Hondo was going to have her ass for this, Chris thought, her next inhalation sharp as the knife of her opponent sliced through her pantleg, into the flesh of her calf.
She wasn't supposed to have been in any more danger than the mission had warranted. LAPD had followed a stolen car back to an auto shop, where they noticed a surprising number of high end cars getting junked for their parts. They called it in before attempting to approach on their own and got taken hostage by the gang. Instead of a simple bust, it turned into a hostage situation S.W.A.T was needed for.
Hondo had sent Chris to scale the building and drop in from the roof, but she instant she had swung herself up and over the wall, a man rushed at her. She dipped backwards, precariously over the edge before winding forward and sweeping her leg under his own. That had led to her present situation, he'd taken the opportunity of being knocked on his ass to grab a knife from an ankle holster. She hadn't been expecting a knife, these kinds of guys were usually strapped with guns.
She reacted on pure instinct, slamming her arm against his, making him drop the knife. When he lunged for it, she kicked into his side with her good leg. He fell to the ground again and didn't immediately move. She kicked the knife away and cuffed him, breathing heavier than she normally would after a takedown. A warm trickle down her leg brought her attention down to her injury.
"Oh fuck," she whispered, forgetting she was on comms.
"Chris, what's going on?" Hondo's voice sounded in her ear.
"One guy is down on the roof, but I won't be able to assist from up here," she said. She limped over to the skylight, letting herself drop down next to it.
"What happened?"
"Guy had a knife. My leg's cut."
"Is it bad?"
"It's fine. You have the two cops in the back left corner. Two guys covering them. There's four more guys by your entrance," she said, taking in the situation down below, as she cut open the rest of her pantleg and wrapped the fabric around her leg, pulling it as tight as she could. There was a pause on Hondo's end, which she was sure meant he was calling paramedics. Once her leg was bound as best she could, she pulled her gun out and trained it down below.
"Copy. Breaching in three, two, one," Hondo said and Chris watched as Luca drove through the front doors of the shop, the gang members scattering like ants. Shots rang out as the two in back by the cops started shooting. Hondo and Deacon got out of the far side of the truck, neatly capping two of them in the legs. Tan and Street came in from the side, going straight for the cops, taking the two guys guarding them out in seconds. It was very well orchestrated, in a way things hadn't really been since Street had joined their team. It almost seemed as if Street was listening for once in his life.
Hondo was trying to talk the two remaining ones out of shooting, she could tell just by the sudden ceasefire and glances they were exchanging between each other. She also could see the exact moment they decided they weren't going quietly. She lined up her shot and fired twice, once to break the glass and the second to hit the guy closer to her. Hondo reacted as she knew he would, firing on the other just as they had started to raise their guns.
Once both were taken care of, Hondo raised his head to look up at her. She saluted him before drooping closer to the ground. Her sock was wet and tacky, despite the dry heat and direct sun she was facing on the roof, which meant the cut was still bleeding pretty heavily. She was probably going to have to throw these shoes away.
"Chris, how you doing?" Deacon asked.
"I'm fine. I ran out of things to bind the cut though," she said, frowning down at her left leg. It was silly, this whole situation. He never should have got the drop on her.
"Paramedics are two minutes out. Do you see the fire escape?" he asked and she looked across the roof to the red metal steps. "Tan and Luca are on their way up now to help."
Sure enough, she heard their clattering footsteps a moment later. Their helmets were off and she could see the concern etched upon their faces as they ran over to her, clearing the distance of the roof in no time.
"You just had to go and show off, huh? Taking out that last one while injured," Luca scoffed, throwing her a grin as he looped an arm around her waist, Tan throwing an arm across her shoulders.
"I saw the shot and did my job," she said. She let out a slow hiss as she stood up and put weight on her left leg. She shifted quickly, trying to hold it off of the ground. "I can't believe I let this happen, it was dumb."
"You can't be perfect, Chris," Tan said. They began the trek across the roof, a thousand times slower than Luca and Tan had been when they'd run to her. She bit her lip, at the pain and at his words. She needed to be perfect, to even come close to how the men in S.W.A.T were regarded. She loved her team, trusted them with her life every day, just like they trusted her with their own. But they would never understand the stereotypes and prejudices she faced every day from every man she came across, at the office and out in the field. Hell, even Street wouldn't leave her alone until she had explicitly told him she didn't date cops or team members. Too much was at stake.
The stairs proved more difficult than she had anticipated. They were too narrow to continue on the way they had limped across the rooftop, with her in between both of the guys. Her leg was also too weak to put pressure on for more than a second at a time, before it collapsed under her.
Luca gave her a surveying look and she snapped before he even opened his mouth.
"You are not carrying me down the stairs," she said flatly.
"I don't see many other options, Chris, unless you wanna scoot down the stairs on your ass like a three year old," he said. "And don't dismiss it just cause you're a woman. If I had a cut that bad, I'd have you carry me in a heartbeat. Hell, I would have made you carry me across the roof too."
