Note: This story is in response to the Archive missing scene challenge. I asked myself, "What would be the hardest episode to write a missing scene for?" and came up with The Killers, so of course, that's what I chose to write about. This story is -- different, I don't know how else to describe it. Along with The Killers content, this story contains major foreshadowing for His Brother's Keeper. Please let me know what you think of it -good, bad, or indifferent.

Grammar notes: / / denotes dialogue from The Killers written by Gail Morgan Hickman

Disclaimer: Jim Ellison, Blair Sandburg and the rest of the Cascade Gang belong solely to Bilson & DeMeo, Pet Fly Productions, UPN and Paramount. I'm not making any money or profit from this, believe me.

Outside Looking In
by Swellison

(Missing scene challenge - The Killers)

Steven Ellison unlocked the door of his upscale condominium and stepped into his home. Garment bag slung over his shoulder and carrying a matching Louis Vuitton suitcase, he strolled through his immaculate Danish designer living room, down the hallway and into the guest bedroom. He opened the walk-in closet and deposited the luggage on the floor, to be unpacked later. Whistling, he mentally reviewed the week-long business trip and concluded that it had been a success, discounting the three extra hours of layover in Chicago, which pushed his arrival in Cascade back to nine this evening.

The tall man walked back to his kitchen and removed a glass dish from the refrigerator. Sally, his father's longtime housekeeper, had left Steven a ready-made dinner, after her weekly cleaning of the young businessman's home. Steven dished up a portion of the chicken casserole and popped it into the microwave. He collected a serving tray, poured a glass of milk and placed it and some silverware on the tray while the food heated. The timer dinged and he extracted his dinner from the microwave and picked up the full tray of food. Deciding to be informal, he bypassed the glass dining room table and plopped the tray down on a teak coffee table in the living room. Steven flicked on the remote control to his 42" television and sat down on his overstuffed sofa, dining by the TV news.

He picked up Channel 2's late night lead story. A distinguished-looking gray-haired man spoke earnestly into the microphone held in front of him. /" - never should have been arrested in the first place. The charges were total nonsense and the authorities knew it."/

/"Are you suggesting they conspired to manufacture evidence?"/: The woman reporter asked as Steven contentedly munched on his casserole.

/"What I am suggesting is that there should be an investigation into the conduct - or should I say misconduct? - of Detective James Ellison, whose testimony in court was so obviously fabricated. It's cops like him who give our police department a bad name."/

"What?" Steven gasped, almost choking on his milk. Then the camera panned to two men in angry confrontation. Jim - he'd recognized his brother instantly, even though it had been years since he'd last seen him in person - was grabbing the lapels of another man's overcoat and looked ready to shake him. A smaller man standing next to the irate detective grabbed his upper arm and improbably succeeded in pulling Jim away.

"That was yesterday, outside the courthouse. Earlier this afternoon, our cameras again caught up with Detective Ellison," the news anchor announced and the news footage switched to an interior shot, with the same lawyer talking.

/"It's not enough that the police arrest my client and falsify testimony against him, now they're stalking him like he's some kind of animal. On top of that, they're bugging his private telephone without a warrant."/ The footage shifted to show Jim and that same shorter man caught in the glaring light of the camera.

/"Is this true?"/ the female reporter asked aggressively. /"Does the police department have a personal vendetta against Tommy Juno? Detective, we need an answer."/

Hands shielding his face, Jim and his companion ducked, retreating from the camera.

"Although the official police spokesman had no comment," the camera switched back to the anchor in the studio, "News 2 has learned that an internal investigation of Detective James Ellison is now in progress. The detective is charged with violating Mr. Juno's civil rights."

Steven's gray eyes glared at the anchor lady. Jim's the straightest of straight arrows, I know that better than anyone. If he says Juno's guilty, he's guilty. But why did Jim fly off the handle like that? Hmmm, there's more to this story than meets the eye. He finished his dinner while listening attentively, but there was no additional coverage of the story.

