They rode over to the hotel in silence. Natalie rested her head against the seat rest with her eyes closed. Lance could tell that she was trying to keep her breakfast down, and he managed to reach the hotel without incident. He eased the Jeep into a spot closest to her room and helped her out of the Jeep. Natalie took a steadying breath as she got out.

"You okay?" he asked gently.

"Yeah," she replied, softly. "The last time I was in your car, I was dead. Kind of a tough thing to get my mind around."

Lance nodded. "Here, I'll walk you to your room."

Natalie took a deep breath. "Thanks, I'd appreciate that."

It took her a couple of tries before the key card finally worked, and he followed her into the room. Housekeeping had tidied up while she was gone. The bed was made, the countertop in the kitchen was cleaned, the coffee pot was empty. Natalie slowly made her way to the bathroom as though in a fog. Lance thought it best if he hung around until he was sure she was alright. He just heard the shower start when his cell phone rang.

"Arturo," he answered it.

A few minutes later, and feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, he hung up, and waited for Natalie to finish with her shower. Ten minutes ticked by, then twenty, then thirty. He knew women were notorious for taking longer to get ready, but they really needed to hit the road. Finally deciding enough was enough, Lance went into the bathroom.

"Natalie?" There was no answer from behind the shower curtain. "Natalie!"

He tossed back the generic white vinyl curtain to find her huddled in the tub, arms wrapped around her knees, sobbing softly as the water continued to pour down on her head. Lance quickly turned off the shower and knelt down next to her. If she noticed, she didn't show it.

"I died," she whispered softly, staring at the faucet. "I really died."

"Yes, you did," Lance replied gently, pushing damp hair away from her face.

"It wasn't some dream," she said numbly, still not realizing he was there, or that the shower was off. "I really did die."

She looked so vulnerable and fragile that he had a hard time reconciling her with the brassy, pain-in-the-ass FBI agent from yesterday morning. Lance pulled one of the fluffy towels from the pile on the counter and wrapped it around her before lifting her out of the tub. He gently set her on her feet before wrapping the towel tight around her shoulders.

"Come on, Natalie," he urged, briskly rubbing her arms through the towel. "Can't go to pieces now. Just got a call from Uncle AJ. They think they've found Sarah."

He didn't know if it was the rubbing or the mention of Sarah, but the lost, numb look in Natalie's dark eyes quickly faded. She shook her head as if to clear it.

"I... what?" she blinked up at him, confused.

"Hauldren just called," Lance repeated. "Someone saw Devin's truck parked at a local motel. SWAT's there now. There've been reports of a little girl with him."

Natalie let out a whoop of excitement before throwing her arms around his neck and impulsively kissing him. Lance grunted in surprise as he stumbled backwards against the wall, Natalie still clinging to him, her damp mouth still pressed to his, not that he was complaining.

It had been a long time, probably too long, since he'd been kissed with such fervent abandon, and by a woman wearing not much more than a pint of water. He opened his mouth to protest, only to have Natalie's delightful, yet insistent, tongue slide against his. He felt a touch light-headed as blood rushed out of his brain and towards the general vicinity of his belt buckle. His long-repressed libido flared to life as his hands skimmed the smooth skin of her back.

He wasn't sure why he was surprised that she was a good kisser. Maybe it was because it had been awhile since he'd been kissed, and he was inclined to enjoy it, at least until she started tugging his shirt out of his waistband. While the idea of a round of good old-fashioned, life-affirming, mind-blowing, bathroom floor sex had its appeal, there was a kid they needed to rescue and a killer to bring to justice. He gently grabbed each of Natalie's wrists in one of his massive hands and pushed her arms behind her back. It was only then that she finally broke off the kiss.

"My cuffs or yours?" she asked huskily.

Lance groaned at the thought of her, nude, handcuffed and helpless on his bed. It was nearly enough to take her to the floor right then and there, but they had other priorities.

"Later," he growled in promise. "But first, we've got to go get Sarah."

