"Get the dogs in here!" someone shouted. "There's a kid alive under the rubble! Move, move, move!"

A tiny, wailing voice confirmed the diagnosis. Emergency workers dashed in, looking up nervously at the still teetering columns threatening to topple over now that the ceiling was no longer in place to secure them at the top. The whole bus terminal structure was dangerous, and only emergency workers who volunteered were allowed to enter. All of the passengers had already been rescued—bit of luck, there, the police chief allowed. Gun fights tend to cause bystanders to scurry, so the place had been largely deserted by the time the disaster struck. The whole terminal must have been damaged enough by the fight for it to collapse. That, and there'd be an investigation by some civil engineers as to exactly why a load-bearing wall collapsed.

"Got an adult over here, a dead body," another worker sang out, then his tone changed to one of fear. "Jaysus, he's got blood all over him!"

"Bodies tend to do that when you squish 'em under a couple tons of ceiling."

"No, man. I mean this one's dead! He's been murdered. Shot up with a few dozen rounds."

The other man was still unimpressed. "Ya think there might have been a couple of mobs shooting it out in here?" he drawled sarcastically, tossing a chunk of concrete away from off of the pile. Then his tone too changed. "This one's alive! Get another team of medic's down here! This one's alive!"

*          *          *

"Get me—ow!—out of here," Jesse grumbled.

Shalimar kissed him on top of his head with sisterly affection, and re-adjusted the sling on his arm. The hospital stretcher was narrow but she still managed to perch on the edge without toppling off. "Tried to. You kept falling over onto your face. Kind of hard to say you're okay when that happens, Jess. People tend not to believe you."

"Yeah." Jesse's face fell. "Guys, I don't know what to say. I couldn't keep the wall from crumbling. He beat me, and dusted the concrete." He looked up at Shalimar. "You okay?"

Shalimar grimaced. "A couple of cracked ribs. Yeah, I'm fine as long as I don't meet up with any more members of the Back-Up Squad. Brennan over there is the best of us all. He's on crutches, but it's not the foot for the gas pedal. Poor Lexa is going to have to walk around with a black eye for a while."

"Make-up will cover it," Lexa grouched. "Mostly. And it wasn't your fault, Jesse," she added with a burst of honesty. "You didn't lose control over the wall; it was taken away from you. Dusty Brightman didn't have a Back-Up Squad shooting him in the back." She sobered. "We're all extraordinarily fortunate that they didn't have time to check that we'd all stopped breathing. The Back-Up Squad doesn't leave survivors."

"Who doesn't?" A new voice entered the conversation as well as the room, a large and rotund man in an ill-fitting dark suit that spoke of too many donuts and coffee since being promoted to sit behind the police chief's desk. "Who doesn't leave survivors?"

"Cave-in's," Brennan improvised smoothly, leaning heavily on his crutches. "We're all lucky to be alive."

"Got that right," the police chief grunted. He flipped his badge open at them perfunctorily before tucking it back into his inner coat pocket. "Ken Hutchinson, chief of police, and no jokes about the name or I'll run you all in on general principles. Now," and he pointed a finger at Brennan, "how do cave-in's suddenly run around in squads?" And when Brennan couldn't come with an answer fast enough, he turned on Jesse. "You're the only one I haven't spoken to. Your friends here danced around the truth while the docs were treasuring-hunting for bullets in your shoulder. You're the one I think I can get answers from. You going to talk to me?" He didn't give the molecular a chance to answer either, turning to the other three. "You. All three of you. Out."

"What?"

"Don't make me repeat myself. Leave. Out. You can talk to your friend here later, assuming I don't arrest him and haul his ass off to jail."

Jesse could see the un-voiced response running through three mutant heads: like that's going to stop our Jesse from leaving. Brennan and Lexa managed to keep straight faces but Shalimar had to turn away to hide her smirk. "See you in a few, Jess," was her parting comment.

Hutchinson settled himself on the stool by the stretcher. "Talk."

"Where's Elena?" Jesse asked in response.

"Witness Protection," Hutchinson told him. "You can't see her anymore. Or the kid. Get over her, and fast, kid," he added, completely misunderstanding the situation. Jesse subdued a small smile. Lexa hadn't been the only one leaping to conclusions over his actions.

