Kennedy was in an ICU up in Houston for a couple of weeks before they moved him out onto a ward to recover, and it wasn’t until a month after Fox had shot him that he was stable enough to be questioned.

Axel didn’t like questioning suspects in the hospital. He much preferred to do it in a proper interrogation room because it created a sense of disconnection from the real world. In a hospital the best that could be done was to close the blinds and ask not to be disturbed, but invariably some nurse would stick their head in after a few minutes and insist they’d been there long enough and that the patient required rest.

Fox had moved in and made Axel’s house their house. Ever since he’d called his boss and requested a psych eval, they’d taken him off the fieldwork roster and limited him to code-breaking, which he could easily do without heading in to the office. He was already so much happier, even though his therapy was only just beginning. It was like he’d unscrewed a pressure release valve, and his laughter came easily now.

Sure, that meant the sass was back in full-effect, but it also meant the sex was mind-blowing. Fox was insatiable, and he’d taken it upon himself to teach Axel a whole bunch of things that Axel hadn’t ever had to work out before.

Axel couldn’t be happier, either. That horrible, empty feeling that had followed him around like a bad smell was utterly gone. He had a reason to go home after work now, and he did his damnedest to avoid working late. They’d made some friends at the local gym, and begun the first tentative steps of some sort of social life. Hell, even their blood work results had finally come back negative, and they’d been able to ditch the condoms.

All this time Axel had figured Hidden Creek for just another Podunk little town, but now he was opening up to it, this place was so much more.

It was home.

Dane was out of the hospital and back at work. She’d recovered from her experience and had gone on to build exceptional cases against those who had survived Fox blowing up an entire truck full of ANFO.

Really, everything they had against Kennedy was solid. But a confession would seal the deal.

Axel strongly doubted they’d get one.

He pulled up in the hospital parking lot and killed the engine then looked to Fox. “You sure you want to do this? I can handle it if you want me to.”

“No. It’s my case. I have all the data.” Fox sighed. “Thanks for coming, though.”

“No problem.”

They left the car and headed inside where a quick flash of Axel’s badge got them where they needed to be, and he had the predictable conversation with a nurse about not stressing the patient out.

And then they entered the room.

Kennedy looked like hell, for which Axel had extremely little sympathy. He wasn’t propped up very far, and idly cycled through TV channels with a remote held loosely in his hand like he wasn’t really interested in finding something to watch.

“Hey,” he croaked as he let go of the remote and swiveled his eyes toward them. “Look who it is. Question time already, huh? Do I get a lawyer?”

“Do you want one?” Axel countered.

Kennedy seemed to give it some genuine consideration, then he sighed. “I dunno. We’ll see how it goes.”

Axel nodded and took the dictation recorder from his jacket pocket. Fox wheeled a table over so that Axel could set the recorder on it, microphone toward Kennedy.

Fox moved chairs around so that they could flank the bed and still be in the microphone’s pickup arc and Axel sat, turning the recorder on.

Fox popped his briefcase open and withdrew a huge ring-bound case file which he set across his knees. He stated date, location, and names of those present for the recording, then offered Kennedy a surprisingly gentle smile.

“Why’d you do it, Taylor?” he murmured.

“Which part?” Kennedy said. He turned his head toward Fox, but made no other movement.

“Any of it, really.” Fox looked to the folder in his lap and began flicking through pages. “The international phone calls fraud, the domestic bombings, siphoning funds off to Saudi Arabia… All of it.”

Axel’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He knew about the bombings, but this was the first he’d heard of fraud or siphoning money out of the country.

Kennedy sighed and closed his eyes. “So, here’s a funny story,” he wheezed. “IS, Al-Qaida, ISWA, all those assholes… They all come out of Wahhabism. FDR was so intent on cutting a deal for oil with the Saudis that he agreed to keep the USA out of Saudi religious matters, but what he didn’t realize was that the Wahhabis were on a crusade to rule the world.”

“Uh-huh,” Fox prompted.

“But what the Saudis then do is spend ten billion dollars to fund Wahhabi faith schools all over the world, and those schools trained the people who went on to found every militant Islamist group today. The Wahhabis even control Mecca so that every other Muslim on a pilgrimage has to obey these fuckheads if they want to get through.”

Axel frowned, but said nothing.

“So what does this tell you?” Kennedy opened his eyes again and looked up at Fox.

“Why don’t you explain it to me like I’m five?” Fox murmured.

Kennedy’s lips twisted into a sly grin. “It tells me that these assholes are really fucking rich.”

Fox sniffed faintly. “You’re not really gonna tell me you did it all for money, right?”