"Oh, yeah," she replied softly, almost embarrassed at her antics.

"I'll wait for you in the living room," he said, tweaking her chin between his thumb and forefinger before indulging in a light, but no less potent, kiss.

Five minutes later, Natalie emerged from the bedroom this time clad in jeans, black button-front shirt, her boots, an FBI-issue ballcap and windbreaker, the no-nonsense agent once more, at least except for the guilty/embarrassed/mischievous glint in her dark eyes.

"Look, Lance, about that kiss..." she started. "Don't get me wrong. I do like you and all, but I... uh... I don't know what I was thinking. We're supposed to be professionals here."

"Natalie," he admonished lightly. "No one's accusing you of being unprofessional. What happened yesterday created a bond between us that goes beyond friendship or sex. God willing, that bond will be around for a good long time."

She tugged absently at her long, dark, ponytail. "So, uh, you didn't mind?"

"Mind?" he chuckled. "Natalie, love, it's been a long time since a beautiful woman's thrown herself at me like that."

"Love?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow. "I like that about as much as I like being called Christmas."

He chuckled again as he held open the door for her.

The drive over to the motel where Devin was reportedly staying passed in relative silence. Natalie still turned a bit green when she buckled the seatbelt, but managed to keep her eyes open during the twenty-minute ride. Lance squeezed her hand in a gesture of support. She surprised him by returning the gesture.

"Just think," he remarked, turning down the freeway exit ramp. "The last time you were in my car, you were alive."

Natalie smiled wanly. "Thanks."

"Don't worry about the belt," Lance said. "I'll drop by the auto parts store this weekend and get a new one."

She nodded and jerked her chin in the direction of what appeared to be the motel. "Guess that's the place."

Squad cars, complete with flashing lights, surrounded the parking lot of the old motel. The motel itself was a one-story fleabag of a place built sometime before the Interstate came through and attracted the nicer franchise places. The cedar clapboard facade had certainly seen better days, as had the rusty neon sign. Parked in front of room 120 was a dark green 1984 Ford Ranger. Natalie jogged over to where Hauldren was leaning up against his own squad car. Lance followed more slowly, trying to maintain the illusion she'd been a pain in the ass for the past few days.

"He's been holed up there since the shooting," Hauldren was saying. "Got a tip yesterday afternoon he was here. Ran the plates, started looking into his credit card activity, talked to the owner."

"What did you find out?" Natalie asked, impatiently.

"He used his credit card day before yesterday to buy some kid stuff: new clothes, couple of toys, stuff like that," Hauldren answered. "The manager here said he had a young redheaded girl with him and identified Sarah from one of the better pictures we found on Johnson's hard drive."

Lance could tell that although Natalie was fairly dancing with relief, she was trying to stay professional. He watched as the Chief walked around to the trunk of the Crown Vic and opened the lid. He pulled out two Kevlar vests: a larger one for Lance and a smaller for Natalie.

"But I —"

"Put it on anyway," Lance interrupted with a meaningful glare, pulling off his own jacket. He leaned down and growled in her ear, "you're still an FBI agent, remember?"

Natalie glared at him as she tugged off her windbreaker and donned the bulletproof vest. He had just finished putting on his own vest and checking his firearm when he noticed Hauldren looking at him with some amusement.

"What?" Lance asked.

"One of these days, you're gonna haveta tell me how you did that," Hauldren chuckled. "The girl's always hated wearing those things. I don't know how many rounds we've gone over it."

"Maybe she just needed someone to tell her to quit being a pain in the ass, or she could get herself killed," Lance replied, more for Natalie's benefit than for the Chief's.

This time Hauldren laughed out loud and clapped Lance on the shoulder. "Looks like you finally met your match, kiddo," he said to her.

"Maybe," she replied with a noncommittal shrug before sliding her own weapon into its shoulder holster.

