CHAPTER TITLE: "Triage"
PAIRINGS: None specified
SEASON:
Late Season Four. Alex Cabot is still around and the Stabler
marriage is still, well, stable-ish.
RATING:
M
WARNINGS: Language. Angst. Big frakkin angst
fest. (Like the rest hasn't been one, lol)
SUMMARY: Some things just have to wait until the clouds begin to disperse.
DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter 1
AUTHOR'S NOTES: So sorry the last chapter was left where it was, I didn't mean for it to be a cliffhanger, lol, I promise! But I had to split it because it was frakkin huge, hehe. Thank you, thank you for the reviews…you guys are WAY too generous.
"Triage"
"The worst is over now, and we can breathe again." -Amy Lee of Evanescence with Seether; "Broken."
Tuesday
Jan 21st
10:15
am
County
Coroner's building
She knew she was dead.
There was absolutely no question in her mind that the gasp she'd inhaled as Ryan's fingers dug into her arm had been her last breath of air. Olivia had had her eyes closed, her psyche rushed with anger as she'd heard Ryan cock his gun directly behind her.
Benson didn't see her life. The only thing that had flashed before her eyes was an eruption of light followed by a deafening sound as something by the doors exploded. Thick irritating smoke had billowed across the floor. She heard Jay scream as glass shattered with another explosion. The most horrific sound she'd ever heard. And then suddenly the agonizing torque on her arm was gone. Ryan yelled something, released his hold and had moved away from her.
Reality was a surrealistic nightmare now.
She couldn't see, there was a roaring wail in her ears, and because of the smoke her spatial orientation was gone. She felt turned around. Dizzy. Light strobed in front of eyes that couldn't see past the blanket of white in front of them. She suddenly had no idea where she was in relation to anything or anyone else in the room.
Including Fin.
The last she'd seen of Tutuola he'd been lying to her left. But now where the hell was left? "Fin!" She hollered ineffectually, a second later coughing harshly as a strong pungent odor filled the air and burned her exposed mucous membranes. Eyes, nose, throat...she was on fire. Slamming already useless eyes closed, she tried to breath only through her nose as she dazedly started to realize she wasn't the only thing burning.
Heat was quickly replacing the cold of the autopsy suite and the chemical smell was joined by a smell she recognized. She froze, her body electrified by fear.
The suite was going up in flames.
In opposition of her innate need to remain in control, Benson screamed in shock as the sprinklers overhead activated and freezing water seared quickly overheating skin. The two contrasting polar extremes of sensation was hellish and she ducked her head as the sky fell in a frigid downpour around her.
They had to get out.
She tried to move to get away from the flames, away from everything, but a spectacular pain lanced up her arm and sliced across her chest the instant the palm of her left hand made contact with the slippery floor. White flashed again, this time in her head, as her dislocated shoulder tried to bear the weight of her upper body. A rushing sound replaced the shrill ringing in her ears. A moment later Olivia felt the floor under her back and a lightness deep in her chest. She was dimly aware of a large hand grabbing hers as the chaos around her started to fade. Consciousness continued to tunnel until the world went silent and her head rolled slightly to one side as she blacked out.
xxx
A flash of white followed by an explosion of extraordinary noise jerked Tutuola back into full consciousness. The room was in chaos. The smell of burning disinfectant was overpowering, a haze of orange light danced in crazy angles, and it was raining inside the suite. The last thing he remembered after lunging at Wallace was blurrily staring up at Olivia as Ryan's vicious hand forced her to her knees. A jolt went through him as the memory struck him.
"Olivia!" He shouted, and was immediately overcome with fumes and smoke. Fire licked at him from the sides as ice rained down on him from above. His head throbbed and something warm was running into his eye. He knew what had happened, and it scared him. The room was on fire and he was so effectively disoriented, he couldn't find his way out of it.
He couldn't find Olivia.
He rolled himself over to his hands and knees, the pounding in his head making him sick and the fumes making him dizzy. His balance was shot - the floor beneath him sashayed as he moved.
Where? She'd been right next to him, where the hell was she!
A few seconds before the panic washing through him could take full reign, his groping hands found another freezing cold one and he squeezed hard as he felt the watch at the wrist. Benson's watch. His chest seized and fear reasserted its hold on him as he realized the hand he gripped so tightly was not squeezing back.
