Some Days Are Diamonds; Some Aren't
By Beth Green
Part 4 ***** Darien was well aware that the gas gauge on his car was defective, and never fell below the quarter tank mark. He decided not to share that information with Friendly. Mile after mile passed by and signs of city life, indeed signs of any life at all, were left behind. Eventually, what Darien had been waiting for came to pass. The engine began to sputter and cough until it quit altogether.
Friendly angrily asked, "What happened? Why did we stop?"
Darien helpfully offered, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe we ran out of gas?"
Friendly was livid with anger. Blondie stepped up her efforts to convince the man that she'd realized the error of her ways and really did love Fred, after all. She was doing her best to get up close and personal while Friendly was in the backseat and she was in the front. She suggested that they take their discussion outside.
Friendly readily agreed. He left Darien handcuffed to the interior of the car as he and Blondie stepped around to the front of the vehicle. Their discussion quickly became heated, and not with passion. Darien took advantage of the opportunity provided by his kidnapper's current distraction. He was not able to pick the lock on the cuffs. However, with the application of a little brute force, he was able to break the door handle that he'd been fastened to. There was still the matter of getting his partner out of the trunk. It would be quicker and easier if he got the keys back from Blondie. He quicksilvered, and stealthily approached the dueling duo at the front of the vehicle.
Just as he'd gotten near enough to reach for the keys, the combatants decided to take their argument to a whole new level. Darien couldn't help the "oh, crap!" which escaped when they began firing. Friendly's first round took Blondie in the chest. However, her gun had fired just prior to her death. The shot that she'd been able to get off planted itself squarely between Friendly's eyes. As the giant fell, his finger reflexively tightened on the trigger, firing off one last round.
Unfortunately, the last shot caught Darien as he was diving for cover. He felt an excruciating pain in his left thigh as the bullet tore into his leg, then felt no more as consciousness escaped him. An undetermined amount of time later, he awoke to the knowledge that his leg hurt; a lot. The resulting pain when he tried to move it nearly sent Darien back into unconsciousness.
His entire body was clenched tightly in a relentless spasm of pain. He held himself absolutely immobile as he tried to breathe through the worst of it. An eternity later, the injured man was finally able to focus on something other than the all-consuming agony. He took stock of his surroundings. By the moon's glow, he was able to make out the still figures of Friendly and Blondie. He hoped like hell that they were both dead, as he didn't have the energy to deal with it if they weren't. Darien needed help. With that thought, he slowly reached for his cell phone. A few stray tears of pain and frustration escaped when he discovered that they were out of cell phone range. He took a long minute to regain his composure.
"Okay, Fawkes, deal with it. Let's get a plan here. First, it'd probably be a good idea if you don't bleed to death. So, step one: get rid of the handcuffs." He crawled over to Blondie and retrieved the keys, setting himself free.
Mentally congratulating himself, he continued. "Now on to step two: some sort of bandage." He managed to remove his shirt and wrap it around the hole in his leg. Darien was exhausted after doing so, but knew that he couldn't stop or both he and Bobby would more than likely never leave this place alive.
He leaned back, panting from exertion. "All right. Good man. Now, step three: Get your partner out of the trunk." He paled at the thought of the impossibility of step three. "Now, come on, you can do this. You can't walk, but you can crawl." After retrieving the car keys, he began to slowly, ever-so-painfully, pull himself along the ground. Each move brought with it a whole new world of hurt. Everything became pain, and his job now was to move through it.
By using a level of determination he did not fully realize until this moment that he possessed, Darien somehow managed to reach the back of the vehicle. He allowed tears of weakness to fill his eyes as he contemplated the distance between the ground where he lay and the trunk, which at the moment seemed impossibly high up. He scolded himself, "C'mon, Fawkes, don't wimp out on me now. You've come all this way, what's another few inches?" Darien knew that he'd only be able to muster the energy for one try at this, so he put everything he had into the effort. He heaved himself partially upright, balancing on his good leg. He shakily inserted the key into the lock, and grimly held on until the lid popped open and Bobby's face looked down at him.