Hauldren then laid out a plan of entry. Natalie and Lance would negotiate a surrender with SWAT covering them from various positions around the parking lot and surrounding buildings. Once Devin was down, they could then get Sarah out of the room and to the safety of a waiting patrol car. With a curt nod, they headed across the parking lot.

"Let me handle it," Lance said softly.

"But Sarah —"

"Trust me. I have more experience."

"Sarah doesn't speak English," Natalie hissed.

"And you think you're the only one who speaks French, Noël?" he asked fluently.

Natalie harrumphed, but didn't reply.

When they reached the door, Lance drew his badge rather than his gun, and knocked on the door.

"Devin? It's Detective Arturo. I'm a friend of your grandfather's. Can I come in?"

"How do I know you're not lying?" a male voice called back.

"Mooney's never missed a single airing of The Price Is Right, has he."

They waited for a few seconds before hearing the chain-lock slide back and the door open a crack. Lance gestured for Natalie to stand down before showing his badge. When the door didn't open any farther, Lance nudged it open with his foot.

Sitting on the disheveled bed was a young man, no older than twenty-one. His wavy brown hair stuck up at odd angles as he stared blankly at the threadbare carpet. A Colt pistol, nearly identical to the one Lance carried, laid on he bed next to him.

"Dev?" Lance asked, slowly reaching for the gun. "I don't think you need this right now."

The young man shook his head. "I didn't mean to shoot him."

Lance frowned. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Now, where's Sarah?"

"Hiding," Devin said quietly as Lance tucked the second Colt into the back of his jeans. "When she heard your voice, she thought you were here to take her away again."

Natalie sized the opportunity to brush past Lance and Devin, calling for Sarah in French. Upon hearing her native language, the little girl peered around the door to the bathroom. Natalie rushed to her, speaking again in rapid-fire French about how she'd had been looking for her and how she was going to take her back to her parents. Sarah slowly opened the door the rest of the way as Natalie knelt down to her level. The little girl replied timidly in French that her parents were dead.

"Non, non, non, ma cheré," Natalie replied, holding her arms open. "Venez vous."

Timidly, Sarah approached Natalie and let her carry her outside. Lance didn't miss the tears in Natalie's and Sarah's eyes as they brushed past him.

"Look, man, I didn't know she was in the back of the truck!" Devin protested.

Lance shook his head. "Don't say another word, Dev."

He then cuffed the young man, hands in front, as he read him his rights. To his credit, Devin accepted his fate without much in the way of protest. Taking him by an elbow, Lance walked him to one of the other waiting patrol cars. He could wait until Dev got to the station to question him. Seeing Natalie in another car with Sarah sitting sideways on her lap, he started walking towards her, but she only shook her head "no."

"Later," Natalie mouthed. Lance nodded in understanding.

It was another hour or so before everyone was safely back at the precinct. Natalie was in one room, discussing Sarah's case with someone from Child Protective Services while Lance was in another, questioning Devin. With his attorney present, naturally. It had made both Natalie and Hauldren hit the roof that Lance had waited until council arrived.

"I didn't mean to shoot him," Dev was saying. He gestured to the various gashes up and down his arms. "But the guy came at me with a knife."

"Why were you there in the first place?" Lance asked.

"I didn't know he was home," Devin answered. "I just needed some extra cash."

"Why did you bring a gun?"

"It was Grandpa's. I took it more to scare people. How was I supposed to know it was loaded? I didn't think it even worked."

"Why did you need money, Devin?"

"Meth," he admitted softly. "I started using when I needed a way to stay up for finals. I guess I got hooked pretty quick. You're not going to tell Grandpa, are you?"

"No," Lance replied. "But I think you should."

Devin stared down at the tabletop in silence.

"Tell me about Sarah."

"I didn't hurt her! I swear!"

Lance gestured for him to slow down. "I'm not saying you did, but how did she end up with you?"

"She climbed in the back of the truck when I was at the house," Devin replied. "I didn't know she was there until I got out."

"Why not take her down to the precinct?"

