FSE

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*** This is NOT the last chapter

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

NED

The crash sent up an echo that rang throughout the empty mall.

Wordlessly Ned ran to the balcony.

Maxwell lay on his back amid the wreckage of one of the kiosks. He'd fallen right into the middle of it, and there he was sprawled, arms thrown out to the sides, head slightly to the side. No concern about the gun - he'd lost it in the fall, and he did not seem to be in any condition to use one anyway.

Panting, Ned leaned against the balcony, trying to catch his breath. A paw touched his shoulder, and he raised his eyes to meet Garrett's. The coyote slipped his arm around Ned's shoulder - the one that was not injured. "I was scared for you, baby" he whispered.

"Me too" Ned allowed, and he put his own arm around the coyote, pulling him close, pressing his nose into the fur of his neck, and breathing in the comfortable scent. He didn't even smell scared, just tense, but relaxing. Safe now, safe now. All over. Except -

"We need to check on Maxwell" he said.

"I know." Garrett released him, nodding grimly. "That's a nasty fall."

It had indeed been a bad fall; that was clear, when they had made their way down to the lower floor. The fox had not moved from his place among the kiosk wreckage, and as Ned approached him, he could see why. A piece of broken wood, part of the kiosk assembly, jutted from Maxwell's middle, thrust entirely through him, and from the way his limbs lay haphazardly, Ned suspected he had broken some of them as well. The scent of blood rose from him, and as the wolf and coyote stood over the broken fox, Maxwell weakly turned his head. "Brett?"

They stared. "Brett" the fox whispered. "I'm all....broken. I'm..." he gasped, and a little blood trickled from his muzzle. "I think I fell."

Garrett opened his muzzle, but slowly, Ned held up a paw...and shook his head. "Stay back," he mouthed.

The coyote looked at him for a moment, and then nodded, and backed away, so Ned was left alone with the fox, the fox who had been for the past few weeks the man he most wanted to arrest. He knelt among the wreckage, watching Maxwell's eyes slowly connect with his.

"Brett?" Maxwell's paw moved, twitching. "Is it you?"

"It's me" Ned whispered. "Your lover."

For a moment, there was silence, and then a smile spread across the fox's muzzle. "Brett" he sighed. "I was hurt, but I knew you'd come." Some of the wreckage rustled as he tried to wag his tail.

Ned touched the fox's paw, and felt it weakly grasp his. "I came."

"I knew you would" Maxwell sighed again, more blood running from his muzzle. It stung Ned's nose, but he did not move. "I love you, Brett" Maxwell said.

"I know" Ned squeezed the paw. "I love you too."

"I'm going to rest now" the fox's tail rustled again. "Now that you're here. I'm really tired."

"Rest then." Ned patted the fox's paw. "I'll be here."

"My hero" Maxwell whispered, and he closed his eyes.

The grip on Ned's paw loosened, and then fell away.

Some while later, Ned rose from the ruined kiosk, and left the dead fox to return to Garrett's embrace. Strangely, rather than feeling victorious, he felt almost mournful.

"You didn't need to do that" Garrett whispered. "He was trying to kill us."

Ned did not reply right away, partly because he was still catching his breath, and partly because he himself did not entirely understand what he was feeling. "I realised that that fox was once just a scared teenager, no different than I was. He shared an important part of himself with his best friend, and was destroyed for it."

"Even the most evil people can sometimes be sympathetic..." Garrett hugged him tighter, his paw clutching Ned's tail. "Not that it excuses what he did, but I can at least see how he came to be as he was."

"Yes..." a solitary tear fell and sank into Garrett's fur. "The person who Michael Rosgen was was destroyed long ago. That" he waved a paw in the direction of the body "was just the remnants. The real villain here was that friend, Brett....or whoever or whatever it was that led him to believe that the most appropriate response to learning your best friend is gay is to kill him"

Garrett pulled away just enough that they could look into each other's eyes, nosetip to nosetip. "You can finally see how a good person can become evil..."

