a look that's half amused, half bemused but he does as she asks before offering her a coffee. She tells him how she takes it and while he starts making it, she studies the apartment. It's a mess, papers and clothes strewn around, empty takeout containers on the table, an empty vodka bottle on its side on the table. The place smells like it needs a good clean, at the very least an open window and Debra suddenly realises that as much as they need Ryan, he needs them too.

She tells him about the recruiting video, about the server being in New York, which has now been narrowed down to Lower Manhattan. Another hour and they should have a location. He listens and when he hands her a steaming cup of coffee, she's blunt with him. "You an alcoholic?" she asks. "Or just a problem drinker?"

In her case, she knows that she's the latter; she's not so sure about Ryan. He doesn't help her either, just gives her a crooked, sardonic smile and says, "Yes."

So, a bit of both then, she assumes. "That can't be good for your heart," she observes and he doesn't blink.

"It's not."

She's reminded of what Turner said about him the first day they'd met - the words renegade and head case had been bandied about, not to mention burn out. Thing is, she'd decided to make up her own mind about Ryan Hardy and up until today, she would have said Turner was fairly wide of the mark. If Turner could see this place, see Ryan now, she's fairly sure he'd be handing her a big dose of "I told you so." Shaking her head as she walks away from her, she thinks out loud. "Look, I'm not good at bonding. Healthy relationships are not my thing, I got trust issues..."

"Your point?"

When he cuts her off mid-stream she's surprised because she's not exactly sure where she was going with that. Besides, she thinks, maybe Ryan's not the one who needs to hear all that. "My point?" She looks around her, at the apartment, at him. "I don't have a point. I'm trying here. I look around this place and I don't know the person who lives here. It's certainly not the guy I've been working with the last couple of weeks. And I know you don't want any of Joe Carroll, or this case but I think you may need it." She looks down at the coffee cup in her hand, steels herself as she admits an unpleasant truth. "And...I kinda need you." He turns, looks at her, surprise writ large on his face and she feels hugely awkward - it's a revelation that she can still feel that way because lately, talking about stuff with Mike, it's been easy. Which is a whole new set of issues for another day and she waves her hand, sets her jaw. "That's as sappy as I get. I'm done."

He's silent for a moment, then changes the subject completely. "Joe called me."

"When? What did he say?" She's surprised without being surprised about the call, but she can't work out why he wouldn't have said it sooner.

"This morning. To cheer me up. Wanted to gloat." He has to force the words out, like it's physically hurting him to say them.

"You gotta engage him, Ryan, you're our connection to Carroll." She can hear the urgency in her own voice and he seems to respond to it, something flickering in his eyes at any rate. Seeing that, Debra decides that she's had it with diplomacy; it's time for some tough love. "Will you just get in the shower? We gotta go downtown." She says it like it's an order, which it is, and he starts to say something back. She's not having any of it though. "And don't argue!"

He doesn't.

While he's in the shower, she sips her coffee, glances around the apartment a little more, then gives into the urge, takes out her cell phone and dials Mike's number. He answers on the first ring with, "How's the road trip?"

She glances towards the bedroom, hears the shower still running. "Well, he let me in," she says and Mike hears everything she's not saying in her tone.

"That bad?"

"Let's put it this way," she tells him. "I hope I don't get pulled over...the smell of vodka's so bad in here, I'm pretty sure I'd blow the breathalyser."

"Shit," Mike mutters. Then, "Wait, is he there? Can he hear you?"

"He's in the shower," she tells him. "The techs are tracing Joe's server; it's somewhere in Lower Manhattan. We'll head in when he's ready."

"I thought he was out?"

There's a smile in Mike's voice, like he knows what she's going to say. "I didn't take no for an answer," she admits and she hears him chuckle on the other end of the line.

"That's my girl," he says and she feels her cheeks flush as a warm rush of emotion spreads through her chest. Mike can't see her reaction though, and it's like he realises what he's said and he hastily adds, "Just...I don't know. Just be careful, ok?"

She nods and just then the shower cuts off. "I'll talk to you later," she says, saying goodbye before she hangs up.

Ryan emerges a few minutes later, looking much more presentable and before he can change his mind, she bundles him into the car and drives into the city.

En route, Turner calls them with an update and directions and when they pull up to the corner he is there waiting for them, pointing to an establishment where he says the bandwidth of off the charts. Debra tells him that she and Ryan will handle checking out the place and she expects him to argue, no matter how cleaned up Ryan looks at the moment. The older man, though, is curiously ok with them going in and it's only when Debra sees the sign above the door that she realises why.

Whips and Regret, it reads.

She closes her eyes for just a second, tries to convince herself that this place won't be as bad as it looks. She knows she's out of luck after a couple of steps because it lives down to every stereotype she might have had about S&M clubs, as well as a few she never would have thought of.

Their luck does hold when they ins the owner trying to wipe the computers and she tells them that the guy, Vince, who set up the system had a Carroll fetish but that she never knew anything about the cult and killings, Debra is inclined to believe her. Haley asks for a deal, Vince for her freedom and while Debra makes a big deal of not knowing if she can promise that, inwardly she's promising herself that if Donovan makes an issue of it, they'll send him undercover here.

They've just finished checking a delivery waiting for Vince - bomb making materials, just what they wanted to see - when her phone vibrates in her pocket. Knowing it's a text message she waits until she's alone before she reads it. Sure enough it's from Mike, one word. Anything?

She quickly types back: Server in an S&M club in Lower Manhattan. Setting trap now.

A couple of minutes later, there's another buzz. If it involves you going undercover, please get pictures.

There's a wink beside it and she shakes her head, sends back: I'm rolling my eyes at you right now.

The response is this. I actually already knew that.

"Hey, Debra." Whatever she was about to type is lost when Ryan comes up behind her. He's looking at her strangely and she puts her phone back into her pocket, puts on her best business face. "Time to head to the car...Vince will be here soon."

Things rapidly get interesting from there: a meeting that goes the way they planned it, but which is followed by Vince taking Haley into the car with him, which was nowhere near the plan. Haley says the safe word they worked out several times and Ryan ignores it several times, over Debra's protests. She goes along with it in the end though, wanting to know where Vince is taking the switched out chemicals to, and when they pull up at an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, Debra's strangely reminded of The Blair Witch Project and wishes she'd made a different call.

When Vince discovers Haley's wire, Debra is sure that her bad decisions have got another innocent person killed but as she and Ryan make their way down a dark corridor (and she was wrong with the Blair Witch comparison; this is so much creepier than that) a bloodied but alive Haley is rolled towards them tied to a chair. As she points out later, the only reason she's alive is that Vince believed they'd spend more time helping a live body than looking after a dead one and the words roll around Debra's head, echo there.

The whole compound is as creepy as the first few corridors and they quickly ascertain that it's a compound used for training, one with military overtones. There are training videos, diaries, people undergoing torture and sleep deprivation and, as Debra instantly recognises, typical cult initiation. Her stomach lurches the more she looks, the more she discovers because while she's seen her fair share of cults, studied even more, this is as far from academic as it is possible to get.

When one of the junior agents checking out the basement innocently releases what he believes to be captives, but what are really cult initiates, things become that much worse because now they have a creepy house with actual crazed killers roaming around. Ryan and Debra head down into the basement to help track them and they split up, each working slowly, silently in the dim light. Debra wheels around at the sound of gunfire, puts her hand up to her comms and asks Ryan if he's ok, and he replies instantly. Not him.

She makes her way to the end of the hallway, turns right, keeps going. Footsteps behind her, a door slamming closed and she turns again, but there's no-one there. Shaken, she keeps going, turning and walking backwards, getting the fright of her life when she trips over something on the ground behind her. She calls out, hears Ryan call her name and footsteps, and she's scrabbling for her flashlight, feels relief when her fingers close around it, then horror as the light falls on the FBI agent who unwittingly released the initiates. He's dead and the thought flashes through her mind that that's what they'll do to her if they get the chance.

That's when she gets grabbed from behind.

She yells in fright as the two strong arms go around her, twist her around and slam her into a wall. Not for nothing, though, has she been taking self-defence classes for years, even before Quantico. She fights her attacker off, hits him over the head with her torch, runs to safety...

Runs into another initiate holding a rifle right at her.

She freezes in horror but then shots ring out, the woman drops to the ground and Debra is staring at Ryan, who is looking beyond her. "Behind you," he says and Debra steps to the side, sees to her left the man she'd just fought off running towards them. Ryan shoots him twice and he falls to the ground and she just stares at him, trying to catch her breath. "You ok?" Ryan asks and she wants to tell him that that might possibly be the dumbest question she's ever been asked but she can't speak, can't think, can't do anything but concentrate on regulating her breathing, her heart-rate, fighting the urge to slide to the ground.

"You're ok," Ryan tells her, as if he's trying to convince her of it, and he takes her by the elbow, steers her around the bodies and towards the steps upstairs. She tells him what happened as they walk and he brings her all the way to the front door, brings her outside to fresh air and opens the car door, puts her sitting in the driver's seat. He calls for local PD, he calls DC and he asks for an ambulance, citing a possible concussion and she lifts one eyebrow when he hangs up.

"I don't have a concussion," she tells him and he shrugs.

"You said the guy slammed you into a wall... we're not taking any chances."

Soon, there are flashing lights and sirens and what seems like a hundred people descending on them. Ryan takes them through the house, Debra is consigned to the ambulance where she is checked over thoroughly and given a clean bill of health. She's sitting on the step, trying to stop herself shaking when Ryan appears. "Good?" he asks.

"No." She chuckles, but there's no real humour in it, an edge of hysteria tightly controlled perhaps. "I'm not gonna lie," she continues. "It scared the hell out of me in there tonight."

Ryan, perhaps not used to such honesty, looks down. "We lost two men," he says. "And those people from the cage...they're all dead."

She shakes her head, looks at the property crawling with cops and makes a decision. "Let's get some rest," she tells him. "DC's on their way... we'll start again in the morning."

"Yeah."

He begins to turn away and she stops him with a, "Hey." When he turns back, she meets his eyes, tells him with a smile, "I told you I needed you." Then, more serious, "Thank you."

