See Disclaimer in Part One
Part Three
Elaine had never thought about just how much the paramedics had to go through when treating patients in a moving vehicle, but she was not about to let go of Gary's wound either, forcing the poor medic to work around her. She released her death grip only once, to apply another wad of bandaging material to sop up the blood still pouring out of Gary's neck and shoulder, but she'd immediately reapplied the pressure - leaving the medic free to get an I.V. started and to communicate with the hospital.
Within minutes she felt the ambulance thump up and over a hump, more like a speed bump, the squeal of tortured heavy-duty breaks reverberating through the treatment bay. Just as the forward motion stopped, the loading doors flew open and no less than two orderlies, at least one doctor, noticed by the wild scrubs he was wearing, and two female staff members pulled the gurney, and Elaine along with it, out of the bay and into the Emergency Room. They passed quickly through the entranceway into a treatment room. Before Elaine could say anything, one of the nurses was there at her side.
"Doctor, you can let go now, we've got him." Elaine stared at the woman, a handsome woman with coffee-colored skin and the kindest, greenest eyes she'd ever seen. "Doctor Walker, we can handle Gary from here, you need to let go, sugar."
Elaine nodded, knowing the woman was right but it took a great deal of effort to remove her hand from the improvised bandaging, watching as the soft-spoken nurse took her place. Another woman, a petite blonde of surprising strength, gently maneuvered her out of the way, out of the treatment room and into a small, private waiting room just next door. "You can wait in here, I'll inform admitting where you are, we'll take good care of the Lieutenant."
Outside the treatment room, the commotion that was business as usual in a busy trauma center hit Elaine like a brick wall. She'd been so focused on Gary she hadn't heard anything beyond her immediate physical surroundings. The next few minutes passed in a blur as a nice, young woman in civilian clothes came by and asked a few questions to put in Gary's medical file. Then she was left alone, until Gary's commanding officer, Raymond Reynosa, came through, accompanied by one of the LAPD Chaplains. Elaine barely heard their words of comfort or reassurances, her heart and her mind were focused on Gary, willing him to be all right.
Word of Lieutenant Walker's shooting spread like wildfire through the Law Enforcement community and it wasn't long before LAPD officers of every stripe and rank started arriving at UCLA Medical Center to donate blood. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office and a handful of CHiP officers followed them; most were sent back outside to wait for the blood mobile but not all of them.
One man, fairly tall, muscular, with short, dark auburn hair and deep blue eyes came in and stepped up to the nurse's station. The nurse, taking in his dark uniform all the way down to his combat boots, was about to send him back outside when he identified himself and was sent in a different direction. He followed the nurse's directive, walking past the main waiting room, to a smaller more private waiting room. He stopped in the doorway for just a moment, then walked in. Two of the three people in the room, both men, looked up. The third, a woman, did not. She was far too immersed in her own grief to notice.
He looked at the man on the left, the one with the insignia of a police commander on his dark blue uniform and greeted him with a terse word. "Sir." The commander nodded back. The other man, also in LAPD blues, but with the stripes of a Sergeant on his sleeves and a couple of silver crosses on his collar, warranted a slightly warmer greeting. "Father Mike." He then focused all of his attention on the seated woman.
Her clothes were covered in blood, the blood of his fellow law enforcement officer, but she didn't seem to care. He squatted down in front of her, reached out and touched her knees to get her attention. When she looked up, her blue eyes were swimming in unshed tears and he felt the first fission of fear touch his heart since hearing of the shooting. "Elaine … I came as soon as I could."
Doctor Elaine Donovan Walker launched herself at him and Lieutenant Christopher Padraig Donovan, LAPD SWAT, found himself rocketing to his feet and holding onto his sister like her life depended on the physical strength of their contact. "Chrisss…" She managed to get his name out, but then the tears she had been holding back came flooding out. He managed to turn around to signal the commander and sergeant to leave them alone, only to see the Padre was already shoo'ing Gary Walker's commander out of the room.
