The fire in Hikaru Sulu’s eyes tells Chris this chat is going to be fun. The deputy-guard is barely out of the door before accusations start to fly. “You bastard,” Sulu says furiously, “what did you do to Pavel?”

“I told him you were using him.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it true?” he responds mildly.

Shock is quickly blanketed by the return of anger. Jaw working, Sulu’s dark brown eyes bore into Pike. “Where do you get off, mister?”

“Chekov makes an easy target,” Chris says, brushing aside the rude comment.

“Which,” the young man replies through gritted teeth, “is why I look out for him.”

Sulu is so much like Jim. Chris would bet these two have become fast friends. “Letting him lie for you is not looking out for him.”

“I told him not to—” But Hikaru quiets, no doubt remembering that Pike does in fact represent law enforcement, and law enforcement is the enemy.

“So it’s not your responsibility or your fault—” Pike sighs like a disapproving parent, “—because you didn’t tell him more than he needed to know about your plan?”

“I don’t know of any plan.”

“Sure, kid,” Chris says, letting Sulu see his amusement. “I guess you were taking a lover’s stroll with Kirk then. Want to tell me about that?” He smiles disarmingly. “You could say I have a vested interest in Jim’s love life, since he is my son.”

Chris might have grown an extra head, the way Sulu is staring him. “I’m not the one in love with—are you crazy or something?”

“No crazier than someone who would steal a town relic.”

“I told the sheriff I haven’t seen the thing since Tuesday, when I did inventory of the stock room under my manager’s orders,” emphasizes Sulu, whose already lopsided elf hat is beginning to slide down the side of his head.

“Hm,” Pike murmurs, smelling a great Lie of lies, “does that mean it was already missing when you went looking for it?”

Sulu is taken aback. “How did you…?” He closes his mouth and looks Pike over with new consideration. “Did Jim tell you that?”

It’s almost shameful how easy it is to manipulate these children. In Pike’s experience, that either means they are very dumb or very honest at heart. He hopes the latter is true. “Last I heard, Jim would rather spend five years in prison than talk.”

Sulu blushes with embarrassment, realizing what he has given away on an assumption, and crosses his arms. “I plead the fifth.”

“No, you don’t.” Pike keeps his voice pleasant. “If you do, considering what I know now, I will have to officially arrest you for conspiracy to commit a crime.”

Sulu rattles his right arm. “…I’m confused. If I’m not under arrest, then why am I handcuffed to a table?”

“Because you can be deadly whether under arrest or under suspicion—and the Sheriff is a very paranoid man.”

“Can you talk about him like that?” Sulu asks, curious.

Pike imagines Jon’s pithy response on the other side of the mirror. He works hard not to smile. “I tell you what—I’ll trade you answer for answer.”

Sulu is instantly wary. “Why?”

He eases to the corner of the desk and leans a hip against it, hands in his pants pockets. There are so many things he needs to know—primarily that of what happened and who is ultimately responsible for the theft—but none of those things would help him gain this boy’s trust. And Pike knows, without a doubt, playing bad cop to Hikaru Sulu will yield nothing—as it never yielded anything from Jim in the past.

Chris takes a mental deep breath and asks, “How well do you know James Kirk?”

“Is this another crazy question?” Some of the tension visibly lessens in Sulu despite the automatic retort.

“Sure,” he agrees, keeping the conversation easy. “Can I have your answer?”

Sulu sinks slightly in his chair. “He’s Scott’s friend—Scotty, I mean. Jim calls him that. We never called him Scotty until Jim did.” He makes an aborted motion, like a shrug. “The name fits, though.”

“Jim has a talent for nicknames, and a even better talent for making them stick no matter how awful they are,” Pike remarks dryly. “He calls his best friend Bones.”

“Best friend?”

“McCoy.”

Sulu looks thoughtful. “…Huh, is that what they are?” Then his eyes travel around the undecorated room. “My answer is I don’t know him that well.”

“But you trust him.”

Sulu’s hesitation could be a result of his natural inclination not to tell a policeman anything. But he nods eventually, albeit slowly.

“Why?”

“We agreed to a trade. One of mine for one of yours.”

