Chapter Nineteen: You Never Step in the Same River Twice

The high pitched whine of a surgical buzz saw jerked Charlie out of his self-induced trance.

"Don't move, Mr. Eppes. We need to cut this cast off."

The standard set of polynomial equations he had been using to distract himself from the proceedings was quickly forgotten when Don let out a yelp from somewhere close by.

"My leg is actually broken under that cast!"

Charlie tried to careen his neck around so he could see his older brother, but the lady with the buzz saw trained at the cast on his arm was standing in the way. The rush of medical personal around him was doing nothing to quell the panic Charlie had been trying so hard to contain and when she started up the saw again, Charlie felt a wave of nausea wash over him and he had to close his eyes.

"Charlie?"

Someone touched him on the shoulder and the saw turned off again.

"Hey! You need to lean back."

"Shut up. Charlie? You okay, Buddy?"

Opening one eye, Charlie could see Don struggling with a nurse who was trying to sit him back up. He had leaned over between the two trauma stretchers to get a better look at his brother.

"Agent Eppes…being in the same room with him isn't going to help if you don't lean back and let us do our jobs.

Don gave in to their demands, but kept his head turned and his eyes on his brother waiting for a response.

Charlie managed a weak smile.

"I'm okay, Don."

Don offered him an encouraging nod.

"Yeah, I've heard that somewhere before."

The saw started up again filling the room with its buzz. When the blade made contact with the cast on Charlie's arm, the volume of the buzz increased. The smell of heated fiberglass began to fill the room and in only seconds the woman holding the saw stepped back to let the medical crew take over.

Charlie felt a strange sensation as the cast fell away and air was allowed to flow across the limb. The release of pressure on the arm provided an increase in sensitivity. For Charlie that meant an increase in pain.

He wasn't going to look.

He really didn't intend to look.

But the feeling of cool air against wet skin on top of the thumping pain drew his eyes to the bicep of his right arm. Before the RN standing next to him could reapply pressure to the bullet hole, Charlie watched what looked like a bubble of blood rise up and run down his arm.

Don observed Charlie tilt his head to the side to look at his arm and he knew what was coming next. As Charlie's eyes grew wide, his face paled. He swallowed hard as if he were trying to keep from throwing up. Then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell backwards onto the stretcher.

"Damn it. Hey…..Charlie?"

The medical team pounced on him like a cat on string and Don struggled to sit up again. But the buzz saw wielding woman pushed him back down.

"He'll be fine, Agent. He just passed out."

"Fine?"

Don gapped at her, allowing his concern for Charlie to morph into anger.

"You call that fine? He was just held hostage and shot!"

As the ER doctor who was standing next to Charlie began to wheel him out of the room, Don reached out and grabbed the back of the man's white coat.

He turned back to Don and allowed the two nurses to go on without him.

"We're taking him down to x-ray. The bleeding is under control, it was a clean shot. We just need to make sure the bullet didn't hit the bone. You're next, so don't go anywhere."

Not finding any humor in the man's comments, Don turned back to the nurse still standing by his side and shook his head at her.

"They have to make sure the bullet didn't hit the bone. I don't think that qualifies as 'fine'."

Ignoring his hostility, the nurse moved down to the cast on his leg. When the buzz of the rotating blade ceased, Don drew a sharp breath as the cast was pulled apart sending pain shooting up his ankle. Choosing not to stare at the bloody interior of the plaster, Don turned his head back toward the door.

"Oh my God."

The nurse's exclamation made Don whip his head around. Half expecting to find blood shooting into the air like a fountain, he was shocked to see the woman ginning at him.

"I'm sorry, Agent. I wasn't expecting to find this in there."

She extended her hand and Don put his out to take whatever she was offering. The woman dropped a small solid piece of metal in his hand and Don almost dropped it.

"Wow."

The man in the white lab coat returned and proceeded to examine the wound on his leg, while Don stared at the .22 caliber slug the nurse had handed him.

The bullet was a prefect miniature projectile. It had barely even mushroomed. So small……..but in the hands of a lunatic……it could have killed them both.

When the doctor stepped back and pulled his gloves off, Don lifted his head and stared at him expectantly.

"Well?"

"Like I said, we're sending you down to x-ray to reassess the original break since it looks like you tried to run in a marathon today. But it's just a flesh wound, Agent Eppes. We'll have you bandaged up in no time."

Don tilted his head towards the door.

"What about him? What about Charlie?"

The doctor was not oblivious to the change in Don's voice and he looked at the chart in his hand.

"Eppes, huh? I noticed that earlier. I'm assuming he's your brother?"

Don nodded cautiously. Even though he knew Charlie was going to be fine, he needed to hear the doctor say it.

"There's not much damage. From the looks of things it was shot point blank into the back of the cast. Am I correct?"

Again Don nodded mutely and the doctor continued.

"It looks like the cast slowed the bullet down considerably, by the time it got to you; it didn't have the velocity to pass through the back of your cast as well."

Don clenched his fist around the small slug in his hand.

"Lucky for me."

The doctor didn't miss Don's cynicism, and he nodded his head as he continued his explanation.

"Yes. It actually was. Lucky for Charlie, too. The point blank range kept the bullet from expanding rapidly and it went through clean. Looks like it missed the bone by less than an eighth of an inch. But I wanted the x-ray to be sure."

Pausing to glance at the two discarded casts, the doctor looked at Don and smiled sympathetically.

"You two are not having a good week, are you?"

Don sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"You have no idea, Doc. You really have no idea."

