Three Little Indians
(Book I in The Firedance Trilogy)
~ Part 7 of 7 ~
Copyright © September 2002; January 2010 by Hunter E. Black

Genre: SLASH
Pairing: Johnny/Roy; Unwilling John/Other
Rated: R (Graphic violence, sexual situations, mature themes)
Content Warning: First time slash (build-up only in Book I); rape; graphic violence; adult situations.

Author's Disclaimers: This story is written for pleasure and is not intended to violate any existing copyrights. You may download a copy for your personal use, but not for profit. This story is a work of the writer's imagination. All characters and incidents in this story are products of the writer's imagination and/or based upon the TV series, Emergency! Any relation to any persons living or dead is really a stretch, if you ask me!

Author's Note: Neither the title of this story nor any reference to "Indians" in the text is intended to offend any Native Americans of any tribe. The author, being part Native American -- and proud of it -- grew up when the term Indian was widely used and not considered demeaning, or pejorative. However, the term is used in that way by one character in the story, and the author sincerely hopes he is well-hated.
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~ Continued from Part Six. ~

Looking back, Roy realized, it was the small, insignificant details that stayed in his mind from that moment on. The pay phone in the ER, for example. With it, Roy was able to keep his worries about Johnny at bay while he called their neighbor, Nancy. By now, if Joanne had listened to him and taken him seriously, she and the kids should be somewhere safe, somewhere Carpenter and Summers wouldn't be able to find them.

Nancy answered the phone before it had finished the first ring, with a desperate, breathless, "Roy?"

"Yeah. Nancy, you okay?"

"I'm fine, and Joanne said to tell you she and the kids are fine. But I've gotta tell you, I don't know what's going on, but this is a little weird, you know?"

"I know."

"Roy, what's going on? Where are you? And why this secret-agent-type phone set-up, huh? I mean, I went through my secret agent decoder-ring phase just like everyone else, but–"

"It's not secret agent stuff," Roy said. "It's just – there are some guys out causing trouble. They might have decided to cause some with Joanne. Where is she?"

He got the name and number of the hotel, reassured his neighbor as well as he could, and called the room where Joanne and the kids were.

"Alright, Chief, this is Agent 99. Who am I supposed to make contact with here?"

Roy smiled. At least her sense of humor was still intact. "Just stay there until I call back, okay?"

"The kids are getting a little hungry, dear. You remember the kids: they need to be fed at periodic intervals?"

"Call for room service."

That brought a long, long, silence.

"Room service," Joanne repeated dryly. "We get room service for this?"

"Yeah."

"You've never sprung for room service in all the years we've been married!" Joanne protested. "Not even on our honeymoon! And now, in the middle of a perfectly normal day, without you even here, you're telling me to order room service?"

Her voice was pitched somewhere between anxiety, curiosity, and resentment. It was such a wonderful, normal sound, Roy thought.

"Yeah," he told her. "And I'll tell you what. Next weekend, you and I'll go somewhere and get room service together, okay? Late. At night."

She hesitated, then said, "That a promise?"

"That's a promise."

"So where are you?" she asked, mollified for the moment.

"I can't say."

"Is Johnny with you? How's he doing, anyway?"

"He's – here, yeah. He can't – come to the phone right now, though."

"Didn't answer my question," Joanne pressed.

"He's not doing too good."

"You sure you don't want me to come–"

"No! No, you and the kids just stay there, Joanne. Just – stay there."

That brief respite of talking to Joanne and then the kids – oh, Lord, he missed them! – was followed by another long period of sitting in the plastic chair next to Davey, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

He got up and paced a circle around the waiting room, first in one direction, then in another. And then he remembered that he wasn't a man who paced.

He sat back down. Davey got him another cup of toxic, caffeine-laden coffee that was very bad for him...

"...with a low groan that was almost a growl of pain, Johnny slammed the cup against the brick wall and Roy heard it shatter. There was enough light for him to see the coffee spill down the side of the wall..."

It was no use. Everything around him, even the stupid, mundane cup of coffee, drew him back to this horrible reality.

