Disclaimer: - I don't own any of the characters of The Shield, they all belong to Shawn Ryan and FX.
Identity – Chapter 2.
The John Doe in intensive care was hooked up to just about every machine it was possible to be hooked up to. A ventilator was breathing for him, his chest rising and falling to the steady rhythm it dictated. There were various pieces of equipment monitoring everything from his blood pressure, his oxygen saturation and his heart beat to his brain activity, and the pressure inside his skull. While several IV's delivered a cocktail of drugs and nutrients into his blood stream. He lay unmoving, and apparently completely unaware of his surroundings. His face was pale, the only colour in it a livid bruise on his left cheek where someone had hit him. He had a dressing that covered the left-hand side of his head, and the dark hair that escaped from under it had dried into stiffened strands clumped together by dried blood. John Doe was a lucky man; not many people got shot in the head and survived.
The police had been called to the car park of a late-night market where a man had been found, blood pooled around his head, as he lay on the cold ground. At first it had been assumed he was dead, until someone had finally bothered to bend down, and press two fingers to his throat. They'd quickly called for an ambulance when they'd been shocked to discover a weak, thready pulse present. The theory was that he'd been car-jacked. He was in his thirties dressed in a suit, but there had been nothing to identify him, no wallet, watch or keys. No doubt they had all been stolen along with his car. When the car-jacker had gotten everything he'd wanted he'd decided to kill him, why was unclear. Maybe he'd tried to put up a fight, or escape, whatever the reason the assailant had meant to kill him. Either he was a bad shot, or the man had moved at the last moment. Of course no one could dodge a bullet, but he could have moved enough so that it had stuck him a glancing blow, as opposed to a fatal one. It was still a million to one chance, but the bullet had gouged a furrow through John Doe's scalp as it had passed. The car-jacker must have thought he'd killed him, as John Doe would have dropped like a stone, blood everywhere from his head wound, and he hadn't hung around to check. Although not piercing his skull, the bullet had still caused significant damage. The velocity of the projectile fracturing John Doe's skull causing a sub-dural haematoma that had necessitated surgery. Although already in a coma from the wound, he was also being kept sedated, and closely monitored, his condition meant that he had to be kept as still and quiet as possible. At the moment he hovered in the twilight world between life and death, the balance of which could tip either way. If he lived it wasn't known if he'd ever wake up. If he woke up it wasn't known how much damage had been caused to his brain. It was possible that all that made him the person he was was gone, leaving behind only an empty husk.
Right now the police wanted to know John Doe's real identity. None of the missing person's reports for the Westwood district, where the market had been situated, had fitted his description. So either he lived alone, and no one had noticed he was missing yet, or he came from outside the district, and his missing person's report was being filed away somewhere else in the city.
There had been a double homicide, a fatal car accident, and two grocery store robberies that night, as well as John Doe's car jacking. This had meant an unusually busy night for the CSI's. Due to the backlog it was mid-afternoon before a CSI technician finally turned up at the hospital's intensive care unit to take John Doe's fingerprints, in the hope they'd throw up a match, and identify him.
Being careful of the various wires and needles the unconscious man seemed to be covered with, the technician quickly, and efficiently, took a set of ten perfect prints, and packed them away into his bag. By the time he got back to his lab, and ran them through the computer, if they were lucky, they'd have the poor guy's name by dinnertime.
Making sure he'd packed all his equipment away, he spared a look at the unknown man in the bed. Poor bastard, the guy really did look more dead than alive. The technician had read the incident report before coming here, and knew that there was a chance the guy would end up with brain damage. "Shit," he thought, "I'd rather be dead than a vegetable or something." He wondered if John Doe had any family. If someone, somewhere, was worried about him, wondering where he was. Those thoughts spurred him on to get back to the lab, and get the results for the fingerprints. At least then maybe the poor guy wouldn't have to be lying all alone surrounded by the cold, bleeping machinery, which was at the moment the only thing keeping him alive. Maybe he'd have someone who'd care enough about him to be there with him.