Chapter 15

Saturday 1:24 pm

Despite Jesse's success in reaching Steve, it was still over an hour before they successfully extracted him. It was impossible to construct a direct path without bringing debris down on him, and widening the more circular route took time. Ignoring the strong suggestion that he relocate to a safer location, Jesse refused to leave Steve's side, and he monitored his friend's progress as best he could in the dark, cramped conditions. Steve remained unconscious, but Jesse tried to maintain a reassuring patter of conversation at all times.

Mark paced restlessly outside, his clothes soaked from the rain, anxiously watching the radio operator who was listening for reports of possible aftershocks, praying that nothing would interfere with the rescue operation and further jeopardise the lives of the two men deep in the bowels of the building. His very worst fear had been eased; Steve was alive, and, since he had survived this long, Mark trusted his son's strong constitution to hold out until they got him to the hospital. However, until he had the chance to determine Steve's condition for himself and assess the extent of his injuries they had to contend with, he was on edge, anxiety gnawing unceasingly at his nerves. His only distraction had been a call from Amanda, who had been unable to make it through to Hilton Heights. She was now waiting for them back at Community General.

The rain had eased off by the time they strapped Steve to a backboard and pulled him out of the building. As the makeshift stretcher emerged into the light and was set down on a solid base, Mark dropped down beside it, his heart swelling with joy, thrilled to see his son again, but also horrified by his appearance. Steve's face was deathly white, the pallor accentuated by the caked plaster dust that had filled the air. What was left of his shirt was stained with blood, and Mark's hands fluttered briefly over his son, unsure where to touch as there scarcely seemed to be an inch of skin that wasn't marred with bruises or lacerations. He fought back his dismay, and joined Jesse in a brief cataloging of his son's injuries before readying him for transportation. His composure broke briefly in an involuntary exclamation when Jesse uncovered Steve's broken arm. The area was caked with blood and the white of the bone showed clearly through.

"Mark, are you okay?" Jesse's gentle concern shifted Mark's attention back to his son's needs.

"I've got possible cracked ribs, head contusion, possible concussion, and an assortment of contusions and lacerations but none serious." He sat back on his heels, relieved, knowing that Steve had been incredibly lucky not to have received more critical injuries. Jesse too looked happier, but they both understood that Steve wasn't out of the woods yet.

"We're looking at severe blood loss, shock, sepsis. He's hypotensive, there's loss of autonomic tone and slight tachycardia. Let's start him on lactated ringers wide open, piggyback an antibiotic and get him to Community General."

A way had been cleared for an ambulance to take them to the same park Steve had used as a safety zone for the injured, and before long, they were in a chopper heading for home. On the ride, Mark rested his hand on Steve's uninjured shoulder, needing the physical contact after the interminable anxiety concerning his son's fate. The ride was too noisy to engage in conversation, but Mark's eyes never left his son's pallid face, drinking in the long-delayed sight of his son and hoping for some sign of returning consciousness.

As they arrived at the hospital, Steve was whisked away to X-Ray, the first of several tests before surgery on his arm, Jesse rattling off instructions to the nurses as they went.

"I want a CBC, ABGs, urine, typed and crossmatched packed red blood cells."

Mark stood and watched them go without moving. Exhausted beyond belief following the release of unbearable tension, fatigue numbed his mind and, knowing he wouldn't be allowed to accompany his son, decisions as simple as to where to go seemed impossible to make. Suddenly, Amanda appeared at his side.

"Mark, how is he?"

Mark looked down at her in relief, her gentle understanding soothing to his jangled emotions. "He's lost a lot of blood and has an infected compound fracture in his arm, but we were lucky. It could have been so much worse."

Amanda drew him into a hug, and in her sympathetic embrace, for the first time, he allowed himself to really feel the relief of a nightmare ended. After a minute, she stepped back, though she still held his hands, examining his drawn face. "When was the last time you ate?" she questioned him critically.

Mark cast his mind back without success, unsure if it was weariness that prevented him from remembering or if his last meal was really too buried in the distant past.

Whichever it was, Amanda correctly interpreted his delay in answering as a sign that food had played no part in his recent activities, and she dragged him off to the cafeteria. He felt unequal to the task of swallowing solid food, and chose a bowl of soup, but he didn't protest when Amanda pointedly dropped a ham and Swiss sandwich on his tray.

