Salem is sitting in the parking lot of the police department.

He and Zona made their little plan yesterday, but Salem wishes they would have put more detail into it. He picked his father up some Taco Bell, and he needs to get in there before it gets cold.

He's so nervous, though. He doesn't want to do this but he knows it'll drive him crazy if he doesn't.

With that thought in mind, Salem finally exits his vehicle. He says hi to the front desk lady, as he's slowly gotten to know this new staff. He's glad that he already knew a few of the officers that work here, or Jack's promotion would have been a shitty adjustment. He doesn't know most of the receptionists or the 911 dispatchers, as well as the janitorial staff. Everybody knows him, though, which is why he doesn't get questioned the entire way there.

Salem is pretty sure his father isn't doing anything, so he only knocks once before entering the office. Jack doesn't even look up from his computer, clearly busy with whatever he's doing.

Salem sits down in the chair beside the desk and sets the food on top, seeing his father finally glance at him from the corner of his eye.

"How was school?"

"Good," Salem replies absentmindedly, rooting through the bag for his food.

"I've got a lot I'm dealing with, so I won't be able to talk much today." He notifies Salem. Salem frowns, wondering what he could be up to. Obviously being the Chief is a demanding job, but Salem is still curious.

"What's going on?"

Jack doesn't answer Salem at first, too busy typing something. Probably an email, if the small amount of screen Salem can see is anything to go by.

"I have an officer in the hospital." He says after a minute, and Salem's eyes widen in alarm. An officer in the hospital? That's serious. Salem immediately wants all the details.

"What? What happened?"

Jack doesn't seem to want to answer him, and Salem gets the sense that it's something he either shouldn't talk about or just doesn't want to, possibly for emotional reasons. Still, he eventually replies.

"They got caught in the crossfire of a shooting." Jack finally says, and Salem feels sad. He wants more detail, wants to know if this person will be okay. He wants to know who it is, if they're stable, if they'll still be able to work. He doesn't ask any of that, because Jack seems exhausted. It really seems like this is the last thing he wants to talk about. So, he doesn't push.

This job has already taken enough of a toll on Jack, Salem doesn't want to risk making it worse.

Salem eats in silence for a while, unsure how he would break it. His father is clearly not in a great mood, so he's being careful. A few minutes go by before Jack rolls back in his chair, turning and getting to a standing position. Salem watches him, wondering what's going on.

"I'll be back." He says, before exiting the room.

Salem's eyebrows raise, because he was not expecting an opportunity to present itself so early. He thought he'd have more time to plan, to think about this. He watches his father exit the room, leaving the door ajar.

Oh shit. Okay. Salem immediately begins sweating, heart beating faster. There are so many uncertainties here. How long will Jack be gone? What is he even doing? How much time does Salem have to do this?

Hearing his heartbeat in his ears, Salem stands up. He crouches a bit, moving towards his father's seat with his head slightly ducked. Salem takes a seat, spinning so he's facing the monitor. It's already open to some document that seems to have a spreadsheet on it, and Salem minimizes the tab. He frowns, because his father has two monitors and a billion things open, and he has no idea where to begin to look for something on Atlas.

Salem basically clicks around until he finds a search bar, and types Atlas' name into it. Nothing really comes up, except some shoe brand, so he basically repeats the process—finding search bars and typing Atlas' name in. He has no idea how police databases work, so he's completely winging it right now.

Eventually Salem gets some actual results, a few names popping up. He notices pretty quickly that no matter where he looks, he finds absolutely nothing on Atlas Marino.

He finds results of the names separately, but he doesn't find them together so he hardly pays attention to it. He can't find any records of Atlas anywhere, and after about five minutes he gives up. He pulls the document back up, trying to set everything back to how it was when he'd first gotten here. He feels dissatisfied, though, with the fact that he found absolutely nothing.

He thought Atlas had a criminal record. No—he knows Atlas has a criminal record. He's sure of it. There should have been results for Atlas' name, unless he was looking in the wrong places. That's entirely possible. Salem has never been on his father's computer for any reason, so he could have messed up. Still, he can't help but have a weird feeling about this. Like he's missing something.

