Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The building on the outskirts of Toronto was much like most of the other buildings on its block, all of them high-rise condominiums packed full of apartments and families.  The builders of this particular condominium had been a bit more adventurous, crafting a building that used glass as its primary exterior, with large concrete rectangles providing additional support for the balconies and floors of the building.  The structure itself was staggered, with a large outdoor area above the building’s fourth floor and the rest of the building taking up progressively less space.  On the building’s west side, an additional four floors rose to another outdoor area before narrowing to match the rest of the building and rising another two floors.  Above even those floors, the topmost two floors were also the smallest, reserved exclusively for those willing to pay for the most elaborate views and largest penthouses.

A black and white helicopter hovered above the eighth floor outdoor area on the west side, its pilot watching carefully for any signs of activity below him.  His co-pilot and backseat engineer were likewise engaged, all of their attention focused on the high-rise’s lobby and the graceful second and third floor balconies that overlooked it.

In the middle of the lobby, two men were struggling near a large device; one was wearing a black and gray uniform while the other wore an all black uniform that looked as if it had been inspired by medieval armor.  Though the first man – lean and raven-haired – was putting up a good struggle, his tan-skinned foe was winning the fight, slowly forcing the first man back and away from the device.  Except for the two combatants and the device, the lobby was empty and the doors to the nearby office hung open, as though the occupants had left in a hurry.

Above them, on the second floor overlook, another fight raged as a brunet in black armor – the same as his tan-skinned first floor counterpart – struggled with a blond man in black and gray.  Right next to the fight, a brunette watched, expression disinterested and her posture lax, despite the fact that she wore a uniform just like the blond’s.  The blond’s teeth bared in a snarl as the brunet wrestled his weapon away, gasping in something like relief.

On the first floor, the tan-skinned man reared back and punched his opponent in the face, stunning him long enough to drag him over a meter away from the ominous device in the middle of the lobby.  He paused near a handy pillar and punched the nearly unconscious raven again, knocking him out.  Opponent dealt with, the officer was starting to turn when a gunshot rang out; the device detonated, flinging both men into the far wall like ragdolls.

As the explosion echoed, the brunet caught a suddenly limp blond and twisted, looking up with a horrified expression.  Above them, on the third floor balcony, a tall bald man was lowering a sniper rifle, face completely blank and light blue eyes glazed over.

* * * * *

133 hours earlier (6 days earlier, 9:37 PM Toronto time)

Lisa watched in awe as the Red October dove away from the torpedo trying to destroy it.  Beside her, Lou had his arm draped over her shoulders, a wry smile on his face as he regarded her amazement at the old movie.  He was watching her more than the movie; he’d seen it a thousand times before and knew all the scenes by heart – or nearly so.  It was much more fascinating for the constable to watch as Lisa leaned forward, completely enthralled by the Red October’s fight for survival.

Her deep brown eyes sparkled in that way he adored, widening in delight as the USS Dallas threw itself in the line of fire, deliberately passing behind the Red October to acquire the Soviet torpedo.  “They’re doing it, Lou!”

“Sure are,” Lou agreed, smile turning into a grin as Lisa bounced.  Under his breath, he murmured, “ ‘Hope to Christ this works.  All right, Chief, put us on the roof.’ ”

On the screen, the actor voiced the same lines, the temporary captain turning to the temporary second in command, who coolly calculated the timing before the Dallas escaped the pursuing torpedo.

Watching the sub shoot upwards, Lou whispered, “ ‘Come on, Big D, fly.’ ”

Lisa cheered as the sub burst out of the water, its nose rising dramatically in the air before gravity pulled it down with a huge splash.  The Red October’s crew, oblivious to their captain’s defection, cheered as well, celebrating the battle between their sub and the Americans.  At her side, Lou watched the action with fresh eyes, enjoying the movie all the more because she was enjoying it.

He had, out of a certain sense of obligation, introduced Lisa to the requisite chick flicks and romance comedies at first, mentally gritting his teeth at the absurdities both genres seemed to revel in.  Wordy watched them with his family after all; they couldn’t be that bad.  Except…they were worse, taking all the fun out of movies and obsessed with stereotypes that Lou had never seen in real life.

Still, Lou was prepared to endure for Lisa’s sake, though he did beg Wordy to point him to some better female-friendly movies – surely they couldn’t all be so…bland, biased, and downright boring.  To his surprise, Wordy had taken one look at his list of movies and tossed it on the spot.  Then he’d lent Lou his family’s copy of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, promising to have a much better list in a day or two.  The tan-skinned constable had taken the two-part movie home, dreading the experience, then ended up laughing just as much as Lisa at the antics of Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, and the famous Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

By the time Wordy came through with his list of movies, Lou had already hit on a better strategy.  Start with the classics and work his way forward.  Though he’d been nervous when he put in Ghostbusters, Lisa howled at the library ghost scene and he knew they’d be all right.  Wordy’s list had much the same idea and even included a ‘Do Not Watch Under Any Circumstance’ section that Lou wished he’d had earlier – most of his original list was in that section.

On a whim, the constable popped in Memphis Belle one night and was utterly shocked when Lisa loved it, eagerly demanding more action movies.  He obliged, soon discovering that Lisa’s taste in movies was more similar to his own than he’d thought.  At first, Lou fretted, worried he’d influenced her away from genres she might enjoy, but she simply whacked him on the shoulder and told him she was more than capable of deciding what movies she liked.

Obediently, he stopped worrying and soon found himself thoroughly enjoying Lisa’s voyage of discovery.  Movies could show them places they would never visit and times that were long past, something magic probably could do, but for some reason, never had.  At least, not from what he’d seen.  Aside from a few cautions that movies needed to be taken with a grain of salt – or simply seen as fantasy – Lou kept quiet and just watched his girlfriend explore her chosen world.  He was thinking about introducing her to his video game collection next, but had yet to decide which title would give her an easy time while still allowing her to see what video games could do.

Absently, Lou turned his attention back to the movie, smirking at the sight of Alec Baldwin aiming his gun at the Russian cook/saboteur.  Lisa gasped and cuddled close to her boyfriend as the hero fired, ending the internal threat to Red October.  Lou hugged back, reveling in her innocent joy.  It was easier than dealing with his own emotions.  Easier by far than handling the tangle of the past several months.

On the screen, Baldwin and Connery made it back to Red October’s command deck, both of them observing as the Dallas’s captain gave the order to turn the massive sub towards the other Russian sub.  To himself, Lou mouthed, “ ‘The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch.’ ”

As the torpedo shot towards its originating sub, Lisa tensed, then screamed; the boom of the on-screen explosion in perfect sync with someone pounding on the door.  Lou snapped up his remote, pausing the movie before he strode to the door; a frown appeared when he checked the peephole.  He pulled the door open, brows arching at the man panting on the other side.

“Wordy?”

“I got company,” Wordy gasped out, glancing over his shoulder as Lisa joined her boyfriend, worry shining at the visible cuts and bruises on the big constable clad in an old t-shirt and shorts; the clothing was sweat-stained and the man himself had dirt and grass stains on his hands and knees.

Several cracks interrupted Lou’s first question and the three were caught off guard by the wizards in dark robes and white masks.

“Impedimenta (1)!” Lisa screamed, her wand appearing in her hand to point past Wordy’s arm at the newcomers.  A turquoise beam leapt at the foremost wizard and Lisa stepped forward, expression fierce.  Brandishing her wand, she hissed, “Flipendo (2),” casting a blue spell at a second wizard that knocked him backwards into his fellows.  More spells followed as Lisa cast a quick shield before engaging the dark wizards in a whirlwind fight that swiftly escalated.

“Lou!  Your badge!” Wordy rapped out, whirling to face his pursuers, fists rising.  Lou dove back into his apartment, scrambling for both his phone and badge; he had no idea if anyone besides a member of Team One could trigger the Portkeys, but he wasn’t taking any chances.  Not with Neo Death Eaters on his front step.  The Auror seized both and gave a fleeting thought to his backup weapon before shaking his head and racing back to the door.

“Wordy!  Got ‘em!” he yelled, plunging out into the hallway.  “Lis!”

“On it,” the witch acknowledged, casting a wide angle Banishing Charm before tossing a locking spell at the apartment door.  Wordy snarled as his target flew away from him, but hustled to his teammate’s side.

Lou held out the phone instead of the badge.  Larger and untraceable.  “Lis, grab on.”  Wordy’s hand landed on the phone at nearly the same instant as Lisa seized his shoulder.  “Haven.”

The Portkey whirled them away.

* * * * *

They landed hard and the trio ended up sprawled all over each other on the safe house floor.  On the bottom of the pile, Lou winced, hoping they hadn’t accidently broken Lisa’s wand; until he and Wordy could get to the backup guns hidden in the safe house, it was their only weapon.  Above him, his team leader groaned and the less-lethal specialist relaxed; Lis was on the top.

It took a minute or two to untangle themselves and Wordy muttered something rather ungracious under his breath, but Lou didn’t say anything.  They’d all changed since Sarge had…left.  They’d even changed as the initial shock and grief wore off.  Ed took Sarge’s protectiveness towards his team to new heights, mother henning all of them to death.  Wordy went the opposite route, becoming cool and cold.  He still cared; they all knew that; but he rapped out orders with a rigid, unforgiving edge to his attitude and tone.  He wouldn’t let them get close either – either physically or emotionally.  Not even Ed had been spared Wordy’s change of heart, prompting more than one fight between the best friends.

Jules and Sam were still dating, but it was more out of a sense of obligation than because they truly wanted to.  Lou, the team’s new backup negotiator, had pressed Jules on why; they’d been willing to risk their spots and their entire team, so what had changed?  She hadn’t answered, instead snapping that he should focus on learning how to negotiate better.  He hadn’t asked again, opting to just watch instead.  He watched them dance around each other and he knew.  They still loved each other, but somehow, someway, Sarge had been an integral part of it.  In losing him, they’d lost their foundation and without that, their whole relationship was falling apart.

Lou understood, even if it was different for him; he hadn’t met Lisa through work and though his team had saved her, they weren’t part of his relationship.  Not that Sarge’s death hadn’t affected him and Lisa; it had, but it wasn’t the end of them.  He’d lost count of the nights he’d practically cried himself to sleep in Lisa’s arms, grieving a man who’d almost been a second father to him.  She never complained, just held him and stroked his hair.  Her strength had given him enough of his own to get through each day without him.  It would never go away, but slowly, painfully, Lou was coming to terms with his boss’s death.  Though he would never forgive himself or his teammates for letting Sarge fall.  For believing the lies he’d been forced to tell them.  He would never take a sudden change in a friend at face value ever again.

Which just left…Spike.  If Ed had gone all mother hen and Wordy had gone completely cold, Spike had turned into a shell of a man.  Apathetic and going through the motions; there was no life in his voice or his eyes.  He did his job and went home, falling into bed almost as soon as he was through the door – at least according to his mother.  Lou had tried inviting Spike over to his place, but the bomb tech had refused in a dead monotone that did nothing to hide how badly he was taking the Sarge’s death.  One night, Lou had simply turned up at the Scarlatti residence and bullied Spike out of bed, but it hadn’t done any good.  Spike had merely sat on his floor, knees tucked close and chin resting on the space between them while he hugged his legs.  He’d refused to respond to any of Lou’s prods and Lou knew he’d gone back to bed as soon as his friend left the room.  Wary of Spike’s behavior, the budding negotiator stole his friend’s backup gun and found something new to worry about when Spike failed to demand it back.

“Coming?”

Lou came out of his reverie and eyed Wordy warily, not liking that cold, uncaring tone from his friend.  In those few instants at his apartment, he’d seen the old Wordy and he wanted that Wordy back.  Not this near stranger who’d replaced the generous, good-hearted constable who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit’.  The Wordy who always offered encouragement and did his best to see the good in people, no matter how bad a situation got.

Without speaking, Lou pushed himself back to his feet and let his eyes narrow.  “Wordy, what’s going on?”

Wordy swallowed hard, half-turning away from his teammate.  “Look, just gimme a sec to see if Shelley and the girls made it.”

Shelley and the…  Lou’s jaw dropped open, horror lighting his eyes.  What in the world was going on?  Without any further protest, constable and witch followed the big man down the stairs into the lower, protected level of the safe house.  It was something Giles had insisted on when they’d first come up with the idea of Portkeys set to a safe house; in theory, it meant Team One could hide themselves and any one they brought with them if need be.  Not that they’d needed it…until now.

To Lou’s considerable relief, Shelley and the girls were in the basement, safe and sound, though they were all shaking with nerves and fear.  Lou hung back, holding out an arm to keep Lisa still while Wordy hurried to his family.

“Daddy!” Ally cried, reaching out to her father; Wordy scooped her up and threw his free arm around Shelley.  Their remaining two girls clung to their parents’ legs and Lou was forced to swallow a lump in his throat.  Their Wordy wasn’t gone, just buried by grief and regret.  Struggling to adjust to a world without Sarge and find his place as Team One’s new team leader.

For several minutes, the couple simply watched the family, neither of them speaking, though their concern and curiosity was palpable.  Finally, Lou cleared his throat – while reluctant to break Wordy away from his family, he and Lisa needed to know what the heck was going on.  Why had Neo Death Eaters been chasing Wordy and why was his family in the safe house?  Worse…where was the rest of Team One?

Somehow, Lou had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer to any of his questions.

* * * * *

Wordy stiffened at Lou’s discrete cough.  He knew Lou needed to know what had happened, why he’d turned up on his teammate’s door with dark wizards right on his tail, and Lisa deserved to know what she was in the middle of.  But with his imagination running wild and ‘what-if’s pressing down, it was…hard.  Hard to let go of his family and face the music.

Gently, Shelley pried Ally away from him and nodded towards the patient couple.  Wordy smiled weakly; he’d always known she was stronger than him by far.  Then he drew in a deep breath and turned to face Lou head on.  “So.  Explanation.”

“That’d be nice,” Lou agreed, meeting Wordy’s gray eyes.

Sighing, Wordy scrubbed his hands through his hair.  “Okay.”

* * * * *

“It started an hour ago.  Maybe two.  I was out in the front yard…”

Kevin knelt in front of his wife’s garden in their front yard, enjoying the cool night air while he worked on a particularly stubborn part of Shelley’s prized plot.  No matter what she planted, nothing grew in this corner, so she’d turned to her husband to fix whatever the problem was.

The break was nice, as was the chance to tackle an issue that had nothing to do with work.  There was still a hole in his chest from Sarge’s loss.  Hole.  More like a ripping, rending wound that wept with loss and sorrow and grief.  Kevin jabbed his hand shovel into the dirt, pretending, if only for a few seconds, that he wasn’t Team One, wasn’t a cop at all.  Just another suburban husband working on the honey-do list and whiling his Sunday away.

A frown appeared as he dug through the dirt.  Something about the dirt seemed off, though he wasn’t an expert.  Hmmm…  This might just call for reinforcements from the local hardware store.  Expert assistance.  Now…how to break to the news to Shelley…

“Evening, Word.”

“He came outta nowhere, Lou; Ed doesn’t do that.”

“I know, man; keep going.”

Kevin jerked to the side, on his feet and brandishing the shovel before he registered his friend’s presence.  “Jeez, Ed, don’t you make any noise?”

Ed didn’t laugh and his expression was bland as he regarded his constable.  “Come on, we got a call.”

The brunet’s eyes narrowed.  “Ed, we’re off until tomorrow,” he countered.  “Besides, if there’s a hot call, you could just call me.  On my phone.  You didn’t have to trek all the way out here.”

The other didn’t react at all – and something about the look in his eyes was starting to trip Wordy’s alarm bells.  “Come on, let’s go.”

Wordy was about to snap at him again when another sound drew his head sideways to see Sam and Jules, standing near his front door.  A tiny spark of awareness and desperation shone in blue eyes.  Realization hit the big constable like a kick to the gut and he whirled, hurling his shovel at the wizard who’d crept up behind him and been about to curse him.

The man staggered back, sputtering outrage, and Wordy launched forward, slugging his opponent in the jaw before he took off, racing for his front door.  Sam and Jules never even twitched as he shoved past them.  “Shelley!” he yelled, ramming into his own hallway; quickly, deliberately, he snapped around and threw his door shut, one hand ramming the deadbolt home.  “Claire!  Lilly!  Ally!”

“Kevin, what’s wrong?” Shelley asked, stepping out of the kitchen.

“Grab my phone and hurry,” Wordy ordered, whipping back to face her.  When she didn’t move, he snapped, “Now.”

While she ducked back into the kitchen for his phone, Wordy raced for the bedroom and his backup gun.  He swooped in and snatched his badge off the bedside table; he was about to go for his gun case when he heard splitting wood.  Instinct screamed and he threw himself back into the hallway, hurtling for Shelley and his daughters.

Claire appeared from her room.  “Dad?”

The big constable skidded to a stop and thrust the badge into her hands.  “Go get your sisters, Claire.  You know the trigger phrase, right?”

“Yes, Daddy.”  Fear shone in her eyes, but she stood tall.

Wordy forced a smile.  “Good, go.  I love you.”

She wanted to hug him, he could tell, but instead she scrambled away, calling, “I love you, Daddy,” over her shoulder.

Good girl.  He ran for the kitchen, smiling at Claire’s yell of “Haven!” from behind him.  Ahead of him, Shelley had his phone.

“Kill her!”

No!  “Haven!” Wordy roared; Shelley vanished an instant before Jules could fire.  The brunette turned right into her teammate’s body check.  She tumbled into Sam and Wordy caught that flash of true awareness in the blond’s eyes before he was through his front door again.

Ed was right outside; the collision took both men down as a yellow-green curse sailed over their heads.  Wordy rolled sideways and scrambled back to his feet, running full pelt for the street.  His teammates’ cars were parked all in a line and Wordy felt his stomach drop at the sight of Spike’s sedan.

Wait… Where was Lou’s car?  Hope exploded in the constable’s chest, maybe he wasn’t alone, maybe they still had a chance.  He stumbled as his foot caught the lid of some city utility thing in his yard; in the second it took to recover, he realized Sam’s car was running.  You crazy…  Sam…you’re doing it, aren’t you?  You’re fighting them.

With no further hesitation, Wordy dove for the car, sliding inside and peeling out before any of the Neo Death Eaters could stop him.  As soon as he was away, the officer put the car in high gear, racing for Lou’s apartment complex.

* * * * *

Lou whistled low under his breath.  “All of them?”

Wordy slumped, looking more careworn than Lou could ever remember and that was saying something in the wake of their Sergeant’s death.  “Yeah, Lou.  All of them.”

“Sophie?  Clark?  Izzy?”  Thank Aslan that Spike’s mother had just left on a month-long trip back to Italy.

Wordy bit his lip.  “No idea,” he admitted.  “But probably.”

For a long moment, silence hung around the small group, the weight of the situation sinking in.  “Dang,” Lou whispered.  With most of Team One Imperiused and no idea of where, when, or why it had happened, they were, well and truly, completely on their own.

[1] Latin for ‘a hindrance’

[2] Derived from ‘flip’ and ‘end’

Chapter Text

Having been used as Portkeys, both smartphones were completely dead.  Lou located the charger in the safe house and hooked up his own phone, mostly because Shelley still had Wordy’s and they only had the one charger anyway.  As he hooked up his phone, Wordy retrieved the backup weapons from their hiding place in a gun safe that had been cemented into the safe house’s basement floor.  The safe itself sported a ten digit number and wards to check the magical signature of whoever was trying to open the safe.

Lou knew Team Three’s safe house had all the same precautions save the magical signature ward – which really should’ve tipped him off.  The ward predated Fletcher Stadium, but somehow the less-lethal specialist had never thought to question how four pure techies could be detected by magical signature.  Setting the matter aside, he looked up and took the gun belt and tactical holster Wordy offered him, buckling both in place before accepting the gun.  He pulled the slide back, inspecting the chamber before he released the slide and popped out the magazine to check the rounds.  Satisfied all was in order, he slapped the magazine back in place and holstered the weapon.  No round in the chamber, but that was deliberate.  Their best chance was to go undercover instead of charging in, guns blazing.

“Sa…Sarge’s gun is still there.”

The tan-skinned constable pretended not to notice the stutter.  “We haven’t been to the safe house in months, Wordy.”  Therefore, the gun was still there, waiting for a man who would never come.

“I know.  I just…”

Lou turned, unwilling to let the hanging thought slide.  “What?”  He studied the other man for an instant.  “Wordy, what?  What did you think?”

Wordy met his gaze, then looked away.  “I thought Blackroot said Gringotts would recall any weapons that don’t have owners anymore.”

A chill ran up Lou’s back, then he shook his head.  “Wordy.  They’re the SRU’s guns.”

For a long moment, his team leader stilled, then he huffed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.  “Copy,” he whispered, anguish shining for a split second before he locked it away, expression turning cold and rigid.  “Can you turn your phone on?”

“Not yet,” Lou admitted.  “Gonna need some more power in the battery.”  And for all the work that Gringotts had put into the phones, the battery was one of the weak points.  If it was fully drained, it would take almost half a day to recharge.  He flicked his gaze up, meeting Wordy’s eyes.  “How long since you last ate?”

Gray flickered.  “Not important right now.”

“Yeah, it is,” Lou countered.  “We aren’t going anywhere if you keel over from hunger, Word.  And drop the act; it’s not gonna help them.”

Wordy glared, but Lou wasn’t about to let it go.  Not anymore; it was time and past for his team leader to stop freezing them out.  Not to mention, if they were going to save their teammates, they couldn’t afford anything less than true unity.

As the team leader’s glare deepened, Lou’s eyes narrowed.  “Downstairs,” he ordered.  Not giving Wordy a chance to argue, he prodded and shoved the other man towards the stairs, only pausing long enough to stick his head into the safe house’s tiny kitchen and ask the two women to find something for all of them to eat.  Lisa opened her mouth, but her boyfriend shook his head and ducked back out.  Whatever she had to say would wait long enough for him to – hopefully – straighten Wordy out once and for all.

Down in the basement, the two men faced off, Wordy’s gaze so cold and rigid that Lou felt like shivering.  But they didn’t have time for Wordy to get over whatever had been bugging him since Sarge died.  Their teammates needed them, but he couldn’t trust the other man to have his six.  Not as he was.

“Wordy, we all miss him,” Lou started, holding up a hand before the brunet could interrupt.  “But you’re taking it way too far, man.  It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”  He drew in a deep breath.  “Wordy, I don’t trust you right now.”

Gray darkened and the team leader turned away; Lou let him.  Jules was doing her best and so was he, but he knew he still had a ways to go before he could really be a negotiator beyond the cross-training all of them had.  All he could offer were his heartfelt convictions and observations.  Inside, he prayed it would be enough; he wanted his friend back.

After a minute, Wordy glanced over his shoulder at his patient teammate, expression rigid and unforgiving.  “That’s all you got to say, Young?  You don’t trust me anymore?  Just like that?”  Cold fury rang.  “Our teammates are under the Imperius and you choose now to not trust me?”

“Wordy, listen to yourself,” Lou begged, heart breaking.  “Would you trust you right now?  Would you trust a team leader who’s all about results and all about the bottom line instead of looking out for the team?”  Frustration rose.  “C’mon, Wordy, right now I’d trust Team Four’s old bomb tech before I trusted you.”

The big constable stiffened at the deliberate insult.  “You’d trust the guy who shot Giles over me?”

No, not really, but Lou jerked a nod, refusing to let Wordy see the lie.  If the lie would break through his friend’s self-imposed shell, then it was worth it.  “When’s the last time you asked any of us how we’re doing, man?  When’s the last time you laughed or pulled a prank?  When’s the last time you talked to Spike about how he’s been acting?  Or how about Jules and Sam; you check up on them lately?”

“Spike?  What’s wrong with Spike?”

A thread of worry, slender and hardly there, but Lou seized it like a lifeline.  His dark eyes met Wordy’s gray.  “You really wanna know?  Or you just gonna shut us out some more?”

The challenge rang, hanging between them like a drawn sword.  Broad shoulders bunched in indignation, then hunched in shame, their owner reeling away from his teammate’s accusing gaze.  Eyes averted, he whispered, “Just tell me, Lou.”

Lou frowned at the desolation, the ragged loss and the sense of inevitability.  “You giving up on him already?  What’s that gonna do, huh?”

Wordy hunched even more, cringing away from Lou’s penetrating stare.  “I gave up on him.”

The air chilled around the less lethal specialist and he knew his team leader wasn’t talking about Spike.  “We all did,” he whispered back.

“Ed didn’t.”

Lou shook his head, ignoring the fact that Wordy wasn’t looking at him.  “Yes, he did,” he countered firmly.  “Wordy, we all gave up on Sarge.  We all let him push us away and we all believed the lies he told us.”

“At least you didn’t give up on your brother.”

It was Lou’s turn to reel, eyes going wide as the pieces clicked together.  He’d thought Spike was the only one of them who was Sarge’s magical brother, but…  But Wordy had done the magical brother ritual with Spike before Sarge had.  For crying out loud, that first ritual was why Sarge had done the second one.  Which meant…  Lou swallowed hard, fists clenching as he absorbed the new information, but it didn’t matter.  Instead, he hardened his gaze and spat, “So you’re gonna give up on your other brother?”

Wordy flinched violently, gray darting to meet Lou’s.

“No, you know what, I take that back,” Lou snarled, fresh outrage pooling in his gut.  “You gonna give up on your other brothers?  And your sister?”

The brunet’s jaw dropped open, but as soon as the lean constable said the words, they both knew.  It was true, though how it was true, neither of them could’ve explained.  It simply was.  Not by blood, except for Spike and Wordy, but still.  Family by spirit, by heart, by magic.  Lou felt power thrum within him and somehow, he wasn’t at all surprised by the sensation.  Some part of him had already known about the magic – known and accepted it.  He could even feel a responding vibration from Wordy’s magic.

Wordy retreated a step, but his eyes were wide with the same wonder that Lou felt.  The magic…it felt like Sarge and yet, it was theirs.  For several moments, the sudden warmth in their chests grew stronger, silently pleading with them to stand together.  To bring back their family and restore their lost freedom.  Lou’s eyes slid closed at that grieving anguish; it was his and yet not.  Following in its wake was an intense determination to do whatever was necessary to stop the Neo Death Eaters and free their teammates.

“Lou?”

He wrenched his eyes open again, almost gasping at the weight of the power pressing in on him.  Even as he tried to meet Wordy’s gaze, the magic intensified, demanding his instant compliance, his immediate action, regardless of the consequences.

Hands closed on his shoulders and gray caught his dark eyes.  “Lou, breathe!”

The constable sucked in air, nearly choking on it, but as he did so, the foreign magic retreated.  He shivered, waiting for it to press down on him again, but it didn’t, instead retreating to the edge of his awareness.  A second after that, it seemed to vanish and he couldn’t feel it any more.  “What…what the heck was that?”

“Wild Magic,” Wordy replied, his tone coldly grim and yet, more like himself than it had been since his promotion to team leader.  The big constable paused, eyeing Lou carefully, then continued.  “It felt more like Lance’s than Alanna’s, though.”

Lou shook his head.  “No, man, it felt like Sarge.”

“Only not,” Wordy murmured, his remark in perfect sync with Lou’s thoughts.

The less-lethal specialist frowned, one hand brushing his chest.  “Felt like us, too, but…”

“Still not,” Wordy finished.

The two exchanged bewildered glances; what on Earth was going on?  Abruptly, Lou felt the magic rise again, but it didn’t feel like Sarge or himself.  Didn’t feel like Wordy either.  Instead, he had a sudden, almost blinding sense of Sam, desperately fighting and struggling against an icy cold darkness.  The sensation only lasted a few seconds, then it was gone, but in its wake, Lou saw the magic lurking within him from another angle.

“Like us,” he muttered, “But not.”  Magic that was wild, yearning to be free.  Unwilling – or unable – to submit to anything that tried to take that freedom.  But how had they gotten Sarge’s mag…  Oh, crumb.  “Wordy,” he blurted, head jerking up, “It’s the magic from when Sarge got dosed in the hospital!”

Wordy released him, jerking back with a slack-jawed gape.  “I thought that went back to him.”

“Me, too, man, but I don’t think it did.”  Lou scrubbed his hands through his black buzz cut.  “And think about it, it makes sense.  Why would Sarge take the magic back, anyway?  His core stopped generating too much magic, but it didn’t stop generating magic, so when was he gonna take it back?”

The team leader backed away, expression turning decidedly unnerved.  Lou felt the same; to have his dead Sergeant’s magic running through his veins…the idea itself felt wrong.  He shivered, resisting the urge to hurl – they had a dead man’s magic.  How was that even possible?  Was it any wonder that they’d pulled away from each other?  Had their subconscious sensed the unnaturalness of what was going on and started pushing them apart in some kind of attempt to end the situation?

Within him, magic flared back to life, its protest almost audible.  And though Lou fought to push it back down, it would not be denied; he felt his eyes begin to burn, as if the magic was glowing within them.  Instinctively, he turned his head away, closing his eyes as he continued to struggle against Sarge’s magic.

“Wait a sec.  Lou, look at me.”

Confused, Lou obeyed, startled when his team leader’s eyes widened in something like…hope.  “Wordy?”

“Lou…your eyes.  They’re bronze.  Not scarlet.”  When Lou kept staring at the brunet, bewildered, Wordy leaned forward.  “That’s your color, Lou.  Not Sa…not his.”

