Author's Note: I ended up having some time today to finish up the next chapter. This one is a bit longer and I don't know how much you'll like me at the end of it.
It was four hours later when the doctor entered the quiet and darkened waiting room to give the group news of their friend yet Peter was the only one awake. Jones had left to go home and change. Diana, who had come to relieve Jones, was out getting coffee and Sara and Elizabeth had found comfort and strength in each other and were dozing on one of the waiting rooms couches. Nobody had been able to reach Mozzie.
"Agent Burke?" The doctor asked softly, his eyes kind.
"That's me." Peter replied, getting up to meet the doctor at the door. He followed the gray haired surgeon out into the hall.
"Neal is out of surgery and in the recovery room. The bullet entered his chest and did some pretty bad damage. It shattered his sternum, grazed his heart and punctured a lung. All that we've been able to control and repair, however the bullet came to rest perilously close to his spine. We don't see any indication that anything was severed, but there is severe swelling so we can't really say at this juncture if he is going to be paralyzed when or if he wakes up. "
Peter stared incredulously at the doctor as the surgeon's words echoed and ricocheted around his brain. Spine. Swelling. Paralysis. When or if he wakes up. It was as if Peter had stepped under the cold spray of a shower. Ice trickled down his back at the thought of a paralyzed Neal. Neal, who was so full of life and now about to be a father. The thought of it all threaten to topple Peter and it wasn't over yet. The doctor continued.
"Your friend suffered a tremendous amount of internal damage; he's not breathing on his own and is on a ventilator. We'll continue to monitor him and give him all the help we can, but the fight is in his corner now."
Peter could only nod and scrub a hand over his face as the news sunk in. The doctor patted the Agent's arm and turned to leave before Peter finally found his voice again.
"When can we see him?"
"I'll have a nurse come and get you as soon as he's in a room." The doctor replied, offering Peter one last soft reassuring smile before disappearing back into the OR wing leaving Peter alone in the brightly lit hallway. When and if. Peter pushed back into the waiting room and immediately met Elizabeth's gaze. Taking in his saddened face, she held a hand out to him which he took and kissed. Kneeling beside his wife and the sleeping Sara he told her everything the doctor had just said. Elizabeth nodded but didn't move to wake Sara, letting her instead sleep in peaceful ignorance, at least for a little while more.
When Neal had been settled the doctor kept his promise and sent a nurse to notify the waiting group that one person at a time could visit Neal's bedside. All eyes went to Peter who accepted the nomination silently and followed the nurse to the ICU. She deposited him at the door with a few kind words and a soft touch to his arm. Peter entered the darkened room and was only half surprised at what he found there.
"How'd you get in here?" Mozzie looked up at Peter apologetically but did not rise from his chair beside Neal's bed or release the hand he held in his own.
"I have my ways, suit."
Peter crossed to the other side of the room and put tentative hands on the high railing of the hospital bed. Neal's eyes were closed and he looked like he could be sleeping. The CI that Peter Burke had grown to know and love was fighting for his life and there was nothing any of them could do to help. Peter had never before felt so helpless. Prayers felt futile against the respirator tube extending from Neal's mouth or the IV's and monitors crowding his bedside. What use were well wishes and sympathetic thoughts when a friend was fighting against Death himself?
An overwhelming need to connect with Neal stole over Peter unexpectedly and the agent stretched a trembling hand out to touch the side of Neal's face. It was cold to the touch and Peter fought against a sudden urge to pull away, out and back from the hospital, away from everything, from the whole situation. He pushed the mutinous thought down deep and clung to Neal's hand as if it were an anchor.
"He looks so vulnerable." Mozzie said softly, hardly above a whisper. "What do the doctors say?"
"What, you don't know that already?" Peter regretted the comment almost immediately when Mozzie's face fell. They all needed to stick together if they were going to help Neal get through this.
"Sorry Habersham. The doctor said the bullet grazed his heart, punctured a lung and might have hit his spine. They're waiting for the swelling to go down before they know more." Mozzie nodded. Peter knew Mozzie well enough to understand that he was very worried for his friend. The bald man would normally be a fountain of playful abandon but no friendly banter passed between the two conscious men this time. Peter found himself missing Mozzie's natural ease in a tense situation.
"He's going to be okay, Moz."
"Sure he is suit. Call me if anything changes, okay?" Peter quickly agreed and with a final glance to Neal's prone figure, Mozzie left the small room.
Peter took up the abandoned chair beside Neal and replaced Mozzie's hand with his own. The hushed ICU went on around them and only the blips on the heart monitor hinted the passage of time. Peter contemplated the events of the day and an idea sprung to mind. It would either kill Neal dead or perhaps offer some hope for Neal to pull through all of this and be okay.
"Neal, I have something I need to tell you. You might not like what I'm about to tell you but you need to hear it. If anything, you've got to fight harder because of it, okay? Sara's here, Neal. You know that voicemail you've been listening to over and over for the past few months but haven't had the courage to return? Thought I didn't know about that, did you? I told you Neal. Time and again! I know everything." Peter paused and chuckled softly as happy memories played back in his mind.
"Anyway, Sara had a real good reason to need to speak with you. She's pregnant, buddy. You're going to be a daddy." Tears burned unexpectedly at the corner of Peter's eyes and the enormity of what he had just spoken to his friend hit him square in the chest. This was a turning point in Neal's life. If he made it through all this, nothing would ever be the same in the young CI's world. Good or bad outcome, Neal Caffrey was a changed man.
"So, I'm going to need you to put all you've got into getting better, Neal. We're all depending on you to pull through this. I need my CI back and your new baby is going to need a father. I hope you're listening to me Neal. I'm only going to tell you this once and it's a good thing you're unconscious because I'll deny saying this till the day I die. You're a good friend Neal and you mean the world to Elizabeth and I. We all love..."
Peter's last words were cut off suddenly by a loud chirp from a machine beside his head. In no time a chorus of alarms had Peter up and out of his seat, leaning over Neal's bed.
"Don't you do this to me, Caffrey!" Peter choked. A nurse appeared at his side and swiftly pulled him away.
"Sir, you must get out!" Another nurse herded him quickly from the room and the words he heard next froze his blood.
"Page Dr. Nelson. I need a crash cart in here, NOW!"
TBC, if time is on my side I hope to have the next chapter finished by later this week.