It had been difficult to find a time when they both were free. Hakkai usually worked all weekend since Gojyo's bartending job kept him busy then. Sanzo was on duty most weekdays. But this Wednesday, Hakkai didn't have anything scheduled, Gojyo was taking care of returning client calls, and Goku was away at an overnight softball camp.

"Where are we going?" Hakkai asked when Sanzo picked him up.

"It's a surprise."

"If you really want it to be a surprise, blindfold me."

The idea hit Sanzo right in the gut, and lower. It was an intriguing idea, but impractical; they weren't going to be driving that far. Besides, Sanzo didn't want to draw the interest of anyone who might spot him with a blindfolded passenger. "I don't think so."

Sanzo pulled into the driveway.

"This is your place, right?" Hakkai said.

"You've been by here before," Sanzo said gruffly.

"Yes, but that was at night and I couldn't see the house that well. I know which road it's on, but I wasn't exactly sure which house it was."

It was reassuring to know that Hakkai hadn't gone by the house repeatedly since following him home from the restaurant. Sanzo had wondered about that. Hakkai's level of possessiveness after such a short acquaintance had done nothing for his half-buried concerns that Hakkai might have stalker-like tendencies.

Sanzo and Goku's entire house looked about as lived-in as the front room at Hakkai and Gojyo's. Sanzo had attempted to straighten up and do some basic cleaning that morning, with particular attention to the toilet, tub, and sink, which were on the filthy side. He suspected that what he'd done still didn't come close to meeting Hakkai's exacting standards, but Hakkai might as well know what he was getting into if they were going to continue seeing each other. At least if it backfired, it would make a funny anecdote later on: "The last man I slept with broke up with me because my house was too messy."

Sanzo unlocked the door and held it open. Hakkai walked inside without being obvious about looking the place over. Instead, he was smiling with genuine delight, which made Sanzo's heart pound, though he couldn't tell if it was due to happiness or terror.

Hakkai tugged Sanzo toward him and kissed him. "Thank you for bringing me here," he said when he drew back, pupils dilated and black with desire. He looked around, examining the photos of a younger Goku and Sanzo as a child with Father Cameron; Goku's sports awards; the foul ball Goku had caught the last time they attended a Yankees game; and some memorabilia Sanzo had brought back from a summer he'd spent on an archeological dig during college.

After a peek into the kitchen, where the mail, newspapers, and other junk piled on the table drove Hakkai away, Sanzo led him to the backyard where he kept a primitive target practice area set up with tin cans on wooden boxes. First he showed Hakkai how to assemble, load, and disassemble the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson he owned for off-duty use. Next, he demonstrated his shooting prowess, then asked, "Want to try it yourself? You're not supposed to fire a handgun unless you have a pistol permit, but I'll be guiding you." He aimed for a light, matter-of-fact-tone of voice, but they both knew what he was getting at.

Adrenaline coursed through him as he nudged at Hakkai's knee to get him to move his foot. He stepped away to examine Hakkai's stance. After pulling Hakkai's shoulders back, he moved back behind him and gripped Hakkai's hands just as Hakkai gripped the butt of the gun. Sanzo watched over Hakkai's shoulder as he aimed and pulled the trigger, losing his balance and falling back a bit because of the recoil.

"It's a rush, isn't it?" Sanzo murmured as Hakkai's lips found his.

Each step along the path of seduction by gun took them a little farther until they were nipping and frotting against each other after every round. After dismantling the weapon, Sanzo went back inside and put it away in the gun safe in his room.

"Make yourself comfortable," Sanzo said while he rummaged in the nightstand. When he straightened back up, he was startled but amused to discover that to Hakkai, making himself comfortable involved taking off all of his clothes. Sanzo pulled the blinds shut and was thankful that his room didn't overlook the road out front.

They lay next to each other afterward, Hakkai resting his head against Sanzo's chest. Sanzo aimed his post-coital cigarette toward a fan that vented the smoke out the window.

"Does being happy ever scare you? If I feel too content, I wonder what's coming around the corner to balance the scales," Hakkai said softly.

