Chapter 4
"Family of Neal Caffrey?"
Peter and El rose to their feet in a movement that would have won gold in any synchronised olympic sport. "Yes."
Any other time, El might have found it funny how quickly Peter claimed a familial relationship with Neal, but at that moment she could only admire his ability to speak at all, since her own vocal chords seemed to be paralysed by dread.
"Mr. and Mrs. Caffrey?" the doctor hazarded a guess.
Peter shook his head in a rigid motion. "No, it's Burke, but I'm listed as Neal's next of kin. Please, could you just tell us if Neal is okay."
"The operation was successful, and there were no unexpected complications during the procedure."
"Oh, thank goodness." Relief sapped all the strength from Elizabeth's legs, and she collapsed back in the chair, fully expecting her husband to coordinate with her in this maneuver as well. Instead, he remained braced on his feet. She was puzzled by the grim look that still remained on his face - until he began to speak.
"What's the prognosis? What can we expect in terms of recovery?" Peter's voice was steady, but contained micro-fractures of stress which hinted at the tectonic turbulence beneath.
"Please take a seat, Mr. Burke. This could take a while, but I'll answer all your questions to the best of my ability."
Reluctantly, Peter sat, his hand blindly seeking and finding El's.
The neurosurgeon's English was flawless, more British than American and only its melodic tone revealed its origins. His eyes were kind, and Peter trusted him instinctively.
"Please understand that no two brain injuries are alike and, at this moment, I can only speak in generalities. I know you want concrete answers, but right now, I can only offer statistics and probabilities from my experience." He steepled his hands together, tapping the fingertips together as he marshaled his thoughts.
"I am cautiously optimistic that Mr. Caffrey will make a good recovery. Your..." He paused uncertainly, seeking the exact relationship between his patient and his interlocutors.
"Neal." Peter filled in unhelpfully but accurately.
"I believe that Neal was hit with something along the lines of a baseball bat. However, the peculiarities of the wound would suggest he saw it coming and was in the process of ducking or turning away. That almost certainly saved his life, since it diluted the force of the impact." He demonstrated on his own head with his hand playing the role of the incoming weapon.
El flinched, partly due to the brutality of the visual image, but also because her husband's fingers tightened painfully around hers. Peter let go instantly, withdrawing into his own space.
"There was a lot of blood," he observed tightly.
"Don't let that worry you. Head wounds always bleed excessively because of the number of blood vessels under the skin. Also in his favor, your...Neal seems to have a thick skull."
There was a sound from Peter as if he'd just swallowed a frog mid-croak, and when both El and the doctor looked at him, he offered a sheepish grimace. "Do you know how many times I've accused him of that? I can't wait to tell him it's literally true, that I have medical verification."
"It's also means that he only sustained a hairline fracture, which makes him extremely fortunate, since bone fragments would have caused much more damage. Neal is also young, fit, and healthy, all factors that contribute to an optimistic prognosis."
The doctor's expression shifted slightly into a more somber cast. Both the Burkes could tell that the delicate seesaw of hope that had been offered was about to be qualified by a recitation of the potential for disastrous outcomes. They both braced themselves in expectation of the blow.
"However your...Neal has sustained a traumatic brain injury, and nobody just walks away from that. At least in the short term, there will be effects from the original injury and the pressure placed on the brain by the bleeding. Every injury is different, so I won't speculate on what that might be. However, I will say that the blow was to the left temporal lobe, which is the speech and language center of the brain, so I would expect some impact on his communication abilities, at least temporarily. There will be a team of specialists who will help Neal with whatever problems arise - physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists.
"It's important to add that, for family and friends, often the harder aspects of recovery from a TBI are not the obvious physical problems, but the more subtle changes dealing with behavioral and cognitive changes. There may be decreased memory, impulsivity, poor judgment and social inappropriateness."
Peter couldn't help but wonder if someone who already had problems with impulsivity and poor judgment might actually see an improvement in that area. His brief moment of wry levity quickly withered under the doctor's next revelation.
"I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. While I have every expectation that Neal will make it through this difficult time, you need to understand that he's still in a critical condition. We will keep him in the ICU for at least 48 hours, since we have to closely monitor his intracranial pressure, blood pressure and breathing, so for now, he's been placed in a medically induced coma."
