The cloud of dust was just starting to settle when Eddie opened her eyes. She was dizzy. Her eyes were stinging and felt like her ears were stuffed with cotton. Her body felt like it had been in the fight of its life. She was sure that something on her was broken. She looked around and tried to gather her surroundings but didn't seem to recognize anything that was around her.
"Jamie?" she said suddenly. She tried to sit up but the intense pain radiating throughout her body pulled her right back down. "Jamie!" she screamed.
Suddenly, her partner stood over her.
"Talk to me Janko," Badillo said urgently as his eyes wildly scanned over her. Then, he turned back toward the group of paramedics that had just pulled up. "We need some help over here! Hurry!"
"Where's Jamie?" she asked with a harsh cough.
"I'm sure he's getting taken care of," he responded quickly then moved over so the paramedics could tend to her.
Eddie started turning her head in all directions. "Jamie! Jamie!" she shouted.
"Officer Janko, we need you to stop moving," one of the paramedics said.
"I need to find my husband," she responded. Then, she began to shout again as she tried to sit up again. "Jamie! JAMIE!"
Badillo and the two paramedics tending to her quickly grabbed her and laid her back down.
"Janko, you need to stop moving and let them take care of you," Badillo reprimanded gently.
"But I need to find Jamie," she replied with tears starting to pool in her eyes.
"Okay. Okay. I'll go find him," he promised as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Let them take care of you and I'll go find him."
A few hours earlier…
The blaring of the alarm clock sounded at five-thirty on the dot for Jamie and Eddie. It was usually him who would snooze it to allow them a few more minutes of rest before finally having to get up and face the world for the day.
"Why don't we just call in?" Eddie said tiredly a few minutes later when their alarm sounded again.
Jamie reached over and rubbed her back, "I wish we could."
"Aren't you the sergeant? I'm sure you have some pull to get us the day off… or at least me."
"Oh yeah? You'd stay home and relax while letting your poor husband go work all day?"
"Precisely," she responded.
Jamie couldn't help but laugh, "Oh geez. But good news is that the week is almost over. We have a three-day weekend to look forward to."
"And I can't wait." She turned over and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. He smiled gently and pulled her close. It was something that Eddie did most mornings, mainly to wake herself up a little more before finally getting out of bed. She had been doing it since the early days of their relationship and he found it sweet.
"You make the coffee while I get ready really quick?" she mumbled after a few minutes.
He nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "Sounds good."
Then, he rolled out of bed, slipped on his pajama pants and picked up his shirt off the floor, "Anything else?"
"Leave the shirt off while you do it," she said, giving him a cheeky smile.
Jamie chuckled as he dropped his shirt back onto the floor, "Of course."
"Where's Sergeant Reagan?!" Badillo yelled as he looked around the debris. "Has anyone seen him?!"
"They just took him away in a bus," another officer responded as he ran up to him.
"Where'd they take him?!" Badillo pressed. "How'd he look? Was he okay?!"
"I don't know where they took him. And... he wasn't moving when they were working on him."
Badillo gave a quick nod before racing back to Eddie as they were placing her on a stretcher.
"How is he?" she asked in desperation when she saw Badillo appear beside her again. "Did you seem him?"
"They took him to get checked," he replied. "I didn't get to see him. Let's get you to the hospital okay?"
"Can I go with her?" he then asked one of the paramedics. "I'm her partner."
They nodded and let him into the ambulance. The doors quickly shut behind them and then they quickly sped off toward the hospital.
Badillo stayed on guard at his partner's bedside as she slept. Very few days on the job scared him like today did. When he heard that blast on the other side of the building, his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.
Even though he and Eddie had a rough patch in the beginning of their partnership, he still cared for her. He would never fully admit it, but he now considered her to be a close friend.
"Oh thank god," he suddenly heard. He looked up and saw Henry Reagan walk into the hospital room.
"Commissioner," Badillo said. He stood up and went over to greet him.
"Officer Badillo," Henry replied as he shook his hand. "Thank you for staying here with her."
"I wasn't planning on leaving until one of you got here, sir."
"How is she?" he asked.
"Concussion, first-degree burns going down her left side and a broken right arm. She's going to need surgery for the arm but they want to wait until the swelling goes down. Her concussion is mild but they want to still run some more tests to be safe. They gave her some medication awhile ago for pain that made her fall asleep."
