*****

St. Joseph’s

Patrick O’Doyle stood outside the door of his son’s hospital room. It was a risk to come, he knew. The place would be crawling with cops and Feds as soon as they figured it out. But it had been so long since…

He pushed open the door and stepped inside.

He’d seen the surveillance photos over the years, read the reports, knew Johnny had done the same thing. They had kept track of one another through middlemen. He knew as much about the boy’s life as if they’d been on speaking terms. About his job frustrations with the FBI and the APD, about the troubled woman he was in love with, about the little blonde child he adored. More than once over the past few years Patrick had wondered what it would have been like... if things had been different.

It had been more than fifteen years since they had been in the same room. Pat looked down at his sleeping son. There wasn’t much left of the child Johnny had been. Only the dark, unruly hair and the bruises. He smiled to himself. Getting Johnny to comb his hair had always been a major battle.

He didn’t blame the boy for leaving. It wasn’t his fault. Noreen had taken him and hadn’t given him a choice. Things hadn’t turned out quite the way Pat had hoped. Johnny was supposed to be his legacy, his right hand. Instead, Noreen had stolen him and ruined everything. Not that the boy had ever shown much promise, though, he had to admit. The kid had always been pretty slow on the uptake. He had never seemed to quite understand what was expected of him. Looking down at his son’s bruised face he remembered the difficulty of trying to teach Johnny to defend himself.

*****

Eastside Middle School Gymnasium, seventeen years ago

Basketball. The boy was tall for his age. He should have been a natural at it. He had the speed and the skills, Pat knew, but he didn’t have the drive.

"What! Are you blind, ref?" Pat shouted from the bleachers.

"Let it go, Dad." The boy looked more embarrassed than angry. "Just sit down."

"What’s the matter with you? You as blind as the ref, Johnny? That was a foul!" He could see the bruise already darkening the boy’s eye.

Johnny’s eye was nearly swollen shut by the time the game was over. Pat ranted all the way home. Johnny merely stared out the window.

"You should have shoved back."

"Then, I might have gotten a foul..."

"If that moron didn’t call it on that other boy, he wouldn’t have called it on you. You have to stand up for yourself, Johnny. Nobody’s gonna do it for you. You don’t shove back and they’re just gonna keep walking all over you."

"It was an accident, Dad. He didn’t do it on..."

"The hell it was an accident! You’ve got to play to win, boy. Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve been telling you? You have to take what you want. Nobody’s gonna hand it to you. You want something? You fight for it."

"It’s just a game..."

"Shut up and listen, Johnny! No matter where you go, people are gonna try pushing you around, trying to get what they want. You can’t let them. You’re an O’Doyle and nobody pushes the O’Doyles around."

The complete lack of understanding in the boy’s face was exasperating.

*****

St. Joseph’s, present

He took half a step back as Johnny opened his eyes. Confusion was plain on his face as he searched the room. Pat stepped forward and Johnny looked up at him. The confusion was slowly replaced by a wary expression.

"Last time I woke up in a hospital… I thought I saw an angel," Johnny said hoarsely. "Guess this time I must really be dead."

Pat was too surprised at the sound of the boy’s voice to even wonder at the logic of his statement. Despite all the photos that Pat had seen over the years he had never heard this voice. It was deeper than he had imagined.

"What are you doing here?" Johnny asked, his words as suspicious as the dark look in his eyes.

"I was in the neighborhood," Pat said. "It is my neighborhood," he pointed out.

"You did this to me," Johnny accused. He tapped at the bandages wrapped tightly around his ribs.

"Not this." Pat shook his head. "Your carjackers did this," he suggested.

"Carjackers? Like hell. There weren’t any carjackers. You did this. You and O’Connor."

Patrick watched a strange flicker deep in his son’s eyes. It took only an instant to realize what it meant. He smiled. "You don’t remember, do you?" His smile broadened as the muscles in Johnny’s jaw clenched. He hadn’t been there when this was done. Hadn’t had anything to do with it. Johnny really didn’t know what had happened. "Even if your little theory was true," Pat said, "you don’t remember enough to make it stand up in court."

"You won’t get away with this."

"You’re barking up the wrong tree, boy. I’d be looking for little Asian punks, if I was you."

"No."

