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His chin rested against the rim of the tub, bloody pink water running down his face from a gash on his forehead.  Shifting his chin ever so slightly to the right caused the rivulet to alter its path, peaking at his nose before dripping into the water.  His arms were hooked over the edge of the tub at the elbows, holding his upper body in place.  His fingers skimmed the surface of the water in the Jacuzzi tub.

Where the hell…?

Dazed eyes blinked lazily, not quite able to grasp what was happening.  He looked at the water’s surface, still sloshing and turbulent in front of him. 

His clothes were wet, but not just from wet hair.  No, he had been drenched.  Had he been in the Jacuzzi with his clothes on?  That didn’t seem right.

“Jesus, Ezra,” a disembodied voice said nearby.  “Just keep breathin’.”

Yes, good idea, he thought, and focused on his steady breaths.  In and out.  In and out.

Another dark pink droplet plummeted from his face, hitting the water in the tub, swirling magically as it got caught up in the turbulent pool.

Drip.

Swirl.

In and out.

It was like some odd dance.  A steady cadence in his mind.

Lord, his head throbbed.

“Ez, you with me?”

That was Vin.  ‘Vin,’ he tried to say, but all that came out was some sort of moan.  The weight of his own head held his jaw shut.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Vin replied, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “We’re done.  The boys will be here shortly to wrap this up and get us out of here.”

“Here?” he mumbled, as more of his facial muscle function returned to his control.

“Holland’s cuffed in the other room with Josiah.”  A deep exhaled breath.  “Ezra, he was trying to drown you.”

Holland, he thought for a minute.  Bull Holland.  It all started coming back to him.

Ezra rolled onto his backside, guiding himself with woozy arms that didn’t quite seem to be working correctly.  His back rested up against the side of the Jacuzzi.  He brought weary hands to his head and groaned.  He hoped no one else saw the slight tremor in his hands.

“It’s alright Ezra.  We got him on tape.  You did good.”

Good.  Yeah, right.  Furrowing his brow half in thought and half in pain, he tentatively touched his head where it was still bleeding, albeit slower now.

A hand gently pulled his away.  “Don’t touch that Ez.  It’s not very deep, so you don’t want to make it worse.  Probably won’t even need stitches.  You got your bell rung pretty good though.”

Ezra let his hand drift down to the mic under his shirt.  The water had shorted it out.

“Dammit,” he said slowly.

“Ez, we got everything on tape.  It’s fine.”

“JD’s gonna be pissed.”

“JD’ll get over it.”  Vin’s voice was understanding, but left no room for argument.

Ezra brought his palms up to his forehead again, cradling his head while it continued to throb.

Josiah’s voice from the next room was saying something, and Vin walked the few steps to the door and leaned out of the bathroom to hear him.  Ezra sensed Josiah moving closer to the bathroom door to be more easily heard.

“Look at this,” Josiah said, fingering his shirt where it had been ripped.  “Mr. Holland over there,” he nodded to the living room, “decided he didn’t want to be handcuffed.  Struggled for a minute and my shirt caught on something.  Look what he made me do,” he said in a joking fashion.  “Such a terrible loss, really.  It was such a nice shirt, I was hoping to keep it.”

Ezra saw Vin smirk at the older man, knowing Josiah hated the shirt he was wearing only for the bit he was playing.  Looking back at Ezra, still seated on the bathroom floor, Vin’s expression changed from that of mildly amused to that of alarm.  Ezra knew his face had gone ghostly pale.

“Ez?  You ok?” Vin asked, coming closer to the pale agent.

In one swift movement, Ezra lurched to the nearby toilet and retched violently.  Vin was beside him in a second, his hand on his back.

“Josiah, call Chris and Nathan.  Ezra hit his head harder than I thought.”

Josiah was already dialing from the door of the bathroom, keeping one eye on Ezra and the other on the man handcuffed in the next room sitting against the wall.

Look what you made me do…

Look what you made me do…

Ezra retched again.

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Ezra was sitting on the bed in the emergency room, patiently waiting for the doctor to come and put a few small stitches in his head wound.  He played with the patient bracelet on his wrist absentmindedly as he continued to check the clock on the wall.  He held a small amount of gauze to the wound on his head, stemming the flow of blood for now. 

When Chris and Nathan had shown up, Nathan had insisted that they go to the hospital.  He had agreed with Vin; Ezra smacked his head pretty hard.  Plus the wound could use a stitch or two, and with the location of the injury being high on his forehead, he wanted to keep scarring at a minimum.

Right, thought Ezra.  Like that fucking matters anyway.  He gently rubbed the scar on his chest in remembrance.  After checking the clock for the sixth time this half hour, the curtain parted and a familiar face appeared.

“Hello Mr. Standish,” Dr. Summers said as she pulled up a rolling stool beside him.  “Knocked your head, I see?” she asked as she looked over his chart.

“Dr. Summers,” he replied in greeting.  “Technically, I didn’t.  I would never do such a thing,” he stated innocently. 

She looked up from his chart and smiled at him.  She finished putting on the pair of latex gloves she had grabbed from the box on the wall as she sat down, then reached forward.  “All right, let’s have a look.”  She parted his hair to better see the damage to his scalp and forehead, a look of deep thought on her face as she considered the wound. 

Dr. Jane Summers had been the doctor who had put the stitches in Ezra’s chest and back, and had also been the one to remove them several weeks later.  It was her skill that kept his scarring minimal.  He snorted at the thought.  Minimal.

If she heard him snort, she didn’t acknowledge it.  She peered with intense scrutiny at the delicate skin at his hairline like it was the most interesting thing she had ever seen.  He knew that she had worn the exact same look as she looked at the wounds on his chest.  This would be easy in comparison, he figured.

“I think this will only take two or three.  I’m really not too worried about it,” she said, releasing him.

“Wonderful,” he moaned, blotting the wound with the gauze he still held.  He never did enjoy the feeling of stitches.

She smacked him playfully on his leg as she took off the latex gloves.  “Don’t be such a baby.”  Her smile softened her words.  She spun the stool away from him, and reached for his chart again, writing something.  “I’ll have one of the nurses come in and numb it up, then we’ll be done in two shakes.” 

“Funny and efficient,” he smiled at her.

She smiled back at him, then clicked the pen closed and placed the chart down on the rolling table.  Her face became serious.  “Ezra, how are you?”

He was slightly taken aback at her abrupt question, letting his face show his confusion.  “You just said I was fine.”

“That’s not what I meant.  How’s your chest?” she pointed to him as she asked, a soft look of concern on her face.

He looked down at his shirt.  “Oh.  It’s mostly healed.  It itches from time to time.”

“May I?” she asked.

Understanding, he started to unbutton his shirt, now ruined with the blood from his head wound.  Reaching the last button, he left the shirt barely open and dropped his hands to the bed.  Dr. Summers reached forward and opened his shirt, revealing his scars beneath.  They were mostly healed, true enough, but they still looked angry.  Even with time and care, several would still be noticeable.  Several of them had healed to the point of being invisible, but the one down his sternum… 

Of course, they wouldn’t be as bad as she had originally thought having seen them fresh, but she knew they would serve as a constant reminder of his ordeal and as a source of self-consciousness for her patient.

She touched the skin lightly with her forefinger and thumb, again wearing the look of intense concentration.  She poked the skin in places and then ran her finger along it, feeling the smoothness.

“You’re healing very well,” she said, looking up at her patient’s face. 

She hadn’t noticed, but Ezra had turned his head away as soon as he had placed his hands on the bed, leaving the shirt open for the doctor.  Even now, Ezra did not meet her eyes when he nodded his acknowledgement, leaving Dr. Summers to look at his profile.

“Keep treating it as you have been, and I expect that they will become less and less noticeable.”

Again, that nod.

She straightened and smiled, collecting her clipboard again.  “I’ll send one of the nurses in.  I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, buttoning only four of the buttons on his shirt, covering the wounds quickly and efficiently.

As she left, she scribbled something on his chart, a concerned look on her face.

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Half an hour later, Ezra strolled into the waiting room to find Vin, Nathan and Chris waiting for him.  In one hand, he carried his suit jacket from earlier.  In the other, he had a prescription.  His shirt was untucked and disheveled, not buttoned entirely, and the sleeves were rolled up in cuffs.  Blood splattered on the shirt in an odd pattern, almost like an ink blot test.  He still wore the bar coded hospital bracelet, and a gauze patch was taped to his forehead where the cut had been stitched.

Walking up to his friends, he silently handed the script to Nathan, as was normal.  Chris handed him back his shoulder holster that he had removed earlier, and Ezra wordlessly tossed his jacked to Vin while he shucked back into the shoulder rig. 

“What’s the verdict?” asked Vin.

“No concussion, five stitches.  Hardly worth the trip,” he answered nonchalantly, looking up and smiling.

Vin handed him his jacket back, and he shucked into that as well.  “Really?” asked Vin.  “I would have bet money you had a concussion the way you were pukin’ at Holland’s.”

He smiled that shit eating grin of his.  “Nope.  Hard head, I guess.”

“Tell me about it,” Chris smirked.

“Shall we?” Ezra asked, gesturing to the exit.

“I’ll get this filled for you,” Nathan said.  “Gimmie five minutes.”

Ezra nodded.  “I think I’ll wait outside; I could use some fresh air.”  He started walking away.  Vin and Chris both looked at Nathan, then followed the Southerner, questions in their eyes.

What was that all about?

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Ezra’s skin was crawling.  He felt the disgust in his stomach start to edge its way up his throat.  He hoped to hell that he wouldn’t be sick before getting outside; not that there was anything left in his stomach at this point.  He was damaged beyond repair.  Marked.  He would never be rid of it.  Just when he thought he might have his shit together again, his feet were swept out from under him.

Emilio.

Those fucking scars. 

The doctor touching them.

Every ridge of her fingertips stroking the new skin sent jolts of uncertainty through him.  What was she feeling?  What would anyone else feel?  Why wouldn’t they go away, fade like they were supposed to and leave him be?  The doctor’s simple touch made him feel like there were worms all over him, writhing in their sliminess and entwining with his body hair – on his arms, his legs, his whole body.  And he couldn’t shake the feeling.  He wanted to tear at his own skin, scratching until he bled… but wouldn’t that just compound the problem?

He made it out of the automatic doors of the Emergency Department and walked to a nearby bench to sit and collect himself.  He sat facing the door where his friends would catch up to him shortly and he toyed with the bandage on his brow.  He fingered the weathered plaque attached to the back of the bench with his other hand, the one stating that the bench had been a gift from Mr. Whomever to the hospital.  He really didn’t give a shit. 

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Nathan drove Ezra home after the hospital visit.  The drive was spent in silence, but not uncomfortable.  As Nathan pulled up to the curb at Ezra’s townhouse, Ezra reached for the door handle. 

“Ezra,” Nathan said.

The Southerner turned to look at his friend, but didn’t answer him.

Nathan seemed, well… fidgety.  Uncomfortable.  Like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the right way to start. 

Ezra gave him a knowing smile, then reached and patted him on the leg before exiting the car, conveying that all was well.  He hoped that would satisfy Nathan.

He walked up his walkway to his door, and up onto his small porch.  He was in the house less than a minute after leaving the car, locking the door securely behind him. 

