Many thanks to everyone who read and offered comments on chapter one. They were much appreciated. Hope chapter two doesn't disappoint.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

The dark purples, blues and grays of the cloudy night sky swirled together into one dizzying portrait of color. All Bobby Goren was aware of, however, was the rain. Each drop felt strangely different on his skin-some were ice cold, some stingingly hot, others just refreshing. He felt each one separately and tried to force his mind to concentrate on them as they hit him, as though he could block out every other sensation he was feeling.

But he couldn't. His chest was on fire and a warm, sick feeling was beginning to spread through his stomach. He was sure he would have screamed were it not for the blood that was filling his throat and mouth, choking him. Bobby began to lose his focus on the rain as his ears faintly registered the noise and chaos around him.

"Somebody call the paramedics!" a frantic voice screamed. Bobby felt small hands bury themselves against the wounds in his chest. Who was that? he wondered dazedly.

Slowly tearing his eyes away from the clouds, Bobby turned to see his partner on the ground next to him, tears streaming unchecked down her lovely face.

"That's good Bobby. Stay with me. Try to stay awake." Alex was trying to comfort him, sound reassuring, but her voice shook and Bobby could detect the slight note of panic that he knew she was trying so hard to hide. He wanted so badly to tell her not to cry, that everything would be alright, but his efforts proved impossible. He tried to utter a few comforting words to Alex, but only managed a painful gurgling sound. He felt something warm running down his chin and neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. He knew it was his own blood, but as the clouds and Alex's face blurred and eventually faded to darkness, somehow, all he could think about was how in the world he was going to get these damn blood stains out of his shirt.

Alex Eames felt her heart pounding somewhere up in her throat as she watched Bobby's eyes flutter shut.

"No Bobby! Stay awake! You have to stay awake!" She hardly recognized her own voice. She was on the verge of panic, and she took a deep breath, telling herself that she couldn't afford herself the luxury of panic right now. Looking around, she was able to feel at least one ounce of relief when she saw the flashing red lights of an ambulance. Two paramedics were scrambling out of the vehicle, loaded down with bright red med bags.

They better have something good in those…

"Ma'am, step aside please." Alex barely heard the man as he gently pulled her away from her partner. Standing to the side, she could only look on as they tried to work their medical miracles.

"There's no pulse," the younger one was saying, looking to his partner.

"Alright, charge the paddles to three hundred."

She watched as the younger one cut off Bobby's shirt, and was horrified as she took in the bloody mess that was supposed to be his chest.

"Clear!" The older paramedic placed the paddles on Bobby's chest and his body jerked as it was jolted with electricity. A check of the monitors showed nothing. Alex felt as though her heart, too, had ceased beating.

C'mon Bobby… please…

"Okay, charge again to three fifty." She heard the whine of the defibrillator, but had to force her eyes away this time as they shocked him. She heard the jolt, then accompanied by a slow beep, beep.

"I got a pulse. Weak, but its there. He's stable enough to transport."

Quickly, but with painstaking care, the two paramedics rolled Bobby onto a backboard, then lifted him (which involved some amount of effort) onto the crash cart. They began rolling him away, off to their rig.

Alex managed somehow to recover enough from her momentary shock to follow them. They were loading him into the back, and the older one was shutting the doors. She grabbed his arm.

"Please, I'm his partner. Let me stay with him, please."

He frowned for a moment, then opened the door back up.

"Hurry up, and don't get in the way."

Within moments, the ambulance pulled off and the only evidence of the incident was the blood that covered the sidewalk.

Inside the rig, Alex sat stone still, her face grim as she watched the younger paramedic work on Bobby. She had no idea what he was doing as he began administering drugs through an i.v. that he had started. He had fitted a breathing mask over Bobby's face. Seeing her partner and best friend like this made Alex begin to cry more, but she blinked the tears away quickly. She had to stay strong for Bobby.

"Can I help?" she asked, watching as the paramedic did what seemed to be about twenty different things at once.

He gave her a glance that reflected the doubt he felt for this patient. Wanting to keep the woman's hopes up though, he said, "Pray."

It wasn't the answer that Alex had wanted to hear. Still, she took Bobby's hand and closed her eyes. It felt icy cold and unresponsive. Opening her eyes, she squeezed his hand and whispered, "You're going to be alright Bobby. I know it. You're gonna be just fine."

"Two minutes out." The paramedic up front called. To Alex, the two minutes seemed like an eternity, and she lived and died with every beep of the monitor that showed Bobby's heart activity, silently praying with each one that it wouldn't be his last.

Finally, the ambulance screeched to a halt and the doors were flung open. Beyond them were a doctor and some nurses, already scrambling to help lift Bobby out of the rig.

Things were a blur to Alex as she heard confusing medical terminology flying in all directions, saw the lights from the ambulance still flashing as Bobby was lost to her amidst a sea of doctors and nurses. Shaking away the shock that had once again crept up on her, Alex climbed out of the ambulance and hurried after them. They turned a corner and entered a room marked as Trauma 2. Alex tried to follow as the doors swung shut behind Bobby, but she was blocked by a kind looking nurse who gently took her arm.

