Kerry didn't have to ask what was going on. She knew. Mark knew. Everyone knew. Mark froze when the gun went off. He prayed that Fossen wouldn't see him. Kerry was the first of the two to recover. She shoved Mark into the lounge, and behind a couch. Kerry looked around. She saw Rachel huddled behind the other couch, crouching over Ella, who fortunately, wasn't crying. They all heard the door open. Kerry ducked, and held her breath. "Chief?" Kerry and Mark both let their breath out. "Malucci, what?" Kerry barked. Malucci looked around, and seeing that Mark was in there said, "Umm. that guy is out there with a gun." he looked at Mark, and then whispered to Kerry, ".trying to find Mark and the baby." Kerry drew in her breath, and just nodded, "I assume the police were called?" "Yeah probably," Suddenly, the door burst open. Carter and Deb stumbled in. A stray bullet managed to find it's way through the door, and missed Kerry by three feet. "Shut the door!" Everyone yelled. Before the door closed though, everyone saw someone go down. No one got a chance to see who it was. No one knew what to do. Carter had coaxed Rachel into moving into the corner of the room farthest away from the door. Rachel didn't protest, but she clutched Ella to her breast tightly. Deb followed Rachel back there and sat with her, "It'll be over soon, honey. It'll be over soon." She whispered. Carter knew that this particular situation was not similar to the other shoot outs in the ER. Usually, they were over in a few seconds. Now, bullets were still going after five minutes. Carter looked over at Deb huddled up with Rachel and Ella. Carter felt a tap on his shoulder. Malucci was beckoning him to follow. Crouching low, Dave and Carter made their way over to the couch closest to the door. Carter had no idea what Dave was doing, but he went along with it. Dave was now trying to drag the couch behind him, so he wouldn't be in the line of fire if the door would open. Carter started to pull too. They made little progress. "God. This is getting us no where!" Dave said under his breath, and then he got up and went around to the other side of the couch and pushed. Carter was almost run over by the couch, but managed to scramble out of the way. Dave quickly maneuvered the couch so that Rachel, Deb, and Ella were completely protected from the line of fire. They were in a little triangle of two walls and the couch. Dave and Carter quickly made their way back to safety behind the other couch with Kerry and Mark. They sat there for what seemed like another ten minutes. They could hear the shooting starting and stopping. They didn't know what was going on outside the door. For all they knew, they could be the only ones left alive in the hospital. Carter looked to the window when they heard ambulances driving up in the bay. "Too bad those windows are Plexiglas." he thought. The windows didn't open either. Nothing changed for the next half hour. The sounds of bullets starting and stopping. The screams of people who had gotten hit. Sometimes the bullets were far away, sometimes they were practically right outside the door. Kerry let out a little yelp once when they all heard what was clearly a bullet going through the door of the lounge. Kerry thought, "How come they can't just get this guy?" It seemed that Fossen was invincible. ______________________________________________________________________ It had been one full hour from when the shooting had started. Deb, Rachel, and Ella sat huddled behind the couch in the corner, and Kerry, Dave, Mark, and Carter were leaning against the back of the other couch. Several bullets had come through the lounge door, by now, and each time it happened, someone let out a small whimper of surprise. Kerry pulled Carter over as far away as they could get from Mark, without leaving the safety of the couch. She whispered, "Carter, why can't they catch this guy? Come on, I mean, it's just one man. How hard can it be?" "I don't know. He's probably moving around a lot and killing just about everyone they send in; but I really don't know," Carter whispered. Ella woke up and started crying- loudly. Kerry, Carter, and Dave all turned towards the other couch. They could hear Rachel and Deb trying to calm the wailing baby. "Shhh. Ella, it's all right. You're okay." Rachel whispered. Kerry got up and hobbled over to the refrigerator. She opened it up and scanned the contents: cake from the last birthday party, apples, old bananas, half a pizza. and a carton of milk. Kerry knew that babies really shouldn't have regular milk, but it would have to do. Now she had to find a bottle. There was no bottle in the lounge, that was for sure. "Mark, do you have a baby bottle in your locker?" Kerry rose her voice just loud enough to be heard. Mark shook his head "no.' Kerry strained her mind trying to think of a way to make a bottle. She had no idea what to do, and Ella was still wailing. The baby could give them away to Fossen, and with Mark and his daughters in here, that would definitely be the worst possible thing to happen. Kerry remembered a movie where they had used a rubber glove filled with milk and a hole in one of the fingers as a bottle. Kerry took off her gloves, which fortunately, were clean, and filled one of them with milk. She then took a knife (that brought back bad memories) and used the tip to poke a miniscule hole in the middle finger. Bending down as low as she could get with her cane, she made her way over to the couch that Ella, Rachel, and Deb were behind. She handed the glove over the couch to Deb, and said, "It's milk. Let the baby suck on the middle finger." Kerry left it at that, and hurried back to her hiding spot. She was glad to hear the cries of the baby had subsided, and could hear a sucking sound coming from the other couch. Mark sat there. He was scared, mostly. Scared for himself, and for his daughters. "This is all my fault," He thought to himself. Deep down, he knew that there was really no way he could have prevented any of this from happening, but still, he took the blame for it. "I should have stayed home. Then Elizabeth might be all right, and all of this wouldn't have happened," Mark thought. He knew that if he had stayed home, Elizabeth would probably still be the way she was, and that he would be dead. "It's all my fault." played over and over again in Mark's head. He couldn't forget the day that he had started all of this, when he had sent that boy into foster care. Rachel sat behind the couch, clutching Ella, and cramped horribly in with Deb in the corner. "What is going on?" Rachel said under her breath, but softly enough that Deb couldn't hear. Rachel knew that someone was shooting up the ER, and that she was in the lounge hoping that whoever had the gun didn't find them. She didn't fully understand what had happened to Elizabeth. Rachel knew she had been shot, and that she was in critical condition. But, other than that, Rachel knew nothing. Rachel's thoughts were cut short by the sound of the lounge door opening. Everyone resisted the urge to look up above their couch, to see who it was. After a minute or two, the sound of metal clicking was heard. Everyone knew what the sound was: a gun being reloaded.