He went into the kitchen, dropping his suit jacket on the back of the overstuffed chair on his way.  He snagged a beer from the door of the fridge and wandered back into the living room, taking a seat on the middle cushion of his couch.  He reached for the small stack of folders and files that rested on the corner of the table in a neat pile, and began fanning them out.  This was becoming a habit… every night coming home and grabbing a beverage – sometimes beer, sometimes coffee, sometimes something harder – and diving into the world of a man that no one seemed to know a lot about.  Rafael Galvez.

Galvez was an immigrant from Guatemala, having moved here with his family when he was a kid.  His heritage had put him at odds with the Columbians and the Brazilians right off the bat, keeping him from joining any of the major established drug empires of the area.  He was essentially on his own, no known affiliations until he was in his twenties – at least according to the files the DEA had on him.  At that point, he had been a confirmed member of several smaller drug rings, and a suspected member of others.  He made quite a name for himself running cocaine in the eighties.  He moved on to heroin in the nineties, and had come close to getting nabbed for trafficking.  Since then, he had been dabbling in guns.  Guns for drugs, guns for cash…  His tie to Mendez wasn’t clear, but it was rumored to be an association of long ago, when Galvez couldn’t hook up with any crew due to his heritage.  Mendez had seen potential in the young man back then, and he was rumored to have worked with Galvez for a short time then.  Galvez never forgot who had helped him. 

It was unknown how long Galvez had been hooked up with Carlyle’s organization, but he was definitely high up within it.  He was now older, almost sixty said the FBI’s files, but there was no exact year of his birth on record, so all they had was the approximation.  He hit the ATF’s radar along with Carlyle.  The ATF’s file on him was slim and contained basically the same things that the DEA and FBI files had. 

Ezra stared at his copies of these files every night, wondering what kind of man this Galvez was.  He had somehow found out that he and Buck were not who they said they were, and had exposed them to Mendez.  So how had Galvez known?  He and Buck hadn’t done anything to give themselves away, as far as he could figure.  And he had been doing a lot of figuring. 

Standish stared off into the space in front of him, looking at nothing as he ran the situation through his head yet again.  He could have been lost in thought for three minutes or three hours.  Time was such a fleeting thing for him these days.  He sighed, still looking across his living room to the window directly opposite him and out into the night beyond.

Being pushed away from Buck.  Separated.  Hands pushing him.  A hand on his shoulder…

He violently snapped out of his daze when a hand gently grabbed his shoulder.

Instantly jumping to his feet, he turned to face his unexpected visitor, adrenaline coursing instantly through his veins, ready to fend off an attack.  In a fluid movement borne of years of practice, his gun came to bear on his target.

“Jesus,” he sighed angrily, seeing that it was only Nathan.  He dropped his arms and head and bent at the waist, leaning his hands on his knees.  “God DAMN it!” he shouted at the floor, still in his bent position and gun still in hand, aggravated with himself.

Nathan, for his part, seemed unfazed by the barrel of his friend’s gun coming to bear only a matter of a foot or two away from his chest.  “Sorry Ezra,” Nathan said gently, hands out to the side in a pacifying manner.  “I was knockin’ at the door for five minutes.  You didn’t answer; I got worried.”  He spoke slow and calm, as though to a scared child.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, straightening slowly to his full height and reholstering his weapon, then rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I left, but only got a couple of blocks.  I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted to do it while it was still in my mind.”

“How’d you get inside?  I locked the door,” he snapped back angrily.

Nathan shook his key ring, still out to his side in his right hand.

“Remind me to change the locks,” he said, rubbing his hand across his brow then down his face.

Nathan furrowed his brow.  “Ezra.”  He waited until the southerner looked at him.  “What’s wrong with you lately?”

The question held no venom or spite, only the concern that nakedly showed on Nathan’s face.

“I’m fine,” Ezra answered, plastering a calm smile on his face and waving his hand in dismissal.  “I assure you.”

“You pull a gun on all your visitors?”  Nathan held up his hand to forestall the rebuttal he knew would be coming.  “You haven’t been fine in a while, have you?” he asked as he sat on the couch slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves that could spook his friend.

All the bravado seemed to drain out of the southerner.  He was too tired for this; too tired to fight it, too tired to ignore it, too tired to keep pretending.  He sighed, bringing one hand up to his forehead and the resting the other on his hip.  He ground the heel of his palm on his brow.

“I’m tired, Nathan…”

“You look it.”

Ezra dropped his other hand to his hip and turned a glare at his friend.

“Look Ezra, I know you know this, but if you need me for anything, anytime...”

Ezra tried to speak, but was immediately cut off.

“You’re pulling away,” Nathan stated, plain and direct.

Ezra sighed and hung his head.  It was a noise of frustration, of defeat.

Nathan continued, “I see it now.  Since that raid; the moonshiners.  It started right around then, and you haven’t been quite the same since.  And if I can see it, then I know that it’s been a problem for a while.” 

Ezra’s gaze remained downward as Nathan spoke.  He nodded in acceptance at the conclusion of Nathan’s monologue, but didn’t speak.

“I don’t want you to ever think that you’re alone in any of this.  I know this can’t be an easy thing to deal with, to live with.  And I think you do an amazing job of putting on a strong front for all of our sakes.  But I’m starting to see the cracks.”  He paused to let the message carry.  “Nothing you can do – not one fucking thing – will push me or any of us away.”

Silence hung heavy in the air for several moments.

“I know,” Ezra said in a whisper.

Nathan nodded at him, even though Ezra was still not looking directly at him.  “I mean it, Ezra.  Anything, anytime.”  He blew out his breath slowly, then gestured to the files open on Ezra’s coffee table.  “I’ll leave you be, let you get back to what you were doing.” 

He stood and started towards the front door.

“Nathan,” Ezra spoke quietly, still in the same pose – both hands on his hips, gaze down – but turned slightly towards his departing friend, awaiting acknowledgement that he had been heard.

Nathan stopped at the door and turned back towards his friend, his hand resting on the doorknob.

“Thank you.”  It was a tiny voice. 

“Anytime.”  He smiled sadly, turned and left, closing the door with a gentle ‘click’.

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“All right boys, I brought donuts!” Buck’s boisterous voice boomed through the bullpen. 

“What’s the occasion?” asked Josiah from his desk.

“Can’t a guy do something nice for his friends from time to time?” Buck asked, feigning hurt.  When five incredulous stares answered his question, he relented.  “Fine, there’s a new girl workin’ at Candy’s.  I wanted to welcome her to the neighborhood, so to speak.”

“And get her number,” JD said as he plopped his messenger bag on his desk, going for the donuts.

Buck tipped his head and pointed at JD.  “That too.  Dig in boys.”

Ezra smiled at his friends, knowing that Buck brought the donuts because this was going to be a long debriefing.  It was probably Chris’s idea.  You want to have a productive meeting?  Provide food.  That was something they taught you in one of those seminars about leadership and management that Chris had had to attend, much to his chagrin.  When they all asked him how the two day course had been, that was his only reply.  Now, whether it was because he already did all of the things that they were teaching about meetings, no one knew.  Chris already ran a tight meeting, so the fact that he even had to attend such a worthless seminar had given the guys fodder for weeks.

And now food.

This meeting was either going to suck, or Buck really had gotten the new girl’s number.

“Guys,” came Chris’s voice from the open doorway.  “Take them in the conference room,” he said and pointed.

Looks like it was option A.

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“Ok boys,” Chris started, “Because of the late night last night and the side trip to the ER,” he tipped his head in Ezra’s direction, “We’re gonna debrief the Holland case now.  You’re welcome,” he finished with a grin.  All the guys knew that Chris could have called them all back in last night, while the case was still fresh in their minds.  Had it been a high profile situation, maybe he would have.  But as it was, it didn’t even make any newspapers.

“JD, you have the tapes?” Chris asked.

“Set and ready whenever you are,” he answered around a mouthful of donut.  He had set up a mic to record this entire debriefing digitally, which was something new.  A program he had on his computer would then transcribe the entire thing, and all members would get a copy of it, including Travis.  It alleviated any of them having to actually take notes, and allowed them to go over things more rapidly.  He started the recording at Chris’s nod.

Ezra couldn’t help but feel like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  He was ready for it to turn into a ‘how-did-you-fuck-this-up-this-time-Standish’ meeting. 

“Vin?” Chris asked.

“Ok,” the Texan began.  “Bull Holland, originally from Oklahoma, came to the Denver area six months ago; hit our radar three months ago.  Suspected of selling miscellaneous bad shit to locals: homemade hooch, Cuban cigars, that kind of stuff.  You name it, he could get it for you.”

“We already know all this,” Buck said with a smile laced with powdered sugar.  “Skip ahead a bit.”

“Just being thorough,” Vin smirked.  He pointed to his own face while looking at Buck, indicating that the ladies’ man had a little something on his face.

“Wha--?” Buck asked as he brushed at his face with the back of his hand.  He looked to JD in askance. 

“You got it,” JD replied.  Buck turned his attention back to the meeting, powdered sugar and now chocolate frosting smeared around his mouth.  JD chuckled to himself.

Vin had continued on, not paying attention to the sidebar.  “No one had wanted to deal with Holland, so he ended up with us.  Josiah and I posed as father and son contractors working out of the apartment three doors down from Holland.”

“And wearing the most ridiculous shirts I have ever seen for a contracting company.  Seriously, whose idea was that?” Josiah asked.

“What was wrong with them?” asked JD.  He had gotten them printed up.

“GUT-IT CONTRACTING?” asked Josiah, “With the picture of a gutted fish on it?”

“What?  I thought it was clever,” JD insisted.  “I used that name for a fake company when I had a business class in college.”

“Did you pass?” Vin asked.

JD shot him a look.

“Probably should work on being a little more inconspicuous next time,” Chris supplied, and left it at that.  Aside from the fact that the title of the fictitious company was just plain awful, the company decal had been printed on orange shirts. 

Ezra sat quietly with his head looking down at the yellow legal pad of paper he had brought.

Nathan watched the southerner closely.  He still seemed preoccupied and… off. 

“So, Ezra got in contact with Holland,” Vin continued, “and set up a meeting.”

Josiah picked up the tale.  “Vin and I made sure we were in the apartment for the time of the meeting.  Ezra had a mic check with JD at the office twenty minutes before time.”

“Mic check was fine,” JD piped in, taking a sip of his coffee.  He reached forward and hit a button on the laptop, which played back the sound check. 

‘Say something Ezra.’

‘Something Ezra.’

“That sounds pretty good Kid.  New mic?” asked Buck.

“Yeah, worked well enough that I think I’m gonna write something up to recommend its usage for the rest of the teams.  Whether or not they go for it, we’ll see.  They can be kind of expensive.”

Ezra looked up from his notepad towards JD.  “Sorry about that,” he said quietly.

“No!” JD answered immediately.  “That’s not what I meant Ezra.  That’s fine.  I have twelve more.  I was just sayin’ I don’t know if they’ll be picked up by everybody else is all.  I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“All right,” interrupted Chris.  “So, Ezra shows up for the meeting…?”

The Southerner took a deep breath and cleared his throat, then took over.  “I showed up at the agreed upon time of 6:00PM.  It was still early enough in the evening that GUT-IT could still be working without disturbing any neighbors, but also early enough to be in and out before too many neighbors would be home.”

“Vin and I had confirmed that Holland hadn’t left his apartment in the past couple of hours,” Josiah intoned. 

“Meant he more than likely kept his shit there,” added Vin, who threw a napkin across to Buck.  Buck picked it up and wiped at his face, seeing the chocolate smears on the napkin and elbowing JD.  JD just chuckled to himself.