"She agreed to that? She wouldn't, before."

Hutchinson nodded slowly. "This time she did. Now that Kruger's dead, a lot of competition is crawling up out of the woodwork. They're not interested in her, but they are interested in taking over. She's turned State's Evidence. She'll get most of the estate, what can't be proved to belong to some innocent victims, and she and the kid will grow up someplace else. The kid will never know what kind of scum fathered him." He paused. "Now you. What were you doing there?"

Jesse took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy, and his head was pounding as though a few tons of rock had fallen on top of it. Hah. "I was helping Elena to escape."

"Having an affair with her?"

"No."

Hutchinson snorted in disbelief. "Then why?"

"Mutual friends." Jesse hoped that the policeman would leave it at that. "I was about to put her on the bus to nowhere when Kruger showed up. Then more gunmen, and it hit the fan."

"You're going to lie there and swear to me that you had nothing to do with the gunfight at the OK Bus Terminal Corral. Right."

"It's the truth," Jesse protested, lying through his teeth and hoping that he looked honest. Lexa always said that he had an innocent face.

"Then why were they shooting at you?"

"Probably because Kruger was." It sounded reasonable. The look on Hutchinson's face wasn't, but Jesse was doing the best he could.

"Right." Hutchinson put his feet down and leaned forward, going for menacing and doing a good job of it. "Here's what I think happened. Kruger was running a gun supply operation. Don't try to deny it; we found his warehouse full of army surplus on a back alley off of Ninth. You wanted in, and you thought going through his wife was the way to do it. Kruger caught you and sent his people to take out you and yours." He tsked at Jesse. "Shame on you. Letting pretty women like those two who were just in here cover your backside. What the matter, can't afford any real muscle?"

If he only knew… Jesse would rather have Shalimar and Lexa cover his backside then any dozen other men he knew. He put on his most solemn expression. "You're way off base, Mr. Hutchinson. I knew Elena as a kid. A mutual friend let me know that she was in trouble, that her husband was abusing her. I helped her get out. And that's the whole of the story."

Hutchinson grunted, unsure of whether to believe him or not. He folded his arms and stood up, eying Jesse grimly. "There are enough holes in that story to drive an armored tank through," he announced, "and I will be investigating those holes. You can come clean now, turn State's Evidence like Mrs. Kruger, or you can fall down one of those holes when I find out what your part in this mess is. Your choice, Kilmartin. Make the right one."

Jesse wished that he could fold his own arms in exchange. The sling got in the way, not to mention the shooting pain when he tried to move it. "I'm telling you the truth." Just not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

"Your choice." Hutchinson gestured to the sling wrapping Jesse's arm. "You're stuck here for the next few days. Don't count on going straight home afterward. Do count on having one of the city's finest outside your door." The police chief left without a backward glance, but Jesse caught sight of a blue uniform outside his room. Hutchinson paused for a quick word with the officer, and it was the man in blue who glanced grimly back at Jesse. No easy exit there. Especially not with all the security cameras that dotted the hallways of the hospital. Jesse grimaced; it was a set of security cameras that had started this whole mess.

Lexa was the only one who slipped back in after Chief Hutchinson exited. "C'mon," she said.

"'C'mon?'"

"Or do you really like it here? Move it, Kilmartin, before Hutchinson carries out his threat. Brennan and Shalimar are getting the car." She slid a shoulder under his good arm. Right height for leaning on, Jesse noted gratefully, trying to ignore the spinning in his head as he achieved upright status.

"Elena?"

"Brennan talked to her, while you were in surgery. She's okay. She's really going ahead with Witness Protection, going to move on with her life and watching the kid grow up to be better than his father. Now," and Lexa gave him a crooked smile. "Watch and learn, Jesse. This is what you do when there are video cameras around."

And the two of them vanished in a flicker of bent light.

*          *          *

"Yo! Chief! I thought you said the suspect was in here."

"He was," came the growled response. "He never left the room. Hell, he wasn't capable of walking. Where is he?"

"I dunno. You want I should put out an APB?"

Hutchinson considered, then sighed heavily. "Nah. Won't do any good. He'll just move on to the next city, see what he can score. War's over, two gangs fighting it out. Let 'em kill themselves off. We're better off for it."