Archive of Our Own

Elliott pushed his glasses up on top of his head and rubbed his eyes. John had been scheduled for a few weeks of swing shift, and was on his second day of working from three to midnight. They hadn’t seen each other since dinner two days ago, and he looked forward to having an actual in-person conversation with his husband.

Husband. Huh. He was still getting used to that.

“Think that’s it for tonight, doc.”

He looked up to see Athos in his office doorway, out of his tactical gear and in slacks and a button down.

“If the door’s open, they’re more than welcome to come sit no matter what time of day or night.” Elliott gestured to the empty chair in front of him. “Everyone knows this.”

Athos sat gingerly. “I have issues with this chair.”

“Understatement,” he said with a smile. “Took me long enough to realize you didn’t like what the chair represented and not me personally.”

“Good man, shit profession.”

Elliott laughed, the stress of the day and the lingering tension from the multi-team raid finally easing from his shoulders.

“How’d your favorite Yankee look tonight?” He leaned back and set his glasses on the desk. There was something incredibly soothing about being able to speak his mother tongue without having to worry about alienating anyone from the conversation. The Garrison had people from all walks of life – provinces, too – but English was the primary language during business hours and amongst the different teams. In addition, there was, of course, French, Spanish, and a smattering of Cantonese from some of the officers who’d come most recently from Toronto.

“A little jittery,” Athos said, switching flawlessly to Italian and briefly pantomiming an incessantly twitching hand. “Too much caffeine, maybe.”

Elliott could piece together what he was saying, though he knew few phrases in Italian in which to answer him. He picked one at random. “Where is the toilet?”

He snorted.

“Swing shifts.” Wincing, Elliott added, “He’s probably had more coffee than normal.” He settled back in his native French.

Athos followed suit. “He mentioned something about the ability to see sounds.” The corners of his mouth twitched.

“Shit.” He let his head hang. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“Kaci should corral him, otherwise she’d kick him out of her ambulance.” Athos stood. “Go home, Elliott. Relax. Fall asleep on the couch waiting for your husband.

His head came up sharply. “Athos – “

“Ah.” Athos held up a hand, then pointed in front of him. “No longer in the chair.”

“True. And I did promise.” In an effort to extend the olive branch to a very distrustful Athos when he started as Garrison psychologist, Elliott had promised he would only ask “those” kinds of questions when Athos sat in the chair in front of the desk, so long as Athos gave truthful answers that went beyond a single yes or no.

There had been a lot of silence and agitated pacing in the early days.

“I have a few things to finish up and then I’m gone. Have a nice night, Athos.” He watched the older man go, and sighed. While they’d moved beyond much of the pacing, there was still a lot of silence during Athos’s mandated sessions.

Athos took leading by example seriously, and whether or not that bled into the others, the rest of Team One was remarkably quiet when in Elliott’s office for official reasons, too. D’Artagnan was the most open; Porthos would eventually sigh and start talking, especially if prompted, and Aramis – Aramis, bless him, made Elliott feel as though he’d earned every bit of his salary until retirement in one session.

He’s come so far though. God bless him for that he thought as he shut down his computer. He made a circular motion over his desk and added, All of them. Keep them all safe.

The men and women of the SITRU were very well trained, able to adapt their plans on the fly, and had enough recklessness to make Treville feel as though he were in charge of a particularly unruly bunch of toddlers on a regular basis. Elliott knew the man secretly loved every minute of it when he wasn’t swearing in his office and tearing out what hair he had left.

He waved to the QCPD officer at the front desk on his way out, and adjusted the straps on his backpack to rest more comfortably against his shoulders.

About halfway home the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He tensed, then forced himself to appear as though nothing had pinged every sense he’d honed on assignment with a SITRU team.

With a deep breath, he ducked into the 24-hour mart on the corner. He made his way to the furthest aisle, and was able to put his back to the coolers to keep an eye on the store while pretending to browse the shelves.

A large man in a polo shirt and blazer stepped in, stopping at the magazine rack by the register.

Elliott picked up a can of Pringles, and tapped them lightly against his forehead. He’d hemmed himself in with no easy way out.

He kept the Pringles, and got himself a single, large bottle of beer. Slowly, he made his way to the counter. The man, the one he was certain had been following him, moved slightly, and allowed him a glimpse of the holster and gun he carried under his arm.

“This it?” the kid behind the counter asked.

“Yes. Please.” He let the kid ring the items up. “No bag, thank you.” He dropped a twenty on the counter, and watched the man glance side-long at the door. So there were at least two of them, then.

Beer in one hand, Pringles in the other, he looked at the man next to him and asked, in French, “Do you have the time?”

“Huh? What? What time is it?” He glanced at his watch, then back at Elliott.

“Oui.”

“Ten-thirty.”

Elliott thanked him by hitting him over the head with his beer. The glass shattered; the man reeled, and Elliott smacked him between the eyes with the Pringles can. Chips went flying as the package split. The boy behind the counter froze.

“Uh, keep the change.” He smiled nervously, and stepped over the dazed man on the floor back out onto the sidewalk.

“Yo, Tommy boy! You got the doc yet?” Another man materialized from the shadows.

Fight or flight kicked in, and Elliott sprinted down the street without a backward glance.

“Shit! Hey!”

Home. Home. Get home. Lock doors. Call Athos. Those words repeated over in his head until they shortened themselves down to just three. Home. Call Athos.

He was at the end of his street when something blindsided him from the left, bodily tackling him into a parked car. He hit the unmoving object with a yelp, whacking his right elbow off the top and feeling as though he’d cracked at least a couple ribs in the process. Half his face clipped the side mirror as the sidewalk rushed up to meet him; his glasses clattered away, broken, if the stinging sensation around his eye was any indication. Staggering to his feet, he listed sideways into a trashcan, and batted away an arm that reached out for him.

“Hey, now, doc, just relax.”

“Fuck off!” He put the car to his back; something crunched under his heel. Most likely his glasses, if his current luck was any indication. Another hand reached for him; he held it with one of his own and jabbed two stiff fingers into one of the nerves, a move Porthos had made him practice until he could do it with his eyes closed.

“Ow! Son of a bitch, my arm’s gone numb!”

It was dark, and the men in front of him – two, he thought – weren’t much more than fuzzy blobs at the right distance. Which, honestly, was too close from the end of his nose to be comforting.

“You said he wasn’t a Musketeer!”

“He’s not! He’s just a damn psychologist!”

His fingers twitched toward his back pocket where his phone was.

“Hey, now, none of that, buddy.”

Elliott jerked away, ramming his already bruising elbow off the backseat window of the car again, though he kept his hands up defensively.

“Will you get over here and help me, you jackass!”

“I still can’t feel my arm.”

He smirked, glad for Porthos’s tenacity when it came to making sure the people he loved could protect themselves if need be. He shuffled his feet, inching his way toward the back of the car. He didn’t hear anything else coming down the street, and if he could keep them occupied – and get in the right position – he could slip through the parked cars and have some more room to maneuver.

What he didn’t account for, however, was the possibility of a third man in the car behind him.

There was a click; someone grabbed the strap on his backpack and yanked, pulling him off balance. He struggled, and more hands grabbed him. Something twisted and cracked with a pop; he yelped again even as someone gripped him by the hair to pull his head around.

“Easy, doc. Easy,” someone crooned in his ear as a sickly sweet smell invaded his nostrils and clogged his mind. “Take a breath. Go to sleep.”

He fought it as everything swirled together. The last thing he heard before his head shut down was someone swearing from where he’d kicked them in the knee.

John arrived home to a dark house shortly after quarter past midnight. Odd, to say the least, as Elliott usually had the kitchen light on if he’d gotten back first. Instead, it was dark and silent, and unease coiled in his belly.

“El?” he called, shutting the door behind him. “Elliott?”

Elliott’s favorite Chucks weren’t on the mat, nor was his backpack on the peg. While it wasn’t unusual for him to work late on nights when there were pre-planned raids and takedowns, he often sent a text or called to let John know what was going on the best he could. There were some things, of course, he couldn’t divulge details on.

There were no messages or missed calls on John’s phone.

The feeling in his belly grew, and he dialed Elliott’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Like it was off.

John compulsively checked to make sure the door behind him was locked. Elliott’s phone was never off. On silent, yes, but never completely shut down. Anyone who needed to get hold of him could always do so. Porthos had called at two in the morning one time asking for advice on snapping Aramis out of a panic attack, and Elliott had retreated to the privacy of the bathroom to help them. It had taken at least an hour to put everybody back on an even keel, and John had found Elliott sound asleep in the bathtub the next morning when he went to take a shower.

Elliott made a point to be accessible. It was part of what made him so damn good at his job.

He chewed his bottom lip, thumb hovering over the first name on his contacts list.

Something’s not right. He’d want to know. John swallowed. He won’t be mad.

He jabbed the number and held the phone to his ear.

Athos picked up on the third ring. “Yankee.”

Five different versions of what he wanted to say flooded his mouth, and all that actually came out was a croak.

“Yankee? John?”

“Have you seen Elliott tonight?” he blurted.

“He was in his office at about ten tonight, and told me he was leaving shortly. Why?”

His face flushed as soon as he said, “He’s not home yet.” It sounded more than a little stupid to his own ears.

Athos must have taken the phone away from his ear, though John could still hear him say, “’Mis? Call Elliott’s office line will you? See if he picks up.” There was some shuffling, and then he said, “Did you try his cell?”

“Yeah. Straight to voicemail. Like it’s off.”

Silence filled the line before Athos, tone carefully neutral, said, “Elliott’s phone is never off. I’m putting you on speaker. Aramis and Porthos are here with me.”

“Office line goes to voicemail,” Aramis said from somewhere in the background.

“Officer at the front desk said Elliott left at ten-oh-eight tonight. He checked the security cam footage, too.” Porthos that time.

John sat heavily in one of his kitchen chairs. “He’s missing. He’s not here, he’s not at work.” He took a deep breath, well aware there was an edge of hysteria to his voice.

“Breathe, Yankee.” That was Athos again, as calm and collected as always. “Aramis, call d’Artagnan and tell him to meet us at the Garrison. Porthos, get Treville on the line. John, we’ll pick you up on the way, so just stay put for right now. We’ll be there in ten. Stay on the phone.”

Still wearing his uniform pants and boots, he sat at his kitchen table and waited for Team One to arrive.

“He weighs a ton.”

“That’s what happens when you’re a cop.”

“Thought he was a head-shrinker?”

Elliott swam through a sea of cotton balls on the way to consciousness. His head lolled, and he squinted. The world was fuzzy, but he couldn’t tell if that was his head or because he didn’t have his glasses.

His left arm throbbed miserably where it hung toward the ground, and there was an iron grip on his chest. When he realized his feet weren’t free, he bucked weakly against what held him.

“He is, he’s – hey, he’s awake.”

“Stand ‘im up, then. Fuck, he’s heavy.”

His head spun as his center of gravity shifted, and his feet touched…grass. Odd. There wasn’t a park near the house. But he’d been on his way home from work, and it was dark, so why would –

“One foot in front of the other here, doc. C’mon.”

Americans, his foggy brain supplied. He concentrated on doing what he’d been told and nearly fell. Americans. Yanks. “John?”

“Nope. No Johns here. Just Tommy and Bobby.”

“Up the steps, doc.”

Elliott lifted one foot automatically until he heard the hum of a jet engine, something he’d filed as background noise. He balked.

“Nope. We got a schedule to keep. One the plane, pal.”

“No.” He dug his heels in and pushed backward. “John?”

“Fuck – we don’t have time for this.”

“What the hell are you two doing?” A third voice sounded from above; Elliott flinched at the tone.

“He won’t get on the plane,” huffed someone – Tommy, maybe – from near his left ear.

“Then you make him.” The surface under Elliott’s feet – steps up into the plane – rattled as the new person came down. “Hi, doc.” A face came close enough to be seen clearly; Elliott made himself stand his ground. “We have a schedule to keep you is holdin’ up the process. Now.” He reached out and wrapped a meaty paw around Elliott’s pulsing left forearm and squeezed gently.

Elliott’s stomach rolled as his knees threatened to give out. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood so he wouldn’t make a sound.

“That looks like it hurts. I’ve got painkillers on the plane, and something to help you sleep, too. You get both if you get on the plane. If you don’t, well, how many times can you break an arm before there’s permanent damage?”

He shuddered; someone muttered, “Jesus, Randall.”

With his good hand, he motioned in the direction of the top of the stairs.

“Good choice.” Randall’s hand moved to his bicep as Elliott navigated the remainder of the stairs with the grace of a drunken elephant.

The plane was quite clearly someone’s private jet. The seats folded out nearly flat, and someone – Randall, most likely – steered him toward the one already reclined. He crawled up in it and curled around his bad arm, back pressed against the wall.

There were various thumps as Tommy and Bobby settled in, and someone closed the door. Randall appeared again, this time holding a hypodermic. Elliott flattened himself as far from the damn thing as he could get. His head was only just starting to lose the cotton-y feel, and he didn’t want to be drugged again.

“Painkiller?” Randall asked sweetly.

Elliott shook his head.

“Sleep aid?”

Again, he signaled no.

Randall held both hands up. “Fine. But you stay right here unless you have to use the bathroom, alright or it’s sleepy time until we get to Jersey. Understood?”

“Oui,” he croaked. He watched Randall take a seat across the aisle and flick both Tommy and Bobby in the ears.

“That,” the man said triumphantly as the plane began to move, “is how it’s done boys.”

Athos and Porthos waited on the sidewalk for John to lock the house up.

“Does Elliott take the same route home from work?” Porthos asked.

“Yeah, when he walks. There’s this twenty-four-hour corner store he sometimes stops at. He craves chocolate whenever he’s up late.” John shoved his hands in his pockets.

“We’ll stop in there on the way to the Garrison.” Athos paused at the corner and went to something on the ground that had caught his attention in the glow of the street lamp. He returned carrying what was left of Elliott’s glasses.

“Shit,” John muttered. “This where they grabbed him?”

“Could be.” He handed John the glasses. “He’s going to want those.”

He snorted. “He needs a spare pair. Now he might actually get them.”

A few streets over, almost halfway to the Garrison, they came across the corner store. The door was open, and the young man – no more than a teenager – worked at cleaning up what looked like a mix of glass, beer, and potato chips from the floor.

Porthos whistled lowly as he stepped around a caution sign.

“Yeah, and the jerk who did it ran off.” The kid leaned on his mop.

“Officer de la Fere, Officer du Vallon,” Athos said, flipping open his badge and shield.

The kid groaned. “But I already talked to the police.”

“Quebec City officers?” Porthos asked.

“Yeah. When I called after it happened.” He gestured to the floor. “Some guy – really nice, too, had good manners – hit another over the head with a bottle of beer and then whapped him on the nose with the Pringles can.” He paused, then grudgingly added, “It was pretty cool. And he ran off after he’d paid for the stuff, too, and left me the change.”

Athos sighed; John dug out his phone and unlocked it to see his background. “This the guy that did it? The one with the glasses?”

“Yeah! You know him?”

“I married him,” he said dryly.

“Huh.” The kid looked around them as though Elliott were going to spontaneously appear in the doorway. “Didya bring him with you to help me clean?”

Porthos coughed to smother a snort; Athos said, “Unfortunately, the man that did this was abducted earlier tonight, most likely by the man he assaulted with beer and potato chips.”

“Call your manager back, kid.” Porthos pointed to the security camera. “We’re gonna need that footage.”