The magic pulsed in insistent agreement, wrapping around the constable with a sense of reassurance.  Not foreign, not alien, not wrong.  It was his, part of him even though he’d been born with none.  And in that reassuring thrum of power, Lou felt something else.  The links, they were still there.  They were what he’d felt before, they had been the power pushing him to save his teammates.  Wordy’s magic had triggered the response, but it had been his magic that had forced that overwhelming need back.

His magic was still working, too, pulling on Wordy’s magic, trying to communicate on a level neither man consciously understood – and yet they did.  Rebuilding the bonds they’d nearly severed in the aftermath of their boss’s death.  Reluctance screamed, but Lou willed himself to grip the magic and pull it back.  To force Wordy’s choice, it was just as wrong as the Imperius.

“Lou.  It’s okay.”

He’d closed his eyes again; the less-lethal specialist opened them, staring at Wordy in pure dismay.  “It’s okay?” he cried, fists clenching.  To violate his friend’s free will was okay?

Wordy flinched, looking away.  Then he drew in a deep breath and swung his gaze back, an odd determination shining.  “You’re right, Lou.  I’m pushing all of you away.  I’m the team leader, I can’t do that.  You guys need to be able to trust me and you can’t do that if I’m shutting you out.”  His gaze lowered, a miserable expression crossing his face.  “But, Lou…I don’t know how to let you in again.”

“Yeah, you do,” Lou insisted, stepping forward and grabbing his teammate’s shoulders.  “You’re doing it right now, buddy.”

“Because you’re helping me,” Wordy confessed, glancing up.

Lou swallowed hard, understanding.  Because his magic was whispering to Wordy’s and bypassing stubborn, newly ingrained defenses to speak directly to the heart.  With a nod, he released his magic and held Wordy’s gaze until it was done.  To his mixed gratitude and dismay, Wordy returned the stare, never even flinching as his magic and Lou’s magic combined to completely alter his mind.

* * * * *

Wordy supported Lou up the stairs, doing his best to ignore the implications of Lou having magic.  Not just a magical signature, magic.  Not to mention the even more unnerving implications of what their magic could do to them.  The big man was careful to stay quiet as he bypassed the safe house’s kitchen and headed up to the building’s second floor.

Initially, there’d only been one small safe house for the entire SRU; just a bolthole, really.  No gear, no weapons; it was the place their badge and phone Portkeys were set to and that was all.  The loss of the Canadian Ministry of Magic changed that.  Although it had taken months of planning, plotting, and sneaking behind the Neo Death Eaters’ collective backs, all four SRU teams now had good-sized safe houses – though only the Team One and Three safe houses were in operation.  In an emergency, the safe houses could act as a temporary miniature barn, complete with weapons, gear, food, and even beds.  More had been envisioned, but there simply hadn’t been enough time to get the safe houses fully stocked according to Holleran and Locksley’s admittedly ambitious plans.

The team leader wasn’t sure how much food they had, but he was sure the women had already taken stock.  Hopefully, Lisa could get them more supplies if they needed it.  Giles was out of town, visiting his son in McKean Magical Prison, so he was out.  The kids…

Wordy froze partway up the steps, then hefted Lou’s arm over his shoulder and behind his neck so they could move faster.  Exhausted, Lou could hardly keep up and the team leader ended up almost dragging the other constable up the rest of the stairs and to the safe house’s one bedroom.  He let his teammate down on the bed, making sure his head hit the pillow before he strode out of the room and scrambled back down the stairs, angling for Lou’s charging smartphone.

Shelley stepped out of the kitchen, only to jerk back as her husband swooped by.  Wordy snatched up the phone, thumbing the power button and inputting the PIN set up for the team phones.  There was an anxious moment as he flipped to the contacts, then he breathed out in relief and tapped a number.

The phone rang once, twice, three times before going to voice mail.  “Call me on Lou’s number,” Wordy ordered before hanging up, fresh panic rising.

Seconds later, the phone in his hands rang and the constable snapped it back up to his ear.  “Sorry, Uncle Lou, just missed it,” Lance apologized, chagrin echoing.

Relief slammed the big man, forcing him to clear his throat before replying.  “Hey, kiddo, it’s me.”

“Uncle Wordy?” the teenager asked.  “Why are you using Uncle Lou’s phone?”

“Mine is dead,” Wordy admitted sheepishly.  “Listen, where are you and your sister right now?”

“Getting ready to head back,” Lance replied.  “I, um, I was actually about to call you to let you know the Gringotts meeting ran late.”

A fresh wave of relief ran through him and he sagged against the wall behind him.  “Thank God.”

“Uncle Wordy?”  Bemusement rang; thanksgiving wasn’t usually the response to a meeting running late.

Pain wrenched his chest, stealing breath and nerve alike, but Wordy forced the report out.  “Don’t go back to my place, Lance.  Don’t go anywhere near there; Team One’s been Imperiused.”

“They what?”  Indignation and fury.

“Stand down,” Wordy ordered, no give at all.  “Shelley’s safe, the girls are safe, and we might be down, but we are not out.  Not by a long shot, kiddo.  Lou and Lisa are here with us and we’re gonna get them back, I promise.”  Without giving the young man any room to interject, he continued, “Now what I need you to do is look after your sister, okay?  I need you to keep her safe and keep yourself safe, too.  Let us worry about the rest of Team One.”

“But…”

“No,” Wordy countered, harsh and unyielding.  “No, absolutely not, Lancelot.  You gotta let us do our job and we can’t do that if we’re worrying about you and your sister, understand?”

It took several aching, long seconds, but finally, Lance managed, “Copy that, Uncle Wordy.”  He swallowed hard, then asked, “What about Aunt Sophie, Clark, and Izzy?”

The team leader slumped.  “I’m sorry, kiddo, I don’t know.  All I know is that everyone besides me ‘n’ Lou are Imperiused.”

He heard a whispered consultation on the other end of the phone, then Lance said, “We’ll get them out.”

“You will not,” Wordy snapped.

“If you and Uncle Lou free Team One, then they’re expendable,” Lance retorted.  Wordy’s throat closed at the declaration.  “Someone has to get them out before that.  If we can’t help you with Team One, then we can do this.”  It was Lance’s turn to pause, then, with a soft, conciliatory note, he murmured, “We’ll be really careful, Uncle Wordy.  I promise.  We’ll even take Mindy with us; she can get us out if something goes wrong.”

Air rasped through his lungs, but what could he say?  No?  If Ed’s family died, his one remaining best friend would be shattered; Sophie, Clark, and Izzy were all that kept Ed going any more.  But to lose Sarge’s kids…  Anguish screamed inside him – he, no, they, couldn’t lose anyone else.  Just losing Sarge had broken them.  Through numb lips, he heard himself rasp, “You swear?”

“I promise, Uncle Wordy.  You won’t lose us and we’ll get them back.”

For a moment, his jaw worked, then he snapped, “You’d better not die on us.  If you die, I swear I’ll find a way to resurrect you and ground you until the next millennium.  That clear?”

“Crystal,” Lance agreed at once, wry amusement and laughter lurking in the background despite the situation.

Wordy sagged, but hung up, flipping through the contacts again to find another number.  He eyed the battery level narrowly, but tapped the number anyway.  The phone would just have to hold out a little longer.

To his surprise, the call was answered at once.  “Constable Young, you’d better have one hell of a good explanation.”

“Ah, sir?” Wordy stumbled.  “It’s, ah, Constable Wordsworth, actually.”

Commander Holleran’s freeze was momentary, but audible.  In a much less hostile tone, he asked, “Any particular reason you’re using your teammate’s phone, Wordsworth?”

“Yes, sir, mine’s dead,” Wordy reported.  He closed his eyes, then soldiered forward.  “Commander, I’m declaring OMAC Project.”

Holleran stilled again.  “Anyone besides yourself unaffected, Constable?”

“Constable Young.  They came for me first; tried to Imperius me, but I managed to get away and warn Lou.  We’re at the safe house right now.”  He fidgeted, wondering if he should explain further, but kept his mouth shut.

For close to a minute, Commander Holleran did not speak, weighing his constable’s report, then he sighed heavily.  “Wordsworth, Team Three is down.”

“Sir?”  No, no, no; they’d sent Team One after Team Three?  “Is anyone…”

“No, thank God,” Holleran replied.  “No fatalities, but you and your teammate are on your own; they managed to take Roy Lane down, too.”

“And Giles is out of town,” Wordy filled in numbly.

“That’s correct,” Holleran agreed.  “I can arrange for you and Young to get your magic-side armor and more supplies, but beyond that…”

Gray eyes flicked back and forth.  “They hit the Auror Division, too?”

“That, I’m not sure of, but Commander Locksley is in the middle of tracking down a potential mole.  If I call them in, I’ll have to give them the location of the safe house.”

Wordy winced, understanding and accepting his commander’s decision.  “Copy.”  He swallowed, then winced at a soft beep from Lou’s phone.  “Sir?  I’m about to run out of battery power here.  We’ll take the armor and supplies.”

“Copy that, Wordsworth; I’ll be over there sometime tomorrow morning.”  With that, the line went dead.

Wordy let down the phone, almost numb.  Team Three down and no Auror backup, just what Holleran could sneak under the radar.  They really were well and truly on their own.

God help us.

* * * * *

Over the meager dinner Shelley had been able to put together, Wordy outlined their situation, refusing to hide anything, even with his daughters at the table.  Lisa cringed when he was done.  “The Imperius,” she whispered.  “By Morgana and the Morrigan.”

Wordy met her gaze, refusing to flinch.  “There’s gotta be some way we can get it off them,” he insisted.  “How’d they get it off during the wars?”

Another cringe.  “Usually, they didn’t, Auror Wordsworth,” Lisa admitted.  “That was one of the things that terrified people most.  You had no idea who you could trust and back during the First War, no one outside of the Death Eaters knew about the Dark Mark.”

The team leader frowned.  “So, they’d wear masks during the raids and ‘cause no one knew about the Mark, there was no way to identify the Death Eaters?”

“That’s right,” Lisa replied.  She scowled down at her meal.  “I think…I think you can override the Imperius, but someone would have to cast it again.  Replace the first Imperius, then lift it.”

Wordy closed his eyes.  Not an option for him and Lou regardless, plus he suspected if Lisa did it, she’d be arrested, regardless of her motive in casting an Unforgivable.  “Any other ways we can get it off?”

The young witch winced.  “Um, well, if someone has a strong enough will, they can sometimes throw it off, but…”

“But…?” Wordy prompted.

“But it would probably take a long time and it might leave them with permanent damage,” Lisa confessed, biting her lip.

The team leader grimaced.  “Well there goes that idea,” he muttered.  Although…  Frowning, he attacked his meal, letting his mind sort through a…something…that had attracted his attention.  Just under the surface, at the tip of his tongue.  The beginnings of a plan.

He let it sift and percolate as Lisa and Shelley plotted out how to get more food supplies to the safe house without drawing attention.  Outwardly, he chuckled at Shelley’s now bright red hair and green eyes before she and Lisa left for a nearby magical grocery store.  While they were gone, he took his daughters upstairs and set up bunk beds for them to sleep on, even as his mind churned.  Even after the women returned safely and enlisted his help to put the groceries away in the tiny kitchen, he continued to think and muse.  Throughout what remained of the evening, he kept quiet, allowing all the puzzle pieces to drift and fit into place, little by little.

By the time Lou stumbled down the stairs the next morning, still half-asleep, but starving, Wordy had a plan.

Chapter Text

“Wordy, did you get any sleep?” Lou demanded as he dug into his breakfast.

The brunet couldn’t blame the other man for asking.  If his hair had been longer, he would’ve looked a fright, especially coupled with the dark circles under his eyes and haggard lines of stress on his face.  He couldn’t get the images of Sam’s faint plea or Ed’s blank gaze out of his mind.  And more than that…

Wordy cut that train off and replied, “I’ll get some after this.  Your phone came back enough for me to call Lance and Holleran.”

“Backup’s coming?”

Sorrowful, Wordy shook his head.  “Team Three’s down and so is Roy.”  At his teammate’s sharp intake of breath, the team leader tried for a calming half-smile.  It felt more like a grimace.  “Relax, no one’s dead.”  Yet.  “But we’re on our own.  Holleran told me Locksley’s in the middle of hunting down a possible mole.”

Lou slumped.  “Dang.  Now what?”

“Holleran’s going to bring us our armor and more supplies,” Wordy replied.  “Think you can track their phones?”

“Sure thing,” Lou confirmed, voice fierce.  “I’ll call Holleran and see if he can bring me Spike’s laptop.”  Pausing, he pointed at his teammate with his fork.  “Get some sleep, man.  You’re no good to them dead on your feet.”

Wordy tossed the other man an ironic and sloppy salute as he snatched a bagel and rose.  He would’ve liked to go over his whole plan, but they had time.  And he really was tired.  The constable ate as he headed up the stairs, only vaguely registering the lush taste of fresh bagel.  The details of his plan were settled and firm in his mind, freeing him – unfortunately – to think about other things.

Like the creepy-crawly feeling of magic running through heart and soul, callously bashing through every last emotional defense he’d built for himself in the aftermath of his boss’s death.  Wordy flopped down on the open bed, a shiver crawling up his spine.  More than even the looks on his teammates’ faces, he was haunted by the feel of magic sweeping through him, reforging bonds he’d willingly broken, rekindling emotions he’d done his level best to smother and bury.  Forcing him to feel again.

Only now did he realize what he’d been doing.  In locking away his heart, he’d been killing the man his teammates depended on and his family loved.  As unnerving as the magic had been, as much as a part of him was utterly and completely appalled at how his mind had been forcibly altered and transformed without his consent…  It had done what he no longer could.  He’d locked himself in and shut everyone out; the magic had blown that cage to bits, leaving him dazed and blinking in the metaphorical sunlight, almost a stranger to himself.

But in opening up, the hurt, grief, and anguish he’d buried as deeply as possible seared anew.  To feel again…it hurt all the more because he’d buried his emotions and pushed them away.  Two months and Sarge’s body still wasn’t identified.  His soul keened at the lack of closure, loss ripping into him as if it had only just happened.  The world was wrong and there was no way to make it right again.

The big man rolled onto his side, shaking with the effort to hold back his grief.  When three sets of arms wrapped around his arm, waist, and neck, he gave up and sobbed in his daughters’ embrace.

* * * * *

When he woke up, the big constable was thoroughly embarrassed, but he felt…cleaner.  As though, by finally letting go of the coldness and the tough guy act, he had finally started to deal with the grief he’d been busily ignoring and suppressing.  Finally started to heal.

He’d lived with denial and anger so long that he’d forgotten they weren’t the end of grieving, only the first steps.  With an almost silent sigh, Wordy pushed himself up and headed down the stairs.  It was time to stop existing and start living again.  But though he wasn’t angry at his and Lou’s magic for forcing his hand, he could not and would not forget and move on.  It might’ve been for the best, but the magic had had no right to force him into accepting his grief and letting Lou in.  He never wanted that to happen again.

Inside the safe house’s kitchen, he found Shelley and Lisa chatting while Lou focused on his computer, fingers flying and determination etched on his face.  Snagging a sandwich from the plate on the center of the table, Wordy asked, “Any luck?”

“Yeah, they’ve got their phones and Holleran says Donna was able to confirm the Imperius.”

Wordy breathed out in relief.  Confirmation was always a good thing in his book, though that still left the problem of how to break the curse.  “Holleran say anything else?”

Lou shook his head.  “We’ve got ammo and armor, but the rest is up to us.  He can’t risk getting Teams Two or Four involved.”

“Copy,” Wordy acknowledged heavily, dropping into a chair.  “All right, here’s the plan…”

* * * * *

Wordy, clad in shorts and a loud Hawaiian shirt, browsed through a Toronto tourist magazine as he watched Ed out of the corner of his eye and through a window.  Lou was much closer, lurking in the same store aisle.  A risk, but Ed seemed incapable of noticing anything beyond whatever task he’d been given.

It made the big constable wonder; surely the Imperius was more effective than this.  Lisa had made the mind-control spell sound like it should’ve been nigh impossible to detect a victim of the curse.  In theory, even the OMAC protocols shouldn’t be foolproof, but not only had they worked the first time his best friend had been Imperiused, this time, Wordy had been able to detect a problem in seconds.  Fast enough to save himself from the same fate.

It gave him hope.  Hope that they could break the curse without too much trouble.  Perhaps whoever had cast the spell wasn’t experienced enough to keep his victims behaving ‘normally’?  Or maybe all that Wild Magic was making itself useful?  Or, Wordy realized grimly, maybe the caster wasn’t bothering.  Even from his post outside the hardware store, he could see that Ed was acting normally enough that the clerk had no idea his customer wasn’t…all there.

Ed strolled out the door with his purchases, walking right past Wordy without any pause or hesitation.  The brunet let his friend get some distance, then turned and wandered after him.  The constable strolled along, reaching out to take the snack Lou was offering him as the shorter man slipped in next to him.  Without speaking, the tan-skinned officer held up his phone, a map showing them where all the other Team One phones were.

“What he’d get?”

Lou grimaced.  “Nothing good.”  At Wordy’s arched brow, he said, “Bomb materials.”

Wordy’s jaw dropped open in unfeigned horror.  “Bomb supplies?” he hissed.  “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, man,” Lou confirmed unhappily.  “All they’ll need is the actual explosive and this is gonna be one heck of a bang.”

Gray sharpened.  “How much damage are we talking about?”

“Wordy, if they use all the stuff Ed just bought, we’re talking about mass casualties.  He got enough shrapnel for a dozen pipe bombs.”

Wordy forcibly shut down the part of his brain vehemently insisting that his teammates would never commit such a horrendous crime.  No, they wouldn’t, but that was the point.  They weren’t in control of their actions, not with the Imperius in play.  “If they’re smart, they’ll have Spike build it.”

Lou nodded grimly.  “I bet he’s already building it.”

“Could you disarm it?”

The backup bomb tech considered the question seriously.  “Maybe,” he finally replied.  At Wordy’s askance look, Lou shook his head.  “Wordy, Spike’s one of the best bomb techs in the SRU.  Maybe even in the city.  He knows bombs, inside and out.  I can back him up, but…”

“…that’s what it is,” Wordy finished.  “You backing him up.”  At the silent nod, he grimaced.  “We need to even the odds.”

“That would help,” Lou agreed.  “If we can get close and get a look at the bomb, that might give me an idea of what we’re up against.”  He brightened.  “Hey, maybe I can sabotage it!”

“That’s a negative,” Wordy replied firmly.  “If they really do have Spike building them a bomb, then that’s what he’s gonna be good at right now.”

Lou frowned, but nodded reluctantly.  “He’ll catch any sabotage.”

“ ‘Fraid so,” Wordy murmured.  “And that’s assuming the Death Munchers don’t catch you.”

The tan-skinned constable snickered at the weak joke.  “So what’s the plan?  Get close and see if we can figure out what they’re building?”

“That’s a start,” Wordy concurred.  “Come on, we gotta move.  If those supplies Ed bought are the last ones they need…”

“Team One, hot call,” Lou whispered.

Just as softly, Wordy replied, “Let’s keep the peace.”

* * * * *

Although the two officers did, in fact, manage to sneak close enough to get a good look at the massive bomb Spike was building, no sooner did they get that look when their luck ran out.

Lou’s eyes widened in shock and involuntary disbelief as Sam and Jules cut off their escape routes, weapons drawn and up under expressions that were twisted in clear anger – except for their disturbingly blank eyes.  Spike slipped in behind them, gun in hand and also up, and Ed stood looking at them with a smug, superior leer on his face.  The less-lethal specialist registered Wordy edging in front of him, automatically putting himself in the line of fire, and felt a pang.  What a time for their Wordy to make a comeback – right in the middle of being forced to treat his best friend like a subject.

“How valiant,” one of the dark wizards behind Ed sneered, derision and scorn writ large on his face as he lifted his wand.  “Imperio.”

A part of Lou registered another wizard casting the same spell before Wordy moved, jolting him sideways before his momentum and Lou’s bewilderment tangled limbs and took them down.  In the confusion, only the tan-skinned constable saw both curses hit Wordy.

* * * * *

Oh, yeah, he was really starting to hate that mind-control curse.  Lou swallowed the yelp that threatened to emerge when Wordy slammed him to the ground, knees first.  The constable craned to look up at his friend, cringing inwardly at the blank, glazed look on his face and in his eyes.  One spell and his last remaining teammate was gone; a part of him wished Wordy hadn’t saved him.  Then at least he’d be oblivious instead of staring up into the inevitable.

“Hold him still,” one of the dark wizards ordered coldly.

Wordy didn’t speak, but his hands tightened on Lou’s shoulders, the pressure almost painful; the less-lethal specialist glared up at the wizards, defiant to the last and one hand on his phone.  A shift of his fingers and he hit ‘send’.  No matter what, the Neo Death Eaters had to be stopped.

“Imperio.”

Involuntarily, Lou flinched away from the onrushing curse.  Then he was shoved sideways, toppling to the ground; the yellow-green spell struck Wordy instead of him.  From the ground, the constable gaped, then cringed as another wizard roared the curse.  Without the slightest hesitation, a blank-faced Wordy threw himself forward over Lou, absorbing the curse before it could hit his teammate.

And on it went; to Lou’s utter astonishment and downright bewilderment, Wordy kept doing it.  Not so much as a single Imperius slipped past the big man’s guard to enspell the sole remaining member of Team One.  Although he obeyed every order given to him, still Wordy protected Lou from losing his freedom.  The tan-skinned officer couldn’t understand any more than the frustrated wizards, though he was incredibly grateful.

At length, the Neo Death Eaters gave up and ordered Wordy to drag Lou to a cell.  The team leader obeyed, clamping down on his teammate’s arm with a grip so strong that the shorter, leaner man could feel his muscles protest – if they survived, he was going to have a very impressive bruise.  Then he dragged the younger man through the hideout to a makeshift cell.

Once at the cell, Wordy’s latest controller ordered him inside.  Lou, still in his grasp, was dragged in as well; he cringed as the cell door clanged shut behind them, but shot the wizard a lethal glare.  The Neo Death Eater leered and cast the Imperius one last time – Wordy lurched automatically into its path.

Dismissive, the wizard turned away, focusing on the blond constable who’d followed the small group to the cell.  “You, Squib-born,” he snapped, “Guard them!”

“Yes, sir,” Sam replied in a dead monotone.  Lou watched with dread as Sam took his post and the Neo Death Eater turned back to the pair in the cell, glee shining.

“Squib!  Give me all your means of escape or communication.”

Without speaking, Wordy obeyed, taking out his phone and badge to hand over.  Once the wizard took them, he marched over to Lou and took his gear, expression blank and almost lifeless.  Despair engulfed the constable as the wizard incinerated everything he’d been given.  No way out now – and who knew how many civilians would pay the price by the time the Neo Death Eaters were finished with their Team One toys.  All he could hope was that Holleran could rally Teams Two and Four to stop Team One’s rampage.  Dreadful thing, to hope for your friends’ deaths, but Lou knew.  They’d rather die than be slaves, forced to betray those they were sworn to protect.

“Squib!  Do you have any weapons?”

“No.”

Lou shuddered at the monotone from his friend, then shuddered again as the wizard’s smile turned cruel and utterly vicious.  “Excellent.  Now beat your companion to death.”

The constable backed away involuntarily, eyes widening as Wordy turned towards him, expression blank and fists rising.  The wizard cast them one last leer, then left, laughter ringing in his wake.  “Wordy, don’t!” Lou yelled.  “You don’t want to do this.”

“Yes, I do,” Wordy replied and for the first time, there was emotion in his voice – a desperate longing that sent a jab of terror down Lou’s spine, for it sounded just like a druggie jonesing for his next fix.  Only this was a ‘fix’ provided by a mind-control spell that had just turned one of his best friends…into his murderer.  Before Lou could do more than brace himself, the big constable lunged, fist swinging for his face.

* * * * *

A low groan alerted Lou that his cellmate slash up-close-and-personal jailor was waking up.  Mentally, the constable braced himself – a lucky dodge and counterpunch had taken Wordy down before he could get more than a blow or two in.  Much as Lou regretted it, better that he kept his friend unconscious unless he wanted to end up really fighting for his life.

With that in mind, the less-lethal specialist slipped around Wordy and levered his dead weight up enough to use a sleeper hold.  Outside the cell, Sam watched with dead, uninterested eyes.  Grim, Lou calculated the angles and brought his arm across, cutting off the blood supply to his teammate’s brain.

‘Lou, let go!’

Without thinking, Lou released.  Realization and horror dawned, but even as the constable tried to grab his teammate again, Wordy rolled.  Seconds later, the two men were glaring at each other from across the cell.  It took the tan-skinned constable a moment to register the awareness in Wordy’s gray eyes.

He nearly choked in newfound horror.  “Wordy, I’m sorry,” he blurted.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I…”

Wordy held up a hand, expression rigid, and Lou’s apologies trailed off.  For a long minute, the team leader assessed the situation, then he slumped, anger fading.  “Looks like it should be the other way ‘round, Lou,” he observed, chagrin plain.  “You were just trying to protect yourself, am I right?”

Sadly, Lou nodded, swallowing around a lump.  “Do you…remember?”

Wordy sat back, frowning as he considered.  “I think so.  Just taking a little bit.”  Curiosity peeked through.  “They didn’t Imperius you?”

In spite of himself, Lou laughed.  “You wouldn’t let them.”

“I wouldn’t…”  Gray bulged as memory surfaced.  “How?”

“Don’t know,” Lou confessed.  “I just know you did.”

From his spot against the makeshift bars, Wordy slumped.  “Dang.”  He marveled a moment longer, then slumped even farther.  “Now what?”

A clatter cut off Lou’s reply.  To the astonishment of both men, a magical smartphone slid to a halt at Lou’s feet, unlocked and glowing.  Involuntarily, Lou looked up at Sam – the only person who could’ve given them the phone.  The blue that gazed back was blank, but there was a shimmer of something under the surface – hope, defiance, desperation, and knowing.  The real Sam, peeking through the curse.

“Thanks, buddy,” Lou whispered, earning the tiniest of nods before Sam turned away again.  Wordy crept over as the lean constable scooped up the phone.  It was, Lou noted absently, already open to a number.

“Stringfellow Hawke?” Wordy asked in an undertone.

“Yeah, man,” Lou replied, eyeing the number.  Sam hadn’t picked it for no reason, after all.  He trusted his friend and so, he would trust Sam’s friend.  “Keep an eye out, would you?”  Wordy nodded and the constable hit the call button, listening to the phone ring for a few seconds before it was picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Stringfellow Hawke?”

“Who’s askin’?”  Suspicion rang.

Internally, Lou swallowed, but he forced his voice to remain steady and confident.  “Constable Lewis Young; I’m a friend of Sam Braddock’s.”

Suspicion ebbed, replaced by concern.  “Sam?  He okay?”

“No,” Lou replied bluntly.  “He’s under the Imperius right now and so is most of our team.  Wordy and I are the only ones left and we’ve been captured.”  He paused, sucking in air.  “Look, somehow he was able to fight the curse off enough to give us his phone with your number, so I’m hoping that means you can help us.  ‘Cause if we don’t get out of here, a lotta people are gonna die.  Our bomb tech’s building them one heck of a bomb.”

For a long minute, there was silence and both constables held their breath.  Then, in a rough tone, Stringfellow asked, “They know you got his phone?”

“No,” Lou said.  “I’m pretty sure we can hide it from them; Sam’s the only one guarding us.”

The other man made a considering grunt, then said, “All right, you two hang tight.  Gonna take me a couple hours to get there, but as long as you don’t lose that phone, I’ll be there and we’ll get you out and figure a way outta this mess.”

“Copy that,” Lou whispered, hope a vicious knife in his ribs.

“Don’t you give up,” Stringfellow ordered.

“Tryin’ not to,” the constable admitted.

A grumble, then, flatly, Stringfellow snapped, “Try harder.”  Before Lou could say anything else, he hung up.

* * * * *

It sounded like a cross between a wolf howl and shattering glass, right before both men registered the whump, whump, whump of helicopter blades.  They traded hopeful glances, then turned towards the front of their cell, tense and alert.  A few minutes later, a man with a similar build to Sam hurried in, laying the blond out flat with a single punch.  He wrestled with the lock a moment, then shoved the cell door open.

“Come on!” he ordered, whipping away and racing for the exit.  Wordy and Lou scrambled after him, easily keeping pace with their rescuer.  He led them through two hallways, then up a staircase that led to the roof.  As the group emerged, the constables saw the helicopter ahead of them.  The black and white craft hovered, sunlight gleaming off its paint; deadly and beautiful, all at once.

“Stop!”

Instead of stopping, the trio ran even faster towards the chopper, automatically ducking down as it swept forward, turning to be between them and the rooftop exit.  Wordy heard bullets spangle off that armored hull before Hawke pulled the door open and gestured them inside.  Lou swung up, Wordy following, and as soon as both men were in the back, huddled next to the engineer, the lean Hawke jumped up and pulled the door closed.

Beneath them, the chopper hummed as it turned and tilted forward, each sweep of her blades carrying them away and to safety.  The helicopter rose, gaining altitude until Hawke gave a clipped nod and touched a button.

The wolf howled once more as Airwolf leapt skyward.

Chapter Text

Dominic Santini was a crusty old Italian American veteran of a long forgotten time.  A time of wars and heroes that most fancied they remembered, but really, truly, only those who had been there remembered.  The greatest generation, they were called, but each and every one of his fellow soldiers had been boys.  Eager to serve their country and do their part to strike back against the German war machine.  Most of them had died in that effort.

