Chapter Summary; Alec doesn't know the difference between being alive vs being in Hell. Maize takes out her rage. We see our lovely Ri—Ryder return after all the action.

ALEC

They say when you die, the transition to heaven is peaceful, as your last experience in this world. Not that he had particularly thought about it a lot in his lifetime, but Alec had always imagined that peaceful transition as something blissful—fading into soft light or a calm river carrying your soul away to wherever it was all living things ended up when they died.

Bullshit.

His was nothing like that.

The moment he returned—or rather, more accurately described; was thrown back into consciousness—the only thing he felt was a pounding headache and a numb pain in his chest that made breathing feel like torture. He resisted the urge to groan, not that resisting much of a difference seeing how he wasn't sure anything in his body was responding to him. He couldn't decide whether or not everything hurt or everything felt utterly numb. This was no heaven.

Oh great, Alec thought within his consciousness, that meant he was probably in Hell. The only other alternative.

Damn...had he really been that bad in his life? Hard blow. He would have thought at least bringing down an arsenal of criminals, gangsters and murderers would have at least put him on the good side. Oh well. Perhaps Hell wasn't really that bad...he could probably learn to live with it.

Poor choice of words considering he was dead.

Right?

Well, time to see those fiery chambers, flaming pools of lava and throne of the devil...maybe I can bargain to claim his job once a week...He entertained the thought only half-jokingly as he ignored the pulse in his head blaring at him and squinted his eyes to force them slowly open against the blinding yellow light directly over his face. He found himself blinking in confusion as his vision properly worked itself into focus, only to find himself staring straight up at...

A blank, white ceiling.

This was hell?

To say the least...Alec was not impressed. Light blue curtains, white walls, stuffy size—his entrance into Hell looked like a bland hospital room. Underwhelming, to say the least. He had been expecting...well, he wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting. But it wasn't this.

When the conscious feeling of his limbs began to return to his body, the first thing Alec tried to do was move. Unwise mistake—even the slight attempt to bring his chest up sent a flare of pain through his still waking body. He remembered why, faintly recalling how he had been shot, but he really would have thought being dead and all would have removed the pain. Or maybe Hell-goers didn't get that luxury.

Talk about terrible customer experience.

It also seemed his movements had disturbed something at his side. Knowing he wasn't going to try and sit up again right away, Alec settled from turning his head to the side to look. He blatantly became aware that the odd resistance against his right hand was not unresponsiveness but rather, the culprit being detained by someone else's grasp. The head of long light-reflective black hair was forehead down against the side of the gentle mattress he realized he was laying on, and with his slightest movement, the head raised off the bed, for him to see a pair of amber coloured eyes he would know anywhere.

He took it back. Hell had wonderful customer experience if this was how he was waking up.

For a long time, it seemed as if all he did was stare into those eyes, though time equalled only several seconds with them staring back. Of course it was her; her eyes, her hair, her face, everything about her was there. His bounty hunter. Or the illusion, imagined version of her anyway...

He ignored the slight horseless in his voice, sore in the same way as if he had just woken up from a long night of sleep without using it. "So I've got to ask since I'm very conflicted right now...Heaven or Hell? It's gotta be one or the other..."

She stared at him, her moist eyes flicking back and forth between his face searchingly. He noticed the rims were raw—as if she hadn't been crying, but instead furiously refusing to and hastily sipping away any tears that gathered. He wasn't quite sure why he would imagine her crying though, he never liked seeing her anything short of her usual self. She then frowned at him—an expression he liked even less with the jolt of apprehensive fear it sent through him.

And then she burst out yelling at him.

Alec was sure he had nearly choked on air as she jerked to her feet in a blinding instant and bunched her fists at each of her sides in a fit of building rage as her eyes burned with ferocity. At least that answered that question—there was only one place heated flames like that could burn anyway...

"You idiot! You're ALIVE!"

He was what now?

"I-I...huh?" He wasn't processing.

She exhaled a brutal sigh and violently pinched the bridge of her nose. "As in; not dead," she practically spelled out for him.

Alec blinked from the bed. "Really?"

"You--you...ugh!" Maize continued to shout at him, along with a much longer, less appropriate, spew of profanities in his name. "You scared the goddamned hell out of me—you bastard!"

This time he tried to sit up again, and managed to succeed somewhat, though he hissed in pain and the bandages wrapped around his upper torso. At least that explained why he could still feel pain.

He groaned, ignoring the following protests that were met at his attempt at movement too soon, and rubbed a hand against the back of his head. "Nice to see you too," he murmured in all politeness. "Damn...for a second there I was convinced I was a goner," he chuckled. Big mistake to try and make a joke; Maize's expression scrunched up and she straightened back, crossing her arms as her expression of already apparent anger shifted into the downright most pissed-off look he had ever seen.