Bobby had been going nuts. It seemed like hours since the car had stopped moving, shots had been fired, and then silence descended. If Darien were able, he would have gotten Bobby out of the trunk long before this. If something had happened to his partner; well, that did not bear thinking about. However, the confined man had too much time to do nothing but think. If Darien was dead, then Bobby would not be getting out of here alive. If Darien was dead, Bobby didn't deserve to get out of here alive. He was supposed to back his partner up. He was the fully trained agent here, and he'd been taken out like a rookie. Bobby didn't excuse himself with the fact that his attacker was a human tank. This was all his fault.
God only knew how long they'd been out wherever the hell they were. Bobby had been floating in and out of consciousness, not always able to focus his thoughts thanks to the knock on the head Friendly had given him prior to sticking him in the trunk. The first time he'd woken up had been the worst. When consciousness fuzzily returned, Bobby was aware that he was trapped in a dark, confined space. He'd immediately leaped to the mistaken conclusion that he'd been buried alive. Before his thoughts could send him into a total panic attack, he'd thankfully passed out again.
The next time he woke up, he was more coherent. That time, his panic was due to the absolute darkness of his surroundings as well as his helpless confinement. He knew that it was possible that the whack on his head had caused blindness. He tried to talk himself out of that idea by remind himself that, being stuck in the trunk of a moving vehicle at night, of course it was going to be dark.
Bobby tried to take comfort in the fact that at least he was still alive, although certainly a little worse for wear. His head ached like a son of a bitch. His stomach contents kept threatening to join him in the confines of his prison. Just the thought of having to deal with the end result if he puked was enough to stop him from actually vomiting. He knew that he had at least a concussion. He prayed that's all it was.
Some unknown number of hours later, he heard the sound of a key at the trunk lock. He tried to get his aching body into some kind of attack position, trying to ignore the fact that his cramped muscles probably wouldn't allow him to do much more than flop around like a dying fish. The cuffs around his wrists didn't help his cause. Bobby braced himself as the lid rose. When nothing more happened, he peered over the edge, greatly relieved to see that his partner was alive and the cause of his sudden freedom. His relief turned to fear when Darien's eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground.
Bobby climbed unsteadily from the trunk, leaning against the car until a wave of dizziness passed. He eased himself to the ground at his partner's side. Bobby checked him over, grateful to find that he was still breathing. He was alarmed at the amount of blood that Fawkes had lost from the bullet wound in his thigh. Bobby tightened the makeshift bandage, then pulled out his cell phone to call for help. The way this day had been going, he was not surprised to find out that they were out of cell phone range.
At least Darien had the keys to the handcuffs, and Bobby was able to quickly free himself. Bobby checked the perimeter, giving a grunt of satisfaction that Friendly was dead, dismayed to find that Blondie was, too.
Bobby got behind the wheel of the car, trying to restart the engine with no success. He smacked his hand against the dashboard in frustration. "This is great. Just great." He decided to go check on his partner.
Darien had roused to the sound of Bobby's unsuccessful attempt to start the car. As Bobby leaned over him, Darien explained, "Out of gas."
Bobby disagreed. "Nah. Gauge says there's still a quarter tank."
With a weak smile, Darien replied, "Gauge 's wrong. I oughtta know. Tha's how we ended up stuck out here," he slurred.
Bobby really hated the decision he had to make. He wanted to stay with Darien. But, if he did, they both might end up dead. He'd have to go for help. "Fawkes. I gotta tell you, this is not good. You're pretty messed up here. The sooner we can get you to a doctor, the better. I gotta go find us some help."
Darien agreed. "'kay."
Bobby was not quite ready to leave. "The ground's pretty hard and it's kind of chilly out. How about if you wait in the car?"
Bobby took Darien's response of "Hmm," as agreement. "I hate to do this, buddy, but I gotta move you." He grasped Darien under the arms and began to pull.