Doctor Hussein had given many similar talks in his long career and was a good judge of when his audience had reached saturation point. On top of the trauma of waiting for news of a loved one, there was only so much information people could process. The warm intelligence that had shone from Mrs. Burke's eyes had given way to cold shock and incomprehension and the glaze of unshed tears.
In contrast, her husband, though rumpled and red-eyed from a sleepless night, looked unsurprised by the report, and the neurosurgeon guessed that either he'd had experience with brain injuries before or that he'd been talking to another doctor and was already well briefed. He'd received every piece of information with the same tight acceptance, yet it seemed to be grim determination, not fatalism, and that boded well for the injured man.
Hussein brought the session to a close. "There will be plenty of time to cover details of Neal's care more thoroughly later. Do you have any questions for me now?"
"When can we see him?" Peter asked instantly.
"He's in Recovery at the moment. Give us a couple of hours to get him settled in the ICU. However, he's not going to be aware of your presence, so this might be the best time to catch up on your sleep, contact other relatives or friends, and make any arrangements necessary on his behalf or yours for coverage at work."
Peter grimaced. "I wish it was that easy, but Neal works for the FBI, as do I, and last night, Neal witnessed a murder. We believe his life is in danger, so he's going to need a protection detail with him at all times."
The doctor looked remarkably unperturbed at the prospect. "We can accommodate that. However, for the safety for all our patients, while Neal is in ICU there are rules that we expect all visitors, and that will include your people, to adhere to. I'll find you a copy of the paperwork that you can disseminate to your team. Meanwhile, if you have any requirements or expectations for your people, please let me know."
He stood up, and Peter rose with him to shake his hand. "Thank you, Doctor."
"Please remember that, as Neal's primary support, it is important that you take care of yourselves. Remember..."
"It's a marathon, not a sprint," Peter contributed.
As the doctor left, Peter sat down again, once more gathering El up in a reversal of their previous roles as she shook in his arms, and he comforted her.
Peter had had time to confront the 'what-ifs' and to battle these alternate possibilities in the privacy of his own mind and ultimately to accept the change in paradigm that they threatened. Now, he locked them away to focus on the present and what he could actually achieve. Neal would live, and Peter could deal with any of the variations on that theme. It was his job now to make sure that Neal had a life to return to.
He persuaded El that the doctor's advice was sound and, since there was no chance of Neal recovering consciousness that day, it was a time best used for organising their affairs and reducing the pressure of future engagements where possible. He insisted that he was only staying to take the first shift of the guard detail and, in the interest of spousal harmony, Elizabeth pretended to believe him.
After a brief phone call with Diana to update her on the situation and ask her to organise a schedule within the unit to provide Neal's protection, Peter took his own advice to conserve energy and used his time the most profitable way he could by catching up on his sleep deficit. It should have been easy to nap with the exhaustion blanketing his mind, but although adrenaline had faded, it had wreaked a path of destruction through his nervous system which made relaxing almost impossible. He also had to contend with the unsoporific contours of the plastic chairs, so it took a long time to actually fall asleep.
The nurse who woke him introduced herself as Megan, the head of the team that would oversee Neal's care. She radiated efficiency and competency, yet also had a warm smile that seemed motherly. She led him down a corridor to the ICU. The short rest left him feeling more drugged than rested, but that didn't prevent him from taking in the details of the surrounding area.
It was a relief to discover that the ICU was in a geographically distinct area of the hospital with controlled access, which meant that there was no through traffic to other departments. While Neal remained here, it would be relatively easy to keep him secure. Unlike the last ICU Peter had seen, it wasn't an open-ward design, but had about ten single rooms with glass doors and partitions facilitating visibility from the central nursing station.
An attempt to soften the sterility and harsh reality of the function of the space by providing light music and a soft carpeting material that absorbed sound was destroyed by the amount of technology, such as crash carts and portable monitors, that lurked in each alcove. Each machine emphasized the precarious condition of the patients inside.
Peter was guided to the room second to the left, and the nurse was speaking as he entered, but he'd ceased to listen, eager to see his friend. However, at the sight of the figure in the bed, he paused, puzzled. It wasn't Neal...at least... recognition hit like a blow to the stomach, doubling him over, his chest tightening in a band around his distress and bile pushing into his throat.
Half of Neal's head was shaved, although bandages hid the worst of the damage, concealing the origin of a tube and a wire sprouting from beneath the white cloth. Far more distressing was the bruising and swelling around his face, distorting it to the point that his identity was blurred. Completing this disguise was the intubation tube fastened around his mouth, the other end of which lead to the mechanical ventilator.
