A/N: I'll be out of town with no internet for a couple of days. The story will be finished within this year, I swear.
Chapter 25
Rogers entered a waiting room quiet and filled with tension where the only audible sound was that of Bobby's quick steps and of Myles' more rhythmical ones. The sound of the door opening drew the attention of the group of friends who lifted hopeful gazes to the new arrival.
"I suppose you don't have any news of Hudson, yet." Rogers commented, a sympathetic expression on his tired face.
D shook his head as an answer while Bobby and Myles resumed walking.
After having observed for a couple of minutes the reddened eyes of the women, the faces tired, almost aged, of Myles and D and the troubled gaze of Bobby, Rogers cleared his throat and resumed talking.
"Crown has been visited and we're going to bring him to the Hoover Building to question him. I'll let you know our progress. Call me the moment you have news on Hudson."
D nodded absently but after a few moments got up and, approaching the other agent, shook hands with him.
"Thank you." D said sincerely, his gaze eloquent.
"I just made my job." Rogers replied modestly. "In fact, I should thank you all. In less than a day you solved a case that my team has not been able to solve in more than two months." The agent added with sincere admiration.
"We just took advantage of Crown's only mistake…" D said shrugging. "And, truth to be told, we were quite motivated…" Rogers nodded gravely.
"Give my regards to Hudson when he wakes up." The agent said. Then, with a last handshake, he took leave of D and the rest of the team and exited the waiting room that fell again in a tense silence.
Almost half an hour later, the door opened again and the long-waited doctor entered.
"Are you here for Mr. Hudson?"
"Agent Hudson. Yes, we're his colleagues." Myles answered, showing his badge.
"Your colleague is in a critical condition. He's obviously dehydrated and weakened for the loss of blood. Besides many minor contusions, he suffers of a serious concussion and both his left supraorbital process and left zygomatic bone are broken. Probably there's some damage to the left eye but because of the swelling we can't confirm it, yet. Moreover, both his shoulders are dislocated, he has four broken ribs and five wounds caused by a knife. Three of them are quite deep but no organ has been seriously damaged. Unfortunately, though, when your colleague arrived here the poisoning was already in an advanced stage. We subjected him to a gastric washout but, apparently, it wasn't enough and, after a respiratory arrest, agent Hudson slipped in a coma. Now we're trying to clean completely his body from the camphor with the lipid dialysis. If everything goes as I hope it will, agent Hudson should wake from the coma in a few hours. Then, he'll have to rest for three weeks at least so that his body can heal and the physiotherapy can give back to his arms their full mobility.
"Does it mean that he'll make it? That he's going to be fine?" Sue asked, almost incredulous, ignoring the tears that apparently didn't want to stop to copiously flow from her red and puffy eyes.
"The therapy that we're trying is still in an experimental stage and I don't want to give you false hopes… but your colleague is healthy, apart from the poisoning obviously, and has a strong constitution. The odds are in his favour."
"Can we see him?" Bobby asked.
"As I said, it will take a few hours for him to wake up from the coma so I'd suggest you all to try and get some rest. I'll send a nurse to call you when you will be able to visit him. But keep in mind that probably he won't be fully conscious at least until tomorrow afternoon."
With a nod and a kind smile the doctor left the room.
After a couple of hours a nurse entered the waiting room and, with a smile on her round face, announced that Jack was reacting well to the therapy and he was starting to awake from the coma. The group of friends erupted in an explosion of exclamations and manifestations of joy.
"Thank God!" D murmured just before being nearly knocked out by a vigorous slap on his back by an ecstatic Bobby while Sue followed in silence the nurse outside the waiting room.