Five Minutes to Midnight
ONE: The Incident
"You really wanna go fer round two, Doc Twinkle-toes?" Jay LaFleur teased over the thrumming pulse of the band. His lips curved steadily upward, flashing a dimpled grin. The man in front of him struggled to adjust his footing in time with the music.
Aaron jerked his head up, squinting as the beat changed and the lights dimmed. He frowned as he caught the jeer.
"You think I can't dance?" He breathed, letting his tongue scrape along his dry lips. Five minutes to midnight and the smell of booze and thick perfume hung heavy in the air.
"If ya can, ya sure as hell haven't managed it yet." Jay smirked. His head was tilted in such a way that the flush of perhaps one too many Amstel Light's crept up the side of his neck. The effect wasn't enough to make his words stick together, but his hands shook slightly as he wobbled toward the other man with his best Cheshire cat grin.
"Well, at least I'm doing better than that guy." Aaron retorted, pointing into the heart of the dance floor where one of the older x-ray techs was trying to coerce the gathering crowd into doing the Macarena.
"Damn." Jay shook his scruffy blonde hair out of his eyes and snorted loudly. "Thought that went out with the Stone Age."
Aaron nodded appreciatively. He tugged at the collar of his black tuxedo, undoing the bow tie so that it hung limply across his neck. He was hot and itchy enough as it was.
"So, where's yer girl?" Jay changed the subject, noticing for the first time that Aaron, like himself, was alone.
"Oh, Ellie went to check up on Caitlyn, she's been hounding the babysitter all night." He rolled his eyes and accepted a tall glass of Laurent-Perrier from a female server as she passed.
"You know how she is."
"Excuse me. Could I have your attention everyone?" A voice cut through the air as the music dulled. Dr. Marc Silverman beamed down at the restless gathering of St. Sebastian's Hospital employees and their spouses.
"I just wanted to interrupt for a few moments to..." The retired emergency physician winced as the microphone squawked. The sound startled those who had been standing near the speakers that hung around the ballroom of the Lynford Hotel.
"Sorry." He tapped the microphone with his index finger, testing it. "Right, well, as I was saying I just wanted to thank all of you for coming out here tonight to celebrate St. Sebastian's 20th annual Gala on this wonderful New Year's Eve." He launched into his speech, addressing all the wonderful things that the hospital had accomplished over the past twelve months.
Aaron yawned, sipping the bubbly drink in his hand. He enjoyed the way it made his lips pucker. The alcohol left him feeling content as he made his rounds across the ballroom, admiring the decor and making small talk with those he knew. He sighed and allowed the sensation of mild inebriation to wash over him. Tomorrow, the most strenuous thing he would have to do was cook a turkey with his wife and spend some quality time with his family. The thought made his heart swell.
The clicking of heels on the polished floor shook him from his tired reverie. He turned his head, glancing over his shoulder.
"Hey." His face lit up as he recognized the newcomer. His eyes wandering over the sleek black cocktail dress she had hurriedly slipped into.
"He's been going nuts without you, you know," he grinned, teasingly.
Dr. Claire Shephard rolled her eyes and regarded her cousin with a serious, considering look. Her curly brown hair appeared slightly out of place from being pinned up in a surgical cap since mid-morning, she swat at it with her left hand, doing her best to arrange the stray curls behind her ears.
"Sorry, surgery ran late. Six car pileup on the interstate. Who did you bribe to get the night off anyway?" She complained.
"It's called seniority." Aaron smirked. "And I put in for it last January first after I worked straight through Christmas and New Year's. Ellie was not a happy camper."
"I remember that. Didn't she make you sleep in the den for a week?" Claire smiled, but wasn't entirely focused on the conversation. Her pale green eyes drifted toward the heart of the crowd.
"More like a month." Aaron groaned and leaned over to give her a quick peck on the cheek in greeting. "I had a hard enough time explaining to Caitlyn why daddy was 'playing camp out' in the basement."
