Author's Note: Direct continuation.
Prompt Set #66 (November 2014)
TV Show: The Outer Limits
Challenge: The Quality of Mercy
Guardian Angels
Emily's eyes popped.
"OH! KATE!" Her hand smacked into her mouth, "JESUS CHRIST, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT HER!"
And that was absolutely HORRIBLE! Because even if she didn't much like the woman personally, Kate Joyner was still one of theirs. And you didn't just FORGET about your own people.
And you sure as hell didn't leave any of your own people behind.
But . . . Emily bit her lip as her eyes darted down the sidewalk, focusing in on the wreckage closest to them . . . she didn't know where the hell Kate WAS! It was a freaking honest to God, MIRACLE(!) that she'd happened to catch sight of Hotch! And who was to say that when the bomb went off that he and Kate were standing near one another. And actually given that Hotch was having a personal conversation with her, it was MORE logical to assume that they had been standing some feet away from one another. In fact . . . Emily jumped to her feet . . . it was very likely that she'd been thrown in the OTHER direction!
Unfortunately though, when she looked back down the street, it was clear that everything down there was almost completely in flames.
Ah Christ.
And she was about to ask Will if he had any ideas on where to look, when she saw him grabbing his jacket up from the sidewalk.
"I'm gonna see if I can find her!" He yelled while pulling it over his head. "You stay here with Hotch! I'll be back in two minutes either way!"
And before Emily could blink, he'd taken off running down the debris path, aka, that what was left of the sidewalk.
She watched Will go as far she could, but then the smoke started to surround him . . . and then he disappeared. Her fist clenched.
SHIT!
Not that she wanted to leave Kate alone in this hell, but . . . her eyes dropped down to Hotch's unconscious body . . . she had conflicting priorities at the moment. The key one being, she had to get Hotch to the God damn hospital!
And even though she was feeling pretty worked up right then, suddenly a thought popped into her head that stopped her cold.
How the hell were they going to get Hotch to the hospital?!
They couldn't just drag him. Even carrying him between them was a terrible idea, because they had no way of knowing what kind of internal injuries he had. She winced.
They could end up paralyzing him.
All right, okay . . . she started spinning around, trying to spot something that would be workable for a stretcher . . . as long as Will was looking for Kate, then she'd get this problem figured out.
But unfortunately, after digging through the rubble immediately around them, she couldn't find anything that seemed safe to try as a makeshift carrier. Yes, there was a large cigar store sign that had fallen down, and though it seemed sturdy . . . it was two inches of thick wood . . . it just wasn't long enough to fit Hotch's whole body. He'd be dangling from probably mid-thigh, and with his weight that poorly distributed, they might end up dropping him.
Which again . . . she scrubbed her hand across her face . . . could end up paralyzing him.
And with nothing else in the immediate vicinity that looked even remotely stretcher'like, she started inching her way a bit further down the block.
She'd only gone a few feet, when just ahead she suddenly saw Will running towards her out of the smoke. His jacket was still over his head, but he had his arm up over his mouth now.
She could hear him smothering a cough.
"Did you find her?!" She yelled, taking two steps closer.
The question had just left her mouth, when Emily saw Will's face twist even from the slight distance. And she knew then that he definitely had located Kate.
And that the news wasn't good.
"She's dead," he coughed out as he ran up. Actually," he winced, "I don't think she even survived the blast. The uh, well," he shook his head, "the body isn't whole."
The reality wasn't just 'not whole' . . . she was in pieces. That was actually how he'd found her . . . following the bloody trail. First a finger, then a hand, then a half a leg. And a foot.
And then her.
Even the part of her body that was basically 'intact,' was so mangled that they'd be officially identifying her with dental records. It was clear to him, that even if she could have survived the loss of the two limbs he'd found . . . which was unlikely given the blood that would have spilled when they were blown off . . . there were catastrophic injuries to her chest, and a piece of glass in her neck. She was probably dead before she even hit the ground. His jaw clenched.
At least she was if she'd been lucky.