Ryan nods, gives her a smile then turns away, finds a local PD agent who will take her to the motel where the FBI have already started claiming rooms. He'll go back to his place, he tells her, meet them back here in the morning. She nods, sits in the police car and closes her eyes as they begin to drive, trying not to notice that her hands are still shaking.

It'll be better in the morning, she tells herself.

She checks in to the motel, grabs the key from a wide-eyed young clerk who can't be more than nineteen and must be wondering what the hell he's stumbled into tonight. There are a few familiar faces already there but she ignores them all, just keeps walking. She wants to sleep and she wants a shower and she wants never to have heard of Joe Carroll, but she definitely doesn't want to talk to people.

Then she gets to her room and there is someone standing outside.

It feels like her heart stops and her hand goes to her firearm instinctively. She slows her steps and the man - for it is a man - must hear her and he turns around slowly.

Which is when her heart feels like it skips a beat.

It's Mike.

"Deb?" He was smiling when he saw her but now he's frowning and he looks worried. Which isn't how she wanted to greet him but suddenly, for a woman who's so used to being in control of her emotions and everything else around her, Debra can't anymore. Shaking her head, she closes the gap between them with a few quick strides, puts her arms around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder. She is still trembling, not just her hands now, trembling from head to foot and she hears him make a little noise of surprise as he puts his arms around her, holds her close.

She stays like that for a long moment before she pulls back, looks up at him. "You should still be in hospital," she tells him, her voice hoarse, and he tilts his head, narrows his eyes as he lifts one hand to her cheek. He wipes away a tear - and when the hell did she start crying - and lets his hand linger there.

"I'm exactly where I should be," he tells her firmly, taking her key out of her hand and unlocking the door. He keeps one arm around her as he brings her into her room, leads her to the bed and sits her down. "Tell me what happened," he instructs gently as he holds her hands, and she does.

She starts with the club and Haley, continues with the property and how Vince escaped, ends with the creepy hallways and Ryan saving her life. "I was so scared," she tells him. "I've never come so close..."

He silences her with a kiss. "It's over now," he tells her. "You're safe. You're safe."

Nodding, she looks at him, really looks at him. He's still pale and bruised, cuts along his cheek and over his eye standing out in livid relief. "Why are you here?" she asks. "They can't have discharged you..."

"They did. AMA," he amends. "But they did. I can't stay lying in hospital when Joe and his followers are out there... I need to be here."

She lifts her hand, lays her palm on his cheek. "I need you here," she tells him quietly, and while it's a big deal for her to say that, just like it was with Ryan only this morning, with Mike there's no equivocation, no looking down, no "kinda." She needs him, wants him, and that's all there is to it.

Mike grins, kisses her again and starts to help her remove her jacket. "So about this S&M club... there were no costumes involved?"

He's teasing, and she smiles. "Sorry to disappoint you-" she begins and that's when the day catches up with her and any further words are swallowed by a yawn. "That was not attractive," she says when she can talk again and Mike holds up two hands, stands up and takes off his own jacket, throws it on a chair.

"Nah, but it was cute," he tells her and this time he can see her when she rolls her eyes at him. "Come on," he says. "Let's get some rest."

Nodding, she goes into the bathroom, splashes some water on her face and when she comes out, he's getting into bed, clad in his boxers and a t-shirt. He's moving slowly, stiffly and she hears the grunt of pain he can't quite keep back when he lies down. Quickly, quietly, she undresses, pausing when she realises her go bag hasn't arrived yet. A thought occurs to her and she grins as she picks his discarded shirt up from the floor, puts it on. She does up every second button and when she walks towards the bed, he is watching her, eyes hungry. "You're killing me here, Deb," he tells her as she climbs in beside him and turns out the light.

She presses herself close to him, leans up to kiss his cheek. "I'm glad you're here," she tells him quietly and in the darkness, she feels him take her hand.

She falls asleep more quickly than she has in days, which is something because she sleeps restlessly that night and she's unsettled when she wakes up. It seems like Mike's had a bad night sleep too, because he's nowhere near his usual chatty self, and a damn sight less affectionate too. It's not the way she's accustomed to waking up with him and even though she knows it's natural after all they've been through, it still feels off. They leave the motel separately, Mike going back to his own room to get ready and Debra tries to convince herself that nothing is wrong with him. A large mug of coffee bought on the way to the property sets her up for the day but caffeine jitters are added to her Mike jitters when she sees how he's acting and she knows that her hopes of this morning have already been dashed. He's far from the Mike everyone has come to know, even farther from the Mike that she's come to know. He's snappy and aggressive, impatient and when Ryan tries to talk to him, tells him it's ok if he needs more time, Mike is downright mean. Debra, for her part, falls back onto old habits, withdraws from any engagement with him, even though she's still his superior if not his outright boss, and she has every right to call him on his behaviour. Self-protection, though, is a hard habit to break and she tells herself that it's just because they're at work and she'll talk to him tonight.

She almost makes herself believe it.

When they get a possible lead on Daniel Monroe, an address for a house he might be hiding in, Mike snatches it from Mitchell's hands before Ryan can take it. Ryan is surprised but follows Mike's path outside and Debra takes a deep breath as she pushes herself to her feet, goes after them both.

The ride to the Fowler residence is silence and uncomfortable and when they get there, when no-one answers their knocks, both she and Ryan are surprised when Mike takes a pocket knife to the door. "You can't do that," Ryan protests, and while she agrees with him, Debra thinks it's too little too late - since when has Ryan Hardy ever cared about the rules?

Mike must agree. "I thought this was Ryan Hardy approved," he says with that not-Mike tone in his voice and she remembers another house, another illegal entry and how well that worked out.

"I blame you for that," she tells Ryan, even if she's not sure exactly for what, and she follows Mike into the house, hand ready to reach for her gun.

The kitchen is first, still warm tea-kettle sitting on the stove, and they continue their search, stepping over an electronic trip wire in the hallway. That's when someone jumps out from the shadows, pushes Ryan to the ground and Debra's gun is instantly drawn as she shouts, "Freeze!"

The man, who she recognises from the DMV photos Mitchell pulled as Brian Fowler, does as he is told and Ryan is pulling himself to his feet when Mike does something that shocks the hell out of her - and considering some of the cults she's seen, considering this case, that's saying something.

With no words exchanged, nothing said, he walks up to Brian Fowler and punches him, puts him on the ground. He walks away quickly, stands by the wall, but Debra can only stare at him and she can't even begin to hide the horror on her face. "What the hell was that?" she asks, but Mike doesn't answer.

Nor does he speak as she and Ryan cuff Fowler to a radiator, begin asking him questions. He simply stays off to the side, glowering, anger practically radiating from him. "He's lying," is the sum total of his contribution and soon after that, he's on his feet, punching Fowler all over again.

Ryan - and again, Ryan Hardy, the calming influence; Debra would laugh if she didn't want to cry - pulls him away, asks him what's wrong with him but Mike says nothing and that's when Debra has had enough. She's the boss, it's time to start acting like it. "Weston," she says, and when she gets no answer, she says it again, stronger this time. "WESTON!" That gets his attention. "Go stand over there."

He does as he's told, and that's when Ryan notices the surveillance camera in the corner of the room, wonders what's so valuable in the house. He goes off to investigate; she sends Mike off with him and tries to phone Donovan, let him know what they've found. The cell reception is dire, and when Fowler mocks her, she wonders if he's installed a jammer. He says not, but that she'll get better reception from the street and she turns to head towards the front door. Not that she intends to go to the street, but she figures the signal will be stronger near the door and besides, the guy's cuffed to a pretty heavy piece of iron.

Later, she'll think that with the luck they're having on this case, she should have waited for the guys to come back up.

But she doesn't.

She's on her way out of the room when she hears a noise. Fowler asks a question, she shushes him and heads to check out the kitchen. There's no-one there but then she hears a noise from the room she just left, a sound like a gasp, then a thump. She goes back quickly, sees Fowler lying on the floor, throat cut.

Then she feels a blow to the side of her head and she hits the ground and there is only blackness.

*

Mike knows he's not acting like himself, knows he's being impatient and over snappy, but he can't help it. Mostly because what he told Ryan when he first saw him is true - it hurts when he walks and talks and breathes, but that's nothing to the hurt that he feels when he thinks of how Debra looks when he saw her last night.

He didn't know anything that happened after they left the club, not until she told him, but he knew it was bad the moment he turned around in the corridor and saw her face. Debra's one of the strongest women - strongest people - that he knows and when he saw her looking so shattered, when she looked at him and realised that he was really there and her face just crumpled before she threw herself into his arms... he didn't want to know what could make Debra - his strong, capable, amazing Debra - look like that.

Then she told him and it was worse than he imagined.

He can handle his own pain, but hers? That's not so easy.

He hadn't slept well either, the pain pills the doctors had given him as he left the hospital being a poor substitute for the IV version, and as he'd lain there trying to sleep, he'd had to listen to Debra tossing restlessly, doubtless chasing people down darkened hallways even in her dreams. When he had fallen asleep, his own dreams were filled with images of Roderick and Louise, him fighting them with iron bars as Debra sat bound and gagged in a corner, blood streaming down her face.

Waking up was some sort of relief but then he remembered where they were and why they were there and he wished he'd never heard of Joe Carroll.

Things didn't get any better when he got to what they have by then identified as an abandoned armoury. Mitchell's "Fight Club" jokes are supposed to make him smile but they fall wide of the mark, and the whole underground bunker, dark rooms, lack of natural daylight surrounding them triggers a tinge of claustrophobia that he never knew he had. He snaps at Ryan, at Mitchell, at everyone he comes into contact with basically, and when they get to the Fowler house, he breaks the law to get them inside. He breaks it again when he punches Fowler after he gets the drop on Ryan, and when he sees the way Debra is looking at him - like she's someone he's never seen before, someone she doesn't know, someone she doesn't want to know - he feels even worse.

