CHAPTER TWO

Both of them paused, shocked to hear her admit it out loud. Michael recovered first. He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. "You don't get to give up, Faith. You fucked up, and you'll pay the price for that, but you'll be back."

"I'll be back in the FBI, but I'll never go into the field again," she said. "Best case, they'll stick me in evidence and let me play around with body fluids and scraps of fiber. Worst case, I'll end up in Quantico filing paperwork and getting fat watching daytime soaps on a portable tv."

She shrugged and sipped her coffee again, "but it's fine. I had a nice run. Shit happens. Tell me about this new girl, Rosa. She prettier than me?"

She smiled teasingly, and Michael rolled his eyes. "Jeffrey Rosa is a decent-looking young man, I suppose," he said drily, "and he's a lot more timid than you were when you started, which bodes well for me. I'm too old to handle another big personality."

She chuckled. "I think you'll do just fine."

His phone rang then. He sighed, and when he saw the number, he rolled his eyes. "The Boss. Duty calls. At least it's not on my honeymoon this time."

An uncomfortable image of Michael and Ellie together, arms wrapped around each other, lips pressed together, crossed Faith's mind. At one point years ago, Michael and Faith had been an item. Those days were long gone, but the thought of Michael in love with someone else still seemed strange to Faith sometimes.

Michael's eyes widened, and when he said, "Is it Turk?" all thought of Michael, Ellie, West and everything else vanished. Faith stood so quickly she knocked over both of their coffee mugs. Michael, equally stunned and excited, didn't react other than to back away from the trickle of hot liquid. "We're on our way. Faith's allowed to come, right? Outstanding. We'll be there soon."

He hung up and grinned at Faith. "Fortune favors the Bold once again."

"Oh my God!" Faith exclaimed.

She threw her arms around Michael and held him tight, weeping uncontrollably. "It's him? He's alive? He's all right?"

"It's him," Michael confirmed. "Vet says he's skinny and bruised up, but otherwise none the worse for wear."

"Oh my God!" she cried again. "Which vet?"

"Which one do you think? David just got to work and found Turk resting on the porch."

A transient touch of discomfort slipped across Faith's mind. She and David hadn't spoken much in the past two months. Actually, they hadn't spoken at all after a brief visit in the hospital and an even briefer phone call when she was released. She wasn't sure what it would be like to see her (possibly ex-) boyfriend after so long.

But that didn't matter right now. Turk was alive. He was alive, and if he was alive, then there was still hope.

On an impulse, she kissed Michael's cheek hard and said, "Thank you."

He chuckled. "For what? I didn't do anything."

"For being here," she said.

He froze briefly, no doubt remembering when he wasn't there for her. The second time she had gone after West, she had called him first, and he hadn't answered. He had arrived, of course, but too late. She had already gone after him alone.

Just answer the phone when I call.

After a moment, he pulled her tighter into his embrace. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

***

When Faith saw Turk sitting on the table in the exam room, she nearly collapsed. Turk's fur was matted in some places and scratched bare in others. His ribs stuck out prominently, and his legs looked almost spindly compared to the powerful dog she knew, but when he lifted his head and his eyes widened with instant joy, she knew that her dog had come back to her.

He barked and malnourishment or no, he leapt off of the table and bounded to Faith with the exuberance of a puppy. She dropped to the floor and opened her arms wide, and Turk jumped into them, barking and licking her exuberantly while she wept and held him close.

"Hey, boy," she said. "Hey. I'm so glad to see you. I missed you so much."

She held him for a long moment, laughing and crying as he licked her face like he never expected to see her again. Probably he hadn't.

She held him at arm's length and beamed into his expressive, earnest brown eyes. It alarmed her how easily she supported his weight. He must have lost thirty pounds at least. But the light in his eyes and the toothy grin told Faith that was all right. He was back with Faith now, and everything would be okay.

"Everything will be okay," she repeated, liking the sound of those words, liking even more that she believed them. She pulled Turk close again and breathed deeply. She giggled and said, "You smell like a sewer, boy."

He barked happily, and she laughed again and just held him for a moment. When Turk barked and tried to pull away from her, she released him. She saw the reason for that a moment later when Michael stooped down and picked him up. "Dang, Turk," he said, "I need to follow your diet."

He barked and took his turn, licking Michael half to death. Michael, not normally a fan of dog kisses, endured these with a smile on his face. Faith saw tears welling in his own eyes and giggled again.

"Christ, you need a bath," Michael said, holding him at arm's length. "You smell like something died on you. Does this mean you did our job for us and killed the big baddie?"

Faith's smile faded slightly. She wanted desperately to hope that West could be dealt with so easily, that he could simply vanish as though he had never existed in the first place. Her longstanding desire to be the one who vanquished the Copycat Killer was no more. She just wanted him gone.

She couldn't be sad for longer than a moment, though. Turk leaped out of Michael's arms, and though he wobbled a bit when he landed, he quickly gathered himself and leaped back onto the table just before the door to the exam room opened.