For many years, Dominic had lived with bitterness, almost resentful that he’d survived while so many of his friends had died.  His bitter outlook on life had nearly destroyed him, costing him his marriage and his relationship with his daughter.  He’d been locked in a self-destructive spiral of lashing out and getting arrested for fights – not drinking, just angry – when one of his last remaining friends had stepped in.  To Dom’s astonishment, he’d been named godfather to his friend’s newborn son and adopted as an uncle by the newborn’s older brother.  To his even greater astonishment, as soon as those two little boys looked him in the eye, his life had changed.  They saw him as a good man, a great uncle, and the epitome of what they wanted to be when they grew up.  He knew he was anything but.  And yet, because they saw him as a mentor and role model, Dominic Santini felt a driving need to live up to that.  To become every bit the man they already thought he was.

Over the months and years that followed young Stringfellow ‘String’ Hawke’s birth, Dom rebuilt his life and career, learning to regard life as a gift, precious and irreplaceable.  The new outlook changed him, giving him a zest and enthusiasm for each day’s trials.  By the time String and his older brother Saint John – nicknamed Sinjin by his little brother – were eight and eleven, their Uncle Dom was a new man.  Jovial and hardworking with a budding career in helicopter mechanics and flying.  He’d just taken his first stunt job when the elder Hawkes drowned in a boating accident.

Although he’d been just as devastated as the boys, they needed him, so Dominic forced himself away from any temptations to reprise his former performance and focused on getting them through the days and years following the deaths of their parents.  It was in his friend’s will that the crusty, superstitious Italian first found out about the Hawke family secret.  Magic.  Every Hawke by blood possessed a power that his old Italian grandmother would’ve called demonic.  Although they’d long since lost their place in the traditional magical world, the family as a whole had an almost supernatural gift for flying and an inherent talent for understanding the machinery involved.  It was a gift his two young charges shared, allowing them to effortlessly pull stunts he’d spent years mastering.

For a day and a half, he’d struggled to come to terms with the idea, then he decided it didn’t make a lick of difference, no matter what his grandmother would’ve said.  String and Sinjin were no more evil than he was, with good, caring hearts and the will to become truly great men.  Better than he’d ever been, truth be told.  Magic or no magic, he loved them just the same.

And so, as the boys grew up, Dom worked with them, helping them to master their gifts and use them to best advantage.  Both of them flew as if born to the air, but they lacked the discipline to conquer their few weak spots, preferring to simply fly by the seat of their pants.  Without discipline, Dom knew they’d be no more than decent pilots, gift or no gift.  So he mentored them in that necessary discipline, sharing their joy in flying and even picking up a few tricks that an old veteran without magic could use.  He never resented them for their gifts – what lunacy, to resent his two adopted nephews for their God-given talents, but he did counsel them to keep the magic private.  Should anyone outside the family find out…  Dom shuddered, imagining his nephews locked up in some government research facility.  Bad enough that their aviation talents were already attracting attention.

As each young man reached his majority, they followed their Uncle Dom’s footsteps into the military, a gesture he felt truly honored by.  Later, he came to regret it, especially when Sinjin never came home and String withdrew into himself, becoming more rigid and taciturn than studiously shy and developing an almost obsessive need to protect those he loved.  And when he’d found out that String had joined the Firm…  Oh, how he’d wanted to hang the high and mighty Archangel from the rafters of his hanger and thrash him for giving String false hope that he’d find his brother on some mission.  He’d almost been grateful when Archangel pulled String into the Airwolf development project.

And then…that fink Moffet stole the experimental stealth chopper, leaving String as the last remaining test pilot for Airwolf.  He’d been just as furious as String over the theft of the Hawke family art – an effort by the Firm to strongarm String into tracking the missing aircraft down – and equally devastated over the news that String’s girlfriend Gabrielle Admuir had been murdered by the madman.  The pair had plotted and planned how to retrieve Airwolf and use her as leverage against the Firm, but the one thing they hadn’t counted on was Moffet being a wizard.

String managed to talk Archangel into getting him into a Canadian military unit that dealt with the magical world and went undercover, leaving Dom to fret and hover over the emergency number his nephew had given him.  Although Santini took great delight in stonewalling the great Archangel – who hadn’t a clue about magic – in private, he fumed and worried over his adopted nephew.  When Marella came to him, frantic to get in touch with String after her idiot boss got in over his head on some mission, Dom stonewalled her long enough to get her out of his hanger, waited until he was sure she was gone, then headed for his office and the emergency number.  Much as he disliked Archangel, he knew String regarded the blond spy as one of his few remaining friends; String would never forgive if he found out Archangel was dead and Dom hadn’t done anything to help.  Afterwards, String had gotten in touch with a new emergency number, then dropped out of sight again.

By the time String contacted him, years later, still gleeful over getting the stealth chopper back, Dom had almost given up hope.  As the two men worked with the Obscurus-cum-helicopter, String told him story after story about the years he’d been gone and the relationships he’d managed to forge.  Dom loved the stories and marveled at how much String was talking – more than he had since Sinjin’s disappearance.  They’d had the time for those stories, too; it had taken months to teach Airwolf that not everyone was as cruel and vicious as the parents who’d essentially murdered the child she’d been once upon a time.

On one of their early missions with Airwolf, the two men stumbled across a corrupt sheriff and a Texas Highway Patrol helicopter pilot in need of rescue.  Afterwards, the determined young woman tracked them all the way back to California, refusing to buy any of the admittedly flimsy stories Dom and String attempted to sell her about the magical stealth chopper.  In time, Cait O’Shannessy earned the trust of her new employer and coworker, enough that when Archangel found himself in over his head again – right after Dom had had a bad stunt crash – she was added to Airwolf’s crew, although neither man told her about the Obscurus.

* * * * *

As Airwolf hurtled through the air towards Toronto, Dom had time to consider their options.  He and Cait had been planning out the day’s appointments – a sight-seeing trip for some executive and getting another helicopter ready for a nighttime shoot – when String had come flying into the hanger, fresh from Eagle Lake and almost panicked.

“Airwolf.  Now,” he ordered, trying to hide his fear behind his usual stone mask.

His crusty old mentor shook his head, gray and white hair gleaming in the sunlight sneaking through the hanger doors.  “String, we’ve got a whole mess of work; tell that fink Archangel it can wait until tomorrow.”

String pinned him with a glare.  “It’s not Archangel,” he gritted out.  “Sam Braddock’s in trouble.”

“Sam?  Who’s Sam?” Cait asked, interest shining in pale blue eyes.  “Is he a friend of yours, String?”

“Yeah.  He and his team helped me get Airwolf back from Moffet,” String replied, gaze darting to the pretty brunette and away just as quickly; Dom found their dance rather amusing at times.  His eyes – a darker blue than Cait’s – focused on his mentor again.  “Dom, I owe him.  If we don’t get up there now, it’s gonna be bad.”

Though Cait pressed the taciturn pilot for more details, String refused to elaborate, simply chivying them out to a Santini Air jeep and on the road to the Valley of the Gods.  Which just sent chills up Dom’s back; String never withheld intel on a mission unless he had to.  Since Archangel had wrangled Cait the same security clearance that both String and Dom held, that left only one thing.  Magic.  Made sense, too; in amongst the stories String had told him about Sam Braddock, the old man had gotten the distinct impression that Braddock’s team was breaking every rule in the book when it came to the traditional magical world.  Breaking ground so new that no one had even known it existed.

Worse had been the one thing String managed to tell him, while Cait was checking Airwolf’s opposite side in their hasty preflight check.  The Imperius – Dom knew his magical knowledge was about the size of a teaspoon, but the Unforgivables…those had made one heck of an impression and he’d counted every blessing he could that Obscurus aside, String was out of that world.

With any luck, they could pull Braddock and his team out of trouble, then go home to California and let the insane Canadian No-Majs deal with the fallout.

* * * * *

Dom eyed the two men huddled up against Airwolf’s back cabin wall next to him.  Neither one matched the photo String had shown him once: himself and his JTF2 squad, but String seemed unconcerned.  Clearly, he’d anticipated that Braddock wouldn’t be one of the rescuees.  The old man huffed to himself, wishing he had more details about what the heck was going on.  One of the men glanced up at him, curiosity and intelligence shining in dark eyes.  “Thanks for the save.”

“Eh, don’t mention it,” Dom replied, well aware that String was busy guiding them away from Toronto’s mass of radar and aircraft; Cait was watching from the copilot seat, ready to help, her own curiosity palpable.  Flicking a look at his board, the Italian adjusted several settings, tisking to himself; the Lady was doing her best to learn how to handle radar on her own, but she still had a ways to go.  “Where are we dropping you two off?”

“We’re not,” String interjected before their passengers could speak.

“String!”

“Dom, they need help,” the brunet countered firmly, no give at all in his voice.  “And I owe ‘em.”

“If you’re talking about McKean,” the other man remarked, “No, you don’t.  We were just trying to survive.”

Mentally, Dom whistled – String had plainly left a few juicy details out of his story of Airwolf’s recapture – and resolved to inquire later.

“Maybe so,” String allowed, “but I promised Sam that if he needed me, I’d be there.”  Dom could almost see the determined glint in String’s eyes.  “He needs me.”

“Copy,” the first man whispered, ducking his head.

As the stealth chopper made her way through Toronto airspace, Dom kept a discreet eye on their passengers.  The one closest to him was sporting several bruises, including a rather nasty one on his arm that looked like he’d gotten caught in a vice grip.  The other man, while less bruised, was shivering every so often and rubbing a silver bracelet on his left wrist, almost as though the metal object had saved him from something.  Both looked as if they’d seen their worst nightmares come to life, veterans of a war – and a world – that even an old World War II vet wouldn’t touch with a forty foot pole.

Just as Dom determined to ask a question or two, the radio buzzed.  “Oh, wonderful,” Dom announced sarcastically, opening the channel as he did so.  “It’s the ice cream suit man.”

One of their passengers snickered softly as Archangel retorted, “Very funny, Dominic.”  Acid edged the Firm agent’s tongue.  “Perhaps, Stringfellow, you would like to explain why you felt the sudden need for a jaunt to Toronto?”

“I’m returnin’ a favor,” String drawled.  “Good friend of mine’s in trouble.”

“Ah, yes…”  Scorn rang loud.  “Is that a favor, Hawke, or are you attempting to mitigate his recent betrayal?”

The passengers bristled and Dom hastily waved them silent.

“Archangel,” String snapped, “Sam’s no more a traitor than you are.”  A breath.  “Now are you gonna tell me why I had to hear ‘bout all this from Sam’s teammates, not you?”

“Why should I trouble you with the news that your old military friend and his team attacked their fellow law enforcement officers and disappeared to commit some nefarious crime?”  The Firm agent paused, the better to make his tone more biting.  “If that is not turning traitor, I fail to see what is.”

String’s shoulders tightened and Dom could practically feel the outrage oozing from their two passengers.  “Archangel,” String hissed, fury reeking, then he stopped.  Not, Dom sensed, because he was at a loss for words – more as if he was weighing whether he wanted to use those words.

“Yes, Stringfellow?”  Internally, Dom winced at the goad in that question.  Much as he didn’t like Archangel, the Firm agent had no idea what he’d just let himself in for.

Another beat, then String’s sarcasm lashed out, striking his target with laser precision.  “So, I s’pose this is just like when you turned traitor – after Furster and Kruger brainwashed you!”

Cait gasped and Dom’s brows shot up – he knew what had happened, of course, but he never would’ve expected String to use that against Archangel.

Archangel’s retort was just as acrid.  “At least my brainwashing took a week!”

“Oy!” the bigger constable yelled.  “Since when is getting Imperiused the victim’s fault?”

As if in agreement, Airwolf snarled, the Obscurus voicing her outrage as she hadn’t in months.

In the dead silence that followed, Dom didn’t need to see Cait’s face to know her eyes were wide as saucers – nor Archangel to know that the Firm agent was just as stunned.  A tight grimace crossed his face, but there was no way to unring the bell.  No way to take back what had just been said.

“Word,” the other constable murmured, speaking low in a futile attempt to keep from being overheard by the radio, “I don’t think they’re signed on to the Act.”

There was another beat of horrified silence, then the big constable groaned in defeat and dropped his head in his hands.  For a fleeting moment, Dom rather felt like joining him.

Chapter Text

What a day.  What a perfectly horrible, awful, no-good utter disaster of a day.  Wordy absently rubbed his thumb over his mithril healing bracelet as he paced in the clearing Hawke had found outside of Toronto.  Although a man of few words, the taciturn brunet pilot had effectively shut down his female copilot’s questions, insisting that there would be an explanation once Archangel and Marella arrived.

Lou was alternating between watching his team leader pace and inspecting the helicopter that had come so close to killing their teammates at McKean.  Intellectually, Wordy knew the helicopter – Obscurus or not – couldn’t be blamed for Moffet’s actions, but he couldn’t quite help the niggle of resentment towards the black and white craft.  Because of Moffet, his team had nearly been torn apart and the big man privately suspected that Moffet had kicked the row of dominoes that had ultimately led to Fletcher Stadium and its subsequent fallout.

He was just making his turn for another pace across the clearing when he came face-to-face with piercing blue eyes, sported by a ghostly black and white wolf with wings.  The wings were mostly black, with a band of white feathers right above the bottom third of the wings.  The animal’s fur, likewise, was black all over, with white on its belly and the inside of the legs.  For a long moment, man and wolf stared at each other, then the wolf’s head rose, ears pricking forward as it gave a little whine.

From the direction of the helicopter, he heard a soft gasp from the woman – Cait.  Examining the winged wolf, he realized: it was the Obscurus.  It had to be – where else would a winged wolf come from and the markings were very like the helicopter.  Cautious, Wordy crouched, keeping his hands in sight, but the fingers closed; Sarge had told them once that fingers spread wide looked like claws to his gryphon instincts.  “Hi there,” he said, voice low and unhurried.  “What’s your name, pretty girl?”

“Lady,” Hawke grunted from off to the side; Wordy turned his head just enough to see them.  Hawke looked amused and approving; his older companion looked much the same, if rather relieved.  Cait was still wide-eyed with wonder – the same wonder he’d felt once upon a time at the thought of magic.

Shifting back to the wolf, he remarked, “Lady.  That’s a pretty good name, don’tcha think?”

Ears pricked even farther forward and the Obscurus nodded, letting out a tiny yip.

“Something you need or were you just tired of watching me pace?”

She yipped again, laughter clear, then padded forward, nudging against one of his hands.  He obliged, running the hand over her fur and gently rubbing behind her ears.  He could practically feel her magic buzzing against his skin, more feral than wild, with an edge of inborn darkness.  But not as much as it could’ve been – already he could tell the difference between the Obscurus in front of him and the Obscurus his teammates had faced off with at McKean.  Less rage and anger, plus a sense that she was slowly learning how to trust.

‘Why?  Still so strange…’

Wordy blinked, caught off guard, and across the clearing, Lou stiffened, as though he too had heard that painfully young female voice.  In his peripheral vision, none of the helicopter’s crew reacted, not even Hawke.  Somehow, some way, the Obscurus had tapped into the ‘team sense’.

The constables traded swift glances, then Wordy replied, ‘Why what?’

Lady reared back.  ‘You heard me!’

One eyebrow arched and the brunet couldn’t help the silent, ‘Obviously.’

The wolf’s ears flicked back, then forward, finally coming to rest in the middle.  ‘Why…why did you speak to the gryphon?  It is a wild animal; it could not understand you.’

Both officers cringed as they understood and remembered what Lady was referring to.  Even so, Wordy held his composure, meeting the Obscurus’ eyes.  ‘What else did I have?’  He waited, but the wolf merely ducked her chin.  ‘Better to go out trying to reach my friend than to scream at him for something he couldn’t help.’  A pause and a breath.  ‘Besides…he did stop.’

‘Yes,’ Lady acknowledged.  Piercing blue rose again, pinning him in place.  ‘He loves you all very much.’

‘Loved,’ Wordy corrected sharply.  ‘He’s dead.’

‘I speak as I find, human,’ Lady countered, just as sharp.  Then her voice turned wistful as she changed the subject.  ‘Cait is afraid of me, human.’

Mentally, Wordy shoved aside the acidic burning hope that the Obscurus had kindled within him.  ‘She didn’t know about you, huh?’

‘No.’  The wolf whined unhappily.  ‘Dom is afraid of me, too, but he is getting better.’  Ducking her head again, she added, ‘He is wise to view me so; I have lashed out at them many times.  Hurt them…didn’t mean to, but hurt them…’

An Obscurus – not even a near Obscurial, like little Lucy had been, but an Obscurus and who knew what had happened to the witch it had come from.  Gently, but firmly, Wordy tipped the wolf’s chin up.  ‘It’s hard, isn’t it?  To learn how to be human when all you’ve known is hate and rage and pain.’

The mobile ears pricked forward again.  ‘You have met one like me?’  Awful hope rang.

‘No,’ Lou cut in, drawing the wolf’s attention.  ‘We met an Obscurial, but she wasn’t quite all the way gone yet.  The Aurors found her just in time and Jules looked after her for a night ‘cause she was scared of men.’

The ears wilted, but Wordy gave the Obscurus an encouraging smile.  ‘Hey, how ‘bout we introduce you to Cait?  I don’t think she’s afraid of you, just a little in over her head right now.  She’ll get there, just might take awhile.’  He paused, biting his lip.  ‘And I don’t think you’re doing half-bad if you can go from how you were at McKean to how you are now in just a couple months.  Give yourself some credit, Lady; Moffet did a number on you.’

To Wordy’s surprise, Lady shuffled her front paws, almost looking rather abashed at the praise.  ‘What…what is your name, human?’

Out loud, he replied, “Call me Wordy.”  Then he pushed himself up and led the wolf over to ‘her’ humans.  “It’s Cait, right?”

Cait was almost the same height as Lou, with thick brunette hair that framed her face and hung down just past her collar.  Thin brows above pale blue eyes framed a slim nose; red lipstick adorned a full mouth and, while feminine, her cheekbones were wide.  A smattering of freckles dusted her upper cheeks, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was just as tough as Jules, used to surviving in a typically male world.

She suited her male colleagues, one with a full head of silver hair above dark heavy brows and a strong nose.  The slightly taller Dom had clearly earned every last one of his wrinkles, laugh lines, and the stress lines that grooved his face and forehead, crinkling around laughing blue eyes.  Something in his facial features whispered Italian to the man with two coworkers of similar descent, but what struck Wordy the most was Dom’s rock-steady presence.

It was a trait he shared with Hawke, though Hawke’s features were set with far more frown lines than his older mentor.  The stone-faced, blue-eyed brunet had a near identical haircut to Sam’s, though he still possessed the stance and rigid demeanor of a soldier – traits that had softened or disappeared in the blond sniper.  From what little Sam had shared, Hawke was a good soldier and an incredible pilot, though he was haunted by the ghost of his MIA brother.

“That’s right,” Cait said, tugging Wordy’s attention back.  She gazed down at the winged wolf with a mix of interest and trepidation.

“Well, this little lady here would like to be introduced to you, Cait, if that’s all right with you.”  As he finished, Wordy cast the woman his best hopeful gaze, a gaze that never failed to make Shelley laugh at him for being such a goofball.

Lady yipped her agreement, tail wagging; she sat, offering a paw for Cait to shake.

Cait stared at them both, then laughed and reached out, shaking Lady’s paw.  “It’s nice to meet you, Lady,” she said, crouching to meet the Obscurus’ piercing gaze.  “You know,” she added with a wink, “I think Hawke didn’t tell me about you ‘cause he wanted to keep you all to himself, am I right?”

Lou snickered at the askance look the taciturn pilot shot his copilot’s back; it vanished back into impassive stone when Cait twisted to glance up at him.  Wordy covered his mouth to hide his own laughter – oh wow, Hawke had it bad for her.  He eased back as Cait chattered away at the wolf, totally unconcerned that her conversation partner couldn’t speak; Lady yipped in all the right places, inching closer until Cait started petting her.

“I’ve never seen her so interactive before,” Dom murmured in a tone of amazement.

Wordy flicked a glance at the older man.  “Maybe she wasn’t ready before,” he pointed out.  “You don’t go from a ball of hate and rage to making new friends overnight.”  The team leader considered, then sucked in a breath and continued, “She knows you’re still afraid of her.”

Dom stiffened.

“She respects that, too,” Wordy added quietly.  “She’s come far enough to be ashamed of how she acted at first; you might have a few more backslides, but I bet she’s over the hump.”

“And you just know that.”  When Wordy stiffened, Dom eyed him, speculation gleaming.  “You a wizard?”

The big constable shook his head at once.  “I’m a Squib,” he admitted.  “Sam’s Squib-born, but the rest of our teammates don’t have any magic.”  Technically a lie, but it was really none of Dom’s business.

Blue narrowed.  “Thought your Sergeant had magic, too.”

Wordy’s throat closed.  “He died.”  Soft, rasping, with aching grief.

Grief that Dom understood from the way his eyes were softening.  One hand reached up and rested on Wordy’s shoulder.  “Never stops hurting,” the old man murmured, then he met the brunet’s gaze.  “But it hurts less.”

“Copy.”

The whump, whump, whump of helicopter blades cut off anything more, a fact Wordy was grateful for as he turned his head to gaze up at a white Jetranger coming in for a landing next to Airwolf’s lithe black and white orca color scheme.

* * * * *

Lou moved forward, edging in next to Wordy as the two white-clad American agents stepped out of their helicopter.  Both were familiar, though the constables had already suspected – how common was the code name Archangel?  The blond agent’s one remaining eye attempted to skewer them from across the distance before turning to Hawke; his cocoa-skinned companion favored the officers with a raised brow, but she trailed her boss in silence.

Archangel stalked forward, jabbing the ground with his elegant cane – black with a silver handle – wielding it more as a aid to his temper than the necessary support it clearly was.  “I have had enough, Hawke.  No more prevarication, I want answers.”

“An’ if you quit snarlin’, you’ll get ‘em,” Hawke replied, voice flat.  “Don’t scare the Lady.”

Noting the snarl beginning to curl the wolf’s lip, Lou quietly gestured for her to calm down.  Attacking the American agent would not be a good introduction to magic.

‘My pilot!’ she protested.  ‘Protect.’

‘He doesn’t need protecting right now, Lady,’ Wordy interceded.  ‘Archangel is mad ‘cause Hawke had to hide magic from him.  He’ll calm down.’

For a moment, Lou wasn’t sure if the Obscurus would accept that, then she relaxed.  ‘It is like when Dom yells at String for being stupid?’

Lou bit down on a laugh.  ‘Kinda.’

In the meantime, Archangel halted right in front of the brunet, visible eyebrow raised.  “Don’t scare the Lady, Hawke?  It’s just a helicopter.”

“She was just a helicopter,” Lou broke in, calm even as that skewering gaze turned to him.  “Now she’s a bit more than that.”

“More.”  The word was flat, demanding elaboration.

The less-lethal specialist gestured to the winged wolf pressed against Cait’s shin, growling lowly even as she tried to hide behind her copilot.  “Meet the Lady, sir.  She’s a magical creature that Dr. Moffet merged with your helicopter after he stole it.”

Archangel’s lip curled.  “And you know this because Hawke told you.”  Hurt lingered beneath the anger, hurt that Hawke had trusted a group of strangers rather than Archangel himself.  His assistant shifted forward, not openly offering comfort, but her boss’s eye flicked to her then back to Lou.

Lou shook his head.  “No, sir; he didn’t have to tell us.  We know because Moffet framed our team for a prison breakout and our friends found out about the Obscurus when they were trying to clear our names.  When Moffet used Airwolf to come after us, we were able to stop him and Hawke got Airwolf back.”

Both Americans straightened, surprise flashing.  In one move, Archangel turned back to Hawke.  “Is this true?”

“Yeah, Michael, it is,” Hawke replied.  After a moment, he shifted, glancing at the black and white machine behind him.  “Look…  Michael…  I wanted to tell you, but there’s laws against it.  America’s worse than Canada.”  At the raised brows he received from everyone except Dom, the pilot grimaced.  “Canada only has the Statute of Secrecy,” he explained.  “America has Rappaport’s Law.  It makes it illegal for wizards to even interact with non-magicals unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Wordy whistled low.  “You’re Squib-born, aren’t you?  That’s how you get around it?”

Hawke shrugged one shoulder, focusing on Wordy rather than look at his shocked friends.  “My family…we haven’t been wizards for awhile, but we still have a couple tricks.  We don’t bother wizards and they don’t bother us, but I know the history.”  He nodded towards his mentor.  “So does Dom; he took me and my brother in after our parents died.”

“Squib-born?” Archangel inquired, tone pointed, but undeniably curious.  His silent assistant looked just as curious, though an edge of concern lurked beneath it.

Lou cleared his throat, drawing attention.  “If someone’s born to a magical family without enough magic to use a wand, they’re Squibs.”  He paused, waiting for a nod from Archangel.  “Any of their kids, they’re Squib-born unless they’re a witch or wizard.”

“Magical government doesn’t care about us,” Hawke put in.  “Most of the time, we don’t care about them either, so the history gets lost.”  He smiled mirthlessly, then drawled, “Unless you get a group of Squib-borns and No-Majs stupid enough to play cop in the wizarding world.”

Wordy bristled, but Lou smirked right back.  “It’s better than burying your head in the sand and pretending magic’s not real.  Technology’s improving by the day – how long you think magic can hide?  Especially when all of them think we’re dumber than rocks and easy to fool.”

“Or they think we still fly in wooden planes,” Wordy put in, catching onto Lou’s tack.

Lady laughed aloud, gleeful as she bounced around the humans with wings fluffed.  From the starts, Lou knew she’d been audible to all of them, not just himself and Wordy.  He grinned down at her.  “You know better than that,” he remarked, earning an approving yip.  Then he sobered, turning back to Archangel and his assistant.  “Look, it’s a really long story and we’re on the clock.”

At his feet, Lady rumbled a snarl and the spy arched a brow, demanding details.

Wordy coughed.  “Our teammates.  They’ve been put under a mind-control curse and they’re building a bomb.  We know it’s big and we know it’s got enough shrapnel to kill a whole lot of people.  We’re the only ones who can stop them.”

“So you called Hawke.”

Hawke shook his head.  “They got captured and Sam managed to override the curse enough to give them my number.”  Turning, he added, “Any ideas where this bomb is?”

The constables traded looks.  “We saw it in the Death Munchers’ hideout,” Lou remarked thoughtfully.  “But it looked like it was just about done.”

“Even if it’s not,” Wordy put in, “We probably stepped up the timetable when you rescued us.”

The backup bomb tech grimaced in clear agreement.  “If it’s in position, we’re gonna have to move fast.”

Archangel considered, then gave a sharp nod.  “Hawke, I’ll expect a full report on your return.”

“At Santini Air,” Hawke insisted.  “The Firm can’t know, Michael.  Not officially; you’ll all get Obliviated.”

“They’ll erase your memories,” Dom added helpfully at the confusion on the blond’s face.

The spies winced, conceding the argument.  “In a day or two, then, Hawke.”

“You got it, Archangel.”

Just like that, Lou sensed the two men were back on solid ground – in a way, Dom’s taunt had driven it home for Archangel why his friend had hidden the truth from him.  Hard to resent someone for doing their best to protect you.  He shifted his attention to Wordy, the teammates sharing a silent understanding even as they wished the rest of their team was present and by their side.

The group of pilots and cops watched Archangel and his assistant walk back to the white helicopter.  Once inside, Lou saw Archangel thumb the controls to start the engine; the blades began to whirl, slow at first, but gaining speed with each sweep.  Part of the constable wondered why the assistant had come – she hadn’t said anything at all – but that was none of his business.

Afterwards, he was never sure what tipped him off, but something niggled and the constable glanced towards the tree line.  A shadow near one of the trees caught his gaze and his eyes narrowed, then widened.  A sneer, a rising wand.

“Look out!” he yelled, whipping towards the helicopter.  “Don’t take off!”

Even as he shouted, the ‘copter lifted off, beginning to turn as it rose.  A fiery orange spell shot from the trees at the craft and Lou reacted instantly, lunging to push the three Airwolf pilots down; behind him, Wordy threw himself flat.

Airwolf howled, fury and defiance shattering the sky before she moved, the wolf blurring as she leapt upwards and through the white helicopter’s metal.  Silver power flexed, wrapping around Archangel and his assistant right before the spell struck.  The helicopter exploded, dropping back to the ground with a muted boom of burning fuel.

Lou lifted his head, staring at the wreckage, but the silver light was hovering above the flames.  It shot forward, landing right in front of the group, then pulled back to reveal the spies, dazed, but uninjured.  Lady materialized next to them, then she snarled, whirling towards the trees.  Before any of the humans could react, she launched towards the wizard who’d destroyed the Firm ‘copter, striking him so hard that they all heard the crack as his head struck a tree trunk a good four meters into the forest.

Chapter Text

Wordy and Lou, more used to working around magic than the Americans, were on their feet and moving seconds after the Lady rescued the spies and attacked the offending Neo Death Eater.  Although they’d both heard the man’s neck break, protocol was clear.  And while Wordy was reasonably sure that the Lady would’ve dealt with any other Death Munchers in the area, taking chances was not on the agenda.  Not anymore.

Lou managed to reach their target half a second before Wordy and both men experienced an instant of frustration when they realized they had neither weapons nor flex cuffs.  Wordy hovered while his teammate knelt, feeling for a pulse.  After a moment, he shook his head, glancing up at his team leader.

