Through a heavy fog, Renzulli opened his eyes, trying to find the face in front of him fighting to be acknowledged. He couldn't remember how he came to that moment, that situation in which he found himself. Looking up from the ground (the street?) his vision swam in and out creating the perfect internal storm of nausea and confusion.
"Sarge!" Blinking tightly in futile effort to better hear, Renzulli tried to listen as best he could.
Squeezing his eyes shut seemed effortless. It seemed natural. They needed to be closed. But then, what was that incessant noise, no cacophony plaguing his senses?
"Please! Sarge!" Opening his eyes a bit wider, a deeper sense of need calling to him beyond his consciousness. He could see a face. Did he know this person? Why were they bloodied? His instinct as a first responder overruled his need for sleep.
"Sarge, oh man, oh man, oh my – Sarge! Thank God! Hey! Can you hear me?" He definitely knew that face. Jamie
"Yeah, man. I'm okay, I'll be all right – just give me a minute," Renzulli managed to sputter.
"No! Now! We need to get out of here, Sarge! NOW." The urgency, the requirement in his partners voice had him stumbling to his feet, trying with all of his might to ignore the dizziness that hit him as he stood. Although it felt as though he was doing what was needed of him, Renzulli began to falter. "J – Jamie, Jamie, wait. I don't thin -" and his world began to darken.
Jamie would not let his partner, a father, a husband, a good man be left behind. Slinging his arm around his partners body, Jamie awkwardly lifted the heavier man onto his feet. "We're getting out of here."
As the youngest Reagan hoisted him onto his feet, put his arms over his shoulder, and guided him away, Renzulli caught a glimpse of the wreckage that they had just walked away from.
It didn't look possible. It just couldn't be. Their squad car clinked and moaned in an implausible wreck just feet away, the growing distance not doing a thing for the retched smell of gas leaking from the accident. The shock of the site had Renzulli screeching to his senses, beginning to writhe in Jamie's arms, forcing the two to stumble to the sidewalk.
"Stay here," Jamie firmly commanded of his superior. Getting back on his feet, Jamie started back towards the wreckage.
"HARVARD! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"The suspect, sir! He's still in the car!" Jamie's distant voice called out to his partner.
"Shit!" Renzulli scrambled for his shoulder radio. What was the code again? Damn! His mind faltered as he tried to remember the procedure. "Uhh- dispatch, this is Sgt. Anthony Renzulli. Officer Jamie Reagan and I were involved in a collision with the suspect resulting from the chase. Come in, over!"
"Sgt. Renzulli, this is dispatch, come in with your location, over," the infuriatingly calm voice responded.
"Yes, uhh – we're at, ah. We're in South Morningside Heights – I think around West 113th. Send a couple buses, dispatch the local ladder – it smells of gas!"
Jamie had left his view more than two minutes ago, a span of time which at any other moment wouldn't have meant more than a blink, but now, now it felt like forever.
"REAGAN!" The panic is his voice shoved down to his gut, Renzulli tried to stand to get a better view of the situation. "REAGAN! GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE NOW!" Flames had begun to smolder and crackle of the opposite side of the wreckage. He could hear minor ignitions but had zero viability of his partner, or anything else helpful for that matter.
Finally at the sound of sirens, both the familiar NYPD and the added FDNY, Jamie's face peered past the flames of the wreck. It was scrunched up in some emotion or gesture, but what, Renzulli could not clearly detect.
"Reagan?!"
Jamie began his slow return back into visibility, and Renzulli could finally see what the expression on his face was; pissed. Dragging along with him, Jamie had the surprisingly handcuffed suspect resisting him every step of the way.
"Fuck off, man! I have my rights!" the simple criminal protested.
"Your rights are to shut the hell up, because anything else you're dumb enough to say can be used against you in a court of law. You probably need an attorney to do your dumb-ass talking for you, and if you can't afford one we're going to give you the shittiest lawyer 50 bucks and a free-from-traffic-ticket-pass can buy. You can shut the hell up at anytime you please, starting now. Understand?!" The furious Jamie tossed the perp into the arms of a smiling EMT and sat beside his partner, who had found the ground once again.
With one final ignition, the cars were surrounded by the boys in red, and the two police officers were taken to a nearby ambulance, separately from their collar.
"Can you believe that?!" Jamie breathlessly asked, wiping a smear of blood from his brow.
"No! I can't believe that. I can't believe you! Running back in there, freakin' Reagans, man," Renzulli vented.
"What? Oh, yeah, I guess – but no. The perp! When I pulled him out of the car, the son of a bitch resisted, tried to make a run for it," Jamie winced as alcohol was applied to his wound.
"How did you get him out of it then? The cuffs? The arrest?" Renzulli baffled.
"Freakin' Reagan, Sarge," Jamie replied, with a wily half smile.
"Heh, yeah – Reagans... I think I -" was all that Renzulli was able to get out before he sicked out of the back of the ambulance, a result of the likely concussion he was suffering from after the wreck.
"Oh man," Jamie leaned away from the Sgt. and his evacuating stomach. "Actually, can I ride with the perp?" he joked, making his partner laugh through the pain.
"Freakin' Reagans."