Faith's breath caught in her throat when she saw him. Her skin went hot and cold in waves, and when she swallowed, her tongue felt thick and twisted in her mouth. She had reacted the same way when she first saw him, completely overwhelmed by the sight of him. He was a hero, a prince, "a knight in shining armor."

She brushed the memory of West's words away like a fly and managed a smile as David approached her. "Hi, David," she said shyly.

"Hello, Faith," he replied.

There was a moment of awkward silence between them. Then Michael, perhaps recognizing he was the third wheel in the room, said, "I'm gonna head to Morning Glory for some coffee. You guys want anything?"

"I've had mine already, thanks," David said.

"I'm good too, thank you," Faith added.

Michael shrugged. "More for me. Be back in ten… thirty minutes."

He left, and an awkward silence settled over the room again. Fatih looked down at her hands and found her fingers twisting the front of her shirt into knots. She forced them to separate, then forced her eyes back up to David's. "How have you been?" she asked.

"I've been good," he said, "work's been keeping me busy. I had a lot of patients to catch up on."

Faith shifted her feet uncomfortably and nibbled at her lower lip. A month before West put Faith in the hospital, Faith had discovered a note left with the body of her colleague and friend Gordon Clark, West's most recent victim. That note had threatened David, Michael and Ellie explicitly as West revealed for the first time his desire to break Faith's will.

After reading that note, Faith had pressured David and Ellie into leaving Philadelphia temporarily. David had complied on two separate occasions, the first time for two weeks and the second time for nearly a month before he finally insisted that he had to return home. The last conversation Faith had with him before going after West, he had made it clear how frustrated he was with her for interrupting his relationship with his patients.

"How are you?" he asked, breaking another uncomfortable silence. "You look good."

She laughed. "Don't lie, I look like I feel, and I feel like shit."

"No, you don't," he said, "Well, you don't look like shit, anyway. I can't help how you feel."

His tone was light, but Faith could detect a hint of bitterness behind it. She lowered her eyes again and was grateful when Turk barked and gave them an excuse to break away from each other.

"You came just in time," he said. "I was just about to take a look at him."

He moved to the table and said, "All right, boy. Let's see what the damage is."

David was a competent veterinarian. Faith wasn't surprised that Turk trusted him, but it still impressed her how the big German shepherd complied with him, allowing him to check his fur, look in his ears and eyes, and palpate his body for any sign of broken bones, internal bruising or herniated bowels. Turk seemed unfazed by the vet's touch, though every so often, he would stiffen as David found another bruise.

She was in the hospital when David returned. He had visited once, but Faith was under the influence of a lot of morphine and didn't remember much other than that he had seemed eager to leave during the entirety of his brief stay. When she was released, he called her briefly to congratulate her on her recovery and promised to get together soon. It felt to Faith more like a perfunctory well-wish from a distant relative than the words of a concerned boyfriend.

Did they even have a relationship now? She didn't really want to broach the subject. She didn't want to know the answer.

You know the answer , she thought. You just don't want to hear it.

"All right," David said, "there's some moderate bruising, especially around the abdomen, but nothing seems to be out of place. We'll want to take some X-rays just to be sure."

Turk whined, and Faith placed a hand on his paws. "Don't worry, boy. I'm right here."

Turk calmed immediately, his big brown eyes gazing trustingly at hers as David readied the machine. Faith saw that trust, and her heart broke from guilt. It was her fault he was here, her fault that he was injured in the first place. She had led him into danger because she needed to capture West herself. If Faith wasn't in the picture, Turk would probably be trotting around Quantico in the company of a grizzled old K9 instructor, the only danger he faced the chance that the cafeteria's meatloaf might disagree with him.

"It'll all be okay," she said, more to herself than to Turk.

David took X-rays of the dog's legs and feet to check for any problems or injuries that might have gone undetected through touch alone. Afterwards, he placed the stethoscope against Turk's chest, listening to the heartbeat with a focused intensity that reminded Faith of why she had been so drawn to him in the first place.

David took a large, boxy camera out of a cabinet and put it against Turk's head. The dog waited patiently. "You can't usually do this," he said, "because dogs won't let you. Usually, we have to sedate them."

She nodded, struggling for something to say and finding nothing. She hated this. After months apart from the man she thought she loved, she was here with him now, but instead of feeling close to him, she felt farther than she had when thousands of miles separated them.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, David finished up by injecting Turk with some vitamins and antibiotics.

"I have some swabs to run, and I want to see if anything changes after those injections I gave him," David said. "I'll need a stool sample too, before he leaves, but the X-ray should tell me if he has parasites or not. He has a broken tooth, but I don't think it needs any treatment. No dentin is exposed. The X-rays will tell me if there's anything else we need to be concerned with, but overall, it looks like Turk is more or less in good shape, other than being pretty severely underweight. I'll put a diet together for him too."

He moved to leave, and she caught his hand. "Thank you, David. I really appreciate it."

He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed and squeezed her hand. "Of course. I should be back in fifteen minutes or so."

He released Faith's hand and left the room. She stroked Turk's head and asked with smile, "Did you leave a nice souvenir in West's leg?

Turk's eyes hardened. He growled menacingly, and Faith laughed just as menacingly. "Good," she said. "I hope it hurt."