Kylie J Hiya, This is my first Stingers fic, so yeah... here 'tis Disclaimer: Yeah don't own it, never have, any resemblance to any person, place or event is entirely coincidental. I also have no medical knowledge, nor to I know the practices and protocols of undercover operations. so yeah. Oh yeah, there's a bit of swearing too, but only in appropriate places (well, as appropriate swearing can be - ie, not in conversation! Under provocation!), and if you get offended, sorry, but life undercover wouldn't be prim and proper!!! And no offense if there's any bikies out there. Nothing personal. I don't know you. r Read my disclaimer. And sorry if some of the terminology is mixed up with English stuff - The Bill gets very technical, so yeah. From all this you're probably thinking this fic's going to be terrible, but please read it anyway! I'll shut up now! so here it is... RUMBLED "Church, what are you doing to us? Come on, keep talking. Shit – Oscar, Angie, he’s removed his wire." "What the bloody hell’d he do that for?" "I think he’s been rumbled." "Damn. Danni, still seeing him?" "Yeah, he’s staying calm. More than can be said for Thiel. He’s really starting to crack." "What happened?" Mac asked Danni, who was inside keeping watch on the operation. "I don’t know, some guy went over and said something in Thiel’s ear, then he disappeared. I thought you’d have heard it." "Hmm, didn’t hear a word. Any idea what it was about?" "Nah, sorry Mac. But whatever it was, it sure got up Thiel’s nose." "Yeah. Thanks. Oscar, Ange - I’m coming over to the van." Church had been talking to Mike Thiel, a heavy drug dealer who organised courier operations between Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, using the major highways as his thoroughfares. Many of his suspected couriers had been stopped and caught in random vehicle searches, but only one spoke out against Thiel. Her body was found dumped in a river the day of Thiel’s arrest. As there was no longer any evidence against Thiel, he was released, where Church and the UC’s tagged him. Pete posed as ‘Arthur Fleet’ a prospective courier in need of a quick fix and some dough. He had been perfect at playing an on-edge addict, at least until Thiel became suspicious as to the nature of the questions he had been asked about the deal. Pete insisted on pressing ahead, against Mac’s best advice, but she had given in and let him go on with it anyway, assigning extra officers on surveillance. She was now annoyed she hadn’t stopped him. "I knew we shouldn’t have gone ahead with this!" Mac exploded, as she stormed into the OP van. "It’s not your fault Mac," reassured Angie, "We just need to concentrate on getting him out of there." "Hmmm…," Mac began half-heartedly, before regaining her train of thought, "You got the uniforms on stand-by?" "Yep, they’re on their toes, ready for the shout." Oscar had been talking to Danni, who was becoming increasingly nervous about Pete’s position. "Mac, I think we’d better get them ‘round here. Danni reckons things are really starting to hot up in there. I’m going in for a look." "Yeah, okay, I’ll give the uniforms a call, try and get a signal to Church to hang on a few minutes. We’ll be there as soon as we can." Oscar was speedily on his way inside the pub. He went over to the bar to where Danni was drying glasses, trying not to look suspicious, all the while keeping her eyes on Church and Thiel. "We’ve got to get him out of there." She said. Thiel was losing his lid. He had a hand-gun in his hands, juggling it about from hand to hand as Pete tried to talk him down. All at once Thiel just cracked. There was no way of telling what the conversation had been about, but something had made him go off. He firmed his grip on the gun and flung it up to Pete’s head. "Shit!" said Danni, under her breath. "Bloody hell!" said Oscar, a little louder. "Where the hell’s Mac?" Soon after, a squad of armed officers burst into the establishment from all angles, shouting at Thiel to put the gun down. Then the sound of gunshots rang through Mac’s ears. She, and everyone else, dropped to the floor, looking up moments later to see Thiel slumped over the table – and Pete gasping as he grabbed at his chest. No-one knew what had happened. Mac ran over, pulling off her jacket, and tried to staunch the blood flowing out of Pete’s body. Danni, Oscar and Angie followed soon after, all shouting for an ambulance. They all took hold of Pete, trying in