Chapter 8

Don was carrying a stack of plates into the kitchen when he heard it. Two shots. Large caliber handgun.

"What was that?" Alan asked, turning to his son, but the dishes were on the floor in pieces and Don was already halfway to the door, gun drawn.

"Call 911!", he shouted, flipping on the floodlights. "Stay on the line with them! Tell them shots fired!" He jerked open the door, gun proceeding him into the night. He could see Amita's car, three shapes on the ground. He could hear Charlie screaming. His eyes searched the shadows, were drawn again to the shapes by the car. He knew it was wrong to cross the open space without back-up, it went against all his training…but his brother was screaming.

He took off in a low crouch. A neighbor's floodlights came on, and the scene became clearer. Still, he saw nothing. In seconds he was at Corriander's body. The top of his head was missing, but there was enough of his face left that Don recognized him, and he felt his blood freeze. Automatically, he kicked the gun away from him, although he was sure the man wouldn't be using it again.

His own weapon still out, Don yelled at Charlie. He had stopped screaming, but one hand was on his ear, and one was…G-d. One was on Amita. "Charlie! Charlie, are you hit?"

He heard screeching tires, a car door slam. Footsteps. "FBI! FBI!" he yelled, pointing his gun into the darkness, crossing the last few feet so that he could cover his brother.

"Don! It's me!" It was Colby's voice. "Listen, I found a connection…" He entered the light then, saw the scene before him, drew his own weapon. "Got you covered," he spat, and Don holstered his weapon, fell on the ground next to Charlie. He tried to pull his brother off Amita, but he wouldn't respond to him. Soon his father's hands were there also.

"Get him back!" he barked. "Check him for injuries! Are they sending an ambulance?"

"Charlie, Charlie, son, let your brother work…" Charlie didn't seem to hear Alan, either, but he responded to his father's touch, focused on his father's face. As he let himself be dragged back, he watched Don bend over Amita. "Help her." His voice was hoarse.

Don saw the blood. He saw the wound. He saw the staring eyes. He knew it was pointless, but he had to try. He had to try, for his brother. He looked at Charlie, tilted Amita's head back to clear the airway. Every time he breathed air into her lungs, more blood bubbled out of her chest. Every time he compressed her heart, more blood spurt out and covered his hands.

After at least a century, pulsating red and blue joined the floodlights, hands pulled him away from her. He met a paramedic's eyes, saw the shake of the head. "Charlie," he said, and he heard Colby's voice again.

"He's over there. With your father."

Don followed Colby's hand and saw his father on the ground. He was holding Charlie in his lap, one hand clamped what looked like a towel to his ear. He saw another ambulance arrive, saw the paramedics rush to them. Don wasn't sure where he should be. He felt like he should be everywhere. Then he felt Colby's hand under his elbow, felt himself being lifted and led away from Amita. He looked back once, saw her body arch in reaction to a defibrillator. How many times had they shocked her?

He reached his father and Charlie just as the second team of paramedics was loading his brother onto a gurney. His eyes were closed, he wasn't struggling. He wasn't answering their questions.

"This is his family, he's going to the hospital with his family," he heard Colby saying. "You'll have to debrief him later."

He helped his father climb into the ambulance with Charlie. "Only one of you," a paramedic said, and he felt Colby pull him.

"Get in my car," he said. "I'm driving."

……………………………………………………………………………………………

At the hospital, Colby led Don to a restroom so that he could wash his hands. "Here," he said, and dropped a gym bag on the floor. "I keep some spare clothes and stuff in the car. You should at least find a t-shirt in there you can wear." Don nodded his thanks and Colby met his eyes in the mirror. "I'll go back to your father," he finally said. "If you're okay here." Don nodded again, and Colby left.

Ten minutes later, Don joined them, Colby's jeans so loose on him they were in danger of falling off. His own clothes, covered in Amita's blood, still laid on the floor of the bathroom. He talked quietly into Colby's ear. "Get something from the hospital and bag those," he said. "Might need them for evidence." Colby started to leave, but Don grabbed his arm, and he turned to look at his team leader. Face pale, dwarfed in clothes too big for him, he looked impossibly young to Colby. "Thanks," Don said, looking him in the eye.