Ezra took another deep breath before he continued.  “I buzzed Holland’s intercom and he buzzed the door.  I went to his apartment and knocked, and he opened the door…” 

JD began the playback, and Ezra’s mind flashed back to the previous day…

“Come in Mr. Sams,” Holland’s voice was pleasant, and he stepped aside to allow Ezra into the opulent apartment.  From the outside, the building was modest at best.  Six units with a brick façade.  But inside, this apartment had beautiful furniture, a galley kitchen done in black marble and stainless steel, and a hallway that led to two bedrooms and a large bath, complete with Jacuzzi tub. 

Ezra walked past Holland and into the main living space.  “Great place,” he said, and he meant it.  He could envision himself living in a place like this, even if it were in another life. 

“Thank you,” Holland said as he shut the door and locked it and joined his guest.  “I surround myself with the things I enjoy, and I don’t mind spending the money to get them.”

“I agree completely,” Ezra said with a smile he didn’t mean.  “Shall we get down to business?”

“Of course.”

JD stopped the playback when Chris pointed to him to do so.  “All of that sounds normal,” Chris said.  “Did anything strike you as being off?”

Ezra furrowed his brow slightly.  “Not that I can recall.”

Holland came out from one of the back rooms holding three boxes.  “Here we are,” he said as he placed them on his mahogany dining table.  “Three boxes of the highest quality Cuban cigars.”

“May I? Ezra asked, pointing to the boxes.

“By all means,” Holland answered with a smile.

Ezra opened the top box and took out one of the cigars.  He smelled it, as Josiah had said cigar smokers would do, inhaling slowly and holding his breath, eyes closed.  He exhaled slowly, opening his eyes and smiling.  “I’ll never be sick of a smell like that,” he said, not really understanding the draw of such things as Cuban cigars.

“I agree,” said Holland, taking another cigar out of the box as Ezra had done.  Holland held his own cigar, showing the band on it to Ezra.  “Havana makes the best cigars.  In all my time importing these, the ones that come from Havana have been the best.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Ezra asked casually.

“Off and on, ten years.  Solid for the last six, after my contracting business dried up.”

“So, did you do all this work,” he gestured to his surroundings, “yourself?”

“Mostly.  Gives a man a sense of pride, living in his own work.”  Holland took the cigar he was holding and brought it up to his own face, closing his eyes and smelling the tobacco deeply and loudly.  He tilted his head back in delight as he held the sweet smell in his lungs.  He brought his head back down as he exhaled, and had a huge smile on his face.  Like he was smelling a delicate flower… head tipped back in full rapture… the smile…

Ezra’s chest clenched, tightening with no reason.  He was sure the look on his face gave him away.  He was suddenly terrified.  Nervous. 

“Mr. Sams,” Holland asked, “are you all right?”

JD stopped the playback again. 

“What happened right there?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know,” Ezra said.

“Something happened,” said Vin.  “That’s when Josiah and I started moving in.”

“I don’t know,” Ezra said again, this time a little more emphatically.

“What changed?” asked Josiah.

“I don’t know!  All right?” Ezra snapped.  “I don’t know!  I fucked up, I slipped.  Something happened but I don’t know what!”  Yeah, admitting he fucked up was easier than admitting what spooked him.

“Enough,” Chris said.  “Ezra, this isn’t to place blame.  We’re just trying to figure out what happened.  You did your job.  He admitted to selling this stuff for a long time, and we got the evidence.  You did your job,” he repeated for emphasis. 

Ezra blew his breath out through his nose loudly, calming himself.  “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing the injury on his forehead.

“All right,” said Chris, having gotten the group back on track.  “What changed?” he repeated Josiah’s question.

Holland looked at Ezra, and Ezra could feel him looking at him.  At him, not at Mr. Sams.  The façade dropped and the persona disappeared.  Holland was immediately on the attack. 

“Mr. Sams?”

Ezra was still trying to regain himself after the slip.  “What?” he said trying to snap back into character.

“Sams, huh?” he asked, grabbing Ezra’s jacket and slamming his back into the wall.  Holland immediately ripped open Ezra’s shirt looking for a wire.  Thanks to JD’s skill, it wouldn’t be found.

Ezra came back to his senses as soon as he was grabbed.  As Holland slammed him into the wall, Ezra’s head connected with a stud behind the sheetrock, dazing him.  Holland dragged the semi-dazed man into the first room off the hall, the huge bathroom.  He threw him at the Jacuzzi forcefully.  Ezra lost his footing and slammed his head on the rim of the tub.  Holland was on him in an instant and grabbed a handful of hair and jacket and submerged the dazed man’s entire head beneath the surface of the water.  Ezra’s arms flailed and tried to reach the bottom of the Jacuzzi so that he could push himself up and break the surface of the water to get a much needed breath.  But the Jacuzzi was deep and his hands just barely touched the bottom.  In this position, he would not be able to get the leverage he needed to push himself and the weight of another grown man upwards. 

In full panic, Ezra tried everything he could to escape.  He reached his hands up to try to dislodge Holland’s grip, but the man had the upper hand and his grip didn’t falter. 

Just as Ezra started to feel himself growing weaker, the weight holding him down was gone and hands pulled his head above water, smacking him on the back twice to get him to cough up the water he may have consumed.  His arms hung loosely over the rim of the tub, his head resting on the edge as he gazed into the water. 

“Jesus Ezra, just keep breathin’.”

When the playback came to an end, so did the vivid replay in Ezra’s mind.  “That’s all I know,” he said.  And even some of that had been filled in by the audio and hindsight.

“Josiah whipped Holland off of you so hard he flung him into the wall outside of the bathroom and left a dent,” Vin said.

“Thank you,” Ezra said.

“Anytime,” Josiah said. 

“Josiah and I almost shit when we busted through the door and saw him tryin’ to drown ya.  We moved in as soon as we heard this start to go south and  we were on you in about three minutes.”

“Two minutes, forty five seconds, according to the time stamps on Vin and Josiah’s mics,” supplied JD.

“Cuttin’ it a little close,” supplied Nathan.

“Yeah,” Chris agreed.  “All right.  JD, get everyone a copy of that,” he pointed to JD’s laptop, “and ladies, get your reports to me in the next day or so.”

Grumbles and other noises of acquiescence answered him.  Chris gathered up his stuff and strode out of the conference room, ending the meeting.  The rest of the guys followed suit at their own pace.

Vin and Josiah left first, talking about something out of earshot, while Nathan hung back watching Ezra.  He had that pinched look to his eyes. 

Buck playfully shoved JD on his way by.  “How do you not tell me I have shit on my face?”

“You had shit on your face?  That’s gross.”

“You know what I mean.  How long did I look foolish for?”

“You always look foolish; you don’t need any help from me.”

Buck went to swipe at JD, but JD managed to evade him.  “Come back here you little shit!”

Ezra laughed as the two exited the conference room, and he started towards the door.

Nathan was standing behind the chair he had been sitting in during the meeting.  “Ezra?”

“Yeah, Nathan?”

“Your head all right?”

Ezra smiled knowingly.  “Hurts a little today.  I’ll take something for it.”

“Let me know if it gets any worse, ya hear?”

“Will do.” 

“Good.”  Nathan stood there until Ezra left.  He looked around the empty conference room.  He blew out his breath and ran his hand over his shaved head.  “Shit.”

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After work, the whole team ventured to the bar for a few drinks, as they did from time to time.  The debrief today had taken some of their energy, but they seemed to rally for the second half of the day. 

Ezra, however, still seemed tired.  He rolled his shoulders, feeling the increasing stiffness of his muscles, no doubt from the struggle with Holland. 

“Y’aright?” asked Vin around his beer.

Ezra stilled.  “Fine.”

“Bull shit,” said JD.  When Ezra’s questioning gaze fell on the youngest member of the team, JD took a sip of his beer before elaborating.  “You been rollin’ your shoulders all day.”

“You hurtin’?” asked Nathan.

Ezra half chuckled, half sighed.  “It is entirely unnervin’ for me to know that you have identified my tells.”

“Ezra,” Chris spoke quietly, yet forcefully enough to get the message across that he also wanted an answer to Nathan’s question.

The southerner shook his head once, then replied, “I’m a little sore.  In the shoulders.”  He took a large sip of his beer, hoping that would convey that he was not in the mood to discuss his state of health.

“You should get a massage,” said Vin, picking up the need for the change in subject.

“With a happy ending, if at all possible,” Buck chimed in with a large grin. 

Incredulous chuckles answered him.  Even Ezra found himself laughing a bit at that one.

Still with a smile on his face, Buck asked, “Boys, we need another pitcher?”

Vin and JD held up their mugs in a silent salute, indicating that yes, another pitcher of beer would be welcomed.  Ezra nodded his head as well, meeting Nathan’s eyes briefly.

“I’m good,” said Josiah.  “The older I get, the more it knocks me on my ass.”  He smiled large.  “Or makes me have to get up three times a night to take a piss.”  With that, Josiah got to his feet and slapped Ezra gently on the back as he scooted behind his chair, headed for the men’s room.  Chuckles followed in his wake. 

The others watched him go, navigating through the bar, now bustling with happy hour patrons still lingering and the younger crowd getting an early start on a night out.

Nathan was the only one to see the small play of… something… flit across the southerner’s face.  It wasn’t fear… what was it? 

Buck also got up, finishing his beer as he stood and taking the empty pitcher with him to get a refill from the bar. 

“Hey Nathan?” asked Chris.

Jackson turned his attention towards the question.

“How’s Rain been?  We haven’t seen much of her as of late?”

Nathan smiled.  “She’s doing well.  She’s working nights right now, so her sleep schedule is a little messed up.  She’ll be transferring to days in a couple of weeks.  She wanted me to ask you all to come out for a cook out once she gets back into a normal schedule.”

“So, the job’s going well for her then?” asked Chris.

“She seems to like it.”  Rain had just started as a R. N. at Mercy General and right now, she was rotating through the departments.  Her current stint was in emergency, and the graveyard shift to boot.  Although she was more of a morning person, she did admit to Nathan that she was learning a lot, very quickly. 

“Can’t be easy for the two of you though,” Vin chimed in.

Nathan smiled fondly into his beer glass.  “It poses certain… challenges.  It will get better.  Hell, she puts up with my shit enough, so I can deal with this.”

Ezra smiled at the by-play.  For all the girls that Buck dated, the few that Vin talked about, even JD with Casey (which was more off than on), Rain had been a constant in the tam members’ lives.  Ezra had wondered privately if Nathan was ever going to marry the girl. 

Buck returned with a full pitcher and a huge grin.  He leaned forward to place the pitcher in the middle of the table, his hand coming to rest on Ezra’s shoulder as he leaned.

Nathan caught that look again.  What was it?  It was bothering him.

“What are you so happy about?” asked JD, reaching for the new pitcher.

“I just know that Inez is going to break down soon.  I can feel it.”

“I think what you feel is the daggers she’s shooting into your back right now,” said Vin, laughing as he went to refill his glass.

“That’s just what you think, Junior.”

Vin paused in his drinking, looking around Buck towards Inez at the counter.  “If you say so Buck.”

Josiah returned to the table just then, squeezing behind Ezra again to return to his seat.

Ezra placed his glass on the table and brought his hands up to his face.  He smothered a yawn and ran his hands over his face and up through his hair. 

“Ez, you ok?” Vin asked with a half smile.