Salem feels desperate, so he opens one of the drawers in the desk, and starts rooting through that as well. He also goes through the filing cabinet across the room. Neither give him any kind of success.

Okay, Salem is officially frustrated. Did Jack know he was planning this? Did he hide everything ahead of time so Salem wouldn't know?

"What are you doing?"

Salem's soul practically leaves his fucking body, freezing and looking up like a rodent on a trail cam.

He's expecting to see Jack there, despite the voice not really sounding like him. He feels confused when he instead finds Jordan, standing in the doorway, looking at him in curiosity.

Salem blinks, unsure what to do in this situation. Of all people he expected were a risk in this plan, Jordan was last on the list. What should he even say? Should he tell the truth? Should he make something up? Jordan is one of the people that wanted him to help on the case, so he probably wouldn't care if Salem told the truth. Still, he's on the fence about it.

"Nothing," Salem says after a minute, deciding that's the safest option. "What are you doing?"

Jordan raises an eyebrow, but still answers. "I needed to speak with the Chief about something."

Salem frowns, because that's a super valid reason to be here. Damn, now it's Salem's turn.

"Uh, I'm visiting my dad. Duh."

"Looks like you're going through his things."

Salem glares at him, irritated at being called out like that. He closes the filing cabinet shut with more force than necessary, turning to fully face Jordan. He's officially irritated.

"It's none of your business what I'm doing. What do you need to talk to him about?"

Salem feels his anger only intensify when he sees that Jordan actually appears amused. By what, Salem has no idea, but he crosses his arms and glares at the guy.

"So I can't ask questions, but you can?"

"Yeah." Salem replies like it's obvious, because it should be. Jordan is really not taking him seriously right now.

"Okay, well I'll come back later, then. Have fun snooping."

Before Salem can argue with him about that, he disappears. Salem just rolls his eyes, before walking back to his father's computer.

Salem decides to try something new, instead of clicking through the already open tabs, he goes to his father's files—the digital ones this time. He just scrolls through, skimming over the titles and finding nothing interesting. Nothing with the names Atlas or Marino, and Salem decides that this would be way easier if he knew the rest of his family's names.

Salem doesn't get to do this long, before he hears voices. Salem knows for a fact one of them is his father's voice, and the other is vaguely familiar. They are somewhat loud, but they sound close, and he freezes in fear.

Salem makes a split second decision. It's definitely not the smartest thing he could've done—he could've just moved to his own chair, though it would've been cutting it close. Still, he's not used to disobeying rules. In his panicked brain it was the only thing he could think of.

Salem ducks down and hides under the desk. He hears his heartbeat in his ears, breathing shaky as footsteps enter the room. Salem tries to calm himself down, as he immediately recognizes Catrine's voice.

"Where is he? I thought you said he'd be in here."

"I don't know." Jack says, and his voice sounds exasperated. Salem can feel tension in the air, and he becomes even more curious about what his father had been doing. Why do they both sound upset?

"Well his stuff is here."

"Probably the bathroom," Jack says after a moment, and Salem sees his feet round the corner of the desk. Salem's eyes widen in alarm, and he scoots as far back as he can, until he hits the wall. He's never been more thankful in his life for the size of a desk. "We were eating Taco Bell."

"Whatever," Catrine says, annoyed. Salem really wants to know what caused the both of them to be so upset in such a short amount of time. "We have made no progress in this case. We could use him."

Oh. Yeah, that'll do it.

"How? How would he be so helpful? What is worth all this?"

Jack pulls out his desk chair and takes a seat. When he scoots forward, he almost touches Salem's legs, but Salem presses as much of himself as he possibly can against the wall. It's made even worse when Catrine sits down as well, and Salem has to force himself to become even smaller. He is not comfortable at all right now, but the conversation sounds interesting so he decides to deal.

"He's the only one to know a member of the family personally. Even if Atlas was secretive, no doubt Salem knows more than he thinks. He could be so useful, if you'd just listen—"

"It's not happening." Jack's voice is louder, deeper, more impatient. Catrine is irritating him, and it's blatantly obvious. "I don't care what it costs the case."

