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Chapter Text

Echoes of the ghost.

Murray Bozinsky closed the door of the drawer when he kept his gun. Nick and Cody had left the boat to go to the beach after Nick had told him that it was okay if he never picked up a gun again.

And he wanted to believe it, but he didn’t know if he did.

The gun and the fear of using it again was just a small issue that he had. No, the real problem was that he had killed a man.
An innocent man.

Sure, he could tell himself that he was saving Cody’s life. And that was partly true, but it still didn’t change the fact that he had killed a man that had been a fixed of a crime that he hadn’t committed. Put in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and then the agency helped the sister of that man.

The man Murray had killed.

And when they went to investigate the murder that the man Murray had killed had been accursed of, the small town treated him like some kind of hero. It even felt like Nick didn’t see how torn up he was inside about what he had done.

How much it tortured him to have to face the sister of the man that he had killed. She was nice enough to him but they both knew what he had done.

He didn’t blame Nick for not really knowing how he was feeling. He knew Nick was preoccupied with worrying about Cody and trying to help find out what really happened the night of the murder. Murray just didn’t want to add to Nick’s burdens.

And he didn’t feel like he deserved to be helped. After all, he was a murderer, too. And it didn’t matter what Nick and Cody and Joanna had tried to tell him to justify what he did, he just couldn’t see it any other way than he was a killer.

And what did that mean for him and the agency?

If he couldn’t handle a gun again then did that mean that he wouldn’t do field work? Would he stay on the boat and do all the computer stuff while Nick and Cody did all the field work?

He couldn’t help but wonder how long that would be before either one figured out that wouldn’t work.
When he had left for Silicon Valley (or he thought he was leaving for Silicon valley. In reality, he was being kidnapped and sold to the Russians) he had left the Roboz on the Riptide and he said that he was at the end of the phone if they needed him.

And even though they went and looked for him, he had to wonder if they really did need him. They needed his skills, but he could equip the Roboz with everything that they needed and be fine.

Would he need to go back to the corporate world? Would he have to do that?

If he couldn’t be a “real” private investigator if he didn’t want to shoot a gun? If he couldn’t shoot a gun? Would Nick and Cody want him if he froze and couldn’t help them if their lives were in danger? It had happened back in the small town when they found out the truth about the sheriff.

Nick had called for help and he had frozen.....

Murray closed his eyes, tight shut, reliving the memory. He couldn’t even save his friend when he was in danger, what if it happened again?
How long would it be before Nick and Cody decided that he was more of a hindrance than a help? It was his biggest fear that they would think that of him. He didn’t want to be a burden to his friends.

His best friends. The only friends that he really had.

He didn’t know what to do. He knew, short term, he would stay on the Riptide and be the computer expert he knew his best friends/ partners needed him to be. Hoping that the images of killing a man would fade as he tried to get on with his life. Get back to some kind of normality.

But in the long term? He didn’t know. It depended on so much that he didn’t even want to think about. It made him dizzy to think about how his life might plan out.

He couldn’t help but give an ironic laugh. He was a man who could put things into a computer and get several different probabilities but when it came to real life. His life. He couldn’t predict how all of this would play out in the end.

If only he could put all of his issues into the computer; his guilt, fears, regret, and have the Roboz tell him how he was going to feel in a month. In a year. The big question was, even if he could do that, would he? What if it told him that he would never escape the echoes of the ghost? How would he feel about that and what would he do?
No, he wouldn’t want to know how what his future looked like. It was hard enough now, and he needed the hope that one day, it would get better.

Without the hope, what else did he have? He knew that Nick and Cody and Joanna’s support might be enough to get him through this time? He hoped so, anyway.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

What do you say to the man who saved your life? What do you say when one of your best friends is hurting so much and it’s all your fault?

Every time I look at Boz, I get a stab of guilt. I know he’s hurting. Nick knows he’s hurting, and it seems no matter what we say to him, it’s not enough.

It doesn’t feel enough.

And I know that I’m the reason he’s hurting so badly. I mean, sure, I got hurt. And the scars will fade and heal, and I’ll be out chasing bad guys again soon, as it’s what I do.

What we do.

But Boz didn’t get physical scars. And sure, his scars will heal over time, too, but we don’t know how long those will take to heal. It’s not like mental scars are visible and Boz might not want to share his scars with us. I know he’s feeling guilty about what he did, and knowing Boz, it’s no surprise he feels that way.