Darien's scream of pain was abruptly cut off as he lost consciousness. Bobby was just as glad. At least he could move Darien without hurting him any more. When he settled Darien in the back seat of the car, he noticed that the man's hands were icy cold. Hell, he was probably going into shock. Bobby removed his jacket and covered his partner with it. Having done all that he could, he set off down the road.
His head pounded with every step he took, his nausea an unwelcome accompaniment. If nothing else, his misery was helping him to stay awake. Bobby wished that he had some clue as to where the hell they were. The road, the countryside, was deserted, as if he were walking through a ghost town.
After an hour of solitary walking, he thought he saw headlights approaching in the distance. The exhausted man rubbed his eyes, trying to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating. Nope. They were still there, and getting closer. Thank God! Bobby waited in the middle of the road, determined to flag down what he could see was a freight hauler of some kind as it approached. When he was sure that the driver had to see him, he began waving wildly.
To his increasing horror, the guy just kept coming, directly at Bobby. At the last possible second, Bobby jumped to the side, barely avoiding becoming road kill. He landed awkwardly, as he slid more than rolled along the pavement. His body protested this latest indignity by sending him once again into unconsciousness.
What he hoped and prayed were mere minutes later, Bobby woke up, his body a mass of pain. He cautiously moved each arm and leg, testing its soundness. Thankfully, nothing was broken; just battered. His eyes didn't want to focus properly, his vision doubling. Well, that wasn't going to stop Bobby Hobbes. As long as he could see, it didn't matter if he was seeing double. As he continued his journey, a limp had been added to his growing list of infirmities, along with a nice case of road rash.
It got to the point where Bobby was convinced that he was stuck in a nightmare he couldn't wake up from, one in which all he knew was that he had to keep walking down this deserted stretch of highway. His next coherent thought was the realization that the pink glow on the horizon was the sun coming up. It was another day. He stopped abruptly. Hell, a new day! My luck's gotta change!
Bobby pulled out his cell phone, not daring to breathe as he dialed. He fell to his knees when the Keeper answered sleepily. Although he spoke so quickly that it was not surprising that Claire initially had trouble deciphering just what he was saying, being the bright lady that she is, she picked up on it pretty quickly. Using Bobby's cell phone and the mile marker numbers he was able to provide before he passed out, the Agency was able to locate both him and his partner.
They were both unconscious, therefore unable to appreciate the concerted effort and genuine concern which had gone into the rescue effort. They did appreciate being roommates, once they were awake and aware enough to be appreciating anything.
Bobby still had periods of confusion due to his head injury. Claire informed him that he had a pretty serious concussion, and she would be observing him closely for the next several days. Many times Bobby would wake up confused, at first unable to figure out what was real and what was nightmare. His most frequent and terrifying nightmare seemed all too real. He would wake up believing that he'd failed to get help, and Darien was dead. Each time, he would look over towards Darien in the next bed and stare at him until he knew that his partner was really there, alive and well. Okay, not exactly well, but alive.
Darien's left leg was suspended over his bed in a traction apparatus. He was recovering from surgery to his leg, as the bullet had fractured his femur. Claire estimated that it would take six to eight weeks for the bone to heal. In the meantime, the pain was an ever constant companion.
Darien kindly shared his description of the pain with Bobby, once. "It's like, when I move, the broken bones move, too, but I swear I can feel 'em scraping together as they move, and the pain kind of screams along the nerve endings and straight to my brain. And the pain meds, they don't take away the pain so much as just make me not care that it hurts."
After that, Bobby decided that maybe his head didn't hurt so bad, after all.
When three days had passed, Claire stated that she was satisfied enough with Bobby's progress that he could go home. Bobby grabbed his duffle bag, anxious to get up and out before Claire changed her mind. In his haste, he carelessly turned with his bag towards the desk Claire had been using. Before he could stop it, the bag crashed into a small mirror that had been sitting there, sending it to the ground in a hail of broken glass fragments.
Darien quipped, "That's seven years' bad luck, you know."