"Screw you!" She shot back instantly, and furious. "Screw you, screw you, screw you!" She continued to rant on, raging in the same way they had seen Ryder do on multiple occasions, though he could see through all the vocal point bits to the true intent underneath, the unspoken emotions, unshed tears, that gratification he could see flickering in her eyes each time she threatened him.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, genuine enough that she froze mid-speech with whatever she had been about to say next—something about strangulation—and fell silent, staring at him shakily. And then she looked away.

He didn't want to have to face the silence any longer so he spoke up again. "So, what happened? I can't really remember anything...are you alright?"

He could see her eye twitch at the last question—not in a way that implicated she wasn't alright as he asked, but more in the kind of way that gave Alec the impression that simply having the audacity to ask, while he was the one oh so clearly sitting banged up and bandaged in a hospital bed—so she chose to ignore it entirely and continued on with the rest of the explanation. "People close enough to the scene must have called response teams as soon as they saw Silan confront us with a gun, and Ambulances arrived a few minutes after you passed out from blood loss. From there, I rode with as you were rushed for emergency attention. You...by the time we had gotten here you had already lost so much..." She shook her head after her voice faded out and regained herself. "Just be glad they made it in time."

"And Silan?" he asked after a moment, unable to recall what had happened through his still fuzzy memory.

Maize's hand twitched ever so slightly around her crossed arms, but she didn't flinch. "She's dead. Gunshot to the chest."

That was all she said. But Alec understood, and as he began to remember a few more details, he vaguely remembered a second shot being fired—and the only other person around close enough to have fired it.

She had really done it? Fired his gun?

Perhaps she wasn't alright then...It didn't take a genius to figure out why she had ceased using guns entirely after the past she had told him, and he had seen her freeze more than once simply holding a firearm. However, she said nothing. Showed nothing. If she was facing any hauntings from it, then she gave no indication. Because she was Maize. However he knew more than to ask her directly about it, at least, not yet, all that could wait. For now, he was just happy to be alive...

Somewhat.

Considering the glare he was still on the receiving end of.

He distractedly ran a hand through his hair as he revised the information, seeing that it all filled the gaps in his memory, and then looked over at her. His expression was of full seriousness. "I just have one more vital question," he said.

"What?"

"You said a few minutes after I passed out, the ambulance arrived?" She nodded, albeit questioningly. Finally, he let the grin on his face break through the wall as he asked, "Did you perform mouth to mouth?"

Her reaction was immediate; taken aback, to flustered shock, to snappiness as she stared at him and shook her head, "My god you're impossible..."

He would have broke out laughing if his chest hadn't still felt like he got hit by a truck. "Wanted to wait until I was awake, right?" he smirked instead, and she dropped and shook her head.

"You're impossible," she repeated, with more emphasis. And an edge. "Honestly, I don't know whether or not to actually kiss you or throw your ass off a bridge for scaring the shit out of me like that."

"Can I pick?" he asked after a wincing grimace.

"Absolutely not," she stated, before she kissed him.

Heaven. If he hadn't known (now) that he was alive—then his entire debate about where he ended up settled the moment he felt her this close.

She pulled back too soon for his liking—as the kiss was only meant to be brief, and ended up an inch away from his face, allowing him to stare into her eyes.

"Sorry," she breathed lightly, working her lips back into a half-smile, "But it was the only thing I could think of to get you to shut up."

The corner of his own mouth cocked back into an amused smirk. Those vaguely familiar words...

"I should keep talking then I see," he replied.

Her response was a soft, genuine laugh.

That sound felt like a long-needed extension of a lifeline that he could hold onto forever, so long as he had it, things were alright. Without a thought, he wanted to draw her into him, back so he could taste her close to him once again, and the look in her eyes implied she wasn't about to fight it either.

Someone cleared their throat, but neither of them heard until the person began speaking.

"Apologies..." Maize and Alec startled. "I hope I'm not interrupting...something..." the Captain finished off awkwardly as he stood within the open doorway. His vocal alert to his presence drew both of their attention instantly, as their caught off guard expressions faced their superior looking like he was trying very hard not to intrude on their moment.

"A little bit—" Alec started to say, but one light but firm flick to his left shoulder had him cutting himself short. Maize pulled away, not startlingly, but quick enough to show that she was indeed a little embarrassed at being caught, though she pointedly angled her face away so neither could read her expression. Alec would have continued to tease her had his chief not been standing in the room with them. Instead, he sighed under his breath, sinking his disappointment at the interruption, and looked back up with a welcoming grin at his boss. "Ok, never mind. Come on in..."

"Glad you're awake, son," the Captain said to him.

