Thank you guys for your reviews, I greatly, greatly appreciate them. Especially since this is the only one of two Jericho stories on here (yay! I'm not alone anymore!). Anyways, you guys rock, and thank you so much to my beta, LoneTread. I need help fixing this now more than ever, since my spell check stopped working.
It was kinda funny...I was half-expecting Jake to have a bullet wound in his shoulder in last week's episode...goes to show how overactive my imagination is.
Disclaimer: Not mine, yeah right, I wish...just the ideas are mine.
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Chapter 2: Complicated
Only when she was finished cleaning Jake's shoulder did she pull away from him. Her heart pounded as she looked him over carefully. His face was pale, and his eyes were still closed. She took the opportunity to tape a temporary bandage over the wound, deciding it was best if she didn't meet his eyes.
Jake finally looked at her only to find that she was avoiding his gaze, and he released the breath he'd been holding in anticipation. He was startled, confused by her actions, but didn't know how to voice it. After everything they'd been through – after everything that had changed, he had never expected her to kiss him again. Especially not when she was engaged.
Emily took a shaky breath. "Uh, well…I'm going to go…check on the deputies," she stammered, turning away from him quickly to hurry over to the still men. Jake watched after her silently, still confused as hell.
Bonnie looked between the two for a moment, stunned. She'd seen Emily with her fiancé for three years – they were like the perfect couple. They had always seemed happy, and Emily had never mentioned anything being wrong. But Jake comes home for two days, and everything changes.
Jake met her gaze, and she smiled wryly and shook her head. He smiled back, and let out a slow sigh in an attempt to ease the pain. Bonnie approached him cautiously, an uneasy look on her face. Jake signed to her that he was okay, but the motion sent shots of pain through his arm.
Emily looked up at his poorly-suppressed gasp of pain. "Jake?"
"I'm fine," he muttered through clenched teeth. Bonnie placed her hand on his forehead gently, not liking the heat radiating from his skin.
She turned to Emily quickly. "He's warm," she murmured softly, not even bothering with sign language.
Jake took her hand gently. When she turned to look at him, he spoke clearly, with a soft smile in his eyes. "It's just because I'm tired...treating it took some energy," he reassured her. "It's okay." He looked over at Jim. "Can you try the radio, see if you can get through to my brother or dad? It should be over on the shelf."
The deputy nodded silently and did as he was asked. After a few failed attempts, the staticky voice of Eric came through. Emily breathed a silent sigh of relief: there may be help coming now, after all. "Eric? Can you hear me? This is Jimmy!"
"Jimmy…where…you…what…going on?" His sentence was fragmented by the crackling of the sound waves, but they all got the gist of what he had been asking.
"I'm at the Richmond Ranch, with Bill, Emily, Bonnie and Jake. Is it still storming?"
"Yeah," Eric responded with a sigh. "And...doesn't...signs...stopping...soon."
Jake cursed under his breath, the words inaudible to everyone but Emily. She took his hand and squeezed it gently. "We have to find some way to get someone over here. He needs to get to the medical center as soon as possible," she urged, wishing they had more bandages so that she could rewrap his wound.
Jimmy nodded. "Eric? Eric, is there any way that you can get someone over here? We need to get to the medical center as soon as possible."
The static was beginning to clear up enough for them to hear the entire sentence, and Eric's question was finally fully clear. "Who's hurt? What happened?"
Jim looked between Emily and Jake, unsure who to hand the radio to. Emily reached out for it quickly, not wanting to panic Eric with the faint airiness to his brother's voice. "Eric, we had a run-in with some escaped prisoners here. There was a shootout. Both of the prisoners are dead…but Eric, Jake was hit in the shoulder," she murmured, her voice as soothing as possible. She knew how badly he would react to hearing that his kid brother had gotten himself shot, again – this time with no available help.
She could almost hear the stream of curses that would probably be the reason their parents would find out. "How bad, Em?"