Claire was seriously reconsidering her decision to discharge Bobby after he crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over his head, and began chanting, "No, no not again!" ***** ~end
Part 4 ***** Darien was well aware that the gas gauge on his car was defective, and never fell below the quarter tank mark. He decided not to share that information with Friendly. Mile after mile passed by and signs of city life, indeed signs of any life at all, were left behind. Eventually, what Darien had been waiting for came to pass. The engine began to sputter and cough until it quit altogether.
Friendly angrily asked, "What happened? Why did we stop?"
Darien helpfully offered, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe we ran out of gas?"
Friendly was livid with anger. Blondie stepped up her efforts to convince the man that she'd realized the error of her ways and really did love Fred, after all. She was doing her best to get up close and personal while Friendly was in the backseat and she was in the front. She suggested that they take their discussion outside.
Friendly readily agreed. He left Darien handcuffed to the interior of the car as he and Blondie stepped around to the front of the vehicle. Their discussion quickly became heated, and not with passion. Darien took advantage of the opportunity provided by his kidnapper's current distraction. He was not able to pick the lock on the cuffs. However, with the application of a little brute force, he was able to break the door handle that he'd been fastened to. There was still the matter of getting his partner out of the trunk. It would be quicker and easier if he got the keys back from Blondie. He quicksilvered, and stealthily approached the dueling duo at the front of the vehicle.
Just as he'd gotten near enough to reach for the keys, the combatants decided to take their argument to a whole new level. Darien couldn't help the "oh, crap!" which escaped when they began firing. Friendly's first round took Blondie in the chest. However, her gun had fired just prior to her death. The shot that she'd been able to get off planted itself squarely between Friendly's eyes. As the giant fell, his finger reflexively tightened on the trigger, firing off one last round.
Unfortunately, the last shot caught Darien as he was diving for cover. He felt an excruciating pain in his left thigh as the bullet tore into his leg, then felt no more as consciousness escaped him. An undetermined amount of time later, he awoke to the knowledge that his leg hurt; a lot. The resulting pain when he tried to move it nearly sent Darien back into unconsciousness.
His entire body was clenched tightly in a relentless spasm of pain. He held himself absolutely immobile as he tried to breathe through the worst of it. An eternity later, the injured man was finally able to focus on something other than the all-consuming agony. He took stock of his surroundings. By the moon's glow, he was able to make out the still figures of Friendly and Blondie. He hoped like hell that they were both dead, as he didn't have the energy to deal with it if they weren't. Darien needed help. With that thought, he slowly reached for his cell phone. A few stray tears of pain and frustration escaped when he discovered that they were out of cell phone range. He took a long minute to regain his composure.
"Okay, Fawkes, deal with it. Let's get a plan here. First, it'd probably be a good idea if you don't bleed to death. So, step one: get rid of the handcuffs." He crawled over to Blondie and retrieved the keys, setting himself free.
Mentally congratulating himself, he continued. "Now on to step two: some sort of bandage." He managed to remove his shirt and wrap it around the hole in his leg. Darien was exhausted after doing so, but knew that he couldn't stop or both he and Bobby would more than likely never leave this place alive.
He leaned back, panting from exertion. "All right. Good man. Now, step three: Get your partner out of the trunk." He paled at the thought of the impossibility of step three. "Now, come on, you can do this. You can't walk, but you can crawl." After retrieving the car keys, he began to slowly, ever-so-painfully, pull himself along the ground. Each move brought with it a whole new world of hurt. Everything became pain, and his job now was to move through it.
By using a level of determination he did not fully realize until this moment that he possessed, Darien somehow managed to reach the back of the vehicle. He allowed tears of weakness to fill his eyes as he contemplated the distance between the ground where he lay and the trunk, which at the moment seemed impossibly high up. He scolded himself, "C'mon, Fawkes, don't wimp out on me now. You've come all this way, what's another few inches?" Darien knew that he'd only be able to muster the energy for one try at this, so he put everything he had into the effort. He heaved himself partially upright, balancing on his good leg. He shakily inserted the key into the lock, and grimly held on until the lid popped open and Bobby's face looked down at him.