Heading for the door, the doctor glanced over his shoulder at Don.

"I'll send someone in to take you down to x-ray, so……."

Don cut him off.

"…don't go anywhere. Right?"

"Right."

As the doctor walked out the door, David walked in.

"Don. How's Charlie doing?"

Glad to see a familiar face, Don smiled warily.

"He's gonna be alright. The doctor says he got lucky."

"And you?"

"I'm next."

Don shook his head dismissively.

"It's relatively superficial. How's Granger?"

David widened his eyes and exhaled dramatically.

"Didn't even need stitches, Don. It really was just a scratch."

Don nodded his head, acknowledging how fortunate Colby had been.

"Good. What about Tabitha Karney?"

"She's a few doors down. The shots were clean from both angles. I left a man in the room with her and one at the door….just in case, but I don't think she's going anywhere."

Don nodded and heaved a deep sigh.

"Damn….that was close."

"Yeah. It was."

David hesitated. As he continued, he looked apprehensively at Don.

"There's something else too. I just got a statement from Mrs. Whitney."

"They're here?"

"Yeah, a guest at the party fainted……hit her head. I think maybe a relative? But the agent we left at the scene didn't get a statement from the family before they came here and I told him I'd take care of it."

"Yeah? Why is that a problem?"

"It's not, I just…I though you might like to know what she said."

"Okay?"

"According to Allison Whitney, your brother is 'the bravest man on the face of the planet'. And I'm quoting her on that."

"Charlie?"

David was trying not to smile as he nodded enthusiastically.

"You won't believe it. I made her tell me twice just to be sure I got the whole thing."

"I'll only make you tell me once. What they hell happened up there, David?"

As David repeated word for word what Allison Whitney had told him about Charlie's action on the penthouse roof, Don's eyes grew wider and wider until he finally put up his hand for David to stop.

"You're telling me that Charlie provoked her into taking him hostage?"

"To get her away from those kids, yeah. Mrs. Whitney said it all happened pretty fast, but Charlie stepped up to the plate…convinced Tabitha that she didn't want Robert to see her like that. He almost literally led her to the elevator. But then when the little girl walked in, she panicked. And that's when we showed up."

Don felt his heart constrict with an emotion that had been weighing on him for several days. He wasn't certain how to describe it, but it left him stuck in a conflict with what he had always expected from his younger brother and what David had just told him.

"I just can't believe Charlie would do that."

David chose not to reply, but instead nodded his head in agreement.

"Man, David. Surely he realized that he could have been killed."

"Yeah, Don. I'm pretty sure he did."

………………………………………………………………………………………………

When Charlie opened his eyes, he was surprised to see that his arm was, once again, encased in a florescent fiberglass cast. Only this time, the cast did not reach his elbow. A massive bandage covered the upper portion of his right arm.

"Welcome back."

Shaking his head to slough off the confusion, Charlie turned to where his older brother was sitting nearby.

"What….what happened?"

"You got shot."

Charlie lifted his hand to his upper arm.

"I remember that part."

"Then you passed out."

Mistaking Don's inflection, Charlie shook his head and looked embarrassed.

"Sorry. I………"

But Don didn't allow him to finish.

"For what? Getting shot, or passing out?"

"Either. Or, or both. For whatever is causing you to make that face."

Don's posture relaxed a little as did his staunch facial expression. He shook his head at his brother.

"What you did, Charlie……………."

"Was stupid…yeah, I know."

"Let me finish, Charlie….God. Do you really think I'm going to ream you

out for getting shot?"

Looking confused, Charlie shook his head.

"Yes?"

"Ah, good. You're both here."

The doctor had waltzed back into the room.

"Charlie, I'm sure your brother told you, there was no damage to the bone in your upper arm. We needed to keep a cast on the stress fracture in your wrist, but the original break was minimal enough that we could get away with keeping the upper arm exposed for cleaning. You will have to keep the whole arm immobilized regardless."

He paused as if waiting for Charlie to respond, but did not give him the chance.

"They'll give you a sheet for instructions as to cleaning and dressing the wound and I've given you a script for some pain killers as well as an antibiotic. You should both take it easy for a while. And try not to get shot again."

Neither Don nor Charlie so much as smiled at the doctor's good humor and he shrugged his shoulders in defeat.

"Well, if you don't have any questions, we're done here. "

As the doctor finished talking David entered the room behind him.

"Charlie. Don. If you guys are ready, I'll drop you off at the house. Megan said she and Larry would go pick up your car later, Charlie."

Charlie nodded mutely still looking gloomily at Don. He had expected Don to be upset, but he was having a hard time reading the guarded expression on his older brother's face as Don turned to address David.

"Thanks. Come on, Charlie. Let's go home. We can talk about this later."

Charlie didn't argue with that. A lecture on his own stupidity wasn't high on his list of things to do at the moment. The pain medication that they had given through his IV shortly after his arrival in the ER had dulled his senses quite a bit, though it had surprisingly little effect on the pain that the bullet wound had caused and Charlie just wanted to go home and forget the whole thing had ever happened. Besides, if Don where to ask him what he'd been thinking, Charlie wasn't really sure he would be able to tell him.

Up there on that penthouse roof, for the first time in his life, thinking wasn't something he'd had time for.

…………………………………………………………

Authors Notes: Big thanks to Alice I for her help with these last few Chapters! I tend to stumble over my endings and her assistance had proven invaluable. Thanks!

Chapter Twenty: Everything Leads Back to the Ocean