But that's nothing to how he feels when he snaps again, punches Fowler as he's cuffed to a radiator and Ryan pulls him off. He can barely register what Ryan is saying, that's how angry he is, but when he hears Debra's voice saying his name, and not his first name, not Mike, but Weston, that brings him back. Not that she calls him Weston, although that's enough, but the way that she says it, the look in her eyes. Ryan might not be able to read her, but Mike knows she's scared, of him, for him, he doesn't know.

But that's the moment.

That's the moment he knows he's stepped way over the line.

Ryan decides to go investigate the basement, Debra sends Mike with him and that's when they get lucky, and they find Daniel Monroe, leader of the militia, the man who can possibly lead them to Roderick and Joe Carroll. They question him and when he comes out with, "I have nothing to do with Joe Carroll and his house of psychos," Mike and Ryan jump on the same word at the same time.

A house.

There is a house somewhere, and this man knows where it is.

They question him more but then an alarm sounds and Monroe tells them that someone else is there. "Parker?" Mike asks but Ryan shakes his head and even Mike knows it's a long shot - Debra would have called out to them. Ryan goes to check it out and Mike turns around to ask Monroe some more questions.

He doesn't get the chance.

Instead, there's a blow to the back of his head and everything goes black.

*

Debra's eyelids flutter as she feels a thumb trace the length of her cheek. She takes a deep breath, wanting to smile because that's a nice way to wake up and she's getting used to it, Mike being affectionate with her. Then she realises that she's not in bed; she's sitting up, she's sitting on a chair and her head is killing her. Her hands are bound behind her back and the touch on her face, it's different, it's not Mike. Opening her eyes with difficulty, she sees a young man, a handsome man, staring at her.

"Looks like you took a pretty nasty blow to the nose there," he says and she thinks fast.

"Jacob Wells. Nice to finally meet you."

When she mentions his name, Jacob stands, like he doesn't like her knowing who he is, and sensing that she's put him on the back foot, Debra keeps talking. "You made it out of the farmhouse in one piece," she continues. "What about your friend, Paul?"

Jacob pauses at the kitchen drawer, opening it and pulling out two knives. "Well, he wasn't so lucky," he says and Debra knows her best chance is to keep him talking, hopefully distract him, and get as much information as she can in the meantime.

"And Emma? Where is she?"

The mention of Emma's name brings a seachange in his attitude. "Really? You want to chat? We can be friends and stuff?" The words sound like they should be mocking, but his tone is curiously flat. "I am going to kill you."

In that instant, she believes him and she uses the only weapon she can on him - she tries to keep him talking. "Indulge me. Help me to understand what happened to you." He's coming closer and she's shaking but she keeps going. "Paul and Emma, it's easy to see the trouble in their past but you, you're a golden boy from a golden family. It's not so obvious." He pauses, just slightly, but enough. "Why did you drop out of medical school?"

"Because I didn't want to be a doctor."

He's in front of her now, anger burning in his eyes and Debra knows if she stops talking he will slit her throat. "Like your father?" She shakes her head. "No family is truly golden, Jacob... tell me what I'm not seeing."

Jacob holds the knife to her throat, speaks very quietly. "Open your mouth again, and I stab you."

Then he stands and walks away and she lets out a shaky silent sigh of relief, before she wonders where Ryan and Mike are, and just who is with Jacob.

*

Mike must have blacked out for a couple of minutes because when he comes to, he's in a room, sitting tied to a chair. His hands are bound behind his back with what feels like cable ties and his head is ringing. He looks around him, tries to see who's there, who's done this to him, but when a familiar voice begins to speak, he wishes that he didn't know.

"Well, Agent Weston," Joe Carroll says. "Nice of you to join us. Don't fret now... I'm sure Ryan will be with us shortly."

Sure enough, Ryan appears at the window to the room, his eyes widening in horror when he sees Mike tied up, widening even more when he sees Joe standing beside him. Mike yells at him to shoot and Ryan does, but the glass is bulletproof and that's right about when Joe decides to get to Ryan by applying some pressure to Mike's already existing wounds. He hears himself scream, hears Ryan begging Joe to stop, but Joe doesn't and Mike spends the next few minutes drifting in and out of consciousness as the two men engage in a war of words.

He doesn't know how long it goes on for, although he does find himself thinking that he doesn't know how Joe Carroll recruited so many people to his cause; all Mike wants him to do is shut the hell up. He lifts his head up, though, when he sees someone coming up behind Ryan and his heart stops when he sees who it is.

It's Jacob Wells, and he is holding Debra in front of him. One arm is around her neck, the other is holding a gun to her head, and even from here, he can see that her nose is bloody. The idea of someone touching her, of someone hurting her, sends a surge of adrenaline hurtling through his bloodstream, waking him completely but he can't move, can't do anything or say anything because if he shocks Jacob enough that his finger moves the slightest inch on the trigger...

He can't finish the thought.

Joe tells Jacob to shoot Debra - "the pretty lady" - if Ryan moves and that's all Ryan has to hear. He puts down his gun, kicks it over to Jacob and Joe sighs, goes to the door and unlocks it and walks out of the room. Mike can't see him once he's outside the door, but he can see Jacob, Ryan and Debra, so he sees Jacob shoving Debra into Ryan's arms and taking off after Joe, can see like it's in slow motion Ryan looking at Debra, steadying her, as she tells him urgently, "I'm fine, go."

He sees her through the window, a little unsteady on her feet, but she stares through the glass at him and his own voice sounds strange in his hears when he says her name. "Deb," is all he manages and then she's coming towards the door. Somehow, someway, she manages to get it open, even with her hands bound behind her and then she's beside him, looking down at him and he can see her trembling. "Are you ok? Your nose..."

She nods. "Just a tap. You?"

His head feels like it's about to fall off, the wound in his side is burning and for once he's honest with her. "Been better," he gasps and she looks stricken. "I'm ok, Deb... I'm ok."

She nods again and then it's like her knees give out and she sinks to the ground. She lets out a shuddering breath and for the briefest of moments lets her head rest against his thigh, closing her eyes. "Too close," he hears her mutter, and he tends to agree.

By the time Ryan comes back, having lost Joe and Jacob, having taken the time to call Donovan from the street, she's sitting up again, has located a knife on the workbench that Ryan can use to cut her and Mike loose. They help Mike up, help him back upstairs and on the way, Ryan fills Debra in on what Joe wanted with him, about the house that Monroe mentioned. Debra, meanwhile, has learned that Paul Torres is dead, and she tells them that Jacob held a knife to her throat, could have killed her, but didn't. That might mean something, she says, but all Mike can think about is that even with a knife held to her throat, her life threatened for the second time in twenty four hours, the lady gets results. He admires that. Admires her.

The FBI and the ambulance arrive at more or less the same time and he is placed on a gurney, arm put in a sling as Debra sits on the step of the ambulance, having an ice pack applied to her nose. When the first responders move away from them, he looks around, making sure they're alone before he says quietly, "Hey, Deb? We ok?"

She stands stiffly, turning to him and stepping into the ambulance, sitting beside him. "I've never seen you like that," she tells him softly. "I didn't like it."

"I understand," he tells her. "And if I could do it again... I'd do it differently."

She lifts one eyebrow, winces. "I hope so," is all she says before she looks out of the ambulance at the flashing blue lights, laying the ice pack down beside her. "I should get back out there."

All he can do is watch her go, and think about the day and what he's done. Ryan comes over, sits with him for a while, and Mike apologises to him, because he went too far today, put them all in danger and he knows it. "I'm not used to almost dying," he tells the older man. "It makes it hard to do the right thing."

Ryan nods, like he knows what he's talking about. "You just gotta make sure you don't do something you can't live with. Because then you'll spend the rest of your life trying to make it right."

And that?

That Mike gets.

Because everything he did today, everything he was feeling? That's what brought them here today, that's what led to him sitting in this ambulance, Debra having a knife to her throat and a gun to her head. She could have died today and he would have contributed to the events that led them there.

He would never be able to live with that, he knows that.

Just like he knows that he's been walking around all day angry at the world, so angry that he felt like he couldn't breathe, like it was a physical weight pressing down on his chest. It took Debra - her voice saying his name, but not the one he's used to from her - to begin to bring him back. And it took looking at her through a sheet of glass, just like the first time he saw her, but this time with a bloody nose and a gun to her head, to bring him completely to his senses.

Ryan leaves the ambulance, closes the doors behind him and shortly afterwards the journey to the hospital begins. Mike's not looking forward to another stay, however short, but to his surprise, after an x-ray and some poking and prodding, the doctor decides that he's fine to be released. They give him some painkillers, two of which he swallows before he leaves and there's a very nice deputy from the Havenport Sheriff's department waiting to take him back to the motel where the FBI have decided to house them.

The deputy drops him off and he walks inside, a plan already taking place in his mind. A flash of his FBI credentials has the clerk at the front desk telling him that not only has Agent Parker checked in but also her room number. Mike thanks the young man, making a mental note to address that with someone higher up the food chain in the morning - after all, he's reasonably sure that that was how Roderick and his cronies had found his room at the Godwinn Inn. Today, though, he'll take the information gladly, bypassing his room to continue to Debra's.

Once there, he considers knocking on the door but a momentary attack of doubt stills his hand. She's had a rough day, she could be asleep, a knock at the door could spook her even if she's awake. Taking out his cell phone, he scrolls through until he finds her number, presses the call button and waits. From inside the room, he hears her phone ring; she answers it before the second one has finished.

So, not sleeping then.

"Mike?" His first thought is to take a moment and thank his lucky stars that she called him Mike. His second is that there's real alarm in her voice and he instantly steps in to allay her fears.

"Thank you for not calling me Weston," he tells her. "After all, it is out of hours."

OK, so maybe not exactly calming her fears. But his flirty tone seems to do the trick because he hears her chuckle. "I'm not even sure what office hours are anymore," she admits. "And while we're talking about rules, should you be using your phone in the hospital?"

"They discharged me," he tells her. "Apparently Joe didn't do as much damage as we thought...just bruises on top of bruises. They gave me stronger painkillers and cut me loose."