Bobby had been going nuts. It seemed like hours since the car had stopped moving, shots had been fired, and then silence descended. If Darien were able, he would have gotten Bobby out of the trunk long before this. If something had happened to his partner; well, that did not bear thinking about. However, the confined man had too much time to do nothing but think. If Darien was dead, then Bobby would not be getting out of here alive. If Darien was dead, Bobby didn't deserve to get out of here alive. He was supposed to back his partner up. He was the fully trained agent here, and he'd been taken out like a rookie. Bobby didn't excuse himself with the fact that his attacker was a human tank. This was all his fault.
God only knew how long they'd been out wherever the hell they were. Bobby had been floating in and out of consciousness, not always able to focus his thoughts thanks to the knock on the head Friendly had given him prior to sticking him in the trunk. The first time he'd woken up had been the worst. When consciousness fuzzily returned, Bobby was aware that he was trapped in a dark, confined space. He'd immediately leaped to the mistaken conclusion that he'd been buried alive. Before his thoughts could send him into a total panic attack, he'd thankfully passed out again.
The next time he woke up, he was more coherent. That time, his panic was due to the absolute darkness of his surroundings as well as his helpless confinement. He knew that it was possible that the whack on his head had caused blindness. He tried to talk himself out of that idea by remind himself that, being stuck in the trunk of a moving vehicle at night, of course it was going to be dark.
Bobby tried to take comfort in the fact that at least he was still alive, although certainly a little worse for wear. His head ached like a son of a bitch. His stomach contents kept threatening to join him in the confines of his prison. Just the thought of having to deal with the end result if he puked was enough to stop him from actually vomiting. He knew that he had at least a concussion. He prayed that's all it was.
Some unknown number of hours later, he heard the sound of a key at the trunk lock. He tried to get his aching body into some kind of attack position, trying to ignore the fact that his cramped muscles probably wouldn't allow him to do much more than flop around like a dying fish. The cuffs around his wrists didn't help his cause. Bobby braced himself as the lid rose. When nothing more happened, he peered over the edge, greatly relieved to see that his partner was alive and the cause of his sudden freedom. His relief turned to fear when Darien's eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground.
Bobby climbed unsteadily from the trunk, leaning against the car until a wave of dizziness passed. He eased himself to the ground at his partner's side. Bobby checked him over, grateful to find that he was still breathing. He was alarmed at the amount of blood that Fawkes had lost from the bullet wound in his thigh. Bobby tightened the makeshift bandage, then pulled out his cell phone to call for help. The way this day had been going, he was not surprised to find out that they were out of cell phone range.
At least Darien had the keys to the handcuffs, and Bobby was able to quickly free himself. Bobby checked the perimeter, giving a grunt of satisfaction that Friendly was dead, dismayed to find that Blondie was, too.
Bobby got behind the wheel of the car, trying to restart the engine with no success. He smacked his hand against the dashboard in frustration. "This is great. Just great." He decided to go check on his partner.
Darien had roused to the sound of Bobby's unsuccessful attempt to start the car. As Bobby leaned over him, Darien explained, "Out of gas."
Bobby disagreed. "Nah. Gauge says there's still a quarter tank."
With a weak smile, Darien replied, "Gauge 's wrong. I oughtta know. Tha's how we ended up stuck out here," he slurred.
Bobby really hated the decision he had to make. He wanted to stay with Darien. But, if he did, they both might end up dead. He'd have to go for help. "Fawkes. I gotta tell you, this is not good. You're pretty messed up here. The sooner we can get you to a doctor, the better. I gotta go find us some help."
Darien agreed. "'kay."
Bobby was not quite ready to leave. "The ground's pretty hard and it's kind of chilly out. How about if you wait in the car?"
Bobby took Darien's response of "Hmm," as agreement. "I hate to do this, buddy, but I gotta move you." He grasped Darien under the arms and began to pull.
