For greenlily. not mine, not profit garnered. Title from Tony Mancus's the future is different |all the ways we get | there from here.

"Wait, what?" Percy blinked a few times and rubbed her head. "I got hit on the head. I got hit on the head?"

"Knocked on the noggin," Chris said.

Loretta frowned as she slowly stood up. "And we are all three locked in this shack without phones or guns and that maniac has taken my body."

Percy blinked again. "The dead body. The dead body, I got it." Percy was swaying a little, even just sitting, so Chris went over and touched her back.

"Time to get out of here," Chris said.

"Agreed," Loretta said.

"Do we still have our guns and phones?" Sonja patted her hip. "Nope, we don't. I don't."

"We gave 'em up so he didn't shoot you," Chris said.

"Thank you," Sonja said. "God, my head hurts."

Loretta suddenly have a very sharp looking pocket knife. Chris said, "Where did that come from, Doc?"

She just looked at him. "I don't know why people assume I don't have carry some sort of protection." Chris and Loretta started probing the walls, looking for a way out.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a love child?" Sonja sounded a little whiny.

"I'm sure that question was directed at you," Loretta said, after Chris didn't answer.

"I told you why," Chris said. "And you know what? I don't have one, so let's not worry about it anymore."

"I'm not trying to bring up something painful," Sonja said. "I just wondered."

"Stop wondering," Chris said.

He and Loretta kept probing walls until Chris found one with enough of a crack they could try prying it apart. It was one ramshackle shack.

When they started pulling, Sonja insisted on helping even though Loretta gave her a stern look. Sonja was the first to stumble outside, her walk not steady at all. "That's not like a concussion," Chris said.

Loretta said, "I agree. We need to get her to a hospital."

"He shot out all the tires," Sonja said. She sunk down and put her head on her knees, back against Loretta's coroner's van.

"But he did not get the radio," Loretta said. She called for help. "It should be another 10 minutes or so."

Loretta said to Chris, "Do you think it was the killer who came after us?"

"Nope," Sonja said. "You saw that body, that was vicious. That was a madman who wasn't afraid to kill. The guy who came for the body didn't even kill me, even though he had the drop on all of us."

"Percy's right," Chris said. "I think we're gonna need to look for a killer and a bodynapper."

"I still want to find our bodynapper and give him a hard rap on his noggin," Loretta said.

Sonja said, "I would not have been upset you had a love child. I was a little upset your faux baby mama was so possessive."

"Maybe you don't want to say everything you think of right now," Loretta said gently.

"She was just trying to keep herself safe," Chris said. "She wasn't really possessive."

"She was pretty intent on making sure I saw that kiss," Sonja said.

"Fine, that one time," Chris said. "She was never like that with Gregorio."

He noticed Loretta rolling her eyes. He had no idea what was in her head. Though, of course he knew what was in her mind. He was sweet on Sonja, he could admit that. She didn't seem that interested in acting on it. He didn't have much hope for them if she took a head injury to say anything.

Sonja was quiet again. He walked over and tapped her foot lightly. "You falling asleep, City Mouse?"

"No," she said, but the word sounded slurred.

He really wished Loretta did more work on the living. It was a long 10 minutes before Pride and the ambulance came.

Chris rode with Sonja to the hospital, followed her into the examination room. Until the doctor decided to kick him out. "I just want you to know she's acting strange. Not like she has concussion," Chris said.

"They know," Sonja said, almost glaring at him. Then she waved him over. "But I think you should know I'm no idiot. I know exactly why your fake baby mama didn't like me and you didn't tell me." She touched his cheek and before he recovered from the shock, she was kissing him. It was still as good as he'd expected.

"That doesn't count until you do it not under the influence," Chris said. "I'm leaving you to the doctors now, you're clearly very hurt."

She flipped him off.

He drove to the coroner to see Loretta and Sebastian's replacement. "I miss Sebastian," Chris said quietly to Loretta. "Not to make our fill in feel bad."

"I heard you," Joe said. Joe was the temp. He was taller than Chris, shorter than Sebastian, African-American, and bland. Bland was the word for the guy. No quirks, no weird hobbies, no conspiracies. Not only was Joe boring and bland, he had great hearing. Joe said, "I'll be gone when that other guy gets through frisbee."

"FLETC," Chris said. "NCIS agents go through FLETC, no frisbees involved. Not when I did it, anyway."

"Sebastian would probably excel at activities with frisbees," Loretta said. "We have very little for you. It looks like the gun used on our vehicles was Sonja's. We found nothing where the body was, no fluids or other evidence. Our attacker cleaned up."

"That's a kind of evidence," Chris said. "He knew what to clean up?"

"Not really," Loretta said. "Anyone who watches television knows how basic forensics works. I worked with Joe to make a composite sketch of him, you can check on its accuracy. How is Sonja?"

"Not good," Chris said. "They'll call Pride when they know for sure."

The sketch went through facial recognition and came back with a guy who had one misdemeanor on his record. "His brother, on the other hand," Chris said to Pride. "His brother has one heck of a record. And we've figured out who the victim is."

Another face came up, a sailor from Gulfport. "He was not a nice guy," Chris said. "He knew Bunch's brother because they were dealing drugs, the reason our sailor was about to dishonorably discharged. Also they were both white supremacist bullies, so they were probably tons of fun together."

"But Bunch tried to protect his brother," Pride said. "The dumb things we do for family."

"And the awful things family does to us," Chris said. He showed King the news that Bunch had been found shot once in the head.

It was back to hang out with Loretta. She stood sadly over Bunch's body. "They also recovered yours and Sonja's guns. All our phones were destroyed. Poor man."

"Tell Sonja that," Chris said.

"I know," Loretta said. "It's a good thing we noticed the symptoms, she had -"

"I know," Chris said. "The kind of thing where you end up dead 2 days later and don't even realize it's because you got hit on the head. But she'll be fine."

"Yes," Loretta said. "And she will remember every embarrassing thing she said."

"And did," Chris said. "Anything on Bunch to help us find his evil brother?"

Loretta exhaled. She looked tired. She said, "I do think he's evil. Kill his partner with savagery, kill his own brother by shooting him in the head. Everything I've found is with Joe. I'll call if anything else turns up."

Chris patted her shoulder. "I'm glad you're okay, you know that?"

"I'm glad you're okay as well," Loretta said, smiling at him. "It was frightening. I thought about the boys and how much they would miss me."

"You're a great mom," Chris said.

Loretta shook off his hand. She said, "And you will be a great father when you have the chance."

"I guess now that we're done complimenting each other, I should go solve this case," Chris said.

"This is a man who needs to be off the streets," Loretta said.

Patton found the scumbag. Chris and Pride ended up chasing the damn bastard through three streets and one parking lot before Pride got off the shot to the leg that made the bad guy fall down.

"And off to jail he went," Chris said to Sonja while she sat in her hospital bed. "No help from you."

"I was wounded," she said. "And crazy."

"Kissing people, complaining about not being told things, we're calling that crazy, huh?"

"Yes," Sonja said. "You were a bad kisser, anyway."

"No, I am not. That was a good kiss and you know it," Chris said. "Maybe another time, when you're not bleeding on your brain, we can do it again."

"Maybe," Sonja said. "It's good we lived through all this so we can plan for maybe another times."

"We weren't in that much danger," Chris said. "You weren't. Me and Pride now, chasing the evil Bunch brother, that was some real danger."

"I almost died," Sonja said.

"All this time you act so hard headed and it turns out you're not," Chris said. "One knock on the head and you almost die." He paused. "Don't do that again, though."

"Fine," Sonja said.