Somewhere in that little speech, he definitely heard her sharp intake of breath, and he's fairly sure he heard the creak of a mattress, probably as she sat bolt upright. "Where are you?" she demands. "Do you need-"

"Outside your door."

The words cause her to stop talking and the silence stretches for several heartbeats before she speaks again. "What?"

He forces a smile to his face, suddenly very afraid he's overstepped the mark. "Did that sound too crazy and stalkery?" he asks, trying to keep his voice light. "I just..."

He stops when he hears the sound of a deadbolt being drawn back, then the door opens and he couldn't speak if he wanted to. Debra stands in front of him, damp hair loose and curling around her shoulders and down her back, her phone hanging down at her side. She's dressed for sleeping, in an oversized FBI t-shirt that falls to her knees and with a face free of make up she looks much younger than her years. She also looks much paler than usual, which only serves to emphasise the circles under her eyes, the painful redness of her nose.

Yet Mike can't remember seeing anyone more beautiful in his life.

"Come in," is all she says, blindly ending the call and she walks backwards into the room, like she can't take her eyes off him. Which is how he feels about her actually, so he supposes that's fair. He shoves his phone in his jacket pocket, hers gets tossed on the dresser and then he's standing in front of her, wanting to touch her but knowing he can't, not yet.

"I wanted to apologise," he tells her. "I acted like an ass today...and out in the field... my behaviour put you and everyone else in danger, and I had a knife to my throat and all I could think of was you, and how I treated you. I'm sorry, Deb...I'm so sorry."

She is shaking her head as he speaks and his heart falls somewhere into his boots until he sees that there's a smile on her face. "Jesus, Mike, just shut up," she says, breathless, and then she's right in front of him and her arms are sliding around his waist, very carefully he notes, and her head rests against his shoulder and he can smell hotel bathroom soap and shampoo and just like that, for the first time today, he feels like he can breathe.

Closing her eyes, he holds her as tightly as he can without actually hurting himself and they stay that way for what seems like a long time.

Long enough for a shiver to run through her body, and while Mike would like to think it's desire having that effect on her, he knows better. "You're cold," he points out, loosening his grip and her cheeks flush in unmistakeable embarrassment.

"Everything you said just now was right on the money," she tells him. "And you're forgiven."

Something about the way she speaks, about the way her hands slide down his arms to hold his, makes Mike think that that's as bad a scolding as he's going to get, for now at least. Tilting his head towards the bed, he asks, "Does that mean I'm not sleeping alone tonight?"

Debra doesn't even try to fool him. "No you're not," she says. "Although don't for a moment think you're completely off the hook."

He brings her hands to his lips, kisses the knuckles. "Wouldn't dream of it," he promises, allowing her to lead him towards the bed. He breaks contact along the way, jacket and vest coming off and being thrown on the chair near the dresser. He goes to unbutton his shirt but she stops him with a shake of her head, a little smile. Her fingers take their time working their way down and he doesn't know whether his eyes should be tracking their progress or looking at her so he tries to do both.

When she's finished, she pushes the shirt to the floor, pulls his t-shirt from his trousers and helps him take it off. He can't help it, super-strong painkillers apparently have their limits and he grunts with discomfort as he raises his arms over his head. The noise makes Debra frown, and the furrows on her brow only deepen when she actually looks at his chest. The bruise over his heart from Ava's bullet is a fading violet while the various contusions from Roderick's beating are shades of purple and crimson. The wound to his side is freshly bandaged and Debra reaches out a hand, touches the bandages gingerly. He sees her swallow hard, realises suddenly that it's the first time she's seen his injuries properly - when she'd been in the hospital, all she'd seen was his face and bad as that had been, it paled when compared to the rest of him.

"Hey," he says quietly, lifting her chin up so he can look into her eyes properly. "It's ok."

She shakes her head. "No it's not," she whispers and all he can do is pull her close to him and hold her.

After a long moment, she pulls away and actually apologises. "Long day," she adds, a reminder - as if he could forget - that he wasn't the only one who'd spent up close and personal time with a killer today. He shakes his head, telling her without words that he understands, then squeezes her hands in more reassurance.

"Bed," he orders, and he grins as she undoes his belt, the button on his trousers, before stepping back and allowing him to do the rest himself. By the time he's finished, leaving only his boxers on, she's already slipped under the covers and he wastes no time climbing in beside her.

He lies on his back, raises an arm in invitation and she looks at him doubtfully. "Is there anywhere I can touch that won't actually hurt you?"

Mike shrugs. "We'll figure it out," he tells her and with a little bit of shuffling and moving and muffled laughter, they do.

They're asleep in minutes.

When the alarm goes off scant hours later, they're both rudely awoken from a deep sleep. Debra smacks it off as Mike looks over her shoulder at the glowing red numbers. "Six in the morning? Jesus, Deb, seriously?"

He flops back against the pillow and she props herself up on one elbow to look down at him. "Sheriff Nelson and some of his deputies were pulling an all-nighter, Donovan's going to be here first thing, I wanted to know where we stood before he gets there," she tells him. "Besides, I wasn't expecting you."

Something about the way she says it, the look in her eyes, makes Mike realise she's not just talking about last night. Smiling, he reaches up, ignoring the twinge in his side as he does so, curls his hand around her neck and pulls her down so their lips meet.

His fingers tangle in her hair as their lips move against one another, teasing, tasting, and when he moves and his beard scrapes against her skin, she shivers, fingers tightening on his arms. He likes the reaction, likes it so much that he does it again and this time when she shivers, he feels her smile too.

The thought comes to him that he'd be content to stay like this, just kissing her, nothing else, for a very long time.

The alarm clock has other ideas, because it blares again, shocking them apart, leaving Debra to mutter something about damn snooze buttons. He lets her turn it off, properly this time, but doesn't lose the opportunity it presents to push her hair out of the way and kiss the back of her neck. This time, a gasp accompanies the shiver and he files the information away for future reference.

"You keep that up," she says, turning slightly so she can see him from the corner of her eye, "And I'll never make it to the Sheriff's office."

Mike's finger traces a path down her arm, down to the hem of her t-shirt. "You say that like it's a bad thing," he murmurs. "I can't tempt you at all?"

Debra turns so she can see him properly and when her eyes move slowly up and down his body, it's his turn for goosebumps. "I wouldn't say that," she allows, reaching up to pull him down to her.

They kiss until one wrong move on his part has him gasping for all the wrong reasons, leaving him flat on his back as she looks down at him. Her face is drawn with worry and he reaches up to touch her cheek in reassurance. "OK, so it's official, you've broken me," he quips and she rolls her eyes, sits up and glances over her shoulder at the clock. He follows her gaze, is shocked to see how much time has passed and he shakes his head. "Maybe you have broken me," he says. "I don't think I've spent this long just making out with someone since I was a teenager."

Debra's smile turns from tender to sad. "I didn't even do it then," she murmurs and Mike gets the impression that she's not really talking to him. She blinks, shakes herself and, off his questioning look, adds, "I had pretty strict parents."

Mike's spent a lot of time with Debra, so even if he weren't an agent in the BAU, he'd still know that there's something about that statement that doesn't quite ring true, especially when combined with statements she made in Dutchess County. Not wanting to push the issue, knowing it's not the time or place, he fingers the hem of her shirt again, pushing it a fraction higher up her leg. "Well, nothing like making up for lost time, right?"

He's teasing but it works because she smiles a real smile, leans over and kisses him again. His hand slides under her t-shirt then, up along her thigh and her eyes flutter shut at the sensation. Her reaction makes him bolder, so he moves his hand higher still and she surprises him by moving so that she's straddling him and he's staring up at her. "OK?" she asks and all he can do is nod, especially when she reaches down, pulls her shirt up and off.

Leaning over him, she braces her hands on the bed on either side of his face, brushes her lips over his. "Tell me if it's too much," she whispers and as she presses her core against him, Mike realises two things.

First, pain or no pain, the last thing he wants to do is stop.

Second, he's most definitely not broken.

His hands move up over the skin of her back, over her shoulders and down, touching her breasts and making her moan. Together, they divest him of his boxers and it's only then that Mike realises what she has in mind. "Deb-" he begins and she shakes her head.

"It's ok," she whispers. "I'm protected," and then she's sliding onto him slowly, eyes never leaving his, until he is fully inside her. Then her eyes close as they both adjust to the sensation and her name leaves his lips somewhere between a breath and a prayer.

It feels like everything Mike never knew he wanted, and when she begins to move, it's even better. Hands joined, fingers interlaced, they find their rhythm easily and before long she's trembling her release above him and his own comes immediately after.

She lies down beside him, presses herself against him and they share a satisfied smile. "Donovan's definitely going to beat you in," Mike quips when he has his breath back, and Debra just laughs.

*

Mike turns out to be wrong because Debra does get to the Havenport Sheriff's office before Donovan. Not that Mike's any help in that regard though, because he makes it very difficult for her to leave her motel room, offering all kinds of teasing enticements for her to stay with him. Eventually she manages to leave the bed, splash some water on her face and lash on a minimum of makeup. She pulls on the first clothes she finds in her go bag, choosing to ignore the look on Mike's face as he watches her dress, also the comment about how that shade of crimson suits her, just like she chooses to ignore his hastily stifled guffaw when she picks up her hairbrush and literally groans at the task before her. It's entirely a mess of her own making, she knows, because sleeping on damp curly hair was a recipe for a rat's nest but she hadn't exactly cared about that when she got back to the motel, all she'd wanted was to wash the miasma of Brian Fowler's house off her skin. Even so, bed head she could have handled. It's the sex hair on top of that which is the main issue, and from the cat that got the cream grin he's wearing, Mike Weston knows that very well. Debra wrestles with her hair for a couple of minutes before giving it up as a bad job and hastily tying it into a knot at the nape of her neck. Tendrils escape at either side but it looks presentable enough so she leaves it, leaves Mike still in bed with another lingering kiss.

She beats Donovan to the Sheriff's office but not Ryan and he and Sheriff Nelson catch her up on the night's events. Ryan looks as weary as ever, the Sheriff doesn't look as if he got any sleep at all and it's a new experience for Debra to feel like the most well rested person in the conversation.

