Disclaimer: This is solely for the enjoyment of the readership. There is no intent to infringe on characters owned by CBS.
Rating: PG
Sharpshooter – 3
Even as Calleigh was struggling with queasiness and her own raw emotions, Horatio was struggling, too. He could hear what was going on around him. He heard Calleigh get chased away. It made him angry. If only he could tell the doctor how much it meant to keep Calleigh nearby. With all his might he tried to let out a groan, a grunt, something. He was disappointed when his body failed him at just the moment he needed to add his part to the conversation. But Calleigh was gone now. He heard her say that she'd be there though. It meant she was not far away. She was near; he knew it in his heart that she'd never be far away.
The nurse sliced through his belt and one leg of his trousers. Then, the scissors were brought to bear on the other leg. The clothes were slid out from under the patient. He heard his trousers and shoes hitting the floor. He heard the rustle of a paper bag, like all the ones he'd used as evidence. Surely they'd give his stuff to Calleigh; she was just around the corner. The snap of a sheet – Horatio could hear it being cast across his body.
Horatio could hear the doctor ordering that his blood be drawn for – "how many units did he think I'd need?" His head was reeling from the frenetic activity all around him. With his eyes shut tightly, it was so hard to keep up with who was where and doing what. His investigative skills were being put to a severe test right at that moment. X-Rays were ordered to locate the bullet or fragments.
Horatio began to drift off, and as he did; he caught himself back at the shootout. What had happened back there? He was going to have to do a better job of remembering. He had reports to write when he got to his desk. Okay, it would not be tomorrow, but by the next day. "Yes, the next day, I'll be back at work," he mused through the haze of blood loss and narcotics.
"Let's see. We were heading to the rifle range," he began to himself. "Ah, it was so nice to see her smile. I never knew that the right size would make her so happy. I should have done this last year."
An endotrachea tube was pulled out of a drawer on the orders of the attending physician. Horatio felt none of the activity as the nurse shoved the tube roughly down his throat.
"Got it, doctor. Good sounds," the nurse reported as she made sure it went down his trachea and not his esophagus.
"Shoot the series and process, stat!" ordered the doctor.
Mentally he flinched at the sound of the word – shoot. He could hear the nurse clinking with something over in a cabinet to his left.
"You want two units hung now?"
"Yep."
Horatio could hear more sounds that made him think that he might be in more trouble than he first reckoned on. Where was Calleigh? He needed Calleigh. He thought he could hear her voice every now and again, but he needed to be reassured that she was there.
He was very aware of the sound of wet X-rays being slapped against the light box. Then it got very quiet – no medical chatter, no Calleigh, just a hush of the air filling his lungs. Horatio intended to draw in a deep breath. As he sucked in air, he was made aware of the sharp pain that sliced from the outside corner of his left shoulder through his chest and down to his gut. He wanted to cry out, but that tube was in the way!
"Okay, send him to prep," the doctor ordered. "Find that woman who came in with him. Let her know he's off to the OR."
X-rays were snapped down and placed in a folder that was dropped across Horatio for the ride upstairs.
"Yes sir," was the reply.
"Calleigh!" Horatio thought as loudly as he could. His whole person cried out for her at that moment. "I need you, Calleigh!"
He could hear the brakes being taken off and the wheels of the gurney on which he rested clatter along the tile floor. All he had left was sound to guide him.
The gurney stopped clattering, and an elevator door opened before him, beckoning him to ride.
"The person pushing the gurney could say something," he thought to himself. "But I bet he does not realize that I'm really here. I must be in worse shape than I thought back there. I wish I could just talk to Calleigh, let her know how I feel. Oh God, my wallet. She's got my wallet. She'll find the photo I keep. How am I going to explain that away? Oh God, help me!"
The OR doors parted with a soft hiss as the gurney continued to make its way to the theatre. Again, Horatio was transferred. His arms were spread out and IVs ran in both. He could hear the snap of gloves and what sounded like cloth being tied up in knots. Metal on metal greeted his ears, too. Then he heard another little hiss, and there was no more listening to be done. Horatio lost what little consciousness he had remaining.
The surgeon took a good long look at the X-rays that had ridden up on Horatio's lap.
"Looks like there are a whole bunch of fragments all scattered around in there. I'm afraid that one may be sitting on the brachial artery, too," he commented as he took one look at his patient's vitals before ordering the first instrument.
