Sebastian Scott

Bash held in the curse words he had for Hale. When he'd been kicked out of his own interrogation and warned he'd be reprimanded if he didn't let go, Bash was banished to his desk like a toddler. So it made sense he was writing obscenities to call Hale in his spiral notebook.

He hated Gordon and all her attempts to undermine his leadership.

She was a junior detective for goodness sake. Bash was a couple years older than her but he had never been able to command the uniforms like she could. Even Sully bowed at her feet like she was the goddess of the department. But Captain Hale's actions were utterly despicable.

Hale likely thought that if he kept Gordon in the department any longer it would reflect badly  on him. He would never defend the alleged. His number one priority was solving the most cases. He didn't care if the wrong people went to prison. That all fell to Bash, he served them all justice.

But even though Gordon was a pain in the ass, she wasn't guilty.

Anyone could see that. But Bash doubted Sully would defend her anymore, and the uniforms were the ones who saw the insurance card in her locker. So nobody would believe her. Only Bash. God, why would Gordon have only one person in the city that completely trusted her?

It was just so predictable of Gordon to put him in this position over and over again.

She got abducted from the Russian Cartel because she couldn't figure out how to turn off her  ringtone. She had a hunch the killer was going to sell his drugs at his next meeting and it was just a guy trying to buy a bagel shop. But hey, maybe there are some murderous bagels out there.

Still Bash couldn't handle the overwhelming feeling that he was powerless to stop what was  coming. That was the whole reason he became a detective. He wanted the power to deliver justice and stop feeling guilty about what happened to his father.

Fed up with all this, Bash marched to Hale's desk where he was eating a powdered raspberry donut while reading through the news. But as if he sensed Bash was there behind the newspaper, he bolstered out, "No you can't interrogate Gordon."

"I didn't ask sir, but respectfully, I would have to disagree with you. Gordon is no killer."

Hale patronizingly nodded his head knowing his answer full-well as he proceeded to pretend he was listening to Bash's justifications. Crossing his arms, Hale became the vision of a roadblock as a person, minus the orange traffic-cone-like exterior of course.

"I hear you, Scott," he waved off his importance with a steely gaze. "It's hard to hear one of our  own would be dealing in the dirt we deal with everyday, but I've seen it a thousand times over. What you think you can get away with, you do because you can." He shook his head.

Bash clenched his fists and snorted a loud exhale through his nose. Through a quiet mumble Bash scurried away. "Hale couldn't even command an apple to sit up."

But it was his job on the line. If he went against the Captain, this had real repercussions and could really bite him in the ass in the future. Bash's pace hastened as he met the edge of the elevator. It beckoned him, but he still couldn't do it. He made a sharp turn towards the stairs and he escaped.

The taxi ride down to his apartment was too quiet and he could still hear the sound of the handcuffs snapping onto Gordon.

Bash knew he was tangled up in his own way too often, but he kept catching himself wishing he was better when he talked to Gordon. Yet, he didn't care about her like that. So many people have seen his inability to communicate in niceties as a turn-off, but Gordon did not.

She saw it as a way to feud and challenge each other.

Before Bash could reminisce in their worst arguments, however, the taxi pulled to a stop and he pulled out the fare cash he had to pay the man. He carried his heavy heart home with him and laid his badge down on his table. There wasn't any justice for Gordon anymore.

Hale went out of his way to make sure of that.

Bash drank four beers to wash down his disappointment in the world and he wasted away next to the television. After a little before four in the morning he woke up and slunk over to his bed. But he forgot to take his night terror medication and the nightmares began with his father's voice.

"You just need to walk away Sam, put down the lighter," his father begged.

The whole world was dark, he was told to hide in his toy trunk. He cradled his head in his knees and whimpered to the sound of gasoline being poured all around his bedroom. Bash felt his father back up against his closed trunk in an effort to protect him.

The arsonist yelled out in a crazed remorse. "I have to do this. You chose your new family and abandoned your old one. How do you feel about your first-born starving and his mother having to sell her body for bread? Huh? She's dead now and nothing you can say or do can take that away."

Suddenly the walls of the trunk were closing in on him and a liquid dripped through the cracks. Bash smelled it and knew instantly what it was. Sam had put gasoline on the trunk. He knew Bash was in there. Still, Sam persisted to torment Bash's father who was now crying.

That was the only time he'd actually heard his father cry. "I'm sorry, Sam,"his father bawled in a hoarse voice. "I didn't mean to abandon you. Your mother said she took care of you and got abortion. I didn't know she kept you. I thought I closed that chapter. If I had known...I would have never..."

Bash heard the snap of Sam's lighter. "I don't believe you. She would never do that. I was her only light, she told me you abandoned us!"

"Okay! Okay! Sam, in a way I did abandon you, I know. I should have kept in contact with your mother, but she moved...and I know that's an excuse...but I don't know what to say, Sam. Maybe...uh...maybe you and Bash could be the brothers you were always meant to be."