But as Will saw Emily's face twist with a mixture of regret and pain, just before she turned back to Hotch lying a few feet away, he knew that she was thinking of him. And what condition he would have been in, if he'd been even a few feet closer to the blast.
As proof, Will saw her hurry back down to Hotch's side, and whisper something in his ear. And though the words clearly weren't any of his business, he was curious what they were all the same. Had she just told him that their colleague was dead? Or had she whispered how happy she was that he was alive?
Or was it something more personal still?
Anyway . . . he shook his head as he started walking towards them . . . didn't matter. They just needed to get him out of there before he ended up the same way as their friend, Kate.
And he was just about to ask Emily if she'd looked for something to carry out Hotch with, when suddenly he spotted two people running towards them from the direction of the barricades.
Will's hand immediately fell to his holster, but then he saw that the folks coming towards them were both in NYPD uniforms. His eyes widened.
And one of them had a stretcher flung over his arm.
Thank you, Jesus!
"Emily, look!" Will yelled as he hurried over to her kneeling down by Hotch, "we got help!"
Emily's head snapped up. And it took only another few seconds for the officers to close the distance still between them.
"Yokas," the woman yelled as they ran up with one hand on her gun belt, while she pointed to her partner with the other, "this is Boscorelli! You guys need some help?!"
Faith had spotted the female FBI agent from the other end of the security blockade as she'd knocked that weasel Rooney on his ass. Of course she'd heard on the radio that they were supposed to stop her, but Faith had also heard, through rapidly spreading word of mouth, that the woman and the out of state cop with her, were there to find her partner. So hearing that, of course Faith had immediately started rooting for her to make it over the barricade.
And when she did, she'd had to bite down a little cheer.
From there, Faith had pulled the binoculars out of their squad, and had been watching as the lady fed, and the other cop, circled around the flames.
She'd been thrilled to death when the two of them hadn't been killed by whatever blew up in the street.
After that, she'd turned to Bosco . . . who she'd been trading off the binoculars with . . . and asked if he wanted to go help them. Of course her partner had never in his life turned down the offer to do something ridiculously stupid and dangerous, and today was no different. So they'd stolen a stretcher from the closest ESU, and off they went against all orders and protocol.
Typical day in the neighborhood.
"God, yes," Emily gasped, "thank you! I'm Emily Prentiss, FBI," she pointed to Will, "this is Detective Will LaMontagne with the New Orleans PD, and," her eyes dropped down to Hotch, "this is my chief," her voice wavered slightly, "my partner, Aaron Hotchner. We have to get him out of here." Her head snapped back as her eyes shot up to the other woman's.
"He's bleeding out."
"All right," Faith gave the female agent a quick squeeze to the shoulder, "don't worry, Agent Prentiss. We'll get him out of here."
Then she dropped down to check the wounds herself.
Bosco was already radioing for a bus, but as she peeked under the agent's vest to see how bad the chest injuries were, Faith could hear the command response of, "medical transport not available at this time. Return to posts immediately."
Which translated to, "get your asses back behind the line, or so help you God!"
Yeah well . . . Faith jumped back to her feet . . . it wasn't the first time that she'd been brought up for insubordination. Her file was getting about as long as Bosco's. That was how she ended up back in uniform.
She was kind of proud of that.
So rather than making any move to follow the direct order they'd just been given, Faith just started helping Bosco get the stretcher unfolded, and straightened out on the ground.
And then with the four of them lifting as one, they VERY carefully, moved the FBI agent off the asphalt and over to the NYPD issued transport.
Then Bosco once more radioed in for a bus, that time cursing that they had an officer down, but once more that request was immediately denied.
"Fucking pussy jagoffs," he muttered while dropping his arm down to his side.
Then he saw Faith looking at him.
"What are you thinking?" He asked with an anxious clench of his fist.
"That St. Joe's is four blocks down and two over," she wiped the back of her hand across her forehead to clear some of the sweat, "we can cut through the alleys to get around the main blockades. And they won't expend the manpower to stop us getting out anyway. They'll just deal with us later, back at the house. So you want to try and huff it?"
