Twenty-Eight – After the Fire
Rebecca stirred feebly, still wrapped in her mother's embrace and shielded from the brunt of the explosion. She rubbed her eyes and coughed. She still felt terrible after all the smoke.
Rebecca lifted her head from her mother's shoulder and searched out her face. "Mommy?" she asked. "Mommy, wake up." She shook her mother's shoulder. "Wake up, Mommy."
Her mother's face remained blank, her eyes closed. "Mommy!" Rebecca shouted.
She turned as she heard someone groan. "Uncle Mike?" she asked hopefully.
It was not Mike who sat up. It was Mendel. Furthest from the house at the time, he had fared the best, except for Rebecca who had been shielded by her mother. He rubbed the side of his head, where he could already feel a lump forming. He was certain that he had bruised the majority of his right side, which had taken the brunt of the fall, but he was also confident that nothing was broken.
"Hey, sweetheart," Mendel said. "Are you hurt?" His first concern was the little girl. She had been the reason they were all at the house, and her safety was the top priority of everyone there.
"Mommy won't wake up," Rebecca replied.
Mendel forced himself to get up, his legs shaking. It occurred to him that they shouldn't remain near the house, but first he wanted to see who was able to move.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Mendel asked Rebecca.
"My breathing hurts," she replied. She coughed again, and then whimpered at the pain it caused bother her lungs and throat. "I think my airbags got burnt up," Rebecca told Mendel, using the word for lungs that her Uncle Mike had taught her as a joke.
"Okay," Mendel said. "Does your body hurt anywhere else?"
"Everywhere," she replied. "But mostly here-" she touched her chest, "- and here." She touched her throat.
Mendel crouched next to his partner and felt for a pulse. He waited, hoping… there it was. His partner was still alive. He was face down on the ground, but Mendel was afraid to turn him over in case of a spinal injury. His attention was caught by someone else stirring. Fernandez blinked her eyes open. She was flat on her back, staring up.
One of her arms was twisted at an unnatural angle. She had hit the ground and rolled before ending up on her back. There was blood dripping into her eye, from a cut in her hairline. He body ached from impact, but she was able to slowly sit up and pull her injured arm towards herself.
"Kirk's alive," Mendel said. He heaved himself to his feet again, heading to where Rebecca sobbed into her mother's chest. Fernandez moved towards her partner.
"Logan?" she asked. She knelt down next to him. He was bleeding from a head laceration. There was a lot of blood, but head wounds bleed a lot. Her concern was that he didn't have much blood to spare at the moment. Then her attention was caught by the spreading bloodstain on his shirt. She pulled it open, fearing the worst. "Damn it, partner!" she snapped. She snapped not out of irritation, but worry. The gunshot wound was bleeding freely. Judging by the amount of drying blood, it had probably opened up before they even got there. She pressed her hands firmly onto the wound.
Mendel settled himself next to where Rebecca was still nestled in her mother's arms. Alex's hair was damp with blood. He placed his fingers over the place where her pulse should be found, and waited. Please, he begged no one in particular; don't make me pry this little girl from her dead mother's arms.
He breathed a sigh of relief. She was still alive. Rebecca looked up and caught sight of the blood for the first time. "Mommy, you're hurt!" she exclaimed. "I kiss it better." She wriggled up further to plant a kiss over the injury.
"You know, sweetheart, I think pressure would be better in this case," Mendel said. He felt through her hair, wet with blood, to try and find the source. He found it – along with the cause. A good sized rock just happened to be the place where she hit the ground.
"Any signs of life?" Mendel tossed over his shoulder.
"He's breathing," Fernandez replied shortly.
"Are Mommy, Uncle Mike, and the other detective gonna be okay?" Rebecca asked.
Mendel was saved answering as his partner moaned and began to stir. He tried to roll over, but stopped and gasped in pain.
"Don't move, Kevin!" Mendel instructed. "You could have a spinal injury."
"I don't know about that," Kirk gasped, "but my leg is definitely broken."
Mendel looked over and bit his tongue to keep from exclaiming. He had been more concerned with signs of life, spinal injuries, or head injuries when he checked his partner. He now noticed that his right leg, which was turned slightly and facing Mendel, had part of the femur protruding from it. He was grateful that his partner couldn't see how bad it was, and he didn't enlighten him.
Rebecca had turned to try and see Kirk. "You look after your Mom," Mendel said, moving slightly to block her view. "Detective Kirk is fine, but Mommy needs all of your attention right now. She needs lots of hugs to get better."