His eyes caught what she was looking for. "Jay's over by the bar," he pointed. "Don't worry, I think he might still be sober enough to get a decent dance out of."
"He'd better, or he'll be the one sleeping in the den." Claire shook her head and sauntered off in Jay's direction.
The music dulled for a moment as Marc Silverman announced that it was 'three minutes to midnight' as he cued the band to take them in to one last song before the countdown.
"Did I miss anything?"
Aaron felt a slender hand slip into his. Their fingers interlocked and he spun around, pulling his wife against him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rest his head on her shoulder. "Just Claire wondering if Jay's gonna actually remember New Year's in the morning. How's our girl doing?"
Ellie sighed, settling into her husband's embrace."Fell asleep about an hour ago. Insisted on trying to wait up to 'see the New Year'." Her crimson evening gown flowed down over her stilettos as Aaron guided her toward the dance floor. She could feel him grin into the crook of her neck.
"See the New Year huh? I used to try to do that when I was her age. Never quite made it until I was eight."
"What did you see?" Ellie reached up to re-tie his bowtie.
He ran his hand under the stubbled ridge of his jaw, thoughtfully.
"Not a damn thing. My neighbors weren't really all that in to fireworks so I didn't even get to see that much. After that I started considering the whole thing a big waste of time. Nothing special about it in the slightest."
"Of course there is," she corrected him, letting him tuck a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear. "It marks the dawn of something new and exciting. Good friends and second chances. Auld Lang Syne."
"And turkey with a hyperactive six year old?" He asked playfully.
"That too," she agreed. "Especially when her dad doesn't have to spend it in the hospital."
"Not even turning on my iphone," he agreed. "So you have no worries about that."
"Hey Doc, gonna ramp it up a bit or what?" Jay interrupted the slow rhythm their bodies had created with the music, emitting an exuberant shout as he bobbed his head.
"You're bordering on being worse than Macarena guy, LaFleur. Maybe you should find him some coffee, Claire." Aaron did his best to suppress a grin as he craned his neck toward her.
Claire pulled her phone from her purse and proceeded to film the odd, uncoordinated movements Jay was making to the slow music.
"I could, but I'd rather give him something to watch at dinner tomorrow night."
"As long as he keeps it G rated," Ellie interjected, snickering. "Wow, I've never seen him this..."
"Drunk?" Aaron offered bluntly. "Neither have I. All the better to rub it in later."
"Alright, everyone." Marc cut in over the music which was dying fast. "Looks like we're on our last 30 seconds of 2039!" A screen lit up behind him flashing a huge 30 in thick black script. 29...28...27...
"Guess this is it." Aaron glanced out the window. It was a beautiful, clear night. Hopefully there would be fireworks.
"Excited for 'nothing special' again?" Ellie teased.
...16...15...14...
"Oh I'm excited for something," he spoke in a way that made his eyes twinkle.
...12...11...10...
"And what might that be, Dr. Austen?" She smirked.
The numbers on the screen turned to red. ...9...8...7...
"You still with me, Jay?" Claire chided him as she settled into his unsuspecting arms.
...6...5...4...
"Missed you," Jay admitted with a goofy drunken grin. Somehow she knew his words meant far more than he was letting on.
...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!
The band burst into a course of Auld Lang Syne, fireworks cracked in the distance and a brilliant white flash filled the whole of the Lynford ball room. The surge was enough to cut the power and suddenly everything was happening at once. The music died, someone cried out, someone else reset the breaker and the room was bathed in caustic fluorescent light.
"What the..." Aaron blinked pulling out of the kiss he was sharing with Ellie. "Was that lightening?"
"I don't know, but it tripped the power." Claire said, striding up to them with Jay in tow.
"You did say that nothing exciting..." Ellie started.
"Not exactly what I had in mind," he cut her off. "Even as a kid."
"Help! I need help!" A voice hollered in the distance. In the confusion, Aaron was the only one who was paying enough attention to notice.
He glanced toward the lobby.