The kid held out his phone. “You call him. I hate this job but I don’t wanna get fired.”

Athos sighed again, and took the phone.

Elliott was wide awake when they landed. From the glow of the lights on the horizon they were somewhere near a city. Randall had said Jersey, and he wondered how close to New York he was.

New York City, he mentally corrected. There’s more to New York than just the city. He kept his left arm close to his torso so as not to accidentally hit it off something. He’d whacked it against a seat on his way back from the bathroom midflight and had to take deep breaths to chase away the white spots sparking in front of his eyes.

He could probably scrap with it, if need be. It just couldn’t take direct hits.

And he fully intended to try to for his freedom with both feet safely back on Mother Earth.

Tommy – or Bobby, one of the two – walked ahead of him toward the edge of the airfield. Elliott assumed the lights he saw belonged to a vehicle of some kind. He was well aware of how very hard to find he would become if he got in said vehicle.

He squinted, and stifled a smile. His backpack looked comically tiny against Tommy/Bobby’s bulk.

Though she be little, she is fierce, his brain quoted. The same company who made the SITRU’s tac vests had made his backpack. Elliott could be bodily moved by the strap at the back – he and Porthos had actually tested it, much to Athos’s exasperated amusement.

Elliott shuffled his feet, feigning as though he were about to fall. He grabbed for the backpack strap, gripped it hard, and used his forward momentum to spin the man in front of him into the man behind him. With Randall taking up the rear of their little procession – and the Tommy/Bobby scrum between them – Elliott took off running.

“Shit!”

“Move, you idiots!”

He skirted the edge of the vehicle, half-expecting to be ambushed like he’d been in QC, and charged hard for the open gate in the fence. He made it through and wove his way up the empty road, darting down the nearest side street.

By the time he approached something that maybe been residential once upon a time, he a stitch in his side and his arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

The first place to have a light on outside was a repair shop. A rather weedy-looking man stood outside, smoking, and he looked as skeptical of Elliott as Elliott was of him.

“You lost, kid?” he asked.

“A bit, yeah.” Elliott thickened his accent. “You have phone?”

“Inside.” He stubbed out his cigarette, and opened the door. “C’mon kid, it’s in the office.”

Elliott glanced over his shoulder for headlights, and then followed the man inside.

There were others in the main bay, dressed in dirty coveralls. He counted at least three.

“Phone’s in there.”

“Oui.” He winced, the picture of a contrite tourist with a language barrier. Ducking into the office, he picked up the handset.

The phone was dead.

Swallowing hard, he looked for another exit. The office didn’t have a window, and only had one door. He edged toward the doorway and caught the tail end of weedy-man’s phone call.

“Yeah, he’s here. We’ll hold him until you pick him up.”

Fuck.

He took a deep breath, and strolled nonchalantly back out, coming to a halt by some rolling shelves and tool boxes. “My ride is coming. Merci.”

Weedy snorted. “You ain’t goin’ anywhere, kid. Four on one ain’t good odds, so don’t fuckin’ try.”

Elliott eyed the variety of tools to his right, including a tire iron.

“Batshit crazy Canuck,” someone muttered.

He grabbed for the tire iron as they came at him. In the end, it took three of them to get him to the floor where the largest one held him down with a meaty hand against his head to press his face against the dirty concrete floor. His lip was split, and he had some new bruises, but he’d given as good as he got before he’d been overpowered.

“You’re a feisty little shit, ain’t ya?” Weedy-man said, wiping blood away from his nose. He looked up. “Them boys didn’t tell me he was a scrappy son of a bitch.”

“Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass failed to read their files properly,” Randall said as he came into the bay. “If they had, Tucker, you wouldn’t have a man out cold.” He nudged the body on the floor with his toe. “Told ya to hide the tire iron.”

“Should make him pay for that,” Tucker spat. He motioned to his lackey to straighten Elliott’s swollen arm.

Elliott struggled against the hold he was in. Eyes wide, he looked between Randall and Tucker, unsure which, in that moment, was the lesser of two evils.

“Ain’t no worse than you’ve had dealin’ with the Russians,” Randall pointed out as Tucker rested the sole of his work boot on Elliott’s forearm.

“Think I’d take the Russians over this Canuck,” he muttered. “He’s yours, anyway. You deal with him.” He moved away; Elliott swallowed a sob of relief.

“I’m taking the easy way this time. Keep holdin’ him for me.” Randall pulled a syringe from his blazer pocket and came forward.

He tried to pull his arm back in and only succeeded in nearly passing out. Getting his breath back took more than a few seconds; Randall slid the needle into the vein at the crook of his elbow.

“There. Enough to make you docile, doc. No problems now.”

“Fuck you,” Elliott whined in Spanish, a phrase he’d picked up from Aramis. He blinked slowly; the sights around him took on a soft, haloed edge.

“Up you go, doc.”

Someone – or multiple someones – hauled him upright. He wobbled, and listed sideways. Another set of hands held him up while Randall handcuffed Elliott’s wrists together in front of him.

“Let’s go, pal.”

How very American of you, he thought, tripping over his own feet as Randall led him out to the waiting vehicle. He was unceremoniously piled into the backseat and sandwiched between Tommy and Bobby.

“Welcome back, doc.”

Elliott let his head thud back against the headrest. He was beginning to dislike these people.

John gratefully wrapped his palms around a large, steaming cup of coffee from Tim Horton’s. The eastern sky had started to lighten, and he sat in Elliott’s chair behind his desk at the Garrison. Athos, Porthos, and Treville stood around the room, while Aramis and d’Artagnan fought to get a TV on a rolling cart through the door.

Reminds me of high school, he mused.

“Here’s what we know,” Athos said as Aramis connected the required wires and d’Artagnan plugged it into the wall. “At about ten-twenty-five last night, Elliott Perdeauz entered this corner store. According to what the clerk told the QC officers, he paid for his items, politely declined a plastic bag, and proceeded to attack another man seemingly at random.”

He winced, though Elliott’s one-two punch, caught on black and white security footage, was almost inappropriately hysterical. There was something poetic about the way the other man went down like a ton of bricks, too.

“I’ve talked with the Captain in charge of the city police investigation. He agreed to wave charges right based on our theory of a suspected kidnapping,” Treville said.

“Suspected kidnapping?” John’s voice hit a normally unheard register, and he swallowed hard. “Sorry, but did they not see the damn gun on the screen?”

Several voices went “Gun?” all at once.

“Yeah.” He sat up straighter. “Pause it when the dude’s head gets level with the second to last magazine in the rack on his way down. Under his left arm.”

Aramis backed up to the right point and frowned. “How did they miss that?”

“Because they weren’t looking at why Elliott would have pre-emptively defended himself.” Porthos crossed his arms over his chest. “If you assume Elliott is the aggressor, you don’t look closely at the victim. Assume he’s the victim, and the other becomes the aggressor and you notice the gun.” He shrugged when they all stared at him. “Representation of facts.”

“Perspective,” John murmured. “Do we know who that is?”

“Not yet,” Aramis said. “QC facial recognition is working on it, and we gave a copy of the picture to the American FBI. They might know who he is before we do.”

“Nor do we know why he was taken,” Athos said, his tone far more gentle than John had heard in a long time.

Come to think of it, the last time he’d heard Athos that soft around the edges had been when he’d gotten shot and used as bait.

“Can’t be for ransom,” d’Artagnan said. He hastily added, when the rest of the room glared and John gave him the finger, “You’re government employees. That’s what I meant.”

“Next Mountie liaison we need is you,” Porthos said from behind his palm.

“I say he goes two rounds on the practice mat with Elliott when we get him back,” Aramis suggested.

John drew his knees up to sit cross-legged in Elliott’s chair. “He’s a psychologist.”

“And a Musketeer,” Treville said softly.

“He worked with a team for year, didn’t he?”

“He’s a Musketeer, John,” Athos said. “He followed Team Six for at least a year. Trained with them. Rode with them. Practiced and fought beside them. He passed every examination and requirement we expect our SITRU officers to, and he earned his badge and shield.”

“Gave it to him right after he got out of the hospital after bein’ shot the first time,” Porthos added. “He earned it. Like we all have.”

“Our forty-first man.” Treville nodded approvingly from his spot by the wall. “He’s listed as active duty on our roster, though he’s never been pulled for field service as an officer after that first year because of his responsibilities as our department psychologist.”

“Top right drawer of the desk,” Aramis said quietly.

John pulled out the specified drawer and swallowed thickly. There, at the bottom in front of a neatly arrayed display of office supplies, was a credential holder. He set his coffee on the desk so he could reach in and flip it open. The etched fleur-de-lis on the shield glinted in the office lights.

“My husband’s a Musketeer,” he muttered. “I really did marry into the damn family.”

Athos snorted softly.

“He’s got physical skill and Musketeer training with him,” Porthos said, listing items off on his fingers. “What might hinder his own escape?”

John held up the battered remains of Elliott’s glasses. “He can’t see.”

“He wanders around the Garrison all the time with his glasses on his head,” d’Artagnan said with a chuckle, “and it’s not like he runs into walls.”

“Because he knows this place. And the people. He’s quite near-sighted when he’s not wearing glasses or contacts, and he’ll only walk around without either when he’s comfortable in a place.” John glanced over at Aramis.

“He’s safe here.” Aramis, out of all of them, would of course know what John had meant.

“He knows this place as well as he knows our house.” He picked up his coffee again to have something to occupy his hands. “We might be up a creek if they took him somewhere with a lot of people. He does fine normally with large crowds, but when he can’t see who’s around him and where he is and what’s coming? He’ll be constantly amped up.”

There was a collective wince. They’d all seen Aramis when he couldn’t settle for whatever reason, though none of them knew what Elliott would be like in that state.

I threw a wish in the well, don’t ask me I’ll never tell - blared from somewhere. D’Artagnan turned bright red as he dug his phone out. He pointed to Aramis and mouthed, I’m going to punch you. “D’Artagnan.”

Porthos snickered; Aramis discreetly handed him five dollars.

“Right. Thanks, Peg. We’ll get in touch with the Americans. Thanks again.” He pressed end and walked over to the white board on the wall. “Tommy Miller is our man from the corner store. He’s thirty-six and works for the Arcangelo Corporation based out of New York City.”

“So they’ve taken him to the States, then?” John asked.

“Haven’t confirmed it yet, but it’s a very likely probability,” Athos said. “The FBI has a field office in Manhattan. We should pop in for a visit.”

“I’ll have Constance arrange plane tickets. John, I’d like to send you with them to act as a third-party liaison between us and the Americans,” Treville said, pushing away from the wall. “And you know Elliott best.”

John motioned to the still-open desk drawer. “You think so?”

“The fact that Elliott Perdeauz is a Musketeer isn’t common knowledge.” Athos stood on the other side of the desk. “He never asked or applied to it. He received it because he earned it. Not even his own mother knows about it.”

Considering Mama Perdeauz knew everything about her four boys and their respective significant others, that was certainly saying a lot.

He met Athos’s steady gaze. “I understand.”

“I knew you would.” He looked at the rest of his team. “Grab your go-bag and be back here at eight sharp.”

They filed out with various murmurs of agreement. Treville nodded once at the pair of them. Athos took a seat in the chair in front of Elliott’s desk.

“He’s got no papers, Athos,” John said softly. “No passport. No visa. If the regular police find him before we do, who knows what they’ll charge him with.”

“Then we find him first.”

And it was, John mused, as simple as that when everything else was stripped away. All they had to do was find one Canadian needle in an American haystack made of more than eight million people.

Challenge accepted, he thought as he shut the drawer.

My first time in New York City and I’m almost too drugged to appreciate it.

The buildings were massive, and there were people in the streets even at the early hour.

City that never sleeps, his sluggish mind supplied. They earned it.

It was also the city of jaywalkers, taxi cabs, and honking horns. Sirens in the distance completed the picture, and he smiled softly.

He must have dozed for a bit because the next thing he knew Tommy – or was it Bobby – shook him awake. The street was dark, but tree-lined, or so he thought. He couldn’t tell.

Randall escorted him up the steps and into the building. There was only a solitary lamp lit, and exhaustion hit him like a brick. He swayed, propping himself up on Randall’s massive shoulder.

“What’s all this fuss about?”

Elliott blinked, and watched a blob descend the stairs, coalescing into a clearer view of a middle-aged woman the closer she got.

“Sir’s guest has arrived,” Randall said.

“The poor boy’s in handcuffs.” She stepped into his personal space; he flinched away from her questioning fingertips. “Did you – you beat him?”

“He tried to run!”

She held Elliott’s head still with one hand on his cheek while the other probed around his eye. “Well, he’s much too old and sensible for the free candy routine.” She eyed the three of them, and added, “I’d have run from you lot, too.”

He smiled, then grimaced; he’d reopened the split in his lip.

“Randall,” she said calmly. Elliott noticed with fascination how each man took a small step back. “Do call Doctor Fillipetti, please. Tell him he’ll have a patient first thing in the morning.”

“But – “

“That arm will be seen to, and those handcuffs will come off. Am I understood?” She never raised her voice, and had them cowering before her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She waited until the silver bracelets had disappeared to take Elliott – who was strongly reminded of his mother, who’d shared a house with her four sons and husband for many years and was a force of nature in her own right – gently by the hand and led him toward the stairs.

“Now, Lord knows you must be hungry, but I can see you’re about to sleep where you stand. Let’s go get you settled.” She helped him up the staircase. “I’m Rosie. If you need anything, you let me know.”

“A phone call?” he asked hopefully, thickening his accent again.

Rosie laughed. “Anything but that. There’s no landline here in the house.”

Which meant whoever had hired The Three Stooges to take him didn’t actually live there. That would make it a little more difficult for Team One to track him, but they were clever bastards, and Elliott wasn’t about to wait around like some damsel in distress, either.

“Are you – where are you from, dear?” she asked, opening a door off the main hallway. Inside was a bedroom the size of his and John’s living room.

“Quebec,” he said.

“You are a bit far from home.” Rosie turned down the bedcovers. “Get some sleep, and the boys will take you to get your arm looked at tomorrow. Then, I’m sure Mister Arcangelo will want to meet with you to discuss what you’ll be doing.”

The name didn’t ring any immediate bells, not that he’d trust himself to remember his own name at the moment. He’d been abducted on his way home from work, flown illegally into the United States, tried to escape, failed, and was being held hostage by a housekeeper who put the fear of God into the same men who had taken him like his mother had to her own children.

In short, Elliott was exhausted, ached in places he vaguely remembered could ache, and wanted to curl up around his husband and pretend it had all been a nightmare.

But it wasn’t, and he couldn’t.

So he did the next best thing – he crawled in bed, still in his clothes, and promptly passed out, broken arm tucked protectively against his chest.

“We’ve been in this country half an hour and I’ve yet to see a Tim Horton’s,” Aramis said blithely from the middle of the backseat of the rental SUV. “All there is are these damn fish-lookin’ places.”

“Real coffee,” John barked reflexively, one hand on the door as Athos cut across two lanes of traffic and a taxi cab. “Starbucks. Look, there’s a Dunkin.”

“Blasphemy,” Porthos said. He looked out the window and returned the glare leveled in his direction.

“I thought we had you firmly in Canadian territory. You’re a citizen – Athos, that car is stopped - and now it’s like you’ve relapsed.” Aramis braced one hand on the seat in front of him as Athos hit the brakes hard.