Next, Steven found the week's worth of newspapers that had accumulated during his out of town trip, and worked his way through them, starting with the oldest date. There was no mention of Jim until he reached yesterday's paper. "Undercover Cop Shot by Sniper" was the front page headline. The story must have just made the morning edition, it was short and didn't include a picture of the victim, just the name Daniel L. Choi (Danny) and his age, 25. Officer Choi had been shot in the presence of another officer, Det. James Ellison and a police observer, Blair Sandburg. "Whoa," Steven set the paper down and massaged his temple. He resumed scanning the paper, and spied a familiar face in the Arts and Entertainment section. The caption listed the man's name as Mr. Thomas Juno and although he was dressed in formal attire, Juno was definitely the same man that the news camera had caught Jim confronting.

Steven looked at this morning's paper and the headline "A.D.A Fails to make a case against Tommy Juno, all charges dropped." The ensuing story spelled out how Juno's lawyer got Ellison to admit that he had been separated from the sniper by 200 yards. Judge Perlman, upon hearing the distance involved, had doubted the veracity of the testimony and dismissed the charges against Juno. The story also quoted Juno's lawyer and described the confrontation between Ellison and Juno. Then they caught Jim at that warehouse today, hot on Juno's tail. And now Jim's under investigation for violating the guy's civil rights. Steven glanced at his cordless phone but it was too late to call. That was the facile reason, the more honest one followed. Besides, I'm probably the last person Jim wants to hear from now.

Rousing himself from his thoughts, Steven bussed his supper, stacked the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Resolutely, he went to the guest room closet and unpacked his suitcase.

The following morning, Steven pored over the newspaper at breakfast. A headline immediately caught his eye "Attempt on Asst. D.A. Sanchez's life". The story described how the sniper had positioned himself in a garage across the street from Ms. Sanchez's apartment and had actually fired a couple of rounds, shattering her living room window. He missed his intended victim because moments before, Blair Sandburg burst into her apartment, warning her and pushing her to the floor, out of the sniper's line of sight. Detective Jim Ellison scuffled with the sniper on the roof, preventing any further attempt on Ms. Sanchez. Unfortunately, the alleged sniper fell off the side of the garage during the fight, and was currently listed in critical condition at Cascade General Hospital. You haven't changed a bit, Jim. Still rescuing the innocent.

Steven sorted through the other parts of the paper, hunting for the Business Section. The top story of the Metro section caught his eye: "Only the Good Die Young." A picture of Officer Daniel L. Choi in his police uniform accompanied the article. The human interest reporter could not interview the officer's distraught mother or younger sisters, but she had talked to Linn Choi, the deceased officer's aunt. "Danny's father died when Danny was very young," Ms. Choi said, "and Danny was a handful, back then." The turning point came when Danny entered sixth grade, his teacher recommended him for the school's Big Brother program. His appointed Big Brother was Jim Ellison, a college junior. The two had an uneasy relationship at first, but Jim persevered and finally broke through to the kid after taking him on a weekend sailing trip. "Even back then, Danny loved sailing," Ms. Choi said, "Jim taught him how to sail, and got Danny interested in math by connecting it to navigating. But he taught Danny so much more than that; they were real close in the two years that Jim was Danny's Big Brother. Even afterwards, when Jim was in the Army and Danny was a rebellious teenager and backslid a bit, a letter from Lt. Ellison put him back on the straight and narrow, pronto."

Jim never sent me any letters from the Army, Steven couldn't stop the comparison. But then, I never sent him any letters either. I wonder, if I had, would he have answered them, or even read them?

The article then described Danny's all-too-short time in the police department, working at a job he loved. "Danny was so happy and proud when he got accepted into the Academy - Jim Ellison wrote a glowing recommendation for Danny, I remember. Danny told us about his job, how exciting it was to make a difference. He tried not to make it sound dangerous, but a cop lives in a violent world, you only have to read the paper to know that." Ms. Choi continued, "Then, about two months ago, he told his mother that we wouldn't be seeing much of him, he was going on a long-term undercover assignment. He was so keen about it, he'd only been on the force for three years, and already he'd drawn a major assignment." The article restrainedly recapped the abrupt end of Officer Choi's life and concluded with the funeral arrangements.