"Stay here," he whispered to Ellie who nodded as he broke off into a run.
"What's going on?" He asked, squinting as he emerged into the brightly light foyer. The harsh fluorescent lights reflected against the slate tiles, momentarily blinding him. Aaron struggled to get his bearings. He drew in several shallow breaths feeling winded and a little drunk. He forced himself to focus on the Lynford employee who had started to scream again.
Aaron pressed a gentle hand against her shoulder. She gasped when she saw him, rambling something in a language he couldn't quite recognize.
"I'm a doctor, can I help you?" he spoke slowly, feigning his best at patience.
The older lady trembled and pointed. He followed her shaking fingers, not noticing the splatter of blood on her uniform. The dark stain on the floor was impossible to miss.
His breath caught in his throat as he took a hesitant step forward, eyebrows knitting together in disbelief. Four bodies were tossed in an undignified heap in the lobby of the Lynford Hotel.
"They just...appeared...out of..." she babbled in broken English, her bottom lip trembling in such a way that it threatened to form a permanent crease across her cheeks.
"Hey, it's alright. I..." his mouth closed and he glanced at the bodies again. Was it really? People didn't usually just pop out of thin air, especially not these people. Aaron's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene in front of him. There was blood everywhere.
"Hey Doc, Rockstar in there is getn' ready to...what the fuck?" He turned, meeting Jay's stormy blue eyes with a hard look.
"I don't know." Aaron croaked. "Just get Claire, there's blood and lots of it." He shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and tossed it onto the polished floor.
"Jay!" he frowned, craning his neck to catch the other man's stunned gaze. He was still trying to shake the feeling himself.
"Get Sparks, right." Jay nodded, tearing his eyes away long enough to force himself to turn around and retreat back toward the main ballroom. He froze again a second later and glanced over his shoulder. His scruffy blonde hair was cut so it hung just above his collar making the back of his neck prickle with unease.
"Ma?" he mouthed dumbly, his voice so low it could barely be considered a sound at all.
"Jay, get Claire! We have to help them." Aaron erupted, his knees buckled against the hard floor as he crouched over Juliet.
"Hey, hey. Are you alright? I'm a doctor." It was a stupid question but he needed to establish some level of consciousness. His body moved on its own accord without too much instruction from his brain, which was still deadened with shock.
"Juliet?" Aaron pressed against her breastbone with a large knuckled fist. She moaned in pain as he rotated it slightly, rocking it back and forth on the flat plane of her chest in an attempt to rouse her. He hadn't looked at the others yet, but he prayed to god they weren't in as bad a shape as she was. There was blood everywhere.
"Come on," he breathed, feeling her fingers jump against the hand that was trying to take her pulse. He bit his lip and pinched the large muscle curving into her shoulder blade, electing a louder yelp of protest. She was responding to pain.
"Okay. That's good. We're gonna get you some help." He stammered, doubting she was actually alert enough to hear what he was saying. He managed to coax the terrified hotel employee into fetching him the first-aid kit that was hanging on the wall behind the reception desk. He rifled through it for a pair of trauma shares.
Juliet was bleeding internally. Aaron grimily noted the mottled bruising pattern stretching across her abdomen as he cut away her muddy, blood-soaked shirt, exposing her from neck to waist. Her cracked ribs offered no resistance as he ran his hands down her side, palpating her abdomen and frowning as her fingers curled. He gently slid his hands lower to check her pelvis when something crashed into him ―hard.
"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!" Sawyer screamed. Awake and wide-eyed he knocked Aaron headlong onto the hard tile using the full force of his body. His nostrils flared, the raw force of the blow making him gasp and drive his fist deeper into Aaron's stomach in recoil. The younger man winced, feeling his throat constrict from the intensity of the pain.
Sawyer snarled using his weight to press the young doctor harder against the floor. "What the fuck are you doing to her?" He spat, his eyes dead with an uncontrollable rage.
