Chapter 3
Hold on
Hold on to yourself
For this is gonna hurt like hell
- "Hold On", Sarah McLachlan
Calleigh rushed down the hallway of the hospital hot on Alexx's heels. No one had given them details, just told them to come to Jackson Memorial as soon as they could possibly get there. Her stomach was cold at the possibilities. They found Horatio sitting on a bench in a corner of the waiting room, staring at his hands. Calleigh sat down next to him, noting that his shirt sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. She swallowed hard as she noticed the traces of blood still on his hands. He didn't even look up at them.
Alexx had sat down on the bench across from them. "Tell us, honey," she said, gently.
Calleigh bit her lip. She'd never seen Horatio look so…small. He blinked up at them and said softly, "There's not much that's good."
"Tell us the worst, first, then," Alexx said, reaching out to touch his hands.
"Eric…he's gone. Bullet wound to the head. I…think it happened too quickly for him to know," Horatio stumbled over the words, which would have worried Calleigh if she'd been able to pay attention anymore. Her eyes closed.
"What else?" she asked after a moment, opening her eyes to look at him.
"John Hagen also died," Horatio replied, not quite looking at her. "He was shot in the stomach, and just lost too much blood. They pronounced him dead on arrival."
"Oh," she said, in a small voice, not knowing how to feel about the news. She and Hagen hadn't been together for some weeks now, but even still.
"What about Timmy?" Alexx asked, tensely.
Horatio sighed, looking back at his hands. "They're trying to stabilize him for surgery. His jaw is…broken, I guess. And there might be some internal bleeding, they said. They're not saying he won't make it, but they don't seem too certain, either."
They sat silently for a long moment. No one seemed to know what to say to that bit of news. Horatio pulled himself upright with some effort. "I need to go back to the lab. Yelena was bringing Eric's parents there. I have to go tell them."
Calleigh nodded, blinking back tears. "Has anyone called New York?" she asked.
He nodded. "I did that already, after calling you."
"Good," she said, softly. "Are his parents coming?"
"I think so," Horatio said. "I told them where the hospital was and said that they could call me if they needed to."
She nodded. "Ok."
Horatio looked like he was about to say something else when a man in scrubs approached them. "Are you here for Tim Speedle?"
"Yes," they said, all tensing for news.
"I'm Evan Walker; I've been working on Mr. Speedle. We've got him stabilized and we'll be moving him up to surgery very soon. We're just waiting on the surgeons to be ready for him," he explained.
"He's stable?" Calleigh asked.
"Yes, his vitals are recovering nicely, now that we've gotten some blood into him. He's not entirely out of the woods yet- a lot can happen in surgery- but right now, he's as stable as he's going to get. I can't say that it looks good, exactly, yet, but it doesn't look bad, either," the doctor replied.
"Can we process him before he goes up to surgery?" Horatio asked.
"Process how?" Walker asked, cautiously.
"Photographs, trace evidence, that sort of thing," Horatio explained.
Walker frowned a moment, thinking. "Photographs would be all right, I guess. You really can't do anything else, though. Nothing like, fingerprint dusting or anything. Nothing that could get into the wounds."
"Photographs, at the least," Horatio said. "Everything helps."
"I understand. I can let one of you come back to take photographs, if you need to," he said.
Horatio turned to Calleigh. "Can you…would you do the photographs. I don't want to keep Eric's family waiting…"
She hesitated. "Do you really think this is necessary? Right now?" She could hardly think about a case right now. Everything was whirling around faster than she could keep her hands on. Evidence was the last thing on her mind.
"Calleigh, it might be all we have. We can't do it after the surgery, the evidence won't be there," he said.
"I know, but…we're not supposed to be working this, are we? I'd think that would taint the evidence," she said. It wasn't that she didn't want to do her job. But she wasn't sure she wanted to see Tim injured, either.
"There's not time to get someone else here to do it, Calleigh. You weren't at the scene, that should be good enough. Please, Calleigh, just do this." She was taken aback by the pleading note in his voice. Horatio never sounded like this.
"Ok" she said, in a small voice. "I will".
He reached out and touched her shoulder. "Thank you," he whispered, before turning away to walk down the hall.
Calleigh took a deep breath and turned towards the doctor. "Do you have a camera anywhere here? I don't have my kit with me."
"We do, actually. We need to document abuse sometimes. I can let you use it," he said, nodding. "Come on back."
She followed him through the doors to the main part of the emergency department. He found a digital camera and handed it to her. "Thanks," she said.
"No problem. Your friend is this way," he said, leading her down a short hallway. He stopped outside a door and turned towards her. "I should warn you, before we go in here. Your friend…might not look like he should to you. There aren't a lot of tubes and machines, but he's sustained a very serious facial injury, and his face is somewhat distorted. He's been sedated so he can't do any more damage to his jaw, so he's not conscious at the moment. I just didn't want you to be taken completely by surprise."
Calleigh nodded. "Can he hear us, do you think?"
"Well, the jury is sort of out on that one. I'd say, that yes, he can probably hear us, but he's probably not processing it. He probably doesn't understand what we're saying, exactly," he explained.
"Ok," Calleigh said, taking a deep breath. "I'm ready."
The doctor nodded and opened the door. Even though she'd just been told that Tim would look bad, her breath still caught in her throat at her first sight of him. Half of his jaw looked like it had collapsed in on itself, and the rest of his face looked nearly black with bruises. What wasn't bruised was deathly pale. Calleigh closed her eyes a moment to steady herself, then looked at him again. "Hi, Tim," she said, quietly. "It's me. I'm just going to take some pictures, ok?" She raised the camera with shaky hands and started taking pictures of the damage to his face, walking around the bed to get several angles.
"Here, you should probably get this, too," the doctor said, as she finished. He pulled down Tim's gown to reveal some severe bruising on his chest. "It's a good deal he had a vest on, from the looks of this," he said.
Calleigh swallowed hard at the familiar looking bruise. It was in almost the same place that Tim had been bruised after Dispo Day. She took several photographs of it, before looking up at the doctor. "Is there anything else?" she asked.
"There's a bruise along his hip, but that looks older," the doctor said, tugging the gown up to reveal a yellowing bruise along Tim's hipbone.
Calleigh nodded in agreement, wincing as how pronounced his hips were. "Yeah, I think that's older." She wondered how he'd gotten that one, and hoped it wasn't from falling off of his bike when he'd been exhausted before.
"That's it, then. He's not bruising across his abdomen, yet. Those won't rise for a couple of days, probably," the doctor said.
"Right," Calleigh nodded. She watched as the doctor covered Tim back up. On impulse, she reached out and touched Tim's foot. "We're here, Tim. They're going to take care of you. It's…" she choked on the words all right. "We're here, honey," she said, lamely. She turned away, abruptly walking out the door before the threatened tears could fall. It would be a long night, she knew.
