The pain is excruciating and he hopes that he is dead because dealing with the pain he is currently feeling course through his body is something he can't deal with right now. Even though the drugs he feels in his body are making him feel more than loopy, his brain can't stop trying to figure out what went wrong at the warehouse. He reviews the event in his head and although the drugs try to stop him from putting the puzzle pieces together, he knows one fact for sure, his daughter is now a widow. This hurts him more than his current injuries could ever have. And he still can't open his eyes.

"Babe, come on wake up for me… please." He can barely make out a voice through the fog of cognizant thought. He tries to open his eyes and fails spectacularly.

"Any change mom?" Alexis asks.

"No baby. He seems to want to try and come back to us but he just can't get there."

"Not for nothing mom, but he did end up with a broken back and broke fourteen of his thirty-three vertebrae, four discs that had to be fused together, both lungs were punctured, and he lost half of his blood volume. And that has nothing to do with the burns he got."

"Well, I just want him back." Kate looks to her daughter and asks,

"How are you feeling baby?"

"Like I want to explode. The twins keep using my bladder as a speed bag. But I can't do this mom, not without Kyle."

"I know that it will be hard for you. But me and your father will fill in for him. We will get you through this." Kate promised.

"How is Smitty doing," Alexis asked.

"He was released last week after your father's second surgery. His arm is healing nicely and he should be able to go back to work in a month."

They both turn back at the sound of an anguished and gagged squawk. What they see next shatters both of them. Rick is clawing at his throat trying to remove the tube that's down his throat keeping him breathing. Both women rush to keep him from doing that. By this time his heart rate has risen to unhealthy levels and has alerted the nurse's station. An intern and two nurses have rushed into his room trying to keep him calm and explain what's going on.

"Mr. Rodgers blink if you can understand me." The first RN asked him.

Rick took a second or two but he blinked and Kate could see tears leaving the corners of his eyes.

"Good that's good. I'm going to extract the breathing tube from your throat. You will feel a lot of discomfort and it will irritate your throat for a couple of hours after I remove it." The intern told him.

Rick blinked once again telling him that he understood.

"Ladies please do me a favor and stand out in the hallway for a minute or two so I can remove his breathing tube." The intern asks them.

"Nurse Janet, can you remove the tape from Mr. Rodger's mouth and then we'll get started."

Then the nurse removes the tape and Rick just looks on expecting the worst not knowing what will happen.

"Now Mr. Rodgers this will work a lot better if you start to cough as I remove the tube. It won't be as painful and it will cause less trauma to your throat. Blink twice if you understand."

Rick does and the process starts. Within a minute he is free of the tube and the intern is checking his throat for any lacerations caused by the removal of the tube.

"How do you feel Mr. Rodgers?"

"Like I am glad to have that thing out of my airway. How long am I going to be here doc?" Rick asked.

"Well as you can see, you're still in traction and will be for the next six weeks. Then the ortho doctor will complete an in-depth assessment of your progress in a month and maybe he will start you on physical therapy."

"So what about my job? I have a unit to run and the men and women in this city depend on me, not to mention my men in the unit that I manage."

"Mr. Rodgers I'm afraid that with the damage that you sustained from the explosion and fire that followed, you won't be able to return back to work. The damage to your back was what we in the field call a career-ending injury."

"What about physical therapy? That will get me back to 100%, right?"

"Rick, can I call you that?" The intern asked. Rick just nodded.

"You are going to be going through physical therapy and soon. But this is going to be nerve-wracking on your end. You're going to feel like you can't get anywhere at all and you'll see little result from all the effort you will put forth. This is to be expected. Knowing that what you are going to go through you're going to be frustrated quickly. So yes, there's a chance that you will get back to having what a normal life but you will never be one hundred percent for your job."

Rick just looks at his wife and his daughter hoping that they will give him something to go with but what he sees when he sees the looks on their faces, he is disappointed. He doesn't want to stop working with the bomb squad because it's is his life. What would he do without his job?

"Rick maybe this is a wake-up call. Think about it and maybe deciding to retire is the best path to take. You've been with the department for over thirty-five years." Kate tells him.

"Dad, there is going to be a lot of activity in the loft in the next couple of coming weeks. Are you sure you can handle it?" Alexis added.

"Listen, I appreciate what both of you are trying to do and I don't doubt that the loft will be overrun with four infants in the very near future. But I can't give up everything I have worked so hard to achieve. I will beat this and return to work sooner than the doctors tell me I can. I just need to do this."

"Rick I understand. It was the same way with me when I took over the 12th when I became Captain."

"Dad, if staying with Smitty, Herman, and Loto makes you happy then do it. Be the best that you can." His daughter tells him.

Xx

Colin had been following his progress in rehab and to his surprise, he never thought that his bomb vest would have done that much damage to the bastard. He damn near killed him when the concussion had put him through two walls and partially burned him and he was hoping that was the case. But the son of a bitch made it through all of his surgeries and was getting back to his fighting strength.

He knew that his physical therapy was grueling and that if he was ever going to return to work, he needed to excel in his rehab exercises. And by all accounts he was doing well. It's only the second time he has checked in on his progress and he needs to know that he will actually return to his job. Because in the end he will end up paying for it with his life. But now he needs to zero in on his next victim.

Paul "Smitty" Smith was a widower and while he was an asset to the BDU in Colins eyes he had outlived his usefulness. He had read where his father had tried to take him out with a complex floor plate and about four and a half pounds of Semtex wired to it but the man seemed to have nine lives as well as Rodgers. Rodgers was able to save his friend from that situation but now there would be nothing he could do to make it in time to save his friend. He knew that is his present condition he could never be able to do what he had done six years ago. This would be a way to eliminate the BDU and maybe once and for all he'd take out the bastard in the process.

His father had tried to take out Smith at his home and he had no doubt that his father had done more than enough research into his target. But it was Rodgers who had beaten all of his father's fail-safes to save the both of them. It would not happen this time. He knows that Smith drives an old 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix that was his pride and joy. It was a labor of love and he had restored it in a frame-off total restoration. It had a tan interior and a white exterior. If Colin played his cards right Smith would be buried in his gas guzzler. The BDU personnel had become lax when it came to their own safety never giving their surroundings a second thought. This would be their own downfall.