Ezra waved his hands dismissively.  “Fine.  Just tired.”  He waved his hand again, and knocked his mostly empty glass of beer over.  “Dammit,” he said, trying to wipe up the spilled brew before it seeped all over the table.

Buck tossed a pile of napkins from the dispenser onto the mess.

“Jesus, I can’t stop fucking up lately,” Ezra muttered angrily, but loud enough to be heard.

“Whadja say, Ezra?” Vin asked, concerned, putting his beer down and sitting forward.  Chris mirrored him.

“Nothing,” he stammered.  “I just… I…”  He blew his breath out, frustrated that he couldn’t put words to it.  What the fuck is the matter with me? 

“Ezra,” Chris said seriously.  He waited until the southerner looked directly at him.  “You did not fuck anything up.”  Chris’s eyes were winced in askance, as though to say what are you talking about?

Standish looked exhausted, but his smile was sarcastic.  “We both know that isn’t true.”  He brought his hands to his eyes, trying to rub the tired feeling from them.

While the southerner’s view was encumbered, Chris looked around at the rest of the guys to see if they knew what was going on.  They held equally confused stares on their faces.

Ezra let out a rueful chuckle, capturing the attention of his friends as he brought his hands to rest on the table in front of him.  Maybe it was the beer talking.

“It’s my fault, you know,” he said with a smile.

“What is?” asked Josiah.

“Everything.  The whole thing.”  He rubbed his brow with his right hand agitatedly.  He rested his chin on his right hand, holding his fingers in front of his mouth momentarily before dropping both hands to his lap as he sat back.  He looked down at his hands, and seemed to be looking under the table when he spoke.  “There is something fundamentally wrong in how I am doing my job.”  He didn’t seem to be actually speaking to any of them.  “Holland saw it…  Mendez saw it…” he trailed off, shook his head and turned his head away to the right, looking at the bar, looking at nothing.

“That’s crap Ezra,” JD objected.

He looked back at the youngest.  “Is it?” he asked skeptically.

“Ezra, none of this is in any way your fault,” Nathan said, just as forcefully as JD had protested.

Standish shot a disbelieving look at him.

“I’m serious,” said Nathan.

Ezra shook his head.  “I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” he muttered in the same dejected voice from before.

“Hell Ezra,” Buck chimed in.  “I say that at least once a week.”

Ezra looked at the ladies’ man with somber, serious eyes.  “I don’t.”  The seriousness of that simple statement rang true.  Ezra was never one to complain about work to the point of saying he needed to rethink his job choice.  Hell, look at the Atlanta debacle.  Even through all that shit, he hadn’t thought of leaving the job.  It just wasn’t his style to quit.  Or even to joke about quitting. 

“Are you serious here, Ezra?” asked a concerned Vin.

Ezra huffed out a frustrated breath, waving his hand dismissively again.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I’ve just had too much to drink.  I’m sorry my friends.  I seem to have become quite maudlin.”

“It’s more than that,” said Nathan.

Ezra shot a look at Jackson.  It was almost a pleading look, asking him not to bring up last night. 

“No.  It’s not.”  Ezra’s voice was slow and stern.

“Enough,” said Chris, putting to end the line of questioning.  “Ezra.”  He waited again for the southerner to look at him.  Somewhat reluctant green eyes met hazel.  “You did not fuck up.”

“Mendez…” he started.

“Had someone more connected; it was nothing you did.”  The blonde’s voice brokered no argument.

“Clearly, I am incapable of keeping a cover intact,” Ezra argued, his voice full of his frustration.

“That’s not true,” Chris countered, pointing a finger at his agent.  “These two incidents—“

That happened before the incident, that happened after the incident… Ezra winced at Chris’s word choice.

“—are one-offs.  Two out of how many cases?  Hundreds?”

“And in those two cases,” Ezra continued to argue his point, “I managed to almost get one of my teammates killed,” he gestured towards Buck, “and I almost got myself killed twice.”  He held up two fingers in aggravation, illustrating his point.  Why couldn’t they see?  “In fact, if you gentlemen hadn’t been there both times, I would have been dead.  Twice over, as it were.”  He stood and swayed slightly.  Josiah’s hand shot out to steady him, and he flinched from him as though he had been burned.

“Where are you going?” asked Chris.

Ezra turned and faced his boss.  “The men’s room,” he said angrily.  “I’m pretty sure I won’t be killed in there, so maybe you gentlemen can afford me some modicum of privacy.”  And with that, he walked away.  He knew that eyes watched his departure, his unsteady stride towards the restroom.  He didn’t care.  He needed to get away from those eyes.  Couldn’t they see?  This was his own damn fault.  All of it.  He had almost gotten Buck killed.  Himself killed.  He would only get someone hurt.  Next time, what if it was someone else on the team that got hurt?  Or, God forbid, some innocent bystander?  Maybe then they would see that he had been right – he was a danger to everyone.

He entered the men’s room as another patron left.  He found himself lurching for the stall as his stomach heaved.  He could try to blame it on the alcohol, but he knew that wasn’t the reason.  He was coming apart, and spectacularly at that. 

He went to the sink and splashed cold water over his face.  Thankfully, he was the only one in the restroom.  He dried off as much of the water as he could and tossed the paper towel away. 

He had to get out of here.

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“Nathan, what was that about?” Josiah asked when Ezra had left the table. 

“I don’t know,” Jackson answered.  “I don’t think he’s doing so well.”

“No shit,” said JD. 

“Does he really think he almost got me killed?” asked Buck. 

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Chris.

Vin had watched the southerner until the restroom door closed behind him.  “There’s something wrong with him.  Something new.”

“Like what?” asked Buck.

“Some sort of guilt or misplaced blame for these incidents,” Josiah intoned. 

“But the Mendez thing was months ago,” JD said.  “Wouldn’t that have come up before now?”

“It takes longer for some people,” Josiah replied knowingly.

“Something spooked him.  Something recent,” said Vin.

“Since the moonshine raid.  Where he had to chase that guy into the woods,” Nathan said, his eyes down as he ran his finger over one of the rough gouges in the tabletop.

“Sounds about right,” said Vin.

Nathan shot a look at the tracker.  “You’ve noticed too?”

A nod.

“Noticed what?” asked Chris.

“He’s spooked,” Vin supplied.  “He’s cold.  And he’s withdrawing.  From all of us,” he said as he glanced back toward the men’s room.  Ezra still had not emerged.

“I went to his house last night,” said Nathan.  “After I dropped him off, I went back.”  His tone conveyed that there was more.

“What happened?” asked Chris.

“I scared him out of his skin.”  He took a deep breath and sat forward, resting his arms on the table.  “I knocked on the door.  Rang the bell.  He didn’t answer, but I knew he was in there; I had just dropped him off.”  He paused.  “I let myself in, and he was sitting on his couch, almost in a daze.  He had a beer next to him, and there were folders strewn about the table.”

“Folders?” asked Buck.

Nathan nodded.  “It looked like info on Rafael Galvez.”

“That’s the guy,” Buck said.  He looked at the faces of his friends.  “The guy who blew our cover.  Mendez’s inside guy working for Carlyle.”

“Shit,” said JD.

Questioning eyes looked to Dunne.

“I got him some of those files.  I remember the name.  It didn’t stick out to me so I didn’t think anything of it when I got them,” he said apologetically. 

“Damn,” Buck said quietly.

“I didn’t know,” JD said.  “I get files for you guys all the time.  Hell, I don’t even remember half the stuff I track down for you guys.  You ask for it, I get it.  Simple as that.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong JD,” Chris said.  “What was in the files?”

“Standard stuff.  Known associations, rap sheets, whatever history any of the agencies had on him.”

Nathan debated telling them the rest.  He heaved a long slow breath, deciding that they all needed to know.  “That wasn’t all guys,” he said.  He waited to make sure he had everyone’s attention.  “I called his name, and he didn’t hear me.  So I went up to him and touched his shoulder.  He about hit the roof.  He was out of his seat faster than I thought he would have been able to move.”  He took another breath.  “He pulled his gun on me.  God, he looked terrified.”

Silence reigned while that info sunk in.  Ezra had pulled his gun on Nathan. 

“He reacted weird when he was touched tonight,” Vin supplied.

Nathan looked sharply at Vin.  “You noticed too?”

Vin nodded.

“Noticed what?” asked Buck. 

Vin gestured his chin at the empty chair.  “Whenever someone touched him tonight, he reacted.  He ain’t one who normally likes to be touched, but he looked more bothered than usual.”

Disgusted.  “He looked disgusted,” Nathan said, finally realizing what the look was.

“He’s fixating,” Josiah said.  “The touching, the files…”

“The anger,” said Nathan.  “The fear.”

“Shit,” said Vin.  “I knew he wasn’t as put together as he was tryin’ to make us believe, but I didn’t think he was fallin’ apart.”  He looked back towards the men’s room door, surprised that Ezra hadn’t returned yet.

Following Vin’s stare, Josiah spoke.  “He needs some time to put himself together.  Give him a couple of minutes Vin.”

Vin looked at his watch.  “He’s already been in there almost ten.”

“What if we’re blowing this out of proportion?” asked Buck. 

It was silent for a moment. 

“What if we’re not?” asked Chris.

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When Ezra left the men’s room, he turned a sharp left towards the kitchen in the back of the bar.  He needed some air.  Who was he kidding?  There wasn’t enough ‘air’ in the world to make him feel better. 

He slipped out the back door of the bar, the one used for deliveries and emergencies.  He paced back and forth for a minute or two, then turned and walked off into the night.  He had left his jacket, wallet and keys at the table with his friends.

He had no idea where he was going.  He just knew he wasn’t staying here.

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How did I miss it? Josiah asked himself.  Some profiler I am.

Buck had been easy.  He had seen a psychologist after the warehouse incident, and he seemed to be on the mend.  Josiah knew Buck was still seeing the doctor once every other week, unbeknownst to the rest of the team. 

Ezra…  Well, Ezra had been more difficult.  But that was the man’s nature when it came to talking about himself.  Only when an issue was ‘safe’ to discuss would he bring up.  And “safe” in Ezra’s mind could mean anything.  And even then, there was never anything truly personal discussed during those rare conversations.  Like the Atlanta thing… Ezra had laid out the facts, plain and simple, but never offered his own personal thoughts about those facts.  And those plain and simple facts were only brought to light if Ezra were asked directly.

Ezra had seen the department shrink, same as Buck.  Buck had wanted to continue the counseling, but Ezra had discontinued his visits as soon as he’d reached the mandatory number of sessions.  He insisted he was fine and appeared to have gotten things under control fairly quickly.  Control.  That was his game.

But if things were not as well as they appeared, the southerner never let on.  The sheer amount of energy he must have put into making his day seem so normal to everyone around him would have to be astounding.  Josiah shook his head.  It would be like being undercover 24 hours a day every day.  The stress would have taken its toll, slowly eating at the insides of the man.  And they had all sat there, blissful in their ignorance.  Fooled.  Conned.  Ezra was the best at what he did, but he should never have to be that way around them.  Why he thought he had to be…

Vin looked to the restroom door again.  It had been five minutes since he last looked at his watch.  He ran his hand up through his hair.  “Fuck this,” he said as he stood.  He walked purposefully towards the back of the bar and entered the men’s room.

The rest sat at the table, waiting.  They were not about to crowd the southerner, not now. 

“So, how do we fix this?” asked Chris.  He was directing his question at all of them, but looking at Josiah specifically.

Josiah was about to admit that he didn’t know, but Vin came stalking back up to the table quickly.  “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” asked Nathan.

