Midnight Dreary (Jamison/Invite)

[Sarah Barnes]

For the first time in her life, Sarah had to admit that she was a little afraid of what the outcome of tonight would bring. She didn't know if this plan was going to work. Would it pull through without anyone getting hurt? Would there be yelling? Would this deal go through?

Or would she...?

No. No way. She couldn't allow herself to think that.

Earlier that day, Sarah received a text message during her lunch break at work telling her where exactly at the Central Park Zoo they should meet. When she read the meeting place, she swore out loud.

They just HAD to meet in the reptile house, didn't they? she thought angrily to herself. Freakin' morons...

Sarah hated snakes and alligators and such, but that was a different story. However, standing in the dark reptile house alone with all things that slithered made the 21-year-old very uncomfortable. For the past half hour, she had been standing there, waiting for any sign of...really anything that walked on two legs.

Breaking into the zoo grounds wasn't as easy as it looked. First, there was breaking into the main gate. Then there was disabling the security cameras which were a pain to turn off. And finally disabling the alarm systems in almost every section of the zoo.

...OK, so it was easy for Sarah to do. It's the waiting for Valentine and his little fine-suited groupie guys to show up that's the hard part...and the scary part.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. Jumping, Sarah gasped and turned around to find Valentine right behind her. In a way, she was kind of relieved, but all she showed was a scowl on her face.

"You know," she started. "You could've picked a better--"

BANG!

...Of all the things Sarah was prepared for in life, especially in a place like New York...there was no way she could've expected this.

For a moment, she felt nothing. She felt perfectly fine. Then she took a look down at her jacket, and opened it. On her white shirt, a red stain was beginning to form.

Warmth spread to her side.

Then realization.

Then pain.

Sarah looked back to find Valentine with a smoking gun in his hand. It took all the strength she had not to collapse. She willed herself to stand there, looking at him with a bit of anger in her eyes.

"You bastard..." she whispered as Valentine came closer. "I wanted to strike a deal."

The sweat started to pour off her head. Sarah's hands started to go a little numb working her way up to her arms, but that didn't stop her from glaring at him.

"Do you really think I'd make a deal with a little girl such as yourself?" Valentine sneered, pointing the gun at her head. "Now where is that recording?"

"Oh come on," Sarah had to retort. "Do you really think I'd give incriminating evidence to the man who's too much of a big baby to realize that his ex-wife's boyfriend is a whole lot better than he is?"

POW!

One fist across the face sent Sarah to the ground. Although the pain was a lot more bearable than the gunshot wound to her abdomen. She tried not to scream. Besides, who would hear her? And anyway, she brought this on herself.She was going to have to face the music...

It was very painful music, but face it she would and face it she shall.

"Wow," she started taking deep breaths now, her whole body going numb. "You really don't handle criticism well, do ya?"

At this point, everything seemed to go dark. Sarah could still hear everything though. Her heart beating faster to get out of her chest; Valentine's angry panting; The distant cricket sounds that have found their way into the zoo.

She could even feel the gun barrel pointed at the side of her head.

"Tell me where the recording is, Miss Barnes," Valentine threatened.

Even if Sarah was able to move her mouth to speak, what good would it do? The recording she had taken the previous night of Valentine's plan to kill his ex-wife's boyfriend had already been sent to the police 3 minutes ago thanks to an email she had programmed to be delivered at a specific time.

In about 10 minutes, the police would come after Valentine, no matter how far he would run.

That was all that Sarah cared about at the moment. She'd worry about her own life later.

But it still didn't stop the pain, and it still didn't stop her fear.

The gun was pressed more against her head.

"Tell me!" Valentine shouted.

"...Go to hell," Sarah managed to whisper.

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

Accessing the zoo was not difficult at all - Jamison simply followed Sarah in, at a safe distance, undetected by Valentine and his crew. That gave Jamison too large an opportunity to miss something, but he had to do it. Breaking in another way might have brought attention to all of them. Besides, he wanted to have a visual on Sarah as much as he could.