Steven gazed blankly at the paper for several minutes, lost in thought. Then he folded the section and rose from the table. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed the residential phone book from its place on the kitchen bookshelf. Flipping to the "E's", he stared at his brother's entry:

Ellison JJ 852 Prospect 555-1014

He spotted his own name, a few lines down. How can two people separated by only a few lines in the phone book be separated by half a lifetime of silence? Steven's gaze shifted from the opened book to the telephone, and he remembered....

"Good morning, how may I help you?" the female voice caught Steven by surprise.

"Uh, could I speak to Jimmy - er, Jim, please?" the younger Ellison asked.

"This is Mr. Ellison's answering service, may I take a message?"

"Yeah, this is Steven - he knows my number. Tell him- tell him" I'm glad you're alive, I read that article about what happened to you in Peru. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back in touch, but I didn't know what to say. I'm - I'm sorry, can't we start over again?

"Sir," the woman's voice broke into his thoughts, a hint of impatience in her tone. "You were saying -?"

"Tell Jim I'd like to meet him, at his earliest convenience," Steven managed to say. There, that sounds semi-intelligent, at least.

"Very well, sir. Good day," the woman ended the phone call.

Of course, nothing ever came of that call. At first, Steven had been angry and took Jim's lack of response as a sign that his brother wanted nothing further to do with him. Later, he wondered if his call had been lost among all the unsolicited calls that Jim had received after he was labeled a hero in that News Update article. There was nothing like a bona fide hero to bring all the crackpots and wannabes crawling out from the woodwork. Jim had obviously been having a problem with unwelcome callers, or he wouldn't have resorted to an answering service to screen his calls in the first place. Steven shook himself out of his memories. No, he wouldn't use the phone. He picked up the paper and noted the funeral time and place. I'll go see Jim in person.

* * * * *

Saturday morning, Steven parked his metallic gold Lexus a discrete distance from the graveside services. He got out of the car, locked it and smoothed over his black suit jacket. He joined the tail end of the entourage that made its way towards the open-air tent that was placed at the opened grave site. Daniel Choi's fellow officers and brothers in blue had turned out en masse to pay their respects, and the civilian mourners were awash in a sea of policemen and women, somberly attired in their black dress uniforms. Craning his neck, he had no trouble distinguishing Jim from all the other uniformed officers. His brother was flanked by Mrs. Choi and her two daughters on one side and that long-haired civilian - That must be Blair Sandburg, the police observer - on the other side.

A few minutes later, the service commenced. A minister read from the Bible, then spoke about Danny Choi's life, and offered words of comfort to Danny's family and friends. The U.S. flag that draped Danny's coffin was retrieved, folded into a triangle and presented to Mrs. Choi, who accepted it as quiet tears ran down her face. A bagpipe started playing the mournful but joyous notes of "Amazing Grace" and the services broke up. A line of officers and ordinary people formed to offer condolences to the Choi family.

The mourners surrounding Steven began moving to join the line of people talking to the family, and Steven ducked self-consciously under a tree. He wasn't here for Danny, he was here for Jim. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. His eyes sought out his brother, who had finished talking with Mrs. Choi and the girls and stood off to the side. looking at the sleek black coffin that stood ready to be placed in the ground. Steven sighed and Jim glanced up, his eyes sweeping the surroundings to focus on the spot where Steven was standing. Startled, Steven took a hasty step backwards, further under the tree. It's almost as if he heard me. No, that's ridiculous.

Steven watched cautiously as Blair Sandburg approached his brother. The shorter man patted Jim's back and spoke to him. Then Jim placed his right arm around Sandburg's shoulders and the two slowly walked away. Steven stared after them, focusing on the smaller man's location. Under Jim's wing, Steven thought, remembering how safe and protected it felt to be there. No, this is the wrong time. Jim was grieving for his lost friend and comrade, but it was obvious that he wasn't alone in his grief.

Walking back to his car, Steven made himself a promise. Someday, Jim, you'll look up and I'll be there. Not today or tomorrow. Maybe not next week, next month or even next year, but someday...

the end