Bryan sat in a patch of morning sun on the hallway bench outside the homicide squad room.  Inside, the rookies had been their usual noisy selves and the picture in the desk drawer was too tempting.  It was easier to think in the hallway, but it hadn't done him any good.

He looked at his notes again.  He'd worked on them all night, after his car had burned, but hadn't found the right model yet, the right analogy to help him see everything.  Not all of the pieces would fit together, and every time Bryan tried to jam all of them in to a model, the whole thing fell apart.  Every single framework that he had tried so far had collapsed.

On the notepad, he had columns down for William, Doctor, Jessica, Racists and Fires.  In the Fires column he had drawn a split between the large and small fires.

He stared at the chart.  If William had known about Jess and Bryan eating together, and the plan for the date, or whatever it was, it might have made him angry.  He had said as much to Bryan, about making the wrong man jealous. 

Under the Fires column, he wrote Pyrokinesis/Arson.  He knew he was ignoring evidence and motive, but he hoped that the fire yesterday, his car exploding, hadn't had anything to do with William.  He wanted William's help finding the people who had started the other fires, the fire that had taken Claire and the baby.  William had been there for that fire, but had saved Bryan, and there had been others who said they were saved by a man that met William's description.  But saving people didn't mean he didn't start the fire in the first place.

Bryan closed his eyes, went back through William's file in his mind.  William had been in the institution during the fires after that.  Could William start fires from a distance?  Bryan hoped not, but had no idea what the man really was, what he could do or how he did it.  He realized he didn't know anything about William, and yet he'd been bringing him dinner and asking him for help.

His one hope was that there was still some normal explanation for the fire, that his car had exploded out of sheer mechanical and electrical failure.  Or, and this worried him in other ways, it might have been a bomb.  He had just dropped the stuffed giraffe inside the car.  That could have been a bomb or someone could have hidden something in the car while he was inside with Jessica.  There had been evidence of small fire bombs at many of the fires around the city.  But that would mean that the white supremacists were trying to kill him, and he had no idea what their motive might be for that.  What he did know was that William had said that a fire was coming.

Was there going to be a fire at Jessica’s apartment?

He heard footsteps reach the top of the stairs and flipped the notebook to the next page, which held simple notes about finding the escaped mental patient.

The footsteps turned out to be Meyers, who had a white paper bag in his hand.  Bryan relaxed a bit and nodded as the other detective slowed.  Meyers had been on scene at Jessica's place only hours ago.  Maybe he was just being cautious about any possible arsons.  But Bryan wondered if it might have been personal concern.  It wasn't something he was used to in the department.

Meyers stopped.  "Hey.  You squatting?"

Bryan nodded to the squad room door.  "Dieterly and Hicks are still talking comic books."

Meyers stared at the door, then took the seat next to Bryan.  "Thanks for the warning."  He dug inside the bag.  "Got you one of those French pastries with the chocolate inside."

"Pain au chocolat?" Bryan asked. 

A groan slid from Meyers.  "Don't say it."  He handed the pastry to Bryan.  "It's impossible to speak French without sounding pompous.  We shouldn't even try."

Bryan took a bite.  It was still warm and the crumbs flaked down the front of his shirt.  "Holy crap.  Screw bagels," he said.  He had no idea where Meyers got his coffee or treats like this, but he was a good man to know. 

Meyers nodded and looked down at the page.  "No luck on that escapee?"

"Nothing yet."  He looked down at the notes, wiped croissant flakes off them.  They were real notes, even if he had written them to cover up what he was really working on.  It felt like he was cheating on a math test in junior high.  He wished he could tell Meyers something, just to have someone to bounce ideas off of.  "I just can't find the right analogy."

"Analogy?"  Meyers asked.

"An analogy, to frame up everything."  This was safe to say, wasn't it?  He wasn't talking about William or Jess or the other cases.  He saw Meyers was still waiting for more explanation.  He searched his memory, thought of a case that he had run, but that most of the department had been called in on because the killings had been violent and happened in broad daylight.  "You remember that deli thing from last year?"

Meyers grimaced, but nodded.  "That was good work."

Bryan shrugged, uncomfortable at the compliment.  "Anybody could have figured it out."  He drew a circle on the page.  "At first I thought it was like a spiral, someone going further and further out of control, but when we heard about the office killing, and how there hadn’t been witnesses there either.  When that shooting turned out to be earlier than the deli clerk, I saw it was like a gyroscope, or a top.  He had started where things were moving the fastest, were the most unstable."  He set the tip of the pen on the circle and began to draw in to the center.  "Then he moved inward, closer to the center, where it only starts to wobble when it really slows down.  Office, deli, then home.  From there it was just finding out who was missing from the office that day and getting the perp's home address."

"Where you saved his wife and kids."

Bryan could only shrug again.

"You never said that, about the gyroscope," Meyers said.

"It's not evidence, just a way to make the evidence make sense for me."

He watched Meyers shake his head.  "No.  You're wrong.  You called other precincts all over the area looking for similar murders that day.  You recognized the same weapon before the examiner could confirm caliber on the bullets, let alone match barrel patterns on the slugs.  You did all that based on the same entry angle."  Meyers pointed a finger by his nose up into his eye socket.

"He was a short guy.  A shorter guy is more likely to buy a bigger gun," Bryan said.

"Nobody else would have figured that out.  Not in time.  The guy would have killed his family, then probably himself.  But you put it together in less than three hours."  Meyers leaned forward, elbows onto his knees, was quiet for a moment.  "Hayes is right, you know.  You were killing yourself.  The police work you were doing was incredible, but you were going under."  Bryan looked down at his notes, didn't know what to say.  "Just find a way to cope, okay?  We need you.  Really need you right now with all these fires."

Bryan had no response.  When he had buried himself in work, after the fire, the other officers in the department had at first seemed afraid to talk to him.  As his clearance rate had risen above everyone else's, he had sensed resentment.  It had been years since someone had shown him support like this.

"And if you want to drink the pain away, I'll set you up with Nichols," Meyers said. 

Bryan looked up to see the grin.  He silently thanked Meyers for ending the moment.  "Was worried you were going to kiss me for a second."

Meyers laughed.  "I'll send the rookies out to school you in comic books.  They trapped me for hours one day.  Do you even know what a retcon is?"

"If it's coming from them, I don't think I want to."  He offered his hand to Meyers.  "Thanks."

Meyers juggled the paper bag and they shook hands.  "I'll let you know what I hear from the marshal about your car." 

As Meyers walked into the squad room, Bryan turned the page back to his notes.  It still didn't make sense.

He opened the pad to a new page, wrote William's name down in the center and began to draw circles as he ate the pastry.

*

(Author’s note: Ho!  Did Jared just get creepier?  Did Bryan just get a little sharper?  And remember how we were wondering if William’s life could get worse?  Just check out the next chapter to see the answer!  Thanks to everyone for the votes and comments!  It’s great talking to you as you read the story!)