He looked impossibly small lying in the perfect center of the bed, so still and pale it was as if the innumerable tubes and monitors plastered to his body were draining the color and vitality from him instead of sustaining his life. Peter's heart was thumping roughly against the inside of his ribs, private point and counterpoint to the beeping heart monitor publicly declaring Neal's continuing existence. His eyes slipped shut involuntarily, as if his brain needed a moment to process what he saw to prevent it dissolving in heartache and hopelessness.
The nurse was talking to him again, her hand on his arm, and this time he listened, glad for the distraction. "I'm sorry; I was trying to warn you. It is often disturbing to family members to see a loved one connected to so much technology. We often find it helps if you understand what each machine is doing, so let me explain."
He concentrated on the layman's explanation of pulse oximeters and intracranial pressure catheters, appreciating the illusionary sense of control it gave him over the situation.
"Is he in any pain?" he asked abruptly as she finished.
"Not at all," she assured him. "I know he looks bad, but we're closely monitoring him and his pain medication."
Peter shivered, and it wasn't only at the sight of the forlorn figure with only a sheet covering him. "Isn't he cold?"
"The room is maintained at a cold temperature to keep the body's swelling down. It's important to his recovery."
"Is he aware of anything right now?" Peter wasn't even sure why he asked, since Neal looked as far from conscious as it was possible to get and still stay at arm's length from the Grim Reaper.
He'd seen Neal asleep before, on stakeouts and sometimes when he'd crashed on the sofa, too tired to think about going home, and had been struck by his friend's stillness at such times, the reduction of the intensity and vibrancy that characterised his waking moments. But this wasn't the stillness of sleep, it was the complete slackness of moribundity, and Peter wanted some reassurance that Neal was still somewhere inside.
"Maybe at some level. It never hurts to talk to a comatose person. Just be quiet and reassuring. However, I would suggest that your time would be best used catching up on sleep. You can pull that cot out to nap comfortably. No one can come into the ICU without us knowing. If you need anything, push this button."
Absently he watched her leave and start to fill out some paperwork before he turned back to the room. Pursing his lips, he considered his options. He regarded the cot, tucked under shelves laden with supplies, with some longing, but couldn't bring himself to pull it out. Instead, he hooked a ubiquitous plastic chair with his foot and dragged it closer to Neal's bedside. He folded himself down on it with a sigh of resignation.
In his own version of exposure therapy, he stared at his friend's partially obscured face, hoping that familiarity would breed acceptance, then his gaze swept down to take in all the machinery, mentally repeating everything he'd learned about its function and its role in Neal's healthcare regime.
He rubbed his hands on his trousers, trying to generate courage as if it were static electricity, wanting to reach out to touch his partner, but fearing his skin would be as cold and waxy as the corpse he resembled. Finally, he laid a tentative hand on Neal's arm, in one of the few exposed areas that wasn't connected to a pad or lead. To his relief, although it wasn't particularly warm, it lacked the lifeless chill of a cadaver.
"Hey, Neal." he said softly. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm here. You're going to be fine...really fine, not what passes for fine in your mind."
He moistened his lips, trying to think of something else comforting to say, but apparently he'd scraped the bottom of his bedside manner, exhausting his very limited supply of encouraging small talk. He rubbed his temple as pain pulsed dully just underneath his skull, regretting sending El home, since she could have spent the next two hours saying supportive things and not repeating herself once.
It wasn't that Peter was a terrible conversationalist, but he liked to have a partner to help maintain a dialogue, and he didn't do idle chitchat. On their frequent long stakeouts, he and Neal often enjoyed long discussions. They both had wide-ranging, but not always overlapping interests, sometimes finding nuggets of shared pursuits they hadn't known the other liked. When all else failed, there was always the fallback of discussing a case. Even on the coldest of cases, they could strike sparks of inspiration in each other to build a fire of speculation and potential leads in a process that never failed to warm and thrill Peter.
So, if cases provided the most fruitful source for topics of debate, Peter had the perfect subject matter right at hand. "Why did you go to Fowler's last night? I thought he was out of our lives for good, and that wasn't a bad thing. Why, after all this time, were the two of you in contact, and how did it lead to this? Why didn't you tell me? Was it just because I was out of town?" He sat back slightly, ruefully scrubbing a hand over his face. "All I have is questions, and you're lying there as inscrutable as a sphinx. I wish I'd asked them earlier when you were a little more compos mentis."