"I'm not half-bad as a listener, man," Davey offered.

Roy turned. He'd actually forgotten that the intern was still there.

He'd forgotten that Chuck Parker the Third was still there as well. The detective had taken a chair a distance from Roy and Davey, and was scribbling more notes in his small pad.

"Thanks," Roy said, "but I don't really have anything to say."

He checked his watch: a full two minutes had passed since he had last checked it.

He drank his coffee and tried not to think.

"Did you ever make a decision you knew you were going to regret for the rest of your life?"

"Alright, how `bout this: We're all part of a secret FBI operation, except for Carpenter, who's a double agent."

Johnny still believed Summers wasn't part of this, Roy realized. But Johnny hadn't replayed in his head the conversation he and Summers had had after Johnny had left the room.

"He doesn't have a record! I turned him in eleven years ago.

He's still free..."

How, Roy wondered, could Carpenter have really gotten away so fast, unless someone had helped him? Why hadn't Summers been able to get a warrant in time?

"I came out LA to stay with John..."

It had sounded so rational, so compassionate, Roy thought.

Sitting in his sister-in-law's cabin, he had thought Tom Summers was a dedicated, sympathetic FBI agent.

But Summers hadn't come to LA to be with Johnny: he'd come to keep watch over him, to let Carpenter know where he was, once Carpenter was ready for his revenge.

"Carpenter won years ago, Roy..."

"`For personal and professional reasons, I am tendering my resignation from the LACoFD as a firefighter/paramedic.

Revenge!

Roy could honestly say he'd never wanted revenge, didn't know what it felt like, had never been so angry or desperate as to want to cause suffering.

Until now. Maybe.

Don't even think about it, DeSoto! Don't even start down that path! Look what it did to Carpenter!

"What's he going to tell me about you that can be any worse than the fact that you've turned into someone who can stand there calmly and do this to yourself!"

"Probably that I graduated from cigarette butts."

"I see you've moved up from cigarette butts."

"Do you know why I did that? So I'd be able to feel something until this damn shift ended. So at least I'd know whether I was still alive!"

Johnny hadn't "turned into" someone who could do that to himself: he'd returned to being someone who could do it.

Cigarette butts pressed against his flesh. Scorching skin, shattered mugs, scalding coffee, sharp paring knives...

What a stupid way to express self-hatred.

"What a stupid, useless thing to do!"

"What's that?" Davey asked.

Roy started, and realized he'd been muttering to himself. He shrugged and said, "Nothing." He got up for another cup of coffee: the source was a pot in the corner of the nurses' station in the ER, and he helped himself to it.

"All those calls in the middle of the night..."

"It goes back to the kidnapping. Part of what I sanitized."

"John agreed to it. We've got it all on tape to use against Carpenter. Every threat, every insult, every word..."

Every groveling plea. Every tortured, desperate plea not to reveal Johnny's secret: Summers had it all on tape, now. Easy to keep John Gage under control with that kind of evidence, Roy thought.

If John Gage survived the next few hours.

He checked his watch again: another fifteen minutes had passed.

What was Carpenter doing now? Roy wondered. Maybe sitting at a restaurant somewhere, laughing with Summers over their vicious acts. Maybe planning what they'd do next.

"So, you've arrested him?"

"Not yet..."

Incompetence couldn't begin to account for eleven years of failing to arrest Carpenter. And it couldn't account for the fact that somehow Carpenter had re-created himself so well that he'd gotten back into the Bureau and made his way up to the level of Branch Chief.

"He knew what Carpenter wanted from me."

"To cost you your job?"

"Among other things."

"Are you still as nice and tight as you were eleven years ago, fag? Or have you been whoring around since then? You been playing the scene with other men, huh?"

No! Not Johnny.

He knew Johnny...

No. No, he didn't know Johnny...

"Incest... Such a nasty word, isn't it?"

"...He's abusing the oldest one already..."

John Carpenter. He was too young to have to go through this, Roy thought. And too old. His brothers and sisters might not comprehend it, might not remember all the details later. But John Carpenter would.

