I do not own Midsomer Murders, just the characters I made up.

Of all the places I expect to see police tape, my house isn't one of them. Yet, here it is, glaring at me in its bright blue and white. Uniform officers swarm the place, like ants from a kicked antpile. Among the officers is Gale Stephens, who offers both my wife and I cups of coffee.

"Gale." I murmur, nodding my thanks.

Jess just sits, staring at a fixed point across the street, seeming quite oblivious to everything around her due to shock.

Gale nods back, then smiles at my wife. "Can I get you anything else, Jess?" She lays a hand on her shoulder, kneeling down to her level. "Do you want a bite to eat, perhaps? I have breakfast bars in my patrol car."

Jess just shakes her head numbly, her eyes never leaving the fixed point despite the obstructino of Gale's body.

"Thank you, Gale." I say quietly. "I think she just needs some time...it was all a bit too close. Could you tell me when the DCI gets here? I'll try to bring her out of it before then." I offer her a faint smile, but we both know it's fake.

"Yes, sir." She pats my shoulder with an assuring nod, and leaves us alone.

With Gale's body out of the way, I can see what my wife stares so fixedly at: Blake, sitting on the sidewalk across the street, away from all the people, cradling her son like a babe on her lap, wrapped protectively against the cold in her arms and a heavy black winter coat. Apparently, Toby slept through the entire ordeal last night, and still has yet to wake. After all, 6:30 in the morning is a bit early for a five year old.

Blake, like my wife, is oblivious to everything going on. She focuses solely on her son, stroking his face and hair, kissing his forehead. More than anything I think she's happy he didn't see anything, didn't see the guns, the blood spattered throughout the house, the beehive my house has become. He's just lost in a world of bliss, completely safe from the stress of adult issues, as he should be.

I turn my attention back to my wife after a moment, noting that now she's drawn her limbs up from the cold. Setting my untouched coffee aside, I remove my jacket, draping it around her. "Hey," I say softly, shaking her shoulders, "Hey, look at me." I pull her face around with the tips of my fingers, cupping her chin as I look into her haunted eyes. "Hey, you're going to be all right. We're fine, we'll get to the bottom of this."

Nothing, she just stares at me.

I smile at her, making it as authentic as possible as I cup her face. "Can you at least say something to me? Nod? Smile? Barnaby's going to be here any minute; you know he's going to want to ask questions."

Her eyes shift back and forth between my eyes, studying each one individually due to our closeness. "Do I have to do that today?" Her voice shakes, wavering like the ripples in a pool after throwing a pebble in the middle of it.

I sigh, repeating her eye actions while stroking her cheeks with my thumbw. "Every little bit of information helps, you know that."

My wife's eyes glass o er, red veins sneeking out from the corners of her eyelids, consuming the whites like red dye in a glass of milk. "It was all so fast..."

Another sigh passes over my lips as I pull her into arms. Normally I only offer a witness a box of tissues, maybe a squeeze to the shoulder if I'm really feeling it for them, then press for information in the sneeky-copper sort of way. Make them feel like you're their friend, sweet talk them with a harming tone, then gouge for information when they're the most vulnerable. But, how do you do that when it's someone you really do care about? How do you allow someone else to do that to someone you love?

Movement to my left catches the corner of my eye' a tall navy-blue figure and a reasonably shorter navy-blue and khaki figure come toward us quickly. By the time I look up, they're right in front of us, knelt down and looking on sympathetically with two pairs of green eyes. Mike tilts his officer's hat back to look me in the face, while Cora lays a hand on my wife's trembling shoulder.

"Sorry we weren't here earlier, mate. I just heard what was going on through my CB."

"Anything we can do?" Cora offers.

My wife's trembling crescendos against my side. I look at Cora pleadingly. "Could you take her from here?"

The bow in Mike's back straightens a bit, his eyes knowing. "Mate," He says quietly, "You know we can't take a witness from-"

I silence him with a stare; this particular stare is the one he's known since our early adult-hood, the shut-up-now-I'm-warning-you stare. "Please." I say again.

Mike regards me for a moment with an unblinking gaze, watching my expession, watching the face hidden in my shoulder.

Cora looks at her husband, then Jess, then her husband again. "Michael."

His eyes flick to hers.

"It would be good for her to get away from here for a little while. If Mr. Barnaby wants to talk to her, Ben can just tell him where she is, right?"

Mike sighs. "Okay, let's get her in your car. Gently now, gently. Here, mate, let me take her so you can get up."