"Shit," he swore aloud, trying to wipe water from his face from the sprinklers soaking him from overhead. 'Neither of us leaves without the other,' his own words replayed in his head. He felt his way up the arm, across her chest and then headed north until his fingers found that sweet spot of soft skin under the line of her jaw. The pulse thumping there was erratic but strong...she was out cold.
"Olivia..." He could distantly hear a man wailing from somewhere in the room as he lightly tapped her face. Smoke from the fire and the chemical burning with it seared his lungs and he coughed hard and long. "C'mon baby," he urged between hacking. Pops muffled because of the grenade sounded all around him, be they shots from a gun or things in the room bursting as they were touched by flame, he couldn't distinguish.
A second later, whatever had been on the counter above them succumbed to the heat of the flames and Fin flattened himself on top of Benson, arms covering his head, as glass and some kind of liquid that burned when it hit showered down on them.
xxx
Through the smoke and the roaring fire, feet were splashing across the tiled floor as HRT and SWAT personnel combined spilled into the room.
"FREEZE!" Came the bellow through the confusion. "Down! On the ground, now!" Rifles being brought to bear made the air crackle like pop rocks as the room was swarmed with armed forces and emergency personnel alike. Fin knew better than to move; were it an armed madman or the approaching cavalry bearing down on them he wasn't about to make a sudden move that would elicit a shot. So he remained right where he was, body curled in a protective arch with Benson pinned beneath him.
The two men leading the strike team through the bay doors went straight for Tutuola and Benson while the containment team, aided by a fire crew, bore down on Ryan Wallace. They didn't even bother asking the two detectives they found huddled on the floor if they were all right...assessment was the job of the EMTs once they had them out of the damn building. The strike team leader grabbed at Fin and hauled him vertical. He gripped him firmly and began moving while his second in command made the move for Olivia.
"Garret!" This man hollered, alerting his partner to the fact that his charge was unresponsive. He bent to do a quick assessment himself to make sure her heart was at least still beating. As horrible as it sounded, were rescue breathing necessary it had to wait until the hostages were removed from the immediate threat. He confirmed the thump of her pulse and then without effort slid strong arms under her knees and back and plucked her from the now flooded floor. Men trained as he was were put through some of the most grueling physical demands known to armed forces...lifting a woman that barely weighed a hundred and twenty pounds was child's play. Reaffirming his hold on her, he jogged towards the parking terrace gleaming in late morning sunlight beyond the blown bay doors in front of him.
In less than five minutes from the time the grenade had blown a hole in the side of RHex's mechanical body, Ryan Wallace was overcome with armed officials and the extraction team was bearing Fin and Olivia towards ready and waiting emergency medical personnel.
10:20 am
He'd lost his partner.
He knew it.
She was dead.
Jay's inability to ward off his cousin's violent influence had sealed their fate and Olivia was dead. Fin was dead. Bullets to the back of the head. Executed. When he got across the parking lot, he'd come upon medical personnel with somber expressions bending low over two stretchers draped with white sheets.
This was the reality that loomed over Elliot Stabler as he and John raced from the precinct across the slush covered pavement. Regardless of their demands to be let through the lines, leftover SWAT personnel held them back and they watched helplessly as thick black smoke billowed from the open bay doors and fire crews dragged hoses over.
Having abandoned the station house only a minute after Aston, Cragen and Alex came jogging across the terrace behind them. Cabot looked a mess and Don looked worriedly beyond Elliot and John towards Warner's building as the crews battled to keep the ground floor from going up along with the basement already engulfed.
The late morning sun blazing off the snow on the ground was in almost cruel contradiction of the dark scene playing out beneath its rays. Elliot was oblivious to the cold, to Alex and Cragen behind him ... but not to the wrench of his gut as his eyes fell on a crowd of paramedics surrounding a bed they were pushing at a run towards one of the four ambulances idling at the far end of the terrace.
The same panic had obviously flared through John because a second after spotting it, both men were bodily pushing past the perimeter and running full tilt towards that ambulance.
Cragen was only a few steps behind them, but he was headed for Lt. Aston.
"Where's that going?" Elliot asked the first person he came to as an officer slapped the doors closed and the ambulance pulled away, sirens screaming. "Hey!" He stopped that man by grabbing his elbow. "That," he pointed. "Who was it? Where're they headed? Bellevue?"