vain to slow the flow of the blood with anything they could find. When the ambulance arrived, they immediately moved Danni, Oscar and Angie out of the way, and Mac tried to keep hold of Pete’s hand to let him know she was there. She was forced away, into the arms of her friends, and Pete was raced into the ambulance. Mac followed, and clambered into the back as the vehicle raced off. When the paramedic decided they had done all they could for the time, he sat back with Mac and watched the fluids from the drip flow into Pete. Mac leant over and kissed his head, and took a firm hold of his hand. "So you two’re close then?" "Yeah, good mates." Mac replied. "Real good mates." Back at the warehouse, Danni, Oscar and Angie were returning from the scene. Oscar had his arms around Angie, and Danni walked beside them. "We should’ve got him out of there. We should’ve done something sooner." "How could we? The guy had a gun." Oscar reassured. "Yeah, don’t worry about it Danni, there was nothing we could do. The guy was a psycho and he had to crack some time or another." "I guess. I still feel awful standing by watching it though." Angie put her hand on Danni’s shoulder for comfort. "Who wants a coffee?" – Oscar was no good at talking about emotions. The girls said no, but he went and got one for himself anyway, leaving them to themselves. As Stoney returned, he had barely put his cup down when his phone rang. He picked it up off the table, and answered it quickly. "Yeah, hi?" "Hi Stone, it’s Mac." He indicated to the others who it was, and listened intently. "…So he’ll be ok? Right, okay. Cya then Mac, thanks." "What’d she say?" Asked Angie, Oscar was looking doubtful. "They’ve operated to remove the bullet, but the main thing they’re worried about is the amount of blood he lost. Apparently he’s gone into pretty bad shock." "That’s bad." "Yeah, but they’re hopeful he’ll be ok." "So they got the bullet out alright?" "Ah, it was lodged in his shoulder bone, the clavical? So it’s been broken. But the bullet’s out, and the bone’ll heal just like any other fracture." "I suppose that’s something. Poor Church." "Yeah, poor Pete." Danni considered. "So Mac’ll be staying there until his folks arrive?" "I reckon so. It’s probably the best thing that someone’s there with him." "Should we go down and keep her company?" Danni proposed. "Maybe just the one of us – she sounded really upset." "Don’t want to put too much pressure on her." They decided Danni would go, and Oscar and Angie would pop down later. When she arrived at the hospital, Danni promptly found Mac in intensive care, waiting on an uncomfortable looking bench with her head in her hands. Danni sat beside her and put a comforting arm around her friend. Mac looked up and gave her a weak smile. "Thanks for coming." Danni saw what Oscar meant. She hadn’t realised how close Mac and Pete still were to each other – she knew they were friends, but hadn’t noticed their friendship was so deep. She felt a bit uncomfortable, like an outsider not knowing these things, and just sat silently with her arm around Mac until she was ready to talk. "He looks terrible," Mac finally began, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen him looking so weak." "I’m sure he’ll be alright. Look at Stoney – he pulled through fine, you know how worried we were about him at first." "Yeah, I guess. But Pete’s different. I haven’t told anyone this, but I still wish we could be close – as close as we were before. But he has Collette now, and I haven’t realised until now how much I still really like him. Hollister was just a diversion," Danni was shocked, she hadn’t known there was ever anything between Mac and Bill, "I never really felt for him like I do Pete." Then she was quiet, before she started crying. Danni let her cry into her, and soon started crying quietly herself – Pete was a good mate. After about an hour, a doctor came out, identified himself, and explained Pete’s condition. "… he’s stabilised for the time, but you must understand he’s still in a bad way. His body has undergone a terrible shock, and it’ll take him a while to pull through. He’ll be unconscious for a while yet. Has his family been contacted?" "uh, yeah, there aren’t any parents. He has a sister – Gillian or Debra or something. I haven’t got a contact for her. I think Pete said she was overseas, but they don’t get on very well – haven’t spoken for ages." "Okay, we’ll try to get onto her – the