The whole post Trust Metric thing between Colby and David has been bugging me for a while, so I decided to give David the opportunity to redeem himself.

As usual, I don't own the characters etc, this is only for fun.

As Sinclair staggered to his feet, his disorientation cleared although the ringing in his ears was knocking him balance a little. As the dust began to settle it became clear that the explosion that tore through the bank was far bigger than the gang had anticipated, it had not only probably taken out the vault door – he couldn't see it so he couldn't be sure – it has also collapsed a wall, leaving the ceiling above it in place but incredibly unstable. David shook his head to try to clear his hearing. He took another good look around the room, trying to assess the situation. People were slowly getting to their feet, most of them were covered in dust and debris but there seemed to be no major injuries so far, just cuts and bruises. He looked at the dust covered faces for his partner's but saw no sign of him. At that moment his phone rang, he looked down and fumbled in his pocket until his fingers brushed against the smooth plastic. He looked briefly at the caller id and then flipping the phone open he pressed his free hand to his other ear. Without giving the caller a chance to speak he yelled.

"Don? You're gonna have to shout, my hearing is compromised!"

Outside in the parking lot, Don and the rest of the team sagged a little with relief at the sound of their colleague's voice. They had known that it was going to be a diffcult stake out as this particular gang of robbers had been violent in previous robberies but this was the first time they had used explosives. Don looked across at the building as he spoke.

"David?" he got no response so he tried again a little louder; under other circumstances he would have felt a little foolish yelling at the top of his voice into a cell phone but he needed a sit rep and he realised that he needed to remind Sinclair that there might still be five highly armed men in the building who had just messed up a bank heist.

"DAVID! WHAT IS YOUR SITUATION?"

"Wha? WHAT?" David strained to hear his boss, he pushed his hand harder into his other ear.

"WHERE ARE THE ROBBERS!" Don yelled.

"SAY AGAIN?"

"THE ROBBERS" WHERE ARE THE ROBBERS? " Don shouted into the small black and silver box. He turned to Liz

"This isn't working we need eyes in there now. See what you can do." She nodded and headed off.

"DON, THERE'S BEEN AN EXPLOSION! I THINK THEY SET OFF A BOMB BY THE VAULT!" Don rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. "You don't say" he muttered to himself.

Sinclair spun around, taking in the whole room, the dust had almost settled completely and he had a much better view of the whole area. As his eyes swept the room, quickly absorbing everything and committing it to memory he saw Colby standing by the far wall. The big man from Idaho seemed to be preoccupied with something at his shoulder and hadn't seen Sinclair. David tutted and walked over, determined to give his partner a piece of his mind for just standing there when there were clearly people in need of help, not to mention the question of the missing robbers.

"Just a minute Don, I've found Granger." It was taking longer than he hoped but his hearing was slowly returning to normal.

"Hey! Wh…" now he was closer to his partner, he could see why he had stayed by the wall. Colby was pinned to it by a steel pole that had punched through his shoulder and embedded itself in the wall. He ran over, pushing past a man who stepped quickly out of his way.

"Colby!" Granger looked up and gave him a lopsided grin.

"Hey man." He winced as he moved slightly to nod his head towards the twisted remains of the bank. "Looks like they blew it" David groaned at the bad joke whilst he began to pull gently at Granger's jacket to see how bad the damage was. Sinclair knew Granger well enough to know that the fact he could still tell jokes was no indication of how bad his injuries were or how much pain he was in.

"Don't worry man, we'll get you out of here" He lifted the phone to his ear and spoke to Don who had heard garbled bits of the conversation over the open line.

"Don, Colby's impaled on some sort of metal rod. He's bleeding but I can't see how bad it is. We need to…" He was cut short by the sound of gunfire and women screaming. Instinct took over and he ducked slightly as he turned, using his free hand to reach for his gun but he was too slow as he felt cold metal pressed up against his cheek. He slowly lifted his hands free of his body and up into the air. He looked across at Granger who was frowning and shaking his head ever so slightly to say 'don't do anything.'

