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chapter twenty-four

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i'm finding my way back to sanity again
though i don't really know what
i'm gonna do when i get there
take a breath and hold on tight
spin around one more time
and gracefully fall back to the arms of grace
-Lifehouse, "Breathing"

xx

"You are such a perfectionist!" Rebecca teased as she leaned over Caroline's shoulder.

"Okay, okay! Just one more and then I'm done." Caroline shut the manila folder and put her pen down, stretching out her wrists and swatting playfully at Becca before picking up the last chart from her pile.

Martin glanced at his watch. 7:15. "I don't have a whole lot of time," he warned and tapped his foot nervously, his knee jerking up and down.

"Wow, you are really wound up, Martin," Becca plopped back down on the sofa next to him. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about what's up?"

He breathed deeply and shook his head. He opened his mouth to verbally refuse, but before he could get the words out, the door swung open and Joanne poked her head back in.

"Caro?" She asked with an apologetic smile, "I hate to bother you, but all of the other docs are tied up and rescue just called with a GSW; they need to verify some orders."

"Is it bad?" Caroline asked, closing the file folder and rising from the chair.

"It's not too bad, they think. GSW to the left thigh, apparently the patient is FBI from that bookstore we heard on the radio earlier. They want to know if they can give her some morphine."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be there in a second," Caroline said, running her hands along her forehead. "Can you put in an advance page to whoever's on for trauma surgery? And what's their ETA?"

"About five minutes, and I think Nordlund is on for trauma surgery tonight."

A few seconds later, both Caroline and Joanne had disappeared behind the swinging door. Martin rolled his eyes at Rebecca. "You know," he said, shaking his head and laughing, "Sometimes she's nothing like Dad, and then sometimes ..."

"... she's exactly like him," Rebecca finished, returning his laugh.

xx

7:20 pm

The door to the lounge swung back open, and Caroline walked, now wearing a dark blue scrub top and pants. She twisted the combination on her locker and retrieved her white lab coat. She pulled her car keys from her locker as well, tossing them in Martin's direction. "I'm sorry, guys. I need to make sure this GSW is stable before they send her to surgery. I know you have to go, so you can take my car. I'll get a cab home when I'm done."

Martin and Rebecca both stood to follow her back out the door to stand near the ambulance entrance.

"We'll talk later --" Caroline reminded him, as the automatic glass doors slid open and several paramedics rolled a stretcher in.

Caroline rushed forward with several nurses, surrounding the stretcher and blocking the view as he and Rebecca looked on. He listened intently as one paramedic began to rattle off vital signs.

"... 29 year old white female, GSW to the left thigh approximately one hour PTA. Pulse is a little tachy at 116, resps are shallow, BP is 95/60, O2 SATs at 99 on 2 liters. We gave 4 of Morphine en route ... "

But as the group wheeled the stretcher past where he and Rebecca stood and into one of the trauma rooms, Martin's eyes caught a glimpse of the woman who walked in behind them, speaking distractedly on her cell phone. His heart momentarily stopped beating; he knew her.

It was Naomi.

He walked quickly over to where she stood, his legs carrying him involuntarily as there seemed to be a disconnect between his thoughts and his actions at the moment. His heart and mind completely overwhelmed with panic, he forgot that Naomi was not supposed to know anything about himself and Sam: no one was. But in that moment, he would not have cared even if he had remembered.

Naomi tapped anxiously at her phone and sighed in exasperation.

"I, uh, I --" He began to stutter as he approached her, "Agent Russell?"

"Senator Fitzgerald --" She looked up, surprised. "I -- I was trying to get in touch with you."

She held up the phone, and he instantly recognized it as Sam's. "It's Martin," he insisted, breath catching in his throat.

"Naomi," she answered, not meeting his eyes. "Anyway, Sen -- I mean, Martin --" She paused, stumbling over her words as her eyes darted nervously around the busy emergency room. "Maybe we should talk someplace a little bit quieter?" She finally suggested.

He nodded and motioned back to the doctor's lounge, figuring that they would have some degree of privacy away from the prying eyes of other patients and their families. Rebecca followed.

"What happened?" He whispered when they returned to the empty, quiet lounge.

Naomi closed her eyes and held her face in her hands. After a few seconds, she finally looked up.

"It all happened so fast ..."

xx

10:15 pm

Martin checked his watch and sighed, again. It had been three hours, and they had said it would be a fairly routine surgery. Every second that ticked by was another second that something could be going wrong.

When Naomi had first told him that Sam had been shot while trying to protect the other hostages, he could barely believe it. He always knew that working for the FBI was dangerous. He could remember countless nights as a child when he would wake up and wander to the kitchen to get a glass of water, only to find his mother still awake and tense with worry. But in spite of his mother's fears, and his own as well, his father had always come home to them; the worst injury Victor had ever suffered on the job was when he broke his left arm when he fell down several stairs while chasing a suspect. Martin barely even remembered that, having been only four at the time.

Martin's eyes once again scanned the small private waiting room where he sat. A tense, awkward silence surrounded him, as he caught Naomi's eyes from the chair where she sat.

"So, Martin?" Naomi cleared her throat. "Sam hasn't really, uh, told me much about you two."

"Yeah," he nodded awkwardly as he began to explain. "We were trying to keep things private for a little while. Adjust and see what happens without the rest of the country getting in our faces unnecessarily."

Naomi offered a small smile and agreed easily. "Sure, of course. That makes sense. How long has it been now?"

"A little over a month," he breathed.

