Roy had started to take on the same breathing rhythm Ed told him to use on the oxygen mask provided.

Trying to calm his fraying nerves on their sheer never-ending travel back to the comm-van, he had his back pushed against door of the backseat on the driver's side, flexing the muscles in his neck to avoid bumping his head against the window each time they hit a rut.

The LTD in front of them was travelling slowly, as if Ed was concerned that any excessive movement might cause Mike to become unstable. Their worlds had turned into two separate urgent care units as Ed had Roy Delaney dispatch their detective's condition to the comm-van to pass on to the waiting ambulances back in town, while he and Andy took care of their own patient. Heck, the unmarked police cars had been turned into ambulances in their own right.

Roy glanced down for a moment, the quiet 8- second breathing mantra taking up most of his concentration. A near-empty IV bottle was draped over his left shoulder and tied down with a roll of gauze to keep it in place without having to hold it. The plastic tubing attached to it continuously fed fluids through a needle attached to the side of Steve's neck, an urgent intervention Ed had to take care of when he could no longer access the veins on the inside of the young Inspector's elbow.

Watching Steve's chest rise each time he squeezed the oxygen bag sent an involuntary shudder down his back. Roy's experience of first aid in the field was limited, to say the least. Even after both Mike and he switched from Robbery to Homicide, he could count on one hand the occasions during which he had to apply pressure to a wound, or reassure an injured victim that help was on its way.

This situation however, being the person responsible to supply something as important as oxygen to one of his injured detectives… this was putting him into a whole new state of anxiety.

Using his right hand to squeeze the oxygen bag and his left hand to keep the mask in place and tilting Steve's chin back to open his airways per Ed's precise direction; Roy swallowed hard, desperately trying to focus at the task at hand when all he wanted to do was fold under the pressure.

"Come on, Stephen, Baby, this would be a grand time to wake up again…", he muttered, knowing it was futile.

Glancing at the young Inspector's pale face as he was cradling him in his lap, Roy said a prayer for those long eyelashes to start fluttering and making room for the curious green eyes he was so accustomed to seeing.

The LTD hit a deep rut, causing both Andy and him to curse under their breaths.

"So sorry…", the kid whispered, his eyes glued to the road ahead and his fingers clenching the steering wheel frantically, "Is the box still in place?"

Roy snapped out of his daydreaming and looked across the back bench, where Ed had used one of his medical cases to put under Steve's legs to elevate them. Much to his relief, things had remained perfectly in place.

"Inspectors 8-5 to DeWitt, come in, please."

Sighing in defeat, Roy let his head fall back against the window, before grunting at the sound of Tanner's voice.

"Andy, pick this up for me, will you, please?"

The young man reached for the radio insecurely, and Roy could see his hands shake all the way from the backseat.

"This is Andy Williams responding for Lieutenant DeWitt, go ahead, Inspectors 8-5."

Cuing his ears to the radio while maintaining stabile ventilation, Roy clenched his teeth, worried about which type of bad news would await him now. With his shirt beginning to stick to his chest from sweating out his anxiety, his drew in a deep breath, begging for a cigarette for the umpteenth time, forcing himself to relax in a situation that was so utterly foreign to him.

"Lieutenant, we found the second tow truck. It was abandoned just outside of Lucerne. Seems that our suspect fled on foot. Do you want us to proceed canvassing the area?"

"Damnit!", Roy cursed, subconsciously cradling Steve tighter in his lap. With no possible ID, no description of their suspect, and no clue where he was headed to, their nightlong search had just come to a very unceremonious and frustrating end.

"Andy, tell him to take the crew back into town and call for a forensics team to get prints off that truck before towing it to the lab. Then have them meet us on the southside of Lucerne where we have the ambulances on standby. I'll be able to give more instructions upon rendezvous."

The young man nodded quietly, before relaying his message, temporarily making DeWitt forget that he was a civilian after all.

Glancing back down and noting that nothing had changed with his patient, Roy was relieved to make out brake lights ahead, signaling that the intersection was near despite not being able to see it. As they left the rugged terrain of the two-track behind and the tires rolled onto the soft sand, he felt himself relax a bit more and leaned his tense back against the door, hoping to relieve the stress headache that quickly spread through his skull.

As the LTD slowed to a complete halt, he closed his eyes for a fleeting moment, focusing on nothing else but the oxygen bag and the quiet swooshing noise of air being pumped into his detective. Not a minute passed, before the door he leaned against was slowly opened, filling the cab of the police car with the chilly night air that quickly brought him back to his senses.