"Aaron!" Someone cried and the next thing Aaron knew the larger man was being pulled off of him by Jay who was grunting and manhandling the stranger through the large glass lobby doors into the crisp January night.
"Hell yeah!" Jay let the rush of adrenaline course though his body, overriding the depressive effects of the alcohol he had consumed in the past few hours. Sawyer's thrashing body bucked against him in a motion of pure fury, doing everything could to evade the solid form that was forcing him back. He collided with the building's abrasive brick exterior.
Sawyer's eyes glowed with a rage that his body wasn't quite able to sustain. He was pinned and everything was fuzzy as though he brain could not work through what was going on…he just needed to get to Juliet.
"Juliet." He let out a mournful whimper that almost sounded inhuman. It made Jay startle and ease off slightly, watching the man pitch forward, knees buckling as the will to fight evaporated from him into the chilly January air.
"Hey." He pulled the man back up, bracing him between the wall and his own body. Jay ran his hands along the tattered jumpsuit, memorizing how it felt, how it made him feel; just as grubby as the other man looked. His face was riddled with cuts and bruises, some far worse than others. Sawyer breathed heavily, starting to shiver as he no longer possessed the stamina to think and remain vertical at the same time.
The tiny shift in his position was enough to make Jay's expression harden as it exposed the crumpled stitching of the man's chest pocket into the silver moonlight.
'LaFleur. Head of Security.'
"Son of a bitch," he huffed, bracing himself on either side of his... Dad.
It confirmed what his gut was already telling him, but the realization made it no less bizarre. That was the only way he could describe it... bizarre. Jay stared ahead, fixing his tired eyes into his Father's glassy blue ones. He was met with an unfocused gaze.
"If I let you up, you gonna keep it cool?" He grunted in his most threatening authoritative voice.
As a senior field agent for the Los Angeles Counterintelligence Division of the FBI Jay LaFleur was used to using intimidation to accomplish what needed to be done, but tonight he was just a man, a man trying to spend a quiet New Year's Eve in the company of his fiancé and some good friends.
Fireworks cracked in the distance resulting in a high pitched screech as red and gold sparks zigzagged through the sky before bursting with a loud pop. A million tiny bombs raining over them as they exploded into whirls of brilliant colour. Variations of blues and greens and purples, yellows, oranges, and silver illuminated the skyline in a subdued glow.
The more pronounced the sounds became the more Sawyer shook. To him it may as well have been a bomb...over and over as he watched Juliet fall in his mind's eye. Over and over that terrified look burned straight through to his bones. How could he have ever let go? He killed her.
Jay fixed him with a critical stare, recognizing the signs of shock almost immediately. He wasn't shivering from the cold. His body was shutting down; trapped in the world his mind was creating for him and filtering out everything else completely.
"You ain't gonna talk to me huh?" He tried to keep his tone light despite the circumstances. The first-aid training he did have, what he bothered to pay attention to, told him that he had to do something to rectify the situation. 'Critical intervention' the damn textbook had called it back at the academy. Relax the body and the mind will follow. Sighing, Jay slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and slid it over the other man's shoulders, thankful that Sawyer was about as pliable as a rag doll. Right now the best he could do was focus on what he could treat. He could get the man somewhere warm and hope one of the two docs would be around to snap him out of it.
"Juliet." Sawyer breathed again as his head swung from side to side, searching for her in the darkness.
"She's in good hands, Chief." Jay assured, barely keeping his own voice from cracking. The pleasant woozy feeling brought about by the alcohol was starting to return at full force and it took all of his concentration to lead the other man, by the elbow, down the walkway and across the parking lot to Aaron's spacious Cadillac SUV.
The crisp white dress shirt he had been wearing was bloody and the top button that did up his collar was missing. The fourth button down snapped off as he half guided, half carried his Father into the passenger side of the vehicle.
"That's better, ain't it?" He asked. He redirected the heating vents and propped the man up. Through the windshield he watched an ambulance pull into the parking lot, lights and sirens blazing.