"You should." Catrine's tone right now counts as insubordination alone, but Jack doesn't seem to care enough to say something about it. They have known each other a really long time, and Jack has voiced his fondness for the woman. It's actually sad to see the two argue. "There are lives at risk—"

"My son is at risk." Jack interrupts, and his legs thankfully haven't moved. Catrine? She's a fidgeting mess, leg bouncing up and down and feet not staying in one place for long. "And you know it. He's not stable enough to get involved with this, I'm not taking chances. Not after Amina."

Salem freezes at those words, wondering what exactly Jack means. There are so many possibilities—where are they even going with this?

"Then we can keep him out of the action." Catrine tries to negotiate. "I just want to try this out. Please?"

"No. And that's final."

"Chief—"

"Sergeant Turner." He interrupts, and this is getting serious if he's referring to her by the professional title. "Remember your place."

"I know my place." She replies, though her tone sounds a bit more professional. Salem does not like where this is going. She is way too upset to listen to Jack's subtle warning. "I also know that you're sabotaging a case for no reason. I can't stand for this. You've even said it yourself, that we need to exhaust every option. When did you stop caring about the Di Angelos? About the damage they do?"

Salem pauses, confused at how they went from talking about Atlas' family to the Di Angelos. They should be talking about the Marinos if anything, right? What a subject change.

"That family has been my life for ten years, Catrine. Of course I care. Of course I want them gone." He replies, voice sounding tired. There isn't as much rage as there had been, though. "I've spent a third of my career trying to get them off the streets for good."

There's a silence, and Salem tries to regulate his breathing so they can't hear him. He has no idea where his father is going with this. Can they please go back to talking about Atlas? Maybe his family? Maybe slip up and give Salem some answers?

"Salem has never been happy, not really. He takes after his mother like that and he always has. After he and Atlas broke up, it got way worse. I refuse to see him like that again. I want him safe and I want him away from that family. Every member."

"Why did you let them date in the first place, then?" Catrine asks. Salem is shaking but he can't figure out why. All he knows is that he is very confused, but he knows he only needs a bit more information to fit the pieces together. The way that they're going back and forth between talking about Atlas and the Di Angelos is getting hard to keep up with, though.

"I wanted him to be happy. That's all I've ever wanted."

"I will make sure that he doesn't get hurt." Catrine promises. "I need you to trust me on this. Have some faith in him."

There's a long silence, and Salem hears his father sigh. Jack honestly seems so exhausted, Salem feels bad for him. He doesn't know how he could possibly help the situation, though, despite how much he wants to.

"I... will think about it." He finally decides, and Salem can only imagine how happy Catrine is right now. When Jack has to think about things, it usually ends up being a yes. "I'll let you know within the week."

"Yes, Chief." She replies, not sounding nearly as frustrated. Salem hears her footsteps begin retreating towards the door, and he's preparing himself to exit his hiding space. Catrine's next words have him halting in his tracks.

"I'm sorry, by the way." Catrine says from her spot in the doorway. She sounds almost sad. Salem frowns, feeling curious about such a sudden mood change. "I can't imagine being in your situation, and I'm sorry you have to deal with this. I know it's not easy."

"It's okay," Jack responds, and Salem feels bad. What exactly is Catrine talking about? Is she sorry that Jack has to raise a son like him? What did he do wrong? Just the thought hurts. "He can't help who he loves."

Wait, what? Are they upset that Salem is bisexual? Or that he dated Atlas? Why are they acting like it's some huge deal? What the fuck is happening right now?

"Loves?" She asks, "didn't they break up?"

Jack stands up, and Salem's heart is beating a mile a minute. He's not sure he wants to hear the end of this conversation.

"They did." Jack affirms, and Salem is so confused, so worried, so fed up. He feels guilty but irritated at the same time. Salem is expecting that to conclude the conversation, but Jack continues. "That doesn't matter, though. His feelings for Atlas are the one thing that never changed."

There's a silence, and Salem holds his breath. He has no idea what to do right now. How to feel. Jack thinks that he still loves Atlas? They ended a year ago, why would Salem hold on to such useless feelings? Jack has no idea what he's talking about.

"Well, I just want to say that I'll make sure everything turns out alright." She promises, and Salem could have never, in a million years, predicted her next words. "You're already dealing with enough, having a child in love with a Di Angelo."