“It’s as good a reason as any, right?” Kennedy smirked. “What does it matter?”

“It matters to me.” Fox sighed softly as he closed his folder and laid his hands to rest on it. “I thought you were bigger than that. You, the great Spike, the best hacker I ever knew. I never figured you could be so…” He glanced away, then shrugged. “Small.”

Axel kept his features neutral as his appreciation for Fox’s genius launched itself into the stratosphere. He’d seen Kennedy’s social engineering in action, but now he got to see Fox’s, and it was masterful.

But Kennedy was smart. Surely too smart to fall for something as simple as an appeal to his ego?

“Fine,” Kennedy muttered. “I wanted to beat you, Tenko. You thought you were so much better than me, didn’t you? With your high and mighty ethical white hat bullshit. You ran off to betray the dark web the moment the CIA offered you a pay check, didn’t you? So what’s the difference? My pay check’s bigger. A lot bigger. And I got you to run all around this stupid country chasing ghosts.”

“Okay.” Fox nodded sympathetically. “I guess you can use that huge paycheck to pay for your medical bills, right? Interview concluded at—” he checked the time on his phone before he read it out, then rose from his chair.

Axel reached out to turn the recorder off, and he returned it to his pocket. “We’ll see you in court, Mr. Kennedy.”

Kennedy snorted. “I doubt it.”

“Oh, no, we will.” Fox gave him a bright, beautiful smile. “The CIA has holding facilities your buddies won’t be able to break you out of, and you’ll get to spend your days in solitary until it’s time for your trial. That could be a ways off. You know how long these complex international cases take.” He waved goodbye and turned for the door. “Take care, Spike. It was a good game, but you lost.”

Kennedy hissed at Fox’s back, then finally eyed Axel. “You better take care of him,” he snarled.

“Not that it’s your business,” Axel said coolly, “but I will.”

He closed the door behind him as he left, and eyed Fox.

“You know,” Fox mused as they walked toward the hospital’s exit, “sometimes I wonder if that could’ve been me.”

Axel laughed at that. “I don’t see how.”

“No?” Fox turned his gaze up to Axel and his lips quirked. “Why? Because I’m too sexy?”

“That,” Axel agreed. “And you’re too smart to chase the money.”

“Mm.” Fox brushed fingers across his elbow briefly. “If only I’d been smart enough to chase you.”

“What matters is that you’re here now.” Axel led him outside and unlocked the car. “And that you’re staying.”

They got into the car without another word and Axel drove them away.

* * *

They stopped off at Axel’s office so that the interview could be transferred to Fox’s equipment before the FBI locked it away for their own evidence collection.

Half the building was still covered in scaffolding and plastic sheets, but Axel was used to it now.

Fox hadn’t seen it in a while, and he let out a low whistle. “Low priority for the repairs, huh?”

“They’re almost done. I think they just have to wait for a few things to set before they can finalize the walls.” Axel shrugged as he glanced to the construction site. “Fingers crossed nobody else gets it into their head to blow up my office. This is my first SAC position; I don’t wanna get a reputation as the guy who can’t keep a building intact.”

Fox chuckled and strung his fingers through Axel’s, pulling him to a halt. “Hey, what say we do something radical.”

Axel turned to look him over. “Like what?”

“Like walk right in there and tell your team that you’re bisexual and that we’re together.”

“Huh.” Axel squeezed Fox’s fingers slightly as he tried to work out what he felt about that idea.

Was it his team’s place to know that about him? Was it information they’d care about? Or did it cross the boundary between staff and boss that didn’t need to be crossed?

“I don’t know,” he said after a while. “Why should they know?”

“Because they’ve got your back,” Fox said. “They’re some of the best friends you’ll ever have, if you let them be. Because they know this town and they can make you feel welcome in it.” He flashed his devilish smile once more and added, “And because sooner or later they’re gonna ask you what do in the evenings ’cause you’ve started coming home instead of working until midnight. Don’t think I don’t know you, Captain Ford.”

Axel grumbled at him, then leaned in to give him a firm kiss. “You’re trouble, Agent Walker,” he muttered.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

It was true. Everything about Fox was exactly what Axel wanted. No, what he needed. From his smart mouth to his damn clever brain to the fact that he didn’t seem able to get enough in bed, Fox plugged that hole in Axel’s life that he’d been papering over for years.

“And if you do,” Fox added, “we can go home and fuck like bunnies!”

“You make a persuasive case,” Axel rumbled.

Fox’s hand held firmly in his, Axel opened the door and walked through into his new life.