“Why didn’t we let the American drive?” d’Artagnan whispered.

“Because there is a reason I refuse to drive in this city – that’s a one way the other way, don’t – and this is that reason.” John hit his shoulder against the window.

“Well, at least his sense of direction is spot on. I think this is only the fifth time we’ve crossed Park Avenue.” Aramis caught Athos’s eye in the rearview mirror and blinked innocently.

“We’re weaving our way through Manhattan.” D’Artagnan made a snake-like motion with his hand. “Literally.”

“You are all well-aware that I’m right here, correct? And that I can hear you?” Athos tapped his brakes and swore under his breath.

“It wouldn’t be nearly as fun if you couldn’t, mon petit chou.” John gave him a sappy smile.

“Keep it up, Yankee, and we’ll leave your ass here.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He swore he saw at least five years of his life flash before his eyes. “Kaci would kill you, and you’d miss me. Not to mention you’d piss off your psychologist.” His leg twitched, stomping on an imaginary brake pedal much like his driver’s ed teacher had done in high school. “Because Elliott and I are a package deal. Two for one, ‘til death do us part, that kind of thing – good God, Athos, did you get your license out of a friggin’ Cracker Jack box!?”

“I’m an excellent pursuit driver,” he said lightly.

“Who the hell are we in pursuit of? That garbage truck?” John gripped his seat belt with both hands. “What? He’s got coke or some shit hidden in a trash bag?”

Someone in the backseat snorted so hard it sounded painful.

“All of you can walk back to the airport,” Athos said, turning into a parking garage.

“Probably safer,” Porthos muttered.

Despite the shenanigans – and moments of sheer terror – on the drive in, there was little fanfare on their way to the desk in the lobby.

“Officers de la Fere, du Vallon, d’Herblay, and d’Artagnan, and our liaison Perdeauz,” Athos said, flashing his badge and shield. “Agent Coccoro is expecting us.”

“May I see that?” the security guard asked. “And ID for everyone?”

Three more sets of credentials plus one passport were handed over. The man looked between John’s photo and the man in question.

“What’s your last name?” he finally asked.

“Perdeauz. Jonathan Francis Perdeauz.” He resolutely did not so much as glance at Aramis.

“This says Friedline.”

With a sigh, John dug out his driver’s license and his paramedic ID badge. “I got married. My passport hasn’t expired and still has my original last name.”

“You took your wife’s name? That’s brave.” He handed all forms of ID back, along with five visitors badges. “Fifteenth floor.”

“Ah, no,” John said, looping the lanyard over his head. “I took my husband’s last name. Have a nice day.”

Aramis nudged him on the way to the elevators. “Francis?”

“Are we really going to do this, Rene?”

Porthos snickered.

“But - Francis - “

Athos heaved a long-suffering sigh as the elevator doors slid shut.

Groggy, cranky, and severely under-caffeinated, Elliott sat on the exam bed in nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. Fillipetti had taken one look at him and demanded to do a full check up. He’d caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror a little while ago, and couldn’t blame the man.

His right eye had swollen shut; the bruising extended from his eyebrow down around into his cheekbone. There was more bruising on the left side of his jaw, and the corner of his mouth was puffy. His split lip was finally trying to heal.

The hospital gown hid more bruising. Shades of purple, green, and yellow littered his torso, and he’d cracked at least one rib on the right side. His favorite, though, was what looked like a handprint on his leg, most likely from where he was forcibly restrained after trying to escape.

He didn’t want to think about his arm. He’d already fought to get his wedding ring off his pudgy fingers and onto his right hand.

The door opened and the doctor, an elderly man with a surprising strength in those seemingly fragile bones, toddled in. “Mister Perdeauz.”

Elliott’s eyebrows rose.

“Do you speak Italian?” Fillipetti asked, putting up an x-ray for them to look at.

He shook his head. Random phrases weren’t going to be helpful here.

“English?”

“Little.” He see-sawed his hand back and forth. “Francais?”

“Not in my repertoire, but Mister Arcangelo is fluent. You shouldn’t have any trouble communicating with him.” Fillipetti turned to the x-ray. “You have a fractured ulna. Luckily, it hasn’t moved out of alignment, and should heal on its own. In a cast, of course.” He opened a drawer, and asked, “What color would you like?”

His choices were purple, red, green, and Musketeer blue. “Blue. Please.”

It went from his knuckles to his elbow. It was part nuisance and part blunt force object. He could work with that.

He had no idea what happened to his clothes, but someone had produced a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt for him. A bit too large, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he wasn’t walking out in just his boxers.

“Where are we?” he asked as he allowed himself to be herded into the backseat of another unmarked SUV.

“New York. Slide over.” Tommy/Bobby climbed back there with him, and shut the door with a snap.

Elliott ran his fingers along the edge of his cast thoughtfully. “New York?”

“New York City,” Randall clarified from the front seat. “Brooklyn. You heard of that before?”

He shrugged. John had talked about the few times he’d been to New York City, but a lot of his stories about life in New York were about growing up in Buffalo. Which, Elliott had gathered then and was definitely seeing now, were two completely different worlds.

And so very, very much not like the world of one of their favorite shows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

“Best borough in the world,” Tommy/Bobby chimed in.

“Born? Raised?” Elliott didn’t bother looking out the windows; the tint prevented him from seeing much of anything, and they went too fast for him to read any street signs.

“Tommy and I are,” Bobby said proudly. “Randall’s from Queens.”

While he didn’t understand the statement, he understood the sentiment. Bobby had said it much the same way someone who was native to Montreal would say, perhaps about his new neighbor, “so and so is a Leafs fan.”

He didn’t say much more, and before too long, they were back on the same street as the brownstone. As he was hustled between the SUV and the door, he looked for anything that might have changed even a little, even some obscure detail that might help him figure out where he was and how to get help.

There was nothing.

Rosie met them in the entry way. “Mister Arcangelo is here. He’s waiting for you in the downstairs study.”

Elliott hadn’t the faintest idea where that was, and allowed Rosie to take him gently by the arm and lead him toward the back of the building. There, in a room decorated in dark wood, and lined with bookcases, stood a tall, thin man in front of the fireplace.

“Bonjour,” he said warmly, gesturing to the chair to his left. “Please, have a seat.”

He walked slowly over, and lowered himself gingerly. Rosie shut the door with a thud; Elliott folded his hands in his lap and looked at the man who had engineered his kidnapping. If he was being honest, Arcangelo looked more like an aging grandfather than a criminal.

Then again, looks could be deceiving.

“I’m Luca Arcangelo,” he said, hands folded behind him. “Thank you for coming.”

“Not like I had a choice, really.” Elliott winced as soon as the words left his mouth.

“I do apologize for the gruff manner of my associates,” he admitted, “But it was necessary. I require your assistance.”

Elliott said nothing.

“You are one of the top psychologists in North America, Mister Perdeauz. That makes you very, very valuable. Almost invaluable, if you would, to your current employers. You have spoken at conferences and panels throughout the United States and Canada, and you could do very well in the private sector. Well enough to pay off that depressing amount of money you owe for your student loans.”

He stayed quiet.

“But you don’t do it for the money, do you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be working for some police department. You’d have your own office, with high-end clientele, and you’d be untouchable.”

There was only so much posturing he was able to handle, and he asked, “Your point?”

Arcangelo sat in the other armchair, and leaned forward. “I require your services. My youngest son has always been a bit rebellious, but joining the army and getting shipped off to the Middle East was a little extreme, even for him. Regardless, Jason did his tour, and came back, sound of body. His mind, however, is a different story. That is why I need you.”

The hair on the back of Elliott’s neck prickled.

“Jason hasn’t been the same since coming back,” Arcangelo said, steepling his fingers together. “Your job is to get me the son I had before the army got their hands on him.

“It’s not that simple,” Elliott said slowly. “It – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – doesn’t work like that. He’ll learn to live with what happened, to cope with what he saw and how his mind processed it, but he won’t ever be the man he was before his tour of duty. I can’t do that. No psychologist can. I can give him learn to manage his symptoms and avoid some of his bigger triggers, but it won’t just go away. It’s not like having the flu; it can’t be cured.”

“Your only job, Mister Perdeauz, is to make my son the man he was before the army,” he repeated.

“And I’m telling you that’s impossible unless you’re hiding a time machine in your basement.” Elliott took a deep breath and tried to regain his slipping composure. “Mister Arcangelo, my job is to help people with dangerous professions who see things others don’t have a clue of, to stay mentally healthy. I don’t cure them. I don’t make any claims to cure them of their experiences or their trauma, but I help them learn to live with it in ways that allows them to have a good quality of life, and continue to do the job they love. That is the only thing I will claim to do.

Arcangelo stood. “Your first session with Jason is tomorrow morning. I will have my son back, Perdeauz, regardless of how long it takes.”

Elliott put his fist in front of his mouth, and stared. He recovered himself as Arcangelo reached the study door, and said, “You can’t keep me here indefinitely.”

The Italian turned, and eyed the psychologist coldly. “I will keep you here as long as it takes for you to give me what I want.”

His heart beat hard in his chest. “They’ll come after me. They’ll turn over every brick in this city to find me, if that’s what it takes.”

He shrugged. “They’re more than welcome to. But they won’t get you until I’m done with you, and that’s not going to happen unless you get me my son back.” He opened the door to the hallway, and added, “My tailor will be here to see you this afternoon to take your measurements, and arrange for a more suitable wardrobe. Enjoy your day, Mister Perdeauz.”

The door closed softly; Elliott’s legs went out from under him, dropping back onto the chair. He swallowed thickly. Arcangelo had made his position very clear.

All Elliott needed to do was figure out his own position, and where to go from there.

Agent Elizabeth Coccoro waited for them by the elevator bank on the fifteenth floor. She stood almost as tall as Athos, her dark hair in a pixie cut. She tapped a file folder absently against her thigh, and gave the four of them a sharp smile when they stepped out of the car.

“Officers de la Fere, du Vallon, d’Artagnan, and d’Herblay. Welcome.” Her eyes stopped on John, and she added, “I was under the impression we were looking for a missing Perdeauz, and yet there’s one right in front of us.”

“Wrong Perdeauz,” he said smoothly. “There’s a lot of them to choose from, so totally fine.”

She snorted. “You’re able to stay objective in this situation?”

“Yes, we are.” Athos tilted his head. “We handle matters a little differently up north, it seems. We see our personal connections as assets, instead of hindrances.”

Coccoro shrugged, and said, “Don’t matter to me. We’re set up in the conference room. Please keep up.”

Aramis glanced at d’Artagnan with raised eyebrows; Porthos lightly nudged John in the side with his elbow, and all of them followed Athos and Coccoro through the maze of cubicles and computers to the conference room.

She pushed open the glass door, flopped the file folder on the table, and pointed to each person already seated as she said their name. “Sammy, Alex, and Marcus. Marcus was the one who sent over the photo and information on Tommy Miller.”

“Peggy should have sent you everything we have so far,” Athos said, calmly settling himself at the conference table and opening the folder. “Including the CCTV footage from the corner store where Elliott was last seen, along with Tommy Miller.”

“Miller doesn’t have Perdeauz,” said one of the other agents – Alex, maybe; Athos wasn’t entirely sure – with a slight shrug. “We found him out in Brooklyn, and there’s no sign of anyone in his company other than his usual known associate and roommate, Bobby Nolan.”

“We watched the footage,” Marcus said. “Perdeauz attacks him for no reason. Though, watching someone get hit with a beer bottle and a can of Pringles was kind of funny…”

“So, you didn’t see the gun, then?” d’Artagnan asked.

“What gun?”

“Play the security cam footage, and look at Miller once his head gets level with the second to last magazine in the rack on his way down,” John said tiredly, scrubbing a hand over his face. He’d forgotten how much fun it could be to deal with American law enforcement. “There’s a gun under his left arm.”

Someone pulled up and played the CCTV tape from the corner store. It was paused at the right place, and the gun beneath Miller’s arm was visible.

“Peggy pulled up Miller’s entrance into Canada, including his customs declaration and any other paperwork he may have or should have filed.” Porthos crossed his arms over his chest. “He never declared the firearm. Not to mention Customs has no record of him having left Canada, and yet you have evidence that he’s been back in Brooklyn for a few days.”

Coccoro sat across from Athos. She splayed her hands on the table, and said, very carefully, “You’re assuming this is a kidnapping. What if Perdeauz is simply doing a cut and run?”

“A cut and run with what?” Aramis flinched; Athos had kicked him hard on the shin.

“You have a Mister Wakefield on your staff, do you not?” Athos asked.

“That explains why Dean is hovering outside the door,” Alex muttered.

With one hand rubbing her forehead, Coccoro used the other to motion Wakefield into the conference room.

“Hey, Liz, everybody.” He stopped and eyed the Canadians. “You’re the Musketeers.”

“That they are,” John said, eyes flicking between Coccoro and Wakefield. “You went to the Berkeley conference, didn’t you?”

Wakefield grinned. “Yeah, and I was able to be in the small question and answer session with the panel afterward. I got to talk to Elliott about how to better work with officers and agents suffering from PTSD. Is he out of his office for this week, because I left him a voicemail a couple days ago and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

“There’s been a slight mishap,” Athos said, pointing to the screen on the wall where Tommy Miller’s picture was still frozen. “Elliott was abducted on his way home from work. That man is Tommy Miller, and we think he’s responsible for Elliott’s kidnapping, and that he’s somewhere here in New York. City.” He glanced at John in time to see his nod of approval. “Here in New York City.”

“Huh.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Coccoro. “Why would an associate of a known crime family need to kidnap North America’s leading psychologist?”

“Excuse me?” Coccoro blinked. “North America’s – you know this guy, Dean?”

“I know you need to get him back,” Wakefield said. “Who do you think the Bureau consults about agent mental health?” He motioned to the men from Quebec, and added, “He speaks so highly of all of you, as I do of you guys when you get your heads out of your asses.” He smiled sweetly.

“What do you know about the Arcangelo family, and why might they need a psychologist?” Aramis asked. “If we can figure out why they took Elliott, we can then figure out where he is, and then we can get him back across the border before NYPD knows there’s a Canadian here illegally.”

Coccoro sighed, and turned to the agent next to her. “Everything you have the Arcangelo family, as soon as possible.”

Wakefield took a seat on the other side of John.

“Are we going to have problems, Agent Coccoro?” Athos asked quietly. “I would hope that if anything happened to a member of your team, you’d want the full cooperation out of anyone you had to work with in order to get them back.”

“Well, with no offense to Wakefield over there,” she said, “the man you’re looking for is a department psychologist. Yes, they’re important, but they don’t hold the same level as one of my agents.”

“Unfortunate for your assumptions, this one does.” Athos tossed something black and book-like on the table between them. “Elliott’s not only our psychologist, he’s also a SITR officer.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone got considerably more frigid. “Are we going to have any problems, Agent Coccoro?”

Coccoro picked up Elliott’s badge and shield. “N-no, Officer. We aren’t.”

It looked like his wardrobe, felt like his wardrobe, and certainly fit like his wardrobe, but it wasn’t. His closet was in his house in Quebec City, and he was in Brooklyn, New York, under house arrest. His only constant companion was the housekeeper, and while there was a better variety of cable channels than there was at home, Elliott wasn’t too far from having a serious case of cabin fever from the burning need to contact his husband in any way.

