Running
Disclaimer: CSI and Without a Trace are the property of their respective owners. I own nothing.
Spoilers: CSI up to Play with Fire, WaT first season
Summary: WIP. CSI / WaT crossover. Set after CSI PwF and WaT Fallout 2. It's easier to run than to act.
A/N: Thanks to Maple Street, the most amazing corner of the internet. This chapter hasn't been beta-read because D is on vacation. I hope you guys still enjoy it.
Outside of the Watts residence, New York City
May 15, 9.56 a.m.
Three shots ripped apart the tense silence over the area.
Alarmed Vivian and Danny looked at each other, the same thoughts running through their heads. Who had fired the shots?
"Cover the back! I'll go front." Vivian hissed, quickly making her way to the open front door.
The few meters to the front door seemed to take hour to traverse. Vivian carefully approached the door, gun drawn, not knowing what would await her inside. She listened at the open front door, hearing Jack's familiar voice from inside.
"Calm down. You're going to be fine. I need to take a look." Who was he talking too? Vivian was puzzled. She indicated the officers standing by that she was going to go in. The first thing she saw was Jack at the far end of the corridor, kneeling on the floor next to Martin. The two woman were on the floor as well. Vivian immediately knew that something had gone very wrong. Jack looked up, having noticed her presence.
"Get the paramedics. Martin got shot." Jack sounded oddly calm and business-like.
"Christine Watts is dead" he added, nodding in the direction of the living room to the living room.
Within seconds a frenzy of activity descended upon the formerly quite suburban house.
Someplace, sometimeEverything was full of noises that wouldn't stop, noise that was making her head hurt to the point of bringing tears to her eyes. Sara needed to get away from the noise, get away from her, the woman with the cold voice. Her mind screamed at her to get away from this hell, but her weakened muscles wouldn't comply. No matter how desperately she tried, she was working on willpower alone and that wasn't enough to defeat gravity. Suddenly, the vain struggle ended and a force pulled her upward her into a sitting position. Her first instinct was to escape, get away from the hostile hands, but they wouldn't let her. Panic rose again, as she fought the firm grasp.
"Calm down. It's okay, Sara. You're safe now."
A voice, very different, from the shrill and cold voice she had come to fear over the past three days. Sara halted her efforts, looking up to located the source of the voice.
She didn't see the face that had come to haunt her. She was looking at the blurry form of a woman's face. But it wasn't her kidnapper's face. It was a reassuring face.
"You're going to be fine. Helps on the way."
The words and the voice reassured her. She wasn't sure what had just happened, it had all passed on a blurry haze, when suddenly something had exploded, sending her crashing to the floor. The lab had exploded? Sara was confused, lost between scrambled memories and perceptions.
"It's going to be all right. Just relax."
The reassuring voice was still there. Sara wanted to believe her. Black fog was rising all around her, clouding her vision and inviting her to just give in and close her eyes.
"It's over."
Sara believed the voice and welcomed the darkness, escaping the horrors of the past three days.
Watts Residence, New York CityMay 15, 11 a.m.
The characteristic smells of blood and gunpowder were hanging over the scene, which now that the buzz of activity had disappeared, had taken on a surreal quality.
"She was keeping her here. She drugged Sara using the sleeping pills." Danny pointed to the container on the night stand. "But what I don't understand is what she was planning on doing with her. She never send a ransom note, but she didn't kill Sara either. Looks like she even bought painkillers for her." Danny examined the other bottles on the nightstand.
"My guess is that she was in panic. Maybe she encounter Sara with her husband and things hot out of hand. Sara's badly injured, but she's too scared to call it in. She can't decided what to do with her." Vivian shrugged.
"No wonder she was with her nerves on edge. You think her husband knew what was going on?"
"Definitely, alone she would have been in too much panic to come up with the plan of going back to the hotel and staging a scene there. He's in it too."
"But we won't ever be able to prove that. The wife's dead and he's all going to blame it on her." Danny said angrily.
"I talked to the paramedic earlier, he said that Sara's injuries apparently aren't life threatening. She's going to make it. But still, there's no way of telling how much she can give us to nail Dr. Watts. I'm going to call the hospital later to get an update and see how Martin's doing."
