Inside the confines of a police car, Robert Helms watched the dark-haired police officer wander away from the scene of the crime. Hatred burned in his eyes as he thought of how easily he had confessed to the guy. He was on his way to prison. His parents would take away his trust fund, he'd probably get kicked out of school. And it was all that one cop's fault.

He knew his rights well enough to know that anything he'd said to either of those cops tonight was inadmissable in court. He could say they badgered him into talking.

But he didn't trust that first cop to let them go that easily. He did have one comfort. He'd made the cop think him and his friends were just innocent bystanders while Alicia committed those murders alone. Alicia would try to destroy him when she found out he'd sold her out, but maybe he could get his buddies to protect him. Maybe, if he gave them this detective, they'd get rid of him and all their problems in one shot.

"Man, Simon, those things are killer. Why don't you go sit by the balcony or something?"

"Lighten up, Sandburg. You never had a problem with my cigars before."

Blair waved a hand in front of his face melodramatically. "They're worse tonight, man. I dunno, did you switch brands?"

"You know he'd never do that. Now can it, both of you." Jim pointed with the remote and turned up the volume on the television.

Simon glanced over at Blair. "Why is it," he asked loudly. "That when Jim asked if I wanted to celebrate the end of this case with you guys, I didn't think he meant sitting in your apartment watching his interview on the news?"

"A sentinel and his ego will not be parted," Blair entoned in response.

"Oh, shut up. You're both in this too, remember."

"Jim, we were there, we know what we said. We don't have to watch it again. I swear, every single time you get your ugly mug on tv, you act like-"

"Hey, hey, it's on!" Jim cut off his captain, sitting up in his chair with a grin as the television picture showed Rainier's campus. A voice-over gave a brief summary of the murders, and then Jim's serious face appeared.

The tv version of Jim Ellison was speaking gravely about the murders, while the real-life Jim beamed at himself. "Man! I look good. My mom always said I should be a tv star."

Blair grinned. "They say the camera adds ten years, don't they? I don't know if you could afford that, old man."

"Ten pounds, smartass. And look at you standing back there, you look like a twelve year old girl."

"Yeah? At least I'm not boring the city with my analysis of sorority life and violence."

"Please. If they had let you, you'd turn this into some speech about closed campus life and the hierarchy of social leadership that forms when-"

"Will both of you shut up! I'm trying to listen to this." Simon glared at the two men good-naturedly.

They listened for a moment as Jim talked about the clues that had led to that night's arrest, and Blair suddenly turned to Jim, a thoughtful look on his face. "Jim? How did you solve this case?"

Jim rolled his eyes. "You don't listen to me when I talk in person, I guess it's too much to hope you'd listen to me on tv. I just explained-"

"No, you found a witness. How'd you do that? Didn't you tell me you were gonna wait in the truck?"

Jim shrugged. "I was, until Rafe showed up and..." he trailed off suddenly.

"Rafe?" Simon didn't notice the sudden frowns Sentinel and Guide shot each other. "Yeah, he showed up for a minute. What was he doing there?"

"He was there to investigate," Blair said quietly, his brow furrowed. "I forgot to call and tell him Jim had the case now."

Simon winced. "Uh oh. Did he take it well?"

"I guess. I dunno, he was acting kind of strange." Blair looked over at Simon. "He was acting a lot strange."

"Yeah, he was," Simon readily agreed, remembering Rafe's brief appearance at the arrest scene.

"You think...." Blair stopped, then started again. "I really don't like saying this, but do you think he's jealous, that Jim solved the case so fast?"

Simon shook his head automatically. But he stopped, thoughtful, his mind going back to the last few days. "Hard to say. I wouldn't think he would be, but he's been fighting to keep Jim away from the case for days now."

Blair winced. "Man, that sucks. Why would he be jealous of Jim?"