"Hey, shush, Elaine, shush…. Everything will be all right." This was a new, and somewhat frightening, position Chris found himself in. Elaine had always been the strong one, the one who never cried, or broke down or lost her temper and yet, here she was, bawling as if her husband… "Elaine… Gary's not--"
"No!" Her head came up off his shoulder so fast that her skull connected with his jaw, making his teeth clack together. "No, he's alive … but--" she took in a shuddering breath, "--Chris, he's hurt. Really hurt. There was no exit wound and too much blood loss and, and…" She didn't finish. He wouldn't let her; he just laid his hand on her head and tucked it under his chin.
"Elaine, you know Gary's too damn ornery to just die … He'll be okay. You have to believe that." He felt her nod and slowly maneuvered his sister to sit back down in the seat and sat right next to her. "Yup, no way Gary's going to let some punk-ass, two-bit skank of a thief be the end of him, no way. I bet he's in there telling the doctors and staff to slap a bandage on him and get him out of here."
His sister responded just the way he had hoped she would, she chuckled. "Chris, that's a terrible thing to say about your brother-in-law."
"Maybe, but it's true. Gary's too damn stubborn to let some street punk put him down."
"You are a terrible liar." Elaine said, her voice full of raw emotion.
"Me? A liar? Sis, would I lie to you? My own flesh and blood?"
"No -- Maybe. I don't know." Her eyes filled with tears again and she leaned her head on Chris's shoulder even as he wrapped his arm across her upper back and pulled her in close. He would stay with her until someone came and told them how Gary was doing and to hell with what his team was supposedly doing at this very minute. Over on the other side of town. Without him. Family, even those only related through marriage and the badge, came first.
"Sis, I know you shot the son of a bitch ... where did you hit him?" Chris said, watching his sister carefully.
"Abdomen." Elaine replied. The tears had stopped for the moment but that was no guarantee that they wouldn't start again and no wonder why.
"Good. Nice, painful and slow death. Too good for him though."
"I was aiming for his heart but I missed. Shooting off hand, ya know."
"Gary's off-duty sidearm?"
"Yeah."
"I need to get him to lessen the trigger pull on that. You're okay though, right? Physically? Not injured anywhere?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine." She looked down at her clothes. "This is all Gary's." She bit her lip and tried not to start crying again.
"Hey, don't do that. Gary's going to be fine. Hell, once he wakes up, he's probably going to be pissed you had to fire his weapon in his defense instead of him protecting you." Chris squeezed her hand.
She almost smiled. "Where did you get pulled from?"
He didn't answer her directly. "Nothing's as important as family." He looked over at her and she gave him her best 'don't-bullshit-me' look. "You really want to know?" Elaine nodded. "It was boring, routine surveillance on a suspect house and we were waiting on the warrant to come through before we took the door."
"I wondered why you were in your Ninja gear."
"Yeah, well, now you know."
She was about to tell him to head back to work when the door opened and the man she had seen earlier, the one with the wild scrubs, walked into the private room. "Walker Family?" She swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat and nodded. He stepped further into the room, letting the door close behind him, turning to make sure it latched even as he introduced himself. Or started to. "I'm Doctor…"
"Erik Vernacke?" Chris interrupted the man and Elaine took a second look. The blond man in the black scrub top sprinkled with little green men, multicolored stars and planets over magenta pants and neon green medical clogs was, indeed, the same Erik Vernacke she had attended Stanford with.
"Chris?" Doctor Vernacke looked up, startled to have been interrupted and twitched when his eyes made contact with hers. "Elaine? You're Walker's family?"
She nodded even as Chris answered for her. "Gary and Elaine married nearly 9 years ago."
"Right about the time I left Pacifica for UCLA, huh? Well, belated congratulations." Erik came over and sat on the small table in front of Elaine and Chris. "Right, now, let's get down to why I came in here in the first place." He reached out and, without asking permission, picked up one of her hands off her lap, which caused her to reach out to Chris with the other. Doctors rarely made physical contact with a patient's family unless the news they were about to impart was dire. "We managed to get Gary stabilized and I have called the best Neurosurgeon on the staff to come in and take over Gary's case. We're replacing the blood and fluids he lost, which will be important before Dr. Basse takes him into surgery."
"Why call a neuro-cutter?" Elaine managed to ask, even though she dreaded the answer.
"Elaine … x-rays show that the bullet is, as you probably know, still inside Gary." She nodded, the lack of an exit wound had been a clue … but bullets did strange things once they entered a human body. "Right. Well, Elaine … the bullet, near as I and the resident diagnostician can tell, is resting right up against Gary's spine at the C-4/C-5 junction."
