9 - Point Blank
Neal cut the rope holding the large canvas flag in place and jumped up on the wrought iron railing.
He knew he had to get to Fowler before Peter did, otherwise he might never get the answers he needed, and quite frankly, he didn't care if the search for the truth killed him. He glanced across the courtyard to where Fowler was locked in the room behind the opposite window, before walking back along the railing, taking a running start, and leaping.
Time seemed to stand still as he swung around in mid-air before coming face to face with the window. He swung his legs to propel himself to the side, ducked down his head and braced himself for impact.
He smashed through the window right-side first, and let go.
Shards of glass littered his hair and made tiny cuts in his clothes, but his heart was beating so loud he hardly noticed. Rolling on his shoulder, just like Alex taught him, he came up swinging, pulling the old revolver free from his waistband and firing a warning shot just to the side of a very shocked Garett Fowler.
"Neal!"
He ignored Peter's shout and advanced on the murderer. Fowler flinched away from him, away from the weapon, away from his attacker, and he realised that the blatant fear distorting the man's features wasn't half as satisfying as he'd expected it to be.
"I have five shots left" He growled, "That's the only warning you're going to get".
"Whatever you think happened-"
"Tell me why you killed Kate!" He yelled.
Fowler had the audacity to look surprised.
"You bought the explosives-"
"Caffrey-"
"You blew up the plane to get rid of us" He continued.
"No!"
"What was in it for you?!"
"Jesus, Caffrey, you think you're the only one who lost something?"
Neal readjusted his grip on the gun, adrenaline and anger and righteousness coursing through his veins.
"Don't play me".
"You think I wanted to spend the last year of my life chasing you and a stupid box?" Fowler snapped, "It cost me everything! My career is over… My wife is gone…"
From outside, they heard a bang against the wooden door, then another and another and-
Peter must be breaking in, then.
Neal lowered the gun.
Fowler let out a sigh of relief and looked away.
Damnit!
He raised the weapon again, pure hatred overriding any sympathy he'd just felt for the ex-agent. But could he do it? Could he pull the trigger? Take another man's life? There weren't many rules in this world of high stakes and fine art, but he'd always lived by his own code, and number one on that list had always been do no harm.
Would Kate be proud of him for doing this?
The door finally gave away under the force and Peter rushed in with Diana hot on his heels.
"Stay out of this, Peter!"
"Neal, put the gun down" He ordered, his own weapon drawn, "Neal, don't do this!"
"You know he killed Kate!"
Fowler stared back, eyes open and honest.
"I didn't kill her".
"Who did?"
"I'm-"
He stopped.
"What do you know?" Neal pressed, "Tell me what you know!"
Fowler shook his head and put his hands on his hips.
"You wanna kill me, Neal? Go ahead and pull the trigger".
"Jesus, Fowler, you're not helping this!" Peter snapped, "Neal, do not do this".
"... I know he killed her" He replied, voice suddenly quiet, "He killed Kate".
"Listen to me. If you pull that trigger, you will regret it for the rest of your life, Neal. You're not a killer".
Do no harm.
"I want him to know how it felt. How she felt".
Would Kate be proud?
"Look at me. Look at me, Neal. Neal!" Peter said firmly, "Look at me, Neal. Come on".
His grip momentarily loosened on the gun, before he tightened it once more and obediently turned to Peter, his chest heaving as the adrenaline started to wear off and his body began to protest his recent swan dive.
"This isn't who you are".
Neal stared at Fowler for another minute before lowering the gun. His arm felll imply to his side before he turned and handed the weapon handle-first to Peter. Diana stepped to the side to let him pass and Neal ran trembling hands through his hair in agitation.
"Cuff him".
He stilled.
Turning, he didn't spare Peter a single glance and instead willingly held both wrists behind his back for Diana to take. He should have expected this, after all. He might not have murdered Fowler, but attempted murder was still a felony. And speaking of Fowler...
"How are we gonna handle this?"
Peter was still staring at Neal but he refused to meet his gaze.
"Call Jones" He ordered Diana, "You two can handle the official Bureau response. Take him back to the office".
Neal finally turned to look at him, chest still heaving, lungs struggling for air that just wasn't coming.
"I'll figure out what to do next" Peter finished.
Diana nodded and put a surprisingly gentle hand on Neal's arm to lead him out of the room.