The remark took Sanzo by surprise. "No," he said. "But I've never felt so happy that I've been scared of losing it. I'm not a happy person by nature, I guess. My foster father taught me to seek perfection but never to expect it. It's not exactly a recipe for contentment."

"Is that the priest I saw in those photographs of you from when you were younger?"

Sanzo stubbed out his cigarette violently, as if he had a grudge against it, and sighed. "I guess I should tell you something about my past. I was left on the porch of the rectory of the local Episcopal church when I was an infant, back when leaving babies at police stations and hospitals didn't give parents protection from prosecution. Father Cameron took me in, raised me, and named me, but he never adopted me because he hoped that someday one or both of my parents would step forward or be found. It was his way of leaving that door open."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to open old wounds."

Sanzo shrugged and lit another cigarette. "When I got home from a club meeting after school one day when I was thirteen, I found him in the church, dead. He'd been stabbed and the church had been ransacked. The perps were never caught."

"What happened after that?"

"I bounced around from one foster home to another until I aged out."

"What about the next priest? Didn't he help you out?"

"Father Cameron was personally responsible for me, not the church. His superiors patted him on the back for what he did and didn't stand in his way, but I wasn't their problem. The next priest appointed here had a wife and children of his own. He wasn't going to let a total stranger live with them."

Hakkai put his hand over Sanzo's and squeezed. "That's an odd coincidence. I was also in foster care of a sort. My mother left me and my younger sister at what had been a Catholic home for wayward girls when I was four or so. My father had disappeared long before."

Sanzo wrapped his free arm around Hakkai protectively and continued puffing on his cigarette until it was too short to smoke anymore.

The next time Sanzo was at Hakkai and Gojyo's, Sanzo took the opportunity, while Hakkai was in the bathroom, to take another look at the photograph that had been on Hakkai's nightstand previously. It was now hidden and turned toward the wall behind other photographs and mementos on Hakkai's dresser. He felt a little funny looking at it behind Hakkai's back, but now that he knew that Hakkai had a younger sister, he wanted to see whether the picture was of her.

The teenager in the photo had long chestnut hair that was pulled back and plaited in a thick braid. He couldn't determine the exact color of her eyes, but they looked like they were either hazel or green. Now he was fairly sure that it was Hakkai's sister. Thinking back on it, he didn't know why he hadn't asked Hakkai what had happened to her. They'd been talking about a lot of personal crap, though; maybe asking would have felt like prying into Hakkai's personal business. If Hakkai chose not to talk about it, was it really his place to force him to?

Some impulse caused him to take his cell phone out and snap a photo, though he couldn't have pinpointed exactly why when it felt like he was prying. Perhaps his experience with Koh had made him overly suspicious.

It had been nearly three months since Sanzo and Hakkai had met and two months since they'd begun having sex. Hakkai spent an increasing amount of his free time puttering around Sanzo's. The piles of junk on the kitchen table began dwindling and the bathroom began looking less like a science experiment gone awry.

Although Sanzo still didn't call them dates, they went out once or twice most weeks. Rumors flew that the two of them were an item. Some of the more stubborn or prejudiced folks convinced themselves that the two men were merely friends while others nodded their heads at this confirmation of their assumptions about Sanzo's sexual orientation, but residual respect for Father Cameron and what Sanzo had been through kept public murmuring to a minimum.

They even took Goku to a Yankees game before school started again. Although Hakkai proved shy about having his photograph taken, Goku managed to take a few of him and of him and Sanzo while they were at the game, along with photos of his favorite players.

As for the logistics of sex, after their initial disagreement, Hakkai didn't press Sanzo to let him stay overnight. Goku made things easier on them by staying away from the house on days that both men had off so they could have some privacy. Sanzo tried his best to bury the used condoms and foil wrappers among the other trash, but since collecting and taking the trash out was one of Goku's chores, he wasn't sure how successful he was in keeping that aspect of their relationship out of sight.

Having exhausted the obvious places for two men to go to amuse themselves during the day, Sanzo figured that the local shooting range would be a good place for blowing off a little steam. He still couldn't bring himself to call it a date, though that's really what it was.