Wordy grimaced, both for the death and the order he was about to give.  “Search him.”

There was a flash of dismay, then Lou nodded once and briskly went through the dead man’s robes.  The work was slow and cautious, both officers wary of a possible Portkey and painfully aware they had nothing to block Portkeys from working.  Partway through, Wordy sensed he wasn’t alone and glanced down, brows rising at the sight of Lady, her whole form glowing a subtle silver.  A darker hue swirled across her fur periodically and the constable’s eyes widened as he realized the Obscurus was using her magic.

‘No bad men come,’ Lady informed them, mental voice fierce.  ‘Bad magic not take you away.’

Lou paused, glancing up.  “Any Portkeys won’t work?”

The Obscurus nodded.  ‘Not think…’  She paused, tilting her head before starting again.  ‘I don’t think he has any.’

Wordy kept his surprise to himself.  When Lady had been speaking with them earlier, her sentences had been clear with good grammar.  Why the sudden change?

Although he hadn’t said anything, Lady tilted her head further to the side, one piercing blue eye meeting his.  ‘You give.’

‘We give?’ Lou echoed, confusion ringing.

The wolf inclined her muzzle.  ‘Can sense…  I can hear you thinking.  Clearer than String and Dom and new pilot…  Cait…’

Wordy squirmed internally, automatically pulling his mental defenses into place.

Lady jerked, casting him and then Lou askance glares.  ‘You…hide from Airwolf?’

‘Stay outta my head,’ Wordy retorted.  Then he glanced away, reminding himself that for all the Obscurus’ power, she had very little idea of how to interact with humans.  Taking a deep breath, he swung back to her.  ‘Look, Lady.  Most people, even those who know about magic, they don’t worry about their minds getting read.  Our thoughts are…personal.  Just for us.  To read someone’s mind…it’s like walking in while they’re getting dressed.  You don’t do that, do you?’

‘Wordy’s right,’ Lou concurred.  ‘It’s called a reasonable expectation of privacy.’

The wolf whined.  ‘How Airwolf learn, then?’

‘Can you talk to them like you’re talking to us?’ Wordy asked.  ‘Lou, anything?’

‘Nothing so far,’ the less-lethal specialist replied.  ‘How are we even talking like this anyway?  Sarge is…’

Wordy flinched, just as bewildered as Lou and just as unable to really, truly say the word.  ‘Maybe Lady turned it back on?’ he offered.

‘Not have to,’ Lady protested.  ‘Not Airwolf’s fault you not see truth.’

What truth?  Wordy didn’t ask, though.  He had a feeling the Obscurus didn’t really understand that dead meant gone and never coming back.  ‘Lady.  Can you talk to your friends like you’re talking to us?’

The Obscurus considered, watching Lou rifle through the dead wizard’s robes.  ‘Not sure,’ she admitted.  ‘Airwolf never try.’  She sidled back and forth.  ‘You…your thoughts called.  Dark, hurting, like Airwolf.’  A pause.  ‘And Airwolf curious.’

‘About McKean,’ Wordy filled in dryly.  ‘You called yourself Lady before, but now you’re using Airwolf.’

The wolf let out another whine, almost, but not quite, laying down.  ‘Am Lady.  Am…Airwolf.  String use both; Dom use Lady.  Cait use Airwolf.’

Poor kid.  The brunet frowned.  ‘Which one do you want to use?’

‘Don’t know,’ the Obscurus admitted.  ‘Like both.’  Another pause.  ‘Archangel say thank you.  Called me Airwolf.’  She perked up.  ‘Marella pet.’

Wordy rubbed his mouth to cover his smile.  Just like Lance and…and Sarge.  They both enjoyed being petted while in their Animagus forms, though heaven help you if you tried that while they were human.

Then Lou let out a soft crow and pulled a sheaf of parchment from an inner pocket in the Neo Death Eater’s robes.  “Got something!”

“Good job, buddy,” Wordy enthused, moving to peer over his teammate’s shoulder.  He frowned as he scanned the page.  Shifting, he subtly pointed to one area.  “Is that…”

“Yeah, man.  Looks like an address.”

The brunet’s frown grew deeper.  “We’re gonna have to look that up.”

“Maybe not,” Lou disagreed.  Glancing to the patient Obscurus, he added, “Lady, if I give you this address, think you can look it up?”

‘Airwolf try.’

“That’s all we can ask,” Wordy reassured her.

Wolf ears pricked and Lou read off the address on the parchment.  For a minute, the trio was silent, then Lady growled.  ‘Is place for lots of families.  Sleep, live, eat.’

“An apartment complex?” Wordy hissed, horror streaking through him.

‘Airwolf think so.’

The constables traded glances, then straightened.  “Okay, let’s get back,” Wordy decided.

“Wordy…if they set that bomb off in an apartment complex…”

“Lou, I hear you.  Even if we can evacuate in time…”  The brunet shook his head.  “No, stop.  One step at a time.”  He pinned his friend with his eyes.  “Lou, listen to me.  We are going to stop this thing and get them back.  We have to.  Just keep believing that and we’ll be okay.”

“Copy.”

* * * * *

Years of experience, hundreds – if not thousands – of missions under his belt, an inveterate survivor of more attempted assassinations than he cared to count, and he’d nearly died to a spell.  To something he would have scorned and jeered at only an hour ago.  Michael Coldsmith Briggs the Third was aware that he was shaking, but he couldn’t seem to stop, no matter how weak that made him appear.

The spy removed his trenchcoat, spreading it over Marella’s shoulders – his Angel was trembling worse than he was.  For a moment, his hands didn’t want to release her, but Archangel forced them to open and forced himself to turn to Airwolf’s three ghost-pale pilots.  At least he wasn’t the only one in shock.

Against his will, his mind replayed those instants.  The yell from the ground – a warning, he was sure of it – a wolf’s howl, and then that light, wrapping around himself and Marella right before the Firm helicopter exploded.  It had felt like a child, clinging to the only family she had left, even if she’d only just met them.  It had felt like wrath and fury, an avenging wraith more concerned with vengeance than justice.

Archangel glanced over his shoulder at the burning wreckage, then sternly shifted his attention back to Hawke, Santini, and O’Shannessy.  It might’ve been a heck of a lot closer than he might have wished, but he’d survived and now…now he wanted a target.  Someone to express his displeasure to, in person, preferably with an Uzi.  The spy’s practiced mask dropped into place.  “It seems we’ll be accompanying you, Hawke.”

Hawke’s expression assumed its usual granite, outwardly unconcerned with his nominal boss’s near death.  “Yeah.”

Footsteps crunched in the forest’s underbrush.  “We’ve got a location,” Constable Wordsworth announced.

“Where?” Archangel demanded, shifting to face the two men.  Absently, he noted the ghostly, yet solid winged wolf trailing them.

Young’s expression tightened and he held out an old-fashioned yellowed paper with a browning border…no, it was parchment.  Surprised all over again, the spy took the parchment, frowning absently at the address on it.  He glanced up when the constable said, “Lady already looked it up; it’s an apartment complex.”

“They’re going to bomb an apartment complex?” Cait cried, utterly appalled.

Wordsworth shook his head, grim.  “They don’t care,” he replied bluntly.  “What they want is a big bang and to ruin our team’s reputation, just like Moffet tried.”

“Explain,” Marella ordered before her boss could.  Her voice was thin with the last of her shock, but her gaze was steady and her chin lifted in challenge.

The brunet constable huffed, but nodded.  “Okay, this is the really short version, understand?”

“Continue,” Archangel murmured, tilting his head to accept the caveat.

“Like we said before, wizards don’t care about anyone who doesn’t have magic.  Or doesn’t have enough magic.”  The big man paused.  “And when I say, ‘don’t care’, I mean most of ‘em wouldn’t give someone who isn’t magical the time of day.”

“Harsh, Word.”

“Who here got arrested and put on trial for not having magic, huh?”

Archangel’s eyes widened, particularly when the tan-skinned constable looked away, silently conceding the argument.

“So, five years ago, our team found out about magic being real and we basically talked their law enforcement guys into letting us keep our memories.  In return, we’d help them out every so often with our skill set.”

Ahhh.  “You would be to them what you are to the rest of Toronto,” Archangel mused.  “But that would require regular interaction with the magical world, would it not?”

“Yes,” Constable Young confirmed.  “Started slow, but we’ve got a really good reputation now, even though we don’t have magic.”  He scowled.  “Moffet didn’t like that; that’s why he framed us for two prison breakouts.”

“And now his goons are trying the same thing, only this time, they’re making sure our team can’t wriggle out of it.”

Cait sucked in a breath.  “Because they really will have done it.”

The constables nodded.  Archangel frowned, letting the facts swirl around him.  The short version, indeed, and yet, he understood perfectly.  There was no time for more.  He heard a hiss and shifted, arching one eyebrow at the open helicopter door.  “Getting rather crowded, don’t you think, Hawke?”

Steel blue flicked back.  “No choice, Michael.  We’re gonna have firefighters here before too long with that fire.”

Archangel winced at the reminder and inclined his chin, stepping forward towards the helicopter.  Although it was, indeed, a very tight fit, all of them managed to cram inside the sleek stealth chopper before Airwolf lifted off and left the burning Firm ‘copter behind.  Once safely away, Archangel shared his hasty plan.

* * * * *

Less than an hour after a Neo Death Eater attempted to murder Deputy Director Briggs, he and Marella marched into the precinct closest to the apartment complex, wielding their authority to rally the officers and evacuate the complex.  Archangel also talked the precinct captain out of calling the SRU, ominously citing ‘national security concerns’ that necessitated leaving Toronto’s cavalry out of the loop.  Despite the story being complete, utter nonsense, Archangel sold it with a salesman’s smile and a not-so-subtle threat to take the poor police captain’s badge.  Marella backed up her boss’s bluff when she pulled out her phone and calmly asked if she should call the Police Commissioner after the cop instinctively objected to the threat.

* * * * *

In the meantime, Airwolf and her crew shot through the sky towards the apartment complex, ready, willing, and able to use their helicopter’s Obscurus against the Neo Death Eaters who’d once harnessed her power for their own selfish ambitions.

Lady, with a little help from Wordy and Lou, had managed to forge temporary mental links with her crew, allowing her to speak with them, though she couldn’t read their minds.  The Obscurus indicated her willingness to help her crew stop the dark wizards, though she was fearful of falling back into her former destructive nature.

Dom, however, already had a plan – despite not wanting to get involved with the Canadian magical world, he’d had a sneaking suspicion it was inevitable.  He offered to let the Obscurus use him as an emotional and mental anchor, hoping that his steady calm and nature would keep her from reverting to a force of dark chaos.  It was, perhaps, for the best that by the time Dom proposed his course of action, the Firm agents and the Toronto constables had already been dropped off.  Though unsure if Dom’s plan would work, Lady agreed and let her magic burrow into the old man.  String and Cait traded unnerved glances, unable to help but worry about the potential consequences to two people they cared about.

With Dom anchoring the Lady, Airwolf’s purely magical abilities were brought to bear, allowing the stealth chopper and her crew to force back the Neo Death Eaters controlling Team One.  Rather than lashing out with her full might, the Lady alternated between a magical version of her chain guns and a silvery shield that caught every curse the dark wizards cast, slowly forcing them away from their victims and the apartment complex.  The Imperius remained in place, but with the Neo Death Eaters on the defensive, the last two Team One constables had a shot at stopping the bombing and freeing their teammates.

* * * * *

Wordy and Lou traded looks as they stepped inside the apartment complex’s leasing office.  Ahead of them, both men could see Spike busily setting up the same bomb they’d seen in the Neo Death Eater hideout.  To their surprise, there was no one else inside the leasing office, though some office doors stood open, as if their occupants had been ordered to leave.

Soft, the brunet murmured, “Spike must’ve kicked them out.”

“Yeah, man,” Lou agreed.  He glanced down at Sam’s smartphone.  “They’re all here, but…”

“Where?”

“Up?” Lou suggested.

Wordy hummed, then nodded.  “Good call.  I see Sam and Jules, second floor.”

“I got Spike,” Lou said.

“Copy.  Knock him out and disarm that thing,” Wordy ordered.  “I’ll take out Sam; looks like he’s got a rifle.”

For one last precious second, the constables met each other’s eyes, the glance itself as warm as a forearm grip or even a hug.  United, standing together against the worst the Neo Death Eaters could throw at them.  Failure wasn’t an option, not with their family on the line.

Then Lou cleared his throat and said, “Let’s keep the peace.”

* * * * *

Lou waited until he caught a glimpse of Wordy on the second floor; at his team leader’s high sign, he moved, striding forward towards Spike.  Above him, Wordy closed with Sam, jumping the sniper before he could bring his rifle to bear on Lou.  Spike was fussing over what looked like a timer, oblivious to his best friend’s presence.

“Spike.”

The raven’s head came up, turning with a glazed look and a fake smile.  “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir,” the bomb tech chirped.  “We have a credible threat directed at this location, so please evacuate the building immediately.”

The less-lethal specialist almost choked.  Did the Neo Death Eaters know Spike had blown the whistle on his own bomb?  Talk about finagling the Imperius.  “Spike, you maniac,” he whispered.  “You built them a bomb, just like they told you to, but you’re still in there.  You’re fighting them, just like Sam.”  Just like Wordy had fought to keep Lou free and clear of the curse.  Any doubt that the resistance to the Imperius was coming from the Wild Magic vanished; Spike had no more native magic than he had.

A quick glance confirmed everything was set, though the timer had yet to begin its countdown.  Lou’s dark eyes narrowed and he reached out, grabbing Spike’s arm.  When the bomb tech turned, it was right into Lou’s left hook.  Spike staggered, then swung a punch of his own at his sudden opponent.  Lou twisted, letting the fist fly past so he could grab Spike’s overextended arm and wrench him forward, away from the bomb.  In one smooth move, he sent Spike sprawling, whirling to put his back to the explosive.

Spike roared, coming up off the floor to spring for Lou’s throat; he ran right into Lou’s charge, the black haired constable ramming into his friend’s chest, throwing him backwards and away from the explosive.  The two men locked, each struggling to gain the upper hand, but Lou refused to give any ground.  Slowly, determinedly, he pushed Spike backwards, putting more and more space between his mind-controlled teammate and the deadly bomb just waiting to be armed.  Instinct whispered and he reared back, laying Spike flat with a haymaker.  Stunned, the bomb tech was easy to drag away from the blasted explosive, towards a handy pillar.  Next to the pillar, Lou punched his friend again, dismay and satisfaction running through him in equal measure as Spike slumped, unconscious.

Grim, the constable turned back towards the bomb.  Time to disable it and end this nightmare.  Before he could take a single step, a gunshot rang out.

* * * * *

Wordy made sure to close with Sam and Jules before the sniper could shoot Lou; although Sam had been able to finagle a few things past the curse, if he’d been given a direct order to kill anyone trying to stop Spike, he’d do it.  Instead of opening with a punch, the team leader lunged for the rifle, yanking it sideways and away from its wielder.

A snarl curled Sam’s lip and he fought back, wrestling to keep control of the rifle.  Off to the side, Jules observed, expression disinterested and posture lax.  In the back of Wordy’s mind, he realized she’d just been ordered to be there.  No other order had been given, but then, it didn’t need to be.  Her mere presence as well as her uniform ensured she would be charged with the bombing, same as the rest of Team One.

Well it wasn’t happening.  Not today, not on Wordy’s watch.  He shifted, getting inside Sam’s guard to use his weight and leverage against the sniper’s hold on the rifle.  A sharp elbow into Sam’s gut forced him to release the rifle; the blond snarled as he lost his grip, but Wordy gasped in pure relief and hurled the sniper rifle away from both of them.  Then he turned and grabbed Sam in a vice grip, holding the sniper in place even as he kept himself between the blond and the rifle.

“Sam, where’s Ed?” he demanded.  “Come on, Sam, snap out of it.  Where’s Ed?”

Then a gunshot rang out, followed by a muffled boom as the bomb went off.  Sam slumped, going boneless in Wordy’s grasp; Jules observed with dead eyes and a lax, content expression.  Horror flooded the team leader and he twisted, looking up towards the third floor.  On the third floor balcony, Ed was lowering his sniper rifle, expression blank and eyes glazed over.  There was a beat as their eyes seemed to meet.

Then a second explosion echoed through the building and Wordy felt the shockwave hit him, sending them all flying.

* * * * *

“Wordy!”

Wordy groaned, struggling back towards consciousness.  That…that had been Jules…  Why…why was he surprised…?

“Wordy, wake up!” Jules pleaded.  “Please, wake up.  You have to wake up!  Come on, Wordy, don’t leave us hanging.”

What…why did she sound so…desperate…  Gray blinked open, straining to focus.  Sirens…sirens and a rushing sound.  Like…like fire…  Fire!

All at once, he remembered.  He remembered and he snapped back to full awareness.  Vision resolved into two figures.  Jules against a wall a meter away from himself, down on the ground and one leg at an angle that looked wrong.  Sam lay right next to him, awake, but when Wordy glanced at the sniper, he saw immediately that his eyes were unfocused and dazed, with uneven pupils.  Concussion.  Then he saw Sam’s radio.

“Jules,” he mumbled, struggling to push himself up, get his own head together.  “What channel?”

He and Lou had gotten backup radios from the safe house, along with their armor, but they’d decided against using the radios, afraid of just this scenario.  Team One, in full gear, complete with radios.  Fortunately, they’d brought them, just in case; Wordy had a feeling they were gonna need them.

“Four,” Jules reported.  “Wordy…my leg…”

“It’s broken,” Wordy finished for her, finally making it back to his feet.  One hand touched his own radio, set to channel two.  “Lou, report in!”

For a horrifying heartbeat, there was silence, then, “No harm, Word.”

“That much shrapnel and no harm?” Wordy blurted, even as he carefully coaxed Sam back to his feet, guiding the dazed man to Jules’ side.  He was good, but he couldn’t carry both of them.  In the back of his mind, he refused to think about how he and his teammates had survived the bomb, never mind the shrapnel.

“Wordy, man, there wasn’t any shrapnel.”

“But we saw Ed buy it,” Wordy protested automatically.

A hoarse, rasping laugh from Lou.  “Spike didn’t use it.  And he kicked everyone out before he set that thing up.”

He’d already known that Sam was fighting the curse, but it had simply never occurred to him that any of the others could fight it.  But plainly, despite whatever efforts Spike had made, the bomb had gone off and they were at ground zero.  And the building was on fire.  “Lou,” he managed, right before a coughing fit hit him.  “Channel four.  Switching in ten and I’m bringing Sam and Jules down.”

“Copy,” Lou acknowledged.

Wordy reached down, switching his radio channel.  “Ed, can you hear me?”  As he spoke, he shifted to a partial crouch and swung Jules up in a fireman style carry.  She grabbed onto him, bracing against his neck and shoulders instead of letting herself flop down.  “Come on, Sam, let’s go,” the team leader added.  “Stairs.”

“C…copy,” Sam slurred, struggling to stay upright and conscious.

“Sam, look at me,” Jules ordered.  When he obeyed, she coached, “Sam, grab onto Wordy.”  He moaned, one hand coming up to cradle his head.  “Come on, Sam.  You can do it.”

It took another moment, but Sam latched onto Wordy’s armor, curling his hand around it in a near vice grip.  Wordy waited for him to get a good grip, then started edging towards the stairs.  “Ed, talk to me, buddy.”

There was a rasping cough, then, in a hoarse whisper, Ed said, “Wordy, that you?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Wordy replied.  “Me ‘n’ Lou are here to drag you guys outta trouble.  How you doing?”

Before Ed could respond, Lou swore.  “Wordy!  The stairs are blocked!”

Wordy stumbled to a halt.  “What?”

“It looks like the wall caved in or something,” Lou reported.  “There’s no way down from the second floor balcony.”

The brunet swallowed hard.  Trapped…they were trapped.

‘Not trapped.  Airwolf here.’

His head came up and around, towards the ‘sound’ of that mental voice.  ‘Lady?’

‘Dom say eighth floor.  We wait.’

The lack of reaction from his teammates told Wordy he’d been the only one to hear the Obscurus.  Explaining would take too long – not to mention too much air, so he called, “Lou, I’ll take Sam and Jules up.  Maybe there’s another way out and Ed can link up with us.”

“Copy,” Lou acknowledged.

“That’s a negative,” Ed rasped, almost at the same time.

“Ed?”

“Boss?”

“I’m trapped,” the Sergeant confessed.  “There’s a beam pinning me and it feels like it’s got a lot of debris piled on top of it.”

Alarm shone in gray eyes and Wordy lifted his gaze to the third floor.  “Ed, we’re not leaving you behind.”

“Wordy, there’s no way,” Ed retorted, breaking off to cough.  “There’s only one entrance and I can see it.  It’s blocked.”  He stopped, gathering his breath.  “Wordy, get Sam and Jules out.  That’s an order.”

“But…”  Of course he was going to get his teammates out; they couldn’t escape themselves; but to leave his best friend behind…

“Wordy, all you’re gonna do is get us both killed.  You want to do that to your family?  To your girls?  To Shelley?”

“Ed…”  He was moving even as he spoke, going up, oblivious to Jules’ horror from her post on his back; Sam was too concussed to understand what he was hearing.  Much as every instinct screamed to go straight for Ed, he had to get Jules and Sam out first.  “No, there’s gotta be another way, Boss.”  I can’t lose you, too.

“Kevin.”  The team leader stiffened at the rare use of his first name.  “Don’t.  Don’t make me die knowing I got you killed, too.”

No, no, no.  “Lou, is there another staircase?”  Please, God, don’t take my friend away.  Don’t let him die.

“Negative,” Lou replied, aching anguish and sorrow ringing.  “I’m getting Spike out.”

“He okay?” Ed asked – how could he ask that when he was trapped, right in the path of a fire?

“Yeah, Boss; I knocked him out before the bomb went off, that’s why he’s not talking.  We got knocked around, but no harm.”

“Good.”  Ed’s voice was soft, resigned and Wordy hated it.

“Ed, don’t you dare give up,” he snarled.  “I am not leaving you behind, understand?”  I lost Sarge; I can’t lose you, too.

“Kevin, listen to me,” Ed roared.  “There is no way to get to me!  The only way in is the window and last I checked, you can’t fly.”  He stopped, panting.  “Kevin, I can hear the fire; it’s spreading.  You come back for me and we’ll both die.  You want that?”

“I can’t let you die!”  Up another floor, closer to Airwolf.  They could get Sam and Jules to safety while he went back for Ed.

“Wordy…Wordy, stop it,” Ed pleaded.  “There’s nothing you can do, pal.”  He stopped, as if trying to think of an argument that would make Wordy leave him behind.  As if; he couldn’t, plain and simple.  Then the Sergeant spoke again.  “Kevin, will you do something for me?  Look after Soph and Clark and Izzy for me.  She’s not gonna remember me, but you will.  You can tell her all about her stubborn idiot of a Dad who went and got himself Imperiused and loved her like nothing else in this world.”

Wordy struggled to swallow against the lump in his throat.  “Ed…”

“I know I’m asking a lot, buddy, and I’m sorry, but will you do one other thing for me?”

Tears, streaming down, as if Ed was already gone.  “What?” he croaked out.

“Live for me.”  A beat of silence.  “Keep on living, Kevin.  Don’t…don’t let losing me break you.  You can do it, I know you can.  They’re gonna need you, Kevin.  My kids, your kids, Greg’s kids.”  A beat, then a hoarse chuckle.  “And hey, I can whack Greg over the head now.”

In spite of himself, Wordy laughed, too.  It didn’t even sound like a laugh.  Defeat swept through his soul, along with grief.  Only a shadow of the grief he’d soon be living with.  “Ed…”

“You know, back at Fletcher Stadium, Greg told me he still didn’t regret anything.”

“Don’t…don’t you dare tell me the same thing, Ed.”

There was a long moment, the silence almost bated, and Wordy knew his teammates were listening just as closely.  Grieving just as much, because…it was true.  Ed was trapped, right in the path of a fire.  Not dead yet, but he would be.  Soon.

Then Ed coughed weakly.  “No, Kevin, I’m not that noble.  I wish…I wish he’d never gone.  I wish he’d never gone and died on us.  Maybe he could’ve stopped this from happening.  Or been right in there with you and Lou.”

Water blurred his sight, even as he adjusted, hitting the door with Jules’ good leg.  “Please, Ed…”  Don’t make me leave you behind.  Don’t die on me.  They were outside and he could hear Airwolf’s blades, whipping through the air.

“Kevin…Kevin, shut the comm off.  Don’t listen.”  Another cough.  “I’d do it myself, but I can’t reach my radio.”  In the background, he heard Ed straining, struggling to reach the device.  “Wordy, don’t…don’t do that to yourself.  Don’t listen to me die.  Promise me…  Promise me you’ll turn the radio off.”

Someone was taking Sam, pulling Jules from his shoulders; Wordy collapsed on his knees, tears running freely.  “Ed…Ed, don’t, please don’t.”  Please don’t die on me.  Someone grabbed him, hauling him towards the helicopter, and he fought.  “Ed!”

“Wordy, turn it off.  It’ll be okay.”

No, he couldn’t do that.  He couldn’t let his last friend die.  And it would never be okay.

“Lady, kill that radio!”

“NO!  ED!”

The helicopter was moving, leaving his best friend behind.  Wordy fought, no longer aware of anything save Ed.  He wasn’t even aware of Hawke’s arm moving until the blood flow to his brain was cut off, almost instantly hauling him down into unconsciousness.  The last thing he heard echoed in his soul, rending it to shreds.

‘Greg?’

Chapter Text

As Greg Parker worked his way through the suburbs of Toronto, he was keenly aware that he was flirting dangerously close to violating the Statute of Secrecy – again.  But he wasn’t about to let that stop him – not so close to his goal.  Additionally, he possessed an edge that he hadn’t had in any of the American cities.  Toronto was his home turf, a territory he’d known all his life.  He knew the city like the back of his hand – even moreso after his undercover stint.

Because he knew the city, he knew every patch of greenery and forest between himself and the barn.  And where Toronto’s few wild places failed, he also knew areas of the city where no one looked out their windows – the residents were more interested in keeping their heads down than spying on the neighbors.  Sad, but it meant the gryphon could make his way through a busy, bustling city more or less unobserved.

Despite the driving need to get home, Greg forced himself to keep to his set travel pattern.  Traveling by night was simply safer, particularly since he knew he could no longer avoid flying.  To walk into the city was just asking for trouble.

And so, once the sun was down, Greg swung into action, ignoring the constant pain from his feet as well as the ache coming from his wing muscles.  Almost…almost there.  Then he could finally stop and rest.  The Sergeant ignored his links as he made his way through the city, climbing on roofs and bounding over alleys.  No, his goal was the barn, a location he knew well and much more efficient than turning up on someone’s doorstep.  By the time the sun started its ascent in the sky, heralding the start of a new day, Greg was in position, right near the employee parking lot.  Whichever member of his team who showed up first was gonna get one heck of a surprise.

With that happy thought in mind, Greg settled in to wait, motionless as a sphinx, if not nearly so dangerous.  He adjusted his talons and paws, keeping the painful digits from touching the ground.  The air stung raw flesh, but less so then the ground.  Greg had a nasty feeling he might’ve done permanent damage, but what choice had he had?

The Sergeant returned his attention to the parking lot, fairly vibrating in impatience.  He was so close.  To wait was agonizing, but to screw his homecoming up at the last minute was even worse.  To go running off when a bit of patience would have him safely inside the barn…it would be the height of foolishness.  As the sun continued to rise, he spied the members of Team Two arriving, but not Team One.  A tiny whine escaped; were they on night shift?  Gingerly, he prodded at the links, then let out a lusty sigh.  Nowhere close by.  Sorrowfully, he curled up, silently instructing his magic to wake him as soon as a member of his team got close.  Then the exhausted gryphon went to sleep.

* * * * *

Greg’s internal clock nudged at him, waking him as the sun’s last rays winked out over the horizon.  The gryphon stirred, glancing around hopefully, then he slumped in disappointment.  Frowning, he inspected the links, noting with some dismay that they were all quite a distance from the barn.  Worry joined the impatience – had they left the SRU?  Had he come back to no team at all, their spirits crushed by his ‘death’?

He couldn’t wait any longer, the Sergeant decided.  No, once more, if Mohammed would not come to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Mohammed.  No matter how much his body was hurting.  A thought arrested his rise.  Throughout every aching, grueling kilometer back to Toronto, he’d traveled towards all his links, but he was too close now.  Each link led in a different direction, though some seemed to be converging.  Greg considered, then nodded to himself.  He would go to the one man who’d never given up on him.

Eddie.

* * * * *

Ed’s link did not lead where Greg had half-expected – his former team leader’s home – but rather led in an arc across the city.  Though discouraged by the distance, Greg persevered nonetheless, traveling through Toronto towards his friend.

Partway there, Greg stumbled on a stack of newspapers piled in front of someone’s door.  The top newspaper’s headline and date helpfully informed him that he’d just slept through Sunday.  The Sergeant kept moving, but he was rather relieved by the discovery.  While of course crime didn’t take the weekend off – rather the reverse, actually – the SRU had a rotating weekend schedule.  Most weeks, the teams traded off who worked the weekends, the better to give officers a break.  Oh, certainly sometimes you still ended up on a murderous ten day shift, but ordinarily not.  If he’d arrived on Sunday, perhaps he’d jumped the gun a bit in his worry and impatience.  Perhaps he could simply go back to the barn and wait for morning.