He sat at the desk in the study, a notepad on the glossy surface, and an empty chair on the other side. It was as close to same setup as his office in Quebec City that he could get under short notice, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sleeping well, and the subconscious straining he was doing to better see his surroundings gave him a headache.

He’d give a goodly sum of money for both a phone call and his glasses.

Elliott, out of pure curiosity, rifled through the few desk drawers that weren’t locked. With a half-hearted shrug, he put on the cheap pair of reading glasses he’d found. The style of the frames reminded him of his grandfather, and he almost wished he had a camera.

The door to the study slammed open.

“Sit. Over there. This man is here to help you.” Arcangelo forced a man in his early twenties into the chair across from Elliott. “Two hours. Minimum.” He rounded on Elliott, and added, “Don’t you forget what you’re here for.”

“Oui.” Elliott spared a glance for Arcangelo, then looked solely at who he presumed was Jason.

They both jumped as Arcangelo shut the door with more force than necessary.

Jason had dirty blond hair and blue eyes that looked everywhere but Elliott.

“Bonjour,” Elliott said quietly. “Do you speak French?”

“What?” Jason finally looked at him. “Was that English?”

“No.” He made a note on the pad in front of him. “French.”

“I speak English.”

He didn’t want to give all his tricks away at once, but he didn’t see any other way for them to have any productive sessions unless he did so. “Can you keep se-secret?” It was better if everyone else assumed Elliott had a language barrier.

Jason shrugged.

“I speak English.” Elliott brushed his hair off his forehead and blew out a breath. “It’s my second language, but I’m fluent. No one else in the house knows.”

That got him a shy smile, and a, “Really? You’ve tricked them all? Even Rosie?”

“Even Rosie.” He held his hand out. “I’m Elliott. I’m a psychologist from Canada.”

“Jason. But you knew that.” He shook Elliott’s hand quickly, and then folded his fingers together in his lap. “My father hired you?”

Kidnapped me. At night. Drugged me. It was great. “Sort of. It’s more like half-hired, half asked for a favor.” Elliott rested his cast on the desk with a wince. “Anything you want to start with? Why I might be here?”

“Because my father can’t keep his nose out of anybody else’s business,” Jason said petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest. “He hasn’t been able to since I got back.”

“Back from where?”

Jason looked at the bookshelf to his right.

“Were you in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

“Iraq.”

“How long were you there?”

“How long have you been a head shrink?”

Elliott didn’t have enough information yet to decide whether Jason was most like Athos or Aramis. “Fair enough. I’ve been a psychologist for about five or six years now, and I’ve worked with a lot of people. Some of them are in law enforcement positions, and some, like you, have recently come back from active duty overseas.” He gave Jason a small smile. “How long were you there?”

“Three years.”

“That’s a long time.”

Jason snorted. “I met guys who had been there for as long as you’ve been a head shrink. Met guys who didn’t come home, too.”

“That happens.” He’d done that. He’d buried twenty of his fellow Musketeers after a training accident gone wrong, never saw one of them again, and had to help the only survivor back from hell.

“What the hell do you know about shit like that, huh?” he snapped. “What the hell do you know abut seeing someone one night and then the next day they’re gone because of a fucking roadside bomb?”

Twenty dead Musketeers. I know twenty dead Musketeers. “I know enough about it. I buried twenty of my friends and colleagues at once.”

Jason clearly wasn’t expecting that, and his mouth dropped open in shock. When he finally found his voice, he murmured, “How…?”

“Training incident in the woods.” Elliott refused to look at his Musketeer blue-colored cast. “They were ambushed. Twenty-two went, twenty died, one vanished into thin air, and when the lone survivor was ready, he started therapy sessions with me.” He leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “Now. Ask me again if I’m qualified for my damn job.”

“Did he…” He leaned forward. “Did he – sometimes I know it’s really…it’s tough to be the only one who lives. Is he…is he okay?”

“Are you asking me if he’s ‘cured’ of his trauma and what happened?”

Jason nodded soundlessly; the study itself seemed to hold its breath.

“No, Jason,” Elliott said softly. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder isn’t like a disease. It’s not something that can be cured. But with time, patience, and a lot of work, it can be managed. This person in particular still has flashbacks and not-so-great days, but his good days vastly outnumber is bad ones. He’s put in a lot of work to make that happen.”

“What – what kind of flashbacks?”

“What kind are yours?”

Jason’s head jerked up, and he glared at Elliott.

“Not how this works, buddy.” Elliott tapped his pen on the legal pad. “I’ll share some of my experiences – without compromising patient confidentiality, because hell will freeze over before that happens – and in return, as long as your ass is in that chair, you will also talk about your experiences.” He thought of Athos, and smirked. “I have a similar arrangement with another officer. When he’s in the chair, we talk about the uncomfortable stuff, psychologist to officer. When he’s not in the chair, we talk about anything else. Like TV shows, or music.”

He was clearly intrigued. “So, if I’m not sitting in the chair, I don’t have to talk about Iraq?”

“Not unless you want to. But if your ass isn’t in the chair, then you don’t get to hear what’s happened to me.” He leaned back in his chair with a grin. “Some of the stuff I’ve seen is pretty awesome. One time a couple of officers drove a tractor through the side of a barn to perform a rescue mission.”

Elliott waited. Jason stood, and asked, “Who were they trying to rescue?”

“Have you seen Brooklyn Nine-Nine?” He blinked innocently. “It’s pretty great. One of my favorite shows, actually.”

“Holy shit,” Jason muttered, easing himself back into his chair. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I don’t joke when it comes to my patients,” he said firmly. “And I don’t go back on my word.”

“I’m one of your patients?” He was clearly skeptical.

“You became my patient as soon as you sat in that chair.” He smiled reassuringly, and added, “You’re kind of stuck with me, unless you find a new head shrinker. If that happens, then I’ll pass on everything I have to the new person, and wander away back to Canada.”

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed.

“We’ve got about an hour left, I think.” Elliott waited until Jason would meet his eyes. “I need a little more from you. Easy stuff – where you went to basic, your rank, what company you were with – things like that. That’ll help me get a better base sense of what your deployment may have been like.”

“And I get to know that same kind of stuff, right? About where you work?”

“Where I went to university and what it was like when I first joined my unit.” He paused, pen at the ready. “Okay?”

Jason fidgeted in his chair, then sighed. “Okay.”

John had rarely been to New York City. It was a long seven hours in a car between Buffalo and the other end of the state, and he hadn’t done it much. He’d wanted to eventually take Elliott, as the man had never been to such a major city to wander around and just be a tourist.

This was not the kind of first visit he’d hoped to give his husband.

He rested his head back against the side of the armchair and stared out through the sliding doors at the expanse of Manhattan below. The lights glittered, and if he tilted his head to the right angle, he could see a line of traffic stopped at an intersection.

The city that never sleeps, his mind supplied with a slight smile.

And somewhere out there, a Canadian needle in a glittering American haystack, was Elliott.

John started slightly when Athos settled next to him on the floor.

“A bit bigger than Quebec City, isn’t it?” he said softly.

“Just a little bit.” John snorted.

“It reminds me a little bit of Paris.” Athos glanced at John. “My parents like to spend quite a bit of time there, on occasion.”

“Elliott’s been to LA,” he said slowly. “And to Vancouver, and Toronto, and Montreal, but..this is different. American cities are different, and he could at least see where he was going in California. I’m worried, Athos.” He couldn’t look at the other man. “I’m not worried we won’t find him until they decide to give him back.”

“He won’t wait that long. He’ll get a good moment, and he’ll make his escape.” Athos rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Remind me to have Coccoro put both the French and Canadian embassies on alert.”

“He’s a Canadian citizen, though.”

“Someone might confuse him for a Frenchman, and take him to the wrong embassy,” he explained gently. “I’d rather they hold him than turn him loose on the streets again.”

“S’alot people out there,” Porthos muttered, wedging himself between John’s other side and the wall. “Big city.”

“Bright lights, big city, that’s where we gotta go,” Athos sang softly.

“Someone’s been watching James and the Giant Peach with Danni one too many times.” Aramis flopped gracelessly next to Athos, and nudged the other man with his shoulder. “Or at least as many times as it takes to memorize the lyrics to That’s the Life.”

“It’s a catchy song.” The corners of Athos’s mouth twitched upward. “Better than being able to sing A Whole New World in a duet with Porthos.”

“Now that takes talent,” John said, drawing his legs toward his chest and resting his forearms on his knees. “So, who’s the princess in that case?”

“He is,” Porthos and Aramis said together.

“Who is?” d’Artagnan asked, settling near Aramis.

“If Aramis and Porthos were in Aladdin then who would be the Princess?” John leaned forward and looked for d’Artagnan’s expression. He wasn’t disappointed.

“I’m not answering that.” d’Artagnan crossed his legs and gazed out over Manhattan. “Wow. That’s a lot of lights.”

“You’re such a farm boy,” Porthos muttered, safe from any immediate retribution.

“There are way too many people crammed in this city,” he said with a shudder. “There’s a park, isn’t there? Please tell me there’s a park.”

“A lot of them, actually.” John rested against the side of the chair. “There’s a number of city parks, a handful of state parks, and then there’s Central Park. It’s a city park, too. Oldest public park in the country.”

“Did you swallow a city guide when we weren’t looking?” Aramis asked blithely.

“I did some research a bit ago.” He shrugged. “Wanted to be a tourist with Elliott. Figured it might be a good anniversary trip. He might not wanna set foot here after this. Then again, if he’s like you guys, he’d come back here without batting an eye.”

Aramis barked out a short laugh that sounded more painful than mirthful. “I still hate camping.”

While Elliott could do a number of things and help those who had been deemed a lost cause by others, the man was not, in fact, a miracle maker. John doubted anyone would ever get Aramis to willingly set foot in a wooded area for the rest of his life.

“I know we’re kinda supposed to leave work at work, but there’s a part of this I don’t get,” d’Artagnan said. “Miller and Nolan live together as roommates in Brooklyn, and Miller works for Arcangelo, so can we assume that Nolan works for Arcangelo, too?”

“That’s valid, considering there had to be at least two men there the night Elliott was taken,” Athos agreed. “So Nolan and Miller work for Arcangelo. What kind of company does Arcangelo run?”

“Coccoro should have that information for us in the morning,” Porthos said. “They’re gathering everything they have on him, the family, and the business.”

“You mean the business front,” John added. He gestured out the window in front of them. “You’re in New York City. Arcangelo is obviously Italian, and anybody who thinks organized crime is completely gone is a dumbass.”

“So what does he want with Elliott?” Aramis leaned against Athos’s shoulder. “Why does he need a psychologist?”

“Maybe it’s not him.” Porthos looked down the line at the others. “If you had somebody who needed help, and you had the means to do anything – even kidnapping someone from another country – what wouldn’t you do?”

“Exactly. So who does Arcangelo know who needs someone like Elliott?” John settled back and stared out at the city lights.

“That, gentlemen,” Athos said quietly, “is what we have to determine.”

Jason paced behind his chair; Elliott waited patiently at the desk. Twenty minutes into their second session – the first of the day, as Elliott had suggested two of them a day – and Jason had yet to actually sit down and say something meaningful. In fact, he’d yet to say anything at all.

“Your ring,” he blurted, pointing to Elliott’s hand. “You married?”

“I am.” Elliott smiled. “Happily so.”

“She Canadian, too?”

He shook his head. “He’s American.”

Jason froze. “He?”

“That a problem?” He kept his tone deliberately light.

“Have you – they let you talk to him? To let him know you’re okay?”

Out of all the things Jason could have said, Elliott wasn’t expecting that. In that moment he had a choice to make: deliberately and outright lie to his patient while in the early stages of attempting to gain his trust, or give him something that was mostly truth with a small misdirection.

“No, I haven’t,” Elliott said. “But,” he added quickly, “it’s not unusual for us. He’s a paramedic, and this week he’s working overnights. I’d rather not call him right now and risk waking him up.”

“You should call your husband,” he said softly, finally easing himself into his chair. “That’s – you should call him. Tell him you love him.”

Finally. “Did someone call you? When you were in basic?”

Jason fidgeted with his shirt cuffs. “Father wasn’t happy with me for choosing to go into the army. He’d rather…” He trailed off, and glanced up at Elliott. “How does this – this confidentiality thing work?”

“It means whatever you tell me stays between you and I, unless I get a court order for legal proceedings, there is ongoing abuse, or you disclose me to plans to hurt yourself or someone else.” He smiled tightly. “What it comes down to is that if you confess to me something you did while you were overseas, that stays between us. If you’re plotting to murder someone within the next few days and you tell me, well, that I have to report.” How I would do that at the moment, I’ve no idea. “Make sense?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it.” Jason nodded. “Dad would have rather had me join the family business. You’ve heard of the mafia, right?”

Ah. Here we go. “QC has a few of those families. That’s a hard life style to escape. It’s usually not easy.”

“And he wonders why mom divorced him,” he muttered. “My brothers are in. They work out of the international offices – one in London, the other in Copenhagen – and Dad wanted me to stay here in New York and operate out of our business front. Real estate development, off-shore investments, basically anything to move money that looks legal and nice.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to after I saw what happens when we send the boys to collect a debt. We’re no better than immigrant loan sharks. I didn’t want a part of it.”

Elliott made a few notes on his legal pad, his handwriting atrocious with his right hand. “So you joined the army, and got out of the city and away from it.”

“Seemed like the only thing I could do,” he admitted, looking at his thighs instead of Elliott. “I went to basic in South Carolina, and then they – they shipped me out first to Germany, then on to Iraq.” He finally looked up at Elliott, and asked, “What about you?”

“I’m from Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, and went to Dartmouth for political science.” Elliott grinned. “Changed my mind after my first semester when I took a psych class and loved it, and then decided to major in psychology and minor in sociology. I got my masters at Universite Laval in Quebec City, and it took me longer than usual because I was working in my current job, too.” He shrugged. “I’ve been in Quebec City ever since.”

“That where you met your husband?”

He snorted. “Yeah. J came to Quebec City for his grandmother’s funeral, and kinda never left. I met him the first time through a work-related function.” I took two bullets to the side and he was the responding paramedic.

Jason relaxed against the seat back, and let out a low whistle. “Did you know you were gonna marry him?”

“Not then. I was just hoping he’d let me buy him dinner.” He took his borrowed glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I remember our first date, though. Like you remember your first night in Iraq, right?”

“It was quiet,” Jason admitted. “I was expecting…I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.”

“Did you have anyone from Basic with you over there?”

“A couple of guys. We got kinda close.” He gripped one wrist with his opposite hand, and bit his lip. “We got closer after they…we were asked to do things.” He looked up at Elliott, and asked softly, “Have you ever shot someone?”

“Yeah,” he said; Jason’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I have. I work primarily for a law enforcement office, and I was taught to shoot. I like to understand the people I’m going to work with, and I did a year-long ride-along. I didn’t want to be a liability to them in the field, so I learned how to shoot.” Ride with Team Six, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Nobody mentioned I’d accidentally become a Musketeer from doing my job to the best of my ability.

“And you got better, right?” Jason leaned forward eagerly. “You’re okay now, right?”

“I learned to live with it, Jason,” Elliott said. “You learn to live with your choices – because you can’t go back and do them over – and you learn how to best make the voice still screaming in your head shut up for a bit. I did get better,” he added, unable to take Jason’s crestfallen expression. “But it took some time, and it took a good support system. It took being surrounded by people who had done the same, were willing to talk about it, and come out the other side. Which is what you and I are going to do.”