Jim finally turned away from the television as the story ended and a commercial came laring on. He pressed the mute button on the remote and turned to Simon and Blair. "You said Rafe was there investigating?" he asked his roommate.

Blair nodded.

"Oh, man. I didn't know that. I figured he knew it wasn't his assignment anymore." Jim thought back guiltily at the way he'd practically yelled at the younger detective.

"So you ran into him? What happened?"

"He told me he was going in to find some girl." Jim suddenly straightened, his eyes growing wide. "Aw, shit!"

"What?" Blair asked, automatically alerted.

"He knew! He had that case solved. Shit, I didn't even think about it until now."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me he had to find Alicia. I figured he was just chasing some skirt he'd met that day, I even told him that. Told him not to interfere with our case. Damn it. He's the one that caught that witness, had him handcuffed in his car, told me where to find him and then just walked away." Jim glanced over at the tv set. "And there I was gloating like it had all been my brainstorm. This was Rafe's case, Simon. He did it all himself."

Simon frowned. "Huh. What do you know? I'll have to remember to say something to him tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess I should apologize for taking his air time," Jim smiled slightly.

Blair stayed silent, troubled. He remembered Rafe's reaction when Blair told him Simon had taken him off the case- he knew there were layers underneath that were bothering the detective. And then when Rafe had shown up, lip bloodied, completely unemotional....

Blair had the feeling they'd really screwed up. But Jim and Simon had already shrugged it off and moved to the next topic of discussion, so he kept his thoughts to himself, determined to speak to Rafe alone some time the next day.

Henri Brown was watching Jim Ellison mugging for the cameras, not sure how to feel about it. Man, Rafe would get pissed that Jim had weaseled his way into this case, but at least it was over.

And then the phone rang, and his son trotted over to where his father laid on the sofa- sick man's territory, stocked with a drink, snacks, tissues, the remote. Paradise. "Dad, it's that white guy you hang out with."

Henri grinned at his son and took the portable phone. "Rafe? What's up?" This was where Rafe would continue the game he and Henri's son always played, telling Brown to get that little black kid to mind his manners, or something like that.

"You watching the news?" Rafe asked instead.

Henri's grin faded. His partner sounded too flat, stiff. "Yeah. You pissed?"

"About what?"

"Jim coming in to our case."

There was a pause. "Henri, you think I'm a good cop?"

"What?" Henri sat up, surprise. "Where the hell did this come from?"

"Tell me the truth."

Brow furrowed, Henri did as instructed. "Yeah, of course. You're a great cop. You think I'd be partners with just anyone?"

"Simon took us off. He gave Jim the case, this afternoon."

Brown let out a low whistle. No wonder Rafe was having self doubts. Simon actually took him off the case, and Jim had solved it in one night. That wasn't good. Few people knew Rafe as well as Henri did, and Henri knew that deep down, Rafe was one of those contradictions Henri would never understand- looked like a movie star, dressed like a male model, had everything going for him- personality, brains, courage...and yet never felt like he was good enough to deserve anything but indifference. "I'm sorry, man."

Another pause. "Why sorry?"

Rafe sounded too strange, too distant. "That was a shitty thing for Simon to do," Brown elaborated. "Now what's the matter with you?"

"Nuthin. I'll see you in a few days."

"Rafe, hang on!" Too late, there was a quiet noise as Rafe hung up his line.

Henri put the phone down, brow creased. He glanced back over at the tv, but another report was on by then. Suddenly he straightened, sitting up. "Hey, hon?"

"Yeah?" his wife called from the dining room.

"Can't do lunch with your folks tomorrow. I have to go back to work."

She appeared in the doorway after a minute. "Trouble?"

"Yeah," he looked up at her with a frown. "But not the kind you're worried about. Something's wrong with Rafe."

A deeper frown. Rafe had become another member of the family by then, and she showed her concern. "Was he hurt?"

"Sounds like it," Henri replied flatly. "I just have to have a long talk with Simon before I know how bad."

