Disclaimer: I don't own JAG etc, etc…..
A/N: Thank's for all the great reviews. I'm glad that so many of you liked the first chapter. Hope that this one won't be a total anticlimax.
Since I'm no doctor, I don't know if it is possible to survive the kind of injuries Harm has got, but in this story it is, for now at least…..
Part two
It felt like hours before Bud felt he was able to move, but in reality it was only seconds. He ran over to Harm and checked his pulse; he had problems to find the right spot because of his shivering. Nothing. "No, this can't be true, it has to be a dream, a really bad dream", Bud desperately tried to comfort himself. All the stuff he had learned in the first-aid courses flashed through his head; it was so much easier when it was a dummy laying there and not his best friend. In his desperation he checked the pulse again, still nothing, or wait; did he feel a beat, or was it just his own heart pounding. There it was again, it was weak, but definitely a beat. Harm was alive, at least for now, but he wasn't conscious. Bud leaned down and put his ear near Harm's mouth, he couldn't hear or feel Harm's breath, and panic started to spread in his mind. "Get a grip on yourself; you know how to handle a situation like this. Panicking is the worst thing you can do". He tried to keep calm, called an ambulance and described the situation. The ambulance would be there in fifteen minutes, and the police would be informed, as was always the case when there had been shooting.
Then he started mouth to mouth. He blew twice into Harm's mouth, checked for a reaction and blew twice more. Some gurgling noises came from Harm's throat, he took two shallow breaths, and nothing more happened. Bud blew a couple of times more, Harm took two more breathes, followed by a third, a fourth, a fifth… He was breathing.
The nauseating smell of blood, together with the sight of so much of it, made it hard to not throw up, and knowing that the blood belonged to his best friend didn't make it better. But Bud just avoided to take deep breaths and carried on. The panic had worn off and he was fully concentrated now. He ran into the bathroom, picked up some clean towels, and wrapped one of them carefully around Harms head. The wounds weren't bleeding very much any more, so the towel would hopefully stop the bleeding all together. It wasn't much more he could do for Harm before the ambulance arrived, except for just being there for him. It was the longest minutes of his life, the ten minutes he sat talking to Harm without expecting an answer. The only interruption was the checking of Harms pulse and breathing every other minute. Bud felt so alone in this frightful situation. He feared that his best friend was going to die and blamed himself for it. Maybe hadn't he reacted quickly enough or perhaps if he had arrived ten minutes earlier Harm wouldn't have been shot at all? And maybe had some of his actions made Harms injuries worse, all kind of horrible thoughts went through his head.
The ambulance finally arrived and brought Harm to the hospital. Bud sat by him the entire time. At the hospital Harm was examined, a CAT-scan was performed and then he was taken straight to surgery. The bullets would in all probability kill him if they weren't removed very soon. Bud, emotionally exhausted, sat in the waiting area. A nurse approached him, "Mr. Roberts?" It took a while before he noticed her. He was just staring into the wall, preoccupied with his depressing thoughts and not aware of his surroundings. "Do you know who Mr. Rabb's next of kin is? It is important so that we can notify them," she said to him in a decisive but also comforting tone. It was probably not the first time she had asked this question. "It's Sarah Mackenzie, Mr. Rabb's fiancée" Bud answered and turned his eyes towards the wall again.