Bosco looked down at the body on the stretcher, and then over to the man's partner who was down there next to him, on her knees, whispering in his ear. And seeing her like that, he flashed on the day when Faith had been shot, and he immediately jerked his head.
"Fuck yeah," he nodded firmly, "yeah, we can do it. Hell," he swung his head around, squinting to take in the gridlocked emergency vehicles surrounding the barricades, "there's no way any ambulance is getting anywhere near us anyway, even if they would call one for him. If it's not us getting him there," he shook his head, "then he won't be going."
And with that he stooped down and grabbed the bottom end of the stretcher.
Faith did the same from the other top. The female agent jumped up, and along with the Cajun cop, they both tried to take a corner, but Faith just pointed out that it would be better if they went as alternates.
The four of them would switch off every couple blocks to keep from wearing out.
Emily nodded frantically.
"Okay yeah," she bit down on her lip as her eyes darted over to Will's, "yeah, that'll work."
And with that, the four of them took off at a run.
It was a hard trek. First pounding through the uneven ground, and trying to avoid the filthy puddles in the alley closest to them. And then Boscorelli screaming at the two officers guarding the exit, that he was taking out kneecaps if they even tried to stop them.
They didn't.
So they kept moving diagonally down the blocks. And even though the streets were mostly empty . . . which helped some . . . it was still a LONG distance, on a hard ground, to carry a dead weight. Especially when most of them were wearing twenty pounds of gear to start.
They did keep switching off the stretcher though.
Every other block, was a new combination. First Faith and Bosco, then Will and Emily, then back to the original rotation again.
And when Emily fell a pace behind Will . . . that God damn knee she'd cracked outside the hotel, was staring to ache like a bitch . . . he just grabbed her arm, and kept pulling her along.
All things considered, they were making pretty good time, but still it took them well over twenty minutes to get from the bomb site, to the emergency room at St. Joe's.
And then they literally hit a wall.
St. Joe's was a hospital outside of Faith and Bosco's precinct, so they didn't know anybody who worked there. Which meant that they were standing outside the entrance to the ER, gasping and pounding on the doors, with their badges pressed against the glass, like God damn idiots. They were just trying to get ANYBODY to believe that they were really police officers, so they could get inside. And although their presence definitely drew a crowd of almost a half dozen personnel, it didn't matter.
The place was in lockdown.
Nobody in or out . . . no exceptions. It was right there on the big red and white sign one of the doctors jammed his finger at right before Boscorelli started cursing a blue streak at him.
"MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" He screeched, with another slam of his fist against the glass.
It rattled . . . but it didn't break.
Then Yokas tried the soft touch, yelling out their badge numbers and their precinct and their captain, while pointing to the phone and telling them to just call in to verify who they said they were.
Still though . . . nobody opened the door. That time nobody even moved.
And that's when she started screaming too.
Cursing almost worse than Boscorelli. At that point Emily was nearing the point of total, physical, and emotional collapse. How could Hotch have survived that blast, then for them to drag his body SIX city blocks, only to be turned away from help NOW!?
What the fuck kind of world was THAT!?
And when the reality that truly was the world they were now living in . . . that these doctors and nurses were so terrified of the people who had been terrorizing their city, that they'd let an FBI agent bleed to death right in front of them . . . she just began to sob.
"PLEASE!" She screamed through the glass, as her badge and her fist continued to pound fruitlessly against the unyielding transparency, "PLEASE HELP HIM! HE'S AN FBI AGENT! AND IF YOU DON'T OPEN THE DOOR HE'S GOING TO DIE!"
And although she could feel Will's hand on her back, still she kept screaming through the glass, "PLEASE!" Over and over.
And over again.
It took almost minute where the tableau on the other side, remained terrified and unmoving. But then finally one of the nurses winced. And she grabbed another and said something. That's when Emily stopped yelling. Because now their 'hold the line' resolve, had cracks in it.
She needed to let them run.
So she, and the officers behind her, watched silently as the doctor . . . the one who had jerked his thumb at the Lockdown sign . . . started yelling at the two women.
