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You've reached Detective Nick Burkhardt. If this is an emergency, please call 911. Otherwise leave a message and I'll get back to you ASAP.

[Calls, texts, and emails are a-okay! He has both a work email and personal email, and an office phone and cell phone. Just specify which one.]

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[There's a slight shrug. He falls silent for a while.]

I became police... to help. To fix problems. Stop criminal. You know.

[Nick knows the whole deal with his dad and all -- so he doesn't bother going into it.]

Be good man. A good man. These are not good men.

[Nick does know, so he doesn't reply to that.

He's on a little bit firmer ground with the last part, anyway, at least as far as he thinks.]

No. They're not. That's why we're going to stop them. We stop the bad guys - sometimes, those are other cops.

And that feels wrong.

It should not be that way.

Shit, man, I know. I used to think the likelihood of having a third of a police force be corrupt was just as far-fetched as werewolves.

[But it's not like he has to tell Yuji that. Yuji's the one who was partnered for years with a guy who always thought the law was black and white, that cops were automatically to be trusted far above anyone else.

Part of him still does, even after all this, and it makes him reluctant to admit the next part.]

I was wrong. Internal affairs exists for a reason, after all, even if it feels like they're usually the enemy.

It should be like werewolves. It should be like that.

[Part of him feels the same -- most of him does, actually. He doesn't want to accept this. He doesn't want to think people he'd always thought were inherently good and decent ... aren't.]

[He makes a quiet scoffing sound.]

I don't think they will help this one.

Werewolves aren't even like werewolves anymore. But you're right, it should. And if nothing else, I think that's something we can change. We can make it like that, we can make them regret they ever thought they could take advantage of being cops to hurt people.

[He's angry about this, and that's obvious, but... it's a quiet kind of anger.

Then he echoes that sound, a soft huff.]

Someone suggested that. I didn't know how to explain how unlikely it was.

Whole police force. Against two people. Is -- it is too big.

[It feels seriously hopeless right now. He'd be more upbeat, normally, but... the memories aren't helping anything. They're just making it worse.]

[Dragging everything down.]

Use analogy.

A third of the police force. And we're partners. There isn't anything we can't face together.

[Pulse memories make shit really difficult, man, Nick gets that.

He is firmly in the Land of Denial about his, so for now, Nick can be the upbeat one.

Except he really does believe it.]

I was pretending to be Kotetsu at the time.

Still. Is like army. An army. Eigo chikushō...

[English is hard when you're in a mood like this one, okay.]

[He really wishes he could go back to the land of denial. That would be a lovely place to be right now. As he buries himself a little more under his pile of blankets.]

So? Use smaller words.

Bring it on.

[There's confidence in his words, and it's only partially bravado. Right now, he really believes they can do it.

And then there's the by now way too familiar heartbeat sensation, the brief hollow feeling, and suddenly he remembers: standing back to back with Monroe, medieval weapons in hand and facing off against an army of Wesen, telling them to 'bring it on.']

...apparently other me has experience, in being two versus an army.

[He sounds kind of dazed - because pulses, what the hell - but he shakes it off.]

Anyway, it's not just the two of us anymore. We have a lot of people on our side.

Hah.

[Don't you even try. He hears that bravado.]

[... unfortunately, he also hears that pause. He looks up slowly, a little hollowly. He hates that. Why the hell does this always seem to happen around him?]

[He always seems to trigger peoples' memories. And damn if he isn't sick of it.]

Then lucky for him.

Not a lot of cops.

[He can never get anything past him, can he?

For once, Nick doesn't mind it. He - likes that memory, actually. It feels like it means something, something important.]

Don't look at me like that. It's not your fault.

[There's a long moment of silence while Nick just thinks about that, moving his thumb in absent patterns over the back of his partner's hand.]

The people we're going up against, they're not cops anymore, either. Not with the choices they made.

[Nope. That's what partners do.]

[He looks at him like that anyway. It's a very "kicked puppy" sort of look. Oops.]

I said thing.

[And therefore, he's to blame, right?]

Still cop in name. Hard to... get over that. Make sense?

[Yeah, it is. Most of the time, Nick likes it - especially if it's the other way around.

Oh, man, he hates that look. It always makes him feel terrible.]

No, I did. 'Bring it on,' that's what the other Nick said, that's what triggered it. I gave my own self a pulse, this time.

[But then he goes quiet. It does make sense.]

Yeah. I know. I didn't think I could get past it, but... I don't know, I'm angry. They're taking everything we are, everything we're supposed to be, and they're trying to destroy it. They're making people afraid of us, of the real cops.

[It's harder and harder these days not to blame himself. He can't say why. It would be easier if he knew why. But...]

As you say.

[Yes, that's true. He can see it. But... somehow that isn't making it easier. Also Nick, this would be so much easier if you spoke Japanese.]

I can't pass it. Just. Hangs up. Twists up. Everything confused.

Wondering if you are the bad one. Before.

[Hey, he tries. It's a hard language to learn, man, especially when he doesn't have his photographic memory back yet.]

We can't do anything about what we were like before, okay? We just have to make sure we're not the bad ones now.

[Languages are hard in general okay.]

But... it is there. Was there.

Can we fix -- it should be fix if it was not good. Made up for.

That's what we're doing now, isn't it? Working with the network, trying to protect people. Making sure Sherman and the others aren't controlling us, and they don't succeed at what they're trying to do.

So... that's it? All we can do?

Fight an army? That makes it better?

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