Danny said nothing, he too was more worried about Martin than he let on.
"I think we can have forensic go over the house now. Maybe they'll be able to tell us more. We need to get back to the office.,.
Paperwork is always waiting. Danny said grimly. Any shooting left a trail of paperwork in its wake, but when an officer has been injured it doubled. Additionally, the entire incident would be picked apart by OPR who seemed to be always trying to find a scapegoat.
Mount Sinai Hospital, New York CityMay 15, 3.45 p.m.
Jack was sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, sipping lukewarm coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Every muscle in his body ached. Lack of sleep and the waning adrenaline rush were taking its toll. While his body was craving rest, his mind was kicking into overdrive, thoughts and images chasing one another at a frenzied pace.
*When Christine Watts had pointed to gun at the in the house, his world had suddenly disappeared. That was the only way he could describe it. All he could see was the gun, a deadly construction made of black metal. Who was holding it didn't matter. Everything else was suddenly gone, and he had found himself staring a the gun, utterly powerless to look away or even move. No words or reasonable thought would have been able to break In his mind he had gone right back to the moment when Barry Mashburn had been holding a gun to his forehead. Even the vague replay of the memory had him frozen to the spot. There had been a small voice in his head, urging him to do something, anything, but it had been too soft and too weak to have any effect. Now in retrospect, he saw that he could only have stood there frozen for seconds, but it had seemed like a timeless eternity. The unmistakable sound of a shot fired had broken into the mental hell, where he'd been trapped, unable to escape the memory. Before he could fully process the input, he'd been thrown off his feet and before he'd hit the ground a second shot made his ears ring. He wasn't sure what he brought him back into reality; the sound of gunfire or the tumble to the ground. But when he had looked up at Christine Watts, her gun trained on him and Martin, he'd done as his training demanded and fired his gun. Luckily, even through his fall, he had managed to hold on to it.
Only then he took in what had happened; the force that had pushed him to the ground had been Martin, who was now a dead weight on top of him.
Martin groaned in pain, panic on his face as he gasped for air. Jack carefully turned him on his back, searching for injuries, while trying to get him to calm down.
Then, Vivian had come rushing in, followed by the paramedics. Nobody had asked him any questions on the scene and he doubted that they had any idea of what had really happened. It could have been an accident, but it hadn't been.*
The unexplainable fixation on the gun had been broken in time, but the knowledge that it could happen again was there. He knew what that meant. Another OPR investigation, being suspended at best, fired at worst. Worse than the professional consequences would be the personal fallout. He'd endangered the lives of the missing woman and his team members. He'd gotten Martin shot because he had frozen up at a scene. The vest had taken the hit. While bullet proof vests protected from most bullets, they couldn't protect the wearer from the energy of the hit. It was just spread over a larger area of the body. Bruises, broken bones and internal injuries could still result from a shot. But it was no use worrying about it no. It had happened.
He sighed, turning his attention back to the grey hospital corridor. He was just about to get up to get another cup of coffee, when he saw Martin was coming his way. He was walking slowly, his movements stiff. He was obviously in significant pain.
Jack got up, relived to see him.
"Martin, how are you?"
"I'll be okay. Bruises and a cracked a rib." Martin flinched.
"I'm sorry." Jack said, not sure what to say in light of what had happened at the house.
"Sorry?" Martin's tone changed. "What the hell were you doing back there? She was going to shot both of us because you apparently lost it." Martin was furious, but had to pause to catch his breath.
If you aren't fit for duty and you go out in the field, you're gambling with everyone's lives Jack. It isn't your decision. You have no right to do that. Just admit that you can't deal with it. You should have stayed out of it from the beginning., I heard what Van Doren asked you. You were lying, we both know that. You never should have gone in there. It's none of my business what you and Samantha have going, but if it means that you are too caught up in it's my business. You could have gotten me and Sara killed. With your life you can do whatever you want. I don't know what I was thinking pushing you down. You obviously don't care about yourself. Just don't gamble with other people's lives. Get your fucking business sorted!" Martin yelled, wheezing, his face red from the effort.