"I knew you'd be looking for whoever shot that guy," Devin answered. "And I knew I'd get charged the second I showed face."

"Satisfied, Detective?" the defense attorney asked.

"Yeah, he still needs to go through booking, though," Lance answered. "He probably won't be arraigned until Monday."

Once Devin was booked and taken to one of the holding cells, Lance wandered back around to where Natalie was still talking to Sarah. Though they were still talking in French, Lance had no problems understanding them. He stood by the speaker outside the room, and watched them through the one-way glass as Sarah told Natalie what happened. Luckily, he had missed most of the more gruesome accounts.

"Monsieur Devin was nice," Sarah said in French. "He bought me new clothes. They still had tags on them. He even bought me a dolly."

"Did he ever ask you to do bad things?" Natalie asked in her own French.

"No!" Sarah insisted. "He got angry with me when I tried to..."

Lance breathed a sigh of relief. Devin wasn't a bad kid. He'd just gotten mixed up with meth and ended up in the wrong situation. He made a mental note to talk to the judge about leniency when it came to arraignment and sentencing. He was pretty sure that between what happened with Johnson, he and Mooney could straighten up the kid pretty quick.

A few minutes later, Natalie emerged, leaving Sarah in the room to color with some dry-erase markers she's scrounged up from somewhere. Lance couldn't help noticing the tired set to her sounders or the fact her face was still pale around the edges. She still wasn't at full strength after yesterday's ordeal. He gently eased an arm around her shoulders in a gesture of support, and was surprised when Natalie buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed quietly. He wanted to comfort her about everything she'd been through since dying, but didn't want to say anything for fear of being overheard.

"Poor Sarah's been through so much," Natalie hiccuped. Lance suppressed a sigh of relief when he realized she wasn't thinking about her Immortality. "Did you see what was on those disks?"

"No," he replied softly.

"Be glad," she answered. "I went through them, and it was enough to make me sick. It wasn't enough that he turned her into his little sex slave, but he completely broke her spirit as well. Sarah will never been the same little girl she was before. I doubt she'll ever trust another man for the rest of her life."

Lance nodded and gently rubbed her back. "So, what now?"

"I've already talked with Child Services," Natalie replied, stepping back to wipe her eyes. "The Bureau's flying in a child psychologist from Duke to check her out. Her parents are on the first flight they can get out of Montreal."

He nodded. "What would you say to getting some fresh air, maybe grab some lunch?"

She shook her head. "No, I need to hang around here in case Sarah needs anything."

Lance gripped her shoulder. "You stay with Sarah, and I'll worry about the paperwork."


Although the case was, for all intents an purposes, solved, the mood at the station was very somber. Mostly, people thought that Johnson should rot in hell for what he did. Some were angry that he wasn't around to face punishment. Others felt, as Lance did, that Devin shouldn't have to spend any more time in jail than absolutely necessary. All in all, it made for a very bizarre Friday. Lance spent the rest of the day working on the case file. He made sure that all the necessary reports were included: ME, ballistics, CSI, trace, etc. A transcript of Devin's interrogation as well as Lance's own notes were added to the manila folder before he walked it down to Records to file in the "Closed" shelves.

Someone had ordered pizza for the squad room and he grabbed a couple of slices for himself, Natalie and Sarah. He didn't miss how Sarah flinched at the offered food. Later, Natalie told him how Sarah had been rewarded with pizza after doing some particularly nasty acts with Johnson. Apparently, the guy had used food as bribery, only giving Sarah the bare minimum most of the time and then later rewarding her with pizza, kids' meals, cookies and candy. The better the food, the more gruesome things she had to do to get it. Lance suddenly wished he could dig up Johnson's remains and kill him all over again with his bare hands. One look at Natalie said she'd help.