Apparently he was wrong. Not only did Hakkai keep canceling on him, once he finally showed up, he found the .22 caliber rifles that were available for those without pistol permits too heavy and unwieldy, nearly falling on his ass due to the kick; turned white when the bullet hit anywhere near the target on the paper figures at which they were aiming; and nearly fainted when Sanzo tried to give him some hands-on assistance.

If he hadn't been so worried, Sanzo would have torn Hakkai a new one as he dragged him out of the concrete building, his muscles lax and his eyes nearly rolled up inside his head. Getting him in the truck and buckling his seat belt was a bitch when he kept flopping around, and the coughing spasms he had while Sanzo drove threatened to produce puke the color of the salad he'd had for lunch.

Sanzo was grateful that Gojyo was home, as it made bringing Hakkai inside much easier. Gojyo raised an eyebrow and asked, "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Sanzo said. "All of a sudden he got sick while we were at the shooting range. I don't know what the fuck is wrong, but something's not right."

"Did he say anything?" Gojyo asked as they dragged Hakkai into his bedroom and pulled him onto the bed.

"He muttered something about blood a couple of times."

This made Gojyo's ears perk up. "Like what?" he asked as the two of them removed Hakkai's shoes and pulled the quilt over him. Sanzo would have stayed in the bedroom with Hakkai, but he needed to talk with Gojyo, so he followed him to the living room.

"How the hell am I supposed to remember? Some crap about there being too much blood. It makes no freaking sense. They're just targets with holes in them."

Gojyo looked thoughtful. "Those targets, they have the outlines of human figures on them, right?"

"A torso and a head. Why?"

Gojyo remained silent.

"What aren't you telling me?"

All Gojyo would say was, "If he has anything to tell you, you need to hear it from him, not me," which infuriated Sanzo.

"Something's wrong with your friend," he said, "and you're not helping."

Gojyo lashed out. "If you hadn't insisted on him going to the shooting range to begin with, this wouldn't have happened!"

Sanzo stared at him open-mouthed. "I didn't force him. He was fine shooting at empty cans behind my house."

Gojyo remained silent and slouched sullenly on the couch, head down and arms crossed. Sanzo sighed and got to his feet. If Gojyo was going to assist Hakkai in keeping secrets from him, he could take care of Hakkai by himself. He knew he was acting childishly, but he couldn't help it.

Before he left, though, he asked Gojyo point-blank, "How long have the two of you known each other, and where did you meet?"

Gojyo deliberately aimed the smoke from his cigarette at Sanzo. "We've known each other for a long time. As to where we met, that's none of your business unless Hakkai wants to tell you. And I'm not going to tell you how we met, either."

"Hakkai already told me that you rescued him after he'd been injured and that without your intervention, he would have died. That in effect you were a Good Samaritan."

"Huh. That's true, but anything more, Hakkai has to tell you."

Sanzo slammed the front door on his way out.

After that exchange, the mild twinges of curiosity about Hakkai's past blossomed into full-fledged concern. Looking back at it, other than that brief revelation about his experience with foster care, Hakkai had been remarkably tight-lipped about his past, and Sanzo, who was more than happy to leave his own past alone, had let it slip by him. Some investigator he had turned out to be.

The first step he took, after sending an e-mail asking if Hakkai was all right and receiving assurances from Gojyo that he had recovered, was to check Hakkai's identity. He discovered that the name "Hakkai Cho" didn't show up in any database, including the most definitive one – Social Security – until eight years ago. While there were possible innocent explanations for this, the sinister explanations outnumbered them.

Sanzo felt angry and betrayed. He'd ignored the warning signs and let someone else get close, then hurt him. Worse yet, he'd let Hakkai get close to Goku. But other than his occasionally creepy and controlling personality, Sanzo hadn't noticed anything really off about Hakkai until recently. Apparently, his gut wasn't as trustworthy as he thought it was.

It was impossible for Sanzo to pretend that nothing had happened. Given what he'd found out, a clean break was best. He didn't try to contact Hakkai or Gojyo, and neither of them tried to contact him, either. It was as if the last few months had never happened.