What did you talk about with him on the way to the cemetery, Johnny? What did you tell him about his parentage? What does he know that no child should ever have to know?

He checked his watch: another ten minutes had gone by. Why did time slow down when you were waiting?

"Do it."

"A nice, long, passionate kiss..."

Johnny's lips parting...

"You were enjoying yourself!" Roy's hand between Johnny's legs...

Why the hell did time stop when the only thing in your mind was something you never wanted to think about again!

"I can't let those kids end up with him, Roy. If it means testifying - then I'll testify."

Testifying. That was almost laughable, Roy thought. Johnny would never have to testify, not with Summers around helping Carpenter evade the law, keep up his cover in the FBI. There wouldn't be a trial now, any more than there had been one eleven years ago.

"Roy. Sit!" Davey was down to monosyllables now, and Roy was down to barely being able to follow orders. He sat. Davey sat next to him.

The clock in the ER inched ahead a minute at a time, each minute encompassing hours.

"Did you miss having me inside that nice, tight little ass of yours? Did you miss me, Johnny? Dream about me? Jerk off thinking about me?"

"You should have seen the performance he put on for me eleven years ago. It was quite a display..."

Roy rubbed a hand across his eyes, willing all thoughts away.

"Did you enjoy having your dear, devoted partner kiss you?"

"Yes."

No! His first answer was no!

"Roy, Tom would no more have taken part in what happened last night than you would!"

"I did take part in it..."

"I want you to get a rise out of him, lover boy. Like the one you got when you kissed him..."

Who was Johnny thinking of?

"You been playing the scene with other men, huh?"

He wasn't thinking of Roy.

"He's a horny little fag. Probably jerks off lying right next to you every night in the fire station.

It wasn't Roy...

"It wasn't me."

"What wasn't you?" Davey asked quietly.

Roy heard him, but he couldn't look at him. Not with all this in his head.

They were lies, all lies.

"I'm a walking, talking lie, Roy! And no one sees through it, not even you..."

Noise filled the emergency department again. Lots of noise: feet on tile, shuffling clothes, low, male voices.

Another patient coming in, Roy thought, and stared at his coffee.

"Hey, man."

Roy struggled to face Davey, who had turned to see what the commotion was.

"You expecting the cavalry?"

"What?" Even as he formed the nearly mindless response, Roy turned around in his chair.

The first thing he noticed was that Special Agent Tom Summers was wearing the same clothes he'd worn yesterday when he'd been at the cabin.

The second thing Roy noticed was the expression of near-panic on his face.

And then, as they rounded the corner of the hospital corridor, Roy saw the crew from Station 51, all of them looking as if they'd just come from a difficult run, all of them looking anxious.

All of them there!

Along with two other firefighters and several uniformed police officers.

"Where's John?" Summers snapped quickly, as Roy stood to meet the onslaught head-on.

"You guys sure know how to start a good fire," Chet remarked at nearly the same moment. "What were you and Gage trying to do, send out smoke signals or something?"

"What happened, Roy?" Captain Stanley asked quietly.

"Whoa, man, this is far out," Davey added, adjusting his headband. "You guys must be pretty important to rank this kind of attention."

Roy cleared his throat and answered the questions in turn, looking first at Summers, then Chet, then the Captain.

"He's in surgery. Yes, we were. I can't go into detail right now. And no," he added for Davey's benefit, "we're not that important."

Stanley didn't look happy with his answer, but Roy was less worried about that right now. He focused on Summers.

"You mind telling me where you were last night? What happened to your men? Where were they? And why the hell didn't you tell me Carpenter was the Bureau –"

He didn't get any further before Summers grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the others.

"Looks like a private meeting," Roy heard Stanley mutter to the others. "I'm sorry, I'm Hank Stanley, Station 51. And you are?"

The introductions between Davey and the rest of the crew took place while Roy watched Summers try to control his own responses.

"Your family is missing," Summers said quietly. Roy's stomach lurched, then settled again.