Don sat next to his father. Alan turned confused eyes to him, asked, "What happened?", and Don found that he couldn't answer. Finally, he hung his head. "I think I killed Amita," he said.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

While they waited for some word on Charlie, Colby came back and filled his father in on the details. Alan drew a breath, pulled his son to him, kissed the top of his head. "This is not your fault," he said quietly. "This is not your fault."

Don let his father hold him, tried to believe what he said, but he knew that he never would. He had given Charlie to Corriander. He had assumed the man wouldn't have made it as far as the bullpen if someone hadn't already check him out with L.A.P.D. He had violated the first rule of being an agent, and he had given up his own brother.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

"Eppes family?"

Don and Alan stood, looked with frightened eyes to the doctor.

He focused on the older man. "Your son will be fine." He waited a moment for the relief to hit, and when he was sure they were listening again, continued. "The acoustic trauma ruptured his right ear drum. This has caused some sensory hearing loss, some of which he will regain…we'll have to wait for the ear to heal on its own. There's not much we can do for an injury like this."

"Some hearing? He'll only regain some hearing?"

The doctor nodded at Alan. "I'm afraid acoustic trauma involves some permanent loss. Sometimes a hearing aid can help with any ongoing tinnitus, or 'ringing in the ears'…we just have to wait and see what happens."

Don interrupted. "What about his other ear? Why couldn't he hear us at all?"

"Tests show that his left ear suffered no damage," assured the doctor. "But he did suffer severe shock, as well. The combination was overwhelming for him."

Alan's hand creeped up to his chin. "He can hear now?"

"Yes, he's been responding to us, although he's still shocky, very distraught. He knows…he understands that the young woman is gone. We had to give him a mild sedative. He has balance and nausea problems associated with the rupture, of course, tinnitus. All of those things should improve within days."

He waited for more questions, but the men in front of him were clearly traumatized themselves. "There is also some bruising on his throat, but no real damage was suffered by the trachea. We want to observe him for a few hours," he said gently, "mostly because of the shock. We're moving him out of the main traffic of the ER. I'll have someone come and get you in a few minutes; you can see him then."

The doctor left, and the Eppes men rejoined Colby. They sat in silence for a while.

"We can't take him back there," said Don, thinking of the crime scene, the technicians who would be crawling all over his brother's driveway.

Alan grunted. "You're right. Can we take him to your apartment? I know there's only the one bedroom…"

"Of course," Don assured his father. "We'll take him there."

After more silence, Alan spoke again. "I should get him some things from home. He'll…he'll need to change his clothes."

"I can take you," Colby offered. "I'll get you past…everything."

Alan smiled at the young man. "I'd appreciate that, Colby." He thought for a moment, stood. "We'll go now. I'll pick up some things for Charlie, take them to your place," he said to Don. "I'll get things ready. You stay with your brother."

"I'll come back to drive you both to the apartment," Colby said, standing to join Alan.

Don nodded, and soon he was alone. He didn't know how long he sat there. He wasn't even fully aware of someone coming after him, of following a woman to a screened cubicle. He came fully to his senses when he saw Charlie.

His brother was lying on his back, eyes closed, face pale. The bruises on his throat stood out against the white skin.

"He's sleeping," the woman said. "The sedative. But you can sit with him if you'd like."

She left Don with his brother, and he sat next to the bed. He saw Charlie's hands, then. They were still covered with Amita's blood. Shocked, his eyes searched the room for something, anything to clean them with, but he saw nothing. He began to panic. He could not let Charlie wake up to Amita's blood on his hands. He left the room then, grabbed someone in the hall. He wasn't even sure she worked at the hospital, but she must, because she disappeared into another room and then came right back out, shoving cotton balls and packages of moist towlettes at him. "Sorry," he heard her say, "we just haven't had time…"

He didn't hear the rest of it, because somehow, he was already back at Charlie's bed. Carefully, gently, he raised first one hand, and then the other. He cleaned them as well as he could without waking his brother.

Looking at Charlie's face again, he saw blood spatters there, too, and he moved up to the head of the bed. He hadn't realized he was crying, but large, hot tears were falling on his brother's face, and he was using the moisture from them to wipe away Amita's blood. Then, tears were rolling out of Charlie's closed eyes as well, and their tears were mixing, Don couldn't tell them apart anymore. He just kept wiping them all off his brother's face. When he couldn't stand anymore, he sat down, and laid his head next to Charlie's on the pillow.