Except…  Greg mentally frowned; he was starting to get a creepy-crawly, something is very, very wrong feeling.  Just…instinct and yet…  His magically enhanced sixth sense was rarely wrong.  In fact, now that he was paying attention, it was practically shrieking in alarm.  What on Earth had his team gotten into?  Grim, the officer picked up his pace, determination powering through pain and exhaustion.  He had to hurry and find Eddie before it was too late.

* * * * *

Frustration burned just under his fur.  No sooner had he gotten close to his team leader, then the man started moving.  Greg trotted across another rooftop, angling as best he could towards Ed and growing ever more frustrated because he was just too close to do anything more than follow his teammate’s trail.  And while a gryphon at the top of his game could keep up with a vehicle’s inner city speed, that wasn’t him.  He was exhausted, hurting, and moving by sheer willpower.  He would be lucky if he arrived at Ed’s destination before the other man left.

Still, the Sergeant persisted, ignoring the sun rising off in the distance.  Screw it – he was too close to back down now.  He was sick and tired of being stuck in his gryphon form, sick and tired of traveling…  Sick and tired of not being home.

I’m coming, Eddie.  Almost there, almost home.

* * * * *

The weary, travel worn gryphon regarded the apartment complex in some confusion.  What on Earth was Eddie doing here?  He surveyed the parking lot, hoping for clues, and spotted two SRU trucks, but no patrol cars.  No Command Truck.  Perhaps Team One was keeping a low profile for some reason?  Only…if that were so, why hadn’t he spotted them at the barn or sensed their arrival?  Something simply wasn’t right about the situation, but Greg wasn’t sure what.

The gryphon worked his way around the building, trying to stay somewhat out of sight as he tried to figure out what was going on.  If his former team was on a hot call, the last thing he wanted to do was get in their way, but if they were in trouble, as his instincts were insisting, then he had to help, but how?  A quick check of the links informed him that his entire team was inside the building, lending weight to the hot call theory, but if it was just another hot call, why only two trucks?

An explosion brought him snapping around on full alert, but still unsure of what he was facing.  Seconds later, another explosion rent the air, sending a shockwave cascading through the apartment building.  Fire followed it and Greg watched in horror as the building shook under the force of the assault.  His team had still been in there!

Determination surged; he couldn’t leave them hanging, no matter how badly he felt.  The sound of sirens recalled him – trapped as he was in gryphon form, he could end up hampering any rescue efforts.  With an awful reluctance, he pulled back, watching as the fire began to spread.  Instincts keened, pleading for him to go in, to fight for his people, but reason and prudence stood firm.  His team was tough and he needed to let the firefighters do their job.

Then he saw Lou dragging Spike out of the building, both of them covered in dirt and debris; fresh horror wrapped around him at the realization that they’d been that close to the bomb.  How had they survived?  The bomb’s shockwave should’ve cut right through them, killing them instantly, and yet they appeared virtually unharmed.  Was this yet another example of Wild Magic’s sheer power?

“Lou, let me go!” Spike yelled, fighting against his friend’s grip.  “We can’t let him die!”

Above them, gryphon muscles tensed.  Can’t let who die?

“Spike, man, it’s too late!” Lou yelled back, refusing to loosen his grip.  “If Wordy couldn’t get to him, we sure can’t!”  Even as he spoke the words, Greg could see the tears streaming down the constable’s face, already grieving yet another loss.

“No, we have to save him!” Spike insisted.  “We can’t give up on him!”  Fighting even harder against Lou’s hold, the bomb tech screamed, “Ed!”

Eddie?  Eddie was still in there?

“Spike, don’t make me knock you out again,” Lou snarled.  “We go back in and we’ll just get ourselves killed!  You saw the same thing I did; there’s no way in!”

Greg barely heard the words, his entire being focusing on his team leader, his best friend – his brother by spirit, by heart, by magic.  Rationality whispered – it was too late, but at least his teammates would have him back; his response to that tiny, nasty whisper was blunt, straightforward: shove it.  Then the gryphon backed up, judging the links and the distance.  Hazel focused on a massive window almost directly across from  him and he raced forward, pushing off the edge of the building he was on to fly towards the window.

Brute strength and his own internal resolve scarcely made note of the glass shards cascading around him as he smashed through the thick window and plunged inwards, tail feathers narrowly whisking out from under falling pieces of ductwork and a metal supporting beam.  Inside, the fire roared, smoke rising to obscure Greg’s vision, but he hardly needed it.  This close, his link to Ed fairly sang, guiding him to the semiconscious man’s side.

“Greg?” the team leader whispered faintly, before slumping down.

Alarmed, Greg squalled, but the link remained steady – Ed was only unconscious.  The Sergeant forced himself to pause, examining his team leader’s position.  The tall man was pinned under a hefty support beam and the beam itself was weighed down with debris from the building.  At first, Greg was afraid his friend had been crushed, but a closer examination revealed that Ed had gotten lucky – he was only trapped.  The gryphon would have to be careful, but so long as he maintained the beam’s angle, Ed was in no danger.

With no time to waste, Greg worked his way in as close to Eddie as possible, pressing against his team leader as he fought to gain leverage against the debris.  As man and Animagus made physical contact, Greg felt his link to Ed unfurl, suddenly unbound by the collar around his neck, and he knew.  He could command his friend if he needed to.  Grim, the officer returned his attention to the beam, snarling as he brute forced it outwards, slowly freeing Ed’s trapped body.  Each second ticked by with agonizing slowness as he fought, refusing to give up.

‘Eddie, go,’ he ordered without thinking.  ‘Come on, get out from under this thing.’

Magic surged within him and he felt Ed start to move, crawling out from under the beam as Greg maintained his position, keeping the beam up and away from his friend.  One of Ed’s hands touched his flank, maintaining contact, as if that was all that was keeping the lean sniper on his feet.

‘Don’t get trapped again,’ Greg commanded, warily letting the beam back down before squirming backwards and out from his own precarious position.  The metal groaned, but held up as the gryphon freed himself from the tiny space.  Ed remained motionless, still touching his friend’s fur.  Through the links, Greg could sense the reason; Ed’s conscious mind had shut down, leaving only his subconscious and the magic within him to deal with the situation.

About to issue his next magical command – and he was so not thinking about the implications of Eddie obeying him, even while completely unconscious – the gryphon turned his head at a tiny cry.  Feathery, furry ears pricked, catching the faint sound of a child’s sobs for help.  A low growl built in his chest, fresh determination surging to life.  Both wings partially spread, just enough to grant access to his back.

‘Ed, get on my back and hold on tight.’

Mechanically, Ed’s body obeyed, clambering aboard and wrapping his arms around Greg’s neck to maintain his position.  With Ed secured, the gryphon made his way through the debris and rising smoke to find a young girl, trapped between the fallen ductwork and what was left of the stairs.  Her cries had fallen silent during the trek as heat and smoke continued their deadly assault.  Eyeing her location and the ruined stairs, Greg gulped mentally, understanding why none of his teammates had been able to reach their fallen team leader.  The window he’d crashed through had been the only way in.

Turning his attention back to the sooty child, Greg was relieved to note that he wouldn’t have to dig her out.  ‘Eddie, get off my back, then go over to the girl and pick her up,’ he ordered, keeping his commands as simple and straightforward as possible.  With his friend unconscious, he had no idea what Ed would do with a complex command.

Just as mechanically as before, Ed released his hold and slid off the gryphon’s back, moving forward to pick up the small brunette.  The girl mumbled as he lifted her, but didn’t react in any other fashion, too far gone to realize she was being rescued.

Greg eased forward, pressing against Ed’s side.  ‘Put her on my back,’ he commanded.  As soon as Ed obeyed, he added, ‘Now get on again and brace her with your body when you grab my neck.’

Once again, the team leader followed his Sergeant’s commands.  Aside from a mental nudge for Ed to tighten his grip, Greg turned to the next challenge.  Escaping the death trap around them.  He focused on his links to Lou and Spike, following them back to the window and the ductwork that blocked it.  With a furious snarl, he hefted the metal out of his way and threw it aside.  Rearing up, he slashed at the window with what was left of his talons, knocking glass free and creating more space for himself and his passengers.  A second blow widened the hole still further and the gryphon realized it would have to do.  Ducking down, he threw himself forward, only spreading his wings once he was through the glass.  There was an instant of panic as they began to fall, then his wings caught the wind and he shot out of the building.

Behind him, the fire boomed, flames scorching the third floor balcony and bringing the precarious platform crashing to the ground.  But Greg was already clear, soaring towards the parking lot and a familiar Team One SRU truck.  Beside the vehicle, he could see Spike still fighting against Lou’s inflexible hold, shouting insults as he fought to get free.

With a sharp growl-hiss, he landed in front of both men, inwardly smirking at the stunned expressions on their faces.

Chapter Text

Lou’s jaw dropped open.  “Illishar!” he began to shout, then he cut himself off with a shake of his head.  Later.  Later, he could scream at the teenager for sneaking out when he’d promised Wordy he wouldn’t.  “Never mind,” he snapped, hurrying to the gryphon’s side.  Fresh horror spiraled through him when he saw a young girl sandwiched between Ed’s unconscious body and the gryphon’s upper back.  “Spike, need your help here.”  To Illishar, he added, “Can you lay down?”

The dirty, sooty animal obeyed, laying down on his stomach, though he was careful to keep from trapping Ed’s legs beneath his heavy bulk.  Spike, at Lou’s signal, helped the tan-skinned constable work their Sergeant’s limp form off the gryphon’s back and onto the pavement.  Though Ed’s eyelids fluttered a few times, he didn’t wake.  Illishar let out a plaintive whimper-trill, rubbing his head against Lou’s arm; Lou grimaced at the fresh streak of dirt the movement left on his armor.

“Easy, Illishar,” he murmured.  As angry as he was at the foolhardy, reckless teenager, he’d done it again.  Saved a member of Team One from near certain death at the last second, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat with not an instant to spare.

As Lou checked over the unconscious Sergeant, Spike eased the little girl off Illishar’s back, cradling her in his arms to keep her head from hitting the pavement.  Like Ed, she was limp and unconscious, leaving the two constables to wonder how on Earth Illishar had managed to get two helpless victims secured on his back, never mind how he’d gotten them out of the building.

“Got a pulse, Lou,” Spike reported.

“Copy,” Lou acknowledged, flicking a glance at Illishar.  “You.  Shift back now.”  The order was a hiss, fury beginning to leak through the less-lethal specialist’s calm.

Rather than obey, Illishar streaked under the SRU truck, tail vanishing out of sight only moments before Lou heard the sound of running feet.  He snapped around, but it was only the paramedics, descending on four obvious victims of the fire.  Lou waved them to Ed and the girl, pleased when that diverted most of the paramedics.

The lead paramedic descended on him.  “Constable, let’s get you on a stretcher.”  Despite the soothing tone, man’s expectations of being obeyed were clear.

Lou shook his head.  “No, we’re fine,” he countered.  Waving to his armor, fortunately coated in debris, he lied, “We got all this when we got our Boss and the little girl out.”

The other man was unconvinced.  “Regardless, you’ve breathed in smoke,” he argued.  “You need to get checked over and treated for smoke inhalation.”

“And we will,” Spike chimed in.  “But our team leader had to get our other teammates out a different way and he doesn’t know we were able to save the Boss.”  Unfeigned anguish shone in the bomb tech’s eyes.  “We can’t leave him hanging, sir.  He has to know Ed survived.”

Lou nodded solemn agreement with his friend, grateful the fire debris hid the fact that he and Spike were in different uniforms.  In a low tone, he said, “Look, we get it.  You want to make sure we’re okay, but we only lost our last Sergeant two months ago.”

For a long minute, the paramedic wavered, then he sighed.  “Fine.  I’ll need both of you to sign a medical release, then you’re good to go.”  Scowling, he pointed at them.  “Make sure you come in later to get checked out.  Smoke inhalation isn’t anything to mess around with!”

“You got it,” Lou replied, a firm nod backing up his acceptance of the order.  The two constables signed the paperwork as the other paramedics got Ed and the little girl up on stretchers to take them to the hospital.  Once the paramedics and their patients were gone, the less-lethal specialist turned to his friend.  “Spike, the radios are probably still down.  Think you can call the others and let them know?”

“Sure thing,” Spike agreed, pulling his phone out.

About to turn away, Lou stopped.  “Spike.”  When his friend glanced up at him curiously, he added, “Call Jules; Wordy and I don’t have phones anymore and I’ve got Sam’s.”

Spike’s gaze darkened, the bomb tech easily deducing how his teammates had lost their phones, but he nodded.

Lou switched his attention back to the SRU truck – or, rather, the Animagus hiding underneath it.  Kneeling down, he eyed the gryphon.  “Okay, big guy, they’re gone.  Come on out.”

Hazel eyes met his, earning an internal blink of surprise – weren’t Lance’s eyes blue – then the Animagus nodded and crept out, whimpering softly.  To Lou’s further surprise, Illishar gazed up at him, but remained as he was, not transforming back.

The constable frowned in confusion, reaching out to gently rub the gryphon’s head feathers.  “Come on, Illishar, what’re you waiting for?  It’s only me ‘n’ Spike here.”

Illishar whimper-whined, shaking his head.  He shifted, bringing one forefoot up, then yelped in pain and let the foot back down.

Alarm surged in Lou’s chest; Illishar was hurt.  Moving fast, he swept around Spike, still on his phone, and opened the truck’s rear hatch, grateful for the lack of gear inside the vehicle.  “Okay, big guy, come on,” he called, craning back towards the gryphon.

He did not have to offer twice; Illishar scrambled after him, jumping up into the truck and clambering in far enough that he was able to turn around, laying down in a position that allowed him to keep all four feet off the truck’s rough carpeting.

Even as Lou’s confusion deepened, Spike joined him, reaching out to carefully pull one of Illishar’s forefeet towards him.  The gryphon wriggled forward, but didn’t resist the movement; instead, he lowered his head to his other forelimb, letting out an almost silent sigh.  Lou ran his eyes over the animal, noting several things.  The talons on both forefeet looked as if they’d been ground down, almost to their nubs, which made absolutely no sense – Lance had been his form for at most a few hours.  And yet…even under the dirt and debris from the fire, Lou could tell that the gryphon’s fur was filthy, long, and tangled.  There were even more than a few leaves caught in the Animagus’ feathers.  Along with that, the gryphon’s very demeanor spoke to a level of extreme, bone deep exhaustion.  As though he was awake and on his feet by sheer willpower alone.

“Lou.”  The less-lethal specialist looked down at the forefoot in Spike’s grasp and sucked in a breath.  Blood was coming from it and although the flow was minor, liquid, and recent, he could see specks of dried blood all over the underside of the gryphon’s talons and foot.  Unless something serious had happened in the fire, this wasn’t the type of damage that occurred instantly.

“Check his other forefoot,” Lou ordered, moving around his friend to crawl up into the truck and inspect the gryphon’s rear paws.  Like the forefoot, they were both bloody, but with far more damage.  The pads on the underside of the animal’s paws were so worn down that they were almost nonexistent and the flesh looked like raw hamburger.  How was Illishar even walking?

“What’s going on?” Spike asked, pale as he looked up from the other forefoot.  “It looks like he’s been walking for days.”

“Months,” Lou murmured.  It made no sense; Lance and his sister walked on a daily basis, but he knew their feet weren’t in this condition.  Even in his ice-cold, ‘I only care about results’ state, Wordy never would’ve stood for any of his charges quite literally walking the skin off their feet.  Besides, if Lance actually had walked the skin off his feet, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his condition and even assuming Wordy missed it, his wife would not.

The gryphon huffed and shifted, leaning his head and his weight against Lou, as though he was desperate for physical contact.  Even more confusing, he made no effort to pull his forefoot away from Spike – another sign that he was soaking up the physical contact.  Except…Lance shunned physical contact, had ever since his uncle had ‘gone on a bender’, which was apparently Intelligence Services code for ‘we stuck him undercover without his permission and put a gag order on him’.  Without thinking, Lou carefully let down the second paw he’d inspected and reached out, resting his hand on the gryphon’s head, right between the ears.  The gryphon managed a weary squrr, lifting his head a touch to nudge the constable’s fingers.  Bowing to the silent request, Lou began to scratch behind the animal’s ears, applying pressure to just the right spots.  A tiny smile touched his face when the gryphon’s bird-like purrs grew louder, the vibrations in his chest creating a soothing buzz against Lou’s side.

It felt like the answer to the riddle was staring him right in the face, but the pieces of the puzzle just refused to click.  Lou met Spike’s eyes and his friend nodded, as though he, too, felt the answer should be obvious, but they just couldn’t grasp it.  Something seemed to niggle at his soul, crying out for recognition, and yet…  It wouldn’t come.  It had to be Illishar – how many gryphon Animagi did they know who would run into a fire to save their Sergeant’s life – but the clues were all screaming that it couldn’t be Illishar.  Who did that leave?

“Constable Young.”

Smooth, polished, with an elegance born of a lifetime of training.  Not to mention a distinctly American accent.  Lou adjusted his position in the truck, instinct keeping him close to the purring gryphon nuzzling into his side as if life could offer nothing more satisfying.  He had to remove the hand scratching behind the animal’s ears as he twisted around, but resumed the action with his other hand as soon as he was settled again, one leg dangling over the truck’s rear bumper and his posture slightly hunched to avoid hitting his head against the upper part of the rear hatch.  The gryphon adjusted his own position, leaning so far into Lou that he was almost in the constable’s lap, a sense of weary contentment radiating.  The tan-skinned constable felt movement behind him and realized Illishar was curling his hindquarters up against his back.  Desperate for contact was suddenly feeling like the understatement of the year.

Archangel quirked a brow at Lou’s location and the gryphon all but wrapped around him; beside him, Marella giggled behind her hand, betraying a far softer side to her than Lou had been aware of.  Despite his status as a gryphon ‘teddy bear’, the constable maintained his dignity.  “Archangel.  How’s it going on your end?”

The American spy leaned on his cane.  “The police captain is understandably perturbed by the explosion,” he replied.  “I took the liberty of informing him that a single explosion is really quite…restrained…when it comes to Hawke.”

Both of Lou’s eyebrows shot up.  “You blamed Hawke?”  Beside him, Spike made a cut-off choking sound.

The blond’s single eye narrowed.  “You made it most clear that this entire attack was orchestrated in order to destroy your team’s reputation and ensure their arrest for crimes beyond their ability to control.”

In Lou’s lap, Illishar let out a distressed noise, nuzzling even harder into the constable’s chest and even shooting Spike a worried look.  Archangel paused, regarding the big animal with an air of astonishment.

“Animagus,” Lou deadpanned.  “He’s really a wizard.”

“Why hasn’t he changed back?” Marella wondered aloud.

“ ‘Cause he’s hurt,” Spike put in, expression and tone subdued.  “If an Animagus gets hurt in their form, they usually have to stay in it until the injury heals.”

Lou nodded, ignoring a sudden flicker of guilt.  Everything they’d said was true, so why did it feel like he’d just lied?  Why did it feel like he’d just denied one of the most important things in his life?  Why did it feel like he was missing something – more than just the obvious, this time.

Archangel considered, then offered a short nod.  “As I was saying, given the enemy’s objectives, to reveal the true course of events would accomplish those goals.  Something I am loathe to do, Constable Young.”  One shoulder hiked.  “You are, of course, free to tell the good captain the truth.”

Inwardly, Lou shuddered, because he knew just as well as Archangel that he’d rather be drawn and quartered than accept that barbed invitation.  Even though he should.  Two wrongs didn’t make a right, after all.  But to let his teammates suffer for what they hadn’t done of their own free will was an even greater wrong and he couldn’t do it.

The American studied him, reading the answer in his face and the leashed tension in Spike’s posture.  “Very well,” the blond remarked in a genteel tone.  “I’m afraid I have…other news.”

Both constables stiffened and Lou felt Illishar shift, one ear rotating towards the spy.  “What do we got?” the tan-skinned officer asked.

Archangel glanced to his assistant and she moved to the fore.  “Are either of you familiar with a Constable DeValle?”

Lou’s jaw almost dropped.  Revan.  Team Three’s Auror liaison and Giles Onasi’s old partner.

To the side, Spike muttered, “I guess he finally got the paperwork done.”

Dark eyes skewered the bomb tech.  “You knew he was changing his name?”

One shoulder hiked and Spike twisted to glance up at his friend.  “After, um…  After Sarge told him his mother’s last name, he wanted to change his own.”

“To hers,” Lou breathed, understanding.  “But…where’d his come from?”

The other shoulder went up.  “Revan told me it was his cover name back then,” Spike explained.  “I bet the Head Unspeakable came up with it and just kept it after everything went sideways.”

It made sense; since only Percival Calvin had known The Fox’s real name, Revan had been left with a first name and not much else.  But to become an Auror, he would’ve had to have a last name.  Part of Lou wondered where the Head Unspeakable had come up with ‘Vao’, but that was a question for another time.  Because Revan was still getting used to living normally even by wizarding standards, never mind regularly interacting with non-magicals.  The Sarge had laid out the entire history for Team Three’s Sergeant, making sure the other man knew what he was getting into with an ex-Unspeakable who’d spent most of his life as the Unspeakables’ pet defective Wild Mage.  As a result, Team Three had all but adopted the young Auror and they were extremely protective of ‘their wizard’.  For Revan to be on his own without them meant something was wrong.

Turning back to the curious spies, Lou muttered, “Later, okay?”  He started to straighten, but a warning squawk from the gryphon stopped him just in time.  “Thanks, Illishar,” he whispered; banging his head on a car hurt.  “What’s wrong at the barn?” he asked hastily, to cover his near accident.

Marella frowned and Archangel replied, “He wouldn’t tell us.  He only said that he knew Team One was here and he needed to speak to Sergeant Lane as soon as possible.”

Lou’s forehead wrinkled; Revan should’ve known that Team One was Imperiused – he was Team Three, after all.  “Ed’s on his way to the hospital,” he informed the Americans.  “I don’t know about Wordy, but I bet Sam and Jules will end up in the hospital, too.”  Glancing over, he asked, “Spike, what’d they say?”

“Some guy named Dom picked up Jules’ phone,” Spike reported, gaze grim.  “He said Jules has a broken leg, Sam has a concussion, and Wordy had to be knocked out by Hawke before they could get him off the building.”

Lou winced and felt Illishar cringe in his lap.  Really, he should’ve known it would take more than Ed giving the order for Wordy to walk away from a trapped, dying friend.  “They headed for the hospital?”

“Yeah,” Spike confirmed.  “Dom promised to let Wordy know about Ed as soon as he woke up.  I gave him my OMAC code so Wordy’d know he wasn’t just blowing smoke.”

The less-lethal specialist nodded approval, absently noting that Illishar was nodding, too.  That was odd; although the teens had helped Sarge set up the initial OMAC codes, Lou was pretty sure neither would’ve known immediately why Spike had given a perfect stranger his OMAC code.  An SRU officer on the other hand…  Lou shut that train of thought down.  He was dead and never coming back.

For a second time, Lou turned back to the Americans.  “You got Revan with you?” he asked.

“We do,” Marella confirmed.  “We wanted to be sure you recognized the name first, though.”

“Copy,” Lou murmured, more to himself than anything else.  As Marella headed off to retrieve the Auror, the constable continued to scratch behind Illishar’s ears, pondering the mystery of the gryphon’s physical state.

* * * * *

Greg resisted the urge to curl even closer to Lou and go to sleep.  Somehow, he had a feeling his constable – former constable – wouldn’t appreciate getting trapped under the bulk of a sleeping gryphon.  But it was so tempting, particularly with Lou’s scratching turning his mind to utter mush.  Of course he was worried about the rest of Team One, but the worry was fading further and further into the distance as Lou kept up with the scratching.  Even the throbbing pain from his feet was receding, a curious sensation indeed.  Lou knew all the good places, too, sending waves of relaxation, contentment, and pleasure running through his body.  His own exhaustion tugged, begging him to simply rest and let his team fuss over him.  He’d done more than enough; he was home.

But even through the pleasant buzz, Greg was still a cop, still a negotiator; he’d picked up the worry in both American spies.  Revan might not have told them what was going on, but the Sergeant suspected they had been able to make a few guesses regardless.  Particularly if they now knew about magic.  The mention of Hawke meant they likely had a connection to the helicopter/Obscurus, though Greg’s muddled mind had no interest in trying to figure out if they’d known about magic when they’d recruited his team to help catch an East German spy.

One ear flicked towards the sound of footsteps, easily distinguishing between Marella’s lighter tread and Revan’s heavier one.  A sharp intake of breath alerted the gryphon to Revan’s first sighting of him; behind Lou’s back, his tail thumped once and the Animagus opened his eyes lazily.  He wasn’t moving unless he had to.

“Is that…”

“Illishar,” Lou filled in; privately, to himself, Greg sighed.  He would’ve thought all the clues – heck, his feet alone – would convince his former teammates that he wasn’t Illishar, but apparently not.  Poor Lance was going to be rather confused with why he was being yelled at.

He refocused back on the conversation in time to hear Spike say, “Revan, they know.  We’ll get the paperwork signed later, now what the heck is going on?”

He heard a put-upon sigh from Revan, then the Auror gave in.  “Fine, whatever.  Tell anyone you want.”

Greg rumbled deep in his chest – last he’d checked, Team One did have authority to override the Statute if necessary.  Lou backed him with a low, “Revan.”

The silence hung just long enough to be pointed and Greg was about to bring his head up off Lou’s lap when the Auror finally spoke.  “They got Team Three.”

“Who got Team Three?” Spike demanded, alarm audible.

“Who do you think, Scarlatti?” Revan fairly snarled.  “I guess your team wasn’t enough for ‘em, so they came looking for mine!”

Lou cursed softly.  “They must’ve figured me ‘n’ Wordy would find a way to break the spell,” he said, fury and horror underlying every word.

“Well, you do have a Wild Mage,” Revan sneered.  Then he faltered and Greg heard a sharp intake of breath.  The next words sounded as if Revan was staring at the ground; guilt and self-hatred rang.  “Not a wannabe Wild Mage like me.”

“Lance didn’t break the curse,” Lou corrected.  “He didn’t show up till after the bomb went off.  Stop beating yourself up; we’ll get them back.”

Revan shook his head in refusal and moved on.  “They…they showed up at the barn an hour ago.  I was talking to Winnie for an update when they walked in.”  A harsh swallow.  “Winnie saw it coming; she yelled for me to duck and I did.”  A second swallow.  “It hit her instead.”

Dear Aslan, what was going on?

“They killed her?” Marella demanded, shock and revulsion written in every sound.

Greg brought his head up, shaking off the muzziness; if Winnie was dead, he was going to slaughter the wizards responsible.  Rage uncurled, flooding his veins with adrenaline and drowning out the pain.  A low snarl began to build in his chest only to falter when Revan shook his head.

“Imperius,” he choked out.  “I Disapparated out and went straight for Simmons.  Got there just in time to see ‘em get him, too.”

“They’re trying to enslave the whole barn?” Spike blurted.  “Is that even possible?”

The Auror shrugged limply.  “Don’t know, but they’re tryin’,” he replied.

Lou gulped.  “We’re down to just me ‘n’ Spike,” he admitted.  “Maybe Wordy if he wakes up.”  Turning to Spike, he asked, “Did Dom say how Hawke took him down?”

Spike bit his lip.  “No, but he said Wordy wasn’t injured.  Just knocked out.  Sounded like a sleeper hold to me.”

Greg winced.  If so, his former constable was going to wake up with quite the headache…not exactly conducive to a tactical raid on the barn against a superior force, both in terms of strength and magic.  He had no doubt in Lou and Spike’s abilities, but they weren’t used to working with an almost nonexistent team.  Well…  The Sergeant reconsidered; Spike wasn’t, but Lou had undoubtedly learned on the fly with this whole mess if his mental image of the situation was correct.

However…a guerilla attack, with a tiny number of individuals…  Precisely the tactic his mob boss alter-ego had utilized against Castor Troy’s gang.  Although he’d divided his crews up into numbers roughly equal to an SRU team, more than one operation had required even smaller numbers – or required working with unfamiliar teammates.  If only he could talk.  Or transform.  But he couldn’t…the only thing he could do was…

Realization dawned.  He could help them retake the barn.  In his gryphon form.  And why not?  He’d already dealt with two serial killers in his Animagus form.  Managed to simply knock them out and work with human assistants to restrain them afterwards.  Even when dealing with opponents under the Imperius, Greg was fairly confident he could act fast enough to take people down without getting shot or cursed.  As he’d seen in the tiny police station in Colorado, even those who knew about magic didn’t know how to respond to a big – predatory – magical creature.  True, Team Three had worked with his gryphon form before, but he’d been on the same side during that fight.  He doubted they would know how to counter a gryphon attacking them.

Greg let out a low, rumbling snarl and uncurled, leaping down from the truck and landing in the middle of the huddle with his wings tented.  The message was clear: he would help them retake the barn and save their friends.

Chapter Text

Both Lou and Spike did their best to protest – a dangerous raid on the barn was no place for a young teenager – but in spite of not being able to say a word, Illishar won the argument, merely staring them into submission with a ‘I am going to do this and you are not going to stop me’ expression.  Not so much as an ear twitched as his strength and force of personality silenced them.  Spike had to wonder how a gryphon with minimal expressive capability had managed to pack all of that into a stare.

Having won the argument, Illishar turned to Archangel, cocking his head in question.  The constables glanced at each other, somehow understanding the silent query.  Then Spike huffed a sigh, shoulders slumping as he asked, “You in?”