It was a small mercy that she didn't push his head down after opening the back door of the car. Instead, Diana gave him a rather pointed look and he awkwardly slid in himself, hands still cuffed behind his back. She shut the door, walked around the opposite side, and sat into the driver's seat diagonally in front of him.
Neal wanted her to say something, wanted to say something himself, but the adrenaline had well worn off by now and he was starting to feel a little shaky. In fact, he was starting to feel a lot shaky, and he frowned at the realisation. He'd done equally stupid stunts in the past, of course, or, at least, the whole smashing-through-a-window part and not the threatening-to-murder-a-man incident, but he'd never felt this bad afterwards. There was always a high in the moment, and with every high came a crash, but it was usually like a mild cold.
This, though… this more resembled a full-blown-hospital-inducing-flu-epidemic.
He could feel sweat dripping down his back and dampening his forehead. His hands were still trembling, his entire body was shaking in fact, and his heartbeat was strangely loud in his ears. His stomach felt weird too, achy like he was hungry or ill, but as far as he could remember, he was neither. He was also starting to feel dizzy though, so he wasn't sure if he could be trusted. It was the wetness spreading across his right side that he was more concerned about. Neal shifted slightly in his seat and-
Yep. There was definitely a disturbingly warm patch sticking his shirt to his skin and, actually, now that he thought about it, it kind of felt like something else was there too. Something sharp and pointy, something that was digging into his side between two ribs, something like-
Like glass.
Oh.
"... Diana?"
She sighed and turned to face him, completely intending on telling him to shut up because he's in enough trouble as it is, but the expression on Neal's face pulled her up short.
Or, rather, the lack of expression.
His skin was pale, paler than she remembered it being when he was frog marched from the building, and his eyes were slightly glazed over. Asides from that, however, there's a worrying blankness about him that just sits wrong with her. Maybe it was the shock of what he'd almost just done, but, on the other hand...
"What is it, Neal?"
He licked suddenly bloodless lips.
"Can you, uh… Can you pull back the right side of my jacket for me, please?"
Maybe it's his not-expression, maybe it's how faint his voice suddenly sounds, or maybe it's even because he actually said please… but Diana doesn't think he's faking.
"Alright" She agreed slowly, "Can I ask why?"
"No reason" He gave her a bland smile, "I just, um… I just… I, uh… I-"
He toppled forwards.
"Neal!"
She spun in her seat, half throwing herself across the middle console to catch him before he face-planted into the headrest in front of him. Grabbing his upper arm, she carefully pushed him back against his own seat before quickly climbing into the back and tapping his face.
"Neal? Neal! Hey, come on, look at me, look at me, damnit!"
His eyes remained closed, breathing shallow yet labored, and when she placed two fingers against his neck she found his pulse far too erratic. He was somehow even paler than before, and his skin was clammy to touch, and what the hell had happened?!
Can you pull back the right side of my jacket for me please?
Looking down, she practically yanked back his signature devore suit and ripped the buttons on the waistcoat and-
"Fuck".
There was a starling red spreading out across the once pristine white shirt, and there, right at the epicenter of destruction-
Was a shard of glass.
"Fuck!" Diana repeated, "Neal, you fucking idiot!"
Peter. She had to call Peter. Or- Or no, an ambulance. She needed- Neal needed- They had to get paramedics here first. Leaping forward, she scrambled for her radio and quickly called it in.
"10-33! I repeat, 10-33! Agent down outside Russian heritage museum, requesting emergency services now!"
She waited just long enough to get a crackling "10-4" in response before turning back to Neal and awkwardly reaching behind him to undo the cuffs. She's expecting him to wake up, to give her a flirtatious smirk and a pointed comment about wandering hands, but he remains still, motionless, and silent, and it's so so wrong.
Tossing the handcuffs into the front, she squeezed herself into the footwell behind the passenger seat so she can carefully lower the ex-con until he was laid across the back seat of the car. Because of the angle, his wounded side is pressed against the leather rather than facing Diana but she doesn't want to risk turning him.
She half-stood, twisting so she could sit on the middle console and reach the source of the blood that was starting to stain the car's leather seats. She pressed down on the wound, hard, the shard of glass remaining in place between two fingers, and was somewhat relieved when the pressure prompted a low groan from the unconscious man.