He’s always been so enthusiastic to be one of us. To be more physical. To not just be the “brains” of the agency and even though Nick and I worry about him, we let him because he’s our friend and we know how important it is for him to feel like he’s wanted. Needed.

And he sure is wanted and needed. Now more than ever.

I know Boz probably has a million things going on in that head of his. Most of which I don’t understand, but I know that he will be feeling guilty and scared and probably thinks we don’t want him.

And, no matter how hard it is for me to find the words of appreciation that he saved my life, I will find them. I will reassure him that if he never picks up a gun in his life again, he’s wanted by Nick and I.

Not just for the computers. Or the Roboz. But because he’s our friend.

Our partner.

The only other man that Nick and I love.

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Chapter three

It had been quite a week!

What with Cody almost dying and Murray killing the guy that shot Cody, that would have been more than enough for us to deal with, but we had a case, too.

The sister of the woman Murray had shot hired us to prove that her brother was innocent of the crime he had imprisoned for, and that took us into weird territory .

A corrupt sheriff almost killed Me and Murray.

I know Murray feels bad for what he did, and couldn’t bring himself to pick up the gun and use it to save me. God. That’s probably going to give the little guy more trauma to deal with.

And it was traumatic. Seeing one of my best friends almost be killed and lying in a hospital bed. I mean, it’s happened before but this time was different.

My other best friend had saved his life by killing the shooter.

I didn’t want to take the case. I knew what had happened was eating away at Murray, but I wanted to find out the truth. There was something telling me that there was something not right.

And I thought that it might help take our mind off what happened.

I felt sick as the people in town treated Murray as some kind of hero for killing a man. They didn’t see how traumatised the little guy was.

I saw how traumatised he was and that’s why I told him that its normal for him to feel the way he feels. God, he should be feeling the way he feels. Murray is the kindest, sweetest guy I know and even though he thinks he’s not good at the emotional stuff, I think he’s better at it than he knows he is.

I kinda wish he wasn’t so good at being emotional now. I wish that his feelings were a computer that he could just sit down and do his ‘thing’ with and make it all better.

But he’s not a computer. He’s our friend and I don’t care if he never picks up a gun ever again. He’s still our Boz. He’s still a part of the agency and always will be.

He’s still a part of Cody and me. He’s not aware of how much we love him. Or he might just have blocked it out due to how he’s feeling, but Cody and I will show him how much we love him.

And we will be with him when he has bad dreams and flashbacks of what happened. We will comfort him and support him and just show our little guy that no matter what happens, we are not letting him leave the agency again. We’re not letting him leave us again.

Not when we need each other more than we ever did.

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Chapter 4.

It was after midnight and Murray couldn’t sleep. It had been over a week since Cody had been shot and he had....well, he knew what he had done. It replayed in his mind every time he closed his eyes. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since then, and he usually stayed in his room, working on a new invention or computer programme. He worried not to wake Cody and Nick. He didn’t want them to worry about him.

He didn’t know if he felt if he deserved to have them worry about him.

But tonight, he had decided to go up to the deck. He needed to just sit and watch the stillness of the water. It reminded him that life was still, going on. Even though he felt so detached from the world at the moment.

Of course Nick and Cody knew that Murray was having trouble sleeping. They wanted to go and comfort him the first night they realised he wasn’t sleeping, but Murray just shrugged off their attempts at trying to help him. Like the time he was wondering how to tell them that he was leaving the agency and he developed an acute case of hiccups that almost drove Nick and Cody to killing their friend.
But, tonight was different.

They decided they couldn’t stand to see their friend suffering alone any longer.

“You know, if you stay out here much longer, you might freeze to death”, Nick quipped, as he appeared on feck first.
Cody followed. “At least we don’t have hiccups to deal with this time”.
They were trying to keep the mood light. They didn’t want to pressure Murray into opening up as soon as they appeared. They worried that would just make him retreat back into his room, where he had spent a lot of time recently.

Even when they went to see Joanna at the police precinct, Murray stayed on the boat.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to wake you guys”, Murray apologised. “You should get back to bed. It’s late”.
Nick sat down next to him. “You know, I was thinking about the time when I found out that my friends from school were all drug runners”, he told Murray, quietly. “I mean, they killed my friend and I felt so helpless then”.
Cody sat down at the other side of Murray. “And when I found out Byron was a jerk, it actually made me question my entire life’.
Murray sighed, “But you are nothing like Byron. You know that you’re not”.
“I just thought that I lived with him, I must have known, subconsciously, at least, that he was a creep”, Cody said, sadly.
“And I thought that if I kept in touch with some of the guys from school then, maybe I could have talked them out of the choices they made”.