My legs are wobbly from all the hours of torpidness, my feet numb from the cold. By the time Cora's helped me up and I've gained my sense of balance, Mike is already at the car, situation my wife in the passenger seat of Cora's blue Volvo.

"You all right, Ben?" A petite hand wraps around me elbow; I'm too numb to try to pull away, and besides, I would probably lose my balance. "You're shaking," Cora says gently, "And it's not from the cold."

I look down at the pavement, cold and gray, much like my mind at the moment. I feel as though I'm looking at everything through a pair of filthy glasses, but everytime I touch my face, there's nothing there, and I feel all the more irritated and sick.

"Ben? Are you hurt? Do I need to have you examined?"

Cora's voice draws me slowly out of my head, her words like a poke to the ribs, each one more persistant than the prior. A hand squeezes my shoulder; I bring my hazy gaze to Cora's concerned eyes. "It's nothing. Everything was a bit close, is all. I'll get over it."

"Are you sure you're all right? You look sick."

"Why don't we see if Blake wants to go with you and my wife? She's been awfully quiet since the police got here." The need to change the subject, to get the concern off of me is overwhelming. I feel like I'm being kicked in the gut, and it won't stop unless I walk around, and people stop asking if I'm feeling well, because I'm obviously not. I take her by the elbow, and lead her to where Blake's been sitting for most of the night, and part of the morning. "Been sleeping this whole time, has he?" I smile fakely, motioning to Toby.

Blake's eyes snap to us quickly, and she nods a few moments after. "Y-yah. Woken up once or twice from the sirens, but he's pretty much used to it...from live in London all this time." Her sentence ends as though she's out of breath...or perhaps she's just cold. Her eyes drop to our legs, not staring at them, but seemingly through them.

I stoop over to place a hand on her shoulder. "Blake, Cora's taking Jess to her place, to warm up and relax. I think it would be a good idea for you and Toby to go with them."

"Do you still work with Tom Barnaby, Ben?" She says quietly, her eyes never straying from our legs.

I swallow loudly. So thristy..."Yeah. You need to leave before he gets here."

"No, no," Her eyes still unmoving, "No, he'll want to talk to the both of us. Take Toby...he needs to be around other children." Suddenly her head is lifted, her eyes on Cora, begging. "Please, take the baby, I need to stay here."

Cora regards her silently, then nods. "Okay."

"He'll want cerial when he wakes up." She says absent-mindedly, watching Cora intensely as she passes Toby into her arms. "It doesn't matter what kind, he'll just want it...he feels it's the natural order of things to have cerial for breakfast."

"Okay." She smiles. "He'll be fine."

"Ben."

"?"

"Help me up, please...my feet are numb."

"Sir?" Gail is beside me when Blake finally gets her balance, nearly falling over a few times, much like myself. "The DCI is here."

I turn around quickly, sighing thankfully; Cora's car is nowhere to be seen. "Thanks, Gail, take us to him, please."

Blake's POV

I feel as though I've stepped out of a fog. Police officers are everywhere, along with forensics, a K-9 unit, and an ambulance team. Where did they come from? When did they get here? How long have they been here? Ben stops momentarily, waiting for me to catch up before placing a hand at the base of my neck, leading me to a familiar older man.

Mr. Barnaby hasn't changed too much in five years. His hair, which used to be a faded brown with gray thrown in, is now all gray, silver in some areas, but for the most part light gray. His eyes, which I specifically remember being a striking blue, are slightly lighter, but no less striking.

"Morning, sir." Ben says groggily.

"Morning, Jones." Barnaby says in a neutral tone. "Are you all right?"

"As much as I can be, in the given situation, sir."

I cock my head at this. Ben had sounded rather annoyed at being asked if he was troubled. Myself being a little before him, his hand on my neck, I can't see his face. I decide to simply file it away in my mind for another time, giving Mr. Barnaby my attention upon feeling his gaze.

"Blake." He smiles, nodding. "You've grown."

I smile bashfully, playing it out perfectly like an actress. "Thanks. It seems as though we can't ever meet under favorable circumstances, hm?"

He just nods, and lifts his eyes to to the man behind me. "Well, then?" His voice adopts the serious tone he'd first greeted Ben with, and he motions to the house with an outstretched arm and a raise of the eyebrows.

Ben's hand leaves my neck, sliding down the slope of a shoulder before disappearing entirely, his frame becoming visible in my line of sight as he walks wearily to the front door of the house.