The tone made Pat frown. There was a cold, level look in Johnny’s face. Staring into blue mirrors of his own eyes Pat realized that there was something missing. Something he had always seen there before.

Fear.

It seems that the boy missed an important part of the lesson somewhere, Pat thought irritably. His spirit was supposed to be as broken as his body. His lack of fear was completely at odds with what had been intended. That could be corrected.

*****

Boston Police District Nine

"George, tell him what you have so far," Bailey said wearily. Running two cases at once was starting to wear on him. Their search for John was going nowhere fast and he was beginning to think that they might have run up against a wall in the serial killer case, as well. Captain Wells had insisted on a report, however, so Bailey had invited him to sit in on the meeting.

Wells fidgeted impatiently through the update and snorted loudly as George finished. "You actually want us to track down *everybody* that went to this school between 1980 and 1985?" Wells asked.

The scorn and sarcasm in the captain’s voice grated on Bailey’s worn nerves. "It’s our best angle," he said. It was an effort to keep the irritation out of his own voice and as Sam gave him a worried look he realized that he had stopped trying. "All our material evidence has dead-ended. The school is the only connection left."

"And this is all you guys can come up with?" Wells said.

"Well," George offered with a scowl, "there’s always ouija boards, but I doubt that would do you any good either… Wait a sec." The man sat upright in his chair and began tapping furiously at the small keyboard. "Bailey, we got him! It can’t be anybody else… It ain’t Grant and it ain’t Doe," he said with a wild grin, "but it’s close enough!"

*****

St. Joseph’s

"Why am I still alive?" Johnny asked suddenly.

There was still no fear in his face. Just genuine curiosity. Pat sighed to himself and decided that there really was something wrong with the boy. "You got lucky," he said with an impatient scowl. "I wouldn’t bet on that horse twice, though."

The truth was that he didn’t know why Johnny was still alive. This had been Cahill’s work from the beginning. And Cahill knew that Patrick wouldn’t have objected to a permanent solution. Johnny had always been more trouble than he was worth and had only been getting worse. Alive, he would always be a liability. Even if he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, Pat had no doubt that he would pursue his "case" with annoying persistence. It really wasn’t like Cahill to leave loose ends.

"Why couldn’t you just let us walk away?"

With a start, Pat suddenly realized that Johnny wasn’t talking about today.

"Why did you have to kill her?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about…" he began automatically.

"My mother. Why did you kill her? Why couldn’t you leave us alone and just let us disappear?"

"That doesn’t have anything to do with your problems now," Pat said. He wouldn’t deny that he had ordered Noreen’s death. It was perhaps the only thing that might still intimidate Johnny. But he wasn’t stupid enough to admit to it either.

"Why couldn’t you let us go?" Johnny’s voice began to rise. "Why did you kill her? Who do you think you are?"

"I’m an O’Doyle," Patrick snapped suddenly, his voice low and tight. "Just like you. You’re an O’Doyle, Johnny, whether you want to be or not. You can’t just walk away from that. You can’t walk away from who you are."

"Watch me," the boy spit back. "I’m not one of you…"

"YOU are an O’Doyle," Pat said, his voice rising to match Johnny’s. "When you look in the mirror every morning, whose face do you see? Mine. You can’t change the color of your eyes. You can’t change the color of your blood. You can’t walk away from family and not pay a price. Noreen paid hers. And yours is coming due. Stay out of Boston, Johnny, or somebody just might decide to collect… in full."

"Get out! Get OUT!"

"Mr. O’Doyle?"

Both men turned to see a doctor standing in the doorway.

"Your son is still in very serious condition," the woman said to Patrick. "I think it might be a good idea if you left him alone… to rest for a while."

Pat forced his face into a calm mask and nodded. He glanced back briefly at Johnny. The boy continued to glare at him. Pat brushed past the doctor and walked out of the room. Behind him he could hear Johnny’s stubborn protest.

"He’s not my father."

*****

Dr. Peterson quietly took the readings on the monitors beside John’s bed. The task was one normally performed by an RN, but she had to admit that she had developed a certain curiosity about this particular patient. She had immediately recognized the man that she had encountered in his room earlier. Whether at the side of a state senator during a political rally or on the courthouse steps after dodging another racketeering charge, Patrick O’Doyle was no stranger to the local media. So, despite John’s insistence otherwise, she no doubts about his parentage. His bone structure, hair, and eyes were so patently O’Doyle that she jokingly wondered if he came with a serial number.