He patted Neal's arm absently. "Were you trying to tell me something in the ER? I was a little distracted at the time, trying to prevent the whole leaking brains thing. You seemed really confused, but something set off the flashback for you. You know, it would really help if you could wake up and tell me what happened."
Peter rambled on for some time in a similar vein, his comments becoming more random and intermittent until, lulled by the tuneless, monotonous, yet reassuring, lullaby of Neal's heart monitor, he slipped into sleep like a seal into deep water.
A couple of hours later, he was woken by a gentle nudge on the shoulder and the insistent repetition of his name. He bolted upright, almost knocking the nurse over in the process. Disorientation lasted only for a split second, then his bleary eyes flew to check on Neal then the monitors, the steady beat there alleviating his most immediate concern.
"Agent Burke?" the nurse repeated - Megan, Peter's memory supplied helpfully. He didn't quite have Neal's faculty with names, but observational and recall skills were part and parcel of his investigative profession.
"Is something wrong? Is Neal all right?"
"There's a Detective Samuelson outside, and he's not on your list, so the security guard stopped him. However, he's insisting on coming in."
"I'll come out...no, wait. It's all right, let him come in." Every instinct revolted at the thought of allowing the detective in when Neal was lying there so vulnerable, but the strategist in Peter won out. There was a valuable point here to be made that could benefit Neal in the long run.
Peter scrubbed his face with his hands again, then ran them through his hair. There was little he could do for his clothes to disguise the fact that he'd been wearing them for two days and had recently slept in them. He had his temper firmly leashed, if not quite muzzled, because it metaphorically bared its teeth and snarled as the detective walked in. If Samuelson had looked carefully he might have noticed the white of fury around Peter's pursed lips and the pounding of the pulse in his neck.
However, the detective's eyes were fixed on Neal's inert form, genuine shock and dismay apparent in his expression. As he turned to speak to Peter, the agent waved a quelling hand and cut him off. "No, we're not doing this here."
If there was a chance that Neal was aware of what was happening around him, Peter was going to keep negativity and conflict out of the room. He shepherded the cop out of the ICU and past the security guard at the door. While he wanted someone actually from his team in with Neal at all times, he wasn't adverse to assistance from the hospital.
"What do you want, Samuelson?" he asked curtly, keeping the question just the right side of hostile and noting the other man didn't look quite as assured as he had during their last confrontation. There was a definite defensiveness about his posture. Peter cynically put that down more to the threat of legal action than genuine remorse at his failure to provide timely medical assistance.
"I heard Caffrey was out of surgery, so I thought I'd find out how he was doing."
Peter didn't attempt to conceal his skepticism. "You mean you came to haul him off to jail. Still think he's faking, or is a coma sufficiently critical to credit him with a genuine injury?"
"Yeah, about that." Samuelson scratched his head sheepishly. "All I can say is that the kid is a hell of an actor. He really seemed fine."
Peter had no intention of letting him off the hook by agreeing that Neal was at his most convincing when in the most trouble. "The doctor said he was probably hit by a baseball bat. Did you find one at the scene?"
He was hoping for a negative reply which would confirm the presence of a third party, but after a moment's reluctance, Samuelson nodded. "We found it - Fowler's prints all over it." The sharing of information wasn't exactly an olive branch, but it was a small twig.
Peter jumped on the most positive explanation for this disclosure. "So you have to admit that there's a possibility that Neal was acting in self-defense."
This time is was the detective's turn to express reservation. "It's possible, but equally probable that it was Fowler acting in self-defense when he saw Caffrey had a gun."
"Neal doesn't do guns." Peter staunchly ignored the memory of Neal pointing a gun almost point-blank at Fowler's head.
"You're too close to this one, Burke. Look at it as a lawman, not his friend." It wasn't said unkindly.
"He's strictly non-violent, never committed a crime with as much as a knife." Peter decided to exploit this relatively cooperative mood and fish for more information. "What do you have on the gun?"
Samuelson shrugged. "Nothing but Caffrey's prints. It's not registered, but was bought at a gunshow in Virginia. Look, I have to go, but keep me updated. I need a statement when he wakes up."