“Gone.”  Vin was shrugging into his jacket as he spoke.  “I’m going after him.”

“Vin wait.  We’ll all go,” Chris ordered. 

“Where would he go?” asked JD.  “He left his jacket, keys, and his wallet here.”  JD had searched the jacket hanging on the back of the chair and found Ezra’s wallet in its customary inner breast pocket.  He held it up to illustrate his findings.  “Damn, it’s a cold night too,” he muttered as he replaced the wallet and shrugged into his own coat.

“Then he’s walking,” said Buck, grabbing Ezra’s effects as he readied himself to depart with the others. 

“Split up and head out,” Chris ordered.  “Call if you find him.  He can’t have gotten far.” 

Chris and Vin strode out the front door and towards Chris’s truck, with Buck and JD heading for Buck’s truck, and Nathan and Josiah each heading for their own vehicle.

Let’s hope he didn’t get too much of a head start, Josiah thought to himself.

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Ezra had no set direction as he walked into the night.  His mind was reeling. 

Flash to the warehouse.

Flash to the moonshiner.

Flash to the Saloon.

He shook his head, as if in doing so he could rid himself of the garish images.

Flash to Bull Holland.

Flash to Mendez.

Emilio.

Knives.

The subtle sound that fabric makes when sliced.

His head spun. 

His back burned.

His chest ached.

Burning.

Bleeding.

He staggered in his path, treading heavily on the sidewalk.  He veered to the left and heaved into someone’s bushes.  Azaleas.  How unpleasant. 

Get a hold of yourself!  You’ll be arrested for public drunkenness the way you’re moving about!

But he wasn’t drunk.  Or was he?  He would be the first to admit that he hadn’t been eating very much at all lately, and he sure as hell hadn’t been sleeping much.  And what little sleep he’d gotten was riddled with nightmares and restlessness.  He had what, two glasses of beer?  Or was it three?  No, he had spilled the third…

He bent in half as his gut twisted and his stomach tried to heave, but there was nothing left.  He spit into the dirt and pulled himself upright.  He trudged on.

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The sun had finished its descent, but tendrils of colored remnants were still yet to be chased away from the sky… purples and touches of pink continued in their race for the horizon.  Looking up at the street sign for the first time since his trek began, Ezra took in his surroundings.  It was a residential area, trees lined the streets and houses sat cheerily, their lights just starting to come on as the daylight continued to fade from the sky.  Focusing on the street name and taking several deep breaths, he took a left.  He didn’t know why, but at least he now had a destination in mind.

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He turned onto the pathway that led up to the front door.  He had one of his arms wrapped protectively around his midsection, fending off the ghosts that assailed him – trying to alleviate the burning he knew he shouldn’t feel, but did.

His feet shuffled along the pavement more than stepped.  He must have covered several miles at this point.  The chill in the air did nothing to perk up his muddled mind.  For the first time since he left the bar, he realized he didn’t have his coat; he wished for it – if not to rid himself of this chill then to just hold it around himself as a security.

He climbed the two slate stone steps and stood on the small porch at the front door.  He looked through the screen storm door at the dark green main door.  An oval window with a decorative glass pattern obscured what lay within, but it shone like a chandelier with the light from inside.  He took two deep breaths, blowing each out slowly through his nose.  He opened the screen door and rapped his knuckles on the dark green paint.  Retracting his hands, he wrapped both of his arms around himself, now fully realizing how chilly he was becoming.

The porch light was flicked on from somewhere inside before the door opened.  Guests hadn’t been expected at this hour. 

He didn’t raise his eyes as the door opened, hugging himself tighter and shaking.

“Ezra?” the feminine voice asked.  “What are you doing here?”  Rain opened the screen door for her friend and got a look at him.  He didn’t say anything.  He didn’t even look at her.  His eyes were fixed down and away, as though the dying bushes flanking the small porch deserved his full attention.

“Ezra are you all right?”  She stepped out onto the porch and put her hand on his arm.  He flinched away, keeping his eyes down; then settled as she came closer, the screen door clicking shut behind her. 

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Rain didn’t know what ailed her friend, but he was scaring her.  He was unresponsive to her voice and jerked away from her touch.  She reached for his face, laying a gentle hand along his cheek.  When he didn’t jerk away, she brought her other hand to his face, turning him so he faced her and bringing his eyes up to meet hers. 

“Ezra?” she tried again.

“I…”

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.  He let his gaze fall from her eyes.  She could feel him shake.

“Ezra, come on.  Let’s go inside.  I’ll get you some tea.  All right?” she asked and stooped down a little to make eye contact. 

After a long moment where Rain thought she might be wholly refused, Ezra gave a near-imperceptible nod of agreement. 

“Yes?  Ok.”  She smiled comfortingly.  She gently took one of his hands that still protected his body.  Her long fingers held his in a feather-light touch; enough to guide, but not enough to control or push.

She led him inside and closed the door behind them.  She steered him across the hardwood floors and over to the sofa.  Settling him down, she grabbed the hand-made quilt off the back of the cushions and draped it around his shoulders.  His hands jutted out to grab the edges and wrap himself tightly in it. 

He wrapped himself in the comfort and weight of the quilt and sighed appreciatively.

“I’ll be right back,” she said softly to him and turned towards the kitchen to make him some tea, grabbing the cordless phone off its base as she hurried away.

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Nathan turned down another side street, hoping to catch a glimpse of their elusive teammate.  So far, he was having shit luck.

His phone started to ring and he grabbed it off his belt and answered it without looking at the caller ID, his eyes still scanning his surroundings. 

“Jackson.”

“Hey,” Rain’s voice answered.  “What are you doing right now?”

“Hey,” he answered back, his voice softening.  He sighed.  “Well, I’m kind of in the middle of something actually.  Can I call you back?”

“Sure,” she said.  “I just wanted to let you know that Ezra just showed up on our doorstep looking like shit.”

Nathan slammed on his brakes and pulled over.  Putting the truck in park, he said, “Say that again?”

“I said that Ezra just showed up on our doorstep looking like shit.”  She was obviously trying to keep her voice down, yet speak loudly enough so that Nathan would hear her clearly. 

Nathan blew out a long breath of relief.  “Oh man, you have no idea how good that is to hear.  We’ve been looking for him for almost an hour.”

“Nathan, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know.  Can you keep him there?”

“Well, yeah.  He’s kind of zoning out on the couch.  I wrapped him in the quilt and he was shaking.  I’m making him some tea.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.  It’ll be a little while though,” he looked at his watch, “I’m clear on the other side of Denver.”  He paused.  “How did he end up there?”

“I think he walked.”  She leaned back from where she was preparing the tea on the counter and looked into the living room at her late-night guest.  Ezra sat in the same position she had left him in.  “I’m worried Nathan.  He’s not ok.”

“I know.”  He dragged his hand down his weary face.  Trust me, I know.

“I’ll take care of him.  Take your time coming home; I don’t think he’s going anywhere.  He looks exhausted.”  She paused, considering.  “Don’t bring the rest of the guys,” she said.  “I don’t think he can handle it.”

“Right,” he said, agreeing.  “I’ll call them.  I’ll be home soon.  Call me if anything changes.”

“All right.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Nathan disconnected the line.  He took a deep breath and blew it out.  He put the phone down on the console, and then rested both hands on the steering wheel.  In a sudden moment of rage and frustration, he pounded on the steering wheel with both hands, then shook it as though strangling it. 

His friend was falling apart.

His anger sated for the moment, he took a couple of cleansing breaths and picked up his phone again.

He immediately called Chris.

“Larabee.”

“Chris, he’s at my house…”

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Rain came back into the living room carrying a mug of tea in each hand, the cordless phone tucked into her back pocket.

“Here,” she said softly, announcing her presence before Ezra saw her.  She came around the couch and placed the mug on the coffee table and sat on the nearby loveseat, her own mug still in her hands, careful not to crowd the southerner.  He still looked like a scared animal, but there was at least recognition in his eyes now.

Ezra stared at the steaming mug in front of him on the table.  He pulled himself forward, unfurling his cocoon and resting his elbows on his knees.  He reached for the mug with both hands.

Rain could see the tremor in his hands, even though the shaking seemed less now than what it had been on the porch.

He pulled the mug to his lap, enjoying the warmth in his hands.  He took a tentative sip of it and sighed. 

Rain sat patiently and waited. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She hadn’t expected him to speak, assuming he would feel more comfortable when Nathan arrived.  She sat cross-legged on the loveseat, her hands in her lap. 

“I shouldn’t have disturbed your evening,” he said, taking a tentative sip of the tea.

“You didn’t disturb me Ezra,” she answered.  She leaned forward and put her mug on the table, then sat back. 

He nodded in acceptance.  “I just didn’t know… where to go.  I didn’t even know where I was headed.”  He put his own mug down on the coffee table. 

“But you’re here now,” she said softly.  “You’re always welcome here.  No matter the time of day.”

He sighed audibly.  A sound of frustration more than of relief.

“Ezra, when was the last time you slept?” she asked, concerned.

He shook his head once in answer.

“And eating?  You’re having trouble with that too?” her soft voice was gentle.

He looked up at her, a question on his face.

“You’re losing weight,” she said knowingly.  “And don’t take this too badly, but honey you look like shit.”  Her smile softened the words.

He chuckled quietly to himself and rubbed his hand through his hair.

“Nathan’s been worried about you.”

“I know,” he answered quietly.

“I can see why now.”  She paused.  “How long has this been going on?” she prodded.

He dropped his gaze and sat back into the couch cushions, fingering the edge of the quilt that still draped over part of his leg.  “I don’t even know.”

“Ezra—“

“I don’t even know what day it is half the time.  They all seem to blend together,” he waved his hand dismissively.  “I can’t…” he began, then rubbed his hands down his tired face.  “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” she asked softly.

He looked at her with sad tired eyes.  “Pretending I’m fine.”

She nodded.

“I don’t want to burden you with this,” he balked.

“You are not a burden.  You are never a burden.  Please,” she said, leaning forward and laying a hand on his knee in support.  He didn’t jerk away, but looked down at it.  She pulled it back slowly, understanding his need for space.

“I can’t sleep.”  He breathed out slowly and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  “I can’t sleep because I see… it.  I can’t eat… it just comes back up.  This thing… it’s killing me.”

She sat silently.

“I’m destroying myself,” he said quietly, wincing.  “I’m destroying the team.”

She took a breath to respond, but he continued before she had a chance to speak.

“I’m going to die.  If I can’t fix this, I am going to die.  Or, God forbid, I am going to get someone killed.  If that happens, I just…” he sighed, almost sounding like a shallow sob.  “This is consuming me.”  He looked up to her with the pain so plainly written on his face.  “I need to not feel like this anymore…”  When someone touches me, when someone says something.

“I’ll help you Ezra.  We’ll all help you.”

“I don’t want you all to help me.  I don’t want to be saved; I don’t want to be fixed.  I just don’t want to feel like this anymore.  I don’t want to be the burden.”

“Ezra, I told you—“

“I know.  But I know how it will feel.  I don’t have many friends Rain.  I don’t want to put them through this with me.  I don’t want to push them away when they try.”

“Ok, Ezra,” she said, nodding. 

He smiled and half chuckled.  “I can see it happening.  I can take a step back and look at myself and I can see what’s happening to me.  I can’t stop it.  I can only watch with morbid fascination.  It’s becoming a pattern of behavior.”