“No.”

Elliott’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.

Jason stood, slapped his hands on the desk, and ground out through gritted teeth, “How the fuck do you come out the other side from murder?”

He put his pen down, rubbed at the few days’ worth of growth on his chin, and very calmly said, “That’s the very same question the department’s best sniper asks me every time the choice is made to take a life out in the field. He asks me that from the chair in front of my desk in my office.”

He recoiled slightly from Elliott.

“So,” he said, hands folded serenely in front of him, “sit your ass down so we can talk about it.”

Jason stumbled back, and landed heavily in the seat.

Athos popped the lid off his coffee and, when was sure nobody was looking, took a sniff. John might have sworn by Starbucks, but there really was nothing comparable to a Tim Horton’s double double.

“Nobody poisoned it, Athos,” Aramis muttered as he sat down. “And I’m pretty sure there’s no whiskey in it, either.”

“Damn.” He took a sip, and winced. “No, but it seems to be made of jet fuel.”

“Jet fuel is what Liz makes when it’s her turn to make coffee in the break room,” Alex said with a smile from across the table. “Almost makes your insides liquefy on contact.”

“Kinda like when Porthos makes coffee,” d’Artagnan said with a grin, dropping into an empty chair.

Porthos cuffed him gently on the shoulder on his way by. “More like when Constance makes it.”

There was a collective shudder through the Musketeers.

“She’s a wonderful woman, but she shouldn’t be anywhere near an industrial coffee pot,” Aramis said.

Coccoro flipped on her computer, and fired up the wall projector. A dozen or so faces – some of them mugshots – appeared. “This dozen makes up Arcangelo’s inner circle.” She pointed to the first three on the top row. “Two brothers, one sister. Three sons. Miller and Nolan, who we’ve already met, and the rest are what we call business associates.”

“Legal business associates or another kind?” John asked, gripping his coffee with both hands. There were a lot of people on the wall to be looked at it as thoroughly as Athos liked to run his investigations.

She looked at Athos. “Do you really think this is the place for your liaison?”

“Yes.” Athos raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“I think this would go more smoothly if we didn’t have to explain everything twice to someone who doesn’t have an investigative background.”

Dean Wakefield chose that moment to walk through the open door with a stack of file folders under one arm, and a large coffee mug in his other hand. “Sorry I’m late.” He took a seat on Porthos’s other side. “This the happy dozen?”

“No, I don’t.” Coccoro glared at Wakefield. “Why are you here?”

“To start psych profiles.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Why are you antagonizing the paramedic?”

There was a sharp inhale from someone on the other side of the table.

“He’s a liaison,” Coccoro said slowly.

“He’s a paramedic,” Aramis repeated. “He and his partner respond to a number of SITRU calls, including pre-planned busts and raids, in addition to serving to the Quebec City public.”

“He’s also Elliott’s husband.” Athos took the top folder from Wakefield’s stack, and pushed it across the table. “Been tried to use a firearm by our best sniper, taken part in hostage negotiations, and also been shot in the line of duty. Which, I think, is more than some of you can attest to.”

“Regardless of that,” Wakefield said, “Elliott Perdeauz is a member of the law enforcement community, and he’s missing. Team One of the Special Investigations and Tactical Response Unit wouldn’t have come here – in person – if this wasn’t a priority for them. Elliott is a priority to them, on both a personal and professional level, and they wouldn’t have stopped in this office if they didn’t think there was some way Liz Coccoro and her team could help them.” He took another sip of his coffee and then added, “And rather than help them, Liz, all you’ve done so far is hinder them because you don’t think this case is worthy of your time an attention.”

Silence reigned in the conference room.

“Makes me wonder what would happen if I went missing.” He leaned back in his chair, and sipped once more at his coffee.

“We’ve protected drug dealers with the same tenacity that we protect a politician’s daughter with,” Athos said. “When we are asked to do a job, we do the job. We might not agree with it – and getting a drug dealer to trial has landed us in the hospital a time or two – but it’s our job, and we are going to do that job to the best of our ability. That is the oath that we took. The same oath you took, as well, if I’m not mistaken.”

John tapped one of the folders in front of him. “I’ve worked with these men – and the rest of the Garrison – to know that should your positions be reversed, and you needed to find one of your own in the Great White North, they would bend over backward to help you. Even if it was your secretary that was missing after a holiday, you would have the full support and assistance Treville’s men and women could provide. There’s a lot of people who don’t like and who don’t like us, and yet…at the end of the day, teams one through ten do their best to get everyone home safely.”

Coccoro sat heavily with a sigh. “You’ve backed me into a corner, Wakefield.”

“No, Liz. You backed yourself into a corner.” Wakefield opened one of the folders in front of him. “Get your shit together.”

“So,” Alex said hesitantly in the awkward silence that followed Wakefield’s statement, “we’ve looked initially at the dozen people representing Arcangelo’s inner circle. We’re excluding his ex-wife because she hasn’t had any contact with him for years, though we have found phone calls to her boys.”

“Elliott doesn’t deal with this kind of stuff, though,” d’Artagnan said. “Yeah, he’s helped kids who’ve witnessed crimes before – like murders and stuff – but he doesn’t do that on a regular basis.”

Porthos tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Can you take out anyone who doesn’t have a military or law enforcement history?”

“Sure.” Marcus tapped a few keys, and the dozen on the wall dropped to five.

“Can we see tour of duty dates, please?” Athos absently took a drink of his coffee, and kept the thought that it wasn’t half bad to himself.

Four out of five had been in the service at least ten years prior. One, however, had only been in the United States for about four months.

“Jason Arcangelo,” Aramis said. “Three year tour in Iraq, and only been back on the continent long enough for his PTSD to start to surface.” He looked at the others, and added, “Elliott’s very good with people with PTSD.”

“That’s why Miller and Nolan were sent to find him.” Porthos flipped through a few folders, and found the one on Jason Arcangelo. “If you’ve got the means to do anything, and your son is suffering from PTSD, you’ll want the best. Elliott’s the best this side of the Rockies.”

“Not that long of a plane ride, either, if they left from either QC or Montreal.” John shrugged.

“Can we see his service record?” Athos asked.

Marcus clicked a few more keys, and then bit his lip. “Ah…no.” A government seal appeared on the wall. “His files are sealed by the Department of Defense. I don’t have high enough clearance to access them.”

“We need to see those records,” he said. “And very discreetly, we need to find Jason Arcangelo. If we can find him, chances are we can find Elliott.”

There was something to be said for not actually having to look at this patient. Typically, Elliott relied on the one-two punch of being able to observe body language, and hear the subtle changes in tone of voice. With the off-the-rack readers giving him a splitting headache by lunchtime, it was in his best interests to leave them off for the afternoon session.

Jason appeared more blobby than focused, but Elliott could hear and decipher his tone of voice much better.

Which wasn’t really getting him anywhere since Jason refused to sit in the chair.

“So, do you guys have Canadian only shows up there, or do you get our shows, too?”

“It’s a mix. Americans have international shows here. You ever watched Downton Abbey?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “My, uh – my best friend watched it.”

“Your best friend who’s a girl?” Elliott asked.

“We’re not talking about Emma.”

“That’s a pretty name.” He tipped his head to the side. “How long were you together?”

“We are not talking about this.” Jason’s voice rose fractionally.

“You sit in the chair, we’ll change the subject. You keep standing, well, I’ll keep asking about Emma.” Elliott gentled his tone, and added, “If therapy were easy, everybody would willingly show up and start talking. But it’s not, and it’s difficult to talk about sensitive things. If you want to keep living with flashbacks and nightmares, and staving off anxiety attacks, then by all means, stay standing. But if you want to get somewhere, and make some progress, then you need to sit your ass in a chair and cooperate a little bit.”

Jason eased himself down.

“I’m not here for me, I’m here for you.” He rested his cast on the desk. “You’re the one who has to want to get better. I can’t do it for you.”

“You can only help me do it.”

“Exactly.”

“How – how did you know I have flashbacks and nightmares?” Jason asked hesitantly.

“I wasn’t about to assume you didn’t.” Elliott picked up his pen again, and squinted at the pad. Why were the spaces so damn tiny?

“How does your friend handle them? The sniper?”

Occasionally in a closet armed with a K-BAR and a Glock. “In the beginning, after his trauma? Not well. But it helped for him to get someplace he deemed as safe – and he wasn’t left alone. There was someone he trusted there with him constantly, even if that someone didn’t quite understand how to help.” He smiled softly. “Someone was there to remind him of where he was and who he was with, if he had problems differentiating between what was in his head and what his reality was. As he progressed, he was able to start doing it by himself.”

Jason said nothing.

“Touch helped, as did words. Again, he wasn’t alone.” He slipped the readers on, and everything came into better focus. “As hard as it is to let someone else in, having that someone is imperative to getting a better handle on your symptoms.” He waited for that to sink in, then asked, “How long have you known Emma?”

“Since high school.” Jason shuffled his feet. “She – she’s brilliant. Got into a bunch of colleges – like Cornell and Columbia – and decided to go to NYU. She loves theater.”

“Have you taken her?” He might not have been up to date on the latest Broadway releases, but he knew New York was the prime place to be for the performing arts.

“I wanted to,” he said. “I was going to get tickets to Les Mis - it’s her favorite Hugo novel, she’s loved it for years – but I looked online and saw some clips from a production and – and there was…” He looked at his hands, and sighed. “I heard the fake musket fire on stage and everything got a little fuzzy, and a couple hours later I kind of woke up in the bathtub.”

Elliott nodded. “Bathrooms are fairly small spaces. One way in and out. Very defendable. I’ve woken up in a bathtub before,” he added.

“Because you had a flashback?”

“Eh, not quite.” He pushed the readers further up his nose, desperately wished for his own glasses, and said, “I had someone who needed to speak with me immediately. The bathroom guaranteed enough privacy, and J found me asleep when he went to shower in the morning.”

Jason sat up straight. “You make house calls?”

“My phone is never off,” Elliott stated simply. “If anyone needs to reach me, regardless of the time of day, they may do so.” He gestured around him, and added, “This is a hell of a house call.” I didn’t willingly agree to it, but, sure, that’s okay.

“This is the brownstone my parents first lived in when they got married,” he said softly. “Before they started having kids.” He looked around with a small smile. “I never stayed here, but there’s a ton of pictures of this place.”

Not a primary residence then. Less of a chance the boys’ll find it unless they know what they’re looking for. Damn it. “J and I have a lot of photos of the two of us in our house, but not so many of our first apartments.”

Truthfully, there was a woefully inadequate supply of photos from John’s first few months in Quebec City. Kaci had snapped some when she’d began being partnered with him – and put them on her Instagram and the cork board in the break room at the station – but that was about it. However, John’s sister, Mary Jane, had gleefully sent copies of pictures of John from infancy to college.

“We lived in a different part of Brooklyn when I was little. Before my mom left.”

“And she left because your father is organized crime.”

Jason snapped his fingers, and pointed to Elliott with a nod. “She knew it when she first met him, but thought maybe she could change him. She couldn’t. So she stropped trying, and she stayed here in the city. I see her a couple times a year. She calls us.”

“Ma mere calls my brothers and I regularly, too.” He grinned. “She learned how to Skype. She likes that a lot better. We talk to her about once or twice a month.” And if she can’t get hold of me, she’ll get hold of John. Nobody can lie to that woman, and she’ll be exceedingly unhappy if her youngest has gone off grid.

“Mere?”

“French is my first language, and the most beautiful of the Romance languages. It’s like speaking flowers, and rolls right off the tongue.” He pushed the readers further up his nose. “Mere is the French word for mother. There are some things I can’t always say in English.”

“My father speaks fluent Italian.”

“And flawless French.” Elliott made a few more notes on his pad. “What language do you speak?”

“English,” Jason said bluntly. “Little bit of Italian.” He hesitated.

“What languages does Emma speak?”

“She picked French in high school.” He smiled slightly. “She’s not as good as you, but she – she went on a class trip to Paris during junior year and loved it. She loves to travel.”

“And you?” Elliott crossed his feet at the ankles under the desk. “That’s what they tell you, isn’t it? Join the service, and see the world?”

“They conveniently forget to tell you what you have to do when you see the world.” He fidgeted again, wringing his hands together. “It’s not…it’s not like the big news stories and the action movies. Sometimes…sometimes the person you’ve been asked to take care of is just someone normal.”

“Or a woman?” He kept his tone soft.

“A kid. A teenager.” Jason looked up. “The gun was bigger than he was. But he was the son of – of a target, and…I didn’t want to.”

“But you did.”

“But I did. Because my other choice was to face official disciplinary action and unofficial retaliation.”

“My friend the sniper,” Elliott said quietly, “has had a few moments like that. Taking life is always the last resort, and the first thing we try is to communicate. If that fails, a non-lethal solution is put on the table. But in some cases…it doesn’t work. If you ask him, he can tell you every time he’s had to pull the trigger and end someone’s life on Earth. Not because he holds those memories as good things, but because the moment he forgets that pain is the moment he resigns.”

“How does he deal with it?” Jason whispered.

“He compartmentalizes like a champ. When he can’t do it on his own, he asks for help. He sits in the chair in front of my desk, and together we coax the proverbial demons back into their cages.” He put his pen down. “We have to live with the choices we make. Some are harder than others. Some don’t want to go back into the neat little boxes in our heads. Or the dark rooms. Or wherever you decide to put them. But you have to put them somewhere.”

“Is it not thinking about it? Because I tried that. I drank a lot of vodka when I got back because I thought it would make everything up here shut the hell up.” Jason tapped his forehead. “And it didn’t.”

Elliott leaned back and took the readers off. “Whiskey was the drink of choice for one of my team leads. He’s got a few more things on his mind that aren’t work related that leads to that, but he’s doing better now than he was when he first started.”

“Because of you?”

“I’d like to take the all the credit, but I can’t. Not when his teammates have done as much, if not more.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and asked, “Sensing a theme?”

Jason huffed out a laugh. “That pretending I’m an island won’t work?”

“Exactly.” He smiled. “A good friend does wonders.” He waited a beat, then added, “When was the last time you took Emma out to dinner?”

Rosie found him in the third floor solarium. He sat on the hardwood in front of the floor to ceiling window looking over the back yard. There wasn’t much to see, especially at night, though that most likely wasn’t his point.

A bowl of macaroni and cheese – largely untouched – sat next to his thigh, and if she listened hard, she heard him murmuring in French. The word maison was repeated, and she wondered what it meant.

He was torn.

However unwilling, Jason was his patient. Elliott had a duty as a professional to do the best he could. He wanted to, as a person, as well. Jason needed help, and Elliott never could walk away from someone in need.

But he had needs of his own. One of them was to talk to his husband. Another was not to be restricted twenty-four hours a day in a Brooklyn brownstone without an end in sight.

Arcangelo wanted something neither Elliott nor modern medicine could provide: a cure for PTSD. He wanted his son the way he’d been before three years in Iraq, and what Arcangelo didn’t understand was that nobody went through life unchanged. They certainly didn’t go through three years in that kind of environment without being changed in some way, either, and that was without factoring in the kinds of things Jason had been ordered to do.

Double sessions for four days had helped tremendously. Jason had been positively glowing when he’d told Elliott about his dinner date with Emma. If anybody was going to help get Jason back on an even keel, it would be her. He had a long way to go, though, and Elliott knew if he kept improving at such a rate – even with predictable setbacks and bad days – he would still be leaps and bounds from where he’d started.