Darien's scream of pain was abruptly cut off as he lost consciousness. Bobby was just as glad. At least he could move Darien without hurting him any more. When he settled Darien in the back seat of the car, he noticed that the man's hands were icy cold. Hell, he was probably going into shock. Bobby removed his jacket and covered his partner with it. Having done all that he could, he set off down the road.
His head pounded with every step he took, his nausea an unwelcome accompaniment. If nothing else, his misery was helping him to stay awake. Bobby wished that he had some clue as to where the hell they were. The road, the countryside, was deserted, as if he were walking through a ghost town.
After an hour of solitary walking, he thought he saw headlights approaching in the distance. The exhausted man rubbed his eyes, trying to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating. Nope. They were still there, and getting closer. Thank God! Bobby waited in the middle of the road, determined to flag down what he could see was a freight hauler of some kind as it approached. When he was sure that the driver had to see him, he began waving wildly.
To his increasing horror, the guy just kept coming, directly at Bobby. At the last possible second, Bobby jumped to the side, barely avoiding becoming road kill. He landed awkwardly, as he slid more than rolled along the pavement. His body protested this latest indignity by sending him once again into unconsciousness.
What he hoped and prayed were mere minutes later, Bobby woke up, his body a mass of pain. He cautiously moved each arm and leg, testing its soundness. Thankfully, nothing was broken; just battered. His eyes didn't want to focus properly, his vision doubling. Well, that wasn't going to stop Bobby Hobbes. As long as he could see, it didn't matter if he was seeing double. As he continued his journey, a limp had been added to his growing list of infirmities, along with a nice case of road rash.
It got to the point where Bobby was convinced that he was stuck in a nightmare he couldn't wake up from, one in which all he knew was that he had to keep walking down this deserted stretch of highway. His next coherent thought was the realization that the pink glow on the horizon was the sun coming up. It was another day. He stopped abruptly. Hell, a new day! My luck's gotta change!
Bobby pulled out his cell phone, not daring to breathe as he dialed. He fell to his knees when the Keeper answered sleepily. Although he spoke so quickly that it was not surprising that Claire initially had trouble deciphering just what he was saying, being the bright lady that she is, she picked up on it pretty quickly. Using Bobby's cell phone and the mile marker numbers he was able to provide before he passed out, the Agency was able to locate both him and his partner.
They were both unconscious, therefore unable to appreciate the concerted effort and genuine concern which had gone into the rescue effort. They did appreciate being roommates, once they were awake and aware enough to be appreciating anything.
Bobby still had periods of confusion due to his head injury. Claire informed him that he had a pretty serious concussion, and she would be observing him closely for the next several days. Many times Bobby would wake up confused, at first unable to figure out what was real and what was nightmare. His most frequent and terrifying nightmare seemed all too real. He would wake up believing that he'd failed to get help, and Darien was dead. Each time, he would look over towards Darien in the next bed and stare at him until he knew that his partner was really there, alive and well. Okay, not exactly well, but alive.
Darien's left leg was suspended over his bed in a traction apparatus. He was recovering from surgery to his leg, as the bullet had fractured his femur. Claire estimated that it would take six to eight weeks for the bone to heal. In the meantime, the pain was an ever constant companion.
Darien kindly shared his description of the pain with Bobby, once. "It's like, when I move, the broken bones move, too, but I swear I can feel 'em scraping together as they move, and the pain kind of screams along the nerve endings and straight to my brain. And the pain meds, they don't take away the pain so much as just make me not care that it hurts."
After that, Bobby decided that maybe his head didn't hurt so bad, after all.
When three days had passed, Claire stated that she was satisfied enough with Bobby's progress that he could go home. Bobby grabbed his duffle bag, anxious to get up and out before Claire changed her mind. In his haste, he carelessly turned with his bag towards the desk Claire had been using. Before he could stop it, the bag crashed into a small mirror that had been sitting there, sending it to the ground in a hail of broken glass fragments.
Darien quipped, "That's seven years' bad luck, you know."
Claire was seriously reconsidering her decision to discharge Bobby after he crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over his head, and began chanting, "No, no not again!" ***** ~end