Sheriff Nelson goes off to check on something and over Ryan's shoulder, Debra can see Mike coming in. In the cold light of day, he looks like hell, all bruises and cuts and stitches, but there is a smile to his face, a bounce to his step that certainly wasn't there yesterday. Debra can't help but smile when she looks at him, not just smile but grin, the kind of giddy grin that makes her feel like the teenager she never got a chance to be. Mike notices it too, she knows he does, because his eyes flick over her and she could swear his grin gets wider. Ryan asks him how he is and the answer - "Knock me down, I get back up" - is said more to Debra than to him, which is when Debra decides she'd better start acting like the boss and give him something to focus on.

She sends him towards the back of the station to help Mitchell with the computers and the police dockets and she watches him walk away, forcing herself to turn away when she realises that she's checking him out at a highly improper time. With heat rising in her cheeks, she turns back to the map that Sheriff Nelson was showing them, all the better to cover her reactions to Mike but when Ryan steps close beside her, it turns out that's all for naught.

"So," he says, staring at the map rather than looking at her, totally deadpan. "You and the kid. How long's that been going on?"

Debra's head snaps around to look at him, denial springing automatically to her lips. "What? What are you...."

That's as far as she gets before Ryan cuts her off, head tilted in a "who do you think you're fooling" way. "Seriously? I put that kid in an ambulance about twelve hours ago looking like he'd been dragged though a hedge backwards and forwards. Now he shows up here, looking like he just got laid, and you're smiling at him like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert." He's keeping his voice low but amused, something for which Debra is very grateful because her face feels like it's the same colour as her shirt and she knows there's no way she's getting out of this. "I may not be an agent anymore but I'm not stupid either."

Debra bites her lip, looks down at the floor. She opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it with a sigh. "It's a really bad idea," she hears herself saying but Ryan shakes his head.

"Nah." He holds two hands up. "Not that you might want my opinion, given my stellar track record? But anything that makes the two of you light up like that? Can't be bad."

Debra's genuinely moved and is about to say so when there's a commotion from the squad room next door and she and Ryan are on the move straight away, guns drawn and ready. They should them hastily at the sight before them: Mike on the ground, arms pinned behind him, struggling with what looks like half a dozen deputies. He's saying the same thing over and over again, "Stop the sheriff," and it takes several minutes of Debra shouting orders and showing her badge for them to let him up.

When he's on his feet again, Mike looks right into her eyes. "Sheriff Nelson is Roderick. He went out that door, we have to find him."

His tone is flat, his demeanour stony, the exact opposite of moments earlier and Debra feels her heart drop into her shoes, as much for what he's saying as how he's saying it. She doesn't doubt him for a second, though the deputies do and it's only when they look, really look, at Mike's sketch of Roderick that they realise how like Sheriff Nelson it is.

It doesn't take Mitchell long to pull his records, to find his alma mater was Joe's school, that Joe was his faculty advisor and Debra's stomach turns when she realises how close they'd been to the man who had almost killed Mike - how she'd been nice to him, had felt guilty about him pulling an all nighter on their behalf.

If she's sick over it, it's nothing to how Mike looks and she's as worried about him as she is about the case - and this time she's not even pretending to herself that it's remotely professional concern. After last night and this morning, it's highly personal, so personal in fact that she takes the opportunity, standing by the coffee machine to corner him and quietly ask him how he's doing. "And don't give me that knock me down crap," she murmurs and that surprises a grin out of him.

"I've been better," he tells her frankly. "But I've also been worse."

Which makes her feel better but there's still something she wants him to know. "I'm not asking as your boss, you know...this is me."

Mike nods, reaches across her for the cream and uses the opportunity to brush his fingers across the back of her hand. "I know I scared you yesterday, Deb," he says. "I scared me too. But that is not this, ok?"

He sounds so sure, so certain, that she has no choice but to believe him so she nods, allows him to pour cream into her mug and return to their respective roles of trying to track down Roderick.

When they do, Ryan takes the interrogation solo, Mike in the observation room with her. Debra's uncomfortably aware of his presence and that of Nick Donovan watching their every move so she's strictly by the book, even if her hand itches to touch Mike's back, his shoulder.

The impulse only increases when Roderick claims to have Joey hidden somewhere, asks for his phone to contact Joe and prove it. Under Donovan's watchful gaze, Debra has to order Mike to get the phone, bring it in, and when Roderick looks up at him, scratches his face right where Mike's stitches are most prominent, Debra feels a surge of rage so powerful that she would like nothing more to give Roderick a taste of his own medicine.

She holds her temper in check and if Donovan notices anything untoward, it's checked when they get him to agree to Ryan's plan - he'll pretend to go rogue, break out Roderick and get him to bring him to Joey. What Roderick won't know is that Mike will be hiding in the trunk of the car and the rest of the FBI will only be a short phone call away.

Which is how she ends up in a car with Nick Donovan, waiting for Mike to call her and say they're in position, ready to chew her fingernails to the quick. When the call comes, she and Donovan respond quickly, calling in the cavalry, but not quickly enough.

Because when they get closer to the house there's the unmistakeable sound of gunfire and they realise that Joe's men have found Roderick's lair too.

When the guns quiet and the smoke clears, Debra walks through the house, Donovan at her side, and surveys the wreckage. Aside from the gunshots, there are signs of serious hand to hand fighting and her stomach churns at the notion that things could so easily have turned out differently.

But then Ryan appears from the woods with Joey Matthews in his arms, scared out of his wits but very much alive, and just like that, it makes it all worthwhile.

The Havenport sheriff's office is a media circus when they get back and she gladly lets Donovan handle the press. All she wants to do is go back to the motel, have a long shower and curl up in bed, and if the last two are not solitary activities, well then so much the better.

Except there are still a dozen things to check and sign and there's no way she's going to be able to leave any time soon and even a steaming mug of coffee deposited in her hands, courtesy of a beaming Mike, can't wake her up. She excuses herself to find a washroom and she's barely got the door closed when she jumps, because a hand slides into the gap and pushes it back open.

She bites back a gasp, relaxes when she realises it's Mike. "What are you doing?" she hisses, keeping her voice down in case anyone is passing by outside.

He doesn't answer, not in words anyway, just puts his arms around her waist, pulls her close to him and kisses her like he's been thinking about kissing her all day. His lips are curled up in a smile and she feels her own follow suit as he deepens the kiss, moves her backwards and presses her against the wall. Reaching up, she runs her fingers through his hair, breaking contact only when he starts to trace a path down their neck because good as it feels, they can't do this here.

They're both breathing heavily and Mike presses his forehead to hers, closes his eyes but only for a moment. Then his are open again, looking into hers and scars or no scars, the haunted look is gone from them. "This was a good day," he tells her. "And I couldn't wait any longer to do that." He kisses her again then, quicker, briefer, before he unlocks the door. "I'll see you later."

It's not a question and all she can do is nod as she smiles like an idiot at him - "teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert" an echo of Ryan's voice mocks - and when he closes the door behind him she takes a minute to catch her breath, splash her face with cold water.

Of course, it's not long after that things take a horrifying turn, and her rendezvous with Mike has to wait a while longer.

*

When Mike walked into the Havenport Sheriff's office that morning, he'd fully expected his good mood not to last the day - the case, he knew, would put paid to it sooner or later. He intended to hold on to it as long as he could though but even he was surprised at the speed with which it was cut short - finding out the man who Debra had trusted to work with them, the man they thought they could rely on, was really Roderick, Joe's second in command, had been a body blow. The second Mike had heard his voice, seen his face, he'd been back in that warehouse in Newport Harbour, fighting for his life. His wounds were still aching, even more so when what seemed like a dozen deputies leaped on him as the Sheriff - Roderick - walked out of the station like there was nothing wrong and Mike was sick about how close they'd come to capturing him. "I should've shot him in the leg," he muttered to Ryan at one point, and Ryan's only response was a raised eyebrow and a promise.

"Next time."

Mike knows Debra's worried about him, does his best to reassure her, and when she okays him to play a part in the op to recover Joey Matthews, he knows that she believes him. Halfway through the car ride, stuck in the trunk, he starts to regret being so convincing but when the whole scenario plays out, when Roderick is dead and they have Joey back, he knows it was worth it.

A stolen moment with Debra in the restroom has him grinning and it's hard to wipe the smile off his face when he talks to Ryan, tells him there's a woman outside who will only talk to him. He, Ryan, Debra and Donovan meet her in the lobby of the sheriff's department, where two deputies who swear they have already searched her hold at gunpoint. They ask her questions and she seems on the level so a clearly still suspicious Debra says to bring her back.

The moment they turn, she leaps on Donovan and stabs him in the eye with a hair pin.

Shots ring out and she's dead before she hits the ground but then they see Donovan, Debra holding him up, blood pouring from his eye and the pin still there and Debra's face is pale and shaken and disgusted all at once. The ambulance comes quickly, stabilises Donovan and takes him away and the three of them are left standing in their makeshift command centre, staring at one another.

"Fuck it, let's get some sleep," Ryan says after a few moments. Debra looks at him, opens her mouth to protest but Ryan gives her a look. "We can't do anything for Donovan. Joey is safe. Roderick's dead. And whatever Joe's going to do to Claire..." He swallows hard. "We'll deal with it better in the morning."

Mike straightens up, pulls his car keys out of his pocket. "I'll drive," he says simply and against the two of them, Debra puts up no resistance.

They arrive back at the motel and reach Debra's room first, where Mike has a moment of wondering how they're going to play this. Only a moment though, because when Debra opens her door, she turns back to the two of them, nods to Ryan. "See you tomorrow," she says, pushing the door open and stepping inside, holding it open behind her, obviously waiting for Mike to step in too.

Mike looks at Ryan, who just gives the two of them a wave. "See you," is all the older man says as he walks off towards his own room, as if there's nothing at all weird in Mike going into Debra's room. Mike watches him go, turns back to Debra and lifts an eyebrow. She does the exact same thing, glancing meaningfully at the door that she's still holding open.