"No they're not. I told them to get out of the house and go somewhere to keep out of sight. Sounds like your 24-hour surveillance of them fell through, doesn't it?"

"What happened to you two last night? I found the clearing," Summers added. "John's shirt and belt. The jackknife. And a lot of blood."

Roy glared at the man. "What happened? You were there!"

"What?"

"I know it and so does Johnny, now. So stop –"

"I don't know what you're smoking, DeSoto, but I wasn't anywhere near there last night! Dear God in Heaven, what the hell would make you think I was?"

"Where were you then?" Roy pushed. "Where were those two vigilant FBI agents who were supposed to keep an eye on us?"

"Those two vigilant agents are missing. I haven't found them yet. But I have a nasty suspicion they met the same fate as your friend, Lucky."

"Lucky?"

"We found - actually, your Captain, over there - found him this morning. He's dead. Shot once in the back of the head."

The brief fire of rage that had built inside him at the sight of Summers was drenched in cold numbness. "Lucky..."

He must have seen the men. Maybe they didn't have their ski masks on. Maybe they stopped for directions, then made sure the old man couldn't identify them later...

"And as for where I was last night," Summers continued, oblivious to the effect his news was having, "I went back to LA, just like I said I would, to brief my agents there. Then I came back to check in with the guys on the mountain: only they were gone. Your place looked secure, so I went back to LA to get a search team together for my agents. We've been looking for them and you all morning!" The man crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for a response from Roy.

He lowered his voice to a hiss. "Why didn't you tell me Carpenter was your boss?"

Summers' eyes flashed briefly. "He's not. Not technically." He sounded a bit defeated. "My department doesn't fall under him directly. He works in the same building, but we didn't run into each other until a couple months ago. I spend a lot of time in the field."

"And you didn't think it was important to tell me that Carpenter was still working for the FBI?"

"Not still," Summers said, shaking his head. "Again. New alias, remember? And all the tricks of the trade. You should take a look at his portfolio some day, DeSoto. It's a work of art. Now what the hell makes you think I was there last night?"

Roy swallowed. "Everyone but Carpenter had a ski mask," he started. "He said – you were one of the men." He waited, but he couldn't read Summers' expression. "It made sense," Roy explained. "The fact that he disappeared with Johnny's sister so easily: the fact that Johnny gave you the information he had, and the guy's been at large all this time. The fact that you decided not to warn Johnny that Carpenter was back here, much less that he was back in the FBI and working with you!"

Summers let out a long, angry breath, and kept his gaze pinned on Roy. "He's the Bureau Chief. The first time I saw him, I put together my own task force to get him. I went around him: over his head, behind his back. Do you have any idea how hard it is to convince a Division Chief that one of his Bureau Chiefs is a psychotic who used to be on our most wanted list? I had to keep a very low profile, because I was the only one who could really nail his ass to the wall. And he remembered me.

"Carpenter went through my office, found my files, found out where John was, what his name was now. He bought a house in your precinct and set the trap."

Roy said nothing. His instinct, which had been almost hyperactive for the past weeks, had turned off. Burned out.

"Johnny still trusts you," he said quietly. "I don't."

The man looked at him evenly for a minute. Then he glanced at the ground. After a minute, while Roy listened to the quiet conversations going on behind him, Summers looked back up.

"Johnny stayed with me when we relocated him out here eleven years ago," he said quietly. "Very much against policy and standard operations. And I really didn't give a damn."

"That's a touching story!" It didn't matter, Roy thought: somewhere along the line, Summers had changed.

"His family had dissolved." Summers ignored Roy's sarcasm. "He had to start all over – again – with yet another name, another history. Find new interests, new hobbies..."

"That class I took in forensic pathology..."

"Where'd you get that from, one of your outdoor safari classes, or that vocabulary enrichment class?"

"You have no idea how hard that was. And after all that had happened to him – he really didn't even want to live."

"The worst thing is, I learned I could live with it...Finally, even get to the point where it didn't make me sick to look in the mirror any more..."