Goku was confused. He didn't understand why Sanzo wasn't seeing Hakkai anymore. Sanzo didn't feel like explaining his suspicions in case they turned out to be unfounded. Besides, in the absence of solid information, Goku might refuse to take Sanzo's concerns seriously and might even let Hakkai know that Sanzo was looking into his past.

Other people noticed, too, and started asking him questions that he pretended he didn't hear. As far as he was concerned, the ball was in Hakkai's court. He could mend matters between them if he took the initiative. His failure to do so demonstrated that keeping his secret was more important to him than Sanzo was.

The fact that the Hakkai Cho identity was so recent suggested that it wasn't his birth name, but Sanzo had no idea what his birth name might have been or whether he was from California like he had claimed. Sanzo remembered him hesitating when he'd said that he and Gojyo had moved to New York from Indiana. Maybe Indiana was a red herring, but that didn't help narrow things down much.

The stint in foster care that Hakkai had mentioned could have been a spur-of-the-moment improvisation, but the details were unusual enough that it might be true. So Sanzo started there, using databases he could access from his home computer first and only accessing databases at work when he stopped making headway. He wasn't supposed to use department computers for personal reasons, but he needed to find out for sure.

He narrowed the possibilities down to a couple of institutions - one in northern California and the other in Iowa. He called on his own time to ask if a brother and sister of part-Asian descent had been left there in the 1980s. Hakkai had told him that his birthday was September 21st and that he was born a year before Sanzo. Sanzo assumed that the year, at least, was correct.

It took a while to work through the phalanx of personnel and get answers to his questions. Some questions were more readily answered by people who'd been there at the time than by digging through the records. He also had to be careful to couch his questions as personal, not official. It was less of a problem for Gregory Sanzo to pretend to be looking for a long-lost relative than to present himself as a police officer trying to find out why shooting at targets made a man using an assumed identity woozy when shooting at aluminum cans didn't.

After a couple of weeks of research and phone calls, he learned that a brother and sister named Gonou and Kanan Zhu had entered what was then known as the Holy Mother of God Sanctuary for Wayward Girls in Eureka, California in 1984. When he e-mailed a copy of the photograph he'd taken of the girl's photo, along with the photograph of Hakkai that Goku had taken at the ballpark, the girl was readily identified as Kanan Zhu. Due to the lapse of time, it wasn't possible to identify the man in the photo as Gonou Zhu, but the people at the home agreed that it could be him. At any rate, their records showed that Gonou Zhu had striking green eyes.

Sanzo expected to feel more triumphant than he did once he had information on Hakkai's childhood. While his adrenaline surged because he'd tracked him down and confirmed that some of what Hakkai had told him was true, he also felt sick to his stomach now that he was about to find out Hakkai's secret. He learned that when Gonou turned eighteen, the Zhus had left Holy Mother of God and settled in town while he attended community college and Kanan entered the local high school. Within a couple of years, though, Kanan had been found dead in a notorious heroin addicts' shooting gallery and Gonou had disappeared.

The next step was tricky. It might be necessary to use contacts within the law enforcement community to get the complete picture. Sanzo didn't want to out Hakkai - or Gonou, or whatever his name was - unnecessarily, but he also needed to know what the man had done. It would piss him off if it turned out that the first person he'd slept with since Koh was a fugitive.

First he found newspaper articles about Kanan Zhu's death. Because of her clothing, tattoos, and location, the police had surmised that she was part of Centi's posse. Centi was a pimp who befriended schoolgirls, convinced them he was hopelessly in love with them, and then cut them loose to turn tricks. They had to give him the majority of their earnings or else starve. He also hooked them on drugs to keep them pliable and indebted to him.

Her obituary mentioned that the sole surviving member of her family was her beloved older brother, Gonou. The news articles painted a picture of a man in agony over his sister's death. She had moved out of the apartment they shared and stopped going to school because of Centi's influence, which she must have regretted, because her overdose had been so large as to be deliberate, not accidental.

