"But it's true, Michael," she said, "if you'd heard half the things I've said to him over the last couple weeks-"
"John's had problems long before the last couple weeks," Michael assured her, "he's been messed up for a while now."
"And part of that's been because of me too," she insisted, "I mean there was all the stuff with Haver and Hayes and the fact that he's been torturing himself over this secret that he was only keeping because he wanted to protect me-"
"Okay, but before that there was Dad and Caitlyn and-"
"So it's not all my fault," she conceded, "but I have a damn big share of it. I should have known he'd so something like this, I should have-"
"You should have known?" he said with a hint of a bitter laugh, "Natalie, I'm his brother. Not to challenge the importance of your role in his life but I've known him a lot longer than you have. If anyone should have known it's me. In a way I did--I knew he was losing it I just never thought-"
"Neither did I," she said softly biting her lip.
Michael took her hands in his and looked seriously into her eyes. "Let's not do this," he said, "let's just concentrate on getting him through this. Once he's okay we can talk about-" He stopped suddenly as Dr. Miller approached them.
Michael stood up immediately. "How is he?" he asked as Natalie rose as well.
"He made it through surgery," Paige said, her voice neutral and clinical, "we have successfully relieved the pressure that was building up due to the swelling and at this point we think most of the hemorrhaging has stopped."
"Think?" Natalie asked softly as Bo joined them silently.
"As soon as he's stable we'll do a CT scan," she explained, "then we'll have a much better idea of how much, if any, damage we're looking at."
"Can I see him?" Michael asked.
She shook her head. "Not yet. I'll let you know when."
"Thank you," Bo said as she turned and walked back into the OR.
Michael sighed. "Well I guess I'd better call Mom."
"I'll make sure the plane is waiting for her at the airport," Natalie said, "Give me her number and I'll call her when I know where she needs to go to meet it."
As Michael hastily scribbled the number down for her she asked, "You still want me to call Marcie?"
"No," he said taking a deep breath, "I'll do it. I think I'm ready."
Natalie squeezed his hand and gave him as much of a smile as she could muster as they separated to make their phone calls away from the sensitive medical equipment.
As Natalie was hanging up the phone she heard someone call her name, and turned to see Rex approaching her. She let him draw her into a tight hug as he asked, "How are you holding up?"
"I'm okay," she said weakly, starting to get slightly annoyed that people seemed just as concerned over her ability to handle this as they were over John. "What are you doing here?"
"Bo called me," he explained, "I guess he figured you could use some company."
She nodded. "Thanks for coming. Michael's here he just went to make some calls. He… he's not taking it well."
"And how about you?" Rex asked leading her back to the couch in the waiting area.
"I don't know Rex," she said shaking her head and looking at her knees, "Is there a right way for me to be taking this? I break up with a guy and he tries to kill himself. He might still succeed—he's not out of the woods yet. And it's my fault Rex. I didn't want this to happen. I mean I was mad at him but I didn't want him dead." She whispered the last word as if saying it out loud would make it more of a reality.
"Hey," he said pulling her into another hug, "you can't blame yourself for this."
"I can't not blame myself for this, Rex," she said her eyes filling with tears.
"Nattie," he said taking her by both shoulders and forcing her to look into his eyes, "I'm gonna tell you what no one else is gonna feel comfortable saying yet—this is his fault."
"Rex!" she hissed.
"Yeah, you broke up with him. You had a damn good reason. Besides, who hasn't been dumped. Most of us don't decide to kill ourselves over it," he said.
"He had a lot going on," she said.
"I know," he said, "and he decided to take the selfish route and do this rather than trying to do something about it."
His words felt like gravel scraping across her heart; how could he talk like that about a man who might be dying a few yards away? She couldn't even let herself consider whether there was truth to it. "Rex," she said holding up a hand, "I know you're trying to help. And some of what you're saying makes sense but I can't hear this right now. I can't listen to you talk that way about him when he might be-" The tears she'd been holding in while comforting Michael finally broke lose and started running down over her cheeks.
"Okay," he nodded, "just don't go beating up on yourself either, okay?" Rex hugged her tightly again, letting her cry on his shoulder until she was able to regain some degree of composure.
"Thanks for being here," she said wiping her eyes, "I know he's not exactly your favorite person."
"Well you were there for me with Jen," he pointed out, "and you two weren't exactly friends either."
A strange look crossed Natalie's face at the mention of Jen's murder but before she could speak Michael rejoined them. "Did you talk to Marcie?" she asked him as he sat down.
"Yeah," he said, "she was flying in today anyway but she's gonna see if she can get on an earlier flight. Thanks for arranging everything for Mom."
"It was no problem," she said.
Bo rejoined them as well, sitting down in a chair across from them. "Natalie," he said, "I talked to Gail and she said she can cover for you today so if you want to stay here or you want to go home and rest you don't have to worry about work."
"Thanks," she said.
He turned to Michael and said, "I just talked to Paige, she said that they're moving John to a room now. You should be able to see him soon."
"Good," he said, "you know I didn't even ask, Dr. Miller's an administrator now, how did she wind up on the surgical team?"
Bo shrugged, "I don't know, I didn't ask either. She just seemed to think it was an important case and she wanted to be there."
"Well I'm glad she was," Michael said softly.
He was cold. It seemed strange; weren't you supposed to see this warm glowing light at the end of the tunnel? For that matter where was the tunnel anyway? Unless he was headed the other direction, but then it should be really hot. What temperature was purgatory?
It occurred to him that maybe he wasn't dead. Now that was really strange. But it seemed to be the only possibility because he was fairly certain he was in a room. There were people here, voices. He didn't recognize any of them. He couldn't even understand what they were saying. At any rate they didn't seem to be talking to him. He tried to open his eyes and managed to get them cracked open just enough to see a bright light above him. He was fairly certain that one was electric rather than divine though. He couldn't speak. He couldn't move.
This was going to get old very fast.
"Bo," Natalie said suddenly, "I thought you took his gun?"
"I did," he nodded, "the one he used wasn't department issue. We aren't sure where he got it."
They were silent for a moment before Natalie spoke again. "So he… he fired against the side of his head?" Unconsciously she pantomimed the action.
"Yeah," Bo said, hoping she didn't ask him to elaborate further. She'd see John's injuries soon enough but he didn't think she needed to hear too many details about them for now.
"I don't want to be too morbid, but if you really want to kill yourself, isn't it more effective to fire into your mouth?" she asked staring hard at nothing as though she were trying to figure something out.
Everyone seemed unsettled by the question but Michael answered. "You'd have a much harder time surviving that. So thank God John didn't…" he trailed off, unable to complete the sentence and not wanting to dwell on the thought.
"Yeah," Natalie said thoughtfully before turning back to Bo. "John's a good shot, right?"
"One of the best I've seen," he replied.
"And he has experience firing a gun," she said as much to herself as to anyone else, "I mean even with a gun he wasn't used to he would know how it pulls and everything like that."
"Yeah," Bo said.
"What are you getting at Nattie?" Re asked.
Natalie looked around at the others. "Well it's just…Not that I'm complaining, but if John wanted to shoot himself, why isn't he dead?"
To be continued.