Digging through the closet of the room he shared with his younger sister, Seth pushed aside another doll to reveal the sought after baseball glove. Standing up, and slipping the glove on his hand, Seth flexed the worn out leather, the glove had previously belonged to his older brother, Thomas.

“Seth!” A small voice called from behind him and he turned to see two bright blue eyes starring up at him adoringly. At seven, Seth found having his little sister Madeleine following him everywhere unbearable. Who wanted to be around a four year old?

“What Maddie?” He demanded sharply.

“I just wanted to play with you,” she replied, tears filling her innocent round eyes. She always did get upset so easy. She was the emotional one. And yet he never really could get mad at her. Their older siblings were nice to her, and they always looked out for her, but Seth found himself as the one always playing with her. They seemed to develop a kind of bond that he never had with his older siblings. Maybe it was because they were the only ones in the family that had been born outside of Ireland.

“Well I can’t. I’m going to the park to play ball,” he informed her, although they both knew the ‘park’ was just a grass field in their complex.

“Can I come?” Her eyes sparkled brightly with hope, and it dawned on Seth how pure and innocent she really was.

He hesitated for a moment, knowing he would not want to watch her during his game. But he never could say ‘no’ to her. “Okay,” he relented and the way her face lit up as he said that one simple word, made it worth it. He supposed he did not mind her hanging around so much after all.

The ball whizzed through the air and landed with a satisfying clunk in Seth’s glove. “You see that?” he called out. Getting no response, he turned to look where Maddie had been sitting watching them play. She sometimes wanted to join in, and his friends grudgingly agreed, but usually she was happy to just watch Seth show off.

However, now, she was gone. Panic rose in the pit of Seth’s stomach. “Maddie!!” He yelled looking around desperately. Where could she have gone? He started to run, not really sure where he was headed, but she was nowhere. His friends just stood where he had left them in the field, and they continued the game without him.

“Why weren’t you watching her?” An angry voice suddenly demanded from his side. He turned to look and found his father standing tall, his face turned down in a stern frown.

“Why did you even bring her?” the thinner voice of his mother asked, this time coming from his other side.

“She wanted-” He tried to protest, but he never finished the thought.

“She was just a child! And now she is gone, because of you,” his father yelled his voice become detached.

Why won’t they go look for her! Why are they standing here blaming me? I’m just a kid too. His mind was screaming but he could not voice the thoughts. Where is she? Maddie!!

“You were responsible for her. Now she’s dead,” his siblings’ voices had now joined in the chorus of accusations. But seven year old Seth was no longer in the park. He was seventeen and standing in the centre of a completely deserted street, entirely alone, and yet he could still hear the voices of his family. As well, new voices were thrown into the mix. Professional sounded voices, asking him questions. But everything was so confusing. He could not think straight long enough to answer them. Not with his family’s harsh accusations drowning them out.

He put his hands to his ears, trying desperately to muffle their voices. But his hands felt wet and he pulled them back in front of him. The baseball glove from before was gone. Now his were covered in thick red liquid. Blood. Maddie’s blood.

An argument in the bullpen woke Seth from his light slumber, at least, that was what he told himself as he sat up. Sweat had caused his clothes to cling to his body and involuntarily he shivered. Groggily he wiped the sleep from his eyes and tried to clear the vision of blood from his mind.

It was the third time this week he had slept in the bunk room, and he was not even on any major cases. He had come down hard from the rush provided by the kidnapping case, and chasing down more minor crimes was not providing the fix he desperately needed. And now, it seemed, the little sleep he was getting was no longer going to come easily or undisturbed.

He was sure that Colton was catching on to his patterns, and he knew that his senior partner was aware of his overnight stays at work. However, Seth was beginning to care less and less. He was making less effort than ever before to conceal his drastic downward spiral.

Giving up on sleep, at least for the time being, he returned to the bullpen. It was amazing just how much paper work one could accomplish by not going home and only sleeping a few hours a night. Not that speeding through the once looming pile had provided more than a temporary distraction. And it was most definitely not like working an active lead. When Seth was closing in on a trail, nothing else would matter. He could put everything he had into the work at hand. But even the rush from finally catching a suspect was temporary. Something he knew all too well.