Sanzo checked for any mention of Centi in the archives of the local newspaper that were available online. When that didn't turn up enough information, he got in touch with the research desk at the library in Eureka, posing as someone writing about gangs. The librarian e-mailed him copies of newspaper articles about Mario Bonaventura, also known as Centi, who was killed, along with his family and several associates, in a fire several months after Kanan Zhu's death. The arson squad had determined that the fire was deliberately set, but a more grisly find had been made: all but one victim had been shot to death beforehand.

Because of his grudge against Centi, Gonou Zhu had been questioned, but he'd had an alibi and been released. Besides, the fact that one victim who had died in the fire had not been shot beforehand suggested that he might be the culprit. It was possible that there had been a falling out and shootout among the gang; the fire had compromised nearly all of the forensic evidence.

But that didn't change one salient fact: almost immediately after the police let him go, Gonou Zhu had moved away or disappeared, depending on who you asked. A month afterward, he'd been treated at a hospital in Chico for a drug overdose. The man who'd signed him out of the hospital against medical advice, while he was still too doped up to sign himself, was named Gojyo Shah. Within another month, Hakkai Cho surfaced for the first time.

Regardless of how it looked, Sanzo was convinced that Gonou Zhu was responsible for the deaths at Centi's. The question was what to do with this knowledge.

It took some doing, but Sanzo arranged to meet with Gojyo and Hakkai one evening after dinner. He would have preferred talking to Hakkai alone, but he understood why Hakkai wanted Gojyo as a buffer. Or maybe Gojyo had insisted on being there.

Goku was happy when Sanzo told him where he was going that evening. He grinned and said he wouldn't wait up, and Sanzo didn't correct Goku's assumption that he was going to Hakkai's to reconcile with him.

When he arrived, Gojyo opened the door. They sat at the dining table in the front room where they'd had dinner together. Hakkai's face looked pinched, and he smiled less than usual. He barely looked at Sanzo, who didn't bother to try so much as shaking his hand. Sanzo knew better than to expect any acknowledgment from Gojyo other than a curt nod.

Gojyo sat with his chair facing backwards and tipped it forward as he leaned on it. No one spoke. Sanzo supposed it made sense, seeing as he had pressured them into this meeting, but this was getting ridiculous.

After running his fingers though his hair a couple of times, Sanzo surprised himself by asking, "Why?"

Hakkai looked him in the eye for a second, then looked back down at the table. "I don't know what you mean. Why what?"

"Why not tell me you didn't want to go to the shooting range? Make up a story. Tell me you had friends who were shot or something. Don't force yourself to do something that's going to sicken you and bring back bad memories."

Gojyo shifted in his seat. He looked surprised and thoughtful, but he kept quiet. Hakkai said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sanzo slapped his hand on the table. "Stop fucking around!" he said. "I can always let the police in Eureka know where Gonou Zhu lives."

"Gonou Zhu is dead," Hakkai said calmly.

"Hakkai Cho popped up on the radar as soon as Gonou Zhu disappeared. That's not a coincidence."

"Gonou Zhu had an alibi for that night, and Mario Bonaventura deserved everything he had coming to him."

Gojyo interrupted. "Look, even if all this is true, what's the point in stirring things up now? It's not like it happened here."

"While the world may be a better place without Centi and his henchmen, Centi's wife and children were murdered, too."

Hakkai put a restraining hand on Gojyo's arm. "Gojyo, can you leave us alone? I'd like to speak to Sanzo privately."

Gojyo looked dubious. "Okay, but I'm gonna be out on the porch in case you need me."

Hakkai smiled. "That's fine. Feel free to dash back in at the first sign of trouble."

After Gojyo left, slamming the door to punctuate his feelings, Hakkai said, "You're right. It was stupid of me not to tell you I didn't want to go. It was stupid of me to get involved with you in the first place." His voice quavered a little. "So what do you want to know?"

Sanzo sighed and lit a cigarette. "I had this all planned out. I meant to come here, tell you what I know, and ask you to give me a good reason why I shouldn't contact the authorities in Eureka and let the chips fall where they may."

"I can't stop you from doing that anyway. If I explain everything, won't you feel culpable if you do nothing? But if I talk and you turn me in, what I say can be used against me."

Sanzo shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you've got to take your chances."

