When Bailey arrived Sam’s voice was the first thing he heard.

"Out! I want all of them out! I can’t live like this any more!"

"Sam, are you okay?" he tried to ask. She wasn’t listening.

"They tried to kill him! I want those cameras out now!" She spun away from him and began yanking cables out of the wall.

Bailey watched her in astonishment. "Did we get him?" he asked one of the agents on duty.

The man shifted uncomfortably. "Technically?" he asked. "Sort of."

"What’s that supposed to mean? Did we…"

"Ask Grant," he said quickly and pointed toward the kitchen.

Bailey strode into the glass-strewn kitchen and saw John leaning against the cabinets. He looked a little pale, Bailey noted, but that was probably to be expected. There were bullet holes in the wood behind him.

"Was it Jack? Did we get him? What’s this ‘technically’ crap? How did you get here so fast?"

"It wasn’t Jack," John said. "And I was already here."

"It’s three o’clock in the morning," Bailey snapped. "What were you doing here?"

"It’s three o’clock in the morning. What do you *think* I was doing here?" John snapped back.

For the first time since he arrived at the firehouse Bailey took a good look at the younger agent. He was wearing a tee shirt and a pair of shorts. No shoes. Bailey stared thoughtfully at John’s bare feet as the pieces finally started to fall into place.

"You’re the one our agents just tried to shoot," he said at last. "That’s why Sam is so…"

"Ballistic?"

"Yeah." Bailey shook his head slowly. "Didn’t it occur to either of you two to do this someplace that didn’t have fifteen constantly monitored cameras in it?"

"There aren’t any cameras in that part of the house," John said defensively.

"Then how did all this start?"

John looked down at the broken glass shattered across the linoleum. "All I wanted was something to drink." He glanced up sheepishly. "I tripped over the damn dog."

Bailey tried very hard not to laugh. Despite the seriousness of the situation John’s expression was priceless.

"It’s not funny, Bailey. They tried to shoot me!"

********

Bailey took the surveillance tapes back to his office. He sat at his desk and tried to determine how one of his best agents had nearly been killed by his colleagues. As the video ran quietly on his screen the events of the early morning hours became clear. It all started with the fact that the day shift of agents on duty at the firehouse had forgotten to tell the night shift that John was upstairs.

Bailey fast-forwarded through the tape until the clock read 0247 and he saw a tall figure walking into the kitchen. It was obviously not Sam and the agents already knew that both Angel and Chloe were out of town. The person hadn't bothered turning on any lights, but Bailey could just make out that he was taking something from the cabinet. As the dimly seen person began walking toward the sink several things happened almost simultaneously. The figure stumbled. Glass shattered. And Denzel began to howl. To Bailey's amusement he could hear John swearing quite colorfully at the dog. This was apparently the point at which the agents on duty had finally noticed him. He continued to stand in the dark muttering at Denzel for several moments. Bailey suspected that he couldn't tell where the glass shards were and didn't want to move. The agents downstairs had started on their way up by now and seemed to have missed the next few vital moments.

Sam appeared at the periphery of the picture and Bailey couldn't understand much of what she said. He could guess, however, by the few words he caught that she thought John should have turned on a light first. She disappeared from the screen and Bailey assumed she had gone to find a broom. John had just managed to get Denzel quieted when all hell broke loose.

Two agents burst through the elevator door while the other two came up the back stairway. John, completely unaware of the danger he was in, stood with his back to them all. At their warning shouts he whirled quickly and dropped the pieces of glass that he had already picked up. They should have recognized him at this point, Bailey thought critically. Instead, they had started shooting.

Fortunately John's survival instincts were stronger than his surprise. He automatically dove behind the bar, shouting for them to knock it off. Sam had come back, broom in hand, and begun shouting as well. According to the digital counter imbedded in the tape less than three minutes had elapsed from the time John walked into the kitchen until the agents stopped firing at him.

If it hadn't been for the live bullets ricocheting around Sam's kitchen, Bailey mused, this really would be very funny. After checking to make sure that John was indeed still in one piece Sam had immediately begun raving about tearing all the cameras out. The agents stood in bemused shock as she railed at them. John seemed to have drifted into a fog of his own as he studied the splintered holes in the cabinet doors. Not long after, Bailey himself had arrived on the scene. He watched his own entrance with interest. He could see the exact moment that he had realized precisely how John was involved in all this.

I remember it from here, he thought as he turned off the VCR.

What a day. And it wasn't even six o'clock yet.