They had been following her since the night at the park, studying her communications and other records to uncover what she had gotten herself into. As Jamison had expected, the problem was not, as she had asserted, an ex-boyfriend, but a crime she had uncovered, involving a man named Valentine. That night, before Jamison had broken her Kindle, she had recorded evidence of Valentine planning to commit a murder.

This was not the first crime she had busted. Her record - meaning the number of anonymous tips they were able to trace back to her after great difficulty - was impressive, and it almost reminded Jamison of the same work he was doing. But it was risky, and it seemed someone had managed to catch her in the middle of a case - or at the end of one. He knew the email had been sent already. When they got out of this, he'd have to yell at her for lying to him, and then congratulate her on a job well done.

A gunshot rang out, and Jamison broke into a run. He was armed with two pistols, one in his hands and a secondary at his side. The voices gave away their position, and Jamison waited for a clear moment to step in. He needed to know what he was running into - clearly Sarah hadn't, and that had gotten her shot. How many men were there? Were they armed? Where were they standing?

After studying the situation from the shadows, Jamison got a clear understanding of what was happening. The gun pressed to Sarah's head made the moment feel much more urgent. As Valentine began to shout, Jamison moved out of the dark, his gun raised and aimed at the aggressor. One shot to his shooting side took the man down, disabling but not killing him. Watching Valentine carefully, Jamison moved toward Sarah, knowing she had been hurt.

"Let's get out of here," he urged, helping her up as best he could without aggravating her injury. She would need to be looked at by a doctor, in a hospital - that meant they needed to hurry.

[Sarah Barnes]

Everything seemed to echo within the dark and damp halls of the reptile house. If she listened closely, Sarah could hear the slight hissing of the serpents in the cages beside her and that made her heart beat faster with more fear than she previously had. Nevertheless, she willed her body and mind to stay strong.

It wasn't too long for her vision to be gone. The urge to see what was going to happen restored Sarah's sight and stopped her from passing out at the time. Valentine still looked angry, his fiery eyes demanding to know where the recording was, and the gun still pressed against her head. No matter what was going to happen to her tonight, Valentine was going to get caught whether or not he knew the location of the recording.

All of a sudden, Sarah heard a gunshot. For a moment, her face blanched and she screamed a little. She thought it was the end. But it only took a few seconds for her to realize that she wasn't dead. That was when she saw Valentine on the ground beside her, writhing in pain. Where did that gunshot come from then? Who pulled the trigger?

The next thing she knew, she was being pulled up. It didn't help make the pain of her bullet wound go away much. In fact, movement made it worse. She didn't complain any, though. She wasn't in the mood.

When she looked to see who had helped her out, it should've surprised Sarah that it was none other than Mr. Cavanaugh himself, the man who she bumped into in the park last night. But, through all the sweat pouring off her face and the blood she was losing, she managed a small smile.

"Mr. Cavanaugh," she winced a bit. "...I would ask what the hell you were doing here, but knowing that you're a P.I., that would seem a little obvious, right?"

In the distance, the slight sound of police sirens growing as they came near to the zoo. Crap! She was supposed to be out of there before she could even hear New York's finest men and women drive to get the little asshole she caught.

Double crap! A sudden shot of pain went through her like a hot knife.

"Look," she said in a worried and pained voice. "You gotta get me outta here. I'm losing blood and the police can't know I was here. I can't be here now. Please..."

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

Not a gentle person by any means, Jamison had momentarily forgotten that he was helping an injured woman, and as he picked Sarah up, he paid little mind to her gunshot wound. She recognized him, thankfully, and even offered a little greeting. He just gave her a half-smile as he looked her over, ascertaining that she wasn't hurt aside from the obvious.

He heard the sirens too, and knew it was past time to be gone. Jamison tossed his gun into a nearby trash can - he was wearing gloves - and glanced at Sarah's gunshot wound. Really, they needed a first-aid kit, and there had to be one somewhere in the reptile house, but they didn't have the time to look for it. There was a roll of paper towels nearby, though; he snatched a couple handfuls' worth of it and folded them to place over the wound.

"Try to keep pressure on it. You'll be fine."

