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John has been looking for Patrick Brady for the past six hours.

The call had come in then, Carolyn Brady begging for an ambulance, sobbing through a raw and ragged throat. John hadn't needed to see her to know Patrick Brady had nearly choked his wife to death tonight, and while she's still alive now, he knows it's time to move. For months now, he's been trying to do this the right way, he's been trying to get Carolyn to leave, to press charges, to ask for a protection order, but she's been resisting the entire way through. John understands. He knows it isn't easy for a woman to leave a situation like the one she's in, especially with a child in the picture, but he's been trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

He's been trying to do things the right way.

That ended the second he heard that call. John trusts the first responders to help Carolyn and her daughter, and he goes out on the hunt, pausing only long enough to collect the weapons he needs and to text both Karen and Root on his secure cell phone. He wants them to know where he is, what he's doing.

Three years ago, he wouldn't have been the sort to check in, but Darrow has changed a lot of things for John Reese.

He's been tracking Brady this entire time and he only now has a trail. He's kept in touch with both Karen and Root, knowing he might need either of them at a moment's notice, knowing they can do things he can't. Kara would have called him an idiot for relying on others, she would have called it a weakness, but John knows better now.

And as he carefully and quietly approaches the loading dock where he'd finally seen Brady disappear into just five minutes earlier, he pauses and takes in his surroundings. Waiting for one or both of the women he knows best.

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The lights go out and from inside the warehouse, John hears a shout. He smiles and lobs the grenade.

The sound of the shattering window is a strangely satisfying one to John, but not nearly as satisfying as the sounds of bewildered pain that come from inside as the stun grenade goes all, the flash blinding and the sound enough to send all five of the men inside down to the ground in pain. They won't be able to see or hear much of anything for at least several minutes, which is more than enough for them to do what they need.

They go in and John takes out two men quickly, hitting their knees with ease and then kicking their weapons away from their outstretched hands. The third tries to come at him, but clearly can't see and John punches him once in the throat, hard enough to rob him of breath, and he gasps as he goes down, too.

"Brady and Conti," he says to Karen. "Do you see them?"

Karen can barely hear over the sound of her own pulse in her head, barely think about anything but the task at hand with the dizzying rush of adrenaline that surges through her when she follows him inside, staying a couple steps back. She's good with a gun and quick to defend herself, but John is the real fighter here, and practiced as she may be at running headfirst into danger, she still has the sense to let him do so first. If she had a bit more presence of mind, if she weren't so focused on making sure she'll be able to back him up, she would think it's pretty hot, the way he takes those three men out so quickly. It's something to come back to later. First they need to get things taken care of here.

"That way, I think," she says, keeping her voice quiet, gesturing with a tilt of her chin off to the right. That John has rather quickly ensured that they aren't outnumbered anymore is a little comforting, though she knows better than to completely disregard the three men on the ground, but she's still not about to let her guard down or do anything that might give the two of them away. "I'm right behind you."

If she were hurt in any way, if she'd been hit by a bullet or a fist, she would tell him. John trusts Karen, not only with his life and safety, but to know what's most important to him, which is always her. He won't make the same mistakes he's made before, he won't lose more people he loves to senseless violence.

If Karen was hurt, he would know. And he would end this.

But she tells him to go and so he does. Moving toward the right, he puts himself against a wall, then peers around a load of boxes. A shot rings out from somewhere down the hall, but it's too dark for John to see who's holding the gun. He fires back, unable to tell if he's hit anyone or anything, mostly trying to give himself and Karen time and cover to head around the next set of boxes.

It's strange, how it almost feels like acting on instinct, though they aren't instincts she's ever had the chance to develop. She's been thrown into a lot of weird, dangerous situations before, but rarely has she been the aggressor in them. Karen pointedly does not think about the first time she deliberately aimed a gun at someone and shot; she wouldn't be able to even if she could, and she really doesn't need that kind of distraction right about now. Not when she's in the middle of an honest-to-god fucking shootout.

Even for someone like her, though, so quick to run into danger, self-preservation comes easily. She keeps herself as close to the wall as she can, until it's time to move, following John's lead all the while. He's the one of them here who really knows what he's doing, and she trusts him unfailingly. She doesn't need to think twice about, essentially, putting her life in his hands. There's no one with whom she would sooner do so.

From somewhere deeper in the warehouse, John can suddenly hear raised voices and he pauses, still with his arm gently across Karen's torso, and listens intently. Looking over at her, his brows draw together just slightly, the only indication he's confused by what he's hearing.

But it makes sense, he realizes. Conti and Brady aren't in this together. Conti had come here, no doubt, to collect on a debt Brady owes. They're arguing about it now, both of them under more pressure than they had expected with John and Karen's arrival, and that look of confusion on John's face is slowly replaced by a small smile.

"You can't do that!" Brady shouts. "You can't just-"

He's cut off by the sound of a scuffle and then there's silence until suddenly Brady shrieks in anger and comes flying out of the dark toward John and Karen.