"'Always meant to be', what a load of bull," he mocked Bash's father. "We were never meant to be anything. None of us. Your son, Sebastian, was always going to be a failure. He can't even get out from the trunk you put him in to fight me."

Bash banged his tiny hands against the wooden frame but his father was now sitting on the trunk to prevent Sam from getting any closer to him."I don't know what you're talking about Sam?" His father protected him as long as he could.

Sam tested him. "Oh really?" Sam flicked on the lighter and suddenly his whole world went up in flames. His father shrieked and tried to wrestle the lighter from Sam's hands. But that only resulted in the curtains and carpets catching the blaze from just a small zippo lighter.

Bash yelled out to his father, "Dad! Dad!" He tried to fight against the closed lid of the trunk but it was no use. It was locked from the outside. Smoke and heat cradled the screams and ignition of flames and familial torture. Finally, after it seemed like hours of dry heaving and coughing, a siren wailed by.

Bash screamed powerlessly into the black inferno until his voice was muddled with the charcoal unforgiving pageantry of a painful death. Water was being poured by the gallon onto the house but that only afforded Laura, his sister, one sole opportunity to crawl in and save only him.

He never forgave her for that, mainly because he should've died in that fire.

All Bash remembered about that day clearly was her sooty face after she opened the trunk and carried him out. She was five years older and strong. Stronger than Bash had ever been. Bash continued to dry heave in his nightmare.

After the doctors checked out Bash they told his mother he shouldn't be alive. He'd been deprived of oxygen for too long. His voice was serrated after that and he couldn't speak to anyone without hacking up half of his lungs. So, he was mute for the rest of his childhood.

His mother tried to make him speak, she gave him incentives and took him to therapists.

But none of that mattered.

And unfortunately all his mother's failures in trying to make him communicate led her to drink in excess. So, most nights of his adolescence he was the mute kid who dragged his intoxicated mother home after she passed out at the bar. Laura raised him and he never forgot it.

Although he could never forgive her for pulling him out and making his mother suffer that torture over and over again, her raising him made him have respect for her. In fact, the reason he began talking again was her. She asked him to speak up in her divorce case a few years back.

Bash had witnessed her husband Ralph being abusive and he had to tell them.

His mother still drank because as much as he could communicate with Laura and Gordon, she was the one who constantly belittled him in the way she got frustrated at his limits. Through the police academy, people assumed Bash was stoic and just didn't talk much so it worked out.

The truth was, Bash was afraid he'd tell his mother about Sam.

All she knew about the arsonist was he was seventeen and because Bash was mute they didn't get much of a statement out of him. They all assumed that Sam was a crazy teenager, which to be honest was not far from the truth at all. Bash could still hear his sister ask him about it.

"What happened to you, Bash?"

He heard that phrase over and over. Each time the strength of keeping this secret out of protection slipped a little bit. Had it not been for all the scars on his body, he might have been able to forget about this all for a night. But as he heard an echo of that question, he just couldn't.

Bash's eyes cracked open and the hard heavy feeling returned to the pit of his chest.

However, it seemed like that echo of a question was based in reality as his sister began taking all the beer bottles and cereal off his floor. Bash rubbed his eyes trying to make Laura disappear, maybe he was still dreaming. But apparently she was real. Bash sighed at his luck.

Laura scrunched her nose in disgust at the state of Bash's apartment. "Did you get into a fight with a pig, I mean why are there so many things on the floor and did you know that you possess a working dishwasher? I know it's a crazy invention, but I think you should start using it."

Bash wrapped a blanket around his lower torso and stalked away towards the fridge.

Laura followed after him. "What's the matter, Bash? You haven't looked this bad since you carried mom away from that one guy who wanted to sleep with her. He really gave you a beat down but somehow you got her away from all that."

Bash blew out a sharp exhale. "It's Gordon."

Laura started throwing his laundry from the floor back into the bin and sighed. "What did she do now? Did she call you a pig too?"

Bash shook his head. "She's been accused of murder...and I hate to ask this, especially because you are going to revel in this request, but could you take her case, Laura?"

Laura marched over to see Bash face-to-face as her demeanor intensified in anger. "You know I only take cases I'm sure I'll win. That's why I'm an undefeated lawyer. Bash, I got you out of juvie when that kid called you a 'mime with a drunk mama'. I can't keep fighting your fights."

Bash put his hands on her shoulders and looked her dead in her eyes. "I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important. I hate her but I won't be able to sleep if the right murderer isn't caught."

Laura tugged away from him. "You don't even care about people, Bash. And I do despise her. She is the reason you take these night terror pills. She makes you unsure of yourself. She puts you in danger constantly, why would I do this for her or you?"

Bash pulled Laura close again. "Because Laura...I'll tell you about that day if you do."