He heard Valentine groaning, but ignored it. He would live to tell the story, before a jury of his peers right before he went to prison. Instead he picked up Sarah, cradling her in his arms, and started as quickly as he could to where he had left the car. Fortunately, the police cars were heading into the zoo via a different entrance. He opened the back door and placed Sarah inside as smoothly as he could manage, then slid in next to her. "We need to get to the hospital."

Without a word, Reese, in the front seat, pulled away from the curb and started driving. In what direction, Jamison didn't notice. He was watching Sarah carefully, making sure she didn't fall asleep or let go of those paper towels. They would get her to safety and have that injury looked at. And after that - having now seen two of his assignments wind up in the hospital - he definitely needed to work on his timing.

[Sarah Barnes]

It took a lot of work and energy to keep her eyes open, but Sarah was determined to stay awake at least until they reached the hospital. Then she could rest all she wanted. She never realized that getting shot would take that much out of her. It was exhausting and it wasn't an easy task, especially when the promise of slipping into the dark world of sleep seemed so relaxing and exactly what she needed.

Jamison had given her some paper towels and told her to put pressure on the wound. She obeyed without saying a word, and put as much pressure on it as she could. It hurt like hell, but she did it. When he picked her up and started carrying her out of the zoo after depositing his gun in a nearby trashcan, Sarah looked back at where Valentine was laying on the ground. Part of her wanted to shout out something obscene and witty at him before she left, but thanks to the pain, she wasn't much in the mood nor had the enthusiasm to bruise any more of Valentine's ego. Instead she just let Jamison carry her out, and she rested her head against his shoulder.

There was another man in the drivers seat of the car that was waiting for them when Jamison put her in the backseat. Sarah didn't see his face, and he didn't say a word when they started driving away. For now, she just assumed that he was some sort of colleague of Jamison's, and was grateful that there was another person there to help out.

On the way to the hospital, she tried to stay awake by focusing on what she was going to tell the nurses and the doctors if she was asked what happened. She could say she was walking by a a gang fight with guns, but she didn't know if any of them would fall for it.

She took deep breaths and tried to talk to Jamison, partly because it would help her stay awake.

"How...How-um," Wow, talking seemed harder to do. "...How did you know where I was going to be?"

A few years back, Sarah messed with the wiring in her cell phone so that any text message, voice mail, and calls she made would be hard to pair for anyone to hear. Not even NSA could get to it...legally, anyway. It made Sarah curious, impressed, and a little suspicious to figure out how Jamison was able to track her whereabouts.

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

When Sarah asked him how they had found her, Jamison gave her an apologetic smile. It hadn't been easy, for sure, and they had been even less conventional in their approach this time. The usual method - phone pairing - had not worked for some reason, which Finch had eventually decided had to do with her phone.

"We've been trailing you for the past couple of days," Jamison explained a little sheepishly. "We knew you'd be in trouble, so we've been watching you to make sure you don't get in trouble. We saw that you were communicating with Valentine, so we checked his phone and found you were making plans to meet. After that, it was a matter of keeping you in sight."

He could tell she was fighting hard to stay awake, so he kept talking with her. She was a brave young woman, maybe a little too gutsy for her own safety, but that was okay. "You're more tech-savvy than you had me thinking, Sarah. And we found out about your dad, too, when we checked your history. You're very good at misleading people."

This was not said in an accusatory tone, but as a simple note, even a compliment. Jamison was disappointed that Sarah had lied to him when they met, and even more disappointed that he hadn't caught it, but he was not angry about any of it. In fact, anyone who managed to fool Jamison probably deserved a bit of his respect.

Besides, he had not been entirely truthful with Sarah either. He was a private investigator, and had been for years, but his current employer had… unusual requirements. And he was still having to lie; eventually Sarah would ask how he had known she was in trouble, and there was no way he could be truthful about that.

"Did you ever replace that Kindle?" he asked, partly joking, mostly to give her something else to concentrate on as they finally pulled up to the hospital's emergency room.