Roy didn't have to look around to know exactly who'd come to check on them.

"How's Mike holding up?"

"Hanging in there. He's one stubborn guy, I'll tell you what. His vitals are actually improving slowly, so I am hopeful that the rest of our trip will remain uneventful. I'm going to put another bag of fluids into him before we begin our journey downhill and also add some pain meds. He's not as far out as his partner, so hopefully that will get him to relax a bit and take the edge off the pain. He might even regain a subdued level of consciousness shortly. But I will continue to keep a close eye on his heart, that's my biggest concern at this moment. How are things here?"

Squeezing inside the tight space of the back seat, Ed parked another IV bottle, his blood pressure cuff and his stethoscope on Steve's chest, before reaching for the young Inspectors fingers.

"He hasn't woken up. I've just been doing what you told me to do.", Roy said more defeated than he'd intended and made room for Ed to check the young Inspector's pupils.

"He's not about to wake up anytime soon. But for what it's worth, I think we're making headway."

"I swear to you Ed, if you help save my Detectives, I will make sure you get a key to the city…"

His exasperated plea made the doctor flash a brief smile, before he resumed his exam, meticulously going over every type of vital sign, writing his findings on the back of his latex gloves, before reaching for his stethoscope and unbuttoning what was left of the young Inspectors bloody dress shirt.

"I hate treating hypovolemia because it's so different for everybody. You don't know how they'll bounce back until you start treating them and see how their systems respond...", running the diaphragm across the young Inspector's chest, Ed hesitated briefly, then wrote down another set of notes, before wrapping the stethoscope back around his neck, "Steve's definitely left that tachycardia stage behind. I was very worried about arrhythmias with him but I was hoping his age would be a benefactor to a more aggressive approach that would help save his life. So far, it seems to be working. Has keeping his legs elevated been working for you guys?"

Roy snapped out of his daze when Ed reached forward to button the young Inspector's shirt back up.

"Pretty much. As long as we take it easy, we should be good to go."

"Tell you what then…", the doctor said before reaching for Steve's belt, "I am going to see if we can't help him keep a bit more blood where he needs it the most right now…"

Reaching for the expensive gold buckle, Ed tightened it two more notches, before putting the pin back into the hole of the leather belt.

"I've seen this work more times than not. His vitals have come a long way from 45 minutes ago, Roy, you've done a great job. If we're lucky, between this…this adjustment and another bag of fluids, he might snap out of that low systole before we reach town. His papillary refill is already much better. Heart-rate has come down significantly. I don't think we need to intubate. I think I am just going to keep having you do what you're doing until we get back into town."

Relieved at the good news after a sheer endless row of bad ones, Roy sighed, then let out an involuntary chuckle as Ed finished exchanging the IV bottles.

"You know, one of these days you're going to have to tell me what in the hell you've been saying for the past hour, 'cause it sounds like a bunch of Chinese to me. I haven't got the faintest clue what just happened here."

Returning the smile, Ed kneeled down beside him for another brief moment, then shrugged.

"Well, now you know how us ME's feel when you guys show up and bark all your APBs, ABC's and R&I's. Same language, just a different accent."

"We owe you big time for this one, my friend."

As the words escaped his lips, Roy's voice was beginning to break under the immense pressure he had been putting himself under to save two of his men. And despite the internal backlash that would undoubtedly await him, and the potential for a disciplinary hearing, or worse yet, the press getting wind of his out-of-conduct mission, Roy couldn't be happier at the moment.

"I owe Mike more than I could ever possibly give back, believe me. This is the least I can do.", Ed said somberly before patting him on the arm, "At any rate, let's keep on rolling. I will stop by the comm-van for a minute to have them send a detailed message to the waiting paramedics, then let's get those boys back to safer ground. This fog and those mountains are beginning to creep me out. Keep up the good work my friend, you're doing great. Just relax and keep doing what you are doing."

Nodding in agreement, Roy leaned forward to allow for the doctor to close the door behind them again and then rested his head against the glass, quietly resuming the ventilation.

"You sure you don't want a key to the city, Ed?"

The muffled voice outside chuckled, as the doctor slowed his pace.

"Not if my life depended on it, Roy. I just remembered why I decided to deal with dead bodies only; it's a lot less stress. And I am not about to deal with brain-dead city leaders now."