Under any normal circumstance, Roy thought, the expression in Summers' eyes would have told him everything he needed to know. But normal circumstances hadn't been prevalent for a while, so Roy just waited and listened.

"I worked with him – with others and with him – a lot. By the time he turned eighteen," the FBI agent said, "he not only wanted to live: he wanted to save other lives."

"I turned myself from a villain into a hero..."

"That kid bounces back better than anyone I've ever seen in my life." Summers took a deep breath, looking Roy over critically. "I told you Johnny agreed to call Carpenter, to try to get him to talk himself into a confession? Johnny didn't `agree' to the plan: he came up with it. Asked me to help. There's nothing he wants more right now than to get those kids out and put Carpenter away where he belongs – forever."

"Nice words," Roy said finally. "But after last night..."

"Alright, fine! I'm off the case." He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Roy. "There's the number of my boss. Call him, tell him what's happened. Tell him to get someone down here now, and tell him to get someone over to Carpenter's place: I have men in position to arrest him as soon as they get the word."

"Why weren't they in position last night?" Roy demanded.

"I don't know!" Summers said frustration and anger and exhaustion in his words. "So tell whoever you talk to that you don't trust them, either. I don't care. I'll resign this minute if that will reassure you. I'm not far from retirement anyway. But I want to know what happened to John."

It was the smallest thing, the mere hint of a break in Summers' voice, that convinced Roy. Desperation: not about his operation, not about his career, not about Carpenter. Desperation about Johnny.

What happened to John?

Maybe that was Special Agent Tom Summers' bottom line.

"Based on what Carpenter said during the attack last night," Roy began, relenting a little, "pretty much the same things that happened to him eleven years ago."

"Oh, no." Summers looked pale.

"Carpenter filled me in on what happened back then."

The haunted look in the FBI agent's eyes confirmed Roy's decision: maybe the man was incompetent. Maybe the system didn't work. Maybe a lot of things.

But Roy doubted there was anything but concern for Johnny going through his mind right now.

"Everything?" the man asked, his voice very low.

"Everything. At least – enough to know what he was blackmailing Johnny with. He was one of the men who kidnapped Johnny and Jenny, wasn't he?"

Summers nodded slowly. "Yeah. He and the others kept their identities hidden at the time. Ski masks and silence. It wasn't until later, something Jenny said to John, that John realized who he was. That's when he told me."

"And he got away. With Jenny."

"She was raped multiple times. Somewhere along the line, she started blocking everything that was happening to her. She was pregnant when we finally got them out. And when Johnny realized Carpenter was one of the men – she wouldn't believe him. She wouldn't talk to him. She was – very angry at him."

"They forced him–" Roy started.

"Try explaining that to a pregnant sixteen-year-old who's been held prisoner for two months and psychologically and physically brutalized. She needed a scapegoat, and John was the only thing handy. She left with Carpenter, I think, partly to hurt John. And partly because she needed a knight in shining armor, and that's how Carpenter looked at the time."

He paused, then looked past Roy to the group of men standing a little away from them, waiting for news. "How bad is he?"

Roy shrugged. "He lost a lot of blood and there's internal bleeding. They haven't been able to get his blood volume up, and they couldn't risk waiting any longer. It'll probably be a few more hours before he's out."

"Agent Summers?" They both turned at the call from one of the police officers. "I just got word from dispatch for you to call your office. They said to tell you they found the pack of cigarettes. - They got him."

Summers almost smiled.

E!

Roy remembered very little of what happened after that. He remembered that Captain Stanley and Tom Summers talked for a while. Then, with a few parting remarks about Roy's cooking skills and the work that would need to be done to the cabin now, he and the others went to the small cafeteria in the building to wait for word on Johnny's condition.

He remembered the firefighters and most of the extra police leaving, again after a brief talk with Summers. He remembered that Chuck the Third had not left: he was waiting for news about Johnny, waiting to see if his assault case was going to turn into homicide.