The penny dropped with Murray about what his two best friends were doing. “Guys, I appreciate the talk, but those are totally different to what I’m experiencing. You guys didn’t have anything to do with the choices those people made”. He took a deep breath, to try to hide the emotion he felt, that his voice was in danger of revealing. “But I chose to what I did, I chose to....”

“Save my life”, Cody interrupted. “Boz, you saved my life. You did what you did to save me”. He looked at the younger man. “And it’s because of you I am here. And I want you to know that I will be forever grateful for that”.
Nick nodded in agreement. “Me, too. I don’t know what I’d do if i didn’t have him complaining about traveling in the Mimi”.

Murray smiled, despite himself. Maybe it was time to unload some of his thoughts.

“I just feel so guilty and I know the pain his sister is feeling and I just....” he started crying. He needed to unleash the pain he was feeling. “I know I saved Cody’s life but it’s not like I can be proud of that. I killed a man and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that”.
Cody nodded, “I know that you have always been a person with a strong moral compass”, he noted. “And I wouldn’t expect anything less from you than how you’re feeling. And you know why that is? Because it’s you, Boz. It’s who you are”.
“You stand up for what is right and you have the sweetest heart”, Nick added. “And I know that you are hurting right now, and we want to help you. You can talk to us”.
Cody sighed, “We didn’t know if we should tell you this but Joanna told us that Elaine Warwick really wants to talk to you”.

Murray felt panic go through him. “NO”, he practically screamed. He tried to stand up, but Nick put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from going anywhere.
“I can’t talk to her. She must hate me for what I did to her brother. And I don’t blame her”, Murray sobbed. “I hate myself for what I did and I don’t think that I can face her”.

Nick signed, “I understand how you’re feeling, but you and Elaine are grieving for the same person, and I don’t think Joanna would suggest something that she knew was going to hurt a friend”.
“As hard as it will be, it might be good for the both of you to talk about how you’re feeling. And we will be there with you”, Cody added. “And, we love you, Boz. We have enough love for you to level out the hate you feel for yourself”.
Nick agreed. “We know our love will eventually win out. We are the Riptide detective agency. And we don’t give up on each other. Ever”.

Murray didn’t know if he truly believed the words of his two best friends, but he did know he managed to get some sleep when he headed back to his room.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Murray felt sick. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing but he knew that Joanna wouldn’t have arranged this if she thought for a moment that it would cause him any more pain.

Nick and Cody were with him and that made him feel more reassured.

“How are you feeling?”, Joanna asked.
Murray nodded, “I’m...okay”. He suddenly remembered something. “With everything going on recently, I didn’t get a chance to ask you how Michael is? How are you doing?”
Joanna smiled, sadly. “He’s still working with the justice department. I don’t know what is going to happen. It turned out the case was much bigger than we originally thought. So I don’t know what the future holds”.

“I hope you decide to do what’s right for you”, Murray told her. He liked Joanna. He still missed Quinlan, even after the trouble he caused him and his friends, but Joanna was a friend, not a work associate.

She looked at him, “Elaine is in my office if you want to go in”, she said.

Murray froze. He didn’t know if he could do this. What if it only made things worse?

As if she was reading his mind, Joanna reached out and touched his arm. “You don’t have to do this, you know? I know that I suggested it, but that doesn’t mean you have to agree to do it”.
He knew that he didn’t have to do it. He could just turn around and walk away, but as much as he wanted to do that, he also didn’t want to run away from this.

Nothing would change what had happened but maybe he had to accept that everything would be different from now on.

“No, I want to do this”, he said.

Nick and Cody sat in random free chairs, in the main room at the precinct. Murray looked over his shoulder, to Cody and then to Nick; both men gave him a reassuring smile and Murray knew that it was time.

Time to face what he had done.

He took a deep breath and he walked to Joanna’s office door, and he slowly turned the handle and opened the door.

He saw Elaine Warwick sitting in a chair, her back to the door. He took another deep breath.