"Bellevue, yeah," he said. "Third and fourth degree chemical burns." He shook his head. "It's bad."
Elliot felt sick, and John looked it, as the two about-faced and began to head for where their own cars had been ditched last night.
"Elliot, John!"
They turned as Cragen's voice carried across the crowd. He was standing a few yards away from two of the remaining three ambulances, which were still parked on the far end of the terrace and well away from the flurry still surrounding the morgue. He was waving them over. He thanked Lt. Aston and then put a hand on each of their shoulders as they reached him.
"They're all right," he said without preamble, for both men looked on the verge of imploding in on themselves. He was out of breath. "Extraction team got them out just a few minutes after that grenade went."
John let out a swift breath and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. Fear and adrenaline left him in a rush, leaching the pent up energy from his system and making his legs weak. Elliot, eyes still locked on Cragen, grabbed his upper arm and couldn't speak.
"Y'okay?" Don looked at John, concern all over his face.
"Yeah." John nodded. "Yeah I just..." He cleared his throat. "Are they..." he trailed off as he looked towards the closed doors of the buses.
"They're working on a gash over Fin's eye and bringing Olivia back around now. Alex is with her."
Elliot paled. "Bringing her around...you just said they were both okay..." He looked towards one of the EMTs standing by Cragen.
"They're fine," the man assured them. "Considering. They're being treated for the chemical and smoke inhalation as well as for mild exposure. The prolonged time without heat, plus the water from the fire sprinklers... Both their core temperatures were down a couple of degrees. It's not serious, but we're just making sure they're both gonna remain stable before we transport them. Detective Tutuola has a grade three concussion, and we'll be watching him close. Detective Benson was unconscious when HRT brought them out, but her shoulder had been dislocated. There're no signs of other trauma, vitals are strong... We think she just passed out. Detective Tutuola's awake though, if you'd like to see him. They should be finishing up with the suturing." With a nod at the three men, the EMT turned and went back to one ambulance.
Elliot tried to sneak a peek inside as one door opened, but all he could see was Alex sitting to one side. The medical personnel inside blocked his view of his partner. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing right now.
"John. Go," Cragen said with a jerk of his head. Munch was still staring at the other ambulance.
He didn't need to be invited twice. With a pat on Elliot's arm, John trotted off. He rapped on the door with the back of his knuckles and a second later, an EMT pushed the doors open. After John flashed his shield, the young medic grabbed him around the wrist and helped him inside and closed the door behind him.
The heat was on high but John didn't care. He didn't even notice. The heat he felt was internal, spreading hot and fast through his chest as he looked at his partner, lying with an oxygen mask over his mouth, an IV taped to one hand, and covered with about six blankets. Hot packs were resting on the bed near his legs and up around his chest. His curly black hair, usually slicked back in its ponytail, was in disarray, strands loose here and there, and sopping wet.
"Does it still hurt?" Another medic was just snipping off the last of the thread from the stitches and began taping a swatch of gauze over the gash.
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"Where it's bleeding."
The medic was unfazed by Tutuola's grumble. He finished taping the gauze and moved aside, and John sat on one of narrow benches attached to the wall.
Fin had his eyes closed and John just watched him for a second. He was not able to think of anything profound to say that would adequately describe how he felt. "Hey, Boy."
Fin cracked an eye open at the voice...and then his lips curved into a wan and lopsided half-smile. He pulled the mask from his face and left it around his neck. His voice was hoarse. " 'sup Jew." He lifted one arm.
The two men quietly clapped hands palm to palm.
"'livia?" Fin inquired after a pause.
Munch nodded. "In the next bus over." He stared for a few seconds longer and then John shook his head and smiled. He reached up to put the O2 mask back in place as Fin started coughing. "I leave you alone for half an hour..."
Fin chuckled tiredly - John hadn't gone home last night more than thirty minutes before Warner had called. Nothing more was said as Fin closed his eyes and let his head drop carefully back against the pillow.
Their hands remained clasped.
xxx
Not long after John had disappeared into Fin's ambulance, the door of the one containing Olivia opened and the medic who'd gone in earlier hopped down. He came to Cragen and Elliot and smiled.
"She's awake, and doing just fine," he told them. Whatever else he began explaining, Elliot tuned out as his eyes darted to the door. He suddenly understood John's physical reaction...because he mirrored it.
