Chapter Nine: Eternity only takes an hour

When Special Agent Megan Reeves walked into the trauma center waiting room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she had expected things to be quiet. It was, after all, not quite five in the morning. But the place was rocking. There were babies screaming and people crying. Not a single seat in the waiting room was empty. She stood in the doorway for several minutes and tried to find Alan Eppes among the unruly horde without any luck.

She made her way to the nurses' station and flashed her badge, but no one stopped moving long enough to see her standing there. After a few minutes, Megan loudly cleared her throat and a frazzled looking blond in her mid forties looked up from the desk.

"Special Agent Reeves, FBI. I'm looking for a trauma patient that was just brought in. Don Eppes?"

"You'll have to give us a minute young lady. All hell just broke loose in here."

Megan shook her head.

"No, Ma'am. All hell is going to break loose if you don't point me in the direction of Don Eppes. He's a federal agent…..Gunshot wound to the head. Where is he?"

The older woman looked taken aback, but stopped to type a few things into her computer.

"We have a GSW in trauma one - that way. No name yet, but it may be your guy."

"Thank you."

Megan turned and walked in the direction the nurse had pointed.

She rounded the corner to trauma one and peeked in through the swinging double doors. A young orderly grabbed her arm.

"You can't go in there Ma'am."

She turned to face him and he took a step back when he noted the gun on her hip.

"Sorry, Officer. I didn't….."

She tried to look friendly and smiled at the young man.

"I'm looking for Don Eppes, is he in there?"

"Megan!"

She turned at the sound of her name and saw a frantic Alan Eppes heading down the hall toward her.
"Mr. Eppes….how is he?"

"He's still conscious. They said that's a really good sign. They just took him down for an X-ray and a CT scan….I couldn't……they wouldn't let me go in, so I ran up here to call David. Have they found Charlie?"

"Not yet. We've got every agent we have on this. We'll find him."

She wished she felt as confident as she sounded as she took Alan's arm and turned him back the way he came. The chances of finding Charlie alive….…well, if they had Charlie here to do the math, they would probably give up any search and wait for a body to surface. She pushed the idea away and turned to face the Eppes' patriarch.

"David will call when anything new comes in. I need to find out from Don what happened. Was he able to tell you anything?"

Alan shook his head and looked flustered.

"There just wasn't time and he's in a lot of pain."

With a disconsolate smile, Megan moved toward the radiology waiting room.

"How long does a CT scan take?"

"Too long, Megan. Too long."

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He was right. It had taken less than thirty minutes for Megan to start pacing the floor.

Her phone rang twice. First it was David, to find out what Don had been able to tell her. Since there was nothing to tell, the call had been brief. Shortly after that, Colby had called to say that LAPD had found a body in a culvert around Glendale that matched Charlie's description, but he had already been to the morgue and it wasn't Charlie, so not to panic if she heard about it.

Alan had quietly listened to her take both calls. After she closed her phone again and put it back on her belt, he stood and walked across the waiting area to the coffee machine in the corner.

"You know, you really aren't supposed to have cell phones in here…..."

She gave him a wayward smile.

"I won't tell if you don't."

She paused.

"They are just checking in Mr. Eppes. They're really worried about Don."

He sighed and exhaled loudly.

"They aren't the only ones."

The door opened and a wound up little man in a white lab coat entered the room.

"Alan Eppes?"

"Yes,"

"I'm Doctor Marvelo. They've taken Don back up to the trauma unit for sutures. The CT scan was normal. We've ruled out both an intracranial hemorrhage and a depressed skull fracture. The wound was clean, no traces of extra-cranial bullet fragments. I want to do a standard neurological exam when he wakes up again, but he seemed lucid before we gave him the morphine and his reflexes were normal. There could be some minor swelling….."

Alan raised his hand to his mouth.

"In his brain? Is there going to be any permanent damage?"

"Well, there is always a chance, but neurological deficits are generally minimal with this kind of tangential gunshot wound to the head."

Megan would have laughed if Alan hadn't looked so bewildered.

"Tangential? When is any gunshot wound almost irrelevant?"

Dr. Marvelo looked annoyed. He had obviously had a difficult night and his bedside manner was already paper thin.

"Miss….."

"Reeves, Agent Reeves."

"Right….A tangential gunshot wound to the head doesn't penetrate the inner table of the skull. In other words, it's a superficial injury. It's an infrequent occurrence…head injuries are seldom marginal when it involves a gunshot wound. Agent Eppes should count himself fortunate."

"And I'm sure he does, Doctor. I need to speak with him right away, if that's possible."

"As I said, we took him back upstairs. With his history of LOC….um, loss of consciousness, we need to keep an eye on him today, possibly through tomorrow, just to make sure there are no farther developments. You can see him now, but the morphine hasn't worn off yet. Once we get his blood pressure back up to normal, that might take up to twenty four hours….and if he's not in too much pain, you should be able to take him home."

Alan's eyes widened and he glanced at Megan in shock.

"Take him home? He was just shot in the head."

"Mr. Eppes, your son is fine. He'll have about eighteen stitches over his left ear from the bullet track through the skin and he's going to have a substantial headache for several days. The bruising isn't going to be much to look at for a while, some minor swelling is expected. But he is going to be fine."

Alan still didn't look convinced.

Softening his tone, the doctor continued in a more consoling manner.

"I understand you were with him when this happened. Bleeding from wounds like this can be alarming. The blood loss wasn't insignificant, but I didn't think a transfusion was necessary. We have him on an IV push and the fluids should help bring his blood pressure back up. We've started him on Rocephin to safeguard against infection, so he should recover nicely with proper rest and at home care."

He turned back to Megan, maintaining his more congenial bedside manner.

"The bullet ran perfectly parallel to the scalp. The skull may have been grazed, but if it was, you can't tell. No fragmentation whatsoever. The bullet stayed in one piece……"

He paused at the amazed expression on her face and then smiled, looking almost jovial.

"…..and so did he. Only a very small percentage of gunshot wounds, even the superficial ones, get to go home on the very same day…..even if we have to keep him overnight, he should consider himself extremely fortunate."

Megan nodded in silent agreement, stunned by the final details of how narrowly Don had escaped death. She wasn't about to argue with the doctor. Don was more than fortunate. He was damn lucky.

Alan was in shock, still unable to fully comprehend the good news. He had braced himself for the absolute worse. Standing in his driveway waiting for the ambulance and watching Agent Sinclair try to slow the flow of blood that was creating a small pool around his oldest son's head, he couldn't imagine how anyone could survive that. And it was clinically considered an insignificant wound?

Alan felt his knees get weak. Don was going to be fine. Don would get to go home again.

His thoughts shifted to his youngest and he stopped trying to control the shaking in his legs. Alan lowered himself into a chair and put his head in his hands. He felt Megan's hand rest on his shoulder and he allowed himself to shed the tears he hadn't wanted Don to see.

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Authors Notes: Hope things are still up to par…

Wanted to also let you know that 40 percent of initially non-fatal gunshot wounds to the head are considered tangential. So if he wasn't dead when the ambulance picked him up, he had around a 40 percent chance of survival. And 23 percent of TGSW's get to go home on the same day without an overnight hospital stay. I couldn't find a way to use the exactnumbers...but I wanted to share them. Yes, I do research...so trust that I will not take us somewhere without first buying a ticket for the trip home. (this is where I would put a big yellow smiley face if one were available.)

Let me know what you're thinking…as always…I beg and plead...leave your thoughts/comments, or just a quick hello to let me know you're there and enjoying what you are reading.

Chapter Ten: A good day to die