"He's under, Charlie. Your turn now!" teased the anesthetist.
"Let's do it, then. The sooner we get the blood vessels repaired the better. Scalpel," he began.
Back in the ER Calleigh came out of the restroom. She had thrown some water on her face to wash away the last traces of her earlier losses of control. The coolness had felt pretty good. She tucked Horatio's wallet into the pocket of her shooting jacket.
She looked down at the jacket, formerly new and now covered in Horatio's blood from when she had rendered him first aid a short time ago. It seemed an eternity ago when she "modeled" it for him. He had gone to great lengths to get this jacket for her, too. The budget was quite constrained as new security concerns shuffled money from one pot to another. They all had orders not to ask for anything that was not absolutely essential. A new shooting jacket for an extra-small sharpshooter seemed like such an extravagance to her at this moment. Yet for all that, she cherished that jacket and the wallet with its secrets it now held.
One of the staff, who had been working on Horatio, found her wandering around the clerk's desk. The clerk had finished with Horatio's insurance card and returned it to Calleigh.
"Hey, didn't you come in with that cop that got shot?" he wanted to know.
"Yeah, that'd be me," Calleigh confirmed.
"They just took him to surgery. He'll be in the OR for hours. The bullet was in several pieces, according to the X-rays. You might want to wait up there in that Waiting Room. This one is pretty messy," he tried to make her feel better. "Hey, if you want, I can take that bloody jacket and get you something clean?"
"No," she snapped. Her vehemence surprised herself. "Where did that come from, I wonder," she thought. Taking a deep breath, Calleigh smiled as best she could, "I'm sorry. It's been a bit of a rough day."
The nurse just smiled knowingly, "You can wait upstairs or the Chapel is down the hall and around the corner from here."
"Thanks for understanding," was all Calleigh could offer as she headed out the door.
She reached for her cell phone only to realize it was in the front seat of the Hummer. Horatio's was in the Hummer, too, in his coat pocket, slung across the back seat. Fat lot of good those did her now. She looked up in time to see Eric Delko.
Wordlessly, Eric just embraced her and held her as tightly as he dared. After a moment or two, he led his friend to the Chapel where it was blessedly quiet. They just sat in the pew for half an hour. Calleigh leaned into Eric's shoulder for comfort. Eric knew how to be quiet. He also felt terrible about what had happened to his boss. He looked up to "H" like a second Dad, although he could never tell Horatio that. It would be…too sissy, and Eric was no sissy. Then he broke the silence.
"What happened, Calleigh? What went down out there? I thought you and 'H' were going to the range for annual qualifications?"
Calleigh looked up and nodded.
"I don't know. Well,
I'm not really sure what happened."
"What do you think happened?"
"You really should not be asking me that," she dropped into her detective mode. "I'm going to have to go before a shooting review board," she heaved again.
Eric fell silent again and cradled Calleigh in his arms. He hated to see her hurt; she was like a big sister to him. For that matter, the whole team was family in many ways. It took an incident like this to drive it home and remind everyone of that fact. They were family, a family whose head now lay on a bench in the operating room, maybe fighting for his life. Neither Eric nor Calleigh knew. Neither did Horatio, for that matter.
Cop shootings were a little different. There was not much banter back and forth among the surgeons or those assisting them. They went about their jobs methodically and carefully. Plink, plink, was the sound that bullet fragments made as they hit the pan. Suction, irrigate, more suction, clamp were about the only actual words uttered. In all, the surgeon dug ten fragments out of Horatio's shoulder and upper chest. He repaired the brachial artery, which had indeed been nicked. As he closed, the OR tech started the eleventh unit of whole blood. The colour had yet to return to Horatio's ruddy complexion. Even then, Horatio was beginning to hear things around him again.
He heard somebody hand the bullet fragments to a tech to take to the officers downstairs.
"Good," he thought. "Evidence…" Then he mused again, "Like Calleigh did not see the whole damn thing herself! Wonder how many she took down after I got hit?" he wondered. "Hey, I think I'm going to be okay," he assured himself. "If I can worry about evidence and think about Calleigh, I'm going to make it."
Then the horrible thought of Calleigh finding her picture in his wallet jarred his senses. How would he get out of that one, he wondered.