"Then it's a good thing that you're the one deciding this, not someone who doesn't know me." He crumpled the edge of the tablecloth between his fingers and let go, alternately wrinkling and smoothing it out.

"I'm trying my best to be objective here, so don't expect me to cut you a break."

"So what do you already know?" Hakkai asked.

Sanzo recounted what he'd learned about Kanan, Centi, and the murders and arson at Centi's place. Hakkai told him, "I blame myself. I was an adult; she was still a child. I was supposed to be looking out for her. But I was so wrapped up in my studies that I didn't notice that she wasn't adjusting well to school. She was sheltered from having attended the parish school when we lived at the home, so she was an easy target for the most vicious of the girls at her new school."

"It sounds like she was exactly the kind of girl people like Centi prey on," Sanzo said. "I haven't witnessed this myself – in New York, those sorts of busts are left to vice – but I've heard about predators like him."

"In addition to seducing her and convincing her to run away with him, he raped her before turning her out. Then he got her hooked on heroin. She tried to leave after one of the animals who used her got her pregnant, but he wouldn't let her. By then, I'd found out where she was. She had needle tracks on her arms and looked like death warmed over. He beat her too, you know."

"Couldn't she get an abortion?"

"She was brought up by nuns. She was morally opposed to abortion."

"But suicide is considered a sin, too. Wasn't her overdose ruled a suicide?"

"She was buried in consecrated ground anyway. The priest told me that what had happened to her was murder, plain and simple."

Sanzo wasn't about to start an argument about that, so he took a different tack. "As terrible as what happened to your sister was, it doesn't justify what happened that night. How did Centi's wife and kids get caught in the crossfire, anyway?"

Hakkai rubbed his forehead. "They weren't supposed to be there. They were supposed to be at her mother's house. According to a report on one of the local TV stations, one of the kids got sick, so she brought them home."

Sanzo let that sink in a moment. "That's what's been bothering me the most, you know. That you would be involved in killing kids and a woman who never did anything to you."

Hakkai reached toward him, then let his arms fall helplessly to his sides. "I know. It bothers me, too. But it was too late to back out. We – I mean I – panicked."

"Don't tell me you weren't wearing something that hid your identity," Sanzo scoffed.

Hakkai glanced away. "We didn't expect anyone else to be there."

Sanzo plowed on. There'd been no mention in any of the news reports he'd seen that the presence of Centi's family was an accident, so he wasn't sure what to make of what Hakkai had told him. "You have contact with kids all the time now. You made friends with Goku. It's makes me a little sick, just thinking about it."

"What about you? Does having slept with me make you feel sick, too?"

"I'm just angry that you were able to pull the wool over my eyes."

Hakkai looked down at his hands. "I don't know if this matters to you, but their deaths bother me the most, too." He blinked tears out of his eyes. "In my nightmares, I can hear them screaming."

Sanzo wondered if this was a good piece of theater or if Hakkai was truly remorseful. "How can I trust you again after this?"

Hakkai shrugged. "I don't know. All I can say is that I'm not the same person I was then, and if I had it to do all over again, I'd do things differently."

"Differently how, I wonder. What about the alibi?" Sanzo asked.

"It was taken at face value because it was supplied by neighbors who weren't close friends, but everyone knew what had happened to Kanan and wanted to help. I can't say any more than that," Hakkai said firmly.

That probably meant that Gojyo was involved in it too, somehow.

"After all that, why try to kill yourself?"

"It turned out that killing people – even bad people - made me feel worse, not better. It didn't bring my sister back or lessen the pain she'd gone through, and now I'd caused pain of my own. Gojyo found me and called the ambulance to take me to the hospital so I could have my stomach pumped."

"At least you didn't try heroin."

"Ah ha, I wasn't eager to imitate my sister that closely."

They sat in silence. Sanzo stubbed out his cigarette, and Hakkai poured himself some coffee and stirred sugar and milk into it.

Finally, when the silence became awkward, Hakkai said, "So what happens now?"

"I need to think about things. There's no statute of limitations on murder, though there is on arson."

Hakkai hung his head. "I understand."

"Why didn't you just pull up stakes and leave already?"