Davey Kritzer hung around, too, though not for professional reasons: he hovered around Roy like a guardian angel, as if he had nothing else to do. Roy barely noticed him, except when he wandered off for a while or went to the head. Then he was struck with a sense of vulnerability he'd never encountered before.

He remembered, as Summers checked repeatedly with his men by phone, the odd reference to the pack of cigarettes.

"I put a tracer in them before I gave them to John," Summers explained later. "When I didn't find them at the clearing up there, I prayed John had left them in whatever vehicle you'd been kidnapped in."

Carpenter, Roy learned later, had gone shopping that morning, stocking up on supplies: he was ready to flee again. He'd left the children alone all night, and the FBI had staked out his house, waiting for his return.

By the early morning, when he hadn't shown up, a warrant was issued to remove the children from the house and to charge Alex Carpenter with child neglect and endangerment.

By late afternoon, that was the least of Carpenter's worries. Thanks to the cigarettes in the trunk of his car, Carpenter was facing multiple weapons charges, as well as charges of assault, kidnapping, attempted murder, fraud, and a host of others Roy couldn't keep track of when Summers detailed them.

"Best of all," the agent concluded, "once we had a warrant to get the kids, it was easy to get one to search his house. Guess what he has growing in his back yard."

Roy shook his head, too weary to guess.

"Foxglove."

Foxglove! Digitalis.

"That's murder one," Summers informed him.

"What about the evidence he tried to frame Johnny with?"

"Pathetic as it was, it shouldn't be much of a problem," Summers concluded. "My guess is that he knew John wouldn't be convicted on that evidence, but it was enough to make his life – and yours – hell while you battled it."

"What about the others?" Roy remembered asking. "His henchmen?"

"That's going to take a little longer," Summers admitted. "Anything you can remember, anything you can tell us, would help. If Summers can't be convinced to cooperate, we'll probably be chasing phantoms for the next twenty years."

"Like you've been doing for the last eleven?" Roy pointed out. It was, perhaps, a low blow. But Roy didn't pay much attention to Summers' reaction in any case.

It was well past dark when the surgeon finally came back to the waiting room with the news they'd been waiting for.

"He's stabilized," the man said. "That's the best I can say. Whoever worked him over did a thorough job. Both kidneys are badly bruised. He had internal bleeding and some damage to the muscle wall. If he can hold his own for the next few hours, he should be okay."

"Can we see him?" Roy asked.

"He's in recovery. He's not awake yet. He might not really be conscious or alert for some time. But if you want to..."

He let Roy and Tom Summers in together, urging them to keep their stay short. They did: Johnny was not responsive to any of their words of encouragement or support or comfort. His face was disfigured from the bruises and wounds on his head. His left hand had been re-wrapped again: the fingertips, all that showed through the gauze, were purple and red and swollen from the broken bones.

"We caught the bastard, Johnny," Summers whispered to the unconscious man. "He's in custody. The kids are safe." When he had finished, he left the area quickly, his eyes filled.

Roy let Summers go find the crew of Station 51 and tell them the news. He called Joanne to let her know she could return to the house.

"Tomorrow," he decided. "Enjoy the night there."

"I'd enjoy it more with you," she suggested.

"I've gotta stay here a little longer," he apologized. "I miss you."

"I love you, too," she said.

When Johnny was moved to intensive care, Roy and Summers followed.

"I'm sorry," the unit nurse apologized. "Immediate next of kin, only."

"Mr. Gage is in the protective custody of the FBI," Summers explained, using his badge as a visual aid. "And this," he added, gesturing to Roy, "is his immediate next of kin."

E!

Roy didn't remember falling asleep in the ICU, his head cradled in his folded arms, resting on the edge of Johnny's bed. The quiet, rhythmic sounds of the EKG monitor soon synchronized with his own heart beat, a hypnotizing effect.

He did remember the dreams. The nightmares.

"Friends? - Very close friends? - In-ti-mate friends?"

"Kiss him."

"No."

"One more chance, DeSoto..."

I have to get home!

I can't do this to Johnny...

Joanne..?

"I - can't."

"You can..."

The soft brush of Johnny's lips...

