Hour 7

"Why can't you just tell me straight Miles?!"

Commander Anderson had been shouting at the Detective Sergeant for over half an hour now while Miles shakily remained calm and resisted his urge to punch the self-righteous man. He was not the DI's baby sitter, Joe was his boss and friend, an adult, not some child he had been put in charge of and he certainly couldn't keep an eye on the grown man twenty-four seven.

"I can only tell you what I know and all I know is he walked away from the crime scene for some unknown, mystery reason and he got shot." Miles sighed and felt himself shudder slightly, involuntarily. "By the time we found him he had lost a lot of blood but even though he was still conscious he was too far out of it to tell us what happened, he was more bothered about the fact that his shirt was a mess."

"Well, is he going to be alright?"

Despite the man's front and bravado Miles could see from the Commander's eyes that he was scared by the possibility of losing someone he clearly cared about.

"I'm sorry; I know I shouldn't shout at you. Joe has a very focussed mind of his own and whatever compelled him to have a walk around the crime scene was his fault, not yours." He ran a hand over his face. He was in uniform so clearly he had been dragged away from what he had been supposed to be doing today to come and meet them. "His father died of much the same injuries, gunshot wound to the torso, only no one found him until it was far too late to do anything about it. There wasn't any time for one of us to rush him to a hospital and the ambulance took far too long… He was dead on arrival."

"Excuse me sir, I don't mean to pry but 'Us'?" Miles was intrigued; he didn't mean to ask personal questions.

"Yes, I was there along with Joe and Robin's father, Henry, and another detective. I regret that we didn't get to him soon enough but he was faster than the two of us and caught up to the man we were chasing quicker. He was shot twice in the chest. We were quietly confident the other detective and myself, we'd stopped running because we thought to ourselves it was all fine Henry would have him by now and there was no rush, then we heard the shots." Commander Anderson hung his head in silent shame, "No other sound has ever made me panic so much, to this day I don't know how I managed to run like I did, I do remember falling over once or twice maybe even three times. I blame myself; I was the one who suggested that we stopped running."

"But what about the other guy? He didn't have to agree with you did he."

The pathetic reassurance fell on deaf ears, both knew it wasn't the Commanders fault that day, but nothing can ever stop you from blaming yourself for something even if you couldn't have prevented it. Miles was feeling that now, so was Riley they shouldn't have let him go off on his own but what could they have done to stop him really? He wouldn't have listened to them, not in a million years.

"We never got the man who shot him."

"Uncle Harry!"

Robin had obviously heard the cease in shouting and yelling and come to investigate.

"Robin!" He wrapped his arms around her hugging her close to him

"Ah, Miss Chandler," The doctor from earlier had appeared "I would like to talk to you privately if I may?"

Robin pulled a face "No way. You may certainly not speak to me privately, I don't wish to speak to you alone." She maintained a tight hold on the commander's sleeve and he placed a hand supportively on her clenched fist.

"Doctor, she may be her brother's next of kin but they are both my god-children." He held up a silencing hand "I don't care if they are adults now, taking her away from people she trusts to explain a harrowing situation such as this will only distress her further."

"Fine."

The doctor huffed and Miles hid a smirk, it was funny when the Commander was being an arse to someone else for a change.

"But at least in a less public setting." He gestured to the room where Mansell, Riley and Kent were all still sat waiting for the storm of anger to pass.

Once they were inside the doctor shut the door and stood with his back against it giving himself a quick route of escape should the need for one to arise.

"Mr Chandler i.."

Mansell cut him off. "Detective Inspector."

"Fine, fine. Detective Inspector Chandler is out of surgery, we managed to remove most of the bullet.."

Robin interrupted this time "Most? What the hell do you mean most?"

"The bullet nicked one of his ribs and fragmented, that was why the bleeding was so severe. When I say most I mean practically all but we can't be one hundred per cent sure that we got all of it…"

"So all you can think about is how you're going to cover yourselves! Nice to know you're caring more about yourselves than the patient, a man's life is at risk and you're just making sure that your career isn't damaged in the process!" Riley snarled

"I understand that you are all concerned for the life of your friend, or brother, or god son but please will you all stop interrupting me!" The doctor yelled, they all fell silent "Thank you. In cases like this we can never guarantee that we have retrieved the entirety of the bullet, some parts may be too small for us to see or any machine to detect, so yes, in these situations we like to keep ourselves covered unless we can guarantee completely that the entire bullet is gone. He is out of surgery and resting, you're welcome to go see him but he is heavily sedated at the moment and so is unable to talk."

Robin jumped up from her seat "I want to see him!" She glared pointedly at the doctor blocking her path as he remained in his position in front of the door "Take me to see him." The doctor opened his mouth to say something "At least move." She growled impatiently.

He moved away from the door and guided her down the corridor, stopping her gently before she entered the ICU.

"Are you sure that you want to see him?"

"Yes!" She answered impatiently bobbing up and down on the spot.

The rest followed closely behind, not wanting to intrude but wanting to see for themselves that he was truly okay.

No one liked what they saw.

He was hooked up to all different kinds of machines. Heart monitor, drip, something else that was designed to apparently keep track of his breathing and step in to regulate it if necessary, Robin was not happy, the scared panicked look of a rabbit caught in the headlights was back and she clung to Commander Anderson like her life depended on it, pressing her face into his chest.

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