Alec smiled back, Captain and Maize must have gotten talking...if he was calling him son so openly in front of her. Something the two of them had unspokenly agree not to allow around anything centred with their work.

"So was I," he answered genuinely. "For five whole seconds until she started yelling at me," he finished with a flat look, directed at the hunter. The Captain didn't look too taken aback.

"That's fine. I told her to," he responded.

Alec balked at that.

"Why?" he pointedly emphasized.

"So I didn't have to do it," the police chief replied. "At first I was going to warn her to take it easy on you, but then I concluded that doing so would only delay the inevitable. I trusted she would have given most of the lecture points I would have gotten to, in a more...how should I put this...vigorous way." Alec raised an eyebrow.

"So you wanted her to lay it to me hard is that it?"

"In less subtle words...yes. She was happy to oblige."

Alec shot Maize a less than amused look, answering, "I'm sure she was."

"The next time you think of throwing yourself in front of a damn gun for me you better remember—you die, and I kill you, understand?" Her arms were crossed as her gaze bore into him intensely, as if she meant to mentally drill the statement into his thick skull. The slightest of shivers ran a chill down his spine.

"Yes ma'am."

"Please don't ever do that again," she sighed.

Of course, there were no promises—there never would be. Though it might have nearly killed him, and was a pain to be stuck in a hospital, he didn't regret being the one who got hit if it meant he had been able to get her out of the way. No matter how much she tried to threaten him into never doing it again.

He gave a relaxed smile to ease her tension. "Remember my promise? If I died—I would have come back to haunt you."

She shot him a look. "Then for both our sakes—don't."

"Well if one of us is going to keep near-dying, I'd rather me than you."

"Selfish bastard," she retorted after looking quickly away. He smirked.

"You know me so well."

She stepped closer, and leaned her back against the wall she she was practically right beside him, arms still crossed. "I hate you," she told him.

"Don't worry," he said after a roll of his eyes. "You're still stuck with me."

His statement was met with a smile from her. She opened her mouth—

"Oh my god...and I thought the sign out front the coffee shop was sappy," another voice cut in, sounding disgusted, and successfully startling the rest of them in the room.

Alec cursed at the same time as the Captain as each of them were caught off guard by the sight of Ryder, lounging draped across the unoccupied visitor's seat. How or when he snuck in the room was completely irrelevant.

"Jesus Christ Ryder..." Maize hissed across the room, sharing the displeased and accusing glare that was being shot in the same direction by Alec. The Captain on the other hand—clearly also caught unprepared for the sudden appearance of the unknown new presence in the room—looked like he wasn't quite sure how to react at the obvious recognition both Maize and himself showed at the accused.

Ryder certainly didn't look bothered by her tone, though he did glare up from his strange position—over the chair rather than in it—at the stares he was receiving. Never one to be in the spotlight, unless he purposefully intended, of course.

Though it might have helped cease the staring had he not been flip and catching the pen that had previously been hanging from a string on the door outside.

"Jeez, I swear, every time. I leave for a few hours and everything goes to shit," he stated, still twirling the writing tool. He huffed under his breath with displeasure. "Had to leave Kota in the car just to sneak in here."

The Captain was the only one staring at him hard—and confused—for that claim. "Sorry...I don't believe we've met," he started, frowning at the man who shot him a disinterested look.

"We haven't."

"Are you perhaps the third gentleman that I was told of?"

Alec snorted at the word gentleman and he could feel the look he received from the woman at his side; a swift eye roll.

"Sir this is Ryder—a friend of ours." Ryder snorted at the implication of being a friend of anyone else in that room that wasn't Maize. So, him. Maize barely paused, though Alec knew she had heard him just as he had. "He came down to stay in the city for a little bit, once he finds a place that is."

Alec blew out a breath of air. "A cell might work. Got any open?"

"...No," the Captain answered with a frown, as if he was trying to sort out how serious Alec had been with that question.

"Too bad," Alec murmured with a shrug as Ryder shot him a vicious glare.

"I'm going to burn you alive."

"Don't worry," Maize said to the Captain, "He's doesn't mean it."

"Yes, I do." Ryder didn't miss a beat. Until Maize glared at him. Then he stayed quiet.

The Captain stared, dumbfounded at the strange exchange between the three of them.

If it was noticed by Ryder, he didn't let on. Instead, Alec raised an eyebrow to see him twist and get up from his seat to step forwards and stand, hands in pockets, at the corner of his bed. He stared down at Alec with an unreadable expression on his face. Alec only glared.

"You look like hell West," Ryder said, blunt and uncaring as ever, earning himself an unimpressed look from half the room. However, the next part came unexpectedly. "...Glad you're not" —he took a hand out and waved it back and forth in the air in front of him— "dead."