Archangel studied him in turn, a tight, closed expression on his face.  Then he flicked a glance at his assistant.  “Sir,” she replied, stepping forward.  “It’s up to you, but if these…people get away with this, we’ll likely have to deal with them again down the line.”

Translation: Go for it, Spike thought in amusement.  He had a feeling he was missing a big chunk of the back story, particularly given the curiously devious glint in Lou’s eyes.  But that hardly mattered.  They needed help if they were going to stop the bad guys.

The one-eyed spy gave a clipped nod, then turned to Lou, visible eyebrow rising.  “And who will be leading this operation, Constable Young?”

Lou swallowed hard and cast a desperate look at Spike.  No Sergeant, no team leader…had they ever been in a situation where they were the only ones left standing?  Heck, aside from a little cross-training and a hot call here or there, neither of the two constables even had team leader experience.  Ed, Wordy, and Sam had always handled it, covering each other so adeptly that the three remaining team members didn’t have to.

Illishar let out an insistent squawk-yowl, somehow managing to stand even straighter despite the horrific pain he had to be in.  Spike hadn’t forgotten how ripped up those front feet were and the look on Lou’s face at the state of Illishar’s paws…

“Absolutely not!” Lou snapped before Spike could.  “We shouldn’t even be letting you come.”

Illishar turned, gryphon eyes somehow narrowing in Lou’s direction.  The tan-skinned constable returned the glare, but Spike shivered at the battle of wills.  When had Illishar started channeling his late uncle so well?  It felt like a combination of Sarge’s disappointment that they weren’t comprehending some important factor and his disapproval in those few times he’d truly believed his strategy was better than anything his teammates could come up with – and they were stupid enough to argue.

The standoff lasted less than thirty seconds, then Lou dropped his gaze in unspoken surrender, his body language communicating submission to the Animagus.  Spike opened his mouth only to freeze as Illishar turned to him, fairly radiating dominance.  A dominance that the bomb tech’s conscious mind didn’t understand, even as his own gaze dropped and he found himself reacting to the gryphon with the same instinctive submission as Lou.

Archangel’s eye narrowed, his expression turning to one of appraisal, calculation, and a touch of speculation.  With a nod, he, too, deferred to the Animagus.  Addressing Illishar directly, he said, “I’ll contact Hawke and arrange a meeting location.”

In a dignified manner, the gryphon returned the nod.  Then, as the Firm agent made his call, he curled around Spike, rumbling a squrr that drew an answering joy from the bomb tech’s soul.  He and Lou were definitely missing something, but what?

* * * * *

Greg was pleased to see an awake, aware Wordy with the three Airwolf pilots.  The real surprise was the ghostly black and white wolf that shone with – and smelt of – both Dark and Light magic.  She pranced around him and he thought he heard a brief chortle through the ‘team sense’, but it was faint and indistinct.

Nevertheless, he cast her a slight glare for fooling around and let out a sharp growl-trill.  There was a time and place for cavorting, but this wasn’t it.  Not with so many lives on the line.  The Obscurus stopped bouncing, her wolfish expression distinctly sulky at the rebuke.

Wordy focused on Lou and Spike with need so desperate it was almost obsessive.  “Ed?”

“Paramedics took him to the hospital,” Lou reported at once.  He gestured to Greg.  “You can yell at Illishar later.”

The Sergeant opted not to object; he was fairly certain any objection would be misunderstood as ‘Lance’ trying to squirm out of trouble rather than him trying to say he wasn’t Illishar.  In any event, they had more important things to worry about – and he still needed to finagle command away from an emotionally and possibly even physically compromised Wordy.  Without being able to speak.  Joy.  Or…  Perhaps not…  Greg cast a speculative glance at the American spy standing next to him with a faintly amused expression.

Archangel seemed to have already sussed out what was going on.  Enroute to the rendezvous, Greg had overheard him asking a few…casual questions of Spike and Lou.  Mostly about when they’d found out about magic, though nothing directly about who might’ve told them.  The men had answered the timeline questions readily, though they definitely would’ve clammed up if the spy had specifically asked about Greg’s nipotes.  If the Sergeant’s private suspicions were correct, then his former teammates had essentially confirmed Archangel’s theory that Team One had discovered magic immediately after his nipotes arrived.  Plus, in a move that all but confirmed the Sergeant’s own theory, after getting his answers, Archangel had carefully reached in the truck’s back compartment to rub the gryphon’s head feathers, brushing enough dirt and soot off to reveal the gray and silver beneath.  As yet, the blond hadn’t said anything, but if he was even half as smart as Greg thought – he knew.

Indeed, just as Wordy’s attention swapped to Greg, indignation blazing and already drawing breath to yell, the American discreetly cleared his throat.  “Another time, Constable Wordsworth,” he ordered.  His one eye turned to a familiar brunet.  “Hawke?”

Hawke grunted unhappily.  “They’ve bunkered in,” he drawled.  “They know we’re coming and they’re sticking close enough that the Lady won’t be able to pull what she did at the apartment complex.”

Greg cocked his head to the side.  What had the Obscurus done at the apartment complex?  To his surprise, everyone save himself and Revan jumped, then Lou scowled at the ghostly wolf.  “Hey, don’t yell,” he objected.  “And we know what you did, thanks.”

Oh.  Fussbudget.  He’d been right; the Obscurus had been trying to talk to him, but she couldn’t.  No more than he could talk to his team so long as a certain blasted collar remained in place.  Aside from flattening his ears, the gryphon didn’t react to the wolf’s clear confusion.  Once had been enough; he needed to keep all four feet on the ground for the foreseeable future.  With an air of expectation, he returned his attention to Hawke, waiting for more information.

“How bad is it?” Spike asked.

“Hard to tell,” Wordy replied, tone terse.  “The Lady can tell whose got magic and who doesn’t, but we’ve got Aurors in the barn, too.”

Greg nodded sharply; they couldn’t simply assume anyone with magic was a Neo Death Eater, not with their colleagues in the line of fire.  Shifting his stance from dignified to battle-ready, he let out a low hissing trill.  Waiting would just let the enemy get more entrenched; they had to go in and they had to assume everyone inside the barn was hostile until proven otherwise.

“We run right in and we’re gonna be in the line of fire,” Lou argued.

The gryphon snorted.  Of course they were, but not if he went in first.  Considering, he glanced at the Obscurus, tilting his head.  She let out a yip and moved to be right next to him.  In one move, Greg whirled and bounded to land next to Hawke, then leapt sideways to Spike before making one last jump to Lou.  The Obscurus followed him, deliberately a beat behind.

“Leapfrog in,” Hawke murmured, expression thoughtful.  “Is that it, Lady?”

Greg nodded, watching in interest as all the humans – Revan included – looked to the wolf, as if she’d said something.  She probably had – he just couldn’t hear her with the collar around his neck.  Very, very privately, he hoped she wouldn’t drop the bomb; that was the last thing his former team needed right before a tactical operation.  As much as he wanted them to know, wanted to really, truly be home, saving lives came first.

It always would.

* * * * *

Wordy was not a happy camper.  Although he’d won the argument of whether or not the Lady would be coming with them – decidedly not – he’d lost the war of who was in command.  Much to his internal horror, as soon as he’d said he was leading the operation, Illishar had fixed him with a stare, expectation radiating, right along with an unshakable confidence that he would give in and surrender.

Indignation fueled his return glare; he most certainly was not handing operational command over to a seventeen-year-old wizard!  Except as those hazel eyes bored into his, he’d found his stubborn, unbreakable will faltering.  Fists clenched and his glare grew stronger, but as the moment hung, his will faded, bit by bit.  Illishar’s gaze remained steady, unwavering with something…indefinable in those eerie eagle eyes that looked…like his.  In the end, Wordy’s head lowered of its own accord, shoulders slumping and his body communicating complete submission to the Animagus.  He didn’t know why he’d given in, only that it had been impossible to do otherwise.  Something deep within him had responded to Illishar and he had a feeling that Lou and Spike had felt that same…something.  An influence, a whisper, heck, maybe even just instinct.

Whatever it was, here they were, heading into an SRU Headquarters controlled by Neo Death Eaters, with virtually all their fellow SRU members under the Imperius.  They had three SRU constables, two American spies, and three American helicopter pilots – albeit combat helicopter pilots.  And they were following a gryphon.  An Animagus who couldn’t speak and wasn’t even an adult yet!  All of that and he didn’t have a doubt that they were going to win.  Handily and without breaking a sweat.  He just didn’t have a clue why he believed that so stridently.

* * * * *

Rather than charge in the barn’s front door, Greg led the assault force around to another entrance.  It was dusty and hardly ever used because it was meant for building maintenance.  The narrow door opened into equally narrow corridors, but there were access points in almost every part of the building.  Even better, few members of the SRU knew about the maintenance areas, even the Sergeants.  Greg himself had found out about the narrow passages from Commander Holleran, though he still didn’t know why his commander had told him about the tunnel-like corridors.

The one snag in their entry plan was the locked door, but Archangel picked the lock almost before Wordy rattled the door in frustration.  Bemused, Greg led the way inside, internally wincing at how much tighter the corridors were to his gryphon form.  Ignoring the fact that his gryphon instincts were more than a touch claustrophobic, the Sergeant headed for the corridor that ran right near the atrium.  Once there, he nudged Revan to the front and cast Wordy an expectant look.

“Detection spell, Revan,” Wordy muttered, either magically reading Greg’s mind or just thinking along the same lines.

“Copy,” the young wizard agreed, waving his wand in movements that the Sergeant knew well.  The wall in front of them seemed to fade, revealing the sight of Winnie and Team Three fortified in the atrium, all of the Imperiused cops facing the outer door with weapons up.  Greg frowned internally, inspecting the layout carefully.  After a minute, his tail curled and he reared up to paw at the image of Winnie.  She was close to the maintenance door and – even better – alone.  If they could take her out, they’d be able to use the dispatcher desk for cover.

Not that Greg intended it to get that far.  No, they needed stealth all the way.  Sleeper holds and carefully picking one target off at a time.  With so many under the curse, Greg was hoping the Neo Death Eaters were spread too thin for their victims to be effective.  Dumb as rocks and too stupid to know better was infinitely preferable at the moment.  Unfortunately, even if the victims were oblivious, the wizards wouldn’t be…

Well, first things first.  Greg turned his head to Lou and let out a low rumble.

The constable crept forward, frowning when he got a good look at Greg’s position.  “Winnie first?”

A sharp nod.

Spike looked unhappy, but he didn’t argue as Lou eased the door open and made his move without hesitation.  In less than a minute, he’d dragged Winnie back to the rest, limp and unconscious.  Revan applied a sleep spell to keep her out and the group snuck from the maintenance corridors to the dispatcher’s desk with none of their targets the wiser.

Greg kept a sharp eye out, as did Revan, but not a single Neo Death Eater appeared as the whole of Team Three was taken down via sleeper holds without a single spell or shot fired.  Once the officers were down and safely spelled asleep, the raiders turned to Revan for more information.

“Who’s on-duty?” Wordy asked, low, but not whispering.

Revan scowled.  “We were off till tomorrow,” he replied, indicating Team Three.  “Holleran called us in, don’t know why.”

Greg winced; that meant Teams Two and Four were on-duty and likely Imperiused.  An idea occurred and he nudged Spike, deliberately prodding at his constable’s phone.

“You need my phone?” Spike asked, bemused for an instant before his eyes lit up and he pulled it off his belt.  The others watched, confused until the bomb tech held his phone out and a three-dimensional map leapt up, showing the barn and the location of every single occupant.

Archangel leaned forward, avarice in his eyes.  “Does that work everywhere?” he questioned.

Lou shook his head.  “Most places don’t have enough ambient magic for a map like this,” he replied, indicating Spike’s phone.  “Toronto has a few minor ley lines; that’s why the Canadian magical government is here.”

The greed faded into disappointment and the spy tipped his chin in acceptance.  His assistant and the brunette pilot were just as disappointed, but Hawke and Dom looked faintly relieved; Greg suspected they didn’t want their spy friends involved in the magical world and he couldn’t disagree.  If American spies started using magic in their day-to-day activities, it wouldn’t be long before they attracted the attention of the magical government.  Given his own team’s experiences, the results wouldn’t be anything good.

“Guys, looks like there’s only three people in Holleran’s office,” Spike broke in.  “We could probably take them by surprise.”

“Copy that, Spike,” Wordy agreed, only to wince at Greg’s low growl-hiss of rebuke.

Although Parker was pleased that Wordy seemed to be recovering his mental footing, he needed to maintain authority and control over the operation, especially since his former team thought he was a seventeen-year-old teenager.  He had a feeling they already knew the truth, reacting to him on a subconscious level even as their conscious minds remained blind to his identity, convinced they were dealing with Lance.

At the same time, to disregard Spike’s advice and intel was utter foolishness and he had no intention of doing so.  There wasn’t a ‘secret’ way into Holleran’s office, so another strategy was needed.  In fact, it was time to apply a bit of shock and awe, using himself as a diversion to let his human allies take down their Imperiused targets.

The gryphon moved, staying low as he stalked towards their next target; behind him, the humans were just as quiet as they kept up with their Animagus leader.  Near the office, Parker flinched internally, but forced himself to lift one forefoot.  Pain shrieked from his opposite foot, but he managed to flex his talons in a rough, makeshift SRU hand signal before dropping the foot back down.

Wordy, the closest behind him, murmured, “Copy that, Boss,” and leapfrogged to the opposite side of Holleran’s door.  The team leader signaled his teammates, ordering Spike to stay next to Greg while Lou shifted to a third position.  Revan joined Wordy, wand at the ready, but the Americans hung back, recognizing that the office was too small for all of them to charge in.  They’d just get in each other’s way if they all attacked at once.  At one last signal from Wordy, Spike reached out, turning the knob as slowly and silently as he could manage.

Greg stiffened, then lunged, ramming the door open and landing inside with a furious snarl-hiss.  The men inside whipped towards him, bringing their weapons up, but the Sergeant’s sixth sense shrieked.  On Team Three and Winnie, he’d been able to see the curse, skating over their skin and smelling of wrongness.  But none of the officers in front of him smelled of that wrongness and there was no sign of that sickly green-yellow hue on them.

Alarm shot through him and the gryphon moved, blocking Wordy and Lou before they could attack; with Wordy in the way, Revan couldn’t get a clear shot with his wand, but that was good.  For one precious instant, he was pressed against both his former constables and an instinctive order shot through his head: Stand down.  Team One, stand down.

They couldn’t hear him, but Greg’s blocking maneuver delayed both sides enough that Commander Holleran realized what was going on.  “Wordsworth, OMAC code,” he snapped, bringing the fight to a screeching halt.

“No one way trips on my team,” Wordy replied, lowering his gun hastily.  “Sir?”

* * * * *

Wordy was horrified; they’d never considered that anyone inside the barn might’ve escaped the Imperius.  His teammates had lowered their weapons as soon as Commander Holleran invoked the OMAC codes, but the two Team Four constables were still eyeing Illishar with great suspicion, weapons partially up.

“Easy, guys, Illishar’s okay,” Spike put in, easing forward to put himself between the gryphon and their fellow officers.

Holleran arched a brow, eyeing the gryphon himself.  “Diversion?”

Wordy nodded.  “Then Revan would’ve hit all of you with a sleep spell,” he confessed.

Surprise flashed, then approval.  “I assume you’ve already taken Team Three down?”

“Yes, sir, and Winnie,” Wordy confirmed.  “We, ah, we figured with only three people…”

He trailed off sheepishly, but Commander Holleran shook his head.  “No, Wordsworth, it was a good plan.”  He indicated the two Team Four constables.  “If not for Young and Hopper here, you would’ve been right.”

Lou blinked at the curly-haired brunet’s last name, but Wordy rallied.  “Yes, sir,” he acknowledged.  Glancing at the pair, the team leader asked, “Where’s the rest of your team?”

Blue narrowed as Young scowled.  “We were in the briefing room when they got in,” he explained.  “They got the Sarge first, then Mordred and Lancelot.  Percy and I managed to duck out the back way, but everyone else…”  Still scowling, Young turned away, shame bowing his shoulders at the failure to save his teammates.

“Hey,” Wordy countered, gentle and firm at the same time.  “We’re gonna get them back.  Our team got Imperiused, too, only me ‘n’ Lou left, but we got ‘em back.  Don’t give up on them.”

Young swung back, blue meeting gray and the tall, bearded man thoughtful.  There was something familiar about him – and his teammate, too – but Wordy was running on fumes.  He just didn’t have the energy or brainpower to spare for the mystery.

Then the other constable spoke up, the light in Holleran’s office reflecting off a brunet buzz cut a centimeter or two longer than either Wordy’s or Lou’s.  “So what’s the plan?”

Wordy turned to Spike; the bomb tech nodded and pulled out his phone.  In seconds, the map was floating above the screen and the SRU constables got down to planning.

* * * * *

Greg didn’t interfere with the planning.  Constable Leon Young was Team Four’s team leader and Constable Percival Hopper was to Team Four what Wordy was to Team One.  They also knew about magic.  Greg knew they knew about magic because, unlike his former teammates, he’d recognized them.  He’d recognized the names they’d used, too, and he suspected the Neo Death Eaters were going to get a nasty surprise as soon as Lancelot saw him.

The Knights of Camelot walked among the living once more.  Greg had known that; he’d just never expected that the Knights would appear in Toronto, much less in the SRU itself.  Hazel lifted, eyeing the Knights in a rather sidelong fashion.  A key question remained.  Would the Knights trust magic after how much it had taken from them?  Would they be willing to trust magic after, yet again, they’d been violently assaulted by its darkest practitioners?

* * * * *

Leon frowned as he followed a dirty, sooty gryphon through corridors in the SRU that he hadn’t even known existed.  According to Team One, the magical animal was actually a wizard – he’d bit his tongue to keep from saying sorcerer – and he was the seventeen-year-old nephew of their former Sergeant.  Leon could readily agree that the creature had to be secretly human – otherwise it would have ripped all of them apart – but he wasn’t so sure about who the sorcerer was.  How did a seventeen-year-old kid know about the SRU’s maintenance tunnels?

There had also been an almost knowing gleam in the single eye of the blond American spy and an approval when he’d asserted his team leader seniority to take command of the operation.  All of the Americans had been willing to stay behind and leave the rest of the ‘raid’ to the SRU constables – and their magical allies.  Although Leon was grateful they’d helped his fellow constables, there was something satisfying and settling about having the operation back in exclusively SRU hands.

Ahead of him, the gryphon paused, turning to gaze past Leon at the other sorcerer – Team Three’s sorcerer.  The dark-haired man moved forward, scooting around Leon, and pulled out his wand, waving it at the wall next to the gryphon.  The once-Knight and now-constable sucked in a breath of surprise when the bricks faded, allowing the officers to see right through the wall to the other side.  Leon stiffened, both at the magic use and at the sight of his teammates, all of them with blank, glazed eyes and guns raised as they stared up towards the atrium.  Reaching out, Leon felt brick under his hand; the wall wasn’t gone, just…invisible.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Blue eyes flicked over to narrowly regard Scarlatti; the bomb tech’s grin was a touch forced, but genuine nonetheless.  Part of Leon agreed with the other man’s assessment, the part of him that only remembered being born in Toronto, growing up reading ancient myths and legends, and watching movies of every imaginable genre.  That part of him felt nothing but awe at this proof that magic was not only real, but practical.

The rest of Leon remembered being born in a Camelot that regarded magic as the darkest of evils.  Remembered evil sorcerers cursing the land, murdering countless innocents, and summoning creatures to kill thousands more.  He itched to pull his gun and empty it into the gryphon and the sorcerer, thus ending a threat far greater than Team One was willing to acknowledge.

And yet…his hand never even twitched towards the weapon.  Because he remembered hazel eyes meeting his, pleading for understanding, pleading to be judged on their merits, not Morgana’s.  He remembered a hydra and the sweep of magic heralding his exit from Camelot to Toronto.  The guardsman whose life he’d saved – Scarlatti – and the shock of Merlin appearing in that strange world of the future.  The even greater shock of discovering his King’s best friend…was a sorcerer.  Had been from the beginning – always fighting for Camelot and her people, against his own kind.  He remembered the look in Merlin’s eyes when he’d said the word ‘hydra’, the horror as Merlin realized that to save the future, he would have to murder his own friends.  Leon even remembered the disorienting rush of the sorceress’s magic, pulling them back and sending them to their deaths.

Only for their future selves to remember, to wake with memories of swords and knights and sorcerers.  Future selves who served right alongside Team One, oblivious until that day to their magical secrets.  He and Percival had agreed to keep quiet and stay away from Team One’s naïve trust in magic and sorcerers.  They’d also agreed to keep their ancient memories to themselves, though both men kept a close eye on Mordred, wary of his magic and fearful of the day he remembered the past.

Leon considered an instant longer, then pulled his hand back from the invisible wall and turned his attention to the gryphon sorcerer.  Very well; he would give the sorcerer a fair chance.  He would let the man stand on his own merits and judge him by his actions, not his magic.  By that measure, the constable knew he already had to concede that the gryphon had willingly jumped into a burning building to save two lives.  More than that, he had to concede that both the gryphon and Team Three’s sorcerer were working to defeat the evil sorcerers and save an entire building of non-magical police officers from a mind-control spell.  If he had to trust magic, then Leon knew which side he would take, every time.

* * * * *

Greg examined Team Four, evaluating their positions with exquisite care.  Too close; one of them could be taken down with a sleeper hold, but the others would know, instantly.  On the plus side, they were down two and, with any luck, seeing him would jar Lancelot’s magic into reacting, thus breaking the curse on him.  That left only four to deal with and the quarters were too close for guns to be effective.

Inwardly, the Sergeant frowned, frantically trying to figure out why he was so uneasy.  He was missing something, something critical…  Hazel eagle eyes made their best attempt to widen and Greg whipped around to Spike.  The bomb tech fumbled his phone out again, obeying the silent order.  The map of the barn appeared, glowing in the dim corridor.  Alarm shot through the group – Team Two was right around the corner!

“Dang,” Wordy breathed, eyes wide.  “We’re gonna have to hit them both at once.”

Leon nodded gravely.  “If we don’t, the other team will hear the scuffle.”

Which would put the guns back in play and risk lives.  Definitely not something any of them were prepared to permit.  Worse, Team Two was at full strength.  Shock and awe wouldn’t be enough, no, that fight would need magic.  Greg considered their options, weighing the possible attack vectors and wishing for Eddie’s tactical genius, but even someone less attuned to tactics could see their best course forward.

A low rumble brought him to the center of attention.  He paced to them, curling around Team One and Revan, then turned and loped down the corridor to the next hidden door.  The door was conveniently located past Team Two’s location, allowing for an attack from behind.  Greg was aware the whole group was following him and when he halted, Revan cast another detection spell.

Leon surveyed the opposite side of the wall and nodded slowly.  Glancing down, he asked, “You want Team One and Revan to take Team Two?”

A sharp, agreeing nod.

The team leader frowned.  “And you’re going to help me and Percy stop our team?”

Greg trilled, soft, but firm.  Risky, but doable, he was sure of it.  So long as they trusted him, it would work.

For several seconds, Leon hesitated, blue flicking back and forth as he thought.  Then he tipped his chin in acceptance.  “Let’s do it.”  Turning, he met Wordy’s gray.  “When we make our move, jump ‘em.”

“Copy.”

Adrenaline flowed as Greg moved with Leon and Percival.  The constables traded looks and gestures, planning without words.  The team leader eased the maintenance door open, all of them tense and alert for the merest, tiniest squeak that might give their position away.  Percival crept forward and, in a single, smooth motion, wrapped his arm around his Sergeant’s neck, cutting off the blood flow in less than a second.  Team Four jerked, turning to face their attackers even as Leon moved to launch his own attack.

And Greg screech-roared, pouring every ounce of his magic and status as a lethal predator into the sound.  He felt the humans stagger as instinctive fear and terror seized them despite the curse.  Lancelot’s eyes fixed on him and widened an instant before they glowed, lit from the depths by his forest brown Wild Magic.  The magic seemed to hiss as it took offense to the mind-control curse, breaking it as easily and swiftly as if it were naught but spun glass.  In a blink, he whirled, elbow slamming into his teammate’s gut.  The other man let out a whoof-ing noise as he folded over, disabled even before Lancelot laid him out with an uppercut.

Greg lunged, snarl-hissing as he bowled over another man with magic liming his skin, glowing to the gryphon’s vision.  It was the deep green of old forest growth, tainted with pits of sorrow and loss, and seared all the way through with an obsessive hatred.  The darkness was ancient and counter-acted by a burgeoning sense of redemption and hope, but it had left the man ripe for the mind-control curse.  But magic or no magic, the officer went down hard as the weight and speed of a full grown gryphon struck him in the chest.

Around him, Percival finished the takedown his sleeper hold had begun and Leon took out the final member of Team Four, his uppercut just as effective as Lancelot’s for ending the fight.  Greg maintained his position even as several thumps from around the corner informed him that Revan and Team One had rather decisively dealt with Team Two.  With any luck, they wouldn’t remember much of what had occurred.  Greg had been displeased, to put it mildly, when Holleran had told him about Roenick endangering Team One to ensure his own team got credit for all the arrests during a joint op.

Gryphon ears flattened in dismay.  They’d successfully taken down all the non-magical occupants of the barn, but the rest were going to be far more difficult.  Especially since they really only had Revan.  He himself was a Squib-born and Lancelot had no magical training to speak of.  Even if he used his magic, he’d be operating on instinct alone.

Naturally, that was when Greg heard the whump, whump, whump of an approaching helicopter.  His head came up, staring at the ceiling in confusion and fresh dismay.  What was she doing here?  Then Magic Itself seemed to roar and a wave of pure power slammed through the barn, Light and Shadow flowing as one, with one goal and one purpose.  The gryphon had just enough time to stiffen before the tidal wave of magic struck, sending him flying down the corridor.

* * * * *

As soon as the world stopped spinning, Wordy scrambled to his feet, adrenaline and magic flowing through his system, overriding exhaustion and pain.  Power buzzed around him, granting him fresh strength and speed.  Illishar raced past and he followed, aware of his teammates and fellow officers on his heels, but focused on that bounding figure.  Something had happened, something powerful and momentous that had turned the tide, leaving the day all but won if they could only reach out and seize that victory.

They ran into the Auror area of the barn without impediment, all of the wizards shaking their heads and looking rather dazed as they shook off the last of the Imperius.  Ahead of them, Illishar kept the lead, running as though someone’s life depended on it.  For all Wordy knew, someone’s life did depend on them.

“You dare?” someone shouted.  “How dare you interfere with our plan!”

“And how dare you Imperius my father!” a younger voice shouted back.

The runners hit the corner, the magic still buzzing in Wordy’s blood somehow allowing him to catch up with the racing gryphon.  Ahead of them, two wizards were yelling at each other, one in Neo Death Eater regalia and the other in shabby prison robes with a ghostly wolf next to him.  Wordy felt a jolt of shock and horror.  The wizard in prison robes was Dustil Onasi – which meant Giles had been Imperiused.

“Moffet was your father, boy!”

“No!” Dustil snarled, catching everyone within earshot off guard as his fists clenched.  “My father spent years searching for me after Mom died.  He never stopped looking for me, never stopped loving me.  Even after I spat in his face, he never gave up!  And you turned him into a mindless slave!”

The Lady growled from her spot next to Dustil, looking just as outraged as he.  The Obscurus’ indignation was plain, despite the fact that it had been her magic that had destroyed the Imperius.

Close to the two furious wizards, Wordy spotted a dazed, confused Giles Onasi.  The Auror had clearly gotten a stronger dose of the curse than most of his colleagues; he was clutching his head and partially bent over, seemingly oblivious to his son’s furious rant on his behalf.  And yet, Dustil’s yells were breaking through the fog, the father’s instincts overriding his hurts in his need to come to his son’s aid.

“Enough of this!” the Neo Death Eater roared, bringing his wand up.  “Avada Kedavra!”

Death leapt from the wand in a crackling acid green jet of light aimed squarely at Dustil Onasi.  Giles spun, leaping for his son in a desperate attempt to push him out of the way, raw determination blazing on the Auror’s face.  Wordy heard himself yell objection and Illishar ran all the harder for the Neo Death Eater, sacrificing breath for raw speed.

Time slowed, each instant lasting a thousand years and each image imprinting itself indelibly on Wordy’s memory.

Giles slamming into Dustil and sending the young man sprawling, the relief on his face…indescribable.

Illishar leaping, talons and claws fully extended as he soared towards the Neo Death Eater.

And the Reaper striking, sending his victim flying backwards through the air only to crash onto the barn’s unforgiving tile.

Chapter Text

“NO!!!!” Dustil Onasi howled as the Killing Curse’s victim fell, landing heavily.  The Neo Death Eater followed, bowled over by an utterly livid gryphon with razor sharp talons.  Throughout the barn, Aurors brought their wands up, turning the tables on their former captors, all of them enraged by the violation of their minds and their home turf.

But Dustil had eyes for none of the activity around him; he scrambled forward, reaching the still form in seconds.  Already, tears filled his eyes, threatening to flow down his cheeks as he stared down and his fists clenched.  “No, please, no,” he whispered, stretching out trembling fingers.  “Don’t be dead.  Please, you can’t die on me!”