Neal was positioned somewhat awkwardly, his hair brushing against the door opposite, but his legs remaining in the footwell in such a way that it had to be pulling on his side. Keeping one hand on the wound, she reached across across and pulled the inside handle on the door.
It took four tries before she was able to push it open even halfway, but once it had, she put her arm under his knees and shuffled around until he was stretched out straight, shiny shoes sticking out on the pavement. Now she just had to get word to Peter.
Diana's phone was in her handbag which was out of reach on the floor in front of the passenger seat. She also couldn't reach the call button on the dashboard without removing her hand from the wound, and considering that there was blood already bubbling up between her fingers, she didn't want to risk it. Stretching as far as she could, she looked up and down the sidewalk her car was parked against. A minute later, and a middle-aged woman stepped out of one of the terraced houses.
"Hey!"
The woman frowned and glanced down the street.
"Hey!" Diana repeated, "Over here!"
She slowly approached, too cautious to get close in case it was some sort of trick.
"I'm with the FBI" Diana said, "My partner is injured. I need your help".
She took one look at Neal's deathly pale skin and the blood covering Diana's hands, then quickly nodded.
"Diana!" Peter yelled, running across the street without any care for oncoming traffic, "What happened? A woman told me that you needed me immediately. Where's Neal?"
Jogging around the car, he reached the open door and-
Froze.
Neal was sprawled across the back seat, head turned to the left, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. One arm was falling over the edge of the leather, the other lying palm up at his side. His legs were just as awkwardly strewn, his right half-bent at the knee, the left stretching out onto the pavement.
But it was his chest that held Peter's attention.
Diana was sitting on the middle console between the two front seats, half hunched over his prone form, both hands clasped firmly over his waist. His jacket and waistcoat had fallen open. And his entire shirt was blood red.
"How-?"
He wasn't sure what he wanted to ask.
"The window" Diana replied, face grim, "He hit it dead on, and a piece of glass pierced his side. I've radioed for help, but it might take awhile. I'm doing my best to stop the bleeding, but…"
She trailed off and Peter watched with horrifying fascination as there was a burst of blood between her fingers.
Fowler finally caught up, having taking a more leisurely pace across the street, and he stopped a few feet from the car.
When he saw Peter's stricken face and the end of Neal's feet, he snorted.
"Oh please, he'd probably just faking it to get out of trouble".
Peter felt a blinding flash of fury and he grabbed the man's arm before yanking him in view of the car door.
"Does that look fake to you?!" He snarled, as a rivulet of blood slowly dripped down the pale leather.
To his credit, Fowler immediately looked chastened, and more surprisingly, he even looked worried for the conman.
Peter's anger didn't abate one inch.
"This happened because of you! Running away from your problems and driving a good man to near insanity; you caused this!"
"Hey! I didn't tell Caffrey to jump through that damn window!"
"He wouldn't have even had to if you'd just turned yourself in day one!"
"And why the hell would I-"
"Guys!" Diana yelled, cutting him off, "I hate to cut off your little pity party here, but that ambulance is at least ten minutes away and I can't stop the bleeding!"
Fowler took a step closer, ducking down so he could see the wound more clearly, and Peter fought back the ridiculous urge to pull him away from his C.I. He forced himself to calm down instead, taking a few deep breaths as his mind raced trying to figure out what to do.
"Where did the glass hit him?"
"I don't- I don't know!" Diana exclaimed, "It's two, maybe three inches above his hip, I- I think it cut between his last two ribs".
"The tenth and ninth, right?"
They both turned to Fowler in surprise.
"I did AP Biology in high school, sue me".
"Tenth and ninth?" Peter repeated, ignoring his sarcastic remark, "What's behind them?"
He blew out a burst of air as he thought.
"Bottom two ribs on the right hand side would be covering… the edge of his liver".
Peter's heart thudded loudly in his ears..
If Neal's liver had been pierced then-
Diana's horrified gaze met his own.
"... He's gonna bleed out".
"Right" Peter ordered, head reeling, "We need to stop the bleeding. Fowler radio in again, see where we are with that ambulance".
He did as told, thankfully realising just how serious this situation was, and Peter wasted no time in jogging around to the other side of the car and opening the door. He carefully lifted Neal's shoulder until he could slide in and shut the door behind him, the conman's head and neck resting on his lap. Running a hand through sweaty hair, Peter pressed his other fingers against the conman's neck.