police should be able to do it. She should know the urgency of the situation." "Yeah, we understand that," Danni put in, sensing Mac’s impatience, "So Pete’ll be in here for a while?" "He’ll be in intensive care for a few days at least, then he’ll be in another ward while he gets back to normal." "Talk about a positive guy." Danni said sarcastically once the doctor left. "Yeah, sure thing." Mac took her joke. "I think I want to go see Pete now. Maybe sit with him for a while now the doctors have finished with him." "Do you want me to come in with you?" "Ah, I think I’ll be right Danni, thanks, I just want to be alone with him for a while." "Sure, I’ll go get a coffee and I’ll be here if you need me." "Thanks." And Mac disappeared into Pete’s room. Danni was queuing up in the cafeteria to get her coffee, when she bumped into Collette. Pete had introduced them a few weeks ago, so they said hi. "What are you doing here?" Collette queried. "Oh… haven’t you been told? Oh, I’m so sorry, Pete’s been shot. I thought someone would’ve contacted you! I hope I haven’t got in the way of anything." "Oh my God… Is he ok? I mean, he’s not…" "No, but he’s in a pretty bad way. He lost a lot of blood at the scene. He’s gone into shock or something." "He’s in ICU?" "Yeah, some awful Dr Dean or something is looking after him." "Him, he’s a jerk. Oh God, can you show me where he is?" "Yep, sure – Mac’s with him at the moment, she’s really upset, she wanted to be alone. She should understand though." Danni felt awful. Poor Mac. Having Collette in the way wouldn’t help her much. She never got this upset about anything – even when she was threatened with AIDS – she must feel more about Pete than anyone realised. "Do you want to finish your coffee?" Danni thought it’d be better to delay her as long as possible. "Well, I’d really like to see him." "Yeah, I see." "Shall we go up then?" Danni reluctantly showed Collette to Pete’s room. She went in ahead to warn Mac, who was holding Pete’s hand, tucking his hand and hers under her chin. He had monitors and tubes and drips and all sorts of thing coming out of him – Danni had never seen him, or Mac for that matter, looking so vulnerable. Church was out to the world, would be for a while according to the nurses, and his arm was bandaged and immobilised to help the bone heal. His muscly chest seemed useless now as he was unable even to breath without a machine. "Mac, I saw Collette down in the cafeteria. I had to tell her and she really wanted to come see him. I’m so sorry." "Nah, that’s ok, don’t worry about it. I think I need a coffee." "You can have this one, I haven’t touched it." Danni passed her paper cup to Mac when she had said goodbye to Pete. "Collette’s here now. I’ll be just outside. I’m always here for you remember." Mac said, and Danni put her hand on Pete’s shoulder to say goodbye then went outside with Mac. "You should go home and get some rest Mac, you look awful." "Thanks, I really want to stay with him though, maybe a bit longer." "Yeah, okay. Oscar and Ange said they’d come down later to say hi." "Thanks Danni." And they sat down on the bench again. "Are there some more comfortable seats anywhere?" "Yeah, there might be another waiting area somewhere." "It’ll be easier to wait if we’re comfy." Danni went and asked a nurse at the nurse’s station where a waiting area would be. She directed them to a small ‘visitors room’ with yet another cafebar machine, some old lounge suites with holes in, and a selection of old magazines. It was better than the wooden bench. "Tea? Coffee? Hot Chocolate? What a selection. Fantastic." Danni pressed, twisted and pulled each to try and get some powder in her styrofoam cup, to no avail. "These things are hopeless!" She tossed her cup into the dented tin bin provided, along with all the other styrofoam cups people had given up on, and joined Mac on the old sofa. "He’ll be right Mac, he’s tough! Young, healthy and tough." "I guess you’re right." Mac said, with the faintest glint of a smile. The next day at the warehouse, Mac had taken the day off – she wasn’t entitled to sympathetic leave, so she said she wasn’t feeling too well, which was probably right. Danni explained Pete’s situation to the rest of the team, then spoke to Oscar and Angie about finding the guy who tipped Thiel off. "Dan, drug squad wanted to ask you a few questions about the guy – what he looked like, that kinda thing, because you were the only one who saw