Henry walked over to Eddie and put a gentle hand on her head, "Alright. Well, I'll take it over from here."
"Has anyone found Sergeant Reagan yet? She kept asking for him. I've called around to a few other officers who were at the scene and they don't know where he was taken."
"We don't either. We have a few people calling around looking for him."
Badillo looked over at Eddie, "I'll be back a little later to check in on her. I need to go check on a few buddies who also got hurt from today."
Henry nodded, "Okay. Thank you again for staying with her. Stay safe out there, Officer."
10:45 a.m.
"What are you going to do with your extra day off?" Eddie asked Badillo as they patrolled their sector. The first few hours of their shift had been truly uneventful and hoped that it stayed that way.
"Much of nothing," he replied. "Catch up on sleep. Be as lazy as I can be. You?"
"Same for us. We don't much anyways but we honestly prefer it that way."
Suddenly, a call came over the radio.
"All units in the area. We have 10-31 at 60 Centre Street, the supreme court building. Subject is armed and dangerous and is taking hostage of seven in a courtroom on the east side of the building. Multiple causalities reported. All units needed now."
Eddie and Badillo looked at each other. "2-9 David responding," Badillo said on the radio as Eddie turned on the siren.
They pulled up to the scene a few minutes later and got out of the RMP. There was already multiple units surrounding the building. Suddenly, they saw a familiar face.
"Sarge!" Eddie called out as they ran up. "What's going on? What do you need us to do?"
"A few of us are about to go into the building," Jamie replied as he turned to them. "We need a few more to come and help get people out. You want in?"
Eddie and Badillo both gave a nod. There was two groups that formed to go in. Badillo went with the group that was positioned at south entrance while Jamie and Eddie were at the north entrance.
As they lined up, Eddie suddenly felt a small tug on her hand. She turned around and found Jamie standing behind her. "Stay safe, okay? I don't know how things are in there."
She nodded as she squeezed his hand back, "I know. You too."
Their hands lingered for a moment before finally letting go of each other and making their way to their respective positions. Jamie was toward the front of the line while Eddie was in the middle.
"Alright," they heard go out over their radios. "Let's move in."
The world seemed to have gone quiet in those moments before it happened. The only thing that Jamie and Eddie could hear was their heartbeats in their ears. Suddenly, there was a roaring fireball hurling toward them. Everything happened so fast that they didn't comprehend what actually happened until after the fact. There was an explosion and that's was the only thing they could make sense of in the moment.
The first thing that Jamie felt when he finally came to was an intense pain radiating all over his body. He felt like he had been on fire. His head was throbbing. The last thing he could remember before his eyes closed was Eddie laying in a heap a few feet away from him. Suddenly, his eyes opened widely.
The nurse on duty looked over and saw that he was awake. She carefully walked over and stood next to him.
"Sir," she said gently. "It's Nurse Jackie. Can you hear me?"
"My wife?" he let out hoarsely. "Where is she?"
"Your wife?" she questioned.
"Edit Janko-Reagan. Officer Janko," he replied as he attempted to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. "I need to see her. I need to know that she's okay."
"Sir. Sir," Nurse Jackie said. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. "Please calm down. You can't leave."
"But I need to find her!" he urged, trying to sit up again.
Suddenly, there was a whole group of nurses and doctors in the room trying to hold Jamie down.
"We'll find her!" one of the doctors reassured as they calmed him down. "I promise you. I'll go and find her myself. But we need you to relax so we can care for you."
Jamie finally nodded. He slowly laid back down and closed his eyes as they worked on him.
Later, Eddie let out a groan as she woke up. She turned her head and let out a sigh of relief when she saw Henry sitting at her bedside.
"Pop?" she rasped.
He looked over at her and immediately stood up. He quickly walked over and gave her a long hug, being mindful of her current state. "Thank god you're okay, dear. My heart dropped when I found out what happened. There's so many injured from this that they're spread apart throughout all the hospitals in the city."
"How'd you find me?" she asked. "Has anyone found Jamie?"
"Your partner got in contact with someone at 1PP so that's how we found you. Francis, Danny, and Erin are scouring the hospitals to find Jamie. As soon as they find him, they're going to call me."