"How about I fling myself off the roof?" she asked flippantly before sighing, long and drawn out. She only gave in because the makeshift bandage she had cobbled together was slipping down her leg, so laden down with blood. The edges of her vision were starting to go a little hazy too. She blinked a few times to clear that up but it didn't really do anything to help.
"Tan, tell Street if he takes any pictures at all, I'll steal and crash his bike and enjoy every second of it," she said. Chris could hear the grin in Tan's voice as he relayed the message to Street.
"Let's get this over with," she grumbled as Luca held his arms open. She swung her right leg up quickly, then carefully followed with her left leg, settling in Luca's arms uncomfortably. "This is ridiculous."
"Thirty seconds and it'll be over," Luca said. He started going down the stairs. Chris clenched her eyes against the pain shooting through her leg every time she shifted. Quicker than she expected, Luca was setting her down on a gurney and a woman was asking her name, age, and what day it was.
She answered the questions and let the paramedic pull the blood soaked fabric away from the cut. Hondo winced at the wound, from where he was hovering at the edge of the ambulance's doors. As she washed it, Chris could finally see that it spread from a few inches below her knee to midway down her calf.
"Any chance you could do the stitches here and we call it good?" Chris asked. The paramedic was not amused by her query and didn't even answer.
"These damn S.W.A.T," Chris thought she heard her mumble as she turned to grab the bandage to wrap in until they got to the hospital. Chris thought it was a legitimate question, it wouldn't need that many stitches. Probably.
"We'll meet you at the hospital," Hondo said.
"Go and do the debriefing. I'll meet you at the office when I'm done," Chris said.
"She'll be waiting for you at the hospital," the paramedic told Hondo, talking over Chris, giving her a stern look.
"We come bearing gifts," Deacon said, holding up a bag as evidence as the team entered Chris's room.
"It better be some real clothes. The nurse threw mine away," Chris said. "Something about a biohazard," she added with a shrug.
Deacon tossed the bag to Chris and she dug through it. They had brought her off duty clothes, which luckily had been a pair of jean shorts and a tshirt that day. The shorts would be nice and easy to pull over the bandage encircling her entire calf. There was also a slightly squished sandwich from her favorite deli and a bar of chocolate that the guys only gave to her on her birthday. She raised her head to squint at the five of them.
"Knock it off."
"Knock what off?" Street asked, his expression innocent in a way Chris knew he'd practiced since he was nine.
"I don't want special treatment or any of this shit," she said, shaking the bag.
"You didn't want the clothes?" Luca asked. He settled in the one armchair in the room, folding his hands in his lap. Street walked to the window and braced his back against the wall.
"Stop playing dumb. The last time someone was in the hospital, we sure as hell didn't buy Tan his favorite video game."
"Maybe this was my way of asking you to do that next time," Tan said, catching the tv remote Chris chucked at his head. Deacon moved to sit on the edge of the bed, making sure to give Chris's leg enough room.
"I am fine. I'm all patched up and I'll be cleared for duty in a few days. Now, I will eat this sandwich because it'd be a travesty to let it go to waste. But seriously, knock this off," she warned. She unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. Even though she was serious about not wanting the special treatment, it was a good sandwich.
"Chris, I should have sent someone up there with you. I got cocky because I didn't think this was that high stakes of a mission," Hondo said, his back tall and straight, hands folded behind his back as if he were talking to a superior officer.
"It wasn't that high stakes of a mission. I let the guy get the drop on me. It shouldn't have happened and it won't happen again. But it was my fault and I need you all to tone down this protective bullshit about 100%. Capiche?"
She looked each one of them in the eye until they either nodded or verbally agreed.
"Now good. Get out of my room so I can change and you can get me out of here. I think the nurse might kill me if I stay any longer," Chris said, dropping her voice for the last part.
"We've talked about antagonizing the people who keep us alive," Deacon said. Chris rolled her eyes to hide the smile tugging at her lips.
"And I've told you, I only antagonize them when they're being really annoying. He wanted to keep me overnight for observation. Can you believe that?"
"Gee, Chris, it's almost like you lost a lot of blood and he wants to make sure you're actually all right," Tan said.
"Or he thinks you're hot and wants to keep you here longer," Street added. He lost his smirk quickly when Luca whacked him upside the head.
"Just because you can't keep it in your pants, doesn't mean every man can't," Chris said airily. "Now beat it so I can change."
They filed out of the room, the mood lighter than it had been when they'd entered. Deacon pulled the curtain by the door shut behind him, shooting Chris a soft smile before he left too. She smiled back before moving her legs over the side of the bed, noting how tender the left one was. She let her toes touch the cold floor before putting her full weight down and stood up. Shifting most of the weight back to her right side, she carefully slid her shorts on and sat back down to pull her shirt on.
"I'm decent," she called, fully aware the guys hadn't moved more than a few feet from her door. Sure enough, the curtain rustled immediately and she heard Luca say something about finding her nurse. Before anyone walked back in, she allowed herself one more fond smile about her ridiculous team. She still wasn't completely sold on Street, but she'd fight like hell if anyone tried to take any of them from her.