“Elaine?” he didn’t expect his voice to be filled with so much emotion but it was.
Elaine turned and looked at him. “Mr Bozinsky”, she stood up. “Thank you for meeting with me”.
“It was....” Murray paused. There was something he needed to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill Nate. I hated that everyone treated me like some kind of hero for what I did. It was an accident “.

Murray was crying.

“Murray did what he did to save my life”, a voice from the doorway said. Cody.
“When you have someone shooting at you, you don’t have time to ask questions”, he continued. “Murray has saved many lives. Mine included “.
Nick stood next to Cody at the doorway. “Murray told you to run when we were getting out of the car of that sheriff”, he told her. “He saved your life, too”.

Elaine nodded. She was crying, too. “I know, and that’s why I asked to meet with you. I forgive you”.
Murray shook his head, “I don’t deserve your forgiveness “, he sobbed. “I...”
“You helped to prove my brother’s innocence “, Elaine said, quietly. “And you did help save my life.”
“I was so convinced that Nathan was guilty “, Murray said, quietly.

Elaine walked to him and put her hand, gently, on his arm. “You did that to make yourself feel better about what you did”, she said, glumly. “But that just helped me see that you’re not some cold blooded killer. I could see how you were struggling with what you did. You needed to believe that my brother was guilty, because you couldn’t bear the thought of killing an innocent man. That’s not the actions of a killer. And I just have one request”.

Murray looked at her. “You do? What is that?”

“Forgive yourself”, Elaine said. “I forgive you”.
She smiled and then headed for the door. “look after him”, she told the two men, who stood aside to let her out of the room.
“We always do”, Nick smiled. “Its what we do. We are there for each other. No matter what”.
“Thank you”, Murray said. He wasn’t just saying it to Elaine. He was thanking his two best friends, too.

Chapter Text

Murray opened the drawer of his dresser and looked at the gun, sitting in the drawer. He put his hand into the drawer, but still couldn’t find the courage to touch it.

But this time it was different.

“You okay?” Nick asked, as he and Cody stood in the doorway.

Murray looked at them. “Honestly? Not quite yet, but I know I’m on my way there”. He knew that he was telling them (and himself!) the truth. “I know that it’s going to take time to even process what happened, but I know one day, it won’t be the first thing I think of when i open my eyes in the morning or the last thing i think of when i go to sleep”.

Cody walked into Murrays room and sat on the bed, next to him. “You know, I am grateful that you saved my life”.
Murray smiled, sadly, at him. “Im glad that I saved your life”.
Nick walked into the room, and sat next to Cody. “We are here if you ever wanna talk or not”, he told his friend. “You know, the great thing about our friendship is that we are here for each other. Cody got hurt, we all hurt. You are in pain, we are all in pain”.

Murray knew that Nick was right about that and he also knew that he didn’t have to suffer alone any more.

“Talking to Elaine Warwick helped”, he announced. “She knows that I took no pleasure in killing her brother and she doesn’t hate me. She just asked that forgive myself”.
Cody sighed, “And can you forgive yourself, Boz?” He asked, quietly.

Murray thought for a moment and then answered truthfully. “I don’t know if I can truly forgive myself and, you know. I’m okay with that”, he said, emotionally. “I know I shouldn’t feel numb about killing someone. I actually want to feel bad about doing that”.
“You wouldn’t the Boz that we love if you didn’t feel bad about that”, Cody said.
“You know that we are here for you and we always will be?” Nick asked. “We love you, Boz, and we are going to help you get through this”.
Murray nodded, “I know guys, and I know how lucky I am to have you two guys, and I love you, too”.

Cody smiled. “And, if you’re worried about not being a part of the agency, well, you can stop worrying about that”, he explained. “We need you. And the Roboz. We wouldn’t be the Riptide detective agency without you”.
“Can you see Cody trying to work the computer equipment?” Nick teased, ‘He’d break it in five minutes. You should have seen the mess he made when we were packing up your stuff when we thought you had gone to Silicone Valley”.
Cody frowned. “Okay, thank you, Nick”.

Nick moved to sit on the floor, in front of Murray. “Remember what you told us when you got back? We're like brothers to you? We feel the same way about you, too. Boz”.
“And we are here for you. No matter how long it takes. We are going to help you get through this”, Cody promised. “Together. Because that’s what we do. We pull each other through the dark times”.

Nick looked at Murray. “And we are going to get through this. Together. “

He knew that he would get through this, because he had his two best friends to support him. He tried to push them away, but they didn’t let him and that proved to him that love and friendship can get him through this pain.