| �So let it
start, my friend, let it start, Let the tears come
rolling
from your heart, And when you need a light in the lonely nights, Carry me like a fire in your heart� - from Chris De Burgh�s �Carry Me� Sonny: I know who I am. I remember this lunatic What the hell is he talking about? Why is he yelling at me? I�m so tired. My head hurts, feels like it�s being crushed in a vice. My eyes hurt. I just want to sleep. Castillo left me in here with Strohe and usually I wouldn�t give a damn, but something�s very wrong. I don�t know what happened. I don�t know what I was doing in Orlando. And when I came home, everyone just stared at me. And then� then they all drew their weapons and aimed at me. I don�t understand. What have I done? Why am I so tired? I hurt my shoulder in the explosion. It was bleeding under my jacket. My arm feels so heavy. I should have gone to the hospital, but I came here instead. I thought they�d get me to a doctor. Instead� I don�t know what�s happening. This guy is Internal Affairs. He hates me. He�s shouting again. �I know you remember, Crockett! I know you�re lying to me, you shit!� �I don�t�.� I don�t remember anything. I don�t know what you�re talking about! He keeps on about a couple of dealers � Carrera and Minola � and the names sound familiar but I can�t place them. �Tell me, Crockett, or I�ll throw you to your friends in jail.� He has a manic excitement on his face, like he�s getting off on this. �I can�t�.� Suddenly, he�s in my face, crouched down in front of me where I�m sitting on Castillo�s battered couch. �Do you remember killing a cop?� What? �No!� I leaned away. Was he really accusing me of that? �You killed a cop, Sonny. Jimmy Hagavich. You shot him in the chest at point blank range.� He was lying! �No! I didn�t, I�.� I didn�t�. Did I? Where had I been? I couldn�t remember. Suddenly, there was a hole in my memory, a deep, black hole that was too frightening to go near. I didn�t want to know. Had I killed a cop? �What about Tubbs?� What? No! I wouldn�t have, I couldn�t. He was lying! �What?� �You shot Tubbs.� I felt sick. No. I realised I hadn�t said anything, but when I tried again it came out as a strangled whimper more than a word. �No�.� God, no. �Point blank, in a dark alley a week ago.� No. �Oh� no�.� Not Rico. I tried to breathe but my throat was too tight. �No, please.� I looked up, begging him to take it back, to tell me that Rico was okay, alive. But he didn�t, he just stood up in front of me. �Yes, Crockett. Your own partner. What do you think he thought as you fired at him, as he lay there on the ground?� No. �No�.� I felt tears in my eyes. Not Rico. That bastard Strohe leaned closer in to me. He waited a beat, then he shouted into my face, �Do you remember shooting Tubbs?� �No!� I shouted back, tears streaming, believing him. What had I turned into? What had been inside me that I could become a killer? That I could murder my own partner, the best friend I�d ever known, the one man on this whole god-forsaken planet who I really cared about. I lowered my head, and something caught my eye. Strohe�s holster under his jacket, his gun swinging gently at his side. I surprised him. I reached forward, fingers gripping the butt of his gun and pulling it free. In the next moment, I bolted from the couch and threw myself bodily into the far corner of the room. My hands were shakin� bad, but I managed to get the safety trigger off. Strohe had backed away, hands up like I was pointing that gun at him, but I wasn�t. I didn�t want to kill him. �Crockett�.� The pounding in my head, made worse by my sudden movements, was making it difficult to think straight, but I jammed my elbow against the wall and pushed the barrel of the weapon into my hair, against the side of my head. The only sense I could get from the tangling confusion in my mind was, �not Rico. Please, God, not Rico.� But he�d told me. That�s why everyone was so scared of me, so angry. That�s why Castillo had left me alone with this guy. I�d killed my partner. �Crockett, don�t do this�.� �No�.� My voice hitched, sobs catching in my throat as I tried to breathe. What did it matter if I didn�t? �Not Rico, not Rico�.� It was becoming a litany. I would die with his name on my lips. My hand was shaking so badly, I could hardly keep the gun still, but I tightened my grip on it and settled my finger on the trigger. �Crockett!� �Sonny! No!� I looked up. He was standing in the doorway, horror etched into his beautiful, kind face. All I could do was stare through my blurred vision, and wait for the illusion to vanish. But it didn�t. It pushed passed Castillo standing in the door and slowly edged its way towards me. �Sonny, it�s okay. It�s okay, Partner, you don�t have to do that.� He sounded so real. I swiped at my eyes with my other hand, trying to wipe away the tears so that I could see. They felt sticky. ��.� �It�s okay, I�m here. You don�t have to do this. I�ll take care of you, Sonny. Just give me the gun.� �You�re� alive.� �Yeah, Sonny, I�m alive.� He was close now, reaching out to take the gun away from my head. I had to let him. This was Rico. I loved him so damn much�. Rico: I heard the shouting as I ran into the main office. Castillo had left Sonny alone with Strohe and that IAD bastard was yelling at my partner. I could see them through the blinds as I neared Castillo�s office. I saw Sonny grab the gun. And I knew he what he was going to do. All my anger, all the hatred and betrayal I�d been feeling in the last couple of weeks just evaporated when I saw the wreck that Sonny was. He didn�t know what was happening, probably didn�t remember a damn thing. What I knew for sure was that this guy was not the man who�d tried to kill me twice in the space of a week. That Sonny had had a deadly calm about him, iron control of the situation and the men around him. This Sonny was falling apart right in front of my eyes. Castillo opened the door and I just pushed right passed him. I had Sonny�s undivided but very confused attention and I didn�t want to lose that. I remember the way he used to purr. He�d talked so many people down from the edge on numerous occasions. I knew I could talk him down. Strohe had told him that he�d killed me, and now he wanted to kill himself. I didn�t need any more evidence that Sonny was no longer a threat to me. �Sonny�. It�s okay.