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ALTERNATE ENDING NUMBER ONE.
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Sam Egan had been right. The moment he pressed down on that trigger, blasting a reddening hole in Ryan's coat, not even vigilant rage could keep the Wesson drawing a bead on him.
"NO!"
He should have shot. If he'd been thinking at all, he knew that he should have let Kevin lie where he fell, taken up pursuit on foot, and fired a debilitating but non-lethal bullet to drop the man in his place. But none of that happened. He couldn't. From the moment his anger-widened eyes saw his partner buckle with the force of a mac truck, crumpling at the knees, Javier's gun had dropped forgotten on the cement floor.
He didn't register Egan getting away, though a sharp female call of "Police, freeze," followed by two shots ringing out and a com radio's chirp of "We've got 'im," all told him that Egan wouldn't be getting away this time. He didn't even think of it until much later.
Belting over within the same millisecond, Javier dropped to his knees in time to catch his partner before his head could hit the cement. His hand fumbled wildly for his own radio, shaking so badly that he was surprised that it functioned at all. "Ten one-oh-eight, ten one-oh-eight, we have an officer down, repeat, ten one-oh-eight, officer down, badge four-one-four-three-six…" His throat constricted just from having to recite his partner's identification number, and before the com even hit the ground, he was already tearing off his jacket, balling it up and pressing the lining against the fresh black wound. God, why hadn't they thought to vest up; they'd been too arrogant…
Ryan hissed in a weak breath. "Agh…"
"I gotta do it, man, I'm sorry, you're bleedin' pretty damn bad…"
"Huh." Even in his state of half-consciousness, Kevin hadn't lost his sarcasm. "So…that's what…that was…"
Javier disguised his mockable urge to say Save your strength with a, "Yeah, yeah, shut up." Damn it, his jacket was really soaking…where the hell was the help?
"Oh, my God…" Javier didn't have to look up to know that that was Beckett's voice. He also didn't have to even glance to know she'd run over and was dropping to her knees beside both of them. With Javier applying pressure to the wound, she knelt behind Ryan and helped prop up his head. "When did - ?"
"'Bout a minute ago, but he's bleedin' out bad…"
Beckett was the first to register that Ryan's focus was wavering. He'd lost too much blood. "Ryan! Don't do this, Ryan, you stay awake, you stay with me - that's an order, you got that?"
Very weakly, Kevin conjured up a grin. "Hey…it's Katie…showed up for this? …Coulda seen it in reruns."
Beckett only smiled at him, and even that was an extraordinary fake. Because in her friend's ice blue eyes, she was watching her mother fade away again. Unable to hold the façade, she looked across at Javier. "You radioed?"
"Yeah, immediately, they should be on their way."
"They should be here, dammit. We got the guy with uniforms around the corner."
"Good. Hope the bastard rots after Riker's is through with 'im."
"You did everything you could, Esposi - "
"No," he said sharply, making eye contact with her for the first time. "Don't go there. Don't you start givin' me that when you don't know what I did or didn't do. I'm the reason he - "
At that moment, he felt warm blood soak through to his hand, and, cursing under his breath, he frantically rearranged his ruined jacket, trying to find a spot that could still absorb. By the time he'd realized that there wasn't one to be found, Beckett had removed her own, and was shoving it into his hands. He replaced it in no time, just as the blaring blue-and-red strobe filled the parking garage, punctuated by the bleating of a formerly distant siren.
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So yeah, that was obviously the expected outcome; I'm sorry Ryan! xD Love reviews. ^^
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