him." "They’ve got the surveillance tape and were going to see if you could pick him out on it. They really need to know who this guy is and what he told them. They’ll get Pete to have a look too, when he wakes up – he might’ve heard what they said." Oscar added. "I’ll head down there now then – the sooner the better. You guys seen Mac and Pete yet?" "Yeah, we went down to the hospital last night. Poor Mac, she looked awful. And Pete. Geez, I really want to find out who that bastard was." Angie added. "I’ll be leaving now then. Cyas later!" And Danni left for HQ. "…he was sort of tall, bleached blonde kind of hair – it was under a baseball cap so I couldn’t really notice. He was wirey – real ratty looking, probably an addict – he seemed really on edge the whole time." "Yeah, we think he was one of Thiel’s minders – paid in drugs for any information he could give. When Thiel started getting suspicious, he must’ve sent him, or them, on Church’s tail to find out more." "You don’t think they followed him to the warehouse?" Danni asked. "It’s likely, but I think we can hope for the moment that there won’t be any danger now Thiel’s out of the way. But you might want to inform MacKenzie to take extra security measures." "She’s not in today, but we’ll certainly get that organised." "Definitely a good idea. Anything else about this guy? What age would you say he was?" Danni answered this and any other questions the Detective Sergeant asked her, then they watched the surveillance tape. Stone had installed a camera on the door and one inside, so they could see where this minder came from and went to. He got into a red hatchback, and they noted and checked the number. As expected, it was flagged as stolen, but Drug Squad flagged it again anyway. The sergeant, on closer observation, recognised him as one Michael Beaton, who had priors for possession and dealing. The only address they had was a few years old, and when they visited the house, a little old lady answered the door. She identified herself as Michael’s grandmother, and they had kicked him out when he was last arrested. She had no idea where he was, and was never likely to return to that address. Danni returned to the warehouse, there was nothing more she could do with Drug Squad, and dumped herself at her desk. As she sat there, she tried to think of anything of any use that might have been said . When she went into Mac’s office to get the audio tapes of Pete’s conversation with Thiel, she saw an envelope lying on the desk. Assuming it was for Mac, she got the tapes from the filing cabinet and went back to her desk to listen to them through her headphones. Most of the tape was about the drug operation, evidence they were gathering before Mac could give the go-ahead for arrest. Not a word was spoken about the minder, until someone, apparently the minder, entered the conversation and some muffled words were spoken to Thiel. Danni had no way of knowing all of what was said – his voice was deep and he spoke into Mike’s ear, practically out of range of Pete’s wire. She could, however, pick out a few accentuated words: "… cop… bloody cop!… all over the joint!" She gathered all this meant that he found out Pete was a cop, one way or another, and he had noticed there were people hanging around watching. Danni couldn’t be sure, but judging by the way he talked he thought perhaps there was a group of them watching the building, and circulating around looking for anything suspicious. She thought Mac and the others would have noticed, which led her to ideas of an inside leak. She stopped those thoughts in their tracks, sure it was her imagination running amok. But it bothered her all the same. Back at the hospital, Pete was still unconscious, but the doctors were sure he was out of danger. Mac was sitting in the visitors’ room with Oscar and Angie who had popped down in their lunch break, and she looked significantly happier than when Danni had last seen her the night before. Danni gave the door a friendly knock and grinned as she entered, then went on to tell Mac what she had heard on the tape. "Have you passed this on to Drug Squad?" Mac asked when Danni had run through all the details. "Nah, I thought I’d tell you first, see what you think. And use it as an excuse for coming down here. So how are you? Pete’s in the clear then?" "Yeah, I’m right thanks. It was just a bit of a shock last night. The doctors say he’ll be okay, it’ll take a while, but