"I tried to erase my past and start over." Sanzo looked at him skeptically. "It doesn't matter that Gojyo is someone I knew back then. We didn't know each other all that well at the time." Hakkai took a breath and went on. "We like it here, and Gojyo can't just leave the business behind like that. I didn't want to move again, either." He reached out toward Sanzo, who moved back slightly. Hakkai let his hand slide onto the table instead, his face clouding over.

"Would things really be different now?"

Hakkai shrugged. "I think I've changed. But there's no way to know for sure, is there?"

Sanzo got up. Hakkai reached out a hand. Sanzo knew he should just walk away, but he squeezed Hakkai's hand instead. "Why did you pursue me, knowing that I'm a cop?"

Hakkai smiled sadly and looked Sanzo in the eye. "I've been asking myself that very question. I thought I'd left my past behind. A psychiatrist might say I wanted to be caught. But mostly it was because I'm drawn to you. That doesn't happen often enough for me to ignore my feelings because they're inconvenient."

It was that look Sanzo remembered after he left and which haunted his thoughts while he considered what to do.

He'd set himself a deadline of Sunday, his next day off, to make a decision about what to do. Goku had noticed the circles under his eyes, his getting up in the middle of the night to fall asleep to the drone of the TV, and his tossing and turning.

"Things didn't go so well with Hakkai?" he asked.

"Go away," Sanzo said, aiming a throw pillow at Goku's head. "Don't talk about things you know nothing about."

"I don't know about them because you won't tell me about them!" Goku shouted, clearly frustrated. He walked out the door, muttering.

Sanzo drove to Hakkai's, still not sure he was doing the right thing He'd feel that way, though, no matter what he decided to do. Decide one way, and he was condoning premeditated murder. Even if it had been an unplanned twist of fate, Hakkai was responsible for the deaths of a woman and two children whose only involvement had been their relationship with Centi, as well as a bunch of thugs who maybe deserved it. But vigilante justice didn't always get its facts straight. Were they really all guilty of capital crimes? He had seen what kind of shit happened when people with grievances doled out private justice.

But decide another way, and he was giving up on a sense of belonging he hadn't felt in a long time. What if nothing happened after he turned Hakkai - or Gonou - in? It wasn't his job to do the work of other police departments, who might know in their heart of hearts who the perpetrator was but looked the other way. He hadn't sensed that Hakkai was dangerous. Sanzo trusted him around Goku, on reflection, his remorse came across as genuine. And there were his words to Sanzo: I'm drawn to you. That doesn't happen often enough for me to ignore my feelings because they're inconvenient.

His heart raced when he saw the truck and Jeep in the driveway, but no motorbike. He had taken a chance on Hakkai being home since he hadn't wanted to give him any advance warning that he'd made up his mind.

Hakkai answered the door wearing cutoff shorts and a t-shirt. Sanzo stared, unused to seeing him in such casual clothes. Hakkai said, "Come in," and Sanzo sat at the table again. Hakkai brought out a pot of coffee, another cup, and some muffins. "I assure you, none of it is poisoned," he said.

"Fair enough," Sanzo said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "You didn't know I was coming over, so you wouldn't have any reason to poison it anyway."

Hakkai picked up his cup. "So what have you decided?"

"This isn't easy for me," Sanzo said as Hakkai looked at him, alarmed. Sanzo shook his head. "No, it's not what you're thinking," he said. "I've decided to leave things be."

Hakkai looked relieved and leaned toward Sanzo, almost touching. "So you're not turning me in?"

Sanzo rolled his eyes.

Hakkai moved back and asked, "Maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, but why, after all this, are you throwing your integrity away on my account?"

"Let's just say that if I ever knew for sure who killed Father Cameron and knew they'd never face justice for it, I might do the same thing you did. We're all capable of murder. I'd like to think that you'll never have another reason to commit it." But I don't know if I can see you again."

Hakkai's face clouded over, and he made a protesting noise deep in his throat. Sanzo went on, "Just because I decided to leave things alone doesn't mean I'm ready to get back together."