Still and quiet between his arm and the boxes, Karen can hear the sound of an argument, and looks up to see the moment John smiles, piecing it together in that same instant. It doesn't really improve their current situation, but it does explain a lot. It makes a lot of sense, too, with what they know of Patrick Brady and his history both of gambling debts and taking his frustration about them out on his wife. All there is to do, though, is wait — that is, until a man screams and comes running out of the darkness, leaving them with nowhere to go and little to do, the need to handle this immediate.

"John, look out!" she shouts, hand tight around her weapon. Her position isn't exactly an advantageous one, but she'll use it if she has to.

He has a gun. And he has it pointed not at him, but at Karen.

That's the only thing John sees as Brady comes flying from the dark, running directly at the person in this city he loves the most, and so he lifts his own weapon without a thought. It's instinct and the world goes quiet around him as he aims, not at Patrick Brady's kneecap, like he ought to, but at his centre mass. Even before he pulls the trigger, he knows this shot is going to kill the man.

He doesn't care.

Brady goes down before he can fire his own gun, a crumpled heap on the floor, and John steps forward and kicks the gun away from his outstretched hand before he turns to look at Karen.

Karen gasps when a gun fires, a soft, strangled sound, barely audible over the shot. For a moment, she can't be sure where it came from or who it hit, her body tensing like she's expecting it to be her. The moment passes, though. Patrick Brady crumples to the ground, and somehow she knows instinctively that he won't be getting back up again. Part of her thinks she expected this when she first got the text from John telling her what happened and where he'd be. She should probably mind that, but she can't bring herself to. Carolyn Brady will be safe now. She and John both are, too. And a bad man is dead.

Exhaling slowly, she watches John, making sure he doesn't look hurt. He seems fine, though, and she's pretty sure only one shot was fired. Briefly, she thinks about James Wesley, slumped over a table, and the fallout she always expected from that, but she pushes those memories away again quickly. They won't do her any good now, and there's too much to take care of.

"He's dead," she says calmly; it's not really a question. "We need to get rid of the body."

John almost defends the choice he's made, almost tries to explain to Karen that Brady would have shot her, but in the end he doesn't. All along, from the moment he had arrived in Darrow, Karen had trusted him, and he trusts her now. Trusts her to understand his choices, why he'd shot for centre mass instead of the kneecap.

His reasons may not all be the best ones. Karen's safety aside, John knows he has personal grievances tied up in the sort of man Patrick Brady is -- was -- and that they will always change how he sees men like that. But whether or not they're the right reasons, he trusts Karen to know why they exist.

He nods once and says, "His connection to the Rambaldis will be uncovered before long. If he disappears, the police are more likely to blame their operation for it."

He didn't need to shoot to kill. Karen probably wouldn't think twice about it except that she knows John usually doesn't on purpose. This whole situation isn't exactly usual, though. She's not usually in the middle of shootouts. Their targets aren't usually people who abuse their wives and leave them nearly dead in the hospital. She knows about John's history, what happened to his ex and how hard that was on him. It's why at least a part of her expected this tonight. As long as Brady was alive, his wife would have stayed with him or had to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Either way, it wouldn't have ended well. It shouldn't be, but this is the neatest solution, especially after he'd come running out of the dark, brandishing a weapon.

Sometimes there just aren't other options. She hates that, but she knows it.

"Good," she says with a nod of her own. "We should ditch that gun, too. Use it again, it could be traced back to this." She knows he knows all of this. He's the goddamn homicide detective. It helps a little, though, to talk it through, to have a plan, to approach this as rationally as possible. What happened here tonight is something she can't bring herself to regret, but they still need to be smart about it.

"Not right away," he says thoughtfully. "We'll keep it in the safe for now. I won't use it."

And then, in a few months, he'll find a way to get rid of it. The weapon will never show up as a possible connection to this crime and even if it does, it will never be connected back to either of them. For now, he returns the gun to his holster, then goes back to the main room briefly to collect the pieces of the stun grenade he'd tossed in earlier. He doesn't bother with the glass from the broken window. The police will assume it's vandalism.

"You can go," he says when he returns to Karen and the body. "That way you can build yourself an honest alibi." He doesn't believe it will come to that and he doesn't really expect her to go, but he wants to know she has the option. He'll do anything to keep her from suffering in any way.

"You know I'm not going anywhere," Karen says with a small smile, certain that John won't be expecting any other answer from her. It should probably unnerve her, how easy this part is, but honest alibi or not, she trusts him to have her back. In turn, she has his. She won't leave him to get rid of a body on his own. It'll be easier and faster if there's two of them, anyway. Not that she's ever actually done this before — she hasn't — but hell, there's a first time for everything, and in this case, it's worth it. She's not worry that Patrick Brady is dead. Maybe she should be, knowing she's supposed to be against this sort of thing in the first place, but she's not, and she would never hold it against John. Shit happens. He did what he had to do. And now they'll do what they have to do.

Taking a breath, she nods once. "We're in this together. You're just gonna have to tell me what to do, because I am not used to dumping bodies."

Her answer doesn't come as a surprise, but John had wanted to give her the option all the same and he wanted to make sure she knew he would never hold it against her if she chose to leave. Protecting Karen, protecting the life she has here, it's more important to him than anything else including his own safety.

Still, he smiles at her a little and nods.

