Gi…Jacen…smiled and asked the medics to bring up some painkillers and an ice pack and Tarin heaved a deep sigh of relief, which pulled at his sore ribs and he winced. Why had Lee drank all of his Scotch? Jacen reacted well to Tarin’s comments about Lee’s brother and Tarin decided that this guy wasn’t bad at all. He nodded when Lee pointed out that it depended on which part of the family and grinned, “You’re right, luv, only three out of five Smith’s thoroughly dislike me…and I’ve only met four.” Their offhand manner had to seem strange to the other hostages as they started to mill around and leave the restaurant, escorted by various members of the police and ambulance force. Tarin looked back at Jacen and grinned at the comment about Lee taking care of herself, “This is nothing. You should see her use a taser.” Tarin grinned, but it faded quickly. That was just another situation where Lee had carelessly thrown herself into a dangerous situation.

Tarin had a feeling he’d be able to shock the bullet-proof vest right off of Jacen if he shared a couple of stories illustrating just how competent Lee was, but as another one of the SWAT members approached, it seemed like this would not be the time. Tarin’s eyebrow raised as the situation was explained, he hadn’t even seen a guy come into or go out of the back room. It was like the time in college his psychology teacher had staged a robbery in the middle of class. Despite the fact that the perp had been clearly visible to everyone in the room, not one of the thirty-five students had been able to pick the guy out of a line up. Only half had been able to point out what color shirt he was wearing. Regardless, Jacen was all business now and he repeated his desire to meet up for a beer sometime. Tarin nodded.

“Yeah, we’re not listed, but our shop’s on 56th st, between 7th and the Avenue of the America ’s. Feel free to stop by sometime.”

Then he was gone. Tarin watched the guy jog off and shook his head and chuckled, “It’s probably a good thing you didn’t tell me more about that guy until I met him.” He said to Lee, then groaned in distaste as the medics came up and started administering all sorts of unnecessary first-aid.

Lee was unimpressed. Tarin was too. “No, really guys…just some advil and an ice pack.”

”Sir, we can’t treat you if you’re refusing medical treatment…” The paramedic said, and Tarin looked at the guy, he was young, just trying to do his job. “Okay then. I’m refusing. Why don’t you help this guy.” Tarin said, taking his turn to nudge an unconscious body…”Hit him in the sweet spot, he’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up.”

A police officer approached holding an official looking clipboard and cleared his throat, “I’m going to need to take down your statements about what happened in here.” He said and Tarin groaned and looked at Lee, “It’s going to be a long night.”

Jacen was still up for going for a beer sometime. That really did sound like a good idea; despite the fact that they had been chatting away merrily here, it wasn't exactly the right place for something like that.

As was evidenced by the fact that Jacen had to get back to work, apparently an ambulance who had taken one of the supposed victims was out of contact.

His presence in front of them was replaced first by the paramedic, and then by another officer, wanting to get their statements. Ugh, just great. Though, Lee realized as she saw some of the other hostages leaving, everyone else had probably been too terrified to notice anything other than the fact that there had been guns there.

But the paramedic was still fussing over them, and Lee closed her eyes and sighed in frustration. Even though Tarin outright told the guy that he was refusing treatment, the paramedic was still trying.

Finally, Lee opened her eyes and looked at the police officer rather than the paramedic. "Fine. You'll get your statement," Lee told the guy. "If you make him give us the Advil and ice pack, and leave us alone."

Lee thought it was a fair trade. More than a fair trade, actually. The cop was getting their statements, and all he had to do was make the paramedic leave. And, while the bruise forming on her face probably did look very bad, it really wasn't much. Sure, a bad bruise, sure it would hurt, and of course everyone who saw her would be able to see it, but it really wasn't a big deal.

Apparently the officer felt it was a fair trade too, since after a couple moments though he turned to the paramedic and told him to go check on someone else. As they were being handed the ice pack and pain killers, for both of them not just Tarin, Lee smiled at Tarin.

But the smile faded as she saw the look on his face at the though of giving the statement to the police. It was going to be a long night, wasn't it? "It already was for me," Lee pointed out quietly to Tarin. "At least you'll get to keep me company." Yeah, cause that would make things better. Hopefully, just maybe, it would make Tarin smile a bit.

"So," Lee said, heaving a sigh as she turned back to the cop, gingerly placing the ice pack against her cheek. "Where do you want to do this?"

Tarin wanted to point out to Lee how well negotiation worked in lieu of simply rushing the people with guns. She’d expertly handled the situation with the young, overzealous paramedic and as Tarin dry-swallowed the two painkillers he was handed, he frowned as Lee pointed out that it was going to be a long night for her. Then she asked the new cop where he wanted to do statements and the police office looked around, apparently trying to find an appropriately corpse free place.

Since there wasn’t anywhere like that in the restaurant, Officer officer decided that it would be a good idea for them to go outside. Tarin would normally have made some sort of quip about something they could do to occupy the time while Lee was up that night, but he was still too worried about what had happened in the restaurant for sex to permeate his brain. That, was pretty worried.

They walked, made their way out of the building and into the parking lot where some kind of police mini-camp had been set up. Apparently this was where they were going to give their statements.

Way too much later and after gaping looks of shock from not only the police officer who had guided them outside, but from the other two who had walked up as they gave their statements, Tarin and Lee signed on the dotted lines and started making their way home. The silence was strange, not uncomfortable, but not the easy silence that existed between them sometimes. This one was slightly more tense. As they walked, Tarin reached out and grabbed Lee’s hand and almost brought up the situation. Then he stopped. The evening had been bad enough already, and Lee was going to be up the whole night from draining the dirtbag with a gun. There was no reason to make it worse. A thought occurred to Tarin and he smiled slightly in the dark.

“At least we got dinner free…”