It was late afternoon, and the supper crowd hadn't yet descended, so the cafeteria was sparsely populated, and the two friends were able to eat in relative peace. The soup slipped down easily enough, but, after a few desultory bites of the sandwich, the stodgy bread seemed to stick in his throat and, although he mangled it a bit in an effort to satisfy Amanda's censorious eye, he was relieved when she took pity on him and they retired to the doctor's lounge to wait for news.

When Jesse entered, he looked tired, but his grin brought an answering smile to Mark's face. He opened his mouth to ask a question but Jesse beat him to it.

"He's going to be just fine," he reassured his friend. "We've set his arm, and most of his other injuries were superficial, although I've been able to practice my best stitching on him. I'll tell you, he may be unlucky in love, but when you have a building fall on you and escape with little more than a broken arm, someone upstairs is looking out for you. He's in remarkably good shape, considering everything."

Mark started to speak again, but Jesse anticipated the next question with practiced ease. "Yes, you can see him. He's in recovery at the moment but we'll soon be transferring him to a regular bed."

Mark took another preparatory breath then paused, waiting for Jesse to once again forestall him. However, Jesse sat there silent and nonplused. The silence stretched before he acknowledged defeat. "Okay, you've got me. 'How is he' and 'Can I see him' is as far as I go. What do you want to know?"

Mark looked comically surprised. "I've forgotten! I thought you could tell me."

Jesse laughed, then clapped his hand to his white coat. "Talking of forgetting; this is for you. It was in Steve's pocket." He held out a grubby, bloodstained piece of paper on which was inscribed shakily but unmistakably in Steve's bold hand, - "Dad".

Mark gazed at it with the antipathetical expression one usually would reserve for a poison frog poised to hop onto your hand. However, seeing the puzzled expressions of his colleagues, he reluctantly accepted the letter, patting his pockets in a spurious search. "I don't have my reading glasses on me," he said evasively, as he slipped the letter away. While this was no lie, the real reason for his procrastination was a deep disinclination to open the note in front of an audience, no matter how friendly.

Mark could remember only too vividly the terror of being trapped in a small room, facing the knowledge of impending death. The memory of his need to say goodbye to his son and the desire, in extremis, to give expression to the feelings that swelled so strongly inside yet were so rarely verbally acknowledged, stayed with him. The image of his son, hurt and alone, desperately penning what he believed were his last words was already painfully clear in Mark's mind, and he needed the privacy of his room to handle the emotions the words would conjure up.

To deflect the curiosity and sympathy of his friends, Mark slipped into a more professional mode, and asked to see Steve's X-rays and the results of his blood work. This occupied the time before the news came through that Steve was settled in his own room and showed signs of returning to consciousness.

Steve's pallor had been replaced by the more hectic flush of fever, which at least had the advantage of making him look less like a corpse. Mark sat down beside his bed and started talking, encouraging his son to wake up.

Steve recognised his father's voice, and it drew him further into consciousness. He swam towards it, fighting the tide that tried to push him back under and submerge him in the rhythmic comfort of lassitude. It was the memory of fear for his father's safety that impelled him to the surface. The details of the threat eluded him, he just retained a strong impression of danger. His eyes seemed glued shut, so he groped blindly in the direction of the voice with a croaked - "Dad?" His hand was caught in a firm grasp as Mark, sensing his agitation, sought to reassure him.

"I'm right here, son." His voice was lower in timbre than normal and slightly husky, betraying the crack in his composure. Even in his drugged and feverish state, Steve sensed something amiss and forced open his recalcitrant eyelids to stare blearily at his father. Somewhat to his consternation, there were two Mark Sloans by his bedside and, even to his befuddled mind, this seemed like an embarrassment of riches, so he closed one eye experimentally to try to compensate. However, he lacked the coordination for even so simple an act, and the other eye closed too. With determination, he opened them again, focusing on one of the images at random. Mark had a bandage on his forehead but otherwise looked uninjured, though the black circles under his eyes and the residual lines of strain around them told a deeper story. Steve just wasn't sure what the story was. It was like pieces of a giant puzzle were wafting lazily around his brain but he couldn't get them to connect so that he could see the big picture. He squinted worriedly at this father, unable to shake the conviction that something was wrong, but equally unable to pin it down.

"Are you alright?" he whispered. The blue eyes into which he was staring seemed to mist over, and he blinked furiously, trying to dispel the latest hallucination, but it persisted, and he started to lever himself into a sitting position. A strong hand held him down.