"You need an invitation?" she asks and he shakes his head, follows her in. Her jacket is thrown across the chair, his following suit and she's sitting on the edge of the bed taking off her boots when he asks what he wants to know.

"You want to tell me why Ryan didn't look the least bit surprised that I'd be in here?"

Debra looks up at him, surprise and confusion on her face. Then the confusion clears and she runs her hands over her face, pushing back her hair. "Oh yeah, I meant to say...he knows."

"You told him?" Mike's surprised, stunned even and Debra shakes her head as she stands, pulling the tie from her hair and letting it fall around her shoulders. He's a little distracted by that, but not enough to stop her talking.

"He worked it out," she tells him, crossing to the dresser and picking up a hairbrush. "Something about you walking in this morning with a just got laid face?" Mike feels his cheeks burn at the description but he can hardly deny it and Debra gives him a tired smile as she meets his eyes in the mirror. "If it's any consolation, I was apparently looking at you like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert, so we're both pretty bad at this."

Mike grins, comes up behind her and slides his arms around her waist. He kisses her shoulder where her shirt has slipped down, feels her sag against him. "OK, new rule," he tells her. "If we're in a bedroom together, let's never mention Justin Bieber again...it kinda ruins the mood."

It makes her laugh but only for a moment and her eyes are serious when they once again meet his in the mirror. "You mean it wasn't already?"

"Never." He kisses her neck again, trying to keep his tone light but her sigh tells him loud and clear that she's not interested in being distracted, not tonight. "Deb, this was not your fault."

Her lips twist and she shakes her head, breaking the circle of his arms and moving restlessly around the room. "I should have known...damn it, I should never have said to take her back."

"Deb, you can't think like that." He catches her as she walks past him, pulls her into his arms and while she's initially stiff, after a second or two she relaxes into his hold, her chin resting on his shoulder, her arms going around his waist. "You had no way of knowing what was going to happen," he tells her, one hand moving up and down her back, the other cupping the back of her head.

She takes in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Straightening up, she gives him the tiniest of smiles, moves away from him and sits down heavily on the bed. He sits beside her, takes her hand in his and doesn't take his eyes off her face. "It's just..." She shakes her head, looks up at the ceiling, never at his face. "Every time we feel we're getting somewhere, another follower pops up to remind us we're not...and I feel like every decision I make puts people at risk...Nick...Troy...you..."

"Deb, just stop, ok?" He's never used that tone of voice with her before and she turns her head to look at him, blinks once, then twice. "You're tired, you're worried about Donovan, everything looks worse now. Ryan was right...you'll feel better in the morning."

Debra sighs, one finger reaching up to trace the stitches over his right eye. "How are you?" she asks softly and he shrugs.

"I'm ok," he says and he's surprised to find it's the truth. His body is aching, he's tired, but he's out of hospital, walking around and he's sitting beside Debra, holding her hand, so he's ok. She looks doubtful so he tells her as much. "I'm here," he says, "And you're here. That always means I'm ok." She looks down at their joined hands, squeezes his fingers. "C'mon," he says, his free hand reaching over to pull at her shirt, untucking it from her jeans. "Let's get to bed."

He pulls her to her feet, helps her take her shirt off over her head, then her fingers unbutton his shirt. A smile tugs at her lips when she says, "Not quite the evening we had planned."

His shirt falls to the floor, undershirt following after and he reaches down to her belt, undoes her jeans, helps her step out of them. That done, his hands go to her shoulders, down her back to her waist and her eyes drift shut at the movement. She gives a sigh that he swears is what contentment sounds like and he feels a smile spread across his lips. "Plans are over-rated," he says as her fingers find his belt buckle. "I'd much rather go with the flow-oh." Nimble fingers touching sensitive skin result in a brief lack of coherency and a noise that makes her grin widely, one that he'll deny making if she ever calls him on it. Grinning too, he pulls her towards the bed, lies her down and lies down beside her, covering his body with hers and kissing her like he can chase every memory of today, every bad thought she's having, out of her head.

It works for him, and when she pushes up against him, fingers raking along his back, panting his name as he kisses her neck, he knows it's working for her too.

Later, as he's drifting off to sleep, he feels her shift in his arms, feels her prop herself up so that she's looking down at him. Opening his eyes, he can just about make her out in the darkened room. "You ok?" he murmurs and he sees her head move up and down in a nod.

"When Ryan asked about us this morning..." she begins, pausing before she continues, "I told him it was probably a really bad idea."

Ouch. Mike tries not to react to that, even if it stings. On paper, he knows she's got a point. In reality, though, things are very different. "That's probably true," is all he says and she makes a strange noise with her tongue, lying back down beside him, her head on his chest.

"He said anything that makes us 'light up like that' - I swear to God, those were his words - can't be all bad." A pause, one where he tightens his grip around her waist. "I think he's right."

Mike smiles in the darkness, kisses the top of her head. "I know he is."

*

The next morning comes around all too quickly but in a welcome change of pace it starts off with some good news - Nick Donovan has made it to hospital in DC. He's still in surgery but it's looking good for him and Mike sees Debra immediately after Mitchell tells her that: she looks like a ton weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

They spend much of the morning poring over maps and property records and he and Debra are standing looking at one large area map spread out on a table, Mike resisting the urge to flirt with her, when they become aware of Ryan staring at something over Mitchell's shoulder. Turns out that some records have been altered and when they zoom in on satellite imagery, the now unhidden house matches Joey's description exactly.

They have the house.

All available vehicles and manpower converge on the place, Debra gives the order to take it but when they get there, they are too late. Only one follower remains, hanged in the lobby and the message that they find in the house is chilling.

"The final chapter has begun."

Mike manages to get Debra on her own as they search through the place, and she shares her worries about Ryan with him. "There was blood on Claire's picture," she tells him. "Ryan's terrified...not that he's admitting it."

"You're worried he's going to go off the reservation again." It's a statement, not a question and she treats it as such.

"And get himself killed," she agrees. "Or someone else."

If he's honest, Mike shares her worry. But he's gone off the reservation himself recently enough that he knows there's always a way to bring someone back. "We'll keep him in line," he says and Debra gives him a look that manages to be exasperated and appreciative at the same time.

"I hope you're right," she mutters and then Turner arrives and they stop talking.

Back at the sheriff's office, Mike and Ryan end up outside, looking at the townspeople gathered with the media, trying to see if they recognise any of the people that visited Joe in prison. They don't, but when a pretty looking blonde woman starts stabbing a newspaper reporter, they have a pretty good idea that they've found who they're looking for, especially when the shaken cameraman tells them that she was "babbling about the red death or something."

They've seen Joe use "The Masque of the Red Death" before, know that he's sending a message to his followers and Mike and Debra stand on the other side of the interrogation room while Ryan investigates the woman. She will answer to nothing but Annabel Lee, and when Ryan looks like he's losing control, Debra braces her hands on the window ledge, drops her head. "Ryan, what are you doing?" she mutters and Mike takes a step closer to the door, ready to leap in if he's needed. The fact that it's also a step closer to her, that he's close enough to put his hand on the small of her back is just a bonus.

But when Ryan gets violent, gets Annabel Lee up against the wall, his arm across her throat, Mike's on his way in and to his surprise, Debra stops him. Her hand lands on his chest, stays there as she tells him to let it play out and he does as he's told, even if he does ask her, "Isn't this what you were afraid of?"

She bites her lip. "Let's just see."

It's a play that doesn't pan out and they end up back in the command centre, trying to figure out what the Red Death means this time. It's Mike who works it out first - the Red Death went from room to room killing people in the exact place where they were seeking sanctuary.

"It's the evacuation centre."

The whole point of an evacuation centre never made sense to him - after all, if you've got a house of serial killers running loose in a town, why would you gather as many people as possible in the one place? To Mike, they might as well put targets on their back, but that's what the Mayor of Havenport decided would happen and the FBI were powerless to stop him. When he and Ryan walk into the evacuation centre, he doesn't change his mind and that's before they recognise a man from outside the sheriff's office, someone who acts strangely, leading Ryan into the middle of the floor before throwing his hands up in the air theatrically.

That's when the lights go off.

Mike has a half a second to appreciate how damn creepy that is before people start screaming. That was the signal for the followers and before Mike knows it, people are running, brandishing axes and guns and knives. Ryan shouts at Turner as someone comes up behind him and the marshal turns just in time, being knifed shallowly across the chest for his troubles. Mike shoots one follower point blank in the chest, but there are so many people moving around, he can't keep track.

He can't keep track until things calm down and the FBI and the local police move through the crowd, sorting out who is who and where they came from. It's only then that Mike realises something - Debra is nowhere to be seen.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he tells himself he's being paranoid, that he's imagining things. He goes from person to person, asking them if they've seen her, even sends some agents to search the centre.

No-one can find her.

His heart hammering in his chest, he heads outside, finds Ryan and Turner talking, does his best to keep his voice calm and steady as he approaches them. "Guys, we've got a problem," he tells them. "Parker's missing."

Everything swings into high gear then and they all end up back at the command centre in the early hours of the morning. Mitchell finds some surveillance footage from the security cameras at the back of the evacuation centre and sure enough, there is Debra, struggling mightily in the arms of two of Joe's men, including the one who they recognised at the centre, the one who turned off the lights and started the panic. Mike has to swallow hard when he sees that, because he knows exactly what she's feeling - feeling it himself had been bad enough, but when he thinks about Debra...

He shakes his head, banishes the thought. That's not going to help them find her.

Just then, Ryan notices something outside the window, a kid approaching the sheriff's office in one of those creepy Poe masks that they found in Emma Hill's house a million years ago and there's no way that's a coincidence. Ryan goes out, approaches him but Mike steps in, tells him he's got this and goes and speaks to the kid. The kid tells Mike that a lady called Emma gave him twenty dollars to wear the mask and come here and when he hands it over, they see a cell phone number written inside.

They call the number, Ryan doing the talking and when he hears the voice on the other end, Mike feels like he's going to throw up.

It's Debra.

She's crying and she's scared... and she's buried.