[Sarah Barnes]

Surprised that they had been following her for the past couple of days, Sarah, through all the sweat, stared at Cavanaugh with her glazed eyes. It amazed her that she had not noticed anything out of the ordinary, especially when it came to people following her. Maybe it was the stress of Valentine and his plan to murder clouding her mind and concentration...

...That, or she didn't take her ADD medication for the past couple of days. Usually when she didn't take it, and she was in a stressful situation like this, she'd be a little overwhelmed.

But considering the circumstances, she thought she was doing quite well.

Wait a minute...Jamison used the term "we"...Were there more people involved?...And how the hell would they know that she was going to be in trouble just days before she even was? She doubted they were psychic and had a crystal ball to look into the future and all that crap.

She'd ask later, when she wasn't fighting to stay awake.

Then Jamison went on to say that he knew about her skills in technology. The first sentence boosted her ego a little bit, and made her grin in approval. The thing that made her frown was when her father was mentioned, and that they knew about his death.

Sarah really didn't like talking about her dad's death, nor did she like hearing about it from other people. The subject made her friends walk around eggshells when it came to things like that, and they always made sure to talk very little of it. Sometimes they said it was delaying the grieving process, but Sarah was stubborn. She didn't like being told to do things she didn't want to do. The thought of grieving made Sarah fearful that she would forget.

And she didn't want to forget.

However, the memory of her father did trigger a small tear to be shed, but Sarah quickly wiped it away before someone could notice. She didn't want to appear weaker than she was already feeling. Not in front of Jamison and not in front of the guy driving the car.

She laughed a painful laugh when asked about the kindle.

"I never did," she shook her head with a smile. "That kindle actually had a camera installed inside to provide video surveillance on Valentine and that weird creep who was staring at me." She then turned to Jamison. "Took me a week to get it installed without doing any permanent damage to the technology."

They pulled up to the emergency room entrance, much to Sarah's relief. She didn't know how long she was going to be able to stay awake, but knowing they were at the hospital reassured her that she could rest soon. Turning to the driver for a brief moment she said "Thanks for the ride" with a weak smile, before turning to Jamison.

"What am I gonna tell the doctors when they ask what happened?" she said between breaths of air.

Usually, whether it was real or fake, Sarah always had an alibi to tell and people always bought it. Right now, it was kind of hard to think of one on the spot, so she was hoping to rely on either Jamison or the driver to help out.

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

Maybe he should have waited to bring up the lies she had told until later. Jamison was not the best at gauging appropriateness of things. He'd just talked about the first thing that came to mind - the night they met. Besides, he didn't like being lied to and was annoyed that he hadn't caught it. It didn't affect the way he viewed Sarah, though. Aside from her being more capable at being a sleuth than he had expected.

She was right - they needed some sort of story. "We'll tell them…." He thought fast, but not fast enough - the attendants were on their way. "We were looking through your attic and a friend accidentally shot you." That was nice and non-suspicious, and it would have to do, unless Sarah came up with something better. "Try to avoid the question if they ask you who the friend was, but if you can't, tell them… he dropped you off at the hospital and ran off."

Reese peered at Jamison through the rearview mirror, a chuckle in his eyes.

"Here we go," Jamison said as they were approached by the emergency room attendants. They were rolling out a stretcher, and Jamey helped Sarah out of the car and onto it. "Almost there," Jamison reassured her. "Just hang on."

They rushed her into an operating room, where Jamison was prevented from going further. Instead he sat outside, getting up to pace occasionally, while they tended to Sarah's injury. He was sure the young woman would be fine, but he was still nervous as he waited for word on her condition. Meanwhile a doctor asked him a few questions about Sarah, his relation to her, and such; he answered them with a mix of truth and lies that they would be able to expand upon later.

[Sarah Barnes]

Jamison did think of an alibi just in case the doctors asked her how she got shot, but Sarah didn't think it was much of a good one. If she was in any shape to heckle him at all, she would, but the moment wasn't right, and it was getting harder to stay awake, as well as even speak.

Her eyes were starting to glaze a bit, and her breathing was beginning to sound more labored--much more of a chore. Visions started to focus in and out, making one thing blurry and the other appear clear as day.

