I glanced over towards where Bosco sat, his forehead pressed against the passenger seat window as I steered the car in the direction of the station. It had been a long day and I was more than ready to fill out my paperwork and head home for a quiet evening with my family. I silently wondered what Bosco was thinking about, sitting there beside me, ever the talkative one after a case it seemed unusual for him to be so placid... so depressed. It worried me.

If I could have been inside his mind that late afternoon, reading his thoughts, walking through his memories with him... maybe I would have known that my worry was warranted.

His memories kept returning to those days just following the September 11th attacks on New York City and the conversation he'd had with his then partner, Faith Yokas. He'd remembered for the first time in his entire career as a police officer he'd felt absolutely helpless and hopeless and useless. He'd wondered if his job meant anything at all to anyone at all and even though he could see it did... he could see it in the pictures and the letters and the articles and the media that surrounded America's most tragic day and the love and respect sent to the police officers and firefighters who'd been there... but he'd still doubted himself. It was the first time he'd ever thought about quitting his job.

He'd remembered his response to Faith when she asked if he was really going to quit... "So are you?"... and his response, "And let that skinny little bearded bastard think he beat me? Hell no! Give me a parachute and a pistol and drop me in there. I'll shoot him in the head myself."

And at the time he'd meant every word... because he knew that quitting his job over the things he'd seen... the things he'd witnessed... that would be letting them win. And he would never ever in a million years admit that kind of defeat. So he'd kept his job and he'd fought even harder to keep the bad guys off the streets. He'd tried harder, played harder, worked harder. And it all seemed to have paid off. And then there was that fateful day in the hospital... and he'd survived and he'd fought hard again and he'd busted his ass to come back.

And that conversation... after he'd lied to everyone about his eyesight, lied because he knew in his heart that he couldn't just move to a desk job... that his life was out on the streets fighting crime the old fashioned way... that conversation had nearly made him give it all up again. It really had been an accidental shooting. He really had just missed that shot. But because of the lies he'd told and the grave he'd dug for himself, he couldn't make them believe. He'd nearly lost it all over that one shot.

Those were the only two times he'd debated leaving his job in all those years... just those two times. Now he found himself thinking of it constantly. How many more murders could he stand to see. How many more helpless victims could he walk into a room and interview knowing their lives had just been destroyed. How many more times could he pretend that he enjoyed the work he did. He didn't enjoy this anymore. He had a wife now and a newborn daughter. He had a family and a home and everytime he saw a dead person lying on the floor of a dark alley, or a city street, or a fancy hotel... he imagined it was him. He imagined his wife and daughter waking up everyday and him not being there. He didn't want to imagine these things anymore.

I pulled into the station just as the guys from 5-5 David were pulling in. Great. As if spending the whole day in the same building with him hadn't been painful enough... now we were all going to be filling out paperwork together.

"Those were the good ole days," I heard Bosco whisper from the seat beside me.

"What's that Bosc?" I asked turning towards him and noting the pained expression that crossed his face.

"Oh...," it was as if he'd just realized he'd said it out loud... "nothing, I just miss the days of 5-5 David and the crew."

I nodded.

He missed the days of working on the streets, chasing down bad guys and locking them up. Maybe this whole detective thing wasn't meant for him. He'd suddenly felt the need to save lives... not solve the mysteries of the already dead.

If only I'd known his thoughts that afternoon... maybe then I could have told him I was feeling the same way.