"But –"

"But what? You thought that forgiveness went hand-in-hand with my not turning you in? Not doing anything, but not getting back together, either, was always an option. Didn't you realize that?"

"Maybe I didn't want to consider the possibility." Hakkai looked at him searchingly. "Why didn't you wait to come over here until you had made your mind up about that as well?"

"Because I wasn't sure how long it would take, and I didn't want to leave you hanging in the meantime."

Hakkai considered this for a moment, then said heavily, "I suppose you're right. I wouldn't want to have whether or not you were going to turn me in hanging over my head while you decided if you wanted to let me back into your life." He looked away. "But if you aren't sure yet if you want to be with me, please leave now, because if you don't, I can't be responsible for what I may do."

"Is that a threat?"

Hakkai smiled sadly. "Quite the opposite. Your presence is testing my ability to keep my libido in check."

Sanzo took that in, then headed for the door. "Goodbye," he said. "I'll let you know."

Goku couldn't believe it. "You went over there, but you didn't get back together? What's the matter with you?"

"This may come as news to you, but I don't run my life just to please you." Sanzo hesitated, then said, "What if I told you that Hakkai had kept a secret from me? A big one, about who he is and what he's done?"

Goku shrugged. "It depends. What did he do?"

"Something he didn't expect anyone to find out. You should hear it from him, not me. But it's a big enough deal that we might not get back together."

Goku looked skeptical, but he gave the matter due consideration. "I dunno. If it was long enough ago, I guess I'd feel like the person we know is who he is now, ya know? I'd put my faith in that." He paused. "Ya know that he likes you a lot, right?"

"I know," Sanzo said. Was it really as simple as putting his faith in the person Hakkai was now? "Don't you have someplace to be?" he asked with a little bit of irritation when it looked like Goku was going to hang around at home. It was easier to think when he was by himself.

Goku would be gone for the rest of the afternoon. Nat's family was having their yearly pool party, and Sanzo wasn't expected to show up until dinnertime. Goku had stopped bothering him about Hakkai, which was a relief, but it was also disconcerting. Sanzo hoped it was just meant to give him some breathing space, but it could also mean that Goku had given up on the relationship before he had.

Despite the brave front he'd presented to Hakkai, hadn't he already made up his mind? Wasn't his hesitation due to wounded pride? Impulsively, he picked his keys up from where he'd dropped them on the table, now crowded again with mail and old newspapers, and headed out.

When he got to Hakkai's, he noted that the Jeep and motorbike were there, but the truck wasn't. It looked like Gojyo was home, not Hakkai. But when he rang the doorbell, Hakkai answered. Hakkai looked as surprised to see him as Sanzo was to see Hakkai. "I thought you'd call before coming over this time," he explained as he held the door open.

Sanzo stepped inside. "I thought you were at work," he said.

"Oh," Hakkai said. "No, Gojyo's working today."

Instead of saying anything further, Sanzo pulled Hakkai toward him and kissed him. His fingers combed through Hakkai's hair. "Don't keep shit like that to yourself again," he said fiercely, his mouth next to Hakkai's ear.

Hakkai raised his eyebrows and pulled back. "I was supposed to tell you that I was guilty of a major felony?"

"Maybe not in so many words, but a heads-up about your past would have helped. The lack of information in itself made me suspicious. Maybe I'd have left it alone."

Hakkai's face registered his skepticism, but he didn't respond. He was busy mapping the solid geometry of Sanzo's body with his hands.

Sanzo said, "I'm supposed to stop by Goku's friend Nat's pool party for dinner. If I can wangle an invitation, would you be interested in going too? And you owe Goku an explanation. He's been beside himself."

"I know. He spoke to me once when I was at the park."

Sanzo made an annoyed sound. "Whatever you tell him has to be true, even if you don't tell him everything. So you'd better think carefully about what you're going to say. I don't lie to him, and you can't either."

Hakkai nodded. "Fair enough. I'll keep you in the loop before I talk to him. I'll take you up on your offer to see if Nat's folks have room for one more at dinner. But in the meantime, we have lost time to make up for." He pulled Sanzo along, walking backwards until they reached his bed and tumbled into it.

/fin/