Amaia Salazar—Fermín Montes

Amaia Salazar—Fermín Montes is a relationship shaped by the collision of professional authority and personal injury. Montes’s misconduct leaves Amaia responsible for enforcing boundaries he rejects; their later confrontation exposes both his anger and the personal grief beneath it. The relationship does not resolve into easy friendship. Instead, it shifts toward a limited alliance in which candor, continued treatment, and urgent police work coexist.

Professional Authority and Broken Trust

Amaia and Montes begin from a shared police environment, but their working relationship is badly compromised by his actions. Montes has been suspended after abandoning an investigation, disregarding direct orders, removing evidence from the station, and pointing his weapon at a civilian. He also nearly shot himself; Amaia and Inspector Iriarte prevented his death. For Amaia, these are not merely procedural violations. They endangered an investigation, colleagues, victims, and victims’ families, and made Montes’s fitness to serve a matter of trust as well as discipline.

When Montes appears at the station, Amaia makes clear that his suspension limits him to the status of a visitor. He cannot enter professional areas, consult files or weapons, or gain access to information about the active case. Her insistence is public and explicit, addressed to the team as well as to him. The rule separates her authority as chief from whatever closeness they may once have shared: personal familiarity cannot grant him access or excuse the breach.

That boundary becomes more pointed when Montes waits for Amaia outside her aunt’s house, visibly affected by drink. She tells him that her home is not an appropriate place for him to demand a conversation and directs him to request an appointment at her office. His appeal to their friendship does not change her answer. When he later disparages her for being away from the station, she corrects him with her title, making the required form of address part of the conflict. Montes leaves rather than answer, but the exchange confirms that he still tests the authority he is expected to respect.

The Alley Confrontation

A later encounter begins with another uninvited approach. Montes has been waiting in the dark, smoking; Amaia recognizes him first by his distinctive shoes. He has been drinking, though she judges him not to be drunk. He acknowledges that he behaved badly and says he wants to explain himself, but she refuses to treat an apology as a substitute for accountability.

Amaia recites the record of his conduct: he abandoned an ongoing investigation, ignored orders, compromised the inquiry by taking evidence, aimed his gun at a civilian, and came close to ending his own life. She rejects the suggestion that a difficult period excuses these choices, and challenges his claim that positive psychiatric reports alone prove he is ready to return. Her anger is sharpened by the year that has passed without, in her view, meaningful change. She sees him as still mistrustful of her authority and still looking for someone else to blame.

The argument turns physical only after Amaia removes her badge and gun and places them on a barrel in a windowless alley. An old bed headboard and a plough lie nearby. Setting her official equipment aside marks a temporary separation between her police authority and the personal confrontation she is choosing to have. Montes approaches, then hesitates at the entrance. Amaia waits; when he finally charges, she steps aside at the last moment and strikes his side, sending him into the wall. The exchange is neither a formal arrest nor a reconciliation. It is a dangerous release of hostility between two people whose professional conflict has become personal.

Afterward, the tone changes without erasing the conflict. Montes admits that he is in worse shape than he thought and stops trying to justify his past conduct. He tells Amaia that he fell in love with Flora, whom he loved deeply, and that he believes he still loves her. The admission gives his distress a specific personal dimension, but Amaia does not recast his misconduct as excusable. Their conversation allows vulnerability to enter only after she has confronted him directly and he has acknowledged at least part of the truth.

Respect Without Easy Reconciliation

As the encounter ends, Montes addresses Amaia as chief and salutes her. She tells him the gesture is unnecessary; he insists that it is appropriate. Its significance lies in its contrast with his earlier resistance to her title and authority. The salute does not undo his violations or prove that their relationship is repaired, but it makes visible a small change in how he chooses to acknowledge her position.

The change remains incomplete. At a later discussion about his possible return, Amaia recognizes the sacrifices the team has made during his absence and says it would be appropriate for him to come back soon. Montes surprises the room by declining immediate reinstatement. Although he says he would have accepted the offer a week earlier, a conversation with someone close to him has led him to decide that he should continue therapy for several more months. The choice is a significant contrast with Amaia’s earlier judgment that he had not sought help or moved forward. Rather than insist on an immediate return for his own sake, he accepts that he is not ready.

Amaia nevertheless turns the moment toward the work in front of them. She tells him that he is staying in Baztán Valley Elizondo and orders him to get moving: a suspect is missing, police are watching a home and a church, and the investigation has become more urgent. Her brusque instruction is not evidence that his suspension has formally ended. It does show that she is prepared to use his presence and expertise in an emergency while refusing to soften the terms of their relationship.

Anger, Candor, and Renewed Cooperation

Montes later offers Amaia a more complicated account of his treatment. When she asks about a man’s anger-control technique, Montes explains that such techniques may help someone appear composed without changing the anger underneath. He says that he attended therapy himself, but after six sessions he still felt capable of killing the person he was angry with. He identifies Amaia as a particular focus of that rage and admits that the therapy, in his experience, taught him to conceal anger rather than resolve it. His disclosure complicates her earlier belief that he had not gone to therapy, while his decision to continue treatment shows that he has not simply abandoned the possibility of change.

The candor is reciprocal in an important, limited way: Montes speaks openly about anger that had previously surfaced as provocation, while Amaia does not pretend that listening makes his past conduct harmless. He even acknowledges that, in the heat of the earlier confrontation, he might have killed her—or she might have killed him. The admission underscores the danger of their hostility, but also the frankness they have reached. Their alliance depends less on restored intimacy than on being able to name the risk between them.

During the later emergency in which Amaia reports that her aunt has nearly been killed and her son has been taken, Montes responds with practical resolve. He argues that the fugitives cannot have escaped by the road ahead if it is closed, and proposes alerting Padua, the Ertzaintza, and French gendarmes in case they are heading toward Irún or France. He reasons that the storm, their local knowledge, and the presence of an elderly woman and a baby make a familiar hiding place more likely than a long journey. Amaia immediately identifies the father’s house as a possible destination. In the crisis, their exchange is concise and complementary: Montes organizes the search and broadens the response, while Amaia supplies the family connection. The earlier conflict has not disappeared, but it no longer prevents them from acting as colleagues when lives are at stake.