"When he's in a condition capable of making a statement, I'll let you know, but you only talk with him in the presence of his lawyer or me."
The detective didn't look happy as he walked away, but it was more of a detente than Peter was expecting. He acknowledged the guard's assistance with a handshake and a quick word of thanks before returning to the ICU. Megan had taken advantage of his absence to perform a quick neurological examination and a TBB and checked the vent, the drips and the alarm limits. "He's doing well," she assured Peter before whisking out of the room.
It was good news, but he wished with all his heart that his partner looked well. He'd take even the slightest improvement - a tinge more color or the smallest voluntary movement, but Neal still looked like a wax model of himself, the ultimate con, a simulacrum of Peter's best friend. He shut his eyes, ignoring the burn along the seams of his eyelids.
"It looks like the gun's a dead end." He forced himself to resume his monologue. "It came up the iron pipeline and ended up on the streets. The question is, is it Fowler's? He certainly had the experience and contacts to easily get hold of an illegal weapon. If so, did he buy it for protection from old enemies? He still qualified for a permit and probably had a registered weapon - we need to check on that, so if he got hold of an unregistered gun, he must have acquired it for a specific criminal purpose. If it wasn't his, it must belong to a third party. I think that's the more likely scenario. There was someone else in that room and they were armed. Was Fowler acting under duress? Were you?"
Peter didn't mention the other possibility, but couldn't prevent a picture of it from flashing vividly through his mind - Fowler, his face enraged, swinging the baseball bat with murderous intent at Neal, who fell back, firing as a last resort to protect himself. It could have happened; Peter had to acknowledge that in the privacy of his own mind, but it ushered in a plethora of uncomfortable issues. It presupposed that Neal took a gun with him to Fowler's apartment. Peter didn't believe Neal owned a gun, certainly he wouldn't keep one in June's house, and the only time Peter had seen him in possession of one, Neal had stolen it on impulse. It was certainly in his capabilities to acquire one. He could pluck one right off a pedestrian in the street if he desired, but to do so meant he was knowingly entering a dangerous situation at Fowler's and if that was the case, why hadn't he contacted Peter for help?
Was Fowler blackmailing him? As Kramer had proved, there was plenty of leverage material in Neal's past that could be used against him, and the OPR agent's liaison with Kate could have provided him with considerable information about those earlier crimes. Even if that were true, Peter couldn't see Neal marching to Fowler's with a gun. He hoped his partner would have come to him. After all, through his one-night offer of amnesty and his assistance with the Raphael, Peter had surely proved he had no interest in seeing Neal punished for past crimes.
This was all assuming that the ex-OPR agent had again aligned himself on the side of illegality, which was in itself a dubious proposition. Fowler had been forced into that position before, but genuinely seemed to regret his actions.
All this speculation merely drummed up more questions. The itch to get answers was growing stronger, a constant irritation in Peter's curious mind. But the cost of indulging that curiosity was a price he hadn't even thought about paying until Blake came to relieve him at four o'clock. He hadn't expected the sullen creep of dread at the thought of leaving, and he started briefing his subordinate with unnecessary thoroughness to postpone his inevitable departure.
This was a logical time to leave and to kick the investigation into high gear, but logic was gasping for its last breath, and irrationality was waiting to dance on its grave. Peter wasn't a superstitious man, but the crawling voice of fear insisted that if he left, he might never see his friend again, and that possibility paralysed his intent. There had always been a connection between them, and Peter felt personally responsible for maintaining that invisible but tensile link that was tethering Neal to this existence. It might be fanciful, but it embodied fundamental truths in their relationship. Neal was in danger of leaving in the most permanent way possible, and Peter was the only one who could secure him in place, or find him in the lost space of his own mind.
Anxiety drummed an angry rhythm through Peter's weary limbs, but whatever his inner conflict, he was quite capable of hiding his emotions behind a confident facade. It would have taken a more observant man than Agent Blake to notice the tension around his boss's jaw and eyes that was the only visible sign of his distress.
Running out of excuses for delaying his exit, Peter knew he had to trust that his absence wouldn't be detrimental to Neal's recovery and that his friend was in good hands. However, the coiled knot of anxiety twisted tighter in his gut as he prepared to leave.
"I'll be back soon." The words were ostensibly directed at Blake, but they weren't intended for him. Peter rested his hand briefly on Neal's arm before stepping away, refusing to allow himself a final glance backwards.