She shifted in her seat and laid her hand on his knee again. 

“I can’t stop being so angry,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word.  “Nothing I do… will sate this hatred.  It eats at me, day in and day out.”  He inhaled deeply through his nose, keeping himself in check.  “I feel it winning.”

“You’re strong,” she said, squeezing his knee.

He paused in consideration, then looked at her directly.  “How can you say that?” he asked disbelievingly.

She took her hand back and looked at him seriously.  “Because I know it to be true.  I wouldn’t lie to you.  You know that.  I wouldn’t say something just to make you feel better.”

Ezra considered it.  No, she wouldn’t placate anyone.  Not even Nathan.

He ran both hands down his face again.  He rested his forehead on both of his palms, his elbows on his knees.  His fingers entangled themselves on the longer parts of his hair.  He blew out a long breath.  “What do I do?” he asked in a whisper, not moving from his position.

She moved to the sofa to sit next to him.  He stiffened when he felt the couch dip with the added weight. 

Rain gently slid her arm over his shoulders and rested her head on his shoulder.  She wrapped her other arm loosely around the front of him, holding him.  He slowly brought his hands down from his face and leaned into her, his head resting on hers and his arms curling and holding onto the one in front of him.  After a moment, he shifted and turned to face her, returning the embrace properly. 

And she held him.

They sat like that, not moving except for a slight rocking motion Rain had taken up, much like a grandmother soothing a distraught child. 

Headlights shone through the bay window, signifying that Nathan had returned.  Rain squeezed Ezra gently, intending to go and unlock the door for him. 

Ezra gripped her equally as gently, then spoke quietly.  “Please,” he said softly, desperately.  “Please don’t let go.”

Rain’s breath caught in her throat at the pleading tone.  “I won’t,” she said, her voice breaking.

She continued to hold him as Nathan came through the front door using his key.

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Between the two of them, Nathan and Rain managed to get Ezra settled on the couch and Rain covered him with the quilt he had wrapped himself in earlier. 

He was done.  Exhaustion was clear even on his slack face.

Nathan looked to Rain and tilted his head towards the kitchen.

Rain nodded and followed.

“It’s worse than you said,” she said softly as they each leaned on the countertop.

“Yeah it is,” he nodded.

“You have to tell the others about this.  About what we were discussing the other night.”

Nathan kept no secrets from Rain; he told her everything.  And the other night when Nathan had told her about the Holland case and how Ezra had almost been drowned, the possibility of Post Traumatic Stress had come up.  Nathan thought it was a possibility, even a probability.  Ezra was definitely having some sort of acute stress response, but short of him actually admitting he needed help, what could they do? 

“It’s a guess, Rain.  I can’t confirm it.”

“Well whatever,” she said as she looked through the doorway opening to their sleeping friend.  Looking back to Nathan, she pointed a finger behind her towards the living room as she spoke, “That’s not ok.  He is not ok.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Nathan snapped back quietly.  “Jesus Rain, he pulled a gun on me last night.”

Her mouth opened in shock, and she placed her hands on the counter edge behind her before she could even speak again.  “What?”

“Last night, after I dropped him off, I went back and went in to his house and he was in a daze.  He didn’t even know I was there until I touched him.  And he reacted by pulling his gun on me.”  Nathan blew out a long breath and ran one of his hands over his head. 

“Jesus, Nathan.”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was silent between them for a moment before she asked, “What do we do now?”

“What we should have done in the first place.  We don’t let him push us away.”

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Ezra woke to the smell of coffee brewing.  He lay on his side, facing the back of a sofa and covered in a warm heavy quilt.  For a moment, he was relaxed and content.

Then a flash of panic.  Where am I?   He moved quickly in an awkward attempt to sit up, but found himself twisted in the quilt.

“Easy Ezra,” Nathan’s voice stated nearby.  The southerner rolled over onto his back and saw Nathan sitting on the loveseat, his elbows on his knees and his hands holding a cup of coffee.

“Nathan?” he asked groggily.  What was Nathan doing here?  Then he remembered.  He groaned.

“You want some coffee?” Nathan asked.

Standish blew out his breath.  “I should be going.  I didn’t mean to impose.”  He started to sit up, but stopped.  “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at his friend.

“Nothing to be sorry about.  And you’re not going anywhere.  You don’t have a car here, remember?”

Ezra fell back flat on the sofa and huffed out his breath.

“So how about that coffee?” Nathan asked with a smile.

“Coffee would be good,” he said, rubbing his eyes tiredly as he tried to smother a yawn.

“I’ll be right back.”

Ezra kept his hands to his eyes and listened as Nathan walked away.  He listened to a cabinet open in the next room, and he heard coffee being poured.  He didn’t hear anyone else in the house, which he found to be strange.  He sighed and righted himself on the sofa, scrubbing his hands down his face as he came upright.

Nathan made sure to be loud enough in walking so that Ezra would hear him approach.  He walked back over to the loveseat and sat down, placing the mug on the table in front of the southerner.

“My thanks,” Ezra said, reaching for the cup and taking a tentative sip.

The two sat for a moment, just drinking coffee.

“What time is it?” Ezra finally asked.

“It’s a little after seven.  You’ve been asleep for almost nine and a half hours.”

“I’m sorry Nathan,” he began.

“What for?  You needed the sleep and you didn’t make a peep all night.”

Ezra looked at him questioningly, wondering how he would know that.  Then he noticed the other crumpled blanket on the loveseat. 

“You didn’t have to babysit me like some five-year-old,” he said apologetically.

“It wasn’t a bother, so stop apologizing.”  He sipped his coffee quietly.

“Where’s Rain?” Ezra asked.

“She’s workin’ nights.  She went in a little after midnight.  Even went in a little late.  Wanted to make sure you were situated, even though I told her I had it covered.”  He smiled gently.

“I—“

“Don’t apologize.”

Standish sighed quietly and nodded in acceptance. 

“You scared her last night Ezra,” Nathan said quietly as he looked into his coffee mug.

“I didn’t mean to cause anyone to—“

“You scared me too.”  He looked up and met the southerner’s gaze. 

Ezra’s surprise registered on his face, plainly enough for Nathan to see.

“What were you thinking?” asked Nathan, no reproach in his voice.  “You ditched all of us at the bar, and you left yourself without anything – phone, keys, wallet, hell even your jacket.  When we realized you were gone, we all panicked.”

Ezra let his head drop, and he gazed into his half-full mug of rapidly cooling coffee. 

“We all know you’re not doing well.  You’re not that good.”  The healer briefly smiled to himself.  “You can try, but we all know you.  Vin and I both saw the look on your face.  The panic.”

“I had to get out of there,” he said quietly, not looking up from his cup.

“I know.”

He looked up at the healer.  “I don’t know why I came here.”

“Neither do I, but I can’t tell you how glad I am that you did.”

Ezra placed his cup onto the coffee table.  “So what happens now?”

“Now, we get ready for work.”

“Do the others know?”

“Only that you spent the night here.  We were all out looking for you, Ezra.  I had to tell them where you ended up.  Wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

“Did Rain… tell you?”

Nathan nodded.  “She did.  She’s worried about you.”

Standish scrubbed his face with both of his hands again.  “Do we tell the others?”  He was looking for guidance.

“That’s up to you.  If you think it’s easier if they know, then yes, we should tell them.  If you don’t want to, then we won’t.”

“I don’t have anything left for this,” he said quietly as he rested his forehead in his hands.  He was tired, and there was no way he could deal with all of his friends knowing he was so… broken.  He couldn’t keep up the façade anymore.  “No.”

“Ok Ezra,” Nathan agreed.  He leaned forward and clasped his hands together.  “Rain has a friend that deals with this kind of thing.  He’s a psychiatrist.  She’s going to make a few phone calls today during her break at work, and she’s going to set you up with him.  It will not go in your file, unless you think it should.”

“No.”  His answer was immediate.

“That’s kind of what I figured.  There’s one more thing, Ezra.”  He waited until he was sure he had the southerner’s attention.  When Ezra looked up from his hands, Nathan spoke plainly.  “We have to tell Chris.”  He waited a moment for a reaction, but when it came it was not the one he expected. 

Standish reluctantly nodded his agreement.

“No details, unless you want to.  I won’t tell him anything.  Neither will Rain.  Everything that happened here, that was said between us, stays between us.  But as the leader of this team, he needs to know.”

Ezra took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, considering all that had been said.  He looked up into Nathan’s face and asked in a whisper, “Will you go with me?” 

Nathan smiled gently.  “Yeah.  I will.”

Ezra nodded.  Now they had a plan.

“Finish your coffee.  We have to get going soon.”

“I need to swing by my house before work.  I need a change of clothes.”

“I already planned on it.”  Nathan smiled at his friend as he got up to bring his coffee mug back out to the kitchen.

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After a brief stop at Ezra’s condo, the pair made it to work by eight A.M.  Chris and Vin’s cars were already there, but no one else had shown up yet.

The two walked to the elevator in the parking garage and took it up to their floor.

Vin sat at his desk eating some sort of donut, but it was mostly unidentifiable at this point.  The Texan had an odd way of eating things that mangled their appearances, but he insisted that his method lined up the best bite for last.

“Mornin’, boys,” he spoke up around a bite.

“Mornin’, Vin.  Chris in his office?” Nathan asked.

“Think so.  Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Ezra.  “And I wanted to apologize for last night.”  He stuck his hand out to his friend.

Vin nodded and shook the hand in front of him without hesitation. “Apology accepted.”  

Ezra smiled a half smile and headed for Chris’s office, Nathan walking beside him.  Vin watched them go, feeling a concern grow in his chest.  Nathan turned and looked back at him when they got to the doorway and nodded back at the sharpshooter, assuring him that everything was all right.

Nathan closed the door as he and Ezra entered Chris’s office.

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A half an hour later when Josiah arrived, Vin told him who was in Chris’s office, and Josiah nodded somberly. 

Forty three minutes after the door shut, it opened and Nathan and Ezra came out.  They both went to their desks and sat down, getting themselves set up for the day.

Buck and JD were the last to arrive, rolling in at five minutes to nine.

Greetings were exchanged, and Ezra waited until everyone was settled with their first coffees of the day.

“Gentlemen,” he said, clearing his throat.  He waited until he was sure he had everyone’s attention.  “I wish to apologize for last night.”  He paused slightly before continuing.  “I let my liquor get away from me.  I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and it hit me harder than I had anticipated.  My foul mood and worse behavior was the result.  It’s no excuse, but I do wish to apologize for my actions.”  He felt awkward in making his statement, knowing that it was a half truth at best.  And he knew that they would all see the apology for what it really was – a smokescreen.

It was silent for a moment after Ezra had spoken, then Buck spoke up.  “No worries, Ezra,” he said with a smile. 

“It’s all good,” JD agreed quickly.  They had all been frantic last night, but obviously wanted to put it behind them as quickly as possible and return to normal..

“Nothing to apologize for,” Josiah intoned from his desk.  “We’ve all done it before.”

“Some more than others,” Vin joked, throwing a crumpled up piece of paper at JD.

“Come on, one time!” JD protested.

“You do have a nice singin’ voice, JD,” Buck said through a huge grin.

“Ugh.  You guys suck.  You remember everything,” Dunne groused.

Chuckles answered him. 

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Halfway through the day, Nathan came into the bullpen and walked over to Ezra’s desk.  Bending down so only Ezra would hear him, he slid a piece of paper to him and said, “Tomorrow afternoon, four o’clock.”