The bastards took her and buried her alive.

They try to trace the call but can't; Debra does her best to tell them what she remembers of the journey but she was confused and she blacked out for a moment and he knows her well enough to know that she's beating herself up over that. He wants to tell her that it's going to be ok, that they're going to find her but he can't talk, can only look at a map of the area and try to work out where she might be.

His best guess is the state forest, over three thousand square miles of land and that's too much to search in time, not when Debra has between three to five hours of air left.

Soon, but not soon enough for Mike's liking, they get a break, identifying one of the men who took her as Alex, finding his car abandoned in the forest. A convoy of cars depart, Mike driving him and Ryan and as they drive, Ryan says something that surprises Mike. "We're going to find her," he says and Mike takes his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Ryan. Ryan is looking at him, completely serious and Mike has never wanted to believe him more.

"I know," he says.

Ryan nods. "Listen... I know what it's like, ok? To have the woman you love taken by Joe's people. But we're going to get her back... whatever it takes." A pause, a significant one. "Are you with me?"

Mike's head is temporarily caught on the whole "woman you love" thing and he wants to argue the wording with Ryan, even opens his mouth to do so. Then he catches on to what else Ryan is saying and even though Debra might object to what's being implied, right now, with her life on the line, Mike has no such reservations.

"Yes."

They get to the forest, find the abandoned car and of course, it's a trap, because Alex is a sniper and almost as soon as they start checking over the car, he starts firing at them. One of the bullets misses Mike by mere inches, and he hears Debra's voice in his head when Ryan goes off on his own, asking Mike to cover him. "Is this what you meant by going off the reservation?" he asks, as if she's standing there beside him and he can almost hear her chuckle.

Ryan captures Alex, walks him to their car with another significant look at Mike and Mike nods, puts him inside. Turner is there and Mike expects the older man to raise hell over it, but when Ryan says they're going to bring him in, Turner simply says, "Do what you gotta do."

Which is exactly what they do, and if this is Ryan going off the reservation, then Mike happily joins him.

A few punches do nothing to soften up Alex, but a steel bar to the leg definitely does and Ryan putting his eye out is the last straw. He tells them where Debra is and Mike phones the information through to Turner, tells them to get an ambulance on the way immediately. Throwing Alex into the back of the car, he starts to drive faster than he's ever driven in his life, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

En route, Ryan calls Mitchell at the command centre, gets put through to Debra. Mike's head whips around when he hears Ryan say her name and maybe Ryan sees that out of the corner of his eye because he says, "Mike's with me too," as he puts the phone onto speaker and Mike starts to talk.

"Hey, we know where you are...we're on our way right now."

He doesn't know what he expects to hear, but the silence makes him uneasy, Ryan too. "Can you hear us?" Ryan says, and when Debra answers, her voice makes Mike press a little harder on the gas pedal.

"Yeah... I need you to do me a favour... call my sister."

Mike shakes his head - not that they've discussed meeting the family, but this is not the way it's going to happen. "Hey, we're on our way, ok?" he tries, but Debra keeps on talking as if she can't hear them. As if she's too far gone to hear them.

"Tell her I love her. My younger sister, Beth. My parents too. She'll know how to contact them. We're not close, my family. That's my only regret."

Which means she doesn't regret him, regret them, Mike thinks, but he also thinks that when she's saying this, she's saying her goodbyes. She doesn't think they're going to get there in time. A lump rises in his throat, emotion and panic mixing as he says, "Deb, we're on our way, ok? So stop talking, just... save your air."

"Mike..." He can hear her lips smile on his name, even now. "You’re a good man...don’t lose that..."

He can feel tears close to the surface. "Hey, Deb, stop, ok? We're getting really close...ok, we're almost there."

She either can't hear him or won't hear him; either way, it's not good. "And Ryan, I chose this life. The FBI. I knew the deal." Is it his imagination or does her voice sound weaker? "This is not on you."

"You're gonna make it." Ryan's voice is choked, helpless. "You've just got to hold on."

Debra continues and Mike can't talk, is pleading with her in his head to please stop, please stop talking, take shallow breaths and wait for them. "This is not on you. Don’t you take it. I am not your fault. I knew the deal."

"Please just hold on." Ryan has to stop, and on the other end of the line, Mike can hear Debra crying softly. "Please just hold on, Deb...Mike and I... We're gonna be there soon."

"I know..."

Mike looks over at Ryan, doesn't even try to disguise the fact that he's crying, sees the same pain he's feeling mirrored in the other man's expression. Clenching his jaw, he presses his foot even harder on the gas pedal and tries to ignore Alex's smug expression in the rearview mirror.

They'd been told they were forty five minutes away; they make it to the site in thirty five, grab the shovels and start digging. It's a shallow grave and they hit wood quickly, each of them calling Debra's name, praying to whatever God is listening that they're in time. They clear the earth from the coffin, pry the lid off and Mike swears his heart stops when he sees Debra inside. Her skin is pale, her hands are bound and joined as if in prayer, the cell phone she'd been using having slipped out of them, now lying beside her ear.

"Oh my God, she's not breathing," he says as he helps lift her out, him at her ankles, Ryan at her shoulders. They place her on the ground and Ryan checks for a pulse, starts mouth to mouth and CPR. After a moment he stops, looks at Mike and the look in his eyes... Mike knows what that look means.

"No."

Mike's breathing is ragged, his heart pounding, voice sounding raw even to his own ears. Ryan sits back, shakes his head, defeated.

"No."

Mike watches Ryan stand and turn away but his mind, his heart, can't accept that Debra is dead. He's barely aware that he's moving but his lips find hers as one hand pinches her nose, the other tilting her head back and she's not exactly warm, not the way Debra is usually warm under his hands, but she's not cold either and he can't, won't, rest until he's done everything he can for her. He breathes into her mouth, moves his hands to her chest, gives her five quick compressions, just like they taught him in basic first aid, moves back to her mouth for a breath, then back to compressions. He talks to her as he presses on her chest, and he's not even sure what he's saying, something about not leaving, about how she has to come back, about how Joe is not going to win this one.

In the distance, he can hear Alex taunting Ryan, can hear Ryan's footsteps approaching the bound man but his attention is primarily on Debra.

Then there is a gunshot and the sound of a body hitting the ground, but Mike doesn't hear it, not clearly.

Not when the gasp of air from Debra's body is the best thing he's ever heard in his life.

He stops compressions and she is still, and for a horrible second he thinks he imagined it. But then she coughs, and coughs again and she is breathing and her eyes are beginning to open before she screws them up tightly and he realises the light must be hurting her and he pulls her to him, pulls her face tight against his chest and he is sobbing openly now and he doesn't care.

Debra struggles initially, as if she's afraid of him but he moves one hand over her hair, talks to her some more. "It's ok," he hears himself saying. "It's ok, sweetheart...I've got you. I've got you. I've got you." He kisses her hair, her forehead, his tears falling on her face and she pulls back, looks up at him and her eyes are wide and dark and the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "I've got you, sweetheart... you're safe now."

"Mike," she whispers, a tiny disbelieving smile on her lips. "Mike."

With a noise that's half laugh, half sob, he begins untying her hands, the job taking longer than it should because his own are shaking badly. Dimly, he's aware that Ryan is still there, standing by the open coffin, a sheaf of papers in his hands. He's reading, reading out loud, and with a sick lurch of his stomach, Mike realises what it is.

Joe's book.

"Ryan prayed that she was still alive. He started digging and finally found the coffin. Inside she lay. He desperately tried to revive her but he was too late. Agent Debra Parker was dead..."

The words send a shiver down Mike's spine and he holds Debra just a little tighter. Her now free hands go to him, grip his arms without the strength that he's used to but strength enough to hold on. "Ryan..." Mike says, trying to call his partner, his friend, back to reality. "He was wrong, Ryan. We changed the story."

"I know. You're dead." Ryan is utterly matter of fact. "In this story. You're dead. Alex shot you in the woods." Debra's fingers clench in his skin and her eyes are wide and terrified as she looks up at him. "He wants everyone close to me dead."

"But I'm not. We're not." Ryan is already moving away and as much as Mike wants to stand up, go after him, he's loath to let go of Debra. "Ryan, wait. Where does he want you to go? Let me..." Then he stops. Let him what? Go with him? What about Debra? He can't leave her...but he can't let Ryan walk into a trap either.

Ryan turns, shakes his head. "I'm doing this, Mike. Alone. Stay here."

"Go with him." Debra's voice is a whisper and Mike looks down at her in shock. "Go," she nods again. "I'll be ok. Help him."

Mike looks at her, looks back up at Ryan who is almost at the car, then back at the woman in his arms, the woman who despite her words is still gripping on to his arms as if her life depended on it. The woman who, he realises, with what might have been her dying breaths gave messages of love to a family that she's not close to, who as near as he can tell did a real number on her; the woman who tried to console him and Ryan as they raced to save her, just in case they couldn't.

He looks into those brown eyes that he thought he was never going to see again and his choice is easy.

"Ryan."

Ryan turns, looks at him, and in that moment, the two men understand one another completely.

"Kill him."

Ryan nods, gets into the car and drives away.

Debra looks up at Mike, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "You should have left me," she whispers and he kisses her forehead first, then her lips. Her skin is cold, clammy, and the symptoms of shock float through his mind so he pulls off his FBI jacket and with a bit of shuffling and dragging he's able to wrap her in it. He makes himself comfortable as he can on the forest floor, cradles her in his arms.

"I will never leave you, Debra Parker," he tells her, fingers tracing a path down her cheek. "No matter what."

"But Ryan... Joe..." She takes a deep breath; it comes out in a cough. "Mike, you belong there... with him."

Mike shakes his head, knowing she's wrong, at total peace with his choice. "This is Ryan's fight now... I'm out of it." She frowns; he smiles. "Don't you get it? You told me once that it's human nature, that we all want to belong... I know where I belong, Deb. I belong with you."

He's crying again, and so is she and when the EMTs arrive, that's exactly how they find them.