"At this point, it might make the most sense for us to leave him here," he says as he surveys the scene. "Police will likely be able to trace the meeting with the Rambaldis and even if they can't make the connection, I can push them in that direction."

"And that's why you're a cop and I'm a journalist," Karen says with a wry smile, a little relieved as she exhales. He's right, too. It isn't the death itself they have to cover up, just their involvement in it. It'll be better to make it seem like things played out the way they very well might have if not for the two of their interference. Going with that option saves them a lot of work, too, and she can't pretend she isn't a little glad not to have to move a dead body tonight. The last few minutes have been harrowing enough as it is, even if she never doubted that John would keep her safe. That she would keep herself safe, too, if it came to that, but fortunately, it didn't.

She nods in turn, more to herself than anything else. "Alright. What do we need to do before we leave, then?"

"We'll have to wipe down the doorknobs. Anything else either of us touched," he says. "The breaker I had you flip. No prints left behind, that's the most important thing. The shell casings are fine, this isn't my service weapon, it won't be connected back to me."

But no prints, that's the most important thing. He has to wipe Karen's presence entirely from this place, scrub it out of every possible corner. As far as he can remember, she had only touched the breaker switch, but he still takes his time, pausing at each set of boxes they might have taken cover at, rubbing down the edges where they may have rested their hands with a handkerchief from his pocket.

"I'll go get the switch," Karen says, nodding once to herself. She pauses for a moment before she does, wanting to make sure that it's quiet, that no one else might be hanging around. It's clear, though, which is a relief. They really don't need any uninvited company showing up here tonight. It's enough just to try to get rid of any trace of their presence. Doing so should be easy enough, but they also can't risk taking any chances. No one can know they were here.

In the interest of safety, she wipes down the breaker switch, the sides of the box, and the surrounding wall. She doesn't think she touched anything else, but she can't be certain now, and it's better to err on the side of caution. Once she heads back inside, she asks, "How are things going in here?"

"Done," John answers. He takes one last look at Brady, lying where he'd fallen, then glances toward where he had kicked the gun. That makes it look too much like a cop of some kind had something to do with this, so he returns to the gun and nudges it across the floor with the side of his shoe until it lies mere inches from Brady's outstretched fingers.

"Now we're done," he amends and then takes Karen's hand and leads her from the warehouse.

He doesn't feel guilty about what he's just done. Any of it. Brady can't hurt his wife and the Rambaldis don't get their money. John doesn't think either of those things are bad.

She should probably feel worse about this. On some level, Karen knows that, or she thinks so. Hard as she tries, though, she can't bring herself to. She isn't even particularly nervous, knowing that John can handle this sort of thing, that he won't let it come back to them in any way. They've been careful here tonight; their tracks should be covered. Even being so far outside her comfort zone, she doesn't feel much of anything except a bizarre sense of calm as she and John walk outside, hand-in-hand.

And that's really the point, isn't it? They have each other. Wedding vow clichés aside, they can see each other in the worst possible circumstances and not lose anything for it. When she's been able to be open with so few people, when he knows things about her that no one else does, that means a lot.

"I don't feel bad," she says when they're a little ways away, looking up at him. "About what happened. Just so you know. I don't."

John doesn't feel bad either. He would have done far worse to that man if Karen hadn't been there, would have made him experience every ounce of pain he had ever put his wife through and while he's not proud of that side of him, he's also not sorry it exists. That man has to be there. That man has been a big part of why he's survived this long.

So he doesn't feel bad and he isn't sorry.

Reaching over, John takes Karen's hand and squeezes.

"I would do it again," he says simply. "To anyone who pointed a gun in your direction." To anyone who ever tried to hurt her.

"I know," Karen says, and in spite of everything, she smiles a little. He's always been willing to protect her without acting like she needs protection, and that, to her, is a distinction that makes all the difference in the world. It's nice knowing that he has her back — that he'd shoot anyone who came at her the way Patrick Brady did tonight — but that he won't try to hold her back. They've always worked well together for that reason, she thinks, even before they were anything more than friends and colleagues. Tonight seems like it's been a perfect example of that.

It's probably a little strange, to consider this as having been a good night, but she doesn't really care.

"For the record," she adds, just a little too gentle to be teasing, "I would, too. Or, you know, help cover this up."

A part of him says he should never ask this of her, should have never called her in the first place, but in the years since coming to Darrow, since almost dying in that car, he's done his best to honour Joss Carter's memory by doing what she wanted of him. It isn't always easy, letting people in, but it is better.

This is better.

"We make a good team," he says and smiles over at her, a small expression, but genuine. John has been in love before, he's loved deeply, but he knows he's never loved anyone the way he loves Karen.

"We do," Karen agrees, her own smile soft, but similarly real. She's never fit as well with anyone as she does with him, someone who knows the worst things about her and doesn't think less of her, who has a darkness of his own but not one that's ever scared her. It only makes her feel safe. Sometimes things happen, sometimes things need to be done, and they both understand that. It's not like this is how they usually deal with problems, anyway. Tonight, there were just a lot of extenuating circumstances.

She leans over a little, her shoulder nudging against his. "There's no one I'd rather have my back."

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