Jake reached for the radio with his good hand, but Emily jerked it out of his reach. "He's still able to try to act like he's not hurt, but it's pretty bad, Eric. He's losing a lot of blood fast, and there's nothing down here to treat him with. He's running out of time."
"Em, I'm fine! There's no point in worrying him when there's nothing they can do anyway! Not until the rain stops!"
"Jake, we have to get you to the hospital before you bleed to death!" she snapped, frustration boiling over. "I'm not going to just sit by and let you die!"
Jake sighed heavily, his head dropping a few inches, until the action pulled against his shoulder and sent shards of pain through his arm. "I'll survive until the rain stops," he murmured, attempting to comfort her enough to keep his family from panicking. "Tell them to just come over as soon as it's clear. I don't want anyone to die because of me."
His last statement was what finally got through to her; he was right. Anyone who got caught in the rain was in serious risk of radiation poisoning. Most likely, at least half of Jake's family would be subjecting themselves to that for their youngest. He wouldn't get through losing them even if he did get through the physical injury. She sighed, and nodded to Jake reluctantly. "Eric?" she murmured into the radio, waiting for his response before continuing. "You guys just sit tight and wait until the rain stops. After it does, get over to the clinic as soon as possible with April. We'll get him there as fast as possible."
"Emily, this is April," a gentle but firm voice responded once she was finished. "Keep him awake at all costs, okay? And put pressure on the wound. Is he bleeding from the back of his shoulder?"
Emily eased Jake forward slightly, noting the lack of an exit wound. "No," she replied.
"Okay, well, all we can really do is pray that the rain stops soon – the bullet's lodged somewhere in his shoulder. So just…make sure he moves it as little as possible, and keep him awake, okay? If anything changes, let me know immediately."
"Will do," Emily responded, fighting back tears of frustration. "Thanks, April." As she released the button, a single tear slid down her cheek.
Jake looked up at her as she tossed the radio onto a pile of cattle blankets. "I'll be okay, Em. I promise," he assured, wiping away the tear tenderly with his thumb. "I can stay awake until the rain stops."
Jimmy stepped up next to Emily, about to voice a thought, when a loud thud resonated through the cellar. Jake tensed, startled, and stumbled to his feet. Bonnie and Emily supported him as the three of them backed away from the stairwell, while Jim and Bill drew their guns and silently dared the stranger to come downstairs.
"What is it?" Bonnie questioned, worried by the sudden movements of the others.
"Someone's upstairs," Jake explained, signing as well as he could with one hand. Emily pulled him back even farther when the basement door opened. A figure pounded down the stairs.
"Stanley!" Bonnie cried happily. The elder Richmond moved to hug his sister, not noticing Jake's injury—stark against the pale tone of his bare skin—through his relief.
"Oh, thank—"
"Stanley, no!" Jake snapped quickly. Emily pulled Bonnie back hastily. "The rain may be radioactive."
"What? Jake, what – oh, my God, what the hell happened?" he cried, finally noticing his best friend's state. "I'm guessing it has something to do with the patrol car and two dead deputies outside?"
Jake turned back to look at Emily and nearly lost his balance. Dizziness took over for a minute, and Emily had to grip his good arm to keep him upright.
"Okay, let's get you back on the stairs. Easy…" she coached, guiding him to sit on the step. She turned to Stanley. "Bonnie and I were held up by two prisoners that killed the sheriff and tied up Jim and Bill in the trunk. One of them had a gun to Bonnie and I had a gun on him. I didn't know the other one was about to shoot me, until Jake appeared and killed him. He tried to shoot Jake, and I shot and killed him. Jake was hit while he was trying to run," she explained quickly, while placing her hand gently on Jake's forehead to make sure he didn't develop any more of a fever. "We have to radio April…. You may have radiation poisoning."
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Again, I can't thank my beta, LoneTread, enough for all the help!!
