12:01 a.m.

Shrill keening from the pay phone across the street must have obscured the blast of the first gun shot.

Reese, usually so attuned to those minute notes of combat, missed the snick of the trigger mechanism, the whisper of the dividing air as the bullet sped toward him.

Carter's teasing voice was still in his ear, the warm sexy invitation of her half sentences curling through his mind. With their work completed and their quarry vanquished, she was taking him home at last.

To extract him from the police station, she had changed into the civilian dress of her restored status as a detective: dark trousers, a form-fitting sweater instead of that humiliatingly stiff uniform. He noticed that the sheen of her leather jacket matched the shimmer from her polished shoes. She was back in heels, still sure-footed but graceful now; those thick-soled clodhoppers that had marked her months as a patrol officer discarded forever, he hoped.

More than anything else, those heels and all the enticing swagger they lent to her gait, made his heart race when she walked into the interrogation room to find him and bring him home.

He knew how much the unjust demotion had stung. And exactly what this restoration meant. Through the months, Joss never stopped being a detective in his mind. But still it was good to see those smart polished shoes which showed that she was truly back where she belonged.

And so as she paced beside him into the alley, the rhythmic click-clack of her heels was the last civilized sound he heard before Hell exploded around him.

12:02 a.m.

Finch's hands pulling at his shoulder registered first as pressure, then as unwelcome compulsion.

He didn't want to let go; he was sure if he moved his fingers from the gushing hole in Joss's neck she would die. Her blood was bright red, staining his hands, fouling his watch, and turning cold as it dripped down his wrists.

She muttered more half sentences to him, this time not invitations but instructions. Her voice blended with Finch's in his ear.

"We have to go, John. It's not safe here."

Was that Harold or Joss? The tones were low, anguished. But even though the words seemed distinct, the command was garbled. As an unclear directive, he could disregard this order in favor of his own instincts.

He pressed one palm against her throat while the other caressed her cheek, smearing blood in gruesome streaks from her eyelid to her jaw.

"Joss, don't go. I'm here." He cradled her head against his chest and as she curved her body into his, he could feel the strong heartbeat against his thigh.

"Get up, John."

This time Harold's voice was firmer, the blunt nails digging into his shoulder were insistent now.

"I can't. I can't leave her here. She'll bleed out."

He rolled his shoulders to loosen Harold's persistent grip and for the first time felt a sharp pinch in his right side. The pain was so small; he must have pulled a muscle or bruised a rib as he fell to the ground.

"If you stay here, you will bleed out, right here in this alley. I can't let that happen, John."

He shook his head to calm the tide roaring in his ears. The stitch in his side twinged again. He slowly lifted a hand from Joss's breast and touched his stomach. The garish stain spread as he fingered the flesh through the rip in his shirt.

So it was done. They would bleed out together then: every dear drop that escaped from her wound would draw an equal measure from his own body, the depletion continuing until they were both drained.

He looked at her brown face, so smooth and placid even in this agony. Strands of her hair clung to the darkening gouts of blood at her neck. Her eyes, careering wildly in search of a focal point, bulged a bit, as if the shock of the attack had not completely faded from her mind.

"Joss, hear me. Stay with me. Stay, Joss."

He shook her slightly to rouse her and kissed her forehead in a gesture that was both routine and desperate. Moisture on her skin tasted familiar, a salty mix of his tears and her sweat blending on the tongue like a thousand times before.

She gulped in a fresh breath of the midnight air. Focusing on him at last, her eyes clear and penetrating, she spoke. But the phrase was lost under a clattering din that invaded his mind from the left.

He bent his head toward her mouth, shifting so that his ear pressed against the bubbles of blood on her lips. She repeated the order.

"Get out of here." Hadn't she said just those very words to him sometime long ago? Or maybe he had said them to her once upon a lifetime.

"Go, John. Now."

Footsteps pounded against the pavement and excited male voices rumbled nearby.

Harold tugged on his arm once again. "She'll be alright now, John. Help is coming."

He raised her right hand to kiss it, taking each fingertip into his mouth to taste the gore and dirt on her nails. Then he placed those precious fingers against her throat wound, pushing hard on them until he felt her take up the life-saving gesture for herself.

She moaned when he raised her from his lap. He wanted to remove his jacket to make a pillow, but there was no time for such comforts. Harold helped him lay her gently on the oily asphalt and then whispered that they had to go.

As he pulled away from her body, he paused again to check her heartbeat: rapid but steady as ever. Before he could straighten up, she grasped his cuff and then slipped her hand into his. Cold metal slid from her trembling flesh into his palm: the bullet casing he had given her as a token of his new life, of their commitment.

"No fingerprints." She gasped and he shook his head to silence her, but she continued. "Keep it for me, John. I'll get it back..."

12:03 a.m.

Tires whined, gripping the drizzle-slick streets.

Dizzy, waves of pain rolling through him now, Reese thought these shrieks came from their car. But the eerie sound could have been from the approaching ambulance too.

As they jolted away from the curb, he raised his head from the chilled pane of glass. Turning his eyes hurt; even forcing them open for more than a moment almost defeated him. But he needed to take in the scene in the alley behind them before it receded from view.

He could see a crowd of yelling men, some in navy uniforms, others in shirtsleeves clustered around Joss's stricken form. One man had draped a leather coat over her; someone else had folded a suit jacket to make a pillow for her head, just as he had wanted to do.

Emergency techs in blue slickers muscled through the swarm of policemen to tend to their patient. Their shouts of competence and sharp authority reverberated against the metal garage doors of the station house.

Comforted, he closed his eyes to better absorb the sounds.

As those voices rang out like brass cymbals, he heard the noise clang off traffic lights and street signs and security cameras and fire hydrants and sewer covers. Was there a surface which didn't vibrate now? Even the metal boxes displaying tomorrow's papers seemed to rattle with the reassuring sound.

He knew what this clamor meant: No one was bleeding out tonight.

Finch's car rolled on toward safety. With distance the rumblings of human voices grew faint, muffled in the enveloping hum of his city.

Now merely a soft whisper, the refrain murmured through his mind as he slipped into sleep: No one was bleeding out tonight.