The cool breeze of the wind blew against her heated skin, granting her a bit of relief when Jamison helped her out of the car and onto the stretcher the emergency room attendants brought out. She looked at nothing but the cieling tiles above her as they rushed her into an operating room. Before they entered, she craned her head a little to see if Jamison was going to come in with her, but all she could see was a blurry outline of him being prevented to stand by her side. She had to admit, she was kind of scared being alone right now, but she really couldn't voice that opinion at the moment.

The doctors and nurses started to prep her for surgery, and that was when it was either give into the darkness or fight it off no matter how painful it would be for her. A prick of a needle a nurse had carefully punctured into her skin, and Sarah was allowed to finally rest.

---

Sarah could feel herself waking, but she also knew that she was still in between reality and a dream. Strange noises hissed in her ears, but comfort on her head and back felt like a warm hug and made her feel relaxed. It was as if she was about to wake from a deep sleep, and would find herself either on her bed or on the couch in her living room.

However, she couldn't remember wearing pajamas or clothes this uncomfortable....

Crap... she thought in her foggy mind. ...What happened to me?

A lot more questions twisted around in the young woman's mind. Was it day? Or was it night? She couldn't exactly remember anything. How long had she been asleep? Where was she?

OK, she had to keep calm. All she had to do was open her eyes and see where she was. It wasn't that hard, right?

As she slowly opened her eyes, fluttering them a bit, she could find herself in a white room.

That was when she remembered what happened to her.

She recalled the encounter between Valentine and herself. The gun. Jamison. The ride to the hospital. Her seemingly never-ending battle to stay awake and aware of what was going on before being rushed into the emergency room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a heart monitor and an IV stand connected to her hand by it's cord, sending fluids and probably pain medication to help make her recovery bearable. Her hands, finding the strength to move a little, ghosted over where she had been shot. She could feel through the fabric the padding of the bandages that covered her wound...and sensed someone else in the room...

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

A long time passed slowly as Jamison waited outside Sarah's operating room. He had been around hospitals far too often lately. It had not been long since Elsie's own traumatic beating, and then before that had been Terri. He remembered both vividly, as though they had happened just yesterday and the day before.

Elsie had worried him. Her condition had been critical for a time. Sarah he was concerned about as well, but he was more confident that she was going to pull through based on what the doctors had said. Besides, he knew Sarah was a strong individual, who had dealt with much in her life. Valentine would need more than a bullet to stop her.

In both cases, he had found himself waiting in lieu of a closer relative. He had been Elsie's boyfriend of sorts at the time of her hospitalization, but Sarah was still very much a stranger to him, aside from all the following and tracking he had done to keep her safe. Or try to keep her safe, at least. He had not done very well at that, as her current situation illustrated.

Terri's case had been different. For her, it had been a visit not to an OR, but to a morgue. He had never gotten a chance to say goodbye to her.

He could still see her, one of the last visions he had of her, her body cold and carved open, lying on the metal table, so still. Had he known he would never see her alive again that morning, he would have said everything he needed to, everything he had been putting off. But he hadn't, and now those words were left largely unspoken, never to be shared with their intended.

Thinking back, he realized he had made the same mistake with Elsie, but had gotten lucky: she had survived. He needed to talk to her, tell her how he felt. He told himself he would do that as soon as possible. Right now, though, it was Sarah who needed to pull through, and who could use his attention.

As soon as he was allowed to, he went into the room to sit with Sarah. She slept for a while, and he was dozing off himself when she finally stirred. He looked over at her, barely moving so as not to startle her. When her hand moved, he sat up and turned toward her fully.

"Sarah." He tried to smile, but it was overshadowed by a look of worry. "How are you feeling?" The look on her face told him she was a little confused, but that memories were coming back to her. That was a good sign.

"Do you remember what happened?" he asked softly, hoping he was right about her being aware enough to recall it all.