His pulse was thudding loudly beneath pale skin, but when he moved his hand over the man's mouth, Neal's breathing was shallow and struggling. Not all of that could be attributed to the chest wound, and Peter swore as he realised he was probably going into shock.
"Does the car have a first aid kit?"
Diana could have slapped herself as she remembered.
"Yea! Yea, it's- it's in the trunk, the- the button to open it is on the console".
"I got it" Fowler said, lowering the radio from where he was leaning in through the passenger side door, "Ambulance ETA five minutes".
Peter nodded gratefully and turned back to his C.I., gently brushing back damp hair from his far too still face.
Of course something like this would happen to Neal; he put the trouble in trouble maker.
... But he would be a very dead troublemaker if they didn't find a way to stop the bleeding.
"Here!" Fowler said, yanking open the car door next to him and passing in a small red bag, "That's all I could find".
Peter wasted no time in pulling open the zip and rummaging through the meager contents for a roll of bandages. Spying the small scissors, he held them out to Fowler.
"Get his shirt off?"
He got a sharp nod in return, before the door shut again and the ex-OPR agent climbed back into the front seat. Diana shuffled into the footwell next to her, careful not to remove her blood covered hands from Neal's side, and Fowler took her place half kneeling on the passenger side seat and half leaning over the middle console.
Had they been in any other situation, Peter would have laughed at how comic it was, four people trying to squish themselves into the backseat of a mid-range Ford, but strangely enough, he didn't feel like laughing right now.
Fowler let the scissors glide across the pinstripe shirt, cutting a straight line up the centre before ripping the fabric at the arms and shoulders. Between the two of them, they managed to pull the ruined clothes off of the unconscious conman, before carefully snipping around the glass still lodged in his side. Diana had to remove her hands in order to pull the last pieces of his shirt free, and Peter wanted to vomit at the sight of blood-stained skin and the two inch shard of glass jutting out of Neal's chest.
Instead, he focused on the task at hand, finally pulling out a roll of bandages that he tossed to Fowler while he took back to scissors to start cutting strips of tape. The older agent lay them over the wound liberally, Diana holding them in place even as the white fabric became more and more red. Peter used the medical tape to secure the edges of the makeshift gauze. He'd barely finishing securing the last piece before more bandages were being pressed down on top of the ruined ones to try and combat all the blood.
Peter wasn't sure how many layers they ended up covering the wound with, but by the time the gauze finally remained white, there were sirens in the distance and he'd used three-quarters of a roll of tape.
He let out a heavy sigh of relief, an expression mirrored by the two opposite him, and ran the back of his hand over his forehead, careful not to smear blood across it.
"We've done all we can for him" Fowler said, oddly kind, "It's up to Caffrey to pull through now".
The car was destroyed, medical packaging strewn here and there and the bloody tattered remains of a shirt, suit and vest lying in the footwell. The once-cream coloured leather seats were stained so red that Peter doubted they could ever be cleaned.
Diana caught his gaze and smirked.
"Hughes won't be happy. This is a company car".
He snorted.
"Yea, well, I imagine he'll be less impressed once he hears about the stunt this one's pulled".
The three of them automatically turned back to Neal.
His head was still resting on Peter's lap, hair damp and eyes closed and skin pale, but his breathing had evened somewhat, and if you just saw his face, then you'd think he was simply having a bad dream. Until your gaze lowered, that is. His chest was a mass of bruises and blood and bandages, not unlike something out of a medical drama.
Or a horror movie, Peter thought sardonically.
Fowler clearly had the same thought, and he reached out with careful fingers to trace a particularly vicious looking scar a few inches above a sharp hip bone. A gunshot wound, if Peter remembered correctly, from the bank robber inside job case.
"Your boy's been through the wars".
The bastard actually sounded impressed.
"You should see what the exploding plane did" He shot back, recalling the white stretches of skin across his C.I.'s back that would stay there for life.
Fowler immediately backed off and held up a placating hand, "That was never my idea".
"Well forgive me if I don't believe you!"
Diana looked between them cautiously, but after another minute, Fowler lowered his gaze and Peter was both thankful and hated him for it. He placed a protective hand on Neal's hair to calm himself, just as the first flashing red and blue lights turned onto their street.
He always thought Kate would be the death of Neal, so after she'd died, Peter had let his guard down.
He'd genuinely believed that the danger of her influence had passed.
How wrong he was.