"You're way out of line, Martin." Jack said, straining to keep his voice calm. He couldn't afford to loose it now. He walked away, leaving the other man standing in the hallway. Already has he had said the last words, his anger had started to cool down a bit. They were all pretty rattled after the shooting. He would deal with Martin later when they had both had a chance to cool their heads a bit. Just then his pager went off. He checked the message; it was from Van Doren, telling him that she wanted to see him as soon as possible at the office. He had a pretty good idea what she was going to say and the prospect was everything but pleasant. But there was no getting out of it, but before he had to do something else, something he had already put off too long. Asking the receptionist for the relevant information, he found his way to the eighth floor. Standing in front of room 845, he took a deep breath, mentally berating himself for being so nervous.
Samantha was in a semi-sitting position in bed, reading something. She looked up when he comes in.
"Jack?" She sounded surprised, like she didn't except him to come. Considering that it has taken him a good three days, he couldn't blame her.
"Samantha. How are you?" he asked, sitting down on a chair next to the bed.
It was the wrong question, he knew it before she said another word. Samantha frowned, looking at him, her expression changing from surprised to angry. The second time this happened during a conversation.
"You ask about that now? I had to hear from Vivian and Martin that you made it out of there alive. After you didn't think to even drop by once. I've gotten visits by agents from the office that I've hardly ever spoken to. But not you. I don't get it. Didn't it occur to you that I was worried about you?" Samantha almost yelled at him.
Jack didn't say anything. He should have expected that. He hadn't been there for her when he should have been. He wasn't sure he could forgive himself for that, so how could he assume that she would?
Silence; neither of them said anything or looked at the other.
"I'm sorry. I've been on the edge the last few days." She broke the silence in a small voice. She didn't look up. "It's just when I didn't see you at the hospital, I thought you hadn't made it out. I thought that you …" She broke off, leaving the sentence dangling.
"I couldn't stand that thought, It made me think about all that I'd lose without you." She finally looked at him.
"Besides, I've been going stir crazy in here." She added in a tone she hoped would seem light.
Jack just looked at her. Then taking her hand, he said: "You have nothing to be sorry for. You're right, it wasn't fair from my part that I didn't come see you before now."
He paused, trying to find the right way to express what he felt.
"It has nothing to do with me not caring. I hope you know that. It's just that these last few days haven't been easy."
Jack didn't even try to explain why, he knew he would never be able to find the right words. He could only hope that Samantha would accept his apology.
Samantha nodded, not wanting to press for answers. She knew that he wasn't just talking about work, his actions had consequences for his marriage and relationship to his family. A part of his life that she would never be a part of. That was in the very nature of their relationship. She was always the other woman, the mistress of a married man. The mistress had to live with the thought of sharing a man. But that wasn't an advantage., no every day routine. The memories of her intense relationship were a collection of special moments, moments in which Jack wasn't her boss and wasn't Maria's husband. Jack by far wasn't the first married man she had been with. But he was the first with whom it bothered her that she was just the mistress. It being over with him had hurt more than any relationship before. In fact, it still hurt, a little bit every time she saw him. She had just learned to cover up her feeling at work a long time ago.
A small smile appeared on her face.
"You're here now. That's what counts. Thank you for what you did. Everything. I know you probably got into trouble for it. But I owe my life to you. There aren't enough words to thank you for that." She couldn't begin to express what she felt. Especially now that everything had changed again. A few weeks ago, she had worked so hard to convince herself that it was really over, once and for all. But when Jack had been leaning over her in the bookstore, trading his life for hers. She didn't know what to think anymore. She was probably just deluding herself thinking that anything had changed, because she secretly wished for it.
Jack was just about to reply when his beeper went off yet again. Van Doren again. He hadn't called her back. She wanted to know when he would get back to the office to give his statement.
"I'm sorry. Need to get going; Van Doren wants to have a word with me and I don't think I'm in the position to be late."
"Van Doren? Haven't you talked to her already?"
"It's about our current case. We had a situation this morning." Jack replied a bit hesitantly.
Samantha frowned. Van Doren only intervened when something had gone wrong or mistakes had been made. She thought about asking Jack for detail, but decided against it.
"Then you better get going. Good luck!" She said trying to hide the disappointment that he didn't tell her what was going on.
tbc