Ezra looked down at the paper.  Rain had made her calls.

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From that moment on, the day went by at a snail’s pace.  Reports from the Holland bust had to be filled out, Ezra had to submit paperwork from the doctor at Mercy General confirming that the bump on his head would not impede his ability to work…  basically, it was a paperwork catch-up day.

Then at about three o’clock, Travis came into their bullpen area and smiled tightly in greeting to them all on his way into Chris’s office.  He didn’t shut the door as he went inside, so by all signs it wasn’t a dire emergency.  However, no one missed Chris’s audible groan, even from this distance. 

The two men strode out of the office and into the bullpen a couple of minutes later.

“Guys,” Chris said.  He looked perturbed, maybe even annoyed, but not really angry.  “We are going to be assisting on an extraction tomorrow.”

“A what?” Buck asked.

Travis spoke up, taking over the conversation.  “The DEA has asked for our help in extracting one of their undercover agents from the assignment he’s on right now.”

“Has his cover been blown?” Ezra immediately asked.

“No, but the DEA wants to discontinue their investigation at this point in time,” Travis stated.

“So why not just have the guy come in?” asked Vin.

“They want to maintain his cover on the off chance they can use it again in the future,” Travis explained.

“So they’re arresting him?” Ezra asked knowingly.

Travis nodded.  “More or less.”

“So why do they want us to cover them?” asked Josiah. 

“Probably some sort of inter-agency team spirit campaign,” Nathan snarked.

Chris stepped in.  “Because we’re on the periphery of this one, and they want to keep us in the loop.  They’re actually trying to do us a courtesy on this.”  He paused and looked at his agents’ confused faces.

“Who is it?” asked JD.

“Carlyle.”

Vin looked over to the southerner, then back to Chris and said, “Are they taking Carlyle in the arrest?”

“No,” Travis supplied.  “It will be a small deal with the UC and at most two others from Carlyle’s organization.”

“Because of the gun connection,” Chris said, continuing the explanation, “and the fact that we’ve been dancing around him for a while, they wanted to include us.  Specifically our team.”

“So are we just going along for the ride?” Buck droned.

Chris winced a little in apology.  “Yeah.  That about sums it up.”

Groans followed his words.

“In the spirit of inter-agency cooperation,” Travis said, “I agreed.  But I told them they would owe us one.  And that never hurts.”

“Hell,” Vin said.  “At least it gets us out of the office.”

“Fresh air,” Josiah said with a half smile.

“Exercise,” smiled Nathan.

“When is this supposed to occur?” asked Ezra.

“Tomorrow, ten A.M.,” Travis said. 

“Make yourselves familiar with the case.  We don’t want any surprises,” Chris said as he started back towards his office.

“Gentlemen,” Travis said in parting as he started for the door.

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As stings go, it was standard and boring; especially on the sidelines.  The DEA ran the ‘buy’.  As planned, the Under Cover and his two accomplices were arrested, maintaining the UC's cover.

The buy took place at an old power station that sat near a freeway underpass, near a body of water.  Vehicles could not be hidden easily, and really the only way to come up on it was fast and hard.  And there really wasn’t a very good lookout or vantage point if you were inside the small brick building.  The windows were covered in metal mesh over plexiglass, which had been damaged by years of non-use and the weather.  If you were inside the building, you would have to employ a very good lookout system.

Be that as it may, Team Seven stayed a reasonable distance from the actual buy.  They, along with several DEA agents, remained in their positions and maintained the perimeter surrounding the power station. 

The entire buy was completed without a shot being fired.

“Showoffs,” Nathan grumbled good-naturedly.  “It’s not like you can shoot people using bags of drugs.  Try busting gun sellers.”

Josiah, who had paired up with him at this point in the perimeter, chuckled knowingly as the two of them walked the scene aiding in the cleanup. 

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Ezra was walking his part of the perimeter, and veered towards two of the DEA agents that had been in the action of the raid.  He smiled as he approached.

“Not bad,” Ezra said.

The two men, one whose vest said ‘Webster’ and the other ’Cunningham’ turned.  “Thanks,” Webster said.

“Tricky place to stage a raid,” Ezra conceded.

“It was, but we’ve had worse,” Cunningham said.  “Bet you have too.”

Ezra smiled knowingly.  “Indeed.”

“Isn’t it true that some guy got slashed up at one of you guys’ raids?” Webster asked.

Ezra was thrown off by the bluntness of the question, and before he even had a thought to answer, Cunningham slapped his teammate with the back of his hand.  “Jesus Ron, that’s just not cool.  You don’t go around gossiping about that kind of shit.  It’s bad karma.”

Webster looked remorseful.  “Sorry,” he said apologetically.

Cunningham turned to Ezra as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pants pocket.  He gestured to Webster as he spoke to Standish.  “Ron’s new.  He doesn’t know all the ins and outs of this shit yet.  Don’t mind him.  Smoke?” he held out the pack to Ezra.

“No, thank you,” Ezra replied, thankful for the change in conversation.  “Those things will kill you.”

Cunningham smiled as he lit up.  “Shit, if I live long enough to be killed by these, I’ll consider myself lucky.”  He puffed once, then held out his hand to Ezra.  “Jerry Cunningham.”

Ezra shook his hand.  “Ezra Standish.”

“No shit?” he said, disbelievingly.

Ezra smiled.  “No shit.”

“I’ve heard your name before.  Good to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Jerry took another drag on his smoke.  “Hell of a thing, this undercover shit.  Mark, our UC, he’s pretty damn good.  But I don’t think I could do it.  I don’t know how you guys handle it.”

“Us guys?” Standish asked, surprised that this man knew what his specialty was.

“Told you, I’ve heard your name before.”

“That could be a bad thing, in my line of work,” he said, smiling.  “So, who else got picked up today?” Ezra asked, looking over towards where the suspects had been taken for transport.

“Well, let’s see.  One of those fellas, he won’t say a damn thing.  The other one, we got a name.  What the hell was it…? Ron,” Cunningham turned to his partner.  “What’s that older guy’s name?”

“Uh, something Spanish.  Galvez, I think.  Think his first name is Raul or something like that.”  The young agent shrugged.

“Rafael Galvez?” Ezra asked.

“That’s it,” Webster confirmed with a nod.  “I was close.”

Ezra couldn’t breathe.  Why was he dizzy? 

“Well gentlemen,” he managed to say.  “I must resume my duties.”

“Nice talkin’ with you, Standish,” Cunningham said, reaching to shake his hand again. 

Ezra took it and shook it robotically, turning away and walking at as normal a pace as possible towards the cars.

He was here.

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Buck stood by the suburban, conferring with Chris and Vin.  Josiah and Nathan were still off somewhere.  All of them had finished their perimeter search, with nothing useful to report. 

JD came walking up to Buck at a fast pace.

Buck turned as soon as JD came into view, his conversation forgotten.  There was concern written on the young agent’s face. 

“Buck,” JD said, keeping his voice low.  “Where’s Ezra?”

“Walking the perimeter, like the rest of us.  He got the back.”  He gestured to the area beyond the cars and the building.  “Wh—“

JD cut him off.  “Galvez is here.”

Chris turned and faced JD directly.  “What?”

“Galvez.  He was one of the ‘associates’ that they arrested.”

“Shit,” Chris said.  “Buck, get the guys.  Find him.  I don’t want Ezra to run into the guy.”

Buck was already in motion.

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He was here.  He was here.

The sonofabitch that outed him and Buck to Mendez was here.  Ezra stalked back up the hill towards the power station, intending to make it to the cars beyond.  Galvez would be there. 

The man responsible.

The man at fault.

The source of his pain.

He needed to see him. 

If he could look into his eyes, maybe he could understand. 

He needed to understand.  He needed it to stop.

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Nathan and Josiah had stopped when Josiah’s phone rang.  On the other end, Buck relayed Galvez’s part in the bust. 

Josiah’s face remained impassive during the call, but Nathan saw his eyes immediately start to search the surrounding area.  Jackson waited patiently as the phone call ended.

Josiah exhaled slowly as he put his phone back on his belt clip.

“What?” asked Nathan.

“You won’t believe this.  Galvez is here.”

Nathan looked up to the sky in disbelief.  He turned and started walking, Josiah keeping stride right beside him.  “We gotta find him,” Nathan said.

“Before he finds Galvez,” Josiah said.  “God, what are the fuckin’ odds?”

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Buck saw him first.  Ezra was walking at a normal pace, but he had a look on his face that was a mix of pain, confusion and hatred.  It was a subtle look that anyone who didn’t know him very well would miss.  But Buck had seen that look before – that night in Ezra’s condo between the two of them. 

Standish looked possessed.

Buck walked quickly, trying not to garner any attention from the lingering DEA agents, but still needing to get to his friend before he made it to the car that Galvez was sitting in awaiting transport.  He came to a stop directly in Standish’s path, holding his arms up away from his sides, towards Standish’s shoulders, hindering his friend’s progress.

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Ezra came around the brick building with one thing on his mind: Galvez was here.  His gaze landed on the unmarked cars sitting not 40 yards from him.  His eyes found their target sitting in the back of the dark blue sedan.  He walked with a purpose, his stride calm but determined, and he tried to keep his face impassive.  He casually flicked the safety strap on his holster so he could grab his weapon more easily if he needed it.

Then there was an object in his way.  He moved to the side, but was unable to pass.  He focused on the obstacle.

Buck.

“Don’t,” Buck said.

“Move, Buck.”

“No.”  Buck stood his ground.  At this point, the others had seen where their two teammates were, and they were converging on them.

“I’m not playing here Buck.  Move.”

“You don’t want to go there,” Buck said, holding a finger in front of Standish, almost as if asking him to wait a minute.

“Pretty sure I do,” he said, more intent on getting to his destination now that he had been thwarted.

Buck put his hand on Ezra’s chest to stop him from proceeding.

Ezra pushed the hand away and shoved Buck backwards.  Buck’s balance never wavered.  The two men seemed to struggle for a grip on one another as arms grasped and released each other in a power play to gain the upper hand.  Buck maneuvered them towards the side of the building out of anyone’s line of sight. 

Someone came up behind Ezra, trying to pull him back from his shoving match with Buck.  The southerner’s response was far from expected.

Spinning around, Ezra swung his right fist towards his assailant, connecting with an unsuspecting face, sending his ‘attacker’ to the dirt. 

Once Standish’s back was turned, Buck wrapped his arms around him from behind and propelled the southerner forward, getting him further around to the side of the building. 

Ezra kicked out in a blind panic.  He was here.  It was happening again.

A foot connected with a shin and Buck yowled as he let go. 

Ezra spun, keeping his back to the brick wall of the building, crouched and ready to fend off an attack.  Figures danced around him - blurry figures with unclear faces.  His heart thundered in his chest, his breathing came in quick pants.  Not again.  They wouldn’t be so lucky this time.  This time he intended to fight.  The figures came into focus… Mullins.  Mendez.  Galvez.  Emilio.

Not this time.

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Vin got himself up out of the dirt, his nose bloody and dripping.  JD helped him up and steadied him.  Ezra sure could pack a hell of a punch.

“Ezra…” Buck tried. 

Ezra had his back to the brick wall and faced his teammates in a fighting stance.  The panic and the fear was plain as day, illustrated across his pale features.

“What happened?” asked Nathan as he joined the group.  He went to Vin to check his bleeding nose.

“M’fine,” Vin mumbled.  It sounded like he bit his lip when he was punched.  He spit blood onto the ground nearby.