he’ll be right." Angie and Oscar excused themselves to go and see Pete, and left Danni and Mac to chat. "You been home yet?" Danni asked, noting how dead-on-her-feet Mac looked. "Ah yeah, I popped home this morning. About 2. Stop fussing, I’ll be right!" Mac grinned. Danni returned the joke, glad to see Mac was back to normal, then changed the subject to the case. "Did Pete say anything to you about being followed? Strange vehicles, people… We think the guy that tipped off Thiel had been paid to find out more about Pete, and probably follow him." "No, I don’t think so. Nah, I don’t think he mentioned anything – but when I left my post to go to the OP van when things started going wrong, I noticed a red car kinda watching me. I remember thinking the guy in it looked a bit like Phil – I was pretty sure it wasn’t so I let that go. I think it was red. I didn’t think anything of it, but it might be relevant." "Yeah…" Danni was again thinking of an insider link. Phil had shown himself to be a bit short up in the brains department, and had a done a few blatantly stupid things, but she didn’t think he was quite capable of something like this. "It could have been." She muttered to herself, before realising what she had said. "You reckon?" "Nah, ‘course not." Mac nodded in agreeance, "If there were people watching, just like Drug Squad said, they’re probably right about Pete being followed. What do you think the chances are of them knowing where the warehouse is?" "I hope Pete’d notice if someone was following him. We’ll just have to employ extra security – I don’t think there’d be any need to relocate, not with Thiel out of the way." "Yeah, you’re probably right. Oh, there was a package on your desk. Big white Postpak thing" Mac said thanks, she’d check it out when she got in the next day, they exchanged ‘cya laters’ and ‘give my best to Pete’ and Danni was on her way. She informed the drug squad detectives of her find, and they said a couple of their officers noticed strange vehicles hanging around. "I don’t think there’d be any more than three vehicles. There’s the one MacKenzie saw, Allsop here saw a yellow yuppie thing," Senior Detective Allsop nodded, "and your ‘Phil Turner’ was it? saw a ‘blue-green hatchback’ he even gave the rego number." He said, reading from his notes. "Gee," Danni said, "very accurate description. We’ll want to hope there was only three vehicles." "Even if it was, we’re in a bit of a bother. Your lot were in charge of observation – how could they not notice? I’ll need to talk to MacKenzie on this one." DS Cave dismissed Danni and she was on her way. Danni arrived, yet again, at the deserted warehouse and dumped herself at her desk. It was getting on three, and there was nothing for anyone to do so they had either gone home or popped out. Danni sat around for a while, filled out all her residual paperwork, sat around some more then noticed an awful smell that had been incoherantly bothering her for a while. She sniffed around, perhaps making a fool of herself as there was no-one around, and her nose led her to Mac’s office, and the parcel sitting on the desk. She picked it up, holding her breath, and prodded it about. "Danni? You here?" Danni hurriedly put the parcel down, then she realised it was Oscar and Angie returning from the hospital. "Paah, what’s that smell?" "Yeah, it’s in here Stone. You two took your time!" Oscar and Angie appeared in the doorway, making faces at the smell. "Someone left a parcel on Mac’s desk and it pongs like anything!" They came inside. "Who’s it from?" "What’s in it more like!", Angie added. "The answers to both I don’t know. Shall I open it?" "It’s addressed to Mac" Angie cautioned. "But it stinks!" stated Oscar, "Just open it!" Danni opened the large, white package. In it were several old pigs’ trotters (obviously causing the smell) and a stack of photos of Pete – at his house, at Collette’s, talking to Mac, at Police Headquarters, and at the warehouse. "Shit!" or some other expletive was what followed from each of them, before Danni’s clever remark of "They know where we are!" "God, we’ve got to get Mac down here – we’re going to have to relocate." "We can’t leave here to get Mac, we need two to go and two to stay – otherwise it’s too dangerous. They could be outside, waiting for us to go, waiting for someone to be alone. And we can’t ring Mac – she’s in the hospital." Oscar had been looking puzzedly at the parcel while Angie was