Blair's mind was on what he was going to say to Rafe as he rode the elevator up to Major Crimes the next afternoon. He'd had to run by the U, so Jim had gone to the station himself that morning, and Blair had had time to think about what to say.

When the doors opened into the office, though, his speech flew out of his head.

The place was in disarray.

There were at least three different phones ringing, no one was sitting at their desks. It looked like Brown and Simon were having a shouting match right in the middle of the office, as Jim and Joel stood by tensely.

"-to have been there in the first place!"

Simon was glowering. "Dammit, Brown, this isn't some kind of glory job! We don't fight over who gets credit, or who catches the bad guy. We just make sure they get caught. If you're in this for fame, you should quit and move to Hollywood."

"Don't go there, Simon. Don't deliberately misunderstand what I'm saying here. It isn't about who gets credit, it's about us deserving to see that case through to the-"

"Us who? You were down sick, Rafe had been stuck for days. What did you expect me to do?"

Blair waded in right then, automatically knowing what had brought Henri, still looking a little wiped out, in to the station, and what had caused this fight. "Whoa, guys. Hang on. What's the problem here? It's nothing we can't talk about like normal-"

"Butt out, Hairboy," Brown cut in, moving Blair not gently out of the way.

As they continued bickering, Blair leaned over to Jim. "What started this, man?"

"Rafe didn't show for work today."

"What?" Blair blurted loudly, causing a pause in the argument in front of him. "What happened? Has anyone talked to him?"

"No," Brown answered angrily. "Simon thinks he's at home sulking, but he isn't answering his phone."

"Damn it, Henri, I never said I thought he was sulking. This was a tough case to crack, he hasn't had a day off in weeks. Maybe he just figured he should take one while things were calming down."

"That's bullshit, Simon. Rafe wouldn't do that, and you know it."

Blair wasn't sure what Simon knew, but HE knew Rafe wouldn't do that. The handsome detective was nothing if not devoted. "Has anyone gone by his place?"

"No," Simon answered, his eyes still on Brown.

"Don't you think you should?"

"If he wanted to talk to us, he'd have come in today. Chief. He must be a little more pissed than I thought about this case."

"No," Brown protested. "Even if he was mad, he wouldn't have-"

"No, he wouldn't," Blair agreed. "So maybe something else happened. Rafe did just solve a case involving an unknown number of killers, did anyone stop to think about that? He's the biggest problem Alicia and those frat guys we pulled in have right now. Maybe they saw a way to make their problems disappear."

Brown hesitated. "Shit," he growled suddenly, lunging at his desk and yanking up his keys. "I'm going to his apartment." His eyes dared Simon to argue. "I'll bring him back with me, if he's there."

"I'll come with you," Jim said automatically.

Brown shot him a dangerous look.

"I need to apoligize," Jim explained quietly.

"Yeah." His anger deflating, Brown nodded. "I just don't know why he wouldn't show," he said quietly, as if trying to explain his temper tantrum to Jim.

Understanding perfectly, Jim glanced at Blair before replying. "I know how you feel. Let's go find your partner."

The Night Before-

Rafe hung up the phone with a exhaled breath. Well, that was a waste of time. Henri had only made him feel worse. He'd called hoping to hear Brown go off, hoping he would rail at Simon and Jim, and make Rafe feel better about resenting their intrusion in this case. Instead, he had only offered his sympathy. Told Rafe he was 'sorry'. Not pissed, not outraged, not even mildly surprised. Just sorry.

If Rafe had wanted pity, he would have just sat there with his own miserable thoughts. Self-pity was something he seemed to be really good at lately. He'd wanted to know that someone else thought Rafe was good enough to have handled this on his own, and he had thought his partner would be the one to feel that way.

He didn't know how he'd go in the next day, facing everyone. Knowing they didn't have a clue what he was thinking about the whole thing. They didn't even seem to realize he'd been there at all last night, to go by Ellison's little interview.

