Special thanks to Tracy, Rae, Robin, and Karri for giving me a couple of ideas when I got writer’s block!
This story is rated PG-13
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"Alex? Where are you?"
Alex laughed as she opened the door to HQ. "Coming in the door, Monica."
"Okay."
Alex put her cell phone back in her pocket, and walked in. When she got to the main room, she found Jake, Cody, and Monica all looking at her, none of them looking very happy.
She just stared back for a minute. "Looks like you all need a happy pill."
"You haven't seen Frank, have you?" Jake asked her.
Alex frowned, as she sat down. "Nooo...he's not here? You mean I'm not gonna get chewed out for being late?"
Everyone managed to look sheepish.
"We were all late today," said Monica. "But Frank never showed up."
Alex shook her head. It made no sense.
“I don’t like it,” said Jake, as he paced around the table. “He’s never been late before. We all may have been in the past, but he never has."
“There’s a first time for everything.” Cody spoke for the first time, not paying much attention as he fooled around with one of the computers.
“I agree with Jake,” said Alex, sitting back in her chair. “This isn’t like him.”
“So do I,” Monica piped up. She stood and leaned against the table, crossing her arms. “He isn’t the type to not call, at least.”
“Something might’ve happened to him,” said Jake, as he took out his cell phone and started to dial. “Call his home,” he told Alex.
Alex complied, and counted the rings it took before his answering machine picked up: four.
Jake hung up. “Voice mail.”
“Answering machine.”
Jake put his phone back in his pocket and started walking towards the door. “I’m going to his place.”
Alex jumped up. “I’m coming too! You guys,” she said looking at Monica and Cody. “Wait here, see if he calls, or shows up. Call us if he does.”
They nodded, both looking worried.
“I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing,” Jake remarked, as he parked.
The two of them ran into the building and up the stairs. They both had their guns drawn when they reached the appropriate door.
Jake quietly tried the handle and found it locked. He listened for a minute, but heard nothing. He knocked, but no one answered the door. He shot a look at Alex, preparing to kick it open.
Alex nodded, and stood to the side.
Jake stepped in front of the door, and kicked it in. They jumped in pointing their guns; Jake on the left, Alex on the right. What they saw made Alex gasp.
“Frank!”
Their boss was lying facedown on the floor, not moving. Blood covered the back of his shirt.
They both ran over and knelt next to him. Alex felt his neck for a pulse. It was weak and slow, but there. “He’s alive.”
Jake nodded, and carefully turned him over. He heard Alex gasp to see that the front of Frank’s shirt was more bloodied then the back. “Get some towels!”
Alex jumped up, to comply.
“Frank?” Jake said, a knot growing in the pit of his stomach. He gently tapped his boss’ face, but got no response.
Donovan’s skin was very pale and cold, his breathing shallow. Jake found the source of the blood to be from two bullet wounds: his left upper arm, and his left shoulder; the bullet there having gone all the way through.
Alex came running back, and they tried to stop the bleeding. They were successful, for the bleeding had slowed on its own before their arrival.
“He’s been like this for a long time,” Alex said, her voice almost shaking.
Jake nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No!” Jake said, before she had a chance to get up. “It’ll be a lot faster if we take him ourselves.”
“Right.”
Jake picked him up carefully, and managed to carry the taller man down to the car. Alex sat in the back keeping a tight grip on Frank as Jake drove like a maniac.
“Call the others.”
Alex tried to get her cell phone out and dial without jostling Frank too much.
“Hello?” It was Monica’s voice.
“Monica! We found Frank. He’s been shot, meet us at UIC!”
“We’re there!” Monica said, and hung up.
Alex tried to put her phone away, but dropped it when Jake took an especially sharp corner. She held Frank tighter, looked around the car to see if Jake had left a jacket or anything in there that she could use to try to keep Frank warm. Finding nothing, she said, “Turn the heat on.”
“I did,” said Jake, as he approached a yellow light. It turned red before he reached it, but he made no indication of slowing down, never mind stopping. He flew wildly through the light, swerving to avoid a minivan. Cars honked their horns, narrowly missing them and each other.
“Jake!”
“Sorry!”
Suddenly Alex heard a faint sound; a soft moan. She looked at Frank to see his face twitch slightly.
“Frank?!” she said. She put a hand on the side of his face, noting that his skin felt clammy and colder. “Frank, look at me!”
Jake tried to see what was going on in the rearview mirror and drive at the same time.