"I'm fine, Steve, and you will be too. You need to take things easy for now. Please get some sleep now, we'll talk later."

Steve subsided, not entirely mollified but the urgency dulled enough for sleep to claim him once more. Mark relaxed into his chair, comforted by Steve's brief excursion into consciousness but jolted to his stomach by his son's innocent enquiry. He thought he had plumbed the depth of his son's ordeal in the earthquake, but he hadn't factored in his uncertainty over the fate of his family and friends. Knowing Steve's proclivity for protectiveness and action, he could imagine that his emotional torment had been worse than the injuries he had suffered.

"Mark?" Amanda broke into his contemplation by laying a gentle hand on his knee. "You should go home and rest. You're exhausted."

Mark patted her hand appreciatively. "I'm in no condition to drive home, even if I had a car." He tacitly admitted the truth of her argument and cast another look down at the bed. "Besides, I'd like to stick around for now. I'll have a good sleep in my office but first, I think, a shower."

The wholehearted endorsement of that idea was convincing testament to its necessity. It wasn't only physically refreshing, but it also represented a return to normalcy. In its relaxing aftermath, Mark actually fell asleep half-dressed. When a group of noisy interns entered, he awoke with a stiff neck from resting at a strange angle against the lockers. Finishing straightening his clothes, he resisted the urge to check in again on Steve and made his way to his office, sinking down on the couch with a sigh of relief. His aching muscles relaxed, and his eyes closed involuntarily. He drifted off immediately, but was jolted awake as his door was softly opened. He lazily cracked an eye, expecting to see Jesse or Amanda, but the sight that met his gaze demolished the last vestiges of sleep. It was a gun, equipped with a silencer. The implications of the latter were immediately apparent to Mark, and he sat up slowly. It wasn't the first time he had faced such a lethal weapon, but after the events of the last few days, it seemed so incongruous he wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming.

Gradually, his gaze shifted to the vaguely familiar face behind the gun, curiosity as to why a near stranger was threatening him temporarily outweighing fear. Recognition hit, but left him none the wiser. "You were in the stairwell." His words were more a statement of fact than an accusation.

"And your death was supposed to look like an accident," returned his assailant. "But you're a difficult man to kill. Too many people around you; but I knew you'd return here at some point, so it seemed the best place to wait."

"But why? Who are you?" Mark slowly and unthreateningly got to his feet. There was an arrogance about the gunman that he intended to exploit by encouraging him to talk. It was the only defense available at that time, but, unobtrusively, he edged towards his desk in the hopes of finding more protection.

"You found my pen, and Lisa told me about your reputation. Apparently, you're quite the Mountie - you always get your man, and your son talked to you after he left my office, didn't he?"

Since the earthquake, Mark had not given the slightest thought to the Gilman murder case, but now his mind spun into high gear, sorting through inferences, forging connections and making deductions at lightning speed.

"Brian MacKay, I presume." The details of the plot were now clear to Mark, but one vital piece of information was unclear. Did MacKay know that Steve had survived the earthquake? The thought of his son asleep and vulnerable sent a shard of ice into his heart. The shard burrowed deeper at the realisation that, while he had showered and napped, the murderer might already have visited his son. He controlled the instinctive, lethal flash of fury that ignited inside him at the thought, knowing that a wrong word or move might betray his son and further jeopardise Steve if MacKay were ignorant of his rescue.

"I'm afraid you overestimated me," he admitted dryly. "I hadn't linked the pen to you. My last conversation with my son consisted of a discussion of pizza." There was a very real grief in the memory of the phone call that for two days he had feared were the last words he would ever share with his son, and he allowed it to show, still hoping that MacKay was oblivious to Steve's survival.

It seemed to be convincing, as it was with satisfaction that MacKay continued. "With your son gone, you're the last person standing between me and a lot of money."

Mark had nearly reached his desk and decided that provocation was his best tool to draw out his attacker for now. "Gilman earned his money; you never did."

As he expected, this earned him a diatribe as to how MacKay's ex-partner had cheated him of his rightful due. Both men were startled by the insistent jangling of the phone ringing, and MacKay brandished his gun threateningly as a warning not to try to answer it. They both watched the phone until it fell silent, although Mark's gaze also fell on the letter opener next to it and the bowling ball which he had never removed from the corner of his desk.

He tensed for a last leap as MacKay leveled the gun meaningfully. "They'll be looking for you soon. Goodbye, Dr. Sloan."