He tried to get himself out of this funk, but his emotions didn't seem to want to cooperate.

The worst part, he reflected. The very worst part was Sandburg. No, not Sandburg, cause Rafe liked the grad student as much as he liked anybody. It was the fact that Simon and Jim had been so confident in the Observer's abilities, and so unsure of Rafe's, that they sent him to that party to take over. Not even another police officer, which Rafe would have understood. No, they sent the man who wasn't technically a part of the department to tell Rafe to go home and let the experts handle this.

Man, but that was bad for the ego.

Sitting on the sofa in his silent apartment, thoughts a million miles away, he was suddenly brought back down to earth by a knock on his door.

Shit. He was not in the mood to deal with other people. "What?"

"Hey, Rafe, open up, it's me."

He sat up, confused. It wasn't Henri- he couldn't have gotten there so fast. Maybe Jim or Blair- he didn't seem to recognize the voice, but he wasn't exactly in the best state of mind. So he he stood reluctantly and went to the door. "Look, I'm really not-" He stopped abruptly.

Rob grinned at him. The frat guy's face was showing the bruises from their fight in the parking lot at the campus, but he was out of cuffs and accompanied by three other guys, two Rafe recognized from being with him at that party. "Surprised to see me?"

Rafe let out a breath. Surprised? Not really. What else could make this day worse? "How did you know where I lived?" he asked flatly, actually mildly curious.

Rob grinned and held up a small piece of paper. Rafe's insurance card, the one that he kept in the glove compartment. "You locked me in your car, smart guy."

Briefly wondering if Blair would have done something that stupid, Rafe almost didn't even fight back as the four men forced themselves into his apartment. He was shoved back towards the sofa as one man stood blocking the door, letting Rob and his other two friends explore casually.

"You know, this is a shitty apartment," Rob commented as he looked around. "You cops really get paid dick, don't you?"

Rafe didn't answer.

"And then tonight, that other cop showed up, arrested me. What was that all about, huh? You just passed me off to the next guy that came around?" Rob's voice was mild, hinting at nothing but curiosity. The lack of menace in his voice was belied by his suddenly reaching out and pulling the phone cord out of the wall.

"Something like that," Rafe answered tiredly. "Just tell me what the hell you want and then get out of here."

Rob stopped his explorations. "All right. Here's the deal. Neither you or that big cop you sent can prove anything about us. They let me out cause they didn't have nothing on me, and soon they'll let Alicia out too. But I have the feeling you won't be happy just leaving us alone. So we're gonna take you out of the picture. Make sense?"

"Perfect." Rafe glanced around. The other three men were now watching his every move, waiting for him to fight back. Rob was relaxed, confident he had the situation totally under control. "Did it occur to you," he started, directing his comments to Rob's friends. "That we really don't have anything on you? Alicia would go down, yeah, and whoever else she got to help her kill those girls. But if it wasn't you, you wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Your testimony would have gotten you off with a few months in prison, if even that. But now you're threatening a police officer. You're digging yourselves in deep, guys. Whatever you're thinking of doing- kidnapping me, killing me, it's only gonna put years on your jail time."

"Not if we don't get caught," Rob replied easily.

"And how do you expect not to?"

"Easy. You're gonna vanish, and your cop friends are gonna think it was all your own idea."

Surprise now invaded Rafe's almost unemotional haze. "How are you imagining you're gonna pull that one off?"

"Easy. You're going to leave a note for your buddies, telling them exactly why you're leaving this shitty little town all on your own."

Rafe laughed. "Are you crazy? What makes you think anyone would believe that?"

"Look at this place. Look at what happened tonight. Being a cop's the worst job in the world, man. And you're going to realize that tonight, aren't you?" He gestured at the relatively bare apartment. "You got no pictures up. No family? No ladies? No, you look like you spend every penny you got on those fancy threads. No one's gonna miss you, pal."