“Frank, open your eyes!”
To Alex’s delight, he did—barely. He looked at her through half-opened eyelids. “Alex?” he whispered. She could barely hear him.
Alex smiled. “Yeah, Frank,” she held him tighter when she felt him shaking; an indication of shock. "We found you, you’re gonna be okay.”
Frank winced, and abruptly lost consciousness once more.
“Frank!” Alex said, in a panic. She felt for his pulse again, and sighed in relief when she found it.
“Alex…” Jake said, wanting to know what was going on.
“He woke up, Jake. For a minute, anyway.”
Jake sighed, screeching around a corner into the hospital parking lot. He pulled up to the Emergency entrance, quickly pulled Frank out of the car and ran into the door that Alex had opened.
“Help!” he yelled. “We need help!”
Monica sighed, as she watched her two friends. Her profiling mind was working, even through her worry. She felt bad for Alex and Jake, knowing that the two of them had a closer relationship with Frank then she and Cody did. With them, the job was more technical, but with Jake and Alex, it was more personal, the three of them doing the brunt of the UC work, often together.
“Relax, guys,” she couldn’t help but say. “We should find out something soon.”
Finally Jake spoke. “When? What’s taking so long!”
As if on cue, a doctor suddenly entered the waiting room. The four of them turned, and stared at the blood on the doctor’s clothes, suddenly afraid to ask.
The doctor took his surgical mask off. “I’m Dr. Montgomery. Your friend made it through surgery.”
A collective sigh of relief went through them all.
Alex found her voice. “How is he?”
This time the doctor sighed. “Not too good. He lost more blood then was good for him, and was already in shock when you got him here. We had to repair damage to some muscles and tendons, and put a pin in the bone in his arm; it caught the bullet. The one that went through his shoulder missed an artery by this much,” he said, holding his thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart.
Alex's covered her mouth, in alarm.
“Can we see him?” Jake asked, in shock himself.
The doctor shook his head. “Not yet; he’s in the recovery room. He may be in there for a while longer; his blood pressure is dangerously low, due to the blood loss and the surgery, which he wasn’t really fit for. After that he’ll be moved to the ICU.” He paused, looked from one to the other of the four of them. “What exactly happened? Who shot him? Do they cops know about this yet?”
Jake stepped closer to the doctor. “We’re Federal Agents,” he said, quietly, showing his badge. “All five of us. We don’t know yet who did this, and it can not get out. No news, no reporters. Okay?”
The doctor nodded, slowly. “I’ll cooperate, but I can’t say for the nurses and doctors who already came and went.”
Jake looked at Alex, who shook her head, knowing it was probably already too late.
It was disturbing, to say the least.
They all just stared, silently, at their boss and friend, as he lay unconscious, surrounded by machines. Donovan almost looked like a different person: white as the sheets, and as still as a corpse. There was an oxygen mask on his face, an IV on one side containing medication, another on the other side containing blood, and a heart monitor; it’s steady beeping the proof that he was still alive.
Jake was the first to speak. “When will he wake up?”
The doctor sighed. “No way to tell. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he didn’t for a day or two.”
“What?!” Alex blurted out. “We gotta find the guy who did this! We can’t get him if Frank can’t tell us who it was!”
“Calm down, Alex!” Cody said, “It isn’t his fault.”
Alex sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I-I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Miss, I understand. He will be watched closely 24 hours a day. If he should wake up, I’ll be sure to ask him, if none of you are here.”
Alex looked at the doctor. She put his age at somewhere around 55. He had a compassionate look in his eyes, and he smiled at her kindly. Alex decided she liked him, and smiled back. “Thanks.”
He smiled at her again, and they just stood there for a few minutes, the sound of the heart monitor seeming to echo through the room.
Jake broke the silence. "He's gonna be okay, right? I mean, what are his chances?"
The doctor thought for a minute before he spoke. "He should survive, yes, but he lost a tremendous amount of blood, so we have to monitor him carefully to make sure that there wasn't any damage to any organs. The next couple days are the most critical." He paused. "If you'd gotten him here any later then you did, he wouldn't've made it."
No one said anything. Jake and Alex looked at each other, both of them thanking God that Jake had elected not to wait for an ambulance.
Monica sighed. “We should go over to his place, see if we can find any clues.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah. One of us should stay here though, with him.” He looked at the doctor as he said it. It wasn’t a question.
