Chapter Text
Lewis had been pretty sure that his number was up. It wasn't like someone like Karen Anderson would care two pins whether or not he had a family. She'd been so hurt, she probably assumed anybody with kids was doing to them what had been done to her... but then Morse had magically appeared at the edge of the woods... Lewis wasn't really even sure how things had happened, exactly. He knew what could have happened. Awake, in the light of day, he left it out there in the woods without a second thought, but it came back at night.
The reason she hadn't shot anyone, once Morse appeared in the distance, was that she and everyone knew there was only one shot left in that thing. So when the gun did go off, she just stood, along with Lewis, looking at the aftermath. Lewis dove into action after only a second. First the girl – he tackled her, sort of, running her into the tree, and quick as a wink, handcuffed her in an embrace around the tree. Next Morse. It was clear that he was still alive; he had a terrible grimace on his face, and was gasping against the pain.
“Sir! Sir!” Lewis called, on his knees beside him.
“Lewis,” Morse acknowledged, squinting up at him.
“Why didn't you just leave it to me?” Lewis chastised his superior, looking at the terrible injury on Morse's shoulder that so easily could have killed him, with half a mind to shake him. “What were ye about?”
“You have so much ahead of you, Lewis,” Morse said softly.
Lewis frowned. “Well, let's get on,” he said, reaching under Morse's good shoulder to try to get him up. “Can ye help me at all, sir?” he asked.
He more than half-carried Morse to the jaguar and put him in it, over Morse's weak protests that he didn't want a bloody mess on the seats. Once in himself, he peeled off as if the furies were after him, watching Morse in the passenger seat with half an eye. Morse was pale and quiet, slumped into the corner with his eyes shut. Lewis drove like he'd never driven before – only madness or desperation could lead him to drive so – and before he'd got halfway there he'd picked up a traffic copper in his wake. He would have stopped under any other circumstances, but as it was... he slowed a little so the copper could pull even with him, though. He pulled out his badge and showed it as best he could.
“I can't stop, can I,” he called, motioning at Morse and hoping that the copper would figure it out.
The man did, and proceeded to give Lewis an escort to the hospital. When they pulled up outside the emergency room, Lewis laid on the horn for several seconds, which was actually redundant since the other copper hustled inside himself to get the doctors out, but Lewis wasn't taking any chances. He was more than a little worried that Morse was past help already, and hurried around the car in front of the doctors. He pulled Morse out of the car just as the stretcher was ready. He parked the jaguar correctly and hurried inside himself, only to be told that the doctors were working and he'd simply have to wait. That was difficult to hear; it seemed to him he'd been in a frantic rush of one kind or the other for hours, and it seemed impossible to just stop. They couldn't give him any prognosis as yet – but did insist on giving him a once-over. He couldn't blame them, with all the blood there was on his clothes, and face and hands.
Once he was free of them, he found something to do: he called in and spoke to the super, who was in an excitable mood. And when he got off with Strange, he called home.
“Val, love,” he said when she picked up. “I'm alright – I'm at hospital, with Morse. The last got a bit hairy.”
“But you're okay?” Val confirmed. “What about Morse?”
“Dunno yet,” Lewis said, clenching his jaw. “Listen, love, will you bring me a change of clothes? I look a pretty sight. I think this shirt is done for.” Val agreed. “And, love, when you see me, don't worry. There's a frightful amount a' blood on me clothes, but it's not mine.”
She brought him a new suit and shirt, and sat with him for a while, but there was nothing to do but wait, and she went home after he'd changed and cleaned up a little. Strange had just arrived when someone came and told Lewis that Morse was out of danger.
They let him into the ward, and the super came with him. Morse was unconscious or sleeping or something, which was probably the best thing while Strange was there in that state of mind.
“What the **** happened, Lewis?” he demanded the moment he had a chance. “What was Morse even doing there?”
Lewis shook his head. “Not sure, sir,” he said. “I found it was Michaels who made the payment on the apartment, but I figured it was him, not her. And who would'a guessed that Karen Anderson was alive the whole time?”
“Karen Anderson is alive?!?” the super demanded, and Lewis nodded. “How? Are you sure?”
“Aye, she's the one done the other murders,” Lewis said. “But she's not right in the head, sir. She needs help.”
“Where is she now?” the super asked.
“Handcuffed to a tree, in the woods,” Lewis said. “Should send someone out there to pick her up – and the husband; she killed him too. By accident, though, that one was.”
“Not the **** woods again,” muttered the super. “I've heard enough about those woods.” He paused. “Which is not your fault, Sergeant; you're the man of the hour this time.” He motioned to Morse. “But you still haven't told me what he was doing there.”
“He was the one put me onto Michaels, sir,” Lewis explained. “I suppose he came out when he heard I'd gone – figured they'd be desperate enough to be violent, I guess. And a good job it was he came, too. She'd have killed me, that one. I just can't figure how he knew it was Michaels before I did.”