reciting protocol, and when he’d finished he looked up at them. "How’d they get it in here?" They all looked at the parcel. They all looked at the entrance. They all looked at the parcel again, as puzzedly as before. "Okay, Phil and Fiona have ducked out to the shops, right? So I’ll ring them up and get them to swing by the hospital and get Mac to come back in here." With that, Danni picked up the phone and dialled Fiona’s mobile number. "…thanks Fi, let her know there’s been a security breech… yeah, thanks a lot, cya." About three quarters of an hour later, Mac arrived and headed straight for her office, Phil and Fiona in tow. The three reacted with the smell, and asked what it was. Danni held up the envelope with the pigs trotters on. "This is the problem." She proceeded to show Mac the photos. Phil and Fiona were enjoying the excitement – they were both new UCs in the unit. Phil was straight out of the academy and a bit of a trouble maker, he had been caught twice blatantly breaking the rules, and was nearly suspended for his handling of an informant. Fiona was a few years older and was getting good at the job. "So you’ve told drug squad?" Mac asked. Danni answered yes, they’d called them right after they had Fiona. "We’ll have to relocate. This is too big a breech. What I want to know, is how the hell it got in here." Danni found herself again trying to stop thoughts of an insider leak before Mac continued: "For the time being we’ll just have to concentrate on getting this place packed up. We can concentrate on who, how, when and why later. I’ll get the others back in, and we’ll aim to be out of here in 24-hours. Oh, and Stone, bring us the security tapes from this morning." Mac concluded her instruction and they set about packing up while Stone got the tapes. He stuck them in the player, and Angie and Danni came in to watch, and he pressed play. It went along fine for a while until Danni left for HQ, then it all happened. Phil came in, looked around suspiciously, looked up at the camera to see where it was, the climbed up and stuck something over it. The sounds that could then be heard were of Phil calling out for a ‘Robbo’ to come in, the coast was clear, then footsteps, a door, presumably Mac’s, opening, then closing, then more footsteps and the main door slamming shut. There were more footsteps, then the cover was removed from the camera, again by Phil, before things went back to normal. Danni was already on her way out to get Phil. "Where’d he go?" She shouted at Fiona, who signalled he’d just gone out the door. She raced across the room and flung open the door, giving chase to the speedy Phil. When she eventually collared him, he swung around to swipe her in the face, so she rebutted with a swift knee up the groin. He wasn’t too comfortable as Danni dragged him inside. "You’re a jerk," she said to him as she led him, still wincing, to Mac as the others watched on from the door. They piled him into a car and Oscar and Mac took him to Headquarters, while Danni cleaned up the fist mark he left on her face. Angie concluded that Phil Turner had been a moron from the start and Danni readily agreed. "What the hell!?!?" Oscar exploded on return to the warehouse about two hours later. They were driving into a pack of bikies gathered around the warehouse, but Mac likened them to a pack of rabid rotweilers – she’s always felt that way about bikies. "Shit," said Mac, "They know we’ve got Turner." They locked all the doors, closed all the windows and continued on to the warehouse. They were almost to the garage when, all of a sudden, a shot was fired through the back window, narrowly missing Mac’s arm. "Shit!" They said again. They ducked down in their seats, waiting to be attacked from all angles. A back window was smashed in, and Mac silently concluded she wouldn’t be around much longer, as did Oscar. But instead of giving Mac and Oscar a savage beating, the bikie got in the back, planted the gun firmly into Mac’s neck, and said: "Open up sweetheart." He was a huge scary looking bloke, with a ratty plait straggling down the back of his neck, an equally straggly beard and large tattoos on his exposed upper arms. Mac opened the door and drove through. She went to close it behind them, but was stopped with a hard thrust of gun into her neck. "Uh uh, leave it open. Me and my pals want to take a look inside." She left the door open, and a stream of perhaps 20 bikies followed them inside. "Mac?" Danni