Elliott couldn’t wait that long.

He’d been kidnapped a week ago. He’d had zero contact with anyone outside the brownstone for about five days, and he wanted to go home. He wanted his life back on his terms, he just needed to figure out how to do it.

There was little chance the brownstone wasn’t watched. Or at least the front door. Getting past Rosie would be problematic, but if she was tied up with something else…not literally, of course. Elliott didn’t want to hurt her; she reminded him too much of his mother.

He ran his fingers along the edge of his cast.

Jason.

Wallet. Keys. Cash and cards. And if Jason somehow passed out in the library during the session, well, Rosie would be distracted. And he could get out the back door and over the fence with minimal effort. Where he’d go from there, well, he’d figure that out as soon as he had his freedom.

If he knew Athos and his team – and John – then the five of them were somewhere in the city. He could find them.

He was going to find them.

Elliott finished his note, tore it from the bottom of the page of his legal pad, and folded it carefully. Jason had been army trained; he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

He stood in front of his desk, and stuffed his trembling fingers in his pockets.

The study door opened and shut. Jason stopped behind his chair; Elliott recoiled slightly from his expression.

“What is my father paying you?”

There was no point in lying. “Nothing.”

Jason swallowed harshly. “He sent Tommy and Bobby for you, didn’t he?”

He nodded.

“Your husband has no idea where you are, does he?”

“I was taken a week ago,” he said softly, “on my way home from work.”

Jason gripped the back of the chair with white knuckles. “You – make it look good, okay?”

“How did you find out?” Elliott asked as Jason gently tipped the chair over and put it on its side.

“I know my father. I also know you haven’t left this house in about a fucking week. You didn’t choose me as a patient, Elliott, you were brought here and told you were going to help me.” He laughed. “And that’s what you did.”

“I help people. That’s what I do.” Elliott shrugged.

“I want to help you.” Jason strewed some papers around. “You’ve helped me.”

“You shouldn’t feel – you’re not obligated.”

“I want to.” He held his hand out. “My choice.”

Elliott shook his hand.

“So, make it look good. Tommy’s watching out front, but there’s nobody in the back because of the fence. Up and over, then head up the street and get on the N. Go to Manhattan. Tons of people. They’ll have problems finding you there.”

He balled his hand into a fist. “Thank you.”

“No, Doc – thank you.”

Jason smiled; Elliott punched him out.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of the hoodie he’d grabbed on his way out the door, and forced himself to keep his pace quick, but not too fast. As much as he wanted to look behind him, he didn’t. Any minute now someone was going to grab him from behind.

Elliott forced his shoulders to relax.

The subway station at 4th Ave and 59th came into view. He waited for the walking man symbol, and crossed 60th with a spring in his step. Pushing the readers further up his nose, he squinted at the signs. Manhattan. He needed Manhattan.

He pulled the MetroCard out of Jason’s wallet, swiped it through the turnstile, and didn’t look back.

“What are the chances Elliott made an escape?” Alex asked tentatively.

The conference room fell silent.

“He’s a trained SITRU officer. If he had a chance, he would have taken it.” Athos looked at the FBI agent across the table. “Why?”

“We’ve had someone following Miller and Nolan since we connected them to the kidnapping, and this is the first time they’ve gone out to Bay Ridge together. A brownstone under one of Arcangelo’s side corporations. We’ve seen a housekeeper, and when Miller and Nolan showed up there this morning, we saw Jason Arcangelo.” Marcus flopped a photo on the table. “He’s got some bruising along his jaw and cheek. Right side, which means he was hit by a lefty.”

“Elliott’s a lefty,” Aramis and John said together.

“With a hell of a punch,” Porthos muttered.

“Elliott was being kept at the brownstone,” Athos said. “That’s where he was meeting with Jason to help him handle his PTSD symptoms.”

“We would have seen him come out the front, which means he had to have gone out the back.” Alex leaned his elbows on the table. “The backyard is fenced in.”

“Not a problem,” d’Artagnan said. “Elliott can climb.”

“So he’s out of the brownstone, out of the yard,” Athos said, standing. “Presumably on foot. How does he get out of immediate area?”

Coccoro looked at Marcus. “Pull up the MTA map?”

“Got it.” Macus tapped some keys. “The red dot is the brownstone. The green dots are the subway stations.”

“That one,” John said, getting out of his chair to tap on the station at 59th and 6th Ave. “There’s a choice of two trains. Makes it harder for anyone following him to figure out which one he’d take.”

“He’ll have taken it out of Brooklyn to put more space between him and the Arcangelos.” Aramis gestured to the MTA map. “But where he’d get off…” He looked at the number of stations on both the R and the N. “That’s a lot of stations.”

“Probability he’ll give one of you a call at some point? When he feels safe?” Coccoro asked.

John flushed as every eye in the room turned on him. “It depends. Calls can be traced. He’ll want to be absolutely sure there’s no chance of getting caught again. He won’t want to put us through that.” He won’t want to put me through that.

“Perdeauz is somewhere in Manhattan. Or the Bronx. Or even Queens.” Coccoro crossed her arms over her chest.

A Canadian needle in a slightly smaller American haystack. John looked at Athos. “Where would he go?”

“Someplace to blend in.” Athos looked at the map. “And someplace that could help him.”

“Are there security cameras in the subway stations?” Aramis asked, glancing at Porthos.

“Most of them, but not all.” Marcus looked between the members of Team One. “And there’s a lot of cameras to keep track of.”

“Can you pull the feeds if I bring in someone to help you?” Porthos pulled his phone from his pocket after a long, silent conversation in nothing but eyebrow movements with Athos.

“I’ll take all the help I can get, at this point. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”

Porthos pressed the phone to his ear on his way into the hallway. “Hey, Flea…”

d’Artagnan’s eyebrows rose.

“This is him going into the subway, right?” Marcus brought up a grainy, still photo.

“Hard to tell with the hood up,” Athos murmured. “But the set of the shoulders is right.”

“She’s getting the next flight out of Toronto,” Porthos said, re-entering the conference room. “Someone just needs to pick her up from LaGuardia.”

“What did you offer her?” Athos asked quietly.

“Nothing. Elliott helped her stepbrother that time, remember? Said we’d fall to shit without him at the Garrison.” He shrugged.

“This person been cleared to work on this kind of stuff?” Coccoro rested a hand on Marcus’s shoulder.

“She works for a private security firm in Toronto. Some of her clientele is classified.” Aramis crossed his arms over his chest. “We trust her.”

“Athos trusts her,” John added. “That’s enough for me.”

Athos dipped his head in John’s direction, though he said nothing.

“I’d like to distribute a copy of Elliott’s photo to the police precincts, in case they find him before we do.” Coccoro pointed to the wall. “That photo, and a recent one of him, if you’ve got it.”

“Yeah. Here.” John pulled his phone from his pocket, and opened the camera function.

Athos didn’t startle as Dean Wakefield came silently up beside him.

“New York’s a hard city to be homeless in,” Wakefield said quietly. “He’ll ditch the wallet and anything else than be used to track him, and it might not leave him with much.”

“He’ll make it work,” he murmured. “He’s a Musketeer. He’ll know he needs to be somewhere warm and dry for nighttime. I’m hoping he’ll find his way to an embassy.”

“You’re not hoping he’ll call you?”

“I’m hoping he calls John,” Athos said. “At least for some reassurance.” We could all use that.

Elliott stayed on the R all the way to 42nd Street – Times Square. There were crowds of people, all of them out of focus even with the readers on. He didn’t dare venture out of the station, and instead found another train to get on. The uptown 3 took him to Central Park North, and it was there he did go back to street level.

In the lengthening shadows of Central Park, he stripped Jason’s wallet of cash – fifty dollars worth – and then dumped the wallet in the nearest mailbox. It would, hopefully, find its way back to Jason.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie again, and headed into the park.

Half an hour and with no sense of direction, the park path spit him out again. A nearby street sign told him he was in the vicinity of Central Park West and 103rd. He chose walking on the sidewalk over going back down in to the subway.

He also chose a hotdog cart for dinner, and hoped he wouldn’t come to regret the choice.

The sun kept sinking, the temperature started to drop, and the city didn’t slow up. He leaned against the outside of a building, ate his hotdog, and listened. He then went back up to the hotdog cart, bought another hotdog, and strolled casually down to where a man sat with a cardboard sign, a sleeping bag, and a bundle of blankets.

“Here.” Elliott offered him the hotdog.

“Thanks, man.” He took a bite.

Elliott slid down the side of the building to sit next to him, and breathed through his mouth. The man next to him had gone a while without a shower.

“You – you know safe places to sleep?” He thickened his accent, and played with the cuffs of his hoodie.

“Like, a shelter?”

Elliott shrugged. “A bed. A stoop. Don’t care. Need safe.”

“If you got ID and some cash, you can stay in a hostel.” He took another bite of the hotdog and side-eyed Elliott. “I’m not – I’m just broke as shit. I need some cash to get a bus ticket to get home to Pennsylvania.”

“Call?” He mimed a phone.

“Lost it.” The man finished his hotdog. “Or somebody stole it. I don’t know.” He pointed down the street. “There’s – some guy told me that cathedral steps are sacred or something. That the police can’t arrest you for sleeping on them if you’re so many steps up.” He put his own hood up. “You don’t sound American.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t you have a consulate or an embassy or something? Don’t they have to help you.”

If I can get an address, then find it, then yeah, they can help. “Where is it?”

“Fucked if I know. I just wanna get to Pittsburgh.”

Elliott stood and brushed himself off. He pulled a five out of his pocket, and handed it down. “Here.”

“Aw, man, I can’t take that.”

“Go home. Please.” He waved the money.

The man reluctantly took it. “Thanks, pal. You, uh – you take care, okay?”

Elliott gave him a thumbs up. “Will try.” He pulled his hood forward a bit more, and started down the sidewalk again.

Flea swept into the conference room with all the grace of a tornado. After she dropped her massive backpack in a chair, and wiggled her fingers at Team One with a cheeky, “Hi, boys.”

Athos snorted; Porthos looked almost proud, and Aramis chuckled. d’Artagnan and John shared looks of bewilderment. Flea started to set up her laptops, and John clutched his coffee a little tighter. Somehow the petite woman with skinny jeans and dreadlocks didn’t look like she should be a computer genius, but then again, looks were deceiving.

“We are looking for our neighborhood psychologist, right?” she asked, plugging in a few more wires. “Which one of you is the Feebie computer guy?”

Marcus tentatively raised his hand.

“Great. Come sit next to me.” She grinned. “We’re going to be really good friends until we find Perdeauz.”

“How much coffee has she had?” d’Artagnan murmured to Aramis.

Aramis shrugged. “She drinks Red Bull more than she does coffee.”

“Right…found him.” Flea clicked a few keys and a shot of Elliott at a hotdog stand appeared. “Timestamp says five-thirty-five tonight, and this is the hotdog cart on the corner of Central Park West and Ninety-Seventh. It’s from a traffic cam.”

“Where did he go from there?” Coccoro asked.

“Looks like he went down the street,” she clicked a few more things, and then looked up. “I lost him after he passed Ninety-sixth.”

Alex leaned over and looked at Flea’s screen. “Is that – is that facial recognition software?”

“A version of it.” She eyed him calmly. “I work for a private security firm. We need to know who is nearby. Always.” She shrugged, and added, “It’s handy for other stuff.”

“Like finding a Canadian needle in an American haystack,” John muttered.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see him again tonight,” she said. “It’s getting dark out. He’ll find somewhere to hole up.”

“And be on the move again in the early morning before the rush hour,” Athos finished for her. “Easier to find his way around, less people to navigate, and then he can get conveniently lost in the shuffle.”

“How’s our friends Miller and Nolan doing?” Aramis looked at Coccoro.

“It seems they have been relieved of their watchdog duties,” Coccoro said. “The two of them seem to be on the low end of things, and they’ve been relegated to keeping an eye on the brownstone in Brooklyn.”

d’Artagnan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Who’s the third man?”

“Can you bring up Arcangelo’s inner circle again?”

Marcus obligingly brought the image up on screen.

“This one I’ve seen in security footage from one of the office buildings,” Athos said, pointing to an older man with gray hair. “He’s not likely to be drawn off his post. This one. What do we know about Randall Charles?”

“Ex-military, and worked in the Arcangelo family for years.” Flea looked up at Athos. “Does a lot of the heavy lifting.”

“He’s the one we have to watch,” he said. “He’s the one pulling the strings for Arcangelo.”

“Noted.”

John could have sworn in that moment he heard Marcus mutter, “Is that legal” and ignored it as nothing more than a caffeine deficit-fueled hallucination.

Porthos slapped d’Artagnan lightly on the arm. “Wanna go see the sights?”

“Up by Ninety-six and Central Park? Sure.” He checked to make sure his weapon was covered, and followed Porthos from the conference room.

John flopped heavily in the chair on the other side of Flea.

“Yankee.”

“Flea.” He twisted his wedding ring around his finger. “You gonna find my husband?”

“Damn right.” She reached over and without taking her eyes off the screen, ruffled his hair.

Athos handed her an earpiece and the wireless radio that went with it. “Stay patched in.”

“Subways are a giant dead zone,” Marcus told her.

“I figured. I have to account for them in Toronto.” She cracked the bones in her neck and fingers. “Hey, boys. Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear. Porthos, that’s a one way the other way.”

“Who the hell designed this city?!

Athos smirked.

He’d catnapped through the night, not quite content enough in his position in a doorway on 85th to sleep soundly. He was tired, in dire need of coffee, and had yet to finangle a plan to get to the Consulate. Wherever it was in the city.

The main thing stopping him from going to the police was that he didn’t have ID, and he’d entered the country illegally. He could be held in a facility for who knew how long while the Americans tried to sort out his paperwork, and there would, most likely, be legal ramifications to go with it, too.

Elliott wrapped his arm around his midsection at the thought of losing his job from all of this. He loved what he did, and he loved the people he worked with.

A trip into Starbucks solved his coffee problem. The lady behind the counter was even nice enough to give him directions to the nearest subway station, and in the pre-dawn hours, Elliott watched the city bustle to life again.

It would be better if I could see it. The cheap reader glasses wouldn’t stay on his nose; he found a better use for them with another homeless man. He went down into the subway at 72nd Street, and a very awkward conversation with a random stranger gathered him enough information to know where the library was.

He squinted at the signage on the platform. Downtown. To Bryant Park. He kept to himself, shoulder to shoulder with the increasing flood of commuters and people heading to work.

The train car was packed.

Athos would have had a heart attack at just the sight of this. He looped his good arm around the pole and set his feet. The train lurched away from the platform. He was very glad for the little green sticky thingy the barista had shoved in the mouth hole on the lid of his coffee.

If we ever got him underground in the first place.

He smiled. There wasn’t a whole lot Athos wouldn’t do for one of their own in a tight spot, up to and including running headlong into a packed subway car in New York City.

Leaning his head against the pole, he let the gentle swaying of the train lull him into a gentle doze.

“Whoa.” Flea leaned forward and put her venti-sized dark roast on the conference table. “That’s – that’s a slight problem.”

“What is?” Athos fixed her with a stare that had made many a criminal cry.

“Randall Charles, that piece of work that works for the Arcangelo family? He just put Elliott’s picture and description out across his network.” She tilted the screen toward her a little. “That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of money for a psychologist.” She tapped a few keys, and added, “He’s got eyes and ears across the city.”

