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"How you doin', Liz?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm lifting everyone and their brother's fingerprints off this fence post. Doesn't really help with narrowing things down…" She blinked into the bright sun, and lifted another print.
As soon as Elizabeth had gotten to work, she was called to a scene in SoHo with Danny and Sheldon where a young women was murdered in an alley behind an apartment complex. Danny was photographing, while Hawkes did a quick examination of the body. Elizabeth was on print and blood spatter detail. No blood as of yet, even though Sheldon had almost definitely concluded that the woman was bludgeoned to death and that she had a bullet lodged in her stomach.
Elizabeth stood upright, and stretched her legs. She placed her print lifts in her case. As she walked back over to the fence post gate, she'd been studying for the last half hour or so, something new caught her eye. A liquid substance gleaming in the sun. As she got closer, she recognized it as blood.
"Hey, I think I may have finally found something…" she said allowed, unsure if Danny or Hawkes were even listening. She squeezed in between the coiled up broken fence wire and stretched her arm out as far as it would go. She gently swiped her cotton swab in the blood spatter. She shifted her body weight to pull her arm back in, and turned to climb out of the metal fence maze. As she did, her shirt got caught on a jagged edge and ripped a hole right through to her bare skin. She screamed in agony, as blood began to seep through her shirt and onto her pants. Danny put his camera down and ran over.
"God, Elizabeth. You Ok?" She waved the blood sample to him.
"Take this before I drop it." Danny took it and slipped it in his back pocket. He reached out and helped Elizabeth out between the fence and wall. Hawkes, who had just rounded the corner saw the two.
"What happened?" He put down his kit and raced over.
"Elizabeth scraped her side… she was-"
"Oh, you're bleeding, Liz,'' Hawkes said, worried, but not panicking.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Elizabeth told them, still holding on to Danny. "I'm fine," she repeated, her face clenched in obvious pain. She was not fine, it had hurt, her side was burning and her head began to pound.
"There's a first-aid kit in the truck. Let's go, I'll have a look at you," Hawkes said, taking hold of Elizabeth's arm.
"Hawkes,'' she protested.
"C'mon," he guided Elizabeth.
"You two gonna be OK?"
"Yeah, Danny stay here, take care of this, I'll take care of Elizabeth."
They got to the truck, Hawkes pulled down the tailgate, and helped Elizabeth get seated, somewhat comfortably on it. He ran around to the back seat to get the first aid kit. He wiggled on some fresh gloves and took a closer look at Elizabeth's cut. He cleaned it up as best he could and took a deep breath. "I think we should get you to the hospital."
"Ohhh, no. No. Hawkes, I'm fine." Elizabeth didn't like hospitals. She didn't even like doctors. She avoided doctors and hospitals at all costs. There was no way Hawkes was gonna take her to a hospital.
"You might be, but just to be on the safe side…" Elizabeth grimaced as Hawkes carefully laid a bandage over her wound. "That fence was rusty. You could risk infections, rust poisoning…"
Elizabeth shook her head, not giving in. "Gaaah," she wailed as Hawkes touched her again.
Back in the alley, Danny took the last of the crime scene photos. "Yeah, typical. No one saw, heard, smelt anything last night," Flack said exiting the building, taking care not to let the heavy door slam on his arm, still in a sling. He walked over towards Danny, noticing he was the only on in the alley, besides the dead body. "Where's everyone?"
"Hawkes took Elizabeth back to the truck. She, uh, cut herself over there on the fence, collectin' a blood sample." He gestured to the fence gate, with the camera still in his hand. Don followed his pointing.
Don stared at Danny with immediate concern. "What? Is she Ok?"
Danny shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head. "I think she'll be OK." Flack took a half-second pause and turned on his heel, jogging out of the alley, towards the truck on the street.
He reached the truck and saw Elizabeth stretched out in the flatbed, Hawkes pulling off his gloves. "What the hell happened?" He called out, as he got closer. "Danny said you were bleeding?"
"Yeah, I just cut myself, I'm fine." Elizabeth moved so her legs were dangling over the tail gate.
"You sure you're fine?" Flack asked, eyeing her cut just before Elizabeth hid it with her shirt. He grabbed her hand and moved her shirt.
"Hey!"
"What? That doesn't look fine. Jesus."
Elizabeth sighed, angry suddenly. "Flack, it's nothing. Hawkes cleaned me up, I'm good."
Flack looked at Hawkes. "She really good, Doc?"
Hawkes looked at Flack, and gave in, with a nod of his head. "She's probably gonna be fine."
"See? Fine." Elizabeth eased herself off the truck, Hawkes and Flack reaching out to help her. "We should go help Danny…leaving him all alone back there…" Elizabeth trailed off as she walked back to the crime scene, wincing and cursing under her breath in agony.
Two hours later, Elizabeth found herself reading the DNA analysis of the blood she'd sacrificed her body for, not to mention one of her favourite shirts. She blinked and rubbed her temple several times before letting her eyes rest on the results. She slid her glasses up on her nose. She couldn't focus. She stepped out of the lab and into the hall. She reopened the folder and glanced over the results. Her head was aching in ways it had never before. She couldn't handle the pain. She closed the folder, without fully reading the results. She looked down at her stomach.
"Damn it," she said out loud. Blood had soaked through the bandage and was spotting her new shirt. She lifted of her shirt off her stomach, carefully, as every slight movement was like a thousand knives piercing her skin. It did not look good. She groaned and wrapped her lab coat around her gently, walking briskly to the break room. She put the folder with the DNA results in the table and opened the top cabinet. She pulled out the first-aid kit, and set it on the table. She hoisted herself up on a stool and opened the kit. She tried to keep her moaning and groaning to a minimum, afraid someone would hear her. She rummaged through the kit, looking for some gauze or a bandage to recover her cut. Danny, walking by, saw Elizabeth cutting a piece of gauze, and poked his head in.
"Elizabeth, whaddya doin'?"
She looked up. She let out a breath of frustration. "Oh. Danny. I'm just redressing my cut, here…"
He came closer. "Liz, that doesn't look good. You sure you're feelin' OK?"
She looked at him and answered honestly. "Actually, I'm not feelin' so good. But, I just need to clean this up, and I'll be-"
"Lemme guess, fine? Listen, why don't we get you to a hospital."
"I don't need a hospital. Just…can you just get Hawkes for me?" Elizabeth struggled with the medical tape, her head feeling as if it was going to explode.
"Elizabeth-"
"Danny, Please. Hawkes- just get him."
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