Olivia was sitting up at a 45 degree angle, an oxygen mask resting over her mouth and nose. Her left arm was wrapped tightly to her chest. Mounds of blankets and several hot packs had been piled on top of her and an IV full of warmed saline was already dripping.
Alex was sitting next to her holding her other hand and smoothing back wayward strands of sodden hair. She was speaking quietly, Elliot couldn't hear what was being said. He watched Olivia nod, and Cabot lean forward and drop a kiss at her hairline before standing and hopping down from the bus. The door was closed behind her. She looked like she'd been crying, or was about to start, as she pulled out her cell phone and moved to the fourth ambulance and sat on its back bumper.
"Melinda," they heard her say after a second. She's promised Warner when she'd called to get the description of the chemicals in the suite that she would call her back as soon as she knew anything the news coverage following the standoff didn't report. The ME had been frantic with worry since she'd been brought out and recovered from surgery, and panicked at the emotional quivering in Cabot's voice. "I'm sorry." Alex smiled and wiped at her face. "No it's okay. It's fine. They're all right."
"Captain, detective?"
Elliot turned away from the conversation as the EMT called their attention. He'd been speaking into his radio and he clipped it back to his belt.
"Their vitals are good; they're both staying in the clear. We're ready to move them. One of you's more than welcome to ride with."
"We've gotta lock this down," Don said. He looked a bit haunted. "Go. I'll be along later." And he nodded at Elliot, who flashed a grateful smile and headed over to the bus.
Fight or no fight, guilt ridden because of it or not, he had to see her. It was a psychological need, an actual physical ache tearing his chest cavity apart. He didn't care if she hated him. Hell, he wanted her to hate him. A person had to be alive to be able to hate.
The EMT opened the door and Elliot hauled himself inside, trembling slightly out of a hefty swirl of anticipation and nerves combined.
It was even worse up close. Her face was pale and streaked with soot and small scratches from exploding glass, her wet hair was stringy and even covered in the wet smoke from the fire he could see the exhausted shadows around eyes.
She looked like hell.
It was fantastic.
Stabler sat down on the narrow bench inside as the doors were slapped closed and the bus cleared to leave. Olivia was out again. In the time between Alex's departure and Elliot's climbing inside, she'd drifted off. Or... Elliot's heart gave a start at a different, paranoid thought and he glanced at one of the medics in the back with him.
He smiled. "She's fine, detective. I promise. We gave them both a mild sedative, and her some pretty strong painkillers for the shoulder. Thirty hours awake and coming out of that shit?" He jerked his head behind him at what they were leaving behind. "I'm surprised we woke her up at all after she blacked out down there. She'll probably sleep for a day solid."
Elliot turned his attention back to the bed, rocking gently with the motion of the moving ambulance. Without thinking he spanned the small gap between his legs and the edge of it and took her right hand in his, minding the line taped to the back of it. His heart ached. It was freezing. He unconsciously closed his other hand around it and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared.
And then it hit him.
It was over.
Thirteen of the worst hours of his life, trailing behind them as the bus wailed mutedly through the streets of Manhattan and bore them both away from the nightmare.
The reality he was sitting in replaced the one he'd been fully expecting and relief ambushed him with tremendous force. He felt weak and suddenly his eyes were stinging. Letting out a long somewhat unsteady breath, Elliot bent his head as he gripped her hand even more firmly in hands that shook.
Were it an unconscious reflex, nerves and muscles simply responding to an outside stimulus, or were Olivia not as deeply asleep as the men around her assumed, Elliot would probably never know. Whatever the case, cold fingers contracted and closed feebly around shaking ones. Elliot could not have been struck harder emotionally had she opened her eyes and smiled.
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, forcing a lump back down before it surfaced and he made a fool of himself. He rested his chin on his hands and thanked God.
They just might survive this yet.
1:45
pm
Urgent Care
Unit, Bellevue Hospital
Urgent Care was its own unit just off the emergency ward, allowing doctors to tend to patients who needed to be watched without those patients being in the middle of the frenetic activity of the ER proper. Elliot and John sat out in the family room. Both were swallowed up in their own minds. Neither spoke. They were too tired for conversation.
A knock on the door startled them and they looked up as Captain Cragen came in. He held out his hand indicating they not even bother standing. He closed the door and took a chair. "What've you heard?"