"Miss, you can't go in there."

"But… but, that's my…"

"The doctors need room to work. You'll need to wait out here." Alex couldn't believe what the woman was telling her. There was no way that she was going to keep her from staying next to Bobby.

"He's my partner." She began to object.

"Yes, I understand. But you're going to have to stay out of the trauma room. We'll keep you updated." Leading her gently away, she asked, "Is there anyone one I can call for you miss?"

Alex thought a moment, then felt a hand on her shoulder. "No, not for the moment."

The nurse nodded, when Deakins spoke, and repeated, "We'll keep you updated." She walked away, leaving Alex and Deakins alone in the hallway.

"How bad is he? Alex?"

She looked up, as though she hadn't noticed him standing there with his arm on her shoulder.

"What?"

"How bad is he?" The concern on Deakins' face mirrored the worry Alex was feeling. Slowly shaking her head, she tried to tell him.

"I… I… he…" She felt her voice break, and broke down, sobbing into Deakins' shoulder. She felt him embrace her, holding her close, trying to comfort her. Her legs went weak, and she was glad when he led her over to the row of chairs that were against the wall, which she hadn't noticed earlier.

"He's gonna make it Alex. Bobby's tough."

She shook her head, unable to believe it after what she had seen. "There was so much blood…"she sobbed. "He was soaked in it. He couldn't breathe because it was all in his mouth. He was drowning." Alex felt herself collapse into Deakins' arms, burying her head against him. There had been a lot of blood. More than she had ever seen at any crime scene. For a few moments, she allowed herself to sob out all of the fear and uncertainty that had been threatening to overwhelm her. Alex was grateful for Deakins' presence. She knew she could never have sat there by herself waiting hear what was happening to her friend. After what seemed like only minutes, but turned out to have been an entire hour, her sobs began to fade away, and then stopped completely as she struggled to find some amount of composure. Sitting up, she looked down at her hands. They were sticky and red with Bobby's blood, as was the front of her shirt. Shakily, Alex stood up.

"I need to go clean up." She murmured, unable to take her eyes away from her bloody hands. Deakins nodded, knowing there wasn't anything he could really say to her that could make her feel any better. He knew that Alex wouldn't even begin to feel better until she could see Bobby, face to face, hear him talk and know that he was safe.

In the bathroom, Alex ran warm water and began to scrub the now dry blood from her hands. As she watched it disappear down the drain, she felt hopelessness rise in her heart. Never in all her years working with him had she been able to imagine that anything could happen to Bobby. He was so strong. Always five steps ahead of everyone else. She never believed he could be taken by surprise like he had by Mrs. Ramos. But he had. And if that could happen, Alex was afraid of what else was possible.

Satisfied that the blood was gone from her hands, she switched over to cold water and splashed it on her face. Gradually, she began to feel her heart return to its normal place in her chest. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she exited the restroom and made her way back towards Trauma 2. A crowd of officers and detectives was beginning to grow in the waiting area, and Alex quietly slipped past them as she walked back to the hallway outside of the trauma room. It took her a few minutes to realize that she and Deakins were the only ones that the nurse had allowed back this far, and it brought some small amount of comfort to her to know that she was so close to Bobby. She tried to ignore the irony of the situation-she'd finally come to realize how much she cared for Bobby Goren, only to have him taken away.

Turning the corner, Alex's heart skipped a beat when she saw Deakins standing up and talking with one of Bobby's doctors. She hurried over, terror welling up inside her at the thought of him reporting Bobby's death.

"What's happened?" she demanded, slightly breathless.

Deakins' expression, while still one of concern, immediately calmed her nerves.

"Dr. Walton was just telling me that they have him stabilized. He needs to go to surgery for…" he trailed off, looking to the doctor to explain everything.

"One of the bullets collapsed his lung-its repairable, and not really the biggest of our concerns. Bobby was losing a lot of blood, and we found that another bullet had nicked his aorta," Alex's breath caught in her throat. "…which is also repairable, but it's a long and delicate operation. Like I said, he's already lost a lot of blood, and his chances aren't very good. The other two bullets appear to have missed all vital organs, but there's no way to know for sure until we get inside him."

The doors to the trauma room swung open, and nurses rolled Bobby out on a gurney, on their way to the elevator.

Leaving the doctor, Alex rushed over to him. She was shocked at what she saw. Bobby's face was ghostly pale, his eyes still closed. The doctors had put a tube down his throat to keep him breathing, and one of the nurses was periodically squeezing the bag attached to it, preserving Bobby's life as best she could. The had covered him with a sterile looking hospital blanket to help ward off shock and keep people from looking at his terrible injuries, but blood was already seeping through that, and Alex wondered just how much more of it Bobby could have left in him.

She took his hand, hoping to feel some response from him, but there was none. The elevator opened, and the nurses pushed the gurney inside, ripping his hand from Alex's grasp. She didn't notice when Deakins once again placed his arm around her shoulders, but just stared at the elevator doors long after they had closed, the doctor's words ringing in her ears.

…his chances aren't very good.

Alex could only pray that when they brought Bobby back down, they wouldn't be taking him home, and not to the morgue.

TBC…