The comforting feeling that the house has always given me is gone, dissipated, vaporized. All that feels to be left, atomospherically, is a cold, empty body, a body having all of its skin and bones, but no brain, not heart, no lungs, no muscles, no nerves...just a skelton with a few busted veins...a bleeding heart.

"What happened?"

Another veil of fog is lifted from my eyes, Barnaby's voice decaying it this time. I wish it hadn't pulled me out of my head, for there's blood spattered on the north wall, the curtains on the eastern window and ledge, and lastly, a huge puddle of blood on the floor, a jagged line of heavy drips of red trailing across the room and out the bed room door.

Ben eyeballs the bed, its sheets and pillows askew, with remorse in his gaze. "I was laying with my wife," He says quietly. His eyes dim; I can tell he's creceeded into his brain, reliving the nightmare. "She was alseep, I was awake...had been for a while, maybe an hour, unable to relax and drift off. I was just watching her sleep...and then I could hear footsteps. I thought it was Blake, at first, but they sounded too heavy, and they were booted.

"Blake?" I call in a whisper, trying not to wake my wife.

The footsteps stop momentarily, a very, very soft curse wafts into the room.

I prop myself up on an elbow, trying to reach over my wife for the nightstand. The movement, considering that I'm now lying on top of her, wakes Jess. She moans and squirms beneath me, and I clamp a hand over her mouth.

"There's someone in the house." I whisper, fingering the handle on the top drawer, "Don't move, 'kay? When he comes in, I want you to pretend you're still asleep."

She shudders at feeling the cold metal of my pistol pressed against her back, hidden beneath her overly-large shirt, flicking wide eyes up at me. "Ben-"

"Shh." I tell her, "Just pretend you're asleep, I won't let anything happen to you, promise. Close your eyes, he's right by the door."

My grip on the pistol tightens as a figure, well over six feet tall, walks slowly into the room. He wears a ski mast, followed by night-vision goggles, a black shirt and pull-over, cargo pants and boots. Standing out to me most of all...the pistol in his left hand, and the holstered pistol strapped to his left hip. I peer neautrally at him over Jess's steadily quivering shoulder, pressing the gun slightly harder against her back.

"Mr. Jones." The intruder cooes, aiming the pistol a bit higher, more at Jess's shoulder than myself, "Did I wake you? So sorry."

"Who are you?" I ask evenly. "What can I do for you?"

"For now, I just want you to lay there," He cocks the pistol, Jess gasps. "And I want you to remove your hand from under the lady's shirt."

I glance down at Jess; her eyes have tears in them. "I can't touch my wife before you shoot me?" I ask calmly.

The intruder raises the pistol higher. "Remove your hand, Mr. Jones."

Oh, I'll remove it all right. With my left, I grab my pillow and throw it at the intruder, and with my right, I cock and draw the pistol, sending a bronze-tipped bite into the right shoulder of the man, then sheild my wife with my body.

The intruder, surprised at the sudden change of events, shoots blindly, sending a bullet into the headboard, another just barely over our heads and into the west wall. I fire again, hitting him in the left hip.

The man grunts, saying through gritted teeth, "This won't be the last you'll see of me!" Then disappears through the door.

jess is practically hyperventallating by this time, huddled against the side of the bed on the floor, nearly choking on tears and sobs.

I kneel down quickly and cup her wet face in my palms. "Stay here, stay here, you're going to be all right. Okay? I'll be right back, don't move."

I'm out the door before she can protest, nearly falling on my face upon slipping in a trail of blood. I stare with mild disappointment from the window as the intruder runs out of the range of my pistol, as though he'd never been touched by a bullet at all.

"He could run?" Mr. Barnaby asks.

Ben nods. "He was practically sprinting, sir." He grumbles.

Barnaby "hmms", and continues looking around the room. "A man that can sprint after being shot twice..."

"No," I say quietly, "No, there were two of them."

The two men stop whatever action or sentence they were in the middle of immediately, the gears in their brains reeling. Ben looks at me with fright, as though I were bleeding to death, and Barnaby simply looks very interested.

"What happened? Are you all right?" Ben asks.

"Two of them, you say?" Barnaby says at the same time as Ben.

"Yeah, two of them." I murmur. My skin crawls like the man's fingers are on my body again, caressing, rubbing, teasing...I shiver. "The one that Ben interacted with was the leader. I didn't get a name, but he said he was from one of the upper class areas of London. The one I reacted with," I shiver again, "He was Scottish. I don't know from which area of Scottland he was from, but his accent was very thick...almost violent; it took a bit of concentration to understand him. The leader told him to keep me in my room, gave him orders to shoot me if I caused a fuss."