"Ok, OK, be cool. I'm not gonna do anything" he felt his gun being taken from its holster and cursed inwardly.

"Damn right!" The gunman moved his gun from Sinclair's face and turned him round so that they were facing each other. He had a deep laceration on the left hand side of his face and his shirt was blood stained, his face was pale and shiny and although Sinclair was no medic he guessed that the guy was losing blood from somewhere.

"You a cop?" Sinclair hesitated before answering, he needed to get a better handle on who these people were, the wrong answer could be very costly. Before he could frame a careful reply the gunman turned to Colby, still keeping one eye and his gun trained on David.

"This your buddy?" He asked. Colby just lifted his eyebrows in response. As quick as a flash, the robber reached out a hand and grabbing Granger by the jacket pulled ever so slightly. The small shift in position caused the ex soldier to cry out in pain. He gasped and panted trying to get his breath back and get the pain under control. The gunman turned back to Sinclair.

"We can keep going if you like, I'm sure that eventually we will get him unstuck from that wall"

"FBI, I'm FBI alright? Now leave him alone" he shouted as the man turned back to Colby. Inside he was raging with anger, he had let Colby down once before and had vowed after that never to let that happen again, that he would always have the man's back, there was no way that this little upstart, amateur bank robber was going to make him break that vow. He glanced across at Granger, who had sagged a little on the pole and was suddenly looking a lot paler than before. As he looked at the wound he saw that there was a lot more blood, the movement must have caused something to open or tear and if he didn't get help soon, Colby was going to bleed out. He had visions of Colby lying on the wooden flooring of a boat, his face ragged and full of pain, even though his heart had stopped, of him, David, trying to pump life back into him even as a small voice in his head was accusing him of putting his partner there in the first place. If he had been quicker, on the uptake, with trust, Colby would have been saved the hell that his torturer had put him through.

Something inside him snapped.

Ignoring his own safety and the gun that was pointed in his direction; whilst the man was still looking at Granger, David lashed out as hard as he could, allowing all the guilt and anger that he had been carrying around all this time to power the punch. The man never knew what hit him. The punch landed beautifully, spinning the gunman almost right around before he hit the floor. As soon as it was clear that he wasn't getting up, David grabbed his gun and checked the rest of the room. Seeing that it appeared clear he lifted the phone that he still held in his hand to talk to his boss.

"REPEAT! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THERE?" Don was yelling down the phone. David looked across at Colby who was stared back at him in shock.

"I think it is clear, approach with caution. We need medics, Colby is pretty badly hurt" He closed the phone and hurried over to Colby. Taking off his jacket and pressing it round the rod to form a pressure pad he shook his head at his partner.

"That was something else my friend." Colby commented, "You sure you weren't special forces?

"That was pure New York, baby" Sinclair managed a weak grin.

"Remind me never to get you upset!" Colby breathed out explosively then started to laugh, even though it was causing him pain; despite himself, David grinned. Don appeared from the other side of the wall Colby was pinned to, his eyes full of concern behind the safety glasses. The scene in front of him was not quite what he had expected. Granger was impaled on a spike, just as Sinclair had described and he appeared to be bleeding quite heavily, something Sinclair was trying to stop with his jacket, but despite this, both men were laughing.

"Are you two alright? God, Colb. You're a mess. Hang in there buddy. Listen , we checked the building, three of these idiots were killed in the explosion downstais, one is sat behind a teller's booth terrified and was happy to see us and you dealt with the last one. Nice going, buddy" He looked at the two laughing men and shook his head a little in bewilderment as he went to speed up the rescue crew.

"Hey Colby?" Sinclair asked

"Yeah?"

"I don't wanna bitch but I think I broke my hand" for a moment there was silence and then the two men burst into laughter, David laughing freely and openly. Although Colby was far from out of the woods, Sinclair felt like an enormous weight had been lifted, that he had found a little redemption and reclaimed a little of his soul.