Gentle arms wrapped around the young man, pulling him backwards into a hug.  “I got you,” Giles Onasi choked out, breathless at how close it had been.  “I’m here, son.”  He rocked Dustil automatically.  “I’m sorry, Dustil, I’m so sorry.”

Dustil sobbed, wrapping his own arms around his father’s.  “She…she was my only friend…” he managed.  “I didn’t even know what she was trying to say half the time, but…”

“She was your friend,” Giles whispered back, just holding his son as he stared at the ghostly wolf who’d jumped between him and the Killing Curse at the last possible instant.  She’d known who he was, he was sure of it.  And he was certain she’d saved him for Dustil’s sake, not his.  “She was your friend,” he repeated.  “That was all that mattered.”

With his free hand, Giles turned Dustil’s head into his chest, rocking and stroking his son’s hair as the young man clung to him, openly sobbing at the loss of Moffet’s Obscurus.  To hold his son, even if Dustil was grieving…it was more than Giles had ever dared to dream of.  To himself, he wondered.  Who had the Obscurus been once?  Had his son been able to reach the part of her that was still human?  Had Moffet known about the relationship between Dustil and his superweapon?  None of it mattered, he decided at last.  She’d been Dustil’s friend and she had died to save his life.

Then an ear twitched; Giles froze, jaw dropping open.  The wolf tail gave a tiny thump and an equally tiny whine escaped the ghostly snout.  Silver and shadow flowed over the wolf, the shadow strengthening.

“Dustil,” Giles whispered urgently.  “Dustil, look.”

Dustil shook his head, hiding within his father’s strong embrace.  “She’s gone, she’s gone,” he sobbed, almost to himself.

“Dustil Samson Onasi, listen to me!” Giles hissed.  “I need you to look at your friend right this instant.”

The young man stiffened, both in indignation and surprise.  “My middle name is Samson?”

“Yeah, it was your Mom’s idea.  She said Samson was a strong name, for a strong son,” Giles replied, fondness creeping into his voice as he spoke of his wife.  Then he chuckled.  “I found out later it was her favorite grandfather’s first name.”

Dustil managed a very faint smile, head coming up.  “Whose idea was Dustil?”

“Mine,” Giles admitted sheepishly.  “Morgana wanted to use my middle name, but I said you should have your own first name, not someone else’s leftovers.”  Gently, he shifted his free hand, gripping Dustil’s chin.  “Now, come on, son, take a look.”  Dustil resisted, but Giles refused to let go, turning his head towards the ghostly wolf Obscurus.  She was continuing to stir, the shadows nearly blotting out her bright silver light as the Killing Curse’s Dark Magic continued to swirl around her.

Then Dustil saw her moving and his eyes widened in pure joy.  “You’re alive!” he cried, abandoning his father to sweep the ghostly wolf into his arms, hugging her as if his life depended on it.  Giles refused to flinch, forcing a smile onto his face as he watched the ghostly wolf register that her friend was wrapped around her, trembling like a leaf and delirious with relief.  She lifted her head, weakly licking at his cheek, then sighed and simply leaned against her human friend, the shadows dying away just as quickly as they’d come.  In their absence, her silvery light shone all the brighter, illuminating black and white fur in a pattern the Auror recognized from her helicopter form.

Then Dustil reached back, tugging his father forward and somehow managing to hug both his parent and the Obscurus at once.  Though Giles’ skin crawled at the feel of the Obscurus’ magic, he said nothing.  Compared to the ecstasy of having his son back in his arms, a little discomfort was more than worth the price.

* * * * *

Wordy quietly gestured the hovering wizards away from Giles and his son.  They were going to be fine and they’d be separated again all too soon.  Giving them some time with each other was the least he could do.  Honestly, the Auror had little doubt that enspelling Giles had been very, very intentional.  Probably geared to earn Dustil’s appreciation and, though him, gain control of Airwolf’s Obscurus.

Except the Neo Death Eaters hadn’t counted on Giles being stubborn enough and dedicated enough to trek out to McKean almost every weekend.  Though Dustil’s cooperation with investigators after his arrest had earned him a reduced sentence, that only meant he had one life sentence to McKean, instead of three.  And it hadn’t stopped him at all from hurling every insult known to mankind at his estranged father, doing his best to drive Giles away for good.

Every member of Team One had been on hand over the days, weeks, and months following Dustil’s imprisonment.  They listened to Giles’ despair, the shattered dreams, and the grief that his son called another man ‘father’.  Though Sarge lived with that same agony, at least Dean’s adoptive father wasn’t a dangerous criminal with a taste for world domination.  And he hadn’t spent over a decade believing his son was dead.  As time passed, little by little, Giles began to heal, though Wordy hadn’t been sure his new goal was feasible at all.  Definitely not healthy, particularly since Giles had become obsessed with earning his son’s trust all over again.

The brunet had talked to Sarge once about the obsession, accidently hitting a sore spot since Sarge had the same obsession about his own son.  But Sarge hadn’t held that against him; instead, he’d listened carefully to Wordy’s honest concerns and conceded that Wordy was right to be worried.  If Giles became so obsessed with Dustil that he forgot to live his own life, it wouldn’t end well.  Especially if Dustil was too intractable to be reached.  To himself, Wordy allowed a tiny grin.  Look at them now.  Dustil was clinging to Lady, but he was also clinging to his father, as if he was afraid Giles would disappear if he let go.

Still smiling, Wordy turned back, regarding the lead Neo Death Eater still pinned under Illishar’s bulk.  The constable didn’t bother to reach for his gun; Locksley was already closing in with a livid expression on her face, wand out and glowing at the very tip as she glared daggers at the wizard on the ground.  If looks could kill, the Neo Death Eater would’ve been dead twenty times over by the time Locksley reached gryphon and captive.

“If you so much as twitch, I will take you out myself,” the witch hissed at the wizard.

Illishar backed off the wizard and the man wisely remained completely motionless as he was dragged up by two Aurors, searched, and roughly secured with runic handcuffs.  Wordy smirked at the Neo Death Eater triumphantly, casting the man a casually ironic salute as he was dragged off.  Then he turned away, even before the arrested wizard was out of sight, silently communicating that the man deserved not so much as a further thought.  Of course, that was the exact moment that Illishar keeled over, the gryphon collapsing on his side as the animal exhausted the very last dregs of strength, adrenaline, and endurance.

* * * * *

Greg woke slowly, vaguely aware that his last memory was of the sudden alarm on Wordy’s face as ‘Illishar’ collapsed.  Exhaustion swirled around him, tugging him back down to peaceful oblivion, but his stomach was objecting.  It took another several minutes to figure out why and even when he did, he was too exhausted to give the fact that he hadn’t eaten in over a day more than a passing care.

“You’re sure he’s not Illishar?” a familiar voice asked.  Distant, echoing, and it sounded as if Greg was hearing him through a wall or some great distance.

“Yeah, Boss, we’re sure,” another familiar voice replied.  “Lou, Spike, and I headed back to the safe house to let everyone know the coast was clear and there he was!  Sitting at the table, eating dinner, and kinda confused about why we were staring at him like we’d seen a ghost.”  A pause.  “We told him what happened and he got why we thought this guy was Illishar, but he and ‘Lanna swear he wasn’t at the fire.  For what it’s worth, Mindy backed them up.”

“You don’t trust her?” the first voice questioned and Greg could practically hear the other man shrug.

“Sure I do, but she’s a Calvin house-elf.  If they order her to lie, she has to, Ed.”

Eddie.  Relief snaked through the exhaustion.  His former team leader was okay, he was alive.  That alone made the state he was in worth it.  The gryphon’s tail thumped and he would have smiled if he could have.

“So who is this guy?” Ed wondered, his voice coming closer.

“No idea,” the second voice confessed.  “He acts too human to be anything other than an Animagus, though, Ed.”

“And he knows the barn.”

“Sure does.  I didn’t have a clue we had maintenance tunnels all over the SRU, did you?”

“Nope.  Anyone else know?”

There was no verbal response, but Greg was fairly sure the second person must’ve shrugged again.

A sigh from Ed.  “How is everyone?”

The other man huffed.  “They’re fine.  Holleran insisted on Team Two getting Obliviated, though.”

Greg winced.  Harsh, but the whole of Team Two had gone along with their Sergeant’s decision to leave Team One hanging in a deadly shower of lead.  It was a miracle that no one on his former team had been killed in that debacle and the Sergeant could understand Holleran’s reluctance to trust the men involved with something as earth-shattering as magic.

Belatedly, the gryphon tuned back into the conversation.  “…taking it?”

“Troy said it explains a lot,” the second voice said, a note of forced cheer rising.  “Most of them were really quiet, though.  It might take a few days for it to sink in.”  Another pause.  “Leon and Percival didn’t trust this guy or Revan, though.  I could tell.”

Ed sighed.  “Not everyone has a good opinion of magic, Wordy.  Even if they don’t know it’s real.  Give them some time to get used to the idea, then we’ll see.”

“Copy,” Wordy acknowledged.  Greg felt a very gentle nudge at his back, as if the toe of Wordy’s boot was just barely prodding the fur.  “What do we do with this guy?  He still hasn’t changed back.”

There was a shift of air, then Eddie’s voice came, right above Greg’s head.  “Let’s see if we can get him cleaned up first.  Once we get all this dirt off, maybe we can figure out what’s going on.”

A bath…  That sounded like pure bliss…

* * * * *

Water sluiced down on the gryphon’s body, saturating fur and feathers alike before Lou set the bucket aside and Spike moved in with soap for yet another round of washing the animal’s body.  If anything, the team had underestimated how thoroughly caked in the dirt and debris was.  Just like they’d underestimated the state of the Animagus’ feet; they were so ripped up that Team One had been forced to let the gryphon simply lie on the garage floor, washing first one side of his body, then the other.  Though he’d given it a valiant effort, the animal was physically unable to stand for longer than a minute or two at a stretch.

Sam and Jules were handling the wings, honing their sniper focus to clean each and every flight feather in those powerful appendages.  Wordy had tackled the gryphon’s feet, wearing thick gloves and his armor’s bracers to guard against the talons on the front feet and the lion claws hidden within massive rear paws.  Not that the gryphon would intentionally injure the big constable, but the team feared the damage was bad enough that Wordy might accidently trigger an automatic reflex.  They’d been right to be so cautious; the claws had flexed out several times already, drawing worried, apologetic chirrups from the Animagus.

Each time, Ed gently ran his hand through the gryphon’s head feathers, reminding him that Wordy was wearing gloves, he was fine, and the ‘big guy’ didn’t have to worry about a thing.  The Sergeant felt bad about not using the Animagus’ name, but until they could figure it out – or until the man could shift back – they were stuck with ‘big guy’.  To himself, he continued to ponder the mystery of the gryphon’s identity as he washed the animal’s head, neck and the area around and between his wings.  Already, the feathers were beginning to regain their shine as Ed persistently coaxed every type of dirt imaginable off them, each layer another indicator of how long the gryphon had gone without bathing or, indeed, care of any kind.

It made the officer wonder all the more.  He no longer bought into Lou and Spike’s initial conclusion for why the gryphon wasn’t shifting back.  Even if an injury had forced the Animagus to remain in his form, why was he so filthy?  Why were his feet worn to a frazzle?  More, how did he know so much about how the SRU worked?  He’d used an SRU hand signal during the ‘raid’ according to Wordy and how on Earth had he known about those maintenance tunnels?  Ed was grateful he had; from all accounts, the maintenance tunnels had been key to retaking the barn, but the mystery remained.

No, as Ed regarded the animal beneath his hands, there was too much that didn’t make sense.  Or rather, it made sense, but he couldn’t figure out how it made sense.  The sense of familiarity about the gryphon, the way the Animagus had plopped his head in Ed’s lap as soon as he could.  The sigh as he did so, sleepy contentment radiating, as though it didn’t matter that he hadn’t had anything to eat for a day, at least.  Although still feeling guilty over attacking his own brother, Ed had sent Roy a text asking him to bring several takeout containers of steak and bones to the barn, with a solemn promise to pay him back.  It was the least Ed could do for the hungry Animagus who’d saved his life.

With an internal sigh, the Sergeant reached for the bucket next to him, dumping his washcloth in and wringing out the dirt.  Absently, he watched the filth vanish – Mindy was on hand, using her elf magic to keep the water fresh and clean for the gryphon’s bath.  The group was sticking with cold water, though; it wasn’t like they could ask the animal if the water was too hot, after all.  The house-elf had volunteered to help with the bath itself, but all of them had turned her down, feeling as though the Animagus deserved their personal attention after he’d done so much for them.  Perhaps, Ed mused, they’d also had the sense that the gryphon preferred their attention to Mindy’s; the Animagus had certainly made himself at home as soon as they descended, squrr-ing up a storm before dropping into a contented doze.

He trusted them, Lane realized with a start.  The gryphon wasn’t concerned at all with what might happen while he slept, trusting the officers totally and completely with his safety.  It was a humbling thought and yet another clue – no stranger would trust them so much, even if he was inclined to save their lives.  With a huff, Ed pulled the washcloth back out of the bucket, not bothering to wring it out before he attacked the gryphon’s head feathers; he needed the water saturation before the cloth would be able to pick up the engrained filth.  The Sergeant continued to work, letting his mind drift over the facts as his hands stayed busy with the cleaning, though he switched areas with each swipe of his rag.

At length, Ed began to see the color of the underlying head feathers slowly emerging from the muck.  Gray, with hints of white.  Inside his chest, his heart began to pick up, the subconscious catching clues his mind refused to acknowledge.  With gentle persistence, Ed coaxed the final layers of dirt off the gryphon’s head, heartbeat pounding as a circle of gray with white ruffled feathers at the very top rewarded his diligence.  Sternly, the Sergeant ordered his racing heart to stop, he was dead, he was never coming back.  His heart refused to listen.

Growling under his breath, Ed dunked the washcloth into his bucket, scowling at the vanishing dirt.  He snatched it back out and swiped it at the gryphon’s neck, irritation rising with each frantic pulse of his heart.  Then the fabric snagged on something.  What the…?

“Guys…I think I got something.”

The washing halted, all heads turning towards the Sergeant as he carefully felt around the washcloth, frowning when his fingers touched leather.  Then a large, intricate metal buckle.  And finally, coming back to the cloth, he felt something that was either yarn or string, wrapped tightly around an object made of rubber.  Ed ran his hands all the way around again, focusing on every nuance beneath his fingertips.  Then he looked up again.

“I think he’s got a collar on.”

“A collar?” Wordy blurted.  “Why?”

One shoulder hiked.  “I think it has something tied to it, too,” Ed added.  “Somebody got a scissors or something?”

Spike abandoned his post, moving around; Wordy hastily got out of the way as the bomb tech knelt next to him, leaning in while Ed pushed fur and feathers apart to reveal the collar he’d found.  Both men inspected the device – and the flash drive someone had all but woven onto it.  The yarn used for the weaving had gotten wet at some point and dried so tightly that the flash drive would have to be cut off the collar.  Spike retreated long enough to find scissors and a camera.  After snapping a photo of the collar and the flash drive, the lean constable worked with exquisite care to cut the drive free without accidentally jabbing the gryphon.

A few minutes later, Spike straightened, triumph in his eyes as he held up the flash drive.  The exterior bore the indentations from the yarn, but the information within had been well protected by the rubber.  Ed hesitated, but, really, the bath was all but finished.  He eased out from under the gryphon’s head, a pang running through him at the gryphon’s sleepy protest.

“Okay, Spike, you and I’ll take a look at this thing,” he decided.  Glancing over at the rest of his team, he added, “Finish up the bath and let Mindy check for any last minute dirt.  I know we wanted to do it all ourselves, but I’ve got a hunch.”

“A hunch?” Wordy asked.

The Sergeant nodded.  “Yeah, Word, I think our guy here can’t change back and I bet that’s why he’s so ripped up, ‘cause he couldn’t change back and that meant he had to come looking for someone who could help him.”

“But Ed, couldn’t he have found someone closer?” Jules protested.  “He looks like he’s been traveling for months.”

“Maybe he tried,” Lou suggested.  “Maybe it didn’t work out, so he had to go for something he knew would work.”

“Or maybe the person he went to couldn’t help?” Spike offered.

“Or he didn’t find anyone at all,” Sam drawled, leaning forward without putting any weight on the Animagus.  “And we really were the closest option.”

All possibilities, but they wouldn’t know for sure until the gryphon could shift back.  Ed pointed to the big animal.  “Get started; the sooner you guys get that done, the sooner we can help this big guy out.  We owe him.”

“Copy,” his teammates chorused.  That much was beyond all doubt.

* * * * *

Spike brought up every protection and firewall his computer had before he carefully inserted the flash drive into the port.  He couldn’t just blindly assume that the flash drive had been provided by someone with good intentions.  No, he needed to take the same precautions he would on a hot call.  But the flash drive loaded with nary an ounce of hesitation and the bomb tech’s precautionary virus scan revealed nothing of concern.  When he opened it up, there were only two files on the drive, both text files.  One was labeled ‘Griffin’ and the other was labeled ‘Everyone Else’.

With a startled blink, Spike clicked on the ‘Everyone Else’ file.  His favorite text editor opened up with an all caps message demanding that he ‘leave the griffin alone’ and not try to ‘put him in a zoo!’ because ‘he’s human, you idiot!’  The bomb tech just about gagged at the idea of the Animagus who’d saved his Sergeant ending up in a zoo.  After a few seconds with his eyes closed to regain his equilibrium, dark eyes opened with a glimmer of humor.  Sounded like whoever had put these two files together really liked their gryphon and had indulged in a textual rant directed at someone else entirely, someone their author couldn’t scream at for some reason.

“Anything?”

Spike turned his head, quickly minimizing the text editor – Ed did not need to find out that his rescuer had nearly gotten his wings clipped and been shoved in a zoo.  “Two text files, Boss.  One for the big guy and one for everyone else,” he reported.  “I opened up the everyone else file, but it’s just a warning that the big guy’s actually human, so leave him alone.”

Ed made a humming noise.  “So I guess we’ll have to take a look at the other file.”

With a nod, Spike opened the second file, hoping it had more information than the first.  Absently, he noted the second file was larger, but only by a kilobyte (3).  To his relief and no small amount of surprise, what popped up on his screen was a woman’s full name, address, and contact information.  Below, she’d added a note, saying, “I’d love to know you got home safe, big guy!  Please call.”

“She likes him,” Spike blurted; you didn’t hand a perfect stranger your contact information otherwise.

“Sure looks like it,” Ed agreed.  “Can you print that out, Spike?  Let’s take this to Commander Holleran’s office.”

“Copy that,” the bomb tech agreed.  Then he stilled as a thought struck and the screen blurred in front of him.  “Ed?”

Pausing at the door, the Sergeant looked back.  “Yeah, Spike?”

“He knows us, doesn’t he?”

“Probably.”

Slowly, Spike turned.  “Do we know him?”  It felt like they did; his heart hadn’t stopped hammering ever since he’d seen the gryphon appear, Ed and that little girl safe on his back.

Ed was silent for several seconds.  Then, softly, with that same impossible hope that Spike felt, he replied, “I think we do.”

* * * * *

The phone rang in Holleran’s office, its corded handset resting in its cradle and the phone itself on speaker.  The whole of Team One was present, an unspoken tension vibrating around the room.  Their mystery gryphon had limped in, fresh from his bath; Mindy had even trimmed down his fur and feathers, giving him a sleek, if rather thin and gaunt look.  Ed might’ve worried over the gauntness of their guest, but while Spike had been briefing Holleran and Mindy had been working on grooming the gryphon, Roy had turned up with breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the hungry Animagus.  Ed had tried to pay his brother, only for Roy to push the money back, his eyes saying what his mouth couldn’t.  The gryphon had saved Ed’s life and that was all Roy cared about.  The brothers had watched the exhausted Animagus inhale his meal, content that they’d put in a down payment on what they owed the man trapped within the carnivore.  In fact, with Roy’s help, Ed and Spike had gotten pictures of the collar from every possible angle they could think of, giving the rest of Team One time to clean up and have their own lunch before trying to call their potential informant.

Just as Ed was grinding his teeth and expecting the call to go to voicemail, it was picked up.  “Hello?” a woman asked, her voice much younger than Ed had been expecting.  By his side, the gryphon perked up, clearly recognizing the voice.

Commander Holleran leaned forward.  “Good afternoon, ma’am.  I’m Commander Holleran of the Toronto Police Strategic Response Unit.  Is this…”  He paused, reading the name off the printed sheet.  “…Amber Drake?”

There were a few seconds, the woman’s confusion almost audible.  Then she asked, “You’re…  I’m being called by a Canadian police officer?”  The silent Why? hung.

“Yes, ma’am,” Holleran confirmed politely.  “We were hoping you could give us some information about…”  He paused, then smiled.  “…about a mutual friend of ours.”

Her confusion deepened, edging towards suspicion.  “What mutual friend, officer?”

Ed was about to open his mouth and reply when the gryphon let out an eagle trill of greeting, the musical, seagull-like sound rising and falling in Holleran’s office.  The commander jerked in surprise as did most of Team One, but Ed and Wordy had heard those musical sounds once before.  Ed lifted his hands, swiftly shaping a stern order to not laugh; after he and Wordy had recovered from their fit of hysterical laughter at McKean, they’d spent almost an hour apologizing to Greg for their behavior and Ed was convinced it hadn’t done a lick of good in the long run.

But the eagle greeting worked; the woman on the phone let out a squeal of delight.  “Big guy!” she cried.  “You made it home?”

A trill of fervent agreement and the Sergeant felt the gryphon press into his side.

“Still stuck, though, huh?”  Disappointment and chagrin laced the question.

Another eagle sound graced the room, packed with just as much disappointment, though the hope beneath was unmistakable.

“Okay, well, I guess one hurdle is better than nothing,” their informant mused to herself.  “What was your name, sir?”

Holleran smiled broadly.  “Call me Norm, Miss Drake.”

“Amber,” she insisted.  “If you’re a friend of the big guy’s, then you’re a friend of mine.”

Ed’s eyes widened.  That was quite a statement from someone who didn’t even know the Animagus’ human name.  The rest of his team shifted, murmuring to each other, though Jules whistled low under her breath, catching just as many of the implications as her Sergeant.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Amber asked politely.

Holleran glanced up from the phone.  “Amber, we’re looking for as much information as you can give us,” he explained.  “I have one of my teams here with me and they’re looking after our friend until we can find a solution to his current…dilemma.  Ed?”

“Yes, sir,” Ed acknowledged, stepping forward.  “Ma’am, we took a look at the flash drive you sent along and we’ve seen the collar.  I’m guessing it’s our biggest problem right now, but is there anything else you can tell us about the situation?”

Amber was quiet for a long minute.  When she spoke, her words were thoughtful.  “It’s definitely the collar, officer, I heard that magic lady say that much.”  There was a beat of hesitation, then softly, “Okay, um, I guess I should start from the beginning actually.”

Ed nodded; just as he’d thought, there was some kind of history between their mystery gryphon and the woman.  He flicked a look at Jules, who nodded back and held up a notebook she’d brought along.  Flipping it open, she readied her pen.  Glancing back to the phone, Ed murmured, “All right, ma’am, go ahead.”

The story that unwound was fantastic and right on the edge of belief, but at the same time, Ed could and did believe it.  He did believe that there were people so wrapped up in evil that they hunted other humans like prey, even if it usually wasn’t quite so literal.  As she continued, admiration for their gryphon rose in his chest.  Trapped and in need of rescue himself, their Animagus hadn’t hesitated before acting to save others, preventing several murders and stopping the murderers.

There was a flare of horror when Amber mentioned that the ‘magic lady’ had wanted to stick their mystery gryphon in a zoo – Spike’s flinch betrayed that he’d already known that part and Ed would get him later for not saying anything – but their gryphon hadn’t let that stop him either.  Hadn’t let that destroy his trust in people – to willingly get into a stranger’s pickup truck and be wrapped in a tarp…  Ed wasn’t sure he could’ve done that in the Animagus’ place.

But the greatest share of the awe was when Amber related where she’d last seen the gryphon – leaving her family’s horse farm near Lexington, Kentucky.  Over a month of travel, across countless kilometers, over roads and rivers and probably even over at least one of the Great Lakes.  Around towns and cities, Ed was sure of it, and yet the Animagus hadn’t given up until he was home.  Exhausted, hurting, and past all rational endurance, the gryphon had still saved his life and helped retake the barn.  A name whispered in his mind, but he shook the thought away.  It was impossible, he was dead.

“Thank you, Miss Drake,” Commander Holleran said when the story was finished.  “You have my promise that I will let you know once we’ve solved the problem up here.  I have to warn you, though, even when we do, our friend might not be up for a phone call immediately.”

“I understand, sir,” the woman replied.  “I might not be available either; I’m leaving tomorrow for several weeks.  We’ve got a number of races coming up in New York.”

Holleran reassured her that they’d find a way to get in touch, then hung up.  There was an odd gleam in his eyes as he glanced at the gryphon, calculation and appraisal clear.  The commander cleared his throat and reached down, opening a drawer in his desk.  “I was going to brief Team Three on this yesterday, but, as you know, things were…disrupted.”

“Brief them on what?” Wordy asked in confusion.

“You wanted them to know something before us,” Ed cut in, a touch of accusation ringing.

“Yes, Ed, I did,” Holleran confirmed, no apology in his voice.  “I felt this was something that you and your team didn’t need to be burdened with, that it would cause you nothing but pain.”

“But now you’re going to tell us?” Sam blurted.

“Yes, I am, Constable Braddock.”  Again, Holleran’s eyes rested on the gryphon.  Then he pulled out a folder and set it on his desk, though he remained standing.  “This is the final forensic report on the fire two months ago,” the commander announced.

Ed flinched violently.  “You’ve identified him.”  Closure.  It was what they wanted, what they needed, but he feared it.  The end of any possible hope, the last nail in his brother’s coffin.  The confirmation of what his heart still couldn’t accept: that Greg was dead, gone, and never coming back.

For a beat, silence filled the office.  Then Commander Holleran replied, in a soft voice, “No, Ed, we haven’t.”

The room froze, all of them recoiling as though they’d been struck across the face with a sledgehammer.  Ed reeled, his gut twisting in on itself and bile licking at the back of his throat.  Greg…  No closure, no answers, no Greg…  His knees nearly buckled, but he forced them to lock, to remain standing.

“What?” someone rasped, the word almost incoherent.

The commander met their gazes squarely.  “Two bodies were found after the fire burned itself out,” he explained, tone clipped.  “The initial autopsy revealed that one was male and one was female.”  He stopped as they all recoiled again, waiting for the officers to recover.  “Due to the fire, the bodies were burned badly enough that visual identification was impossible.  We needed DNA or dental records.  With Parker involved, we were able to put a rush on that identification, but the forensics lab is so backed up that it’s taken until this week before I was able to get any reports back from them.”

“And?”  It was his voice, but he didn’t recognize it.

Holleran’s dark eyes locked with his own.  “The female body found has been identified as Brenda Kastor,” he replied.  “The other body has been positively identified as her brother, Castor Troy.”

Ed’s world rocked and he was only vaguely aware of staggering back into the office wall, panting for breath as his lungs closed in a vice grip.  Alive, Greg was alive.  He was out there somewhere and they’d let him down again!  Why, why, why had they assumed he was dead, that he couldn’t have found some way to survive and escape?  Tears spilled down his face; two months and his friend had been out there, alone and probably hurt and desperate for help.  Was he even still alive?  His knees gave, the world compressing to nothing more than his own bitter, bitter failure.  What had he done?  He’d given up, walked away again, and left his friend to die, again.  Shivers wracked his body as visions of Greg in desperate straits stole through his mind.  Greg, Greg, Greg…  It…it had been two months…the odds of Greg still being alive were nil.  But to give up yet again…  He would search for the rest of his life if he had to.  He wouldn’t give up until he was cradling his brother’s body.

Then the gryphon gave a plaintive, worried whine and Ed’s head came up, blue meeting hazel.  He wasn’t even aware of speaking until he heard himself say, “Greg?”

The gryphon limped forward, curling into him and purring fit to burst.  Ed’s arms moved by themselves, wrapping around Greg’s neck and clinging to him with every bit of strength the man could muster.  Somehow, Greg got his foreleg around Ed’s back, gently pulling his tall, lean friend close.  The great gryphon head stayed bowed, tucked under Ed’s chin, contentment and joy radiating from that weary frame.

The rest of their team descended, every ounce of dignity thrown to the winds as they embraced their two Sergeants, crying unashamedly as the truth sank in.  Greg was alive, he was home.  He hadn’t died, alone and forsaken by all those he loved.  Somehow, in spite of the odds and every last kilometer between Toronto and Colorado, he’d made it.  He’d survived and he’d found his way home to them.  He hadn’t given up on them, not even once.

Very, very quietly, Ed whispered, “Welcome home, Greg.”

And inside his heart, he swore he heard a ghost soft, ‘Thanks, Eddie.’

[3] Text files are some of the smallest files you can find on a computer.  Even a rich text document typically measures in kilobytes instead of megabytes.  This fact dates back to the earliest days of computers, when space was incredibly valuable and an operating system owner’s manual would apologize for being mere kilobytes bigger than its predecessor!  In fact, as of this note, my largest document is only 1.72 MB and it is over 1,000 pages of text.  My second-largest document checks in at 625 KB for 425 pages of text.