"I figured as much. Sam's seemed different, happier." Naomi paused, reflecting on her words before adding, "I love Sam, but I didn't know she did 'happy.' It suits her, though."

"It hasn't been easy," he admitted. "But so far, it's been worth every one of the complications."

He lowered his eyes and rotated his neck in a futile attempt to stretch out his tight, locked muscles. Sensing Naomi was far too preoccupied with worry to ask him any more questions at the moment, he desperately tried to distract himself, to think of anything that would take his mind off of his own fear...

Martin stood rooted to the spot in his living room as he watched her through the open kitchen door. She sat at the kitchen table with her back to him, her head bent over several papers that she had managed to spread out over the entire table top, and she scribbled notes intently.

He was not sure how long he had been watching her, but he found the intensity with which she threw her entire being into her job particularly endearing. From where she sat, she heaved her shoulders in a sigh and propped herself up against her left elbow. She put her pen down and, with her now-free hand, began to collect up the papers she had scattered haphazardly across the table. Paper clips and file folders properly adjusted, she finally leaned herself back in the chair where she sat.

"Martin?" She called out.

"Yeah?" He walked through the door to stand right behind her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Did you finish up?" He asked, genuinely interested. He found her stories from work to be far more interesting and appealing than the stories his father had once told of his time in Violent Crimes. In Violent Crimes, all of the stories already had the ultimate ending predetermined, but in Missing Persons, sometimes the more terrible aspects of human nature could be replaced by humorous anecdotes of crazy family dynamics or stories that ended happily as friends and loved ones were reunited.

"Mmhmm," she said contentedly as he began to slowly massage her shoulders.

"Anything interesting today?"

She shook her head and laughed. "I don't think so. I'm so tired I can barely remember."

"You can barely remember?" He mocked in her ear.

"Well," she said teasingly, "It's not really my fault. You see, this incredibly attractive man showed up at my door late last night. He wasn't entirely sober, and I really couldn't help myself..."

"An incredibly attractive man? Really?" He raised his eyebrows in jest, even though she could not see it.

"Yeah, but there's really no need to get jealous. He had been drinking with some of his old friends, and I think he was still totally hung up on some girl he dated in college..."

Sam laughed, and he saw the hint of her smile reflected against the tinted microwave door. He smiled as well, remembering how he had joked with her about his friends swearing he'd never date anyone more gorgeous than the girl he'd dated on and off in college. He remembered her quiet nervousness as he'd told her honestly that she was far more beautiful.

"Mmm, thanks." She said as he finished massaging her shoulders to take a seat next to her at the table. He reached out and squeezed her hand affectionately.

"Anytime," he smiled and paused, then added, "college girl..."

xx

10:55 pm

"Hey, Viv," Naomi's voice echoed through the small room as she spoke on her phone. "No, no. We haven't heard anything yet -- Yes, of course, I'll let you know as soon as they tell us anything. -- Yeah, thanks for letting me know. -- Tell Marcus and Reggie 'hi' from me, and I'll talk to you soon."

When Naomi snapped her phone shut, she turned to look at Martin. "That was Vivian," she explained. "They finished processing Barry Mashburn. He was, uh, the guy who ..."

Martin nodded, understanding what she meant without further explanation. Fortunately, the nervous silence that followed was quickly interrupted by a knock at the door, as a tall man in surgical scrubs stepped inside.

"I'm Dr. Nordlund," he introduced himself. "Agent Spade came through the surgery just fine. We repaired all of the tissue damaged by the bullet, and we stabilized the hairline fracture in her femur. We gave her a few units of blood to replace all of the blood she lost, and prophylactic antibiotics because she's at an increased risk of infection. She's going to need some physical therapy, but she should recover well and be ready to go home in just a few days."

"When can we see her?" Martin asked, still trying to take in all of the information.

"She'll be in recovery for a little while longer, and then we'll move her to a private room. She's still pretty groggy from the anesthesia, so we would recommend going in one at a time... Anyway, I need to get back to my patients. If you have any questions or if you need anything, just let one of our nurses know."

The surgeon gave them a very professional nod of his head, and then left them alone in the room, once again.

Naomi immediately retrieved her phone to give the rest of the Missing Persons team the good news, while Martin sat in silence.

If he had thought the wait for her to be out of surgery was interminable, the far shorter wait for her to be moved from recovery to a private room seemed to last even longer. He was exhausted and emotionally drained, but he knew he would not be able to rest until he saw for his own eyes that she was going to be alright. That was when he remembered the talk he wanted to have with her over dinner, and he realized that he had the answer to his unspoken question.

After a seemingly endless wait, a nurse finally came to inform them that she had been moved into a private room and would they like to see her.

Naomi insisted that he go first, for which he vowed he would be eternally grateful.

He entered the room cautiously, not wanting to wake her if she had fallen back asleep. The dark room was illuminated only by several monitors beeping eerily in the background; there were no stars out that night. Sam lay on the hospital bed, IV attached to one arm and several other wires attached to her other arm and her chest. The steady beat of her heart echoed from one of the machines, and he was certain he had never been so relieved and overjoyed to see anyone in his entire life.

He stood by her beside for several minutes before gathering up the courage to reach out and touch her, to reassure himself that she was, in fact, still there. He leaned forward to kiss her forehead gently, and when he pulled back, he felt her begin to wake up.

"Martin?" She said, confused, her voice weak and hoarse.

His heart leapt, and he smiled down at her. He reached out to hold one of her hands in his, and whispered, "Hey, college girl."

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