“He just freaked out,” JD said.  “Now he’s looking at us like we’re gonna kill him.”

“I don’t think he sees us,” said Josiah.

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Ezra was ready.  Never again.  Never again would he be submitted to the kind of things Emilio had done.  He would die first.

‘Mullins’ moved towards him.

He lashed out violently.

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Buck reeled from the kick that landed in his gut, the wind knocked out of him.  He knelt down on the ground in a three point crouch and tried to breathe slowly.  As his breath started to return, he managed to squeak out, “Fuck.”

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Why did they wait around like that?  No fight he had ever been in had worked out this way.  Bad guys didn’t take turns.  Not that he was complaining.  The one at a time stuff only happened in movies and bad TV shows.

‘Galvez’ waited in the background, looking on anxiously.  Wait, that wasn’t right.  Galvez wasn’t there… 

‘Mendez’ inched closer, then stopped.

“Come on you bastard!  I’m ready for you this time!” he snarled.

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“Come on you bastard!  I’m ready for you this time!”

“Ezra,” Josiah tried.  “Ezra, listen to my voice.  Come back to us.”

“Careful, Josiah,” Vin said nasally.  “He still has his gun.”

Josiah stopped his approach and tried to see where Ezra’s gun was.

“No he don’t,” Buck croaked from his crouch.  He held it up to show them that he had managed to snag it from the agent during their shoving match.

Josiah inched closer.

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Ezra moved around like a cornered animal.  An angry cornered animal.  One that had nothing to lose and everything to gain by defeating his opponent.

‘Mendez’ moved to his left, so Ezra countered with a similar move to his left, always keeping his face to ‘Mendez’.  He slowly moved away from the wall, keeping his opponent in his sight. 

He was so focused on the man he faced that he left his back open as he moved inches away from the wall.

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Chris saw the opening as Josiah moved to his left.  Chris moved to the right as Josiah kept Ezra’s attention.  Chris came up against the wall to Ezra’s left and hugging it, slowly made his way towards Ezra’s partially exposed back.

This had to stop, and before Ezra accidentally killed one of them.

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The feeling hit him suddenly, that of being exposed.  He swore his heart stopped as he realized… where was Emilio?

Then he felt his arm grabbed from behind and twisted painfully around and up behind his back.

He threw his head back in a desperate move.  He kicked backwards trying to find legs.  He clawed with his other hand, trying to find purchase on anything. 

He was failing.

Again.

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“Ezra!” Chris ground out through clenched teeth.  He had managed to wrestle Ezra’s left arm up and behind his back, but the man kept struggling and was coming close to getting loose. 

In a move Chris had never in a million years thought he would have to perform on one of his own men, he shoved Ezra into the brick wall and pinned him there with his own body.  Ezra’s right hand was trapped between his own torso and the wall.  Chris got his legs in between Ezra’s and pushed them apart, keeping the man from kicking backwards and hitting him. 

“Josiah,” Chris barked out between panted breaths.  “Make sure no one is on their way over here.”

Josiah hesitated a moment before turning to go around the side of the building and make sure that no one walked into their situation.

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He was failing.  Emilio had him.  He was going to cut him, again. 

His heart almost escaped his chest as his face hit the wall and his arm was pressed further up between his shoulder blades.  He felt his legs part, and he realized he couldn’t fend off his attacker.

“We’re not done yet,” Emilio’s voice said in his mind.

Ezra threw his head back.

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Chris only just managed to get his nose out of the way when his agent threw his head back.  Even with his quick reflexes, Ezra managed to make contact with the blonde’s cheekbone, sending flesh into his teeth within his mouth.

“Son of a bitch,” Chris growled.

He twisted the arm tighter, partly out of fear and partly out of anger.  How had it gotten to this?

“Chris,” Nathan was shouting from next to Vin, who was still dazed.  “You’ll pop his shoulder!”  The concern was clear in his voice.

“And then you’ll fuckin’ fix it!” he shouted back, not looking.  It was time to end this.

Standish was still panting and thrashing, his muscles in his neck clearly straining in the attempt to get free.  Chris could feel the muscles in Ezra’s arms continue to try to push back and fight.

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He was pinned.  He was trapped.  He was bested.

Again.

He had failed again.

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Standish strangled a sob as he thrust his own head toward the wall.  Chris immediately moved his right hand to hold his agent’s head still against the wall.

Ezra released a growl from deep in his throat that grew into a sound of pure frustration and despair.

Chris breathed deeply, then spoke as calmly as he could.  “Ezra, stop.”

Ezra pushed one more time, as if trying for one last chance at being free. 

“Ezra, I need you to calm down,” Chris pleaded, not letting up on his grip.  His own muscles were beginning to quiver from the strain of holding his struggling agent.

Standish released a shuddering breath, ending in a strangled sob. 

Then he went lax, his muscles finally giving up their fight.

Chris was suddenly unsure if Ezra was even going to be able to stand if he let him go.

“Is he ok?” JD asked Nathan.

“He will be.”

“Ezra,” Chris said, removing his hand from his friend’s head.  He could see now the tears that ran down his face.

“Not again.  Please.  Not again,” he pleaded quietly.

“Nathan,” Chris called over his shoulder.  Nathan made his way over to the two men.  “I’m gonna slowly let him go.  I want you near.”

“His shoulder?”

“No, I think it stayed.”

Chris slowly removed his weight from Standish.  Ezra’s right hand was freed and slowly came down to his side.  Chris slowly untwisted the left arm from his back.  Ezra started to slump down, and Nathan stepped in to turn him so his back was against the brick.  Chris and Nathan eased him onto the ground.

Ezra’s eyes were screwed shut, his face tormented.  Nathan squatted down next to him and started talking calmly to the distraught agent.

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He could hear the voices.  He could.  But if he opened his eyes and it was some sort of cruel trick… if somehow Emilio’s face was there but Chris’s voice came from the mouth, he was sure he would just roll over and die.  He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.  He breathed deep shuddering breaths.

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“You all right?” Buck asked Chris as he backed away from Ezra and Nathan.  Wilmington held Standish’s gun in his waistband, and held his arm around his tender midsection.

“I haven’t had to do that since…” he let it hang, his voice trailing away.

“I know,” Buck said, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Chris blew out a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair and then down his face.

“Fuck.”

“Says it all, don’t it?”

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In one last bit of strength and hope, Ezra opened his eyes.  He expected that face of his nightmare to be smiling at him, pleased at its own evilness.  When Nathan’s kind, sympathetic eyes met his, he closed his again immediately.  It was too real.  Too real.

He was losing his mind.

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Nathan continued to talk to Ezra.  He seriously doubted that Ezra was hearing what he was saying, but he hoped his voice would have a calming effect on his friend. 

Ezra opened his eyes again, this time with more recognition in them.  He looked at Nathan and blinked slowly.

“It wasn’t real?” he asked hoarsely, closing his eyes.

Nathan shook his head.  “No, Ezra.  It wasn’t real.  Whatever you saw wasn’t real.”

“It felt so real.”  He opened his eyes and looked around at his friends.  Vin’s lip was puffy and bloody.  Buck held a protective arm to his midsection as he talked to Chris nearby.  Chris had a haunted look in his eyes as he glanced over towards him.  JD stood near Vin, keeping his distance and giving space to the southerner, while keeping an eye on Vin.

“Josiah?” Ezra asked.

“Went to make sure we didn’t have an audience,” Nathan said.  He no sooner finished speaking and Josiah came around the corner.

“Welcome back,” the big man said, looking down at Ezra, still sitting on the ground with his back against the wall.

“Everything ok over there?” Chris asked.

“No worries.  Cars are gone.  Just the cleanup detail left.  We’re free to go as soon as we’re ready.”

“Can you walk?” asked Nathan.

Ezra stretched his leg out in front of himself.  “I think so.  They feel like jelly.”

“You were fighting pretty hard,” Nathan replied.

He was fighting like hell.  Buck remembered Vin saying that at the warehouse.  He shook his head sadly. 

“Let me help you,” Josiah said, leaning down and helping Ezra to his feet.

“How about you?” Nathan glanced at the Texan.

“I’ll live.  I’ve had worse.”  He dabbed his lip with his sleeve.

The battered members of ATF Team Seven made their way back to their suburban and got in.

JD, who had been fairly quiet up to that point, chewed worriedly at his lip.  Ezra looked at him, easily spotting the tell.  “What is it, JD?” Ezra asked.

“Nothing.”

“Just ask,” Ezra said, somewhat peevishly.

“What were you trying to do?” he asked tentatively.  He knew it really wasn’t the time, but he just witnessed one of his friends seriously snap.

Ezra took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose.  He knew everyone wanted to know what, in fact, he thought he was doing.  “I wanted to see.”

“See what?” JD pushed.

“Galvez.” 

“And do what?” JD continued to push. 

“I don’t know,” he replied tiredly, closing his eyes.  Josiah started the truck and pulled away.

The ride back to the Federal building was made in silence.

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They trudged back to their desks.  Everyone was spent.  Fuck inter-agency cooperation.  Fuck fresh air and exercise too. 

Ezra pulled out his bottle of Advil and dry swallowed two.  He then wordlessly tossed the bottle to Vin, who caught it with ease and took out two pills for himself and tossed the bottle back.  It was as much of an apology as was needed.

Nathan caught Ezra’s eye, and motioned towards his watch.  Ezra glanced at the time.  It was 3:15.  His appointment was at 4.  He nodded at Nathan. 

Focusing on his computer, he pulled up his email.  He wrote a short one line email and sent it to Nathan.  Will you come with me?

He stared at the screen, waiting for the response from Nathan, sitting only a few feet away.

His email alerted, signifying incoming mail.

He opened it.  Of course.

Five minutes later, they both wordlessly started to gather their things.  Ezra’s email alerted again.  He opened it, seeing it was from Vin.

Just to let you know, I just got word from a friend of mine that they have Galvez in the building here, on the third floor.  If you want to see him, you could.  I understand why you want to.

Ezra looked up at the Texan, who just nodded at him.

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Ezra walked into the observation room with his normal look of indifference.  He greeted several of the officers holding Galvez in a jovial manner.

When the door to the observation room closed softly behind him and Nathan, his look of indifference fell. On his face he wore a confused, contemplative look. He watched the little man sitting at the table in the other room. He was short and old, his skin sagging under his chin and making his Adam’s apple a lost feature. The sun spots on his face and balding head starkly contrasted with his gray tufts of hair. He wore thick glasses that continued to slip down the bridge of his nose, and he squinted even through the prescription.   

The man who had outed him and Buck, the man who Ezra was sure was a pure kind of evil, looked like nothing more than someone’s sweet old grandfather. 

Galvez stared at the mirror in the room, knowing full well that it was a two way.  Ezra stared back, looking in the man’s eyes.  The man responsible.  The man behind all of his pain.  The man, who he was sure if he looked into his eyes, he would understand the evil that had been perpetrated against himself, and could go on with his own life.

And looking at the sad little man, Ezra realized that he didn’t understand.  Not one bit.

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After several minutes, Nathan walked over to his friend staring through the observation window.  “Ezra?”

Ezra took a breath but didn’t look at Nathan.  He jutted his chin slightly in answer.

“Let’s go,” he said softly, laying a gentle hand on Ezra’s shoulder.

Ezra blew his breath out his nose, and nodded slightly.  He then took another shuddering breath, and turned and headed for the door, his friend at his side.

~end~