And then they started yelling back.
It was angry conference, and Emily couldn't make out much of what they were actually saying, but it was clear that she'd finally made some kind of an impression with the two nurses at least.
So Emily pounded again.
"HIS NAME IS AARON!" She cried out, directing her remarks to the women she could see fidgeting with their hands clenched, "AND HE HAS A LITTLE BOY! JACK! HE'S THREE! I KNOW YOU'RE SCARED, I KNOW, BUT YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE US! PLEASE DON'T LET THAT BOY'S DADDY DIE FOR A FUCKING POLICY!"
And that . . . the screams about Jack . . . were what finally smashed through their last barrier. Because as with Yokas and Boscorelli back at the bomb site, Emily could see that somebody again . . . somebody else . . . was taking pity on her plight.
Again, THANK YOU, JESUS!
The older of the two nurses that had been arguing with the doctor, started to move towards them. The doctor tried to block her path, but she shoved him out of the away. And although he was still yelling and trying to grab her shirt as she ran over to the door, the second nurse . . . and then a third one, God bless her . . . grabbed his arms.
They slowed him down enough that he couldn't catch the first one.
And Emily could see the first nurse was yanking her keys from her pocket as she ran up to the glass. So she turned to pick up the stretcher again, but she saw that Will and Officer Boscorelli were already stooping down.
They had Hotch back off the ground before the key even hit the lock.
A millisecond later, the nurse whipped open one side of the bay doors.
"Quickly, quickly," she hissed, while the four of them hurried to angle past her and through the entrance. Then they were inside the emergency bay.
The door immediately slammed shut again.
Though the blood was still pounding in her ears . . . her adrenaline hadn't stopped pumping since Hotch fell off the call . . . Emily knew that there was a lot of yelling going on around them. Some of it was frantic and about Hotch's condition . . . and some of it was angry and about breaking protocol during a lockdown.
Emily didn't give a fuck about the latter.
All she knew was that they'd reached the end of the rainbow.
She doubled over, gasping out a string of words that she prayed would make sense to the medical personnel.
"Explosion . . . car bomb . . . thrown . . . wall."
It wasn't really a complete sentence, but it got the circumstances across none the less. And either way . . . she sucked in a ragged breath . . . after all the running and screaming, that was about the end of her oxygen supply.
There was nothing else that could get out.
But fortunately one of the nurses, the one who'd jumped in to help hold the doctor back, gave a quick pat to her shoulder, while muttering a, "got it," so Emily figured that she'd done her job.
And then suddenly there were people in scrubs pulling Hotch's stretcher away from her. From there they started running down the corridor, yelling stats and orders. And even though Emily desperately wanted to go with him . . . she'd truly hit the wall. Like those marathon runners who ran twenty-six miles, collapsed on the line, and couldn't go a step further.
That was her.
This was as far as she could go today. She, and these police officers who were now owed more than her life, had fallen down to their knees on the cold and slippery floor. All of them were panting and wheezing, and Emily knew that she probably needed to get her knee bandaged, but that didn't matter. None of it did. Because they'd made it. They'd gotten Hotch to help.
She sucked in another breath as fresh tears filled her eyes.
And now he had a chance.
A/N 2: This is not my first story where Bosco and Yokas (of Third Watch, if you don't know them) have had a cameo. But as I'd said in the other one, I like them, and really any opportunity to pull them into a fic. And here, it was a perfect place for them to jump in. I also liked it being Faith's idea to go against orders, because in the beginning it was usually Bosco running off and her backing him up. As I also said in the other story, I found it totally improbable that the last episode of the show, Faith was suddenly off the streets and a homicide detective. It just didn't work with her character being a beat cop, and how she'd gotten more rebellious over the years with Bosco. So here she did something to get busted back down to a squad, and partnered up with him again. They'll stick around for the next chapter probably.
Otherwise, this was mostly just moving things along with Emily and Will. And Kate still had to die here because she was right next to the bomb when it went off, but if she was RIGHT next to the vehicle, her body would have been all kinds of messed up.
Thanks!