shouted when she heard the door open. "Oscar? How’d you go? Got the bastard locked up?" Mac and Oscar entered, widening their eyes as a warning as the bikies entered and scattered themselves around the office. They were all reasonably butch looking blokes, apart from one wirey guy Danni immediately recognised as Michael Beaton. The guy that got into the car stayed with Mac and the others, and shouted orders to his gang. "Anyone else around?" He grunted to his ‘men’. They all shook their heads or made some kind of negative animal noise, and one shouted "That’s the last of ‘em. Filthy pigs." ‘Them’, meant Danni and Angie, so obviously he hadn’t looked in the mirror lately. "Right! Now look!" The ring-leader barked, and they all set about pulling apart the contents of drawers and cupboards. Then the big guy directed his attention to the UCs. "We hear you lot are responsible for the death of our mate. And we’re not too happy about it." "Robbo!" The guy Danni had indentified as Beaton interrupted, "I got something. I think it’s the blonde’s." "Which ONE block'ed?" "That one." he said, pointing to Danni. As ‘Robbo’ took hold of her shirt and thrust the gun from Mac’s vital organs to Danni’s, ‘Blockhead’ produced Danni’s walkman and the tapes labelled ‘Mike Thiel 30.1.01’. A group of blokes snarled at Danni – teeth showing, fists tucked, looks of pure hate. "Now show us where you got ‘em from sweetheart. We want all the stuff on Thiel, you got it?" And he gave Danni a shove to get her going. She lead them to Mac’s office, and opened the filing cabinet. As she did, she remembered. Fi went down to the storeroom to get some stationary and to do some filing. She hadn’t come back, or been caught yet. Danni handed a wad of tapes, sheets of paper, photographs, and other evidence, statements and surveillance material to the big blokes standing by, who shoved it all in a briefcase and locked it. "Hold on Robbo! There’s some chick down here! She was on the phone to her mates." "What mates." Robbo answered. "The bloody cops!" "Shit!" he let go of Danni, pushing her into a corner, and shouted "Everyone out! Quick! Everyone out!" But they were too late. Danni heard the sounds of sirens, and lay there, relieved. She listened to the commotion of the arrests outside – all the yelling, swearing, resistance – and after about 10 minutes, all was quiet. Mac, Angie, Oscar and Fi all came in, looking about as battered as one another. "God, what happened to you lot?" Danni asked, standing up. "Bloody rough lot they are." Oscar explained. "You alright? That guy was pretty fierce." "Yeah, I’ll live." Danni said, she knew being held up was one of the everyday dangers of the job. "Did we manage to get the evidence back?" Mac produced the briefcase. "Thank God, that’s one less thing Pete has to worry about. I know I wouldn’t like to be identifiable as the one who killed a drug boss." Angie pointed out. They all had a bit of a grin, glad it was over, and Mac’s mobile rang. "Hi? Oh that’s fantastic, I’ll be down there as quick as I can!" She hung up, the others looked at her questioningly, and when she told them that Pete was awake, they all joined in grabbing their keys and bags and headed down to the hospital. Mac raced in ahead of the others and planted herself on Pete’s bed. "Thank God your alright!" She said as she kissed Pete’s head and took hold of his hand, relieved to feel it gripping back. "I’ve been so worried!" They sat there and looked at each other for a while, Mac’s eyes welling with relief, until Pete choked out, "I’m so glad you’re here." Danni, Angie and Oscar interrupted with a knock on the door, but Mac had time to whisper "I love you" in Pete’s ear. He reciprocated, and Mac went outside while the others planted themselves around the bed. Mac stood and watched the others fooling around and laughing with Pete, tears trickling from her eyes. He looked happy. She felt happy. Danni turned around and caught Mac’s eye, and smiled. She hadn’t mentioned to anyone what Mac had said the night Pete got shot, Mac had wanted it that way, but now she had a longing for Pete to know how much she really really cared for him, and didn’t know how to say it. But Mac knew that Danni knew that she was ready to give things with Pete another go. And she was hoping Pete felt the same way. THE END hope you liked it, if you did feel free to let me know, if you didn't, likewise. preferably if you did though. :o) tata, Kyles :)