Tears welled up in Eddie's eyes, "Pop... if something happened to him..."
"None of that," he chided gently, putting an arm around her and pulling her into his chest. "None of that. Jamie wouldn't want you to work yourself up over him right now. Once they find him, we'll get him on the phone so you two can talk. But right now, I need you to relax. Okay?"
She sighed, "Okay."
8:36 p.m.
"I'm walking into St. Irene's right now," Danny said over the phone to his sister. "Do we have anything on Jamie?"
"Not yet," Erin answered sadly. "I'm on my way to 1PP to meet dad. I've called around and either no one answers me or knows what I'm talking about."
"Where the hell could've they taken him?" he replied, the frustration evident in his voice. "It's been hours and we haven't had one damn call. Pop is still with Eddie, right?"
"He is," she confirmed. "I just went by to see her and she had just fallen back to sleep."
"Good. Well, I'm going to let you go. I'm about to reach the nurse's station."
"Call me back if he's there so I can make my way down."
"I will," he assured. "Bye."
"Bye." He put his phone in his pocket and got the attention of the nurse who was at the desk. "Excuse me. Do you happen a patient here by the name of Jameson Reagan?"
"Are you a relative?" she asked. "What would they be here for?"
"I'm his brother. He was one of the victims of the explosion today at the Supreme Court building. He's a sergeant with the NYPD at the two-nine precinct. We've been looking for him for hours."
She typed into the computer for a few moments before finally shaking her head, "I'm sorry but it seems like we don't have him in our system. But we do have a few people that they brought here from the explosion that we haven't been able to locate families for yet. Do you want to go look and see if one of them is your brother?"
"Yes please."
The nurse came out from behind the desk and led Danny down the hall. They went through a few rooms before finally making it to the room at the end of the hall. It was there where Danny was finally able to lay eyes on his kid brother.
"This is him," he said thankfully, placing a hand on his chest as he let out a sigh of relief. He walked over to the bed and placed a hand on him as to truly confirm that it was Jamie.
"We gave him some medication to help him sleep. He was in a lot of pain. I'll get the doctor to come in and talk to you."
Danny nodded, "Thank you so much."
It wasn't until a few days later when Jamie and Eddie were reunited. The sheer relief was evident on each of their faces when they finally were able to lay eyes on each other.
"Eddie," he let out. He made his way over, as quickly and safely as his crutches allowed, threw them against the wall and wrapped her up in his arms.
She couldn't help but let a few tears fall as she hugged him back. It was quite a trying few days for the two of them not being able to be together especially after an event like this. Their only communication was through phone calls with family members cell phones since both of theirs were broken in the explosion.
"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder as she hugged him tighter.
"Me too," he replied.
She turned her head and gave him a kiss on the lips, which he prolonged by placing a hand on the back of her head. They broke apart after a minute then Eddie raised a hand and gently touched the small burn marks that were just starting to scab over on the side of his face.
"Jamie..." she said, her eyes starting to water.
"It's okay. It's okay," he assured. He placed a hand over hers and brought it down to his lap. "Please don't worry about me. I'm fine, Ed."
"You don't look fine," she responded with a sniffle.
"Well, yeah I'll admit that I'm in some pain but it's nothing that I can't handle. I'll be back to normal in a few weeks. You're more worried about me but yet you're the one about to have surgery today. Have they came in yet?"
She shook her head, "Not yet. But they should be in soon. Are you staying?"
He nodded and squeezed her hand, "Not leaving until you come out."
They talked quietly amongst each other for a few minutes before a nurse came in to prep Eddie. He moved out of the way but kept her hand clasped tightly, rubbing soothing circles on top of it. This was her first time to ever have surgery and she was understandingly nervous. After awhile, the doctor who would be performing the surgery on her arm finally came in and explained how everything would go. Then, they were instructed to say their goodbyes.
Jamie leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "I'll be here when you get out, okay? Everything will be fine. I love you."
She nodded, "I love you too."
Their hands lingered for a few long moments before they finally let each other go. He stood and watched as they wheeled Eddie away. The past few days had truly put life into perspective for the two of them. It made them grateful for everything they had, especially each other.