Inside the Lynford Hotel, Aaron lay flat on his back waiting for the paralyzing pain in his chest to subside. He let the air rush into his lungs and willed himself to force the pain to the back of his mind.
"Aaron, what..." Claire was staring down at him, her hands gently probing his chest.
"I don't know," He wheezed, biting back a stuttering breath as he sat up. "There was a scream and they just appeared here."
Ellie did her best to mask the look of worry on her face as she helped her husband to his feet.
"That was..." she paused, glancing toward the main doors where Jay had promptly exited.
"His Dad." Aaron conformed, following her gaze. His expression hardened. "Juliet's in rough shape. Possible C-Spine. Your ballgame, Claire. EMS is on the way. Jack and Kate are out, but seem fine from what I can tell they..."
"Stop!" Dr. Claire Shephard had turned several shades whiter. "You're talking about them like they're actually here."
"They are." Aaron straightened, glancing at Juliet with renewed urgency. "I don't understand this either," he sighed, too full of adrenaline to let himself doubt the situation. "We'll get to the bottom of this, but right now we've got to help them."
She gave him an apprehensive nod, settling on the floor to examine Juliet's head and neck while Aaron shifted over to where Jack and Kate were still lying unconscious.
"Jack likely has a concussion, but that's about it." He announced, suddenly thankful that the band had resumed playing and no one else had bothered to leave the main ballroom.
"Kate's looks OK. Just knocked out." His head turned in the direction of the music.
"Ellie, can you pass me my jacket?" Aaron pointed to a spot on the floor as he started to maneuver Jack out of the blood soaked coveralls.
"What are you doing?" She wearily deposited the garment in his lap.
Aaron glanced up at her.
"Hold him up." He said in his most clinical tone, transferring Jack's weight against Ellie's crouching form.
"Can't explain this," he offered.
Jack had had been stripped down to a faded blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Aaron worked the man's arms through his black tuxedo jacket. "So we'll just say they had a little too much to drink."
"Aaron, her injuries wouldn't even come close to fitting in with that." Claire asserted in a shaky voice.
"She needs surgery. We'll come up with something..." he assured, but stopped talking at the sight of the two paramedics wheeling a stretcher in through the wide glass entrance way.
"Hey, Dr. A. What have ya got for us?" The older of the two waved.
Aaron tilted his head in recognition. "Good to see you, Mike. Suspected C-Spine after a fall, responsive to pain only with a flail chest and a possible ruptured spleen. Definite internal bleeding. Get her collared up on a spinal and get some fluids running along with oxygen by BVM at a flow rate of 15 LPM to try and get her O2 saturation up. She needs to be intubated, but I don't want to do it out here if I don't have to."
Mike, a slightly balding, portly man nodded, sending his partner back to the ambulance to fetch an oxygen tank and a spine board while Aaron helped hook up a small, pocket-sized monitor to her chest.
"This is Dr. Claire Shephard. Spinal surgeon." He motioned to his cousin. "She's gonna be calling the shots on this one tonight."
Claire shot him a lethal look.
"I've been drinking." Aaron explained calmly.
"I know this is hard, but I need you to do this for Jay, Claire." He told her gently. "You got this."
"Alright." She agreed, giving Juliet an apprehensive once over as Aaron and the two paramedics worked on rolling her onto the spinal board which was then lifted onto a stretcher. She took a deep, shaky breath and gripped one of the metal rails on the stretcher, nodding to the shorter of the two paramedics. He appeared to shrug off her apprehension.
"St. Sebastian's?" he asked.
"Yes. Call ahead and tell them we need the OR prepped and a surgical team standing by."
Her heart started to slow as the glass doors opened and they guided the stretcher into the cool January night.
Aaron watched them leave with a puzzled expression that he didn't seem to leave his face as he turned back to his wife, glancing briefly at the two bodies that still lay crumpled at his feet.
"Help me get'em up," he said, frowning. It occurred to him at that moment that this night couldn't possibly get any stranger.