Pike snorts softly and folds his arms. He gives an answer he thinks Jonathan will like. “This is Sheriff Archer’s jurisdiction so I abide by his decisions.” Then he smirks. “But between you and me, he’s a bit of a dick.”

A smile ghosts across Sulu’s face. “That’s something Jim would say.”

“Of course he would,” Chris claims airily. “I am his father.”

“Adoptive,” Sulu points out, watching Pike’s reaction carefully.

“Which implies a choice was involved—mine.”

Sulu nods slightly. He focuses over Pike’s shoulder for a brief second, at the mirror, and then leans across the table. “I trust Jim,” he says in a low voice, “because he made the plan for somebody else.”

Pike waits, not certain he understands what Sulu is trying to tell him.

“…For a friend,” Sulu murmurs, voice barely above a whisper now. “To save him.”

“Who? From what?”

The doorknob rattles and Sulu jerks back, all expression dropping from his face.

Chris repeats urgently “From what, Hikaru?” but it’s too late. The door opens, admitting an elated sheriff, and the moment is lost.

“Jon,” Pike growls in frustration.

“We got him!” Archer crows, grinning widely. “We ran him down on Route 9.”

Pike looks to Sulu, who is quite pale and staring at his hands. Chris almost curses, drags a hand through his hair instead, and says, “Okay—okay. Is he through booking?”

“Won’t be at the station for another five,” replies the sheriff.

Sulu stands up, his chair falling backwards with the abrupt motion. He jerks at his restraint. A deputy slides around Archer’s back, hand to the gun at his belt. Sulu looks at neither man, just at Pike. “I plead the fifth,” he says, defiantly this time.

Chris can read the desperation in Hikaru’s eyes easily enough.

“We’re done anyway,” he tells Jon, though the truth is the exact opposite. Chris had been close, so close to a real explanation. But getting angry about it is pointless.

Archer makes an impatient movement with his hand at the deputy, tacit permission to remove Sulu from the room. Then he settles that hand on Chris’s shoulder. “I appreciate the work you’ve done here, Detective. We ought to have this wrapped up shortly.” He removes his hand in order to crack his knuckles, still grinning. “I’ll have a confession within the hour. You can count on that.”

“Then you found the star?”

“Inside the van, like we thought.”

Chris feels an odd sympathy for Montgomery Scott. “And Jim?” he asks.

“I can probably let him go on bail if you make certain he doesn’t leave town in the next week or so.” Archer turns away, everything about his stance radiating how pleased he is.

“Jon,” Chris calls, thinking of Sulu’s words, “are you sure there’s not more going on here?”

“Kids can be fuckin’ idiots, Chris, you know that.”

Chris doesn’t think Jim would be this secretive about a prank gone wrong. His son has done some stupid things, granted, but this? It cuts too close to the line. But Pike can see there isn’t much he can say to change Archer’s mind, not now, so he will have to wait until he has Jim.

Despite any apprehensions, Chris has to admit privately to a measure of relief that this might be over. Yet he cannot help but wonder about the identity of this mysterious person for whom Jim would risk prison. The answer will have to come from Jim, he supposes, or the mysterious person himself.

Sheriff Jonathan Archer is near-to-bursting with anticipation. Chris almost wants to tie the man to a chair leg or something in case he suddenly morphs into a demonic version of the Energizer Bunny. The only person who isn’t grinning like Christmas has come hours early is the male prostitute still stuck on the bench (had they all but forgotten about him?) glaring at everyone out of his one good eye.

Archer finally seems to notice the hooker—or, that is, takes offensive to someone willing to rain on his parade. “Why hasn’t he been booked?”

One deputy rubs his already red nose. “I thought Larry was doin’ it.”

Apparently Larry the Deputy does not like to have the finger pointed in his direction. “I’m on phone duty, you dweeb!”

“I skinned my knee chasing down a drunk housewife!”

“Boo hoo, Jenkins, cry me a river.”

Jenkins uncaps his gun holster with clear intent.

“Enough!” roars the sheriff. “Fucking hell—what is this, the goddamn nursery? You—” He snarls at Jenkins. “—pull that gun out and I will shove it up your ass.”

Chris turns away from the manic scene to put a hand over his face and stifle his laughter.