She inhaled a sharp breath. No wonder he hadn't moved much once he hit the floor.
"Doc … I'm just a cop, like Gary, what are you saying?" Chris asked even as Elaine willed herself to relax and loosened the death grip she had on her brother's hand.
Erik looked at her and Elaine nodded, giving her consent for her brother to be fully informed. "Chris … Gary's body isn't responding to painful stimulus of the lower extremities. I called Dr. Basse in because Gary's wound requires someone truly skilled around the spinal cord to extract, or not extract, the bullet from your brother-in-law."
"He's paralyzed?"
"At this moment, yes."
Elaine gripped her brother's hand again with all her strength, causing him to look at her. "Chris, we have to believe that it's temporary, that the bullet is just putting enough pressure on the spine to temporarily interrupt the way Gary's central nervous system communicates."
Blue eyes a few shades lighter than her own gazed at her, hope flaring. "You really believe that, Sis? That it's just temporary, that Gary's not going to be paralyzed for life?" She nodded. "Hell, you're probably right. When will the neuro doc be here, Doctor Vernacke?"
"He should be here in about half an hour. Gary's not awake or I'd let you two go in to see and talk with him." Elaine felt Erik's gaze take in her bloody appearance. "In the meantime, Elaine, why don't you come with me to the doctor's lounge, get cleaned up and I'll get you a spare set of scrubs to change into?"
She nodded as she released Chris' hand and stood to take Erik up on his offer. "As long as it's a set that doesn't actually assault the optical nerves."
Erik shook his head. "Nope. Plain ol' boring ceil blue surgical scrubs."
"Good." Chris commented, mimicking shading his eyes from Erik's ensemble. "Sis, go get cleaned up. Now that we know Gary's status, I'm going to go update Commander Reynosa and try to get a hold of Mom and Dad."
Elaine went up on her toes and planted a kiss on her brother's cheek. "Thank you, Chris. They're probably down at their beach house in Ensenada."
There was no talk of contacting Gary's folks or family. He had none. Other than the family he'd married into, Gary Walker had no siblings and his parents had passed away before he'd joined the police force in an accident caused by a drunk driver.
Chris bobbed his head even as he reached for the door to the waiting room, opened it for her and Erik, and then disappeared down the hall. Elaine followed his progress just long enough to realize her brother was walking toward a large knot of police uniformed personnel clustered around the central nursing station. The show of support was a welcome sight.
Erik cleared his throat and she looked over at him. "There's a group of about twenty officers, mostly lieutenants and above, waiting on word of Gary's status. From what I hear, there's much larger group of LAPD, LASO, CHiPpies and other law enforcement and fire department personnel lining up outside to give blood here as well as donation centers around the area."
She felt the tears threatening to spill again and had to swallow several times to loosen the tightness in her throat before she could speak. "Gary's been a cop for nearly 17 years. He's probably trained, or worked with, any number of officers from the area. It's nice to know he's well-liked." Elaine managed a slight smile. "I should probably go talk to his commander at least, but not while I'm still wearing potential evidence."
"Right. Let's get you cleaned up." Erik pushed opened one side of a set of double doors at the end of the Trauma hall, which Elaine could now see led directly into Surgery, and showed her into a doctor's lounge between the two areas. "Do you really think you'll need to hand over your clothes as evidence?" He asked. Elaine shrugged. She wasn't sure, but if the cretin who shot her husband somehow survived the bullet SHE put in him, then there was a chance of one of them, maybe both or all three being put on trial. "Okay… I'll have one of the nurses bring in a large evidence bag for you."
He pointed out the shower, the rack filled with neatly folded scrubs, sorted according to size, and another shelf filled with towels and a few 'hygiene' packs containing essentials like soap, shampoo, deodorant, a comb as well as a toothbrush and toothpaste. Erik then left her alone to return to the ER and, presumably, to monitor Gary's condition while waiting for the Neurosurgeon to arrive. Elaine grabbed a couple of towels, a washcloth and one of the hygiene packs, then stepped into the private bathroom and locked the door behind her. It wasn't until she was in the shower, washing her husband's blood from her body that she allowed herself to release her fears in a cascade of tears.