Rebecca obeyed, snuggling close to her mother and no longer trying to see Kirk. Mendel thought it was better if she didn't have that image branded into her mind.
"Rebecca?" Kirk asked. "Is she okay?" He would have asked sooner, but he had been afraid that he would vomit from the pain if he opened his mouth. He had waited for the nausea to subside first. It had taken all of his concentration, and he hadn't heard what Mendel had said.
Mendel nodded encouragement, and Rebecca answered. "I'm okay, detective." Kirk breathed a sigh of relief. "Detective?" Rebecca added. "Thank you for rescuing me."
"You're welcome, honey," Kirk replied. He waited a moment, biting his tongue and trying to block out the pain from his broken leg. Then he spoke again, asking, "Everyone else?"
"I'm fine," Mendel began, "Eames is still out, but I only see the one head wound and some minor lacerations and bruises. Fernandez is over with Logan."
"He's got a nasty head wound," Fernandez replied, "and his other injury opened up again." She could not keep the anger out of her voice when she said that. Kirk had been the one to cause that wound. If Mike bled out because of the combined effects of both wounds, she was going to give Kirk more than just a broken leg. "I've just busted my arm," she added as an afterthought.
All of the detectives would have been a lot more hostile if it weren't for the events that had just occurred. Fernandez wanted to rip Kirk apart limb by limb for what he had done to her partner, but he had just rescued Rebecca. Mendel had been hostile towards Eames and Logan for so long, it would have been hard to break that habit. Especially since he hadn't heard what Rebecca said. At the moment, he was more intent on saving Rebecca's mother than he was thinking of what they had suspected her of. Kirk's only focus was the children.
The first sign of her coming to was her arms tightening around Rebecca. Even unconscious, she was unwilling to let her daughter get away again. "Mommy?" Rebecca asked hopefully.
Alex's eyes opened and settled on Rebecca. Identical eyes found each other, and both of them smiled. "Are you okay, baby?" Alex asked.
"I'm okay, Mommy," Rebecca replied. "But my airbags hurt."
Alex chuckled slightly at her choice of words. She reached up to take over applying the pressure to her head wound, and Mendel moved on to his partner without another word.
"Mommy, is Uncle Mike gonna be okay?" Rebecca asked.
Alex struggled to a sitting position. "How's he doing?" she asked Fernandez.
"He's still out," Fernandez replied tightly. "But his pulse is strong and his breathing is regular. He'll be okay."
Alex, still holding Rebecca in one arm with the hand from the other pressed to her head, got up to make her way over to Mike. She looked down at Kirk, who was watching her with an unreadable expression.
This was the man who had shot both Mike and Bobby. But this was also the man who had saved Rebecca. She stopped and went over to him, anticipating what he would say before he formed the question.
"Willow?" he asked.
"She's safe," Alex replied. "Agent Peters took Willow to the station. They're waiting for your wife to fly in and pick her up."
"Thank you."
She didn't reply. Instead she glanced down at Rebecca, and then back to him. He understood. She was grateful for her daughter's life, and thought he had earned the knowledge that his own daughter was safe. But she had by no means forgiven him.
She knelt down next to her friend. Rebecca leaned forward to place a small hand on his cheek. They waited, but he didn't regain consciousness. The sound of sirens brought them out of their reverie.
Mike and Kirk were fitted with neck braces and strapped to the backboards. They were brought in the first two ambulances on scene, as they were the most critical. The others remained silent, other than answering the paramedic's questions.
The three remaining detectives and Rebecca waited for the next ambulance. They were assessed on-scene first, and Mendel was deemed well enough to travel to the hospital himself.
Alex, Rebecca, and Fernandez went in the next ambulance. Alex convinced Rebecca to let the paramedics put an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose by telling her it would make her 'airbags' feel better. One of the paramedics stitched up Alex's head wound and splinted Fernandez's arm.
"Which one of you is Eames?" the paramedic asked.
"I am," Alex replied. Rebecca also helpfully pointed to her mother. The paramedic smiled at Rebecca and then turned to Alex. "Someone left word for us to tell you to that we're heading to the hospital where your husband is recovering from surgery."
"He's okay?" Alex asked tremulously.
"His condition was stable when we got the call," the paramedic replied.
Alex's eyes brimmed with tears. Only this time, they were happy tears. Bobby was alive, and she had Rebecca back.
"We're going to see Daddy," Alex told Rebecca. The oxygen mask shifted, so she knew Rebecca smiled.