Checking the time, he realized he had a couple of hours to burn before he was even on the clock. At least when you sleep here, it’s kind of impossible to be late. He thought absently. Deciding not to hover around the precinct, Seth headed out to the street, hoping that a run would clear his mind and settle him, after the disturbing dream.

He sprinted out full, not caring where he wound up, running as though he could outrun the memories pounding in his mind. He refused to stop or even slow until each labouring breath became unbearably painful.

Slowing to a light jog he looked around, gaining his bearings. He had run a fair distance from the station, running full out, and yet he felt no more relaxed. Reluctantly, he circled around to retrace his route.

At least he was keeping in shape, he tried to tell himself, even if the running no longer cleared his mind. The jog back took considerably longer, and Seth let his eyes wander, taking in his city surroundings. It was still early, and not too many people were out. He met a few other joggers, none of them covered with the same heavy sweat he was, as they were keeping a more moderate pace. He was really going to need to shower before he expected anyone to even work in the vicinity of him. Fortunately, the precinct came equipped with showers as well as beds. In fact, the precinct probably had more of the ‘comforts of home’ than his own apartment. After all, we have a working coffee machine in the break room.

Despite his best attempts to distract himself with menial thoughts, his mind insisted on reflecting back on the dream. It was strange for him to dream of his family now. He almost never thought about them now, even in waking hours. And he had not seen any of them in nine years.

It bothered him even more that the dream had been centred on Madeline. Tears stung at his eyes, as the all-too familiar pain hit as he thought about the only member of his family that he truly missed. For the rest of the jog back, he fought to see her smiling face, rimmed by beautiful red curls, instead of the gruesome image of her blood streaked and crushed body that his mind tried to insert in its place.

By the time Seth neared the precinct, the morning rush hour had begun, but Seth ignored the cars going by as he jogged along the sidewalk. Aimlessly, he wondered if Colton had arrived at the office yet. If he had maybe he would believe that Seth had actually gone home for the night - except for the minor detail that his apartment was way too far away to run into work. Rounding the last corner the precinct came into view, Seth slowed to a walk to slow his heart rate back to normal and to try to regain some level of control over his emotions.

He headed around back, entering the station from the door that exited into the officer’s parking lot, rather than using the front entrance. The less people he had to deal with at the moment the better. He then headed up the stairs to the floor that belonged to his department.

Glancing into the bullpen, he caught sight of Colton seated at his desk, with a coffee mug before him. Seth guessed that he had just arrived within the last ten minuets. Deciding to spare his partner from his body odour, he headed directly into the locker room and to the shower. He rushed as he had never really trusted the department’s showers, and headed over to his locker. Since he had begun to spend considerably more overnighters at the office, he always had a spare set of clothes. He tossed his running clothes into a gym bag, and made a mental note to actually go home tonight and do laundry, or at least to find some more clean clothes in his closet.

Once dressed, he ran his fingers through his hair as a makeshift comb and headed into the bullpen, ignoring the water that dripped from his poorly dried hair. Colton looked up at Seth sat down across from him.

“You just get here?” Colton asked, not really believing that Seth’s hair would still be dripping had he showered at home.

“Yeah,” Seth replied, and in all technicalities he was not lying, as he had left on his run and therefore he had just gotten here. It just so happened that he had also left from the same place.

Colton raised his eyebrow and looked at Seth sceptically but said nothing more about it. Instead he tossed a file onto the desk in front of Seth. “We’ve got a case.”

Seth skimmed the file, “Well then, what are we doing sitting around here?” He asked getting to his feet. “Come on,” Seth muttered, more then ready to bury his mind in the work, as Colton took his time getting his stuff together. Colton shook his head, amused, and proceeded to take his time.

- - - - - -

“Brody,” Brooke coaxed gently from outside his room, “Why don’t you come out and have some lunch sweetie?” She received no response.