"That wasn't a kiss...I want to see a real kiss. A passionate kiss. Now!"

Johnny roamed with him, dancing in a cavern of delight, their movements duplicating each other, their arms entwined, the passion deep, their love deeper...

Joanne...

He groaned with pleasure, and he wanted to give more...

Johnny...

"You're a little fag too, aren't you, DeSoto? You were enjoying yourself..."

"Probably jerks off lying right next to you every night in the fire station. – Right, Johnny-fag?

"Did you enjoy having your dear, devoted partner kiss you?"

"Yes..."

"... Get a rise out of him, lover boy. Like the one you got when you kissed him..."

His hand moving tentatively, fearfully at first... then more decisively, more actively...

... Johnny's breath growing more ragged...

No!

"I'm married."

"A lot of fags cover their perversions by marrying..."

A hand touched his arm lightly, and he woke with a start.

Johnny's eyes, puffy and bloodshot, stared at him from the pillow. "The kids?" he asked, his lips parched and his throat rasping from the endotracheal tube used during his surgery.

"They're in police custody," Roy told him. It was hard to meet his eyes: hard to look at them now without seeing last night's horror.

"Joanne?"

"She's fine. They're safe." He rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the images out of his mind.

Johnny looked at him, shook his head, and tried to smile. "They won't go away," he whispered, his lips and teeth barely moving. "Not for a long time."

"Johnny -"

"Where's Tom?"

"Johnny, about – about what they forced me – to do last night..."

Johnny's face lost all expression. "I don't remember – anything they forced you to do."

It was a bald-faced and pathetic lie. But it was also a boundary Roy knew not to cross.

Not now, at least.

Roy held his partner's gaze for a few seconds, then said, "Summers is in the waiting room." He stood up. "I'll go get him."

Johnny's hand reached for him, not quite making contact, but stopping his exit nonetheless.

"You're alive, Roy," he whispered. His voice still scraped with every word. "If he'd killed you…" He closed his eyes quickly, tightly. He looked back. "I couldn't have lived with that." He swallowed hard and looked away.

"Did you enjoy having your dear, devoted partner kiss you?"

No!

Yes...

Roy shut his eyes and rubbed them again. Two weeks ago, Johnny's words would have been an uncomplicated statement of friendship. A deep friendship built upon years of facing terrible situations together; working as a team; fending off boring hours of inactivity with wild stories and stupid schemes.

Two weeks ago, those words would have left Roy with a smile on his face and a reassurance that he and his partner were, in fact, a very good team.

Now, however, the words were coded to forgive Roy his complicity in the brutal assault. Were they also coded to tell him something more?

"... have you been whoring around... playing the scene with other men?"

"Trying to tell me something?"

"...I'm not that subtle."

"That's true..."

"... I can lie like hell if I really want to..."

"I'll tell Summers you're awake," Roy said, making a swift exit.

E!

Roy made the trek to the hospital in Panoche each night to visit Johnny. Sometimes Summers was there when he arrived. He always left when Roy showed up, and Roy never stayed long. Staying too long would lead to discussions Roy wasn't ready to have.

Only once did Roy take the opportunity to talk at all with Summers. After one awkwardly–timed simultaneous visit to John's room, they rode the elevator down together.

"Just out of curiosity," Roy tried, "who killed Johnny's mother? Was it Carpenter?"

He didn't have to look at Summers' face: he could feel the shock wave from the unexpected question. The FBI agent stared straight ahead at the elevator doors. "No one ever said she died."

"Yeah, you did... At the hospital..."

"Was that the murder Johnny mentioned?" Roy pressed, ignoring Summers' first answer. "His mother's?"

"No," Summers confessed. "Carpenter didn't kill John's mother."

"Then who did?"

The elevator doors opened onto the front lobby and Summers stepped out. He met Roy's eyes for just a second. "That topic isn't open for discussion." And with that, he left the building.

"I've never heard you talk about your mother."

"You never will."

One little Indian was still unaccounted for.

E!E!E!

To Be Continued…