It wasn't poetic. And d it most certainly didn't sound meaningful in the slightest. But for as short a time as he had known the guy; that sounded like a goddamned soap opera. Alec stared startledly at the steel-eyed sharpshooter and then tilted his head, as if beginning to see him in a new light.

"Can I get that on tape?"

Ryder's hand froze in the air and began twitching—the itch to suddenly strangle.

"I take it back," he growled. "Die."

* *

Over the following two weeks, doctors had been routinely checking up on him and nurses reapplying the bandages around his chest. It had taken Maize pointing it out several times the morning he woke up before one of them got him an actual shirt to put over his previously exposed abdomen. Like hell was he wearing one of those hospital gowns.

She visited him most. Frequently once a day for the majority of the hospital visiting hours. A godsend considering he was sure he would have chosen to die of boredom not doing anything else.

'Healing was a resting process' the nurses repeatedly reminded him. But after a day or two used to catch up on exhaustion, that line stopped applying. Though he was healing fast and well, the Captain had given him the darkest glare when Alec even tried to ask him about the current open cases going around the precinct on only his third day being stuck on 'required' bedrest after a week of the pain finally settling.

It had taken too long for his liking for the stitches in his chest had finally stopped itching so much under the bandages, and Maize was once again keeping him occupied in the lonesome room as she had been for nearly half a month.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she leaned forward and brushed tantalizingly against his mouth, upper body draped half over him from the side of the bed where he held her near the hips.

"I like the way you apologize," Alec smirked. He drew away for just a moment, looking into her eyes. "But I still think you cheated in that game of Go-Fish. There's no way you didn't have that seven."

Maize rolled her eyes, smirking into their kiss as she leaned down again and murmured, "You're an idiot."

He smirked back. "Is that all you got? You're an idiot?"

"I'm gonna get up and leave now..." she taunted.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. Then he smiled wryly as she pressed down again to rejoin the moment.

Suddenly the door to her room opened and one of the familiar nurses ushered in, eyes downwardly distracted by the clipboard she held in hand until she glanced up and saw them.

"Mr. West the doctor would like to—" the nurse immediately stopped talking.

Fucking hell...

The nurse looked like she was about to drop her pen, stuttering. "Oh um...is this a b-bad time?"

"Yes," Alec grumbled quietly, looking very annoyed. Why did these specific moments keep getting interrupted?

Maize, on the other hand, had some decency to looked more embarrassed rather than bothered. Though despite that, she still managed to forcibly muster up a smile and spoke to the nurse politely. "It's not a bad time at all, what do you need?"

The woman returned her smile and nodded her head towards Alec. "Mr. West is due to have his stitches rechecked." Again.

Alec frowned flatly. "This is official police business. You're interrupting."

The nurse gave him a startled look while Maize just shoved him away, sounding as if she were trying to muffle her laughter. "Shut up you idiot. Let the doctors check up on your wound."

Well...he tried.

Maize got up and left, along with the still stuttering nurse who presumably went off to get the doctor.

Alec leaned back against the back pillows and exhaled a breath of air, throwing an arm over his eyes.

He didn't hear the door open again.

But the next time he raised his forearm and turned to look over, he cursed out loud to see that Ryder had, for some reason, appeared back in the room again. He—in contrast to Maize—hadn't been seen by Alec since that first morning. Something Alec had also counted as a godsend, until now.

"Goddamnit man! Get a bell or something..." he groaned, sitting up again as he glared.

Ryder shrugged, hands in the pockets of dark cargo pants as always. "A thought, but no thanks."

Alec's expression fell flat. "What do you want?"

"You know the building a few hundred meters across from here has a really nice roof," he stated plainly. "Unfortunately, the view was ruined when I caught you and Ember snuggled up together earlier."

"How the fuck--?"

"My shooting lens has a far range," Ryder supplied. Alec opened his mouth but the other cut him off with a pointed exhale. "No, I didn't have the whole riffle with me. I'm not that stupid."

"No, just a perv apparently."

Ryder snapped his gaze up. "I am not—" he stopped and took a deep inhale with what looked to be tremendous effort to remain calm. "No. Look, my point is; I saw the way you two were with each other—for the flash of a second too late for me to ever unsee by the way."

Alec ignored that. "And?"

"And," Ryder repeated meaningfully, " As long as I've known her she's never been one for relationships with people. After all this, you'd have to be an idiot not to understand why..." He looked like he was going to say more but something stopped him. Instead, he paused a beat before sighing. "Listen, West, I know from experience, alright. Do her wrong, and she'll be the most dangerous enemy you ever make. But do by her right, and prove she has a reason to trust you, and she'll be the best damn loyal partner you've ever had. Remember that."

And then, just like that, he left, turning and strolling through the door.

Remember that.

Last chapter coming soon!! >o<