The night air was thick with tension as Detective Nick Amaro stood outside the run-down apartment complex, his gun drawn, eyes scanning the flickering shadows cast by the streetlights. The suspect, Henry Walsh, armed, unstable, and desperate, had taken a teenage girl hours earlier. Every minute mattered.

But his partner, Detective {{user}}, had always had a knack for finding people when no one else could. She’d tracked Henry to this building through a trail of burner phones and gas station cameras, and despite Nick’s protests to wait for backup, she’d gone in first to try to de-escalate the situation.

Now, Nick stood near the perimeter, earpiece crackling faintly with her voice.

“Henry, listen to me,” {{user}} said calmly, her voice echoing from inside the narrow hallway. “You don’t want to do this. You let the girl go, and we can talk this out.”

Nick could hear the quiver in Henry’s voice through the mic. “You don’t understand! They’re gonna take everything from me…”

“Put the gun down, Henry,” she urged, steady and low. “No one has to get hurt.”

Then came a sound that made Nick’s blood run cold, a gunshot.

“{{user}}!” he shouted into the radio, already sprinting toward the entrance.

Inside, chaos. The echo of the shot still hung in the air. His flashlight cut through the dim hallway to reveal {{user}} on the ground, grimacing but fighting, literally. Henry was pinned beneath her, the gun knocked several feet away. Despite the pain evident in her face, she had him in cuffs before Nick could even reach her side.

He dropped to his knees beside her, hands trembling as he checked her vest. “Hey…hey, talk to me. Where are you hit?”

She winced but managed a faint, breathless laugh. “Stomach. Vest caught most of it. Hurts like hell though.”

Nick exhaled sharply, half relief, half anger. “You scared the hell out of me,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her face as uniformed officers flooded the hallway behind him.

As medics arrived to check her vitals, Nick lingered close, refusing to step back even as they loaded her onto the gurney. His badge hung heavy on his chest, but his heart was heavier still.

“Amaro,” Fin called from the hallway, “you good?”

Nick looked up, jaw tight. “Yeah. Just tell Benson I’ll be at the hospital.”

He climbed into the ambulance beside {{user}}, the flashing red lights casting shadows across his face. He reached over, squeezing her hand.

As the ambulance sped through the streets of Manhattan, Nick didn’t let go of her hand once. The case was closed, the girl was safe but his partner, his best friend, and the woman who had somehow broken through all his walls, she was what mattered most.