"No one is entirely good or entirely evil" Ned whispered.

Garrett hugged him again.

Olympia and Scarlett showed up perhaps ten minutes later. "I would apologise for our tardiness, but the tracker in Garrett's phone was not working properly" the white wolf stated, in a tone that seemed to imply she was entirely free of blame for this misfortune. "Plus, it took a bit of convincing to get Miss Lewis to join me." She gave the coyote a wry look.

Scarlett crossed her arms. "Hey, Olympia just shows up at the station when everything's going fucking crazy and says 'come away with me?' Without you two there? You can't expect me not to be suspicious."

"What happened at the station?"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Scarlett's tail gave a wag. "Arkady cracked the case." She glanced at the dead fox. "Or you did. I guess you know that lawyer wasn't really named JJ Maxwell."

"No" Ned said. "Michael Rosgen."

Scarlett nodded. "Turns out, he was incognito every night a murder was committed. Told his buddies at Poole, Peck, and Roswell that he was busy with 'charity work' or some other such thing. None of them had seen him any of those nights. Checked out everywhere. Montoya called some of the restaurants he had credit card charges to and they confirmed that he'd been there with Joey Rath."

Garrett and Olympia together had carried Maxwell's body out of the wreckage, and laid it on the floor. Ned noticed the women's scrutiny. "We battled with him; he pulled a gun, then slipped on broken glass and fell off the balcony" he explained. "Died about fifteen minutes ago."

"Still warm" Olympia nodded towards the two pistols, which Ned had by then located and collected. "No injuries?"

"Just a knife scratch" he waved at the shoulder. "All fine."

"We're both great" Garrett added, giving Ned a little smile, and the wolf felt a sudden burst of affection for his coyote. Even to Olympia, Garrett wasn't mentioning the little incident right before Maxwell had died. That was Ned's private moment, an instance of epiphany, realisation that even the Prophet, a heartless killer, could be seen as sympathetic. Oh sure, he'd tell Scarlett the story in greater detail later, and perhaps Garrett might share it with Olympia, the Prophet's final battle, but for now, the epiphany was his alone.

"It's over" Scarlett murmured, and then she and Ned were hugging. "No more deaths; all safe." They hugged, and Ned kissed Garrett, and Scarlett hugged Garrett, and when Olympia met Ned's eyes and offered a smile and whispered "friends?" he had neither the heart nor the desire to deny it, so they hugged, and parted as friends.

Presently they all stood apart from one another again. "You two had better make your exit before I call this in" Scarlett glanced from Garrett to Olympia. "Just to simplify things."

Garrett nodded. "Officially, you and Ned took down the Prophet. Fair enough."

He came over to kiss Ned goodbye while Scarlett made the call. "My place tonight?" he whispered, as his muzzle touched Ned's.

"I'd like nothing better." Ned pulled back and grinned, his tail thwacking against Garrett's leg. "I'm going to put in a request for cuddling tonight..."

"I'll be waiting for you," the coyote gave a playful lick on his nose, "my noble policewolf."

After he and Olympia had left, Ned sat with Scarlett at the bottom of the stairs, listening for the sounds of the siren, telling his partner about how the battle had gone down, and what Maxwell had said. Reflecting on it, he thought about the past three weeks, and how before it he had been single, and unproved as a detective; yet now he had a wonderful coyote, and had faced a serial killer, and came away unscathed. He remembered the fate of the Rosgen family; of how for another young gay boy, growing up had gone so differently, and suddenly, an incredible feeling of gratitude blossomed within him. He closed his eyes. I have a job I love, friends who are dedicated to me, and a lover who loves me exactly as I am.

He was blessed. And through that gratitude, he wanted to share. Not his own story, but that of Michael Rosgen, so that never again would any youngster think that killing a gay boy was the proper response to learning he was attracted to you. Maxwell had wanted to change the world for the better, and though in his insanity he'd picked a twisted, horrific way of accomplishing it, perhaps that, his story, would be his legacy. The world owes it to him, Ned thought. It failed him, but I will not.