“Porthos?” Athos stood behind Flea and stared at the projection on the wall. Blinking dots signaled where each team of two was. Porthos and d’Artagnan were in Times Square; Aramis and John were down in Chinatown and Little Italy; Coccoro and Alex were in Harlem, and Wakefield and Sammy were down somewhere between South Ferry and Bowling Green.

“Yeah, we heard.”

“Has Flea seen him this morning?” Aramis asked.

“Looking now,” Marcus murmured, clicking through multiple windows.

“Got him.” Flea double checked what she saw on the monitor with the MTA map she had spread out near her work space. “About twenty-five minutes ago, Elliott exited the Forty-second Street Bryant Park subway station. Looks like he headed south down the Avenue of the Americas.”

Athos consulted the map. “Porthos, d’Artagnan, that’s you guys. You’re closest. Put the Walgreens on your left and head down Forty-second Street.”

“Athos.”

He turned back to Flea.

“Randall just came through the Bryant Park station.”

“Where’s Elliott?” He watched the dot signaling Porthos and d’Artagnan move down 42nd.

“Traffic cam has him going up the steps of the Public Library.” Marcus reached for his own coffee mug. “About five minutes ago.”

“Looks like Randall’s heading the same way.” Flea clicked away, her focus totally on her computer. “Someone on the street must have recognized him right after Randall put the call out.”

“Is there CCTV in the library?”

“It’s a library, not a prison.” Coccoro’s voice came across the line. “You want us to get downtown?”

“Stay put for now,” Athos said. “If he’s flushed out of the library and back on the train, we’re not going to know which way he goes until he gets off again.”

He watched the dot move quicker through the park.

“Randall’s turning the corner on Fifth and Fortieth, heading for the front of the library.” Flea looked up at Athos.

“We should get there,” John said. “To the library.”

“Let Porthos and d’Artagnan do their thing.” Aramis gripped the back of John’s jacket. “Breathe. By the time we get on the subway and get that far uptown, they might not be there anymore.”

He looked as though he were going to say something when his phone dinged with an alert from Google hangout.

Elliott: hi

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “It’s Elliott – Aramis, it’s Elliott!”

John: hey you
John: wut u doin?

Aramis nearly whacked his head off John’s trying to see the screen.

Elliott: consul. Canada. Direction.

“He’s trying to find directions to the Canadian Consulate.”

“Tell him his position is compromised. Randall’s in the library."

John typed it out even as he asked, “What? I thought Porthos was there?”

John: randall’s almost to u.

“We’re going as fast as we can!” Porthos huffed.

There was another ding.

Elliott: luv u. bye.

The little green dot by Elliott’s name in John’s hangout contacts disappeared.

“He’s gone,” John murmured. “He’s – he’s...”

“Alive and crafty enough to find a library, get what he needs, and reassure you he’s still breathing,” Aramis said firmly.

“Did he get what he needed?” Wakefield asked.

“We don’t know. But he got out. Out and into the crowd and…what the hell is that? A tour bus?” Flea sighed. “Randall missed him.”

John curled his fingers around his phone and pressed it to his forehead as d’Artagnan said, “So did we.”

The tour bus he’d stepped on took him only as far as Times Square. He got off before they could ask him for a ticket he didn’t have, hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets. Mingling with the crowd, he went down into the subway, intent on fleeing the immediate area. He’d double back when it was safer, but for now, he had to get out.

An uptown 1 train took him to 66th Street – Lincoln Center, and he headed immediately down 66th to 10th Ave. He popped into the first coffee shop he came across, got a sandwich and some tea, and wedged himself into the corner. He took slow bites of the sandwich; he hadn’t had much to eat for a few days, and didn’t want to make himself sick.

He needed to get a different hoodie, or leave it behind. Anybody looking for him – anybody meaning Randall or one of his associates – would be searching for this specific set of clothing. Losing the hoodie would mean his cast was out in the open, and that was as good a target on his person as anything.

It would have to stay, for now.

He spread the post two sticky notes out in front of him. There hadn’t been a lot of time in the library, and not much paper on an absurdly clean desk. Elliott didn’t think his desk had ever looked that clean in his tenure with the Garrison,

How can they function without stacks of odd paperwork in the corners? Seriously? It’s like a prerequisite at the Garrison.

Elliott looked at the sticky notes and sat back with a stifled laugh. He’d written the addresses for both the French and Canadian Consulates in the city, but he’d forgotten to label them in his haste to get out of the library.

Shit. And it’s not like they’re down the street from each other. One was on 5th Avenue, and the other was on the Avenue of the Americas, wherever in hell that was.

I need a subway map. That’s what I need. Or somebody’s phone.

He didn’t have enough cash left to buy even a cheap burner phone, so a smart phone was absolutely out of the question. Unless…

With a deep breath, he flexed his fingers. Office sessions with Porthos were always interesting. There had even been practical application, on some occasions, and Elliott had used those practical applications in the field more than once. Notably, when he’d picked a small handgun from their suspect’s jacket pocket before things could get violent in a small deli.

Porthos was a well of knowledge that skirted the outside edge of the law he was sworn to uphold. But damn, did it come in handy from time to time.

If it’s the wrong phone… If it belonged to someone Randall knew, then they could use it to track him.

“You look really lost.”

Elliott looked up at the girl who worked behind the counter. He shrugged, and said, “Small bit.”

“Are you trying to get to these addresses?” she asked, resting her broom against another table. She settled in the seat across from him, and pulled out an iPhone.

A glance around the room told him they were alone; he stiffened slightly.

“Y-yes. Please.”

“This one, on the Avenue of the Americas, you can get to by taking the B, D, F, or M train.” She used the pen in her apron to write the subway stop on the sticky note. “You’d pick that up at Columbus Circle, down on Fifty-ninth. Downtown B or D should work.”

“Merci.” This was, possibly, the most helpful person he’d come across in the whole city.

“The other one is kind of harder to get to, okay?” She put her phone on the table and turned it around for him to see the subway map. “At least by subway. What you could do is take Sixty-sixth through the park to the east side, and then walk eight blocks up Fifth Avenue.”

Elliott eyed the people passing by on the sidewalk. His skin itched with the need to keep moving.

“Merci,” he said, tucking the sticky notes away again. He picked up his still-hot tea, nearly bobbling it because of his cast, and looked at the door again. “Merci.”

“Yeah. Sure.” She smiled at him. “Have a nice day.”

He pulled his hood up, and left the coffee shop. As he started down the sidewalk, the back of his neck prickled, and a man stopped leaning against a mailbox to start following him.

Athos looked through the glass at Tommy Miller. He sat calmly at the table in the interrogation room, handcuffed wrists resting on the pock-marked surface.

“That is a man who has been arrested before, and never done time for it,” Aramis said from Athos’s right.

“Speaking from experience?” Athos smirked.

“I did time,” he protested. He paused, then added, “With a tracking anklet. And house arrest.”

“Here, Athos.” d’Artagnan handed a file folder to Athos.

“Thank you. Aramis, with me.” While Porthos could intimidate by size alone, Aramis had a thousand-yard-stare that was deeply unsettling. He could also stand somewhere, and slip into the stillness and deep breathing he did while behind Betsy’s scope.

Athos slapped the folder on the table, and sat in the other empty chair. Aramis settled against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared.

“Hello, Mister Miller.”

“Detective?” Miller guessed.

“Officer.” Athos smiled sharply. “Officer de la Fere from the Special Investigations and Tactical Response Unit.”

Miller twitched.

“We’re a specialized police force based in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.” He flipped the folder open. “You’ve been to our city before, haven’t you?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t think so.”

“This photograph suggests otherwise.” Athos pulled one out, and flipped it around. It was a still from the corner store the night Elliott had been kidnapped. “This is you, is it not?”

Miller said nothing.

“What’s more interesting, is that you brought a gun to my city,” he continued, pulling another still photo. This one showed Miller on his way to the floor after having been hit with a can of Pringles and a bottle of beer. “There. Now, I’m assuming you filed all the correct paperwork to have your firearm in Canada?”

“Of course.” Miller side-eyed Aramis; Aramis appeared to be made of stone.

“Try again.” Athos laced his fingers together. “Our border agency has no paperwork filed under your name. Nor do they have it on record where you crossed into and out of Canada. That leads me to believe that you were there illegally, with an unregistered and properly cleared firearm. It’s also very interesting that you were in the same corner store as this man.” He put a photo of Elliott, from the corner store, on the table, too. “The same corner store the same night this man, Elliott Perdeauz, went missing.”

He stiffened, and his glances at Aramis got longer.

“Where is my psychologist?” Athos asked, his tone frigid.

“I don’t know,” Miller blurted. “We – he escaped.”

“So you took him, and kept him somewhere against his will.”

Realizing the blunder he’d made, Miller winced. “It’s – it’s not like that.”

“So tell me what it’s like, then.” Athos leaned back. “Tell me what happened. Because we think you, Bobby Nolan, and Randall Charles abducted Elliott Perdeauz from Quebec City, took him illegally into the United States, and have kept him under house arrest here in New York City to help Jason Arcangelo with his PTSD.”

He looked at Aramis – who still hadn’t moved and didn’t even look like he was breathing, and rubbed his hands over his face. “We – we weren’t supposed to hurt him.”

“Did you?” It was the first time Aramis had spoken, and Miller flinched hard.

“No. No – not on purpose. It was – it was an accident. He fought.”

“Of course he did. He’s been trained to.” Athos rapped his knuckles on the table to draw Miller’s attention back to him. “How badly was he hurt?”

“Bruises. Lots of bruises. And – he – he tried to run. Doc had a broken arm, and tried to run.” Miller’s eyes flickered between Athos and Aramis. “Randall drugged him for the flight. To make him compliant.”

“Where is Randall?” Aramis asked.

Miller hesitated.

“Canada’s laws are different than America’s. You’ve committed crimes in both countries, but the first crime you committed, you committed in Quebec. I will have you extradited back across the border, and prosecute you to the fullest extent possible.” Athos tilted his head to the side. “How is that going to look to Bobby and Randall? Looks a lot like you talked, didn’t it? Otherwise how could we know you abducted a man in Quebec City?”

“Where are they, Tommy?” Aramis asked. “Where’s Elliott, and where’s Randall?”

There was no doubt he was going to do time for this in either country. Miller took a deep breath, licked dry lips, and said, “We don’t know where the doc is. He gave us the slip yesterday morning during Jason’s first session, went over the fence in the backyard, and vanished. Randall put his photo out across the wire this morning, and he’s been personally fielding the sightings coming in. Last time we heard from him, he was by Bryant Park and the library. Doc got away again, though.”

Athos gathered up the photos and flipped the file folder shut. “If you do your best to cooperate with us, help us find Randall and Nolan, then we’ll make sure both legal teams know you were willing to assist in any way you could.” He stood, and added, “I make no promises. And all of this depends on what Elliott will testify to when we find him.”

Miller flinched away from Aramis; Athos left the interrogation room. He motioned for d’Artagnan to follow. “Get Miller’s cell phone to Flea. Send Nolan a text, have him agree to meet Miler in a neutral location, and go with Porthos, Alex, and Sammy to pick him up. We’re not moving on Randall until we have Nolan in custody.”

“Got it.” d’Artagnan took off at a jog for the staircase. Aramis led Miller out of the room.

“Put him back in holding.” Athos pinched the bridge of his nose as Aramis and Miller went down the corridor, and sighed heavily.

Elliott had been around a paramedic long enough to know how ambulances and crews worked in large cities. Somewhere, parked on a street, should be an ambulance.

He kind of needed one. Not as much as the guy he’d left behind a dumpster, but enough to maybe get his knuckles looked at, and possibly to make sure he hadn’t done any further damage to his casted arm.

Cracked it. Fuck. He pulled his sleeve down over the dirty blue fiberglass, and wiped at the dried blood by his lip. He was beyond ready to go home, or at least find someplace safe enough to sleep.

Turning a corner, he found what he was looking for: an FDNY ambulance.

Thank you, God. He pushed his hood down, shuffled toward the door, and stretched up with a wince to knock on the window.

The door opened, and a young, dark-skinned man peered out. Elliott got a quiet chuckle out of the way his eyes widened. “Hey, man – the hell happened to you?”

“Uh…” He searched for the right English word, mildly concerned when it wouldn’t readily come. “Mugging?”

“Back up a step. Let me get out. Hey, Trev, grab a bag.” He stepped down out of the ambulance, and pulled a pair of gloves from his cargo pocket.

The action was so familiar and reminded him so much of John it made Elliott want to cry.

“I’m David, and I’m just – can I check you out?”

“Help?” Elliott flinched away from the man who came around the back of the ambulance. “Please just – I want to go home.”

“Yeah, we’ll help.” David looked at Trevor. “Trev, don’t you speak French?”

“A little bit,” he admitted. “Uh..hi. Sir.”

He smiled, and re-split his lip open. He swiped at it with the back of his hand. “Consulate. Please. Get me to the consulate.”

Trevor’s eyes went wide. He glanced at David, and said, “Consulate?”

Elliott nodded tiredly. “S’il vous plait.”

“Please.” David tugged gently on the hoodie’s zipper; Elliott let him. “Should we take him to the hospital?”

“No.” He jerked away from the questioning hands. “No hopital.”

“Okay. Okay.” Trevor held his hands out. “No hospital. He doesn’t really need one, either, David. Looks like just bruising. We’ll take him to the French Consulate.”

“Travel?” Trevor asked.

Elliott nodded again. He zipped up the dirty hoodie, and climbed into the front seat of the ambulance. Trevor got behind the wheel, and David climbed in the back. Elliott put his hood up, turned his back to the passenger window, and sighed.

“Dispatch, we’re taking an early lunch. We’ll let you know when we’re back in service,” Trevor said.

“Ten-four.”

“You have ID?” David asked.

He shook his head.

“You got a name?” Trevor pulled into traffic. “Name?”

“Elliott.” He watched the city go by. “My name is Elliott.”

d’Artagnan snapped a photo of the Flat Iron Building with his phone. “That is some pretty cool architecture.”

Porthos snorted, and headed into the park. d’Artagnan followed, and together they started for where Miller was going to meet Nolan.

“I’ve got eyes on Nolan.” Aramis’s voice came through their earpieces loud and clear.

“Randall’s here.” Coccoro’s observation was unepexted, and not quite part of the plan.

“Looks like Nolan put out a call to Randall after he got the text from Miller to meet him in the park because he had Elliott,” Flea said. “Walk soft, boys.”

Athos stopped along the path to literally smell the flowers as Nolan and Randall met at a park bench only a few feet from him.

“Tommy said he had the doc?” Randall demanded.

“S’what he said.” Nolan stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Should be here any minute. Doc probably gave him trouble again.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t read the file, you moron.” He looked around, scanning for any sign of them. “Elliott Perdeauz isn’t just a psychologist. He’s a fucking SITRU officer, too.”

Athos, having strolled casually closer, flashed his shield and said, “Same here, gentlemen.”

“Uh uh, leave that alone,” Aramis said quietly, closing his hand around Randall’s wrist as he went for the small of his back.

“You can’t do this without probable cause.”

“We can.” Athos watched Porthos cuff Randall, while Coccoro and d’Artagnan did the same for Nolan. “We have plenty of proof that the two of you aided in the abduction and captivity of Elliott Perdeauz.”

“But you don’t have the doc yet,” Nolan said. “You ain’t found him.”