Rafe had been thinking that. Trapped in his own self-important little pity party, he'd been thinking exactly what Rob was now saying.

And now that he heard it out loud, he realized what BS it was. He laughed. "You're an idiot if you believe that," he said firmly.

Rob shrugged. "We'll see. If they don't believe it, there's still nothing to connect us to this, is there? Now why don't you make nice and write a little note to your friends?"

Rafe felt like he's wandered into a Monty Python skit or something- it was that absurd. "You really think I'm going to help you out with this scheme of yours?"

"You got no choice, man." Rob glanced over at his friends- two of them approached Rafe from behind.

He could hear them coming. Now determined, he waited until they were right behind him, reaching for his arms, before he jumped, lunging forward, right at Rob.

The two men were caught by surprise and froze for a few valuable seconds, while Rob was equally stunned, allowing Rafe to tackle him easily, bringing him down to the floor hard.

Rafe drove his knee into the student's stomach before standing and facing the other two. "Come on, let's get this over with."

The two glanced at each other, relatively uncertain, before making their move, coming at him at the same time.

Rafe easily blocked the fist the man on the right threw, and almost managed to jump out of the way as the second one simply rammed into him, knocking him off balance. He almost fell, but caught himself on the edge of his sofa, and pushed himself right back at the men. They both dodged his reckless lunge, and he wheeled back around to face them.

He heard sudden footsteps as the man he'd forgotten about, the one guarding the door, came up from behind and tackled him. Reacting before he could think, Rafe locked his knees and bent at the waist. The sudden movement and his own momentum sent the man flying over him and into one of the others.

The one who remained untouched backed off slightly, glancing at his fellow attackers.

Rob staggered up, still clutching his belly. "Alright, man, alright. You've made your point." He stumbled forward, drawing Rafe's attention. "What if we just go? Forget this ever happened?"

Rafe eyed him suspisciously. "You're just going to leave?"

"Sure, man. This was a dumb idea, right?"

"Yeah, it was. I just don't buy you suddenly being smart enough to recognize that."

Rob moved slowly, limping his way to the right, until he was close to the detective. "Look, no need to be rude, huh? I don't care if Alicia goes down. I just don't want to go to prison. My future would be over, you know?"

Rafe knew. Spoiled little rich frat boy, ruined by a dark spot on his permanent record. "You should have thought about that before you helped her kill the two girls who protested your little prostitution ring."

"It's not like that, man, really." Rob glanced over Rafe's shoulder, and his terror faded, replaced by a grin.

Rafe cursed himself, turning a second too late. Rob had stalled Rafe, giving his friends time to recover, and now all four came at the man. Angry...furious, Rafe fought back violently, seething with unreleased anger over everything. Damn it, Simon had been right. Jim and Blair had been right. Brown had been right. He wasn't worth this. He wasn't worth being a part of that department at all. He had done everything wrong- giving Rob a chance to find out where he lived, turning his back on his opponents, buying into Rob's line of crap. So what if he had
found Rob, so what if he had been the first to discover Alicia's part in this? Jim and Blair would have figured it out anyway, days ago, if this case had been theirs from the start.

The anger made him fight like a lunatic, throwing punches and struggling with an adrenaline-rushed strength even after he had been knocked to the ground, even after they restrained him, holding him down with noticable effort as he surged again and again, trying to lash out at the only people available he could take out his anger on. Even when his strength faded, his adrenaline and anger kept him struggling, until Rob, tiring rapidly with the effort it took to hold him down, pulled a small pistol out of his belt and put it against the detective's temple.

Rafe seethed, calming down only slightly. "You're gonna do it anyway, right? Pull the damn trigger if you want to."

Rob was obviously taken aback by the man's apparent sincerity, his lack of fear. "Hey, we wanted you to leave a note explaining why you ran off. If you want us to leave you here as your own suicide note, sure, I'll pull the trigger."