[Sarah Barnes]

It only took a moment for Sarah to realize that Jamison was with her in the room. At first, she was caught off guard. She never really expected for someone to be there when she woke up. For the past couple of years, she woke up everyday knowing that she was alone. Part of her had gotten used to it, the other part didn't, but she was too stubborn to admit it. She stared at him, almost confused, when he asked her some questions. What was he even doing here, anyway? He was just a Private Investigator she bumped into the other night by mere coincidence, and then when she's in trouble, he comes to her rescue and tells her that he knows basically everything that she won't even talk to a therapist about. She had always been careful about what kind of information she gave out to people, and somehow he knew the truth behind the lies she told.

He asked her if she remembered what happened, and that's when she recalled the pain she felt when the bullet hit her, making her go over almost any detail she could remember.

Slowly, she sat up, wincing a little as she propped herself up against the pillow. Taking a deep breath, she turned to Jamison, eyes furrowed in a confused way, her expression perplexed.

"Um, yeah," she answered softly, feeling a little groggy. "I remember Valentine in the reptile house...The gun...You coming out of nowhere like some vigilante--"

You're one to talk, she thought to herself. Aren't you a bit of a vigilante too, you moron?

"--Then I remember you getting me into the car. You weren't driving, someone else was...That's...that's really all I can remember right now. I can't even remember getting here..."

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

As Sarah sat up, Jamison leaned forward, intending to gently push her back down if necessary. "You don't have to do that. Just relax." She had been through a traumatic event, and been hurt in the process. Jamison could live with her lying down as they talked, especially if it meant she would feel better.

She went over the things she remembered, which covered everything broadly, a good sign. She even remembered her driver. Reese would be glad to hear it.

His expression changed when she called him a vigilante. He guessed he was one, in a way. Usually, he just thought of himself as doing a job, whether it was private investigation or something more complex, like the work he was doing now. And he was not in the job for the sake of others, either. He liked the challenge, and sometimes he felt investigating and football were all he was good at. And since he had already done the star-footballer thing, why not stick with investigating?

"You remember the important stuff," he said. "If all went well, Valentine was arrested. But we need to make sure he doesn't come after you. We're trying to pull some strings to make sure he's held without bail. Otherwise, do you think he would try to send his minions after you from jail? If so, we need to find out who those men are and have them arrested as well."

The rest of what he had to say would probably not make her happy. He paused for a moment and considered his words for once before going on.

"… You've been under twenty-four hour watch since you've been here, and we're going to keep it so until we're entirely positive that Valentine and his men cannot hurt you."

[Sarah Barnes]

In a city like New York, it was very rare to meet a citizen who seemed to look out for his fellow man...or woman in this case. This baffled Sarah to the highest degree. Not very man people in this city take the time to help one another. That was one of the reasons why Sarah did what she did: Pry into other people's lives until she found something that she thought would prove a danger and secretly prevented harm from coming to others. She was a very skilled Phantom, coming in and out of stranger's lives and private worlds like a shadow in the darkness, and seeking no recognition for the lives she had saved.

And yet here she was, lying in the hospital, listening to a man who claimed, on his behalf as well as another's or two, to know of the things that she had done in secret. But how? She had always been so careful. Her technology skills and computer savvy have always been hidden from even the most skilled FBI Agents.

However, Jamison seemed to realize the fragility of her secret and seemed willing to keep it. She could only hope that his colleauges would give her the same respect.

The thought of Valentine sending men after her had crossed her mind a few times. Paranoid Weirdo Guy from the park the other night popped into her head, but she waved it off, knowing she could take down the wimp with a kick to what was left of his family jewels.

Then again, even the dumbest of animals can be the most dangerous when given a gun...

"The only person I can think of is that guy who was watching me at the park. Remember him?" she asked Jamison. "I don't know he is yet. I'll find out later. He looks dumb, but if Valentine's as powerful as he thinks he is, he'll probably send that lapdog after me. Other than that, I think I'm good."

What really concerned Sarah was whether or not Valentine's ex-wife and her boyfriend were safe. To hell with her own safety. She could worry about herself later.