“We will. Or he’ll find us.” The corners of Athos’s mouth twitched. “He’s not a SITRU officer for nothing.”

“Right this way, gentlemen,” Aramis said, and began leading the two of them toward the waiting SUVs with flashing lights.

Athos rested his hands on his hips and stared briefly the bits of the Flat Iron Building he could see through the trees of Madison Square Park. They had those responsible for it. Flea would have put out a message across Randall’s network that Elliott had been found, hopefully getting the bounty off his head.

And yet, somewhere out there in the concrete jungle, Elliott still wandered the streets.

Wrong damn Consulate. He let his head loll against the back seat of the town car. The ambulance had taken him to the French Consulate instead of the Canadian one, and once the French had figured out who he was, they’d arranged for him to be taken by car to the other.

The trip seemed to take ages, and Elliott finally let go of some of the semi-permanent tension in his shoulders once he was inside the building, and in someone’s office. He hunched in on himself to present a smaller target, and allowed himself to shake.

A smartly dressed man in a business suit – minus the jacket – appeared in the doorway. He kept his distance, and smiled gently.

“I’m the assistant Consul General. Is there anything that I can get for you while you wait for the others to arrive? Tea? Coffee? A change of clothes?” He held his hands out, palms toward Elliott, and did his best to look as non-threatening as possible. “My name is Christopher – Toph – and I’ll be right out here if there’s anything you need.”

“Thank you.” Elliott leaned against the wall where he could keep a constant eye on both the open door, and the window behind the desk.

Twenty minutes later Toph, moving slowly and deliberately, brought a tea tray into the office and set it on the desk. He poured Elliott a cup of tea, left it as a sort of peace offering, and inched his way out the door again.

Elliott waited another five minutes before he shuffled over and wrapped his hands gratefully around the still-warm cup. The pattern reminded him of something his mother would have, and his mouth twitched into a facsimile of a smile. He retreated back to his place at the wall, bringing his tea with him.

Ten minutes after that, Toph peered cautiously around the door frame. Elliott had placed his teacup on the bookshelf to his left, and rested with his arms crossed over his chest. Mostly for warmth. His head dipped repeatedly toward his chest, and every time his chin made contact, he jerked upright again.

Five minutes after that, Toph – bearing a clean, light gray hoodie with a red maple leaf sewn on the sleeve – inched back into the office and left it draped over the back of the chair. He took the tea tray with him when he left.

Elliott rubbed his chin on his shoulder, and winced at his own smell. Moving slowly, because it seemed like every bruise on his body ached, he shed his dirty one, and replaced it with the other. The white t-shirt he had on underneath was still in fairly good shape, and he though he had a little trouble getting the sleeve on over his cast, he managed to get it on and zipped. He debated putting the hood up, and settled for bunching it up around the back of his neck as he migrated back to the wall by the bookcase.

Despite his best efforts, he slipped into a light doze. He came out of slowly as the sounds of commotion drew closer to him.

Athos. That sounds like Athos.

He straightened, and pushed away from the wall. d’Artagnan’s face popped into view, then disappeared again. Porthos came into the office, and stopped by the door, well on the other side of the room. Aramis followed; Elliott took a step away from the wall.

Athos pushed the door open further, and ushered in John.

“Johnny?” Elliott whispered.

John nodded, and held his hand out. “Yeah, El. It’s me.”

Elliott staggered across the room and against John’s chest with a sob. He breathed in his husband’s clean, fresh scent, and held onto him as tightly as he could. John wound his arms around Elliott’s shaking shoulders, and murmured “I love you” over and over in his ear. Elliott reached out a hand for Athos; Athos stepped forward and gripped it tightly.

“Are they – are they gone?” Elliott asked.

John looked at Athos.

“The men who took you have been arrested. They can’t hurt you, or anyone else, again,” Athos assured him.

He nodded. Taking John’s hand in his, he looked at his husband. “I want to go home. Can we go home?”

“What?” John murmured. He looked at Athos. “What?”

“He wants to go home,” Athos translated quietly.

“Can we take him home? Back to QC?”

d’Artagnan poked his head around the door. “We have Elliott’s passport and ID. I can talk to Constance about getting us flights.”

Elliott jerked away; John released him, and stared in confusion between Team One and his husband. Elliott wrapped his arms around his midsection again and shook his head. “No. No plane.”

Porthos turned to d’Artagnan and murmured, “He’s not going to fly. See if Constance can find us a rental car. Something big.”

“John?” Aramis motioned for John to come closer to him, and noticed Elliott shifted with them in order to keep an eye on everyone.

“I can’t understand him, Aramis,” John hissed. “Why – why can’t – “

“It’s a stress response,” he explained quietly. “Most of us,” he gestured to the others, “do it, too. For right now, and a little while longer, Elliott’s forgotten his English. Athos has done it, I’ve done it – looks like it’s a response mechanism for Elliott, too. It’ll pass.” He gave John a small smile. “Give him a little bit of time to get his head on again. Trust me.”

John nodded in agreement, and looked over at Elliott. “El?”

The man in question looked up.

“When was the last time somebody checked you out? Made sure you were okay?”

Elliott shrugged. “I cracked my cast.”

“He cracked his cast,” Aramis translated. “Can you sit so John can look you over? Make sure you didn’t do anything we might need to take you somewhere for?”

Rather than sit at the desk – with his back to the window – Elliott dragged the chair around and put his back toward the bookcase. John kept his touches light, slow, and deliberate, and chatted quietly with Elliott while he inspected the bruising on the other man’s torso. Aramis stayed close enough to translate, but made sure not to crowd Elliott.

Athos, in the meantime, sent d’Artagan and Porthos to pack up their hotel room, and gather whatever they’d left in their hurry to get from the FBI field office to the Canadian Consulate.

“Are we leaving soon?” Elliott asked softly as John worked the arm of the hoodie over his cast.

“We have to pack up some stuff, and then yeah, we’ll be leaving for Quebec.” Aramis perched on the edge of the desk. “He wants to know when we’re leaving.”

“When was the last time he had anything to eat or drink?” John used the penlight on someone’s keychain to test Elliott’s pupil reactions.

“This – this morning? Sometime today. Tea and a sandwich.” Elliott blinked rapidly. “Johnny?”

“Yeah, babe?” He cradled Elliott’s face with his palms, and swiped his thumbs back and forth over Elliott’s cheekbones.

“You came for me.”

He smiled sadly. “Of course I did. I love you.” He leaned down and rested his forehead against Elliott’s. “I promised you forever, didn’t I?”

Elliott gripped the front of John’s shirt with his good hand, and focused on breathing.

Goodbyes to the New York FBI were short and sweet. Elliott was twitchy, and all of them were antsy to get going. Wakefield understood. Flea had packed up and gotten out of there shortly after they arrested Randall and Nolan; she was on a plane somewhere between JFK and Toronto, most likely onto her next assignment from the company she worked for.

Elliott was wide awake until they crossed over the Hudson River from Manhattan to New Jersey. From there he fought a losing battle to keep his eyes open, and John remarked somewhere by Woodbury, New York, that he was out cold.

They were just outside of Albany when John tried to wake Elliott.

“El? Elliott?” John tapped the man’s cheek a little harder; his head lolled. “Fuck.” He put shaking fingers on Elliott’s pulsepoint; the beat was slow and sluggish. “We’ve got a problem.”

Aramis climbed over the seat and into the last row of the SUV. “Talk to me.”

“He won’t wake up. Heart beat’s slow. Elliott?” He peeled back an eyelid. “I don’t know if he’s – I don’t know if this is blood sugar related or he’s exhausted.” He beat his clenched fist on the back of the seat in front of him a few times. “Damn it!”

“Not helpful, Yankee.” Aramis wrapped his finger’s around John’s wrist and squeezed. “Breathe.” He let go, and reached forward, sticking his finger in d’Artagnan’s ear.

The younger man swatted the hand, and sat up straighter. “What?”

“Tell Athos to find the nearest hospital. Elliott won’t wake up.”

They knew as soon as the message had been relayed; the SUV swerved, and picked up speed.

“Remind him he doesn’t have lights on this one, too?” John counted heart beats beneath his finger tips, and didn’t like the number he got. He waited for Aramis to rifle around in the cargo space and produce his backpack. “Blood pressure cuff and stethoscope.”

Aramis handed him the requested items when he found them, and watched silently as John did what came natural to him. Vaguely, from up front, he could hear Porthos on the phone with someone – either Treville, or the local dispatch. Aramis figured it was the latter when a couple of Albany PD cars pulled in front of them to lead the way.

“Are you going to do something?” Aramis asked.

“I can’t – I don’t dare give him any fluids or anything.” He put the backs of his fingers against Elliott’s forehead and winced; cold and clammy, and not at all how he should feel.

The last few minutes to Albany Medical Center were spent in a kind of quiet panic. Until the back doors of the SUV were thrown open, the seats pushed forward, and an unresponsive Elliott was hauled bodily from the vehicle. Then it became a rather loud kind of panic, for all his training and time as a paramedic, John wasn’t allowed into the room they took his husband to.

Because right then he wasn’t a paramedic. He was a husband. And there was a difference.

He filled out paperwork, and he watched the doors for any sign of a doctor or nurse that could come tell them what the hell was going on. Two hours and multiple forms later, someone did come to see them.

“Walk with me, gentlemen,” she said, opening another door. “I’m Doctor Fitzgerald.” She was a petite woman, but what she lacked in stature she more than likely made up for with personality. “Mister Perdeauz was in rough shape.” She picked up a clipboard at the nurse’s desk, and continued to walk, leading them to a bank of elevators. “Multiple lacerations and contusions, a hairline fracture of his left index finger near the knuckle, a broken left arm – which we’ve re-casted – and a bad case of exhaustion with some dehydration thrown in for good measure.”

They piled into the elevator. She hit the button for the third floor.

“Now, he’s not quite at the stage where I’d be saying he’s lucky to be alive, but I’m honestly surprised he didn’t drop sooner.” She eyed them all. “He needs rest, gentlemen. And lots of it.”

“When can he travel?” Athos asked.

Fitzgerald snorted. “Are you serious?”

“The man’s been through a lot in the past ten days, doctor,” he continued as they exited onto the third floor. “He’s been kidnapped, held hostage, escaped his captors, been chased through the streets of New York City with the intent to recapture, and can’t see a damn thing because he doesn’t have his glasses on.” He paused to let that sort of sink in, and added, “He’s not going to want to stay in a hospital, even if he should. So when can we take him home?”

She led them to room 305 and eyed them flatly. “When I say he can.” She sighed, and gentled her tone. “He needs to recover, and that means sleep. The longer he can do that here, where we can also give him IV nutrients, the better. I know you want to get him back to Quebec, but this – being in a hospital – is the best thing for him.”

“Can we see him?” John asked quietly.

“You five have unrestricted visiting hours, given the nature of what his past week and a half has been like. Don’t abuse the privilege.” Fitzgerald shooed them into the room. “Let him sleep.”

The only light on in the room was the one over the head of the bed. Elliott lay on his back, blankets bundled up to his neck, with his chin tucked on his right shoulder. His greasy hair lay across the pillow, and he was dire need of a shave.

John thought he’d never looked more beautiful.

IV tubes snaked under the covers, a muted heart monitor beat steadily in the background, and a catheter bag hung low by the end of the bed.

“They need to make sure his kidneys are working properly,” John explained softly. “He’s gonna hate that thing when he wakes up.”

Porthos put his arm around John’s shoulders and said, “I will gladly listen to him complain.”

John laughed softly, even as he wiggled his fingers under the blankets to slip his hand into Elliott’s. “Me, too.”

Two weeks after he was abducted on his way home from work, Elliott crossed back into Quebec, Canada. Treville was there to meet them at the Blackpool Border Crossing. Elliott hugged the older man tightly, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“They did most of the work,” he murmured. “They were the ones who wouldn’t give up.”

“Finest police force in all Canada,” Elliott said proudly when they parted.

“Don’t say that too loud, or you’ll never fit all those swelled heads back in the SUV,” Treville grumbled.

Elliott looked over his shoulder and held his hand out for John. The paramedic took it, and the pair of them walked into the Customs and Immigration building. John thought Elliott still looked a bit pale, though that might have been due more to the fluorescent lighting than his lingering tiredness.

“That color suits you,” John said with a chuckle as they stood in line.

“It’s bright green.” Elliott looked at his cast, already adorned with at least five signatures and a couple messages to feel better soon. “How is this my color?”

“Never said it was your color, just that it suits you.” He laughed outright at Elliott’s affronted expression.

“Why did I marry you?” he muttered as they stepped up to the window.

John handed the man behind the counter their passports with a grin. “Because you love me?”

Even the border agent had to fight a smile as he looked over the documents.

“God help me, but yeah, I do.” Elliott grinned.

“Everything’s in order, Misters Friedline and Perdeauz,” the border agent said, handing back their passports. “Welcome home.”

He tightened his grip on John’s hand. Welcome home, indeed.

Two Months Later

It was near the end of the day when they – a young man and woman – stepped off the elevator. Constance paperclipped a stack of forms together, set them in her outbound tray, and looked up at them with a small smile, and a polite, “May I help you?”

“I’m looking for Elliott Perdeauz,” the young man said. He dug a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

Athos paused on his way to Treville’s office to lean against the wall. The man looked familiar, though he couldn’t quite place him.

“Do you have an appointment?” Constance asked.

“I, uh – I don’t. Can you tell him Jason Arcangelo’s here to see him?”

Athos stiffened, and didn’t startle when Aramis appeared seemingly out of nowhere by his elbow.

She looked over at the two members of Team One; Athos straightened.

“It’s okay, Athos,” Elliott said. He met Athos’s eyes, and whatever the older man saw there, he must have liked, since he pushed Aramis back toward the conference room Team One had long ago commandeered as their own.

“It’s okay, Athos. I’ll take it from here,” he said, coming forward with a smile. “You must be Emma?”

“Yes,” she said brightly, reaching out and shaking Elliott’s hand.

Jason held up the piece of paper. “You – you said if I ever needed help, that as long as your door was open, I could sit and talk with you.”

“I meant it.” Elliott tucked his fingers in his pockets, and motioned with his chin in the direction of his office. “Door’s open. Chair’s empty.”

Constance stood, and touched Emma gently on the arm. “Would you like a cup of tea or anything? Sessions are sometimes kind of long.”

“Thanks, Constance,” Elliott said.

Jason tucked the piece of paper – the note Elliott had written and stuffed in his pocket in place of his wallet the day he’d made his escape from the brownstone – back into his pocket. It stated, quite plainly, that Elliott’s office door was always open to those in need. As Jason hadn’t had any idea his father had kidnapped Elliott to begin with – and then later helped him get free – Elliott didn’t harbor any ill will toward him.

“How’s your husband?” Jason asked, heading for Elliott’s open office.

“He’s good. Considering getting a dog.” He gestured for him to have a seat. “Probably not the best idea, though, considering our schedules.”

He sat in the chair. “Emma’s got a dog. I moved in with her.” He shifted, fingers twisting together. “I – I took her to see Les Mis.”

“Oh? How did that go?” Elliott moved the hideous ceramic bowl Aramis had given him as a gag gift one holiday. He used it primarily as a door stop.

“Better than I thought it would. See…”

The door swung shut with a small thud. Treville, in the doorway of his own office, smiled, gave his best team a look where they stood crowded in the shadows of a filing cabinet to eavesdrop, and returned to his desk.