Suicide note? The thought made Rafe stiffen, brought his mind back down to earth. Rob would shoot him, and have all the time in the world to make it look like Rafe had done it himself.

He may not be as good or deserving as he had thought he was, but he wasn't gonna let it end like that. He wouldn't let his...-friends?- over in Major Crimes think of him that way.  "What do you want from me?" he asked finally.

Rob heard the defeat in his voice and grinned. His friends relaxed, releasing the detective wearily. Rob took a careful step back, out of Rafe's range, in case he surged up again and tried to get his gun. "You write what I tell you to write, and we're gonna take a drive. That's it, man."

Rafe stared at the gun, debating his chances of reaching Rob and the weapon before he could pull the trigger. But Rob was alert now, tense, looking like if Rafe even sneezed he'd blow him away.

"What do you want me to write?"

"This is bullshit!" Brown paced Simon's office endlessly, his eyes going back over and over to the sheet of paper on Simon's desk, the one he had taken from Rafe's apartment.

"Brown, ease up. Whatever happened, you wearing holes in my floor won't solve anything."

Henri wheeled, stopping in his tracks to face his captain. "You believe that, don't you?" He asked angrily, pointing at the note.

Simon released a breath. "I don't know, Henri," he replied honestly. "He'd been acting strange."

"I know, I know. Jim kept saying that. I know he's been acting strange. He called me."

"When? What did he say?"

"Nothing important. He did say he'd see me in a few days. Simon, I don't care how upset he was, he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't walk out on me, or on this department."

"Even if he thought we'd already abandoned him?" Simon's voice was low, even somewhat guilty. He had driven Rafe to this, he had no doubt. Pushing for Jim's involvement in that case, taking him off for no really good reason. But what else could he do? How could he have explained that he wanted Jim on the case because he saw things that no other human could see? That he could find things no one else would even have been able to detect?

Thinking back on it now, he saw it from Rafe's point of view, and realized how shitty it truly was.

"No. Nothing you or Jim could have done would make him run off." Brown glanced out the door. Jim and Blair sat at Jim's desk, talking in low tones. Blair had his hand on Jim's neck, Jim had his eyes closed, looking like he was trying to concentrate on something. Brown turned back to the captain. "I know him, Simon."

"I know, I know. What do you think might have happened?"

Brown shrugged and fell into a chair heavily. "Maybe what Blair suggested. Maybe those frat kids came back for revenge."

Simon shook his head slightly. "I don't know. Why would they have gone after Rafe? Even if he was the one who found them out, Jim was the one who made the arrests, Jim was the one on television talking about it. It would have made more sense to go after him."

"Yeah? Maybe someone saw past Jim showing off, to who really did all the work." Henri retorted angrily.

"That's enough, Brown. Look, I said we were sorry about everything. There were some big misunderstandings here, and there's nothing we can do about that now. We can't even apologize until we find Rafe."

The door to Simon's office flew open suddenly. "Simon! There were-" Jim stopped abruptly. "Uh, H, could you
excuse us for a minute?"

"This have something to do with Rafe?"

"Yeah, but it's not-"

"I'll stay." Henri answered firmly.

Jim frowned, but turned back to Simon, now searching for how to say what he wanted, not wanting to give himself away in front of Henri. "Simon, Rafe was snatched, I'm sure of it."

Simon sat up. "You positive, Jim?"

"Absolutely. At least three other men were in that apartment with him. There was a lot of adrenaline, but I figured it must have been Rafe's, I thought he must have just been really pissed off. But now I'm sure. Blair got me to focus on it, and-" he stopped again, remembering Henri.

Brown was staring at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Uh, doesn't matter," Simon cut in. "How do we find out who these guys were?"

"Wait a minute. This is a load of crap. I sit here for an hour trying to convince you Rafe didn't run off, you don't buy it. Ellison comes in babbling about adrenaline, you listen to that? What the hell is going on here, Simon?"