In the past few days, since the abduction, Brody had seemed fine. He was a little quieter, sure, but today he had barely said two words and had not been out of his room, except for one trip to the bathroom. It had Brooke very worried.

Giving up on waiting for him to come out she reached for the door handle. “I’m coming in, okay?” She said, and still getting no answer she opened the door.

Brody was sitting on the floor by his bed. His small legs were brought up to his chest, and his arms wrapped protectively around them. He was looking down and his tawny hair fell down obstructing his face.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Brooke asked, crouching down in front of her son. Still, he did not look up. Gently she placed her delicate hand beneath his small chin and tilted his face up. His brown eyes glistened brightly, but only a few tears had escaped down his cheek.

“Everything is all right now,” Brooke promised, wrapping her arms around Brody, “It’s okay now.”

Brody’s tense form relaxed slightly as he listened to his mother’s soothing words. But still, the vivid nightmare that he’d had the previous night played in his mind. Everything in his dream had seemed so real to the terrified child. And the worse part was, the basic event had been real, his mind had only slightly twisted the details in his nightmare.

It took Brooke nearly an hour to completely calm Brody. He still would not tell her exactly what was wrong, but she knew it was an effect of the traumatic experience. Eventually Brody fell asleep in her arms. Gently she moved him onto his bed and headed into the living room. It was the early afternoon, and Brody did not nap often anymore, but Brooke decided he must be overtired. The last few days had been unbearably stressing for her, she could only imagine what they must have felt like to such a young child.

In the living room, she found her purse on the coffee table, and quickly going through it she found the number Captain Farrell had given her when Brody had been found. It was the number for a child psychologist that the police department used, through their ‘victim services’ program. She apparently specialized in traumatic events, such as the kidnapping that Brody had been through. Finding the cordless phone, which somehow never remained on the hook, Brooke dialled the number. She did not know if Brody would talk to the psychologist but she was willing to try anything to help her son get through what could very possibly be the most horrendous event of his entire life.

After making an appointment for the next day, Brooke returned to her son’s room. He was still asleep, his tawny hair fanned out gently on his pillow. Standing in the doorway she watched him as he slept. Unconsciously, he moved in his sleep, rolling to face away from the door. Brooke watched him awhile longer, before quietly leaving the room to take care of some household chores she had fallen behind on.

- - - - - -

Glaring out the tinted windows of his sedan, Justin caught sight of Brooke moving around in the kitchen. He had been to her house many times before. Always sitting out front, knowing that in time, he would bring his son home where the boy belonged. Family was important. Justin remembered his father always telling him that. Mostly just as his excuse to why he sold drugs. To ‘support’ his family, not that he or his mother ever saw much of it. His father used his small time profits to feed his own habit. Something Justin was far too smart to get involved in, sell it, never use it.

But now Justin had his own little boy, and he would support his child. He would give the boy everything he needed to grow up in this world. He had planned everything right, and so carefully. He had worked everything, prepared every detail, so that right now he should be in his home with his child.

But that was obviously not where he was. No, he was back here, again, parked across the street, forced to just watch. He knew he should not have trusted those two morons to bring him his son. But he could not have done it himself, if they had found out and he had been hands on. . . Well then he would not be here right now, re-planning.

Still, something did not seem quite right to Justin. Even if they had somehow identified the car, or the men who had been working for him, they had no ties to his house, which incidentally had no ties to him. In fact they had taken great care in setting up that house - which as probably the only reason the police had not held him longer than they did.

With the police, on occasion, sniffing around their trail, Justin’s bosses had taken great care in setting up their business. And yet. . . and yet the police had come right to his home, within a day of the abduction, they had tracked him down. This greatly disturbed Justin. There should have been no way they would get this information. Unless. . . unless they had someone inside his team.

Justin swore under his breath. If he had a cop amongst his men, well that could mean only one thing. He had a problem he was going to have to deal with, and then he was going to have to find himself a new man. A job he never enjoyed.