Ancient mariner rhyme:

Red skies in morning, sailors take warning.

Three months into Project Dakota, Andy and Nick vanish without a trace.

Luke gets the call from Blackstone in the wee hours of the morning, as the first glimmers of dawn begin to stain the sky. Blinking away the grit of sleep, he groans and rolls over, cursing softly when the sheets tangle about his legs. Stretching the rest of the way, he reaches out and snatches up the phone vibrating a small path across his nightstand.

"Callaghan," he rumbles in greeting, dropping his head back onto the pillow with a grunt.

All of five seconds later has him shooting upright, sleep burned away in an instant flood of adrenaline. Stumbling from the bed in a flurry of motion, he hunts up a pair of jeans that had been discarded on the floor mere hours ago, all while he snarls into his phone.

"Say that again," he barks, cramming the phone between his shoulder and ear as he hops his way into the pants.

"McNally and Collins are missing; they missed their check-in yesterday and none of my guys have been able to get in contact with them," Blackstone says gruffly.

"And why am I just hearing about this now?" Luke growls, hauling on a shirt in the dark by muscle memory and instinct. Moving around the bedroom with ease, even in the lack of light, he snags a sweater from the chair by the door and moves deeper into his apartment.

"Common Callaghan, you know how it is with undercover ops, sometimes get delayed. It's not a reason to jump the gun or overreact," Blackstone mutters, coming in petulant and tinny through the small speaker.

Biting back a spew of vitriol that will do neither of them any good at the moment, Luke stops in the kitchen to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"How long since they were supposed to have checked in?" Luke asks, working to keep twin streams of anger and slowly building fear from leaching into his voice. Because he does know how it is, sometimes check ins have to be missed in order to maintain a cover, sometimes rules get a little bent in order to get evidence. But Andy is involved.

In the long pause filled with nothing but the faint sounds of traffic fill Luke's ear, he moves to his office to grab the lockbox containing his firearm and his go-pack.

"Just over thirty-six hours."

This time, a string of vicious curses slide free before Luke can reign them in and, on the other end of the line and several kilometers away, Blackstone winces. Letting out a harsh breath, Luke continues through his house in the dark to grab his keys from the counter.

"I'll be at the cover apartment within the hour," Luke snaps into the phone as he shrugs into his jacket and stomps into his boots. "I'll see you there," he continues, offering no room for argument, before hanging up and slamming his way out of his home. He spares the briefest second of guilt for his neighbors, but it's quickly drowned out in another wave of worry for his officers.

For Andy in particular, who will always hold a special place in his heart.

Andy, who he knows would never go this long without checking in with her handler if she could help it, because that's just the type of person she his.

Slipping into his vehicle, he flicks it on and rolls into the night brushed at the edges with an ever darkening pink.

True to his word, Luke finds himself standing outside the cover apartment within the hour. Across the street, Blackstone steps out of his car and jogs over to Luke's side.

"I'm guessing you've already been inside," Luke comments, the implied because you can't be that much of an idiot hanging heavy in the air between them.

"I have; nothing's out of place, no signs of a struggle or anyone else being inside."

Nodding to himself, Luke leads the way inside. Flicking on the lights, he takes in the small kitchen with two coffee stained mugs in the sink and the blanket thrown haphazardly across the couch. Down the hallway, the lights in the bathroom spills light into the darkened corridor and coating the bedroom doors.

"Alright," Luke says as he moves deeper into the room, eyes scanning everything and filing everything he sees away. "Run it through for me, starting with the last week up until what they were supposed to have been doing right before the missed check-in."

Outside, the sky grows lighter by the moment, morphing from black to a deep blood red, shadows stretching like claws across the city.

By the time the sun finally cracks the horizon, all of Division 15 has been placed on alert about their missing officers and in a long abandon cellar, chains clink softly on a cracked concrete form.

Ooh look, new things.

Blame the plot bunnies.

And other uncontrollable factors.

Anyway, this is set pre-season 4, so before we knew what Project Dakota actually was (so I can have some fun with it hehehe)

Hearts always, A.