Elliot repeated what the doctors had told the two of them thirty minutes ago. "Fin cracked his head pretty good. Some of the Formalin got on his hands, gonna blister for a couple days. They got Liv's shoulder realigned, but she's got some torn ligaments. She'll be in a sling again for another couple weeks. They're getting them cleaned up now, then said they've got a room ready up on TCU."
TCU was the Transitional Care Unit. It was where patients who would be headed home in a day or so went when they need a little extra TLC - physical or occupational therapy or a chance to get over a bug - before complete discharge.
"Gonna hold them both overnight," John supplied. "For the Formalin exposure. They want to make sure upper respiratory infections don't take up residence."
"Either of you seen Alex?"
Stabler nodded, rubbing at his face. "Got here a few minutes after we did. She's upstairs with Warner now fillin her in. She just left." Warner was still on the Surgical floor.
Cragen was contemplatively silent for a few minutes. "What about Jay?"
The doctors had told the two detectives about the other cop's condition as well. "Third and fourth degree burns, almost eighty percent of his body," John said quietly. "Probably won't make it to tomorrow."
Don felt sick.
Seconds ticked by quietly.
"What happened to Wallace," Elliot asked after a long silence between all three.
"They had to take him out," Don reported in a subdued sort of manner. "From what Lt. Aston's men told him, when they came through the bay doors, he was already firing. At the floor. He was in the corner by Jay. Near as they can guess, he flipped when he couldn't help Jay, and was probably trying to hit Fin and Olivia."
They waited for it.
"He was dead before they got him to the ambulance."
John took a deep breath and Elliot stared at the far wall. That explained why the fourth ambulance was just sitting in the parking lot. Hanging around to offer supplies if extras were needed perhaps. No need to rush to a hospital when your cargo's already dead.
Cragen leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. "Morgue's destroyed," he went on. "They couldn't save the upper floor. The building was fully involved by the time the buses left the lot."
They all realized what this meant...but the ramifications wouldn't fully sink in for another day or two. Nothing since RHex had entered the autopsy suite this morning had fully registered yet.
"I'm gonna head upstairs, see Warner for a minute," Don suddenly announced. "I'll swing back down by TCU in a couple of hours." The three men shared a look and then Cragen left the room and headed to the elevators. What he didn't tell either of them was why he needed to see her.
He hated being the bearer of bad news and the news he had to share with Melinda was about the worst he could imagine. As its bearer, he felt like an ass.
Dante Sandoval's body had not been able to be retrieved before the building had burned to the ground.
xxx
3:00
pm
TCU was a quiet floor. The vast majority of patients here were the elderly, recovering from hip or falling injuries before they were admitted to long-term care homes.
Olivia's eyes jerked open, but she wasn't sure what'd woken her this time. She'd been dropping off in little fits and dozes since being moved; every time a bed squeaked or someone spoke while they were getting Fin settled beside her, she'd startle back awake.
Fin.
She turned her head to the right. Tutuola was getting himself positioned. He looked horrible, scratches here and there, hair disheveled and frizzy after being washed, and a fantastic bruise forming over his eye. The CNA attending to him got him comfy, adjusted the flow on the mask, and then left the room.
Knowing better, Olivia pulled the mask off her face for a moment and rolled half on her right side. "Wow," she rasped. And then coughed.
Fin turned to look at her. He frowned at the expression on her face. He pulled his own mask away. "What?"
Cough. "You look like crap, Fin."
Fin laughed (or coughed, it was hard to tell the difference at the moment). Which made her laugh. Several minutes passed before their breathing and coughing were under control enough again that they could talk.
Which they didn't do.
A full six minutes passed before they did anything at all. Olivia put her right arm out across the space between them, palm up.
Cough. "Thanks for stickin around, by the way." Her voice was quiet. The room was on fire. Fin could have, and probably should have, gotten out. But she knew he hadn't. For her. The dressing wrapped around his hand was proof.
Fin flashed a small smile and reached across to drop his hand in hers. "You think I was gonna try heavin your ass outta there myself?" He quipped. Cough. "Was waitin for help." Beat. He gave her hand a good squeeze. "You're welcome."
She smiled. They released each other as the CNA came back in, scolding them both for removing their masks. They were repositioned, Fin slapping the girl's hand away as he insisted he could put it back on himself.