Getting her into the ambulance proves to be more a struggle than Mike expected - he finds it hard enough to let her go, move away from her, even if common sense tells him that's exactly what he should do. When they do lift her, lay her on the gurney, her eyes never leave him, as if she's afraid he's going to vanish into thin air, tears creeping steadily down her cheeks. It's when they try to put the oxygen mask on her, though, that things take a turn for the nightmarish, because Debra freaks out, clawing at the mask, trying to get it off her, clawing at the EMTs when they try to put it back in place. She's becoming hysterical and he steps in, all but pushing one EMT out of the way, putting his hand on her forehead, smoothing back her hair. His other hand takes a hold of the oxygen mask and he squats down beside her, looks into her eyes and talks quietly to her. "It's ok, Deb... it's just oxygen, that's all. See?" He holds up the mask so that she can see it, and she's already started to calm down, just by what he's doing. "I'm just going to put it over you, just for a three count, ok, and I need you to take a breath when I do." She nods, still looking nervous, but she lets him put the mask over her mouth and nose, breathes in as he counts to three slowly before lifting it up again. "Better?" She nods. "OK, so that's what we're going to do...I'm going to stay with you the whole time... I'm not leaving you, Deb... I promise."

The whole ride to the hospital, that's what he does, count and lift, count and lift. Once there, he insists on accompanying her into the emergency room and when the doctors protest, the EMTs back him up. He holds her hand as they hook her up to all manner of wires and monitors, talks to her about everything and nothing but he never leaves her side.

When her eyes close and she falls asleep, he pulls a chair over beside her bed, sits and watches her, waits for her to wake up.

He dozes off and on and he doesn't know how much later it is when her head starts moving restlessly from side to side and he realises that she's in the middle of a nightmare. Her hands twitch against the bedclothes as if she's struggling with someone or something and a low keening starts from the back of her throat. He stands, about to touch her, to wake her but suddenly her eyes fly open and she sits bolt upright, the keening changing abruptly to a full bodied scream that brings nurses and agents alike running. When they get there, Mike is already holding Debra whose eyes are wide and unseeing as she tries to fight him off at the same time as she tries to pull various wires out of her arms.

"Deb, it's me, it's me, it's Mike." He says variations of the same thing to her over and over again in the hopes that it will penetrate her haze and when he sees a nurse approaching with needle in hand, he shakes his head. "Open the drapes," he orders and to his surprise she obeys, letting the needle fall to her side and allowing the fading sunlight to enter the room. "Turn on some lights," he says to another and she does that too, apparently seeing where he's going with this. The light seems to get Debra's attention, calms her at least a little and Mike resumes his mantra. "Deb, it's me, it's Mike...it's ok, sweetheart, it's ok, you're safe..."

After what seems like a very long time, she looks at him and in a ragged whisper he can hardly hear says, "Mike?"

He nods. "I'm here," is all he has to say before her arms are around his neck, her face is buried in his chest and she is sobbing.

Through eyes that are none too dry, he sees the same nurse approaching with the same hypodermic; he shakes his head and she stops, backtracks out of the room and takes the agents with her. Maybe she feels the same way as Mike, that Debra is going to have to deal with what happened somehow, someway and this is going to happen when she does so it might as well be now. "It's ok," he tells her, running his hands over her hair, up and down her back. "I've got you...I've got you."

When her sobs quieten and her shoulders still, she pulls back and looks up at him. "I dreamed I was back there," she says. "I could hear the nails, then the earth...and I thought you and Ryan, you finding me, that it was a dream and I was really back..."

Mike shakes his head as she speaks, cupping her face in his hands. "We got you out...you're safe, Deb. You're gonna be ok."

"Ryan? Joe?"

At that, he shakes his head. "Nothing yet."

Her breath escapes her in a long rush and she slumps back against her pillow but her eyes never leave his. Seized by a sudden impulse, Mike stands, lifts the covers and sits up on the bed, swinging his legs up and sliding in behind her. She gives a startled laugh but when his arms go around her waist, she curls hers up over his so her fingers close over his forearms and she presses herself back against him in a way that's all too familiar.

"Don't think of taking advantage of me now," he jokes. "This is purely a comfort measure."

If he lifts his head at just the right angle, he can see her smile and it lifts his spirits because if she can still grin at his crappy lines then maybe there's hope for them yet.

"You saved my life," she tells him a moment later and while he's tempted to point out that he wasn't acting alone, he chooses to remind her of something else.

"You saved mine too." She turns her head, surprised, back to him and he nods. "In that warehouse, with Roderick? You and Ryan...if you hadn't been there..." He doesn't need to complete the statement; they've had this conversation. "I think we're even."

One of her index fingers makes circles on the skin of his forearm when she says, "You know, there are some ancient cultures that believed when you saved someone's life, it created a bond between you."

Mike lifts an eyebrow that she can't see. "So if I saved yours and you saved mine, what? We're doubly bonded? Unbreakable?" He takes a deep breath and with his next words puts his heart on the line. "Because I have to tell you...I like the sound of that."

There's a long pause and when a tear drops on his arm, a frisson of fear tingles up his spine. Then she lets out a shuddering breath and says quietly, "Me too."

He tightens his grip around her waist, kisses the back of her neck. "Get some sleep," he tells her quietly. "I'm here...I'm not going anywhere."

"You sleep too," she mumbles, eyes already closed and he smiles, because there's only one way to answer that.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Her lips twitch, her fingers tightening against his arms. She closes her eyes and he waits until her breathing evens out before he does the same.

Minutes, hours, days later, they're startled into wakefulness by the ringing of his phone. He pulls it from his back pocket, sees the name on the screen and sits up right away. "Ryan," he says simply.

Debra's eyes are wide as he presses the answer button and he's holding his breath as he says, "Ryan?"

He's half expecting to hear Joe's mocking tones; instead, he hears Ryan. He sounds tired, worn out, but it's Ryan, and his message is brief and straight to the point.

"Joe's dead...it's over."

*

Debra can only half hear Ryan on the other end of the line but from what she can make out and Mike's end of the conversation, she works out what's happened. She stays in bed long enough to make sure she's right, but then she's sitting up, putting her feet on the ground, insisting that he take her there. Mike argues with her, especially when the room sways alarmingly for her and he has to grip her shoulders to keep her upright. Once she is steady though, once her voice is firm, he objects but only with half a heart. "I need to be there...I need to see it," she tells him and when he nods, she thinks that's true for him as well.

Turner is the first person they see, his eyes widening to almost comical effect when he sees Debra. "Shouldn't you be in hospital?" he asks, glancing at Mike with a "what the hell?" frown and Mike actually rolls his eyes.

"Yes," he answers firmly and Debra would chide him, defend herself but she can see activity near the waterline and that's more important suddenly.

"Do we have a body?" she asks and when Turner shakes his head, a shiver runs down her spine.

"Not yet...but there are divers searching the water...there's no way he could have survived that explosion."

Debra wants to believe him more than she's ever wanted anything before, but after the last few weeks, she wants cold hard proof before she'll really be sure. Shaking her head, she heads down the towpath, where she can see Ryan staring out across the water. Mike falls into step beside her and much to her surprise - because this is a crime scene and he's definitely still on duty, even if she probably isn't and absolutely shouldn't be - he reaches out and takes her hand in his. She stops walking for a moment, looks up at him and smiles.

He smiles back and it's almost enough to make her want to leave this place and never look back.

Then he tilts his head towards Ryan and she nods - unfinished business.

"Hey, Ryan," she says softly when she's beside him and if Turner's reaction had been comical, then his is even more so. His eyes widen, his jaw drops and when he says her name it's almost with a gasp of relief. He reaches out and hugs her, actually lifting her off her feet, wrenching her hand from Mike's in the process but all three are smiling when he puts her down. He shakes Mike's hand, grin growing broader when, after Mike drops his hand, he takes Debra's straight away. "We made it," Ryan says simply before looking out at the charred remains of what once might have been a boathouse.

"How's Claire?" Mike asks.

Ryan shrugs. "She's safe...talking to Joey. She'll be better once she sees him." He looks closely at Mike then, narrows his eyes. "You ok?"

Mike's answer comes quickly. "No," he says. Then he glances down at Debra, uses their joined hands to pull her close to him. "But we will be."

It's as much a promise to her as it is a statement to Ryan, Debra realises, and she smiles, allowing herself to lean against him, her head falling against his shoulder.

"He had it all planned," she murmured, the scale of it all still surprising her and she gets the feeling that it's going to be a while before she's able to wrap her head around everything that's gone on in the last few weeks.

Ryan nods, looking out at the lighthouse. "All but the last chapter," he says before adding pointedly, "And a couple other things."

The three exchange smiles as Mike quips, "I always said he was a crappy writer," and Ryan grins, turns to go back up the tow path.

"C'mon...let's get out of here."

"So," Mike asks as they walk, "What do we do now? Go to Disneyland?"

Turner appears at his elbow. "The mother of all debriefings starts tomorrow in DC...you're all heading up there tonight, under protective custody." Ryan opens his mouth to say something; the marshal stops him with a glare. "No exceptions...we don't have anywhere near all of Carroll's followers in custody, and if you think we're taking any chances with any of you..." The rest is left unsaid and he glances over Ryan's shoulder at Claire, still on the phone to Joey, then down to Mike and Debra's still joined hands. "I'd better tell them we'll only need two rooms."

He's so deadpan as he turns on his heel and walks away that Debra gets an attack of the giggles, has to bury her face in Mike's shoulder until she gets herself under control. When she manages it, when she can lift her head and look around, she and Mike are standing alone, his arms around her, holding her tightly.

"So," she asks quietly, "What do we do now?"

She's not just talking about Washington and debriefings and from the way Mike smiles, he gets that. "At the risk of perpetuating an unwelcome metaphor, we write our own book..." He raises one hand to touch her cheek, tuck some strands of hair back behind her ear. She leans into his touch and he grins when he notices it, lets his fingertips linger against her skin. Leaning down, he brings his lips to hers and they're kissing like the world's about to end when the words he whispers before their lips touch register with her.

"And I'm pretty sure it's going to be a happily ever after."