Dr. Montgomery nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll stay,” Alex said.
Jake had anticipated her volunteering. He nodded at her, and they started to leave the room.
“Oh,” Jake said, turning back. “If anything should happen…”
Alex nodded. “I’ll call you.”
“Thanks.” Jake took one last look at Frank, and the three of them left.
Alex saw a chair, and she dragged it over to the bed.
“I’ll let the nurses know you’ll be in here,” said the doctor. “The only thing you need to know…”
“Yes?”
He seemed to hesitate. “If any of the machines send off an alarm, or the nurses suddenly come running in, make sure you get out of the way fast.”
Alex just stared at him with her big owl eyes. She knew exactly what the doctor was trying to say, and she tried not to let the statement scare her.
“Okay,” was all she managed to get out.
"Where did you find—oh," said Cody, as he saw the bloodstain on the floor.
Monica shuddered involuntarily, at the size of the stain. "Good thing you didn't wait any longer before you went looking for him," she said to Jake.
"Yeah," he answered, looking around for clues.
Cody picked up a piece of mail he found on the floor, and tossed it onto the coffee table. He looked at the doorknob on the door, and found no evidence of forced entry. "Looks like whoever did this did it right."
"Yeah," said Jake, as he knelt on the floor. "Except for one thing."
"What?"
"Frank is alive. Hey, look what I found."
Monica and Cody turned to see, as Jake stood up holding a gun.
"Frank's," he said. He looked to the spot on the floor where they'd found him, and then looked to the couch that the gun had been under. It was about 10 feet away.
"The gunman never entered the place," he said. He stood near the stain, facing the door. "The jerk was either in the hallway or the doorway. The shot spun Frank," Jake said, turning now. "And made the gun fly out of his hand, where it landed under the couch."
"Yeah," said Cody. "And if Frank had his gun out, then he knew who the person was, and that he was a threat to him."
"You're forgetting one thing," said Monica.
They both looked at her.
"Frank was shot twice."
They both thought about that for a minute, and then Jake took the clip out of the gun. "Hasn't been fired." He frowned. "He didn't shoot back."
"A woman?" Cody suggested.
"More likely, he didn't have a chance to shoot back," said Monica, stepping over the stain and strolling over to the far wall. "If he could’ve, he would’ve. The shooter probably used a silencer, too, otherwise a lot of people would've heard the shots." She knelt down and picked something up with a handkerchief. She brought it over to them, and held it up.
The bullet.
Jake sighed as he took it, handkerchief and all. Blood stained the white cloth.
He rolled it up and stuck it into his pocket. "We should knock on some doors, and ask if anyone heard or saw anything." He took out his cell phone, and started to dial.
Monica and Cody stepped closer, knowing who he was calling.
"How is he?"
Alex sighed, watching Frank's still face. "No change, Jake."
Jake sighed.
"Did you find anything?" she asked.
"Nothing at all. But we figured out plenty."
"Any clue to the shooter’s identity?"
"Not yet. We're gonna question some neighbors, I'll be back there soon."
"Okay, bye." Alex hung up, just as the doctor came in the room.
"Miss?"
Alex looked up at him, and held out her hand when he started to hand her something.
The other bullet.
"I knew you'd need it," he said.
Alex was surprised at its size; a .357. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." The doctor went over to Frank, studied the monitors for a minute, and then took out his stethoscope and listened to his heart. He listened for so long that Alex was about to ask if something was wrong, but then he removed it and slung it around his neck. She stood and moved closer when the doctor started to remove the bandages. He checked the arm wound first; and Alex was surprised for a minute to see that it had apparently doubled in size until she remembered that they'd had to put a pin in the bone. She frowned when she saw a similar-looking scar on his arm not very far from the current wound.
Dr. Montgomery saw the look. "It seems that a bullet broke his arm before."
Alex shook her head, and made a *phew* sound. "I'm beginning to respect him even more, now."
The doctor smiled at her statement. "From what I've found out about his medical records, he’s someone to be respected, yes."
Alex wondered what he meant by that. "Has he gotten shot many times?" She felt foolish asking the question of a stranger when she was the one around Frank on a daily basis.
The doctor nodded his head. "You could say that, amongst other things."
Before Alex could get further info she heard someone come in, and turned to see that it was Jake.
He gave her a thin smile as he walked over to the bed.
"What'd you find out?"