� Kneeling down in front of him, I wrapped one hand slowly around his, prying the weapon from his trembling fingers, handing it back to Castillo behind me. �I�m sorry�.� Sonny reached up, his fingers clawing into the front of my shirt, gripping it like a safety blanket. �I killed you,� he was crying, �I killed you.� Wrapping myself around him I sunk to the floor next to him, let him bury himself in my arms. �You didn�t kill me, Sonny,� I told him, stating the obvious because he seemed to need to hear it. I rested my head on his, feeling him trying to hide in the limited protection of my jacket. �I�sorry.� His words slurred together. I could feel his tears soaking through my shirt. �It�s all right, Sonny. You�re home now.� ��Stay.� He slumped against me heavily. Suddenly Castillo was beside us, reaching back for the phone even as he crouched down. He reached to touch Sonny�s face and when he brought his hand away there was blood on his fingertips. Someone must have answered the call, because he asked for an ambulance, gave the address and stated the he had an officer down. When I looked at the front of my shirt under Sonny�s lolling head, I saw that it was stained with blood. * He looked so peaceful, lying there after all the noise and panic of the last couple of hours. We were in the private wing of the neurology unit at Mercy hospital. Castillo had wangled this one, and I didn�t want to know how. But I was grateful. Instead of the stark white of the usual hospital rooms, this was all dark colours, gentle greens, blues and maroons. Nothing too harsh on the eyes. The bed was lower and wider. It could have been a bedroom in any expensive house had it not been for the silent monitors that they had my partner carefully and discretely hooked up to. I�d just perched myself on the edge of the mattress and found myself unable to move. All I could do was sit there and gently stroke the hair at his temple with my thumb. I�d thought for a moment, in Castillo�s office, that he�d died right there in my arms. He�d been bleeding from his eyes. He�d lost consciousness. Only later did we find the injury to his shoulder. In the ambulance, the crew had spoken to the doctors waiting for us at the hospital. I�d honestly never been so scared in my whole life. At the hospital, they�d rushed him from us, left us standing there. My mind had been racing around in circles, thinking they�d rushed him into surgery, wondering if I was ever going to see my partner again, wondering if we�d killed him, leaving him in the hands of Strohe, putting him under more stress, pushing him hard, finally breaking him. Castillo had sat silently. Waiting. I guessed the same thoughts were running riot in his mind. I was standing at the window when a doctor walked into the hospital lounge. He looked both of us up and down, then motioned for us to follow him. �He�s going to be fine,� he told us as we stepped into his office. He flicked the light on behind some MRI scans. �There are two obvious injuries, about three months apart. He has a hairline fracture of the skull that had almost healed when it was hit again. There�s evidence of trauma to blood vessels around the site of the fracture, and there�s undoubtedly been some synaptic disruption.� I stared at him, and he waved one hand in the air. �Sorry. Please, sit down.� Castillo took a seat, but I hesitated. �Can I see Sonny?� �In a minute. He�s sleeping soundly. We�ve put him in the private wing like the Lieutenant asked.� I glanced at Castillo as I sat. But he didn�t even glance at me. I had no idea what was going on in his mind anymore. �The first injury may have put him in a coma for a while. He has some slight brain damage. Synapses, paths in the mind, were destroyed. It would have almost certainly lead to some level of amnesia. The brain is an amazing thing and over time, it healed these broken paths.� �He became someone else. Someone violent.� It was the first thing Castillo had said in my presence since leaving OCB. The doctor nodded. �Very possibly. Other paths would have been formed based on what he was told, the environment he was in. Injuries of this type cause chemical changes in the brain which effect personality and behaviour. The second hit to his head did little more than re-crack his skull. He was probably starting to remember anyway.� �So why can�t he remember what happened after the first explosion?� The doctor leaned forward. �The mind has a way of protecting us from very bad things. If it believed that to remember would cause Sonny pain, it might have chosen to hide it from him. That being the case, he may never remember.� I listened to it all, getting more and more scared. �He was responsible for some deaths.� The doctor shrugged. �Maybe. Like I said, he may never remember anything about it.� �They�ll be looking for someone to blame.� �He was undercover?� Castillo nodded. �Blame whoever didn�t bring him in.� I was aware that my fingers were stroking his hair just over the fracture in his skull. The bleeding from his eyes had been blood vessels bursting under pressure. But the scans had turned up no evidence of any blood clots, although they�d repeat the scans every six hours for a day or so to keep a check on him. He was going to be okay. I had to keep believing that. |