She was nearly finished checking his vitals when a flurry of activity outside the room caught her attention. Several police officers and men in dark suits swarmed onto the floor. She moved into the hallway as a tall, grim-looking man with a vaguely Italian complexion headed toward her at full steam. A blonde woman, her expression just as intense, was at his side.

"Bailey Malone, FBI," the man said, waving a badge at her. "John Grant. John O’Doyle. Whatever it is you have him filed under. Where is he?"

Well, that certainly didn’t take long, she thought. The Feds must have a huge net out for this guy. They obviously wanted him badly. Regardless of what he had done, however, right now he was still her patient and he was still in very serious condition.

"I don’t care what kind of warrant you have," she told Malone firmly. "There is no way that patient is going anywhere any time soon."

"What is it with everybody and warrants today?" Malone muttered. "He’s not under arrest. He’s a federal agent."

"He..." she stopped short and blinked at him, nonplussed.

*****

"I’m sorry," John said. "I just… I don’t remember…"

"Give it time," Sam told him. "It may come back on it’s own."

"And it may not… I feel like such an idiot. I know who did it… and I can’t prove a damn thing."

"We’ll get them," Bailey said. He placed his hand gently on John’s shoulder. "One way or another we’ll get them." He was rewarded with a small, grateful look. "Meanwhile," he added, "you are not leaving here until they clear you. And once they let you go, you’re spending one more day at home." He ignored John’s strangled protest. "I don’t want to see you anywhere near the office before Tuesday."

"But, I’m fine..."

"Shut up, John. Get some rest." He smiled. "And Sam’s staying to make sure you don’t bully the doctors again."

"What?"

"Don’t even try it. Every doctor you had after the Jenkins case swears you terrorized them into letting you leave early. You had no business being out so soon. You looked like hell and you weren’t good for anything. That’s not happening again."

"But..."

"I mean it. We need you back on the case but not half-healed and worn out. I don’t want you blacking out in the middle of an interview." He turned to Sam. "You have the Bureau’s permission to shoot him if he doesn’t cooperate."

"Yes, sir."

"But, Bailey..."

"Goodnight, John. Sam." He closed the door on his way out and walked toward the elevator.

He had doubts about John ever remembering exactly what had happened to him. Too much trauma, both physical and emotional, in such a short time frame could result in more than mere repression. Dr. Peterson had explained that it was entirely possible that the experience could have distorted his memories beyond retrieval or even erased them altogether. It wasn’t an encouraging diagnosis. Still, he knew that John wouldn’t let it go easily. And this time, Bailey would make sure he had the full support of the VCTF behind him. No more freelancing.

As he waited for the elevator to arrive he felt the weight that had so recently been lifted from his shoulders slowly return. His thoughts began to slip back onto the serial killer case that had brought them to Boston originally. They were making a remarkable lack of progress, he thought wryly. He knew that it was unrealistic to expect the VCTF to be able to solve every case in three days, but he didn’t see why that shouldn’t be a goal. They had one of the best completion rates in the Bureau but anything less than one hundred percent was still… less. Once he got back to the precinct house he’d take a look at everything that George had managed to pull up. If they couldn’t find any obvious links he wasn’t sure what direction they would have to take then.

Boston, he thought. Just another city.

Yeah, right.

*****

Epilogue

Leave it to Patrick to walk out just when things start to get interesting, the man thought. He smiled quietly as Bailey Malone walked past without even glancing in his direction. The agent seemed worried, but not about John. Guess that means the kid’s going to be okay, he mused. The little brat better be. He had put himself on the line to derail Cahill’s plans for John and he knew that things were going to get bumpy for all of them soon. But he figured that it was worth the risk. His own plans needed John Grant in one piece. Thanks to Cahill’s meddling things were going to start crashing down around them sooner rather than later. The Feds weren’t going to let this incident go. They were already moving ahead with their Figrello case. This was just more fuel for the fire. And when at all finally went south… then he would leave everything in John’s hands. He hoped that he hadn’t misjudged…

*****