“And, Larry?”

“Yes, sir?” How meek Larry sounds now.

“Just book the perp already. That ugly pirate is the last thing I wanna look at every time I walk outta my office.”

“…Yes, sir.”

Maybe the hooker thinks he has been complimented because he does a fair impression of a pirate’s lewd grin. Archer was right about the ugly though, Chris thinks. The blue tattoo across the forehead and the scar down the cheek are far more unsettling than the eye patch.

The youngest deputy bounds from the front hallway with a cry of “He’s here!”

Pike is embarrassed by Archer’s return cry of “YES!” What has happened to his friend? Chris knew he was always the more stable of the two, but he hadn’t realized leaving the man all those years ago would result in Jonathan losing his sanity. Alas, there will be time to contemplate Archer’s oddities later.

Montgomery Scott is one of those people who would not make much of an impression under other circumstances. He has, Chris determines, the kind of nondescript features that could make him invisible in a crowd.

Scott is eerily quiet as he is marched to stand before a triumphant Archer, who is saying, “Thought you could escape me, did you, boy?”

Scott looks to be caught somewhere between stupefied and lost. As Jonathan goes on about the prowess of his law enforcement team, Scott’s eyes wander around the room. They take in Pike and dismiss him in the same heartbeat, continuing on to other surroundings. Chris recognizes the moment Montgomery sees something, or someone, he doesn’t like. In response, Chris suddenly feels the fine hairs at the back of his neck stand up.

“Let’s get this buffoon processed quickly. I want him in the interrogation room in half an hour,” Jon is saying to his small group of deputies. To the newest prisoner, Jon threatens, eyes bright, “Ever seen a thumbscrew?”

The young man blinks. “Is that a tool?”

Grin faltering into a look of annoyance, Archer steps aside so the deputy escorting Scott can proceed on to the booking station. “This one had better be easy,” he says to Pike and strides for his office.

Chris lingers a moment to watch Scott’s odd, hunchbacked shuffle, as if his ankles are shackled like his wrists. Though the feeling in the air is suddenly queer, nothing about the scene is out of place. Thinking perhaps he is too wound up by the events of the night, Chris turns toward the sheriff’s office to have a quick word with Archer about Jim’s release.

That is when everything goes to shit.

There is a cry, bitten off, from Montgomery Scott’s guard, who goes sprawling across the floor. The one-eyed hooker has someone’s gun. Scott gives a panicked cry. What happens next is a blur.

Scott’s knees hit the back of a desk, rattling pens and toppling a stapler to the floor. A shot is fired, narrowly missing the kid; the coffee pot explodes. Pike dives across the room without thought and barrels into the side of the armed man, knocking a second shot upward into a ceiling tile. Aged plaster rains down on their heads. Pike gets a hard elbow into his stomach (how the fuck did this man get loose from his handcuffs?) as he and the gunman wrestle for the weapon. There is a moment when he spies Scott out of the corner of his eye, curled in a ball on the floor as best as can be managed with hands handcuffed behind his back.

Someone shouts, a furious bellow like Jonathan’s. The moment of inattention costs Chris. The prostitute—who fights too well, like he’s trained—has his finger on the trigger and fires the third shot. Pain sears like a firebrand across Pike’s flesh.

He makes himself fall forward, fighting an instinctual momentum, because the idea that he’s been shot makes Chris utterly livid. He cracks his forehead against the other guy’s then drives a fist into the vulnerable jaw. When the shooter goes down, Archer is there, his own loaded weapon tucked under the man’s chin. Chris drops to his knees and pries the gun loose from the groaning man’s hand.

“Fuck,” Archer pants. “Fuck.” His pupils are blown wide.

Chris puts a hand to his left arm, and it comes back bloody. He echoes Archer’s profanity with feeling, only to suddenly remember Montgomery Scott.

Chris is riding too high on adrenaline to soften his whip-like tone. “Are you hurt?” he demands, crawling over to the quivering ball that is Jim’s friend.

Scott opens tear-bright eyes and asks Pike, “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

Pike looks him over, sees no wound, and replies, “No, you’re not. You’re okay, son.”

“But I will,” the boy whispers back, and closes his eyes again in resignation.

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