But Jamison seemed to have another plan in mind. Apparently, she had been under careful and watchful eyes for a while since she took up residence at the hospital, and she was stuck being babysat until the whole thing blew over. She sat up more, a little bit of a glare.

"Let me see if I'm getting this right," she said slowly, making sure the glare in her eyes did not go unnoticed. "You're keeping me here prisoner until everything's fine?...Who the hell thought up that stupid idea to have me babysat?"

[Jamison Cavanaugh]

The man from the park coming after her had also occurred to Jamison. He remembered the man's face quite clearly, despite it having been dark and he having remained fairly far away. Jamison was good with those sorts of details, thanks to his longtime job. He would give the description to the others and have everyone keep an eye out for the man. Perhaps the description would even be enough to find him, if he was a criminal who had been put into the system already.

He had not expected Sarah to be happy with the plan. He simply expected her to go along with it. He was not usually a pushy person, but when it came to the safety of others, he could be. The safety of the people Sarah had been helping was important to Jamison, but came second to his concern for Sarah herself. They could see about the others later, and in any case, the police were now aware of the situation - and Jamison et al had learned the hard way to let the police do their jobs.

"We're not planning to keep you here any longer than the doctors want to," Jamison explained. "That would be unnatural, and Valentine's cronies would know something was up. But we are going to keep you under surveillance for the time being. You'll be able to go about your life as normal, just with a few extra sets of eyes looking out around you."

Noting Sarah's dislike for the idea of being watched, he added, "We'd like your permission, but you're going to be watched whether you agree to this or not. We were able to watch you without you knowing it before, and trust me, we can do it again."

He was coming off too harsh, he decided. He softened his tone a bit.

"We're doing this because we care about you. You're too talented for us to lose, for one, and for another, we've all taken a bit of a liking to you. We're not so different, in what we do. We both look out for criminals and the safety of others. But in this case, you're my client, just as Valentine's ex is yours, though she doesn't know it. You'd want to make sure she got through this safely, I'm sure. And that's the way we see it when it comes to you."

After considering it for a moment, he added, "And as far as what you do, you can be sure none of us will reveal your secrets to anyone. We're not in the business of judging. We just see what we see, and do our best to step in when we can."

[Sarah Barnes]

OK, so there was good news and bad news.

The good news was that she wasn't exactly going to be watched like a hawk. She could go about her days normally.

The bad news was that...Oh yeah. She'd still be watched like a hawk. She'd have to make a little mental note to herself to mess with these guys heads a just a tiny bit to have some fun while they were babysitting her.

She scowled a little when Jamison said that, whether she liked it or not, she was going to have a few people looking over her shoulder making sure she doesn't get so much as a freakin' papercut. What about work? What about other people that were possibly going to need her help? Were these guys going to not have her do that? Not over her dead body!!!

Arms folded, and a cross look on her face, Sarah just sat there glaring at Jamison a little. Of course, his harsh tone wasn't helping any to calm her down a little. There were a few good words in the book that the young woman would've liked to call Jamison, but...she figured he had a stressful night too, and even she was mature enough not to call him the words she had in mind.

Then Jamison started to go on about her talent, and how she was valuable to him and a couple of other people apparently. If he had stuck with the talent part, it would've boosted her ego, but theen he had to go on about how valuable she was.

It had been a while since somebody said something that nice to her.

For a few moments, she let silence pass through...

"Oh criminy..." she groaned. "I can't believe I'm doing this--" She looked at Jamison, ready to negotiate. "OK, if I'm your client, and you guys are watching out for me, I want in on this, got it? I've never stood aside and let people fight my battles for me before, and I'll be damned if I let someone fight them for me now."

This was just one of the few of the things Sarah was getting started on.

"Secondly, I wanna know who you're working with. You keep talking about this 'we', and it's starting to bug me. Third, I'm gonna need all my equipment to help catch this guy. And finally..."

A smile started to creep on Sarah's lips as she lowered her body back down on the hospital bed. Jamison was a really lucky guy. Only one or two people have ever been given this sort of thing by Sarah Elisabeth Barnes.

"Thanks for helping me back there," she said in a soft voice.