The shrink arrived shortly after three, having been shuttled over on one of the Bureau's private planes. Apparently, Natalie had told the Bureau about Sarah's fear of men, and Dr. Emma Brown was a compact woman, probably around sixty, with silver hair tied back in a bun, a crisp suit and a warm, grandmotherly face. When Natalie asked if she could speak French, the good doctor smiled and replied that she had originally intended to study at the Sorbonne before deciding to become a child psychologist. It was only then that Natalie could be persuaded to actually leave the station.

Lance didn't say much as they walked down the sidewalk together. He didn't have any real destination in mind, only that Natalie needed to take a few steps back from it all. The still hadn't said anything when they reached a local park. He could tell that there was something weighing on her mind as they sat on a bench overlooking a wide lawn where a few kids played an impromptu game of soccer.

"I'm leaving the Bureau," she said finally.

Lance wanted to say he was surprised, but it would've been a lie. "Why?"

"Everything," Natalie said on a sigh. "This case has taken a lot out of me. I know guys like Johnson will always exist, but I guess I just got too close. Sarah's parents almost became my parents. They loved their daughter so much that they'd never once thought of giving up hope, and yet mine abandoned me. Granted, becoming... like you has made me realize that John and Trudy were the best parents I could've wanted.

"That's another reason why I've decided to quit," she continued. "There's a lot I have to think about now. Before now, I thought my purpose in life was to bring girls like Sarah home to their parents and put guys like Johnson behind bars. Now that's all changed. I've changed. I guess I need to find myself all over again."

Lance nodded and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I think I know someone who can help."

Natalie turned to look at him. "Who?"

"She's an old friend," he replied. "She knows that Immortality is different for women than it is for men."

"By old, you mean...?"

"She's only a few decades older than me."

Natalie looked dumbfounded for a minute. "So, there are women... like me?"

Lance nodded. "There always have been, but women aren't as violent as men and many never had a First Death."

"Who is she?"

He sighed before replying softly, "I once swore an oath to protect her."

Natalie sat in silence for a few minutes. "You're in love with her." Lance could only nod. "Then why are you here?"

"She doesn't need me," he admitted. "She never has."

"Come on, we should probably be getting back," Lance said after a few moments of silence

"You know, I thought I'd feel differently," Natalie admitted, standing up.

"About what?"

"Being... you know."

"Why did you expect that?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe I'd end up with some kind of superpower. Y'know like x-ray vision or something."

Lance couldn't help chuckling as he escorted her back to the station.


Dr. Brown was just wrapping up her initial session with Sarah when they arrived. Just as Natalie had feared, the prognosis was pretty grim. Sarah had been made to suffer horribly during the two years she'd been held captive. Not to mention, some of the worst damage had happened during her more formative years. Once Sarah's parents arrived, they would have to sit down with Dr. Brown and the social worker to discuss the best course of treatment for Sarah. After their discussion with Dr. Brown, Lance pulled Natalie aside.

"Are you alright?" he asked as she began cleaning out her makeshift office.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied on a sigh. "I just can't believe it's over. I mean, I'm glad it is, but now what?"

Lance quietly closed the door behind him. "Look, I have some sick leave coming to me that I need to use up, and I was thinking about going on vacation before all this happened. Feel like taking a trip with me?"

Natalie looked at him closely. "If yesterday hadn't happened, I wouldn't hesitate to say no, but it happened. And I need to find out what that means for me. Now that Sarah's case is closed, I'm not sure I'll have a reason to get out of bed anymore."

Lance knew that feeling all too well. He'd gone through a similar time when he was working to help put Capone behind bars. He'd worked late nights, sometimes not sleeping for days, staring at a wall of evidence for hours on end, trying to make all the pieces fit. And it had all come down to income tax evasion. He supposed it was better than nothing.

"Look," he said, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder. "I want you to come by the house later so we can talk, and if you need a place to stay, the guest room's all yours."

"Thanks," she replied with a half-smile.

"You're welcome," Lance replied.

Rather than wait for Sarah's parents to arrive, he decided it was best to go on to the house, with a quick stop by the auto-parts store on the way.