Jake shook his head. "Only that the person wasn't in the apartment. It looks like Frank opened the door, unless it was unlocked, which I doubt. We found Frank's gun; he'd had it drawn."
Alex's eyebrows went up. "Fired?"
Jake shook his head.
"Humm."
Jake looked at the doctor, who was standing there quietly. "How is he, doc?"
"As well as can be expected."
Jake sighed. "That's better then the alternative."
Alex nodded. "I wish he'd wake up. He probably knows who did it."
"I hope he knows," said Jake.
Suddenly, the heart monitor started beeping faster, and an alarm went off. Dr. Montgomery whipped out his stethoscope, as two nurses ran into the room.
"What happened?!" Alex nearly yelled.
Jake stepped back, pulling Alex with him.
"Get them out of here!" The doctor yelled to the nurses.
Alex and Jake tried to see as they were herded out of the room. They could only watch helplessly through the glass, not able to see Frank; the doctor and nurses obscuring their view.
After a few agonizing minutes of watching and praying, Alex and Jake saw the doctor suddenly walk over to the IV containing the medication and quickly disconnect it from the needle in Frank's hand. He took the bag off the hook and handed it to one of the nurses, who ran to the door with it.
Realizing that she was coming out, Jake and Alex bombarded her with questions the minute she opened the door.
"What happened? Is he all right?"
The nurse almost didn't stop, but compassion made her turn as she walked. "He had a reaction to the medicine," she simply stated, before turning and running down the hall.
"Oh man," Jake said. They turned back to the glass, to see the doctor listening to Frank's heart again, and the other nurse readying an injection. They could see the heart monitor now: it kept fluctuating between 154 and 161.
Shocked to see it so dangerously high, Jake and Alex just stood there silently. Suddenly, the number started to drop drastically, and their view was again obscured by the doctor.
The remaining nurse started to run for the door, and as she burst out of it, Alex and Jake heard a sound that chilled them to the bone.
Flatline.
“Oh, God!” Alex gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.
Both nurses came running back pushing a machine, and Jake held the door for them as they brought it in. He and Alex watched in utter shock as the doctor took out the resuscitation paddles.
“Clear!” he yelled, as the nurses stepped back.
*zap*
Alex and Jake craned their necks to see the heart monitor to find out if it worked, but it apparently hadn’t, for the doctor readied the paddles again.
*zap*
They watched as Dr. Montgomery stood there watching the monitor, holding the paddles up in case he needed to shock Frank again. To their relief, he slowly lowered them, and picked up the needle the nurse had been interrupted from administering earlier, gave Frank the shot, and hooked up the new IV, which obviously contained a different medicine. He then said something to the nurse, and she went back to the door.
"You can come in now."
Alex and Jake ran to the bed. “He was dead!” Alex blurted out, sounding frantic.
"The medicine did that to him?" Jake said, incredulous, searching Frank's pale face to reassure himself that he was indeed all right.
Dr. Montgomery nodded, somberly. "It happens too often. A patient with an unknown allergy, another with a susceptibility to side effects." He sighed. "This one was definitely an allergy. A severe one; it almost cost him his life."
They had no time to digest that, for Alex's cell phone rang again, and she saw Monica's number on the display. "Yeah Monica?"
Monica picked up on her worried tone. "What's wrong? Is Frank all right?"
"No—yeah. Uh," she sighed. "What's up?"
"Have you seen Jake?"
Alex frowned and looked at him. "He's right here."
"Oh," Monica said. "I called him and he didn't answer."
Alex handed Jake her cell. "Monica?" he said.
"Why didn't you answer your phone?"
Jake took it out and frowned to see the 'missed call' message flashing. It must've rang during the incident with Frank, and they were so nervous neither he nor Alex had heard it ring.
"Sorry," he said, instead of explaining what had happened. "What's up?"
"None of the neighbors we talked to saw a thing."
Jake sighed. "Great."
"Are you coming back, or should we go over there?"
"I'll come back first, we can take another quick look. Be there in 20."
"Okay."
Jake hit the ‘hang up’ button, and put the phone in his pocket. "I'm going back to have another look."
Alex nodded at him, and Jake turned towards the door.
"Jake."
He turned to look at her.
"My phone," she said, with a slight smile.
Jake frowned, and took the phone out of his pocket. He saw that it was hers, and gave her a sheepish look as he tossed it to her, and then left.
Alex sighed as she caught it. The mistake only went to show how upset the normally in-control Jake was over the situation.