“I didn't,” Morse's voice cut in. “I had it down still to Harding.”
Lewis and Strange turned to him quickly. “Sir!” Lewis exclaimed, rushing to his side. “Sir – you're awake!”
“At first I thought you'd gone off half-cocked again, running out to Michaels. Until I recognized Karen Anderson on the garage tape. You figured this one on your own, Lewis,” Morse said, trying to smile.
“Aah, but it was you who asked the brokers to find who paid that bill,” Lewis said.
Strange appeared to be amused. “Well, well,” he said, eyebrows raised. “Lewis does the thinking and Morse the leg work. What a topsy-turvy world it is.” He started towards the door. “You haven't heard the last of this, Morse, but I've got to get on, now it seems you'll see tomorrow. I'll send someone out to get the Anderson woman, Lewis. Let's not forget the report, shall we?”
Lewis grinned. “First thing, sir,” he said, as the super left the room.
“I wasn't sure you were going to follow up that lead I gift-wrapped for you,” Morse said when the door had shut. “But it seems Johnson hasn't quite got to you all the way, yet.” Lewis glared, just a little. “Oh, never mind,” Morse said. “But whatever possessed you to go out to the Michaels' place alone?”
This rankled, and Lewis stood back. “Well, I wasn't going to get Johnson to go with me, was I?”
“No, but you should have got *someone*, Lewis.”
Lewis shook his head. “It never ends, does it?” he asked rhetorically.
“No, and it won't, until you're **** perfect. Making mistakes can get you killed, Lewis, and today it almost did.” Morse paused a moment. “What would have happened if I hadn't been there?” he demanded.
“Well, then ye'd be rid of the trouble of me, wouldn't ye?” Lewis snapped.
“Lewis...” Morse began.
“Maybe I should go,” Lewis said, and started to.
“Lewis,” Morse stopped him. “When are you leaving?”
“I just said, didn't I?” Lewis said, quite shortly.
“No, I mean... when are you off, with Johnson?”
Lewis laughed sarcastically. “You know, I'd been rethinking that,” he said. “But you won't let up, will ye?”
Morse sighed heavily, and looked off at the window.“You're so...” he paused for a long time. “... young,” he finished finally. “Don't you understand?”
“I'm trying, sir,” Lewis replied, yet again putting a polite face on extreme frustration.
“You've no idea how hard it is to stand by and watch you blundering around like some idiot like Johnson,” Morse said, “when I know very well what you're capable of.” He looked at Lewis, took a breath as if he was going to continue, and then didn't. He turned back to the window. “Don't throw yourself away, Lewis,” he finally said.
“I don't think it would be that, sir,” Lewis said, more softly.
“What do you want me to say, Lewis? That I want you to stay? That I *need* you?” Morse laughed sarcastically.
“Well?” Lewis asked.
Morse pursed his lips. “No, I don't *need* you,” he said. Lewis frowned, but Morse continued. “Yes, I want you to stay. I don't want to see you turn yourself into a clone of that stupid fool Johnson, for one thing,” Morse said. “Even as it stands, you did far better than Johnson could ever dream of doing. One might even say you did well.”
Lewis' face twitched with things that he could say, but wouldn't. “Does one?” he asked.
“Don't push it, Lewis,” Morse said, and Lewis grinned.
“Alright, I won't,” he said.
“You won't what?” asked Morse.
Lewis came closer to Morse's bedside. “Johnson's always on at me for being loyal to ye,” he said.
“I'd hardly call it that,” Morse said drily.
Lewis grinned. “Well, it wasn't Johnson that followed me out to the Michaels' place, was it?” Morse shrugged his eyebrows. “She was going to kill me, sir,” Lewis swallowed, and rested a hand on Morse's arm. “Wasn't anything going to stop her. You saved me life. Sir...”
“Oh, Lewis,” Morse cut him off reproachfully, clenching his jaw against any display of emotion. “Bygones, Lewis. Bygones.”
Lewis nodded, and squeezed his arm. “I probably should be letting you rest, though, sir. I'll come back.”
Morse nodded, and Lewis turned to go. “Lewis!” Morse called at his back, and Lewis stopped and turned.
“Yes, sir?”
“Bring some music from the house when you come, will you?”
Lewis grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“Hmm?” Val asked, still mostly asleep. “What, Robbie?”
“Oh,” Lewis said, waking up. “Nothing, love. Dreaming, that's all.”
She was silent, but Lewis lay awake thinking. He did want to go for promotion, but going off with Johnson in a huff, as he'd been about to, was childish, and he knew deep down that Morse was right, or close to it, about Johnson's relative merits as a copper. And Morse had saved his life. He imagined actually trying, in real life, to thank Morse for it, and grinned... there was no way. Best leave it as it had been, unsaid, implied. Even in the dream Morse hadn't let him finish. The thing was, he didn't actually mind doing what Morse told him most of the time. It was the constant, and often unfair, criticism that torched it. And he did want, someday, to be Chief Inspector himself.