Olivia rolled to her back again, smiling softly to herself as the aide put another pillow under her left elbow to keep her arm level. The blankets heaped over her, the narcotic pain medication in her system, the soft beeps of monitors in the room...she felt her eyes drooping again.
She didn't even try to fight it.
xxx
3:30
pm
Elliot and John sat together in the room Fin and Olivia shared. John talked quietly with Fin, while Benson slept. The constant poking and needling and repositioning over the last two hours coupled with the gentle shower had flat had probably exhausted them both and Olivia had apparently succumbed not long after they'd been settled.
Clean now and warm, they looked infinitely better than they had mere hours ago. Their faces were clear of soot streaks, their hair was dry, and instead of the standard thin hospital gowns, they'd been given long sleeved scrubs and were piled with blankets. The back of Fin's left hand was wrapped and taped - he'd been using it to shield Benson when the Formalin had spilled off the counter over them both - and the O2 masks had to stay at least another couple hours, or until the coughing subsided on its own.
After a little while, Fin eventually lost the same battle with Morpheus that Olivia'd surrendered to and that half of the room gradually fell silent. There was a quiet creak of plastic as John stood.
"Probably gonna sleep for a week," he murmured dryly of himself and his partner. "You want anything before I head out?"
Elliot thought about it for a second, then shook his head. "I'm okay."
John put a hand on his shoulder. He opened his mouth to say something...but then nothing came, so he closed it. He gave the shoulder a brotherly squeeze, then moved around him and left the room.
Elliot stared.
The shower had been a rather bittersweet necessity. It had to have made her more comfortable, but it also revealed the extent of the nightmare she and Fin had just been pulled from. Without the smudges of dark soot streaking her skin to hide them, Elliot could see little scratches from shattered glass flying through the room dotting one side of her forehead like tiny red buttonholes. The dark smudges under her eyes had nothing to do with soot, and her overall color was terrible.
He glanced across the low-lit room to Fin. He looked just as bad. He looked somewhat less intimidating when his hair wasn't slicked back, and his right eye where Ryan had clocked him was already swollen and bruising. Little blisters on the back of his fingers were poking out beneath the dressing.
"You ought to go home yourself, you know."
Stabler didn't turn around as Cragen spoke quietly from the doorway.
"We've been up just as long." He put his hands in his pockets and laughed quietly. "Longer now," he added as he looked at both his detectives and heard their deep breathing. Elliot didn't move.
"Elliot there's nothing we can do for them right now."
"I should be here. I need to be."
"No, what you need is to go home to your family. They'll be asleep for hours. When they wake up, they're going to need us, but we're no use to them if we're dead on our feet and unable to think straight. It's over, Elliot. Running yourself into the ground now isn't going to help her." He couldn't sound as stern as he wanted to, partly because he understood the need. They couldn't be with either of them then, where they could be now.
For once, Elliot didn't argue and he sighed deeply as he stood and rubbed his neck. He realized he did miss his family. Dickie'd gotten an A on his first math test this month. He was supposed to take him bowling this afternoon. "My car's back at the station," he suddenly remembered.
Alex had appeared, unnoticed, in the doorway some time ago. "I'm on my way out," she offered softly.
"Yeah." He nodded. "You'll--"
"Docs said they'd call if anything changed," Cragen finished for him. "Get some sleep." In the days to follow, they would all need it.
Elliot nodded. With a final look back into the room, he crossed his arms and disappeared with Alex down the hall.
Ignoring his own advice, Don pulled the chair Elliot had just vacated between the two beds of the room and sat slowly, looking between each detective.
It'd taken a few hours longer than it had for Elliot, but the realization didn't hit Cragen with any less force.
Fin and Olivia were safe. They were relatively unhurt. The proof was lying right in front of him. However, to get them out alive he'd had to make the call that was the reason another cop he was responsible for was lying in the burn ward with a machine breathing for him. He would probably die.
The sudden swell of emotion that up until now hadn't been allowed a foothold took the captain by surprise, and he had to take a deep breath. Forfeiting self-control to the acknowledgement that it was, in fact, over, Don rested his elbows on his knees and bent his head. The last almost eighteen hours were hitting him at once, battering him from all sides and harassing his objectivity with the vehement reminder that, with them, he could no longer be objective. One hand covered his eyes.
His exhausted detectives slept on, blissfully ignorant of the fact that Fin's quiet snoring was no longer the only sound in the room.
End Part 10