Chapter Text

Ed’s arms tightened around his best friend and a solemn vow stole across his soul.  We won’t fail you again, Greg.  We won’t ever let you go again, I swear it.  And the first step, the most critical step, was to free Greg from his imprisonment inside his own Animagus form.  The rest would come with time.  With healing and talking and learning to trust their Sergeant again.  Ed didn’t blame him for the undercover op or the lies that had accompanied it, but…  Why had Greg never used the ‘team sense’ to call for help?  They would’ve come for him in a heartbeat.

Then he registered that Greg was getting heavier and heavier.  It only took a moment to puzzle out the reason.  The gryphon’s weight was bearing down on him, rather than the Animagus supporting it, and the head against his chest was slumping in an unmistakable manner.  “Greg,” he said aloud.  “Greg, come on, buddy, wake up.”

There was a gryphon snort and wuffle, then the animal shook his head in a manner just like someone waking up out of a daytime doze and hastily shifted back, taking his bulk off his friend.  The team was too tightly packed for Greg to go far though, something Ed was grateful for.  It was going to be days before he’d be comfortable letting his boss out of his sight and he knew his teammates felt the same way.  Even so, he was pretty sure Greg needed some air.

“Guys.”  The single word was enough, though it took another minute before Team One’s constables could disentangle themselves from the impromptu team huddle.  Even then, they hovered close, an impossible, desperate longing evident on their faces.  They wanted to reach out and touch, reassure themselves that it wasn’t just a dream, but none of them wanted to crowd their precious, irreplaceable Sergeant.

Greg seemed to understand; despite the terrible, horrifically painful state of his feet, he lurched up, limping to his other teammates and sprawling out in a position that would let all of them touch without looking foolish.  Ed scooted over, resting his own hand on Greg’s flank, and unsurprised when his teammates joined him on the office’s carpeted floor.  On the far side, Jules pulled Greg’s head into her lap, stroking his head while Sam petted his neck.  Lou and Spike divvied up the Sergeant’s upper back, trading grins as their hands bumped each other, and Wordy copied Ed, simply resting his hand on the gryphon’s back, the contact itself enough to soothe his wounded soul.  The gryphon tail thumped once or twice, then Greg went to sleep in Jules’ lap.

Commander Holleran moved around his desk, expression softening at Parker’s exhausted slumber.  He cast the team an apologetic look, but Ed just nodded for him to go ahead.  His friend and boss was going to need time to recover; the sooner they got him back to human form, the sooner that recovery could truly begin.

The commander turned the chair in front of his desk and sat down facing Team One, keeping his voice low as he spoke.  “Director Briggs, before he and his colleagues departed for California, informed me of his suspicions, namely, that our friend here was far too old to be a seventeen-year-old wizard.”

“He found Greg’s gray feathers, didn’t he?” Ed breathed.

A single nod.  “That, in addition to the familiarity that our ‘mystery gryphon’ displayed with the barn, raised a number of red flags.”  A brief pause.  “Team Four’s Constable Young also expressed that view, along with noting that most seventeen-year-olds wouldn’t have caught onto Team Two being positioned so close to Team Four.”

Wordy grimaced at the reminder and the two techs paled.  “His feet,” Lou whispered, chagrin echoing.

“It was obvious,” Spike agreed, just as stricken.

So obvious that Ed had to wonder if the magic had hidden it from them.  But even as he thought of it, he realized he was wrong.  Yes, the magic had hidden things from them, things that Ed had railed and ranted at when he’d found out, but to hide Greg’s very survival from them?  That hurt all of them and when the officer considered the idea, he felt an instinctive revulsion, as if the magic itself was protesting.  No, Ed concluded, either another type of magic was at work or their belief that Greg was dead had coerced them into overlooking all the evidence and facts in support of who the gryphon truly was.

“You guessed it was Greg, so that’s why you told us about the…”  Ed stuttered to a halt, then forced it out.  “That’s why you told us about the report.”

“Yes, Sergeant Lane, that’s why I told you,” Holleran confirmed quietly.  “It also made sense.  We all know how responsible Greg is towards you, towards his teammates.  I concluded he was dead based on his failure to check in after the fire and the discovery of his Auror badge near one of the bodies.”  The older man managed a wan smile.  “I never considered the possibility that he couldn’t communicate his survival.”  His gaze dropped to the sleeping gryphon.  “Thankfully, Miss Drake informed us about the collar, otherwise I would have recommended simply having an Auror magic it off.”

Ed winced.  The Auror in question probably would’ve been Giles, leading to an utter disaster and a nightmare of guilt for everyone involved.  Although Amber hadn’t been sure of all the details, she’d been very clear that she’d overheard the ‘magic lady’ – likely an American Auror – say that the collar around Greg’s neck was imbued with a very nasty curse.  Precautions would be necessary, but forewarned was forearmed.  They would get the collar off, come hell or high water.  Anything else was completely unacceptable.

“Now what?” Lou asked, practical as ever.

Sam glanced up from where he and Jules were taking turns scratching behind the gryphon’s furry, feathery ears.  Even in his sleep, Greg was squrr-ing away, soaking in all the attention and affection.  “Maybe have Revan take a look?” he suggested.  “He’s an Unspeakable, maybe they’ve run into collars like this before.”

As if on cue, someone knocked at the office door.  Ed’s brows shot up – if that was Revan, he was so calling shenanigans.  But the man who poked his head around the wood when Holleran bade him enter was Giles Onasi, with a rather sheepish expression on his face.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, sir…”

“Not at all, Auror Onasi,” Commander Holleran reassured the other man.  “How is Dustil?”

The Auror lit up, joy unmistakable at the mention of his son.  Ed couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to have completely forgotten about nearly dying to the Killing Curse, something Greg and Wordy were unlikely to forget, seeing as they’d been only steps away when it happened.  Then again, if it had been Clark in Dustil’s place and himself in Giles’, he wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant and he wouldn’t have regretted a thing afterwards.

“He’s fine, sir,” Giles replied.  Then he fidgeted.  “In fact, um, he’d like a moment of your time.  And their’s.”

Team One traded startled glances, but looked to their Sergeant, deferring to him.  Ed, in his turn, regarded Giles for several moments, doing his best to judge the sudden mask that the Auror had donned, expression almost unreadable behind the nerves.  “What’s this about, Giles?”

The Auror fidgeted again, then glanced down at the gryphon Animagus unconsciously curling close to Team One in his sleep.  Even with the awkward angle, Ed saw the wizard’s eyes widen in shock and recognition – and revulsion?  Then Giles pointed squarely at the ugly black collar around Greg’s neck.  “He said he needs to talk to all of you about that.”

* * * * *

Dustil was in a new set of robes, though they looked a bit too large for him.  Wordy wondered absently why Giles had given his son a set of his own robes instead of regular techie clothing, then reminded himself that Dustil was heading straight back to McKean once all was said and done.  Even though the young man had enlisted Airwolf’s help to break the Imperius his former colleagues had cast on almost everyone in the barn, he’d still broken out of McKean to do it and he was still under a life sentence for Imperiusing an Auror – the charges for Imperiusing Sophie and Clark had been dropped due to his cooperation with the investigation, as had the charge for kidnapping.

The young man’s expression was tentative and uncertain, but he kept his chin up despite his unease as his father guided him inside the commander’s office.  Holleran remained where he was, not wanting to step on the slumbering gryphon; inwardly, Wordy winced, realizing they’d not done their commander any favors by letting Sarge go to sleep in his office.  Not that there’d been much choice in the matter; Sarge had almost gone to sleep in the middle of hugging Ed!  Frankly, it hadn’t really sunk in yet that Sarge was alive, that he was home, but one thing Wordy knew for sure.  They were never, never, ever letting him go again!  He had a sudden vision of himself, at eighty or ninety, dragging Sarge out of the nursing home to go on a hot call, and shivered inwardly.  Okay…maybe they’d let him go…in about forty years.

Once the door shut, Holleran got down to brass tacks.  “What can you tell us about the collar, son?” he asked, gesturing to the black collar fastened around Sarge’s neck.  Wordy scowled reflexively; he’d seen both Sam and Jules inspecting the thing, but his teammates had shaken their heads at him afterwards.  No dice.  He’d been planning to get Spike and Lou on the task before Giles knocked on the door, but if the blasted collar was fastened by magic, there was no way someone without magic was getting the thing off.

Dustil’s shoulders straightened, anxiety falling away in the movement.  “It’s an Animagus control collar,” he replied.

“It’s a what?” Giles blurted, horror ringing.  At the demanding looks, the Auror shivered violently for an instant, then explained, “Animagus control collars used to be used by families to force Animagi into their forms.  It was supposed to be a training aid, to help Animagi transform even before they learned how, but…”  He trailed off and shivered again.  “They’re brutal and once they’re on, the Animagus can’t shift back.”  The Auror bit his lip.  “From what I remember, you can’t use magic on an Animagus with the collar on, unless you’re the person who put it on.  If you do use magic or you touch the collar, it’s like a shock collar.”  Or worse, his eyes added.

“D…Dad’s right, but that’s only the old family collars,” Dustil put in.  Uncertainty filtered into his eyes.  “Umm…Father…he wanted to figure out how the old Animagus collars worked and make them better.”

“Better,” Ed deadpanned.

Dustil flinched, but nodded.  “Yeah, he wanted it to be completely impossible to remove and for it to be able to control the Animagus, like the Imperius.  The idea was that the collar would let Father control transforming in both directions and it would be disillusioned if the Animagus was in their human form.”  The young man fidgeted at the swirling outrage and horror.  “He was only ever able to get the Animagus transformation part working, though.  It was still a prototype.”

Wordy felt his shoulders relax a hair.  “So all it’s doing is preventing him from shifting back?” he asked.

Swinging around, Dustil met his eyes for a moment before he looked down.  “I think so, but Father never put any emblems on the collar.”

Jules frowned.  “So someone else found the collar and used it?” she offered.

Dustil tilted his head to the side, thinking, then gave a clipped nod of confirmation.  “If…if they haven’t changed it too much, I can get it off.”

“Then do it!” Wordy cried.  To have Sarge back, for real, not just in his gryphon form, he needed it, they needed it.

“Wait,” Ed ordered, lifting a hand.  “He’s still injured; we can’t change him back.”

Dustil lowered his head miserably.  “Auror Sergeant Lane, until the collar comes off, he can’t be healed.  And once I take it off, he’ll change back automatically.  That’s one of the reasons they stopped using the collars; it didn’t work for training because the collar was doing all the work and the Animagi never learned how to control their shifting.”

It was on the tip of Wordy’s tongue to say that Sarge did know how to control his shifting, but he bit down on the claim.  The truth was, Sarge hated his gryphon form and only used it as a last resort.  Wordy was pretty sure he hadn’t shifted even once since Fletcher Stadium, well, at least until he’d had an Animagus control collar slapped around his neck.  But Dustil’s points were well taken; they couldn’t leave Sarge as he was indefinitely and that meant removing the collar before his feet could heal.

Ed hesitated, obviously weighing the possibilities, then his shoulders slumped and he nodded.  Without speaking, he knelt, gently shaking their Sergeant’s shoulders until the gryphon stirred, a complaining noise escaping.  “Come on, Greg,” the lean man coaxed.  “Up and at ‘em.”

Sarge made another noise of complaint, almost sounding like an annoyed cat displaced from a comfortable nap location.

“Greg.  We got a way to get that thing off.”

For an instant, the gryphon froze, then he rolled, ending up in a sphinx-like position.  Still lying down, but alert, with his head up, wings high, and hope glowing in hazel eagle eyes.

Dustil shifted, but Ed held up a hand.  “Listen, buddy, we’re gonna get that off, but Dustil here thinks you’re going to shift back automatically.”  A brief hesitation.  “Greg, if you can, try to stay like you are.”

Sarge let out a whine of protest, muscles stiffening at the request.

“Greg, listen to me,” Ed insisted.  “You darn well walked every last bit of skin off your feet coming home.  If you think it hurts right now, I bet it’s gonna be ten times worse once you’re back in human form.”

The gryphon cringed as did the rest of Team One.  Even Holleran, Dustil, and Giles went rather pale at the pronouncement.

“Buddy, if I had my way, you’d stay like that, collar on, until your feet are all healed up, but Dustil says as long as the collar’s on, the Healers won’t be able to use magic on you at all.”  Ed stopped, searching their boss’s fixed eagle gaze.  “So will you try, Greg?  I know you want to be back to human; heck, we all want you back to human; but will you try?”

Furry, feathery ears flicked back and forth, Sarge’s unhappiness radiating off him, but he finally huffed a sigh and lowered his head to his forelegs, resignation plain.  His wings slumped down, just as dejected.  Wordy edged closer as his boss’s eyes closed, the animal’s muscles tightening in concentration.

Ed read the silent response as clearly as the rest of them and glanced up at Dustil.  “You’re up, kid.”

Dustil frowned, but crouched down, shifting to let one knee down entirely as he ran his hands over the black collar.  He turned it so the intricate silver buckle with the emblem of a red tree on a black background was facing him, forehead furrowing as his fingers quested behind the buckle.  For several seconds, not a single occupant of the office moved, hardly even daring to breath as the young wizard worked.  Then his expression cleared and Wordy saw one finger shift against the back of the buckle.  A soft click came from the collar, the buckle coming apart, and Dustil gripped the leather, yanking it away from Sarge’s neck in one smooth move.

Light flashed, the collar’s magic giving way, and Wordy sucked in air as the gryphon form before them flexed and shifted.  No smooth blur of animal into human, no, it was more like when Giles had used the Animagus reversal spell on Sarge.  Bones broke audibly as the gryphon writhed under the magic, though he never cried out.  Feathers and fur rippled, reluctantly giving way to skin and soot-stained clothing.  Sarge’s wings folded in on themselves, blending into his back and revealing that the shirt beneath was one of his custom-altered shirts, specially tailored to allow for his vanishing wings.  The tail vanished and that great gryphon head blurred, giving way to human features.  Though Wordy had half-expected a beard and hair down to his boss’s shoulders, Sarge looked just as he always had.  In fact, he looked as though he’d just had a haircut and a fresh shave.

But he was terribly thin and gaunt.  Not quite starving, but Wordy felt his stomach lurch at the way Sarge’s skin hung on his frame, the gray tinge to that skin, and the hollowness of his cheeks and face.  His clothing and shoes looked as if he’d been through a fire – Wordy felt a second lurch at the confirmation that Sarge had definitely been in the same fire that had killed the Castor siblings – and the constable spotted his boss’s gun still tucked in its holster on the gun belt around his waist.  Worst of all, his hands were bleeding and his face was already twisting in sheer agony.

“Giles, get him off the ground,” Ed snapped, retaining his wits – though how he managed that one, Wordy had no idea.  “Wordy.”  The brunet straightened, but Ed flinched at the way the team leader’s hands were shaking.  “Never mind; Lou!”

Lou sprang forward, following Ed’s lead.  The men were almost in sync as they flew through untying the laces on Sarge’s boots – hiking boots, a distant part of Wordy’s brain helpfully observed – and pulling them off.  Jules and Sam swooped in, pulling the socks underneath down and off.  Blood stained the white fabric and liberally coated the bottom of now human feet.

A loud thump brought Wordy around with a snap; he gawped at the determination on Commander Holleran’s face as he regarded his clean desk and the piles of scattered files on the floor next to it.  “Ed, keep him on his stomach,” the commander ordered.  “Onasi, get him on my desk.”

The Auror shook his head.  “Some of you catch him,” he counter-ordered.

Wordy moved forward reflexively, ending up opposite his current Sergeant as they reached under Sarge’s body and locked arms to support the gravely injured man under his chest and stomach.  Giles lowered Sarge down to them, then briefly canceled the levitation to cast another spell in the direction of Holleran’s desk.  An instant later, he levitated Sarge again and directed him over to the desk with careful wand movements.  Ed followed, guiding their boss down onto the desk and carefully turning him in midair so that the gaunt, but still stocky man ended up facing the office door as he laid across the desk on his stomach.

The Auror released the levitation spell again, then jabbed his wand at the fallen files.  They lifted into the air, reorganizing themselves before drifting to an out-of-the-way spot in the office and settling once more.  “Dustil, stay here,” Giles commanded.  To the rest of the room, he added, “I’ll get the on-duty Healer.”  Without waiting for a reply, he ducked out of the office, closing the door behind him.

In his absence a dreadful silence fell over the office.  It had been one thing to deal with a thin, injured, but still on his feet gryphon, but to see their beloved boss in such a terrible state…  Wordy had no idea how the man had even still been on his feet, except by sheer, obstinate will.  He looked like he’d lost a good fifty or sixty pounds and there was that awful, horrid gray gauntness to him, gauntness that seemed to grow worse and worse the longer his face was twisted in pain.  And the worst thing of all was the fact that Sarge never made a sound…

* * * * *

Ed sternly ordered his stomach to stay in place and forced himself to focus.  He could lose it over Greg’s condition later.  “Wordy,” he snapped, waiting for his friend’s ghost pale gray to lift.  “Check his feet.”  At the instinctive protest on the other’s face, he shook his head.  “I know they’re in bad shape, but we need to know how bad.”  Plus, if Wordy was looking at the boss’s feet, he wouldn’t be looking at Greg’s gray-tinged features or the way his skin was hanging, used to far more padding than his friend currently possessed.  Nor would he be looking at the way Greg was panting and swallowing reflexively to keep from throwing up due to the pain he was in.

The Sergeant checked Greg’s hands himself, well aware that the rest of his team was still in shock.  Lou had stepped up when Wordy froze, but even he was pale and shaken at Greg’s dreadful condition.  Belatedly, it occurred to Ed that the miracle that had brought his brother by heart back to them hadn’t done so without cost.  And Greg, it seemed, would once again be paying the lion’s share of that cost.  Privately and to himself, Ed wished whoever had put that collar on his friend could suffer the same fate.  Vicious and vindictive, but Lane didn’t care.  Greg’s hands looked like he’d put them through a meat grinder and judging by the way Wordy was going ever paler, his feet were just as bad – or worse.

“Wordy!” Ed barked, dragging his friend’s gaze up to him.  Softening his tone, he continued, “Word, I need you and Jules to get a camera.  We need pictures.”

“But Ed!” Wordy protested.

A slashing gesture cut the big constable off.  “Wordy, think.  Everything Greg’s wearing is evidence.  All the injuries he’s got, they’re evidence.”  Turning, the Sergeant fixed his two computer techs with an equally inflexible stare.  “Evidence bags and a notebook,” he ordered.  “Far as I’m concerned, we’re not giving IS any room to wriggle out of this one.  The Boss is still assigned there and we are not letting them have any excuse to stick him back undercover.”

The declaration broke the room’s stupor; Team One snapped to attention and moved.  In the background, Commander Holleran nodded approvingly and quietly sent Sam to tell Winnie that he and Team One were not to be disturbed.  More, Winnie was to inform him immediately – and by telephone – if Intelligence Services showed up at the barn.  Spike went for the camera instead of Jules, trailed by Lou who was on the hunt for evidence bags and Wordy who was trying to look like he wasn’t running away and failing miserably.  Jules pulled out the same binder she’d used to take notes during the phone call with Greg’s American friend and flipped to a fresh page, pen flying as she began to document her boss’s injuries.

Lou came back with both evidence bags and a box of blue forensic gloves; donning the gloves, he put the Boss’s shoes and socks into individual evidence bags.  Although the team had already touched the clothing, Ed knew they could reasonably argue that emergency aid came before a perfect chain of evidence, thus nipping any IS protests in the bud.

Accordingly, once Spike returned with the camera, Ed sent him back out for a set of sweats and donned his own set of gloves.  Gently, he shifted Greg’s body to the side and tugged his sidearm free of its holster, noting with some surprise that it was his friend’s SRU pistol rather than a brand-new untraceable piece provided by IS.

“Eddie.”  The plea was weak and hardly audible, but the desperation rang all too clearly.  Ed handed the gun off to Lou for bagging and tagging, then stripped the gloves off, resting one hand on Greg’s back as he crouched down next to him.  If IS complained about his handprint on Greg’s shirt, they could go take a long walk off a short pier; he wasn’t going to let his best friend go unanswered, suffering through pain Ed wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

“I’m here, Greg.”

“S…sorry.  So sorry…”  The words were faint, but even with eyes half-glazed with pain, Greg’s aching regret dominated.

“For what, Greg?”

The rasping gulp sounded painful.  “For lying.”  A solitary tear trickled down.  “For pushing you away like that.  I didn’t mean it, Eddie.  I never meant any of it.”

“We know,” Ed murmured, adjusting his hand’s location and starting to rub.  “Holleran told us everything, Greg.  You didn’t have any choice; we get that.”

“Shoulda known better.”

Ed shook his head; truth be told, if he’d been in Greg’s position, he probably would have made the same decisions – the same mistakes.  But that wasn’t what Greg needed to hear.  No, he needed to hear…  “Greg, we forgive you.”

A faint smile traced across that haggard face, a mere ghost of the smile Ed had feared he’d never see again.  Then Greg sighed and turned his head towards his friend, slipping back into slumber between one breath and the next.  The Sergeant remained where he was, still rubbing, a tiny smile of his own appearing.  It was good to know that Greg still had that particular sweet spot on his back, right between where his wings would be.  Given how much pain the stocky man was in, sleep was probably the best protection he could get.

They needed to know what had happened, but that could wait until Greg’s hands and feet had been treated.  Another thing Ed needed to know was why Greg hadn’t called for help via the ‘team sense’ – and why the ‘team sense’ was still dormant.  Not something Ed could ask in front of their commander and also not something that was in his top ten list of questions.  No, he was sure the ‘team sense’ would work itself out in time along with everything else that needed to be rebuilt.

“Onasi, I’m not a Healer!” a familiar voice protested.

“Close enough, Queenscove,” Giles growled.

“Oy!  I was two weeks into an apprenticeship at St. Mungo’s when my older brothers died, I don’t know anything!”

“Queenscove, you’re the only one I trust right now, so get in there and do something.”

Ed kept rubbing, grateful when the trick worked; Greg remained asleep, oblivious to the squabbling Aurors getting closer to Holleran’s office.  Some of his success was undoubtedly due to his friend’s extreme state of exhaustion, but Ed had used this particular trick enough times to know that Greg could hardly ever stay awake if he was being rubbed in his sweet spot.  Even as the noise grew louder, the sleeping man never even twitched, a surprisingly content expression appearing.

“Would you two shut up?” Wordy demanded from right outside the office door.  “What, you wanna let the whole barn know what’s going on?”

The Sergeant rolled his eyes.  Yep, his team leader was handling all of this splendidly.  Not.  Then again, Sam was taking it just as well, since he still hadn’t come back after heading out to brief Winnie.  At least Spike had come back with sweats for the Boss and he was keeping busy with the camera, taking pictures of Greg’s injuries and clothing.  Jules was following just a step behind, scribbling so furiously that Ed half-expected the pen to snap in two.  Her head was buried in the notebook and she was still pale, but the team’s backup negotiator was tough.  She’d make it.

“Ed.”

One eyebrow hiked inquiringly in Lou’s direction; the less-lethal specialist’s expression was grim.

“He’s been in his form, so I don’t know how much of this is from the fire,” Lou confessed.

“All of it,” Dustil offered up.  When the team swung to him and Holleran cast the young man a demanding look, the wizard squirmed.  “His clothes are the same, so the gun is too,” Dustil explained.  “If…if your elf hadn’t groomed his fur and cut it…”

Ahhh…that did answer a lingering question.  “He’d have long hair and a beard,” Ed finished smoothly.

Dustil jerked a nod.

Lou offered a thoughtful nod of his own.  “Okay, then.”  Straightening, he reported, “Seven rounds in the mag, one in the chamber.  Figure he started with a full mag, so…”

“Ten rounds fired,” Ed concluded.  The rounds would almost certainly match to the bullets found in the Troy siblings, not that the sniper cared about that part.  As far as he was concerned, the pair had gotten exactly what they deserved.

The office door creaked open just as Ed made his conclusion, admitting Wordy, Sam, Giles, and a vibrating, unnerved Junior Auror Queenscove.  As soon as young Neal saw Greg lying on Holleran’s desk, his eyes bugged out.  “Bloody hell, don’t you people ever die?” he blurted before cringing at how insensitive his exclamation had been.

Ed couldn’t help it; he laughed.  The tension in the office, which had been steadily ratcheting ever higher since Greg’s reversion to his human form, shattered as the rest of Team One snickered, Spike and Lou laughing outright.  Pointing at the Junior Auror, Ed forced his tone to something halfway stern.  “No, we don’t, not unless we have permission.”  A deliberate pause.  “Which Greg doesn’t have.”

“You bet he doesn’t,” Sam agreed fervently.

Lane never batted an eye.  “Neither do you, Braddock.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who got trapped in a fire yesterday,” Sam retorted.

“Could we stop talking about anybody dying?” Wordy pleaded, a note of peevishness in his voice.

Ed relented at once, well aware of how badly Wordy had taken nearly losing him in addition to already losing Greg.  Glancing over at Neal, he arched a brow.  “Anything you can do?”

The green-eyed wizard crept closer, nibbling his lip as he took in Greg’s dreadful physical appearance.  Cautiously, as if wary of triggering a reaction from Team One, he drew his wand, waving it in a medical diagnostic.  The nibbling grew worse as he regarded the results.  “He’s underweight,” the brunet murmured.  Impatiently, he brushed his fringe out of his eyes.  “Looks like he was exposed to three Cruciatus-level pain spells, but that was about two months ago.”  A slight cringe.  “His hands and feet are a complete mess…”

Crouching next to Greg, Ed’s sharp hand gesture cut off Spike’s budding sarcastic retort.  He understood, but Neal looked nervous enough already without the team interposing their biting wit in the face of the obvious.  Team One subsided at their Sergeant’s order and Commander Holleran nodded approval in the background.

“Got some smoke inhalation, too,” Neal mused, not even noticing the byplay.  “Muscle strain, physical exhaustion…”  The Auror finally huffed, shaking his head and dispelling the diagnostic.  “Sir, he needs a Healer, not a few first aid spells!”

Ed ignored the ‘sir’ and shut Onasi up with a lethal glare.  “All right, Neal, we hear you.  What’s your call here?”

Green met blue.  “Call my Dad in,” Neal replied bluntly.  “I get the feeling you lot don’t want too many people to know Parker’s alive.  Dad’s used to working with Aurors, he gets ‘need-to-know’.”  Gesturing to the abraded flesh on Greg’s hands, the brunet added, “And Dad’s your best option if he ever wants to use those hands again.”

Ed was very proud when he managed not to flinch.  Instead he offered a solemn nod of acceptance.  “Okay, make it happen,” he ordered.  A beat, then, “Only…”

Neal stopped in the middle of a turn and looked back, one forked brow rising.  “Yes?”

“Could you do a sleep spell?” Ed asked.

Emerald eyes softened.  “Sure thing.”  And, so saying, Neal flicked his wand and Ed felt Greg’s entire body relax under his hand as the spell took effect, pulling him down into a deep slumber and ensuring he couldn’t wake.  A pang of regret ran through the Sergeant, but it was for the best – and it would spare his friend at least some of the pain he was in.

Once Neal left to contact his father, Commander Holleran cleared his throat, drawing the attention of everyone left in the office save Parker.  “Ed, while Auror Queenscove contacts his father, we’ll need to move Sergeant Parker to the magic side of the barn.”

“Sir?” Ed asked in confusion.

The commander’s expression turned stern.  “Additionally, none of you are to inform anyone outside of this room of Sergeant Parker’s survival.  Not your coworkers, not your families, no one.  Am I understood?”

“What about Sarge’s kids?” Wordy protested.

“No one, Constable Wordsworth,” Holleran repeated, the words harsh and ripping.  Dark eyes went harder.  “And Sergeant Lane, before you even go there, you are not volunteering for a demotion so Sergeant Parker can take command of Team One back.  I won’t accept it and neither will Parker.”

Ed swallowed around a lump in his throat; Holleran was right.  Greg would sooner accept a retirement than displace his former team leader.  But…  “So what happens to Greg?” he questioned.  “What, we just leave him out in the cold ‘cause IS made him lie and stuck him undercover without asking?”  Blue eyes narrowed, a flinty glitter appearing.  “Greg’s Team One, sir.  And his kids have suffered long enough.”

Holleran returned the glare with interest.  “Sergeant Lane, that’s my decision.  No one outside of those who already know is to be informed of Parker’s return.”  A beat, heavy with meaning.  “And regardless of anything else, Sergeant Parker is not a member of Team One anymore.  The sooner you accept that, the better.”

He wanted to argue, he wanted to fight, but maybe it wasn’t the time.  The reality that Greg had survived, had come home, was still sinking in.  To hide it from Greg’s kids felt wrong on so many levels, even more than Holleran’s declaration that Greg wasn’t Team One anymore.  But…  Ed’s eyes strayed back to Greg, to the gray pallor of his skin, the gauntness of his face, and the way his clothes just hung on his frame, even with him lying down.  Was this a sight he wanted Greg’s kids to remember?  Already, Team One’s current Sergeant knew he’d be living with nightmares over Greg’s horrid physical state – did he really want Greg’s kids to live with the same memories?  Perhaps a few days would let him govern and marshal his arguments.  Holleran couldn’t keep Greg’s kids in the dark forever, but if they waited until he was a little better, maybe until he was free of IS’s shadow…

So Ed Lane bowed to his commander’s orders, his posture warning his teammates not to argue either.  “Yes, sir.”  But inside, he plotted and began to plan.  Because there was one thing Commander Holleran had dead wrong.

Greg Parker was still Team One – as far as Ed was concerned, he’d never left.

And he always would be.

~ Ad Alia