"They told you where they were from?" Barnaby asks.

"What did he do?" Ben asks at the same time; that protective-father look creeps into his eyes.

"Nothing that hasn't been done before." I say softly, crossing my arms over my chest. "And no," I say when Ben's mouth begins to open, "He didn't rape me...just...touched me, is all."

"Where and how?" Ooh, a slice of anger in his tone.

"W-...We can discuss that later, Ben. I think Mr. Barnaby wants to question right now." I send a weak smile in Barnaby's direction. "I sort of...guessed at it, honestly. The leader's accent was very smooth, very refined, like someone very educated. I asked him if he was from one of the classier areas of London, and he said yes. As for his partner, the Scottish accent spoke for itself."

"Ah, I see." Barnaby appears impressed, quirking his brows as he cocks his head to the side. "Would you mind showing me your room?"

Another weak smile. "Everyone else has been in there, I don't see why I would."

There's a man crouched down on the floor in my room, an older man with white hair that Ben and Barnaby greet by the name George. Well...Barnaby referrs to him as George, and Ben referrs to him as "Mr. Bullard". Said man greets the two with their Christian names, then holds an evidence bag up to Tom.

"It appears your intruders were quite careless, Ben." Bullard says. "Blood on the floor, muddy footprints, and now an article of clothing. We shouldn't have too much trouble identifying one of them, with all the DNA around the house."

"That's the glove the Scottsman was wearing." I say, gesturing to it, "He took it off, before..." I shake my head.

Barnaby nods; nothing else needs to be spoken. "What did he say to you, the Scottsman?"

I shake my head again. "Nothing of importance, really. He told me not to move when he had me at gunpoint from behind, he told me to put my hands up where he could see them, he told me not to cause a fuss or he would shoot. That's about it, really. I'm not certain," I say slowly, testing my words, "But...something seemed off about him. Other than being big and agressive...I don't know. He seemed to have a mental problem, like John Steinbeck's "Lennie Small" from "Of Mice and Men": A big man that doesn't know his own strength, a child stuck in a man's body that has little controll over his temper or strength." Then, as a remembered fact, "Oh, and he had brown eyes."

Barnaby just nods approvingly, looking about the room. "Ah," His tone is in a reasonably higher pitch, like he's relaxed and in a happier mood. "Been playing cricket recently?" He motions to the bat beside my bed.

Ben looks at it as well, cocks his head. "Hey...isn't that my cricket bat? What's it doing in here?"

"Oh, I was gonna use it to beat someone's brains out because I thought my son was in danger. All plans and thoughts of doing this were immediately relieved when I realized they had guns." I cross my arms over my shaky torso as Ben stares at me in bewilderment, Barnaby simply nodding. "I thought my baby was in danger." I tell Ben, "You shot someone to protect Jess, I was going to smash the bastard's skull in for my son...I don't see much difference in our actions." I release a shaky breath; Barnaby walks across the hall to Toby's room.

I don't allow the silence to linger long, not wishing to put myself, or Ben into an annoyingly awkward situation. "Sorry," I say quietly, "I know you're not feeling well."At the expected furrowed brows, "Yeah, I noticed. Your skin is very pale, you know. You're here, physically, but you're not here with me. You've shot someone, and you're trying to convince yourself that it was completely necessary. You feel horrible about it, even despite the fact that he tried to harm you, or tired to harm the one thing most precious to you in existence."

I lower my eyes, swallow. My head is throbbing with memories...the smells, the blood...the body left to rot for three days while I was quietly fighting for my life in the hospital. I push them aside for the greater pain standing in front of me. "I've been there, Ben." I say quietly, "You know I have. You just...have to accept it and push on, or it'll screw with your head." I give him a watery smile, nod. "Don't worry about it...at least, not now."

Ben looks like a lost little boy looking for his parents, his eyes rounded and watery, his emotions on display for everything to see. He stands ridgid, not needing to say anything at all, his eyes telling me everything I need to know.

"It was all awfully close, wasn't it?" I whisper. He nods, leaving me to need no excuse to walk forward tiredly and hug him forcefully, willing him, if possible, to collapse my ribcage on itself. "Trust me, Ben, that man deserved every bit of torment you gave him."

I apologize for any typos I may have missed, the spellchecker wasn't working. I'll have chapter 12 out ASAP. Thank you for your patience. :)