Simon and Jim exchanged dark looks. "Nothing I can talk about, H."

Brown looked between the two of them, feeling their discomfort, and his eyes skirted over to Blair, who stood in the doorway, biting his lip and looking as tense as they did. He and Rafe had always joked about how Simon, Jim, and Blair acted like they were constantly sharing some secret, but he'd be damned if that wasn't the case now.

"Look, just tell me there's a reason. A really GOOD reason why you put Jim into this case, and why you're listening to him now. I mean, something really important. Just tell me it isn't some kind of bizarre favoritism."

"It's not, Brown, really." Simon spoke up. "If we could say anything, we would, I promise."

"But you can't." Brown blew out a breath. "Fine. Forget it. Let's just find Rafe."

Simon studied him silently for a minute. This was getting ridiculous. This secret, the whole Sentinel thing, it was getting noticed by his other detectives, and it was starting to interfere with the cohesion of the department. He would have to have a long talk with Jim and Blair about that- they had to figure out how to stop it from happening. But later. "Alright. Jim, what do you think?"

Blair wandered over to Simon's desk and picked up the note, reading it for the first time as Jim answered.

"Alright, I'd say at least three of them came in sometime after midnight. Rafe put up a fight, but they got the best of him. They forced him to write this note."

Blair's eyes widened suddenly, and he handed the note to Jim. "Hey, look at this. Down here at the bottom, feel that. Feel anything strange?"

Jim raised his eyebrows, but did as he was told, hesitant about putting on a display of his senses with Henri in the room. But if Blair had felt it, no reason why he wouldn't either.

He glanced at the words. Somewhere in the midst of the rambling, self-pitying diatribe Rafe had left, he talked about how this job had robbed him of a better future.

Jim's eyes narrowed as he felt what Blair must have been talking about. He studied the sentence. One word, one word was darker than the others, had been pressed much more firmly into the paper than the rest. One word that began with a capital letter where it should have been lower case.

Robbed.

Jim looked up, turning to Simon. "What was the name of that guy Rafe caught, the one they let out last night due to lack of evidence?"

Simon glanced at the file on his desk. "Ummm...Robert Jackson."

"Rob." Jim and Blair exchanged excited looks. "That's who grabbed him."

It took them no time at all to track Robert Jackson and his buddies to a spot in the forests outside of Cascade, a spot where the frat Rob belonged to gathered every now and then, just to seem that much more mysterious.

It took hardly any more time for them to have the students subdued, and to track Rafe to where he had been tied up and abandoned in an old, closed-up mine entrance.

Rafe acted happy to see them, and why shouldn't he? Once Jim and Simon explained how they had realized how much he had done to solve that case, and how sorry they were, any remaining tension between the Major Crimes officers seemed to be dissolved.

Rafe let it happen. He pasted the smile to his face, accepted the mother-hen ministrations of his partner on his scrapes and bruises, and laughed easily at Jim and Blair's constant rapport as they drove back to the city to take Rafe home. He was back to normal, everything was back to normal, by all appearances.

He didn't let on how much this entire case had shattered his way of viewing himself. No, why would they want to know that? Why would Brown want to hear that the man he had to trust his life to was having trouble believing he was up to the job? Why should Blair and Jim have to listen to Rafe's empty accusations and selfish emotions?

No, he shut his mouth and returned to work the next day, bright and early as usual, dressed in his sharpest outfit, and ready to take on the world. Simon announcing that Rob's friends had given a full confession made him cringe, but internally. He didn't want to be reminded of the last few days. Rob was nothing but an example of how ineffective he was at this job. The entire case was a shining example of how far Rafe had to go before he was up to the level of his fellow officers.

Brown had pitied him, showing Rafe how much everyone was aware of his own limitations. And Jim and Blair had rescued him, which only made everything ten times worse.

But he grinned and laughed and went out into the field. He didn't tell them anything he was thinking.

And he never would.

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