Hey Guy!

Here's An Update of Night's Landing and I hope you'll like it...

Natsume climbed off the exam table and continued his argument with his doctor – her badge identified her as Serina Yamada, and she was all of 5'5 tall and maybe thirty years old – about getting his pants and his shoes back and clearing out the E.R. He'd heard that the news reports had him surgery, but he'd only needed few stitches. But apparently that was plenty for Dr. Serina. She wanted him admitted.

"Pants, shoes, whatever paperwork I need to get out of here," he said. "A couple of Tylenol and I'll be fine."

She shook her head not for the first time. "No way. You can go home in the morning"

He'd turned his weapon and cuffs over to Hotaru Imai, another agent who'd arrived on the scene before he and Ruka were whisked away. The paramedics had shredded his shirt and jacket. Natsume figured he could tuck in his hospital gown and change when he got home. But it was hard not to look commanding and tough with gown flapping on his back end. Dr. Serina had explained that he had a perforating, not penetrating, wound, meaning she hadn't had to dog out the bullet that had struck him. The Alice Agency investigators were undoubtedly looking for it somewhere in Central Park. Maybe it was at the bottom of the pond. Maybe the ducks had made off with it.

Natsume didn't give a damn. He just wanted to get out of the hospital.

Dr. Serina didn't seem to consider the armed deputy posted at the exam room door anything out of the ordinary, probably because she'd treated plenty of wounded criminals. Natsume knew from his E.R. doctor sister Aoi, that it was her job as a doctor to treat the patient in front of her. Period. Meaning Dr. Serina would do her job whether he was a murder suspect or an agent with a six years experience catching bad guy.

She sighed through her teeth. "You are very determined man, Agent Hyuuga. At least let me get you into a room for a few hours. You can sit tight until your local anesthetic wears off."

"Doesn't it make more sense to get out of here while it's still working? I can have my feet up in front of the television before I start hurting."

She seemed singularly unimpressed with his argument. She crossed her arms on her chest and gave him a firm look. "You're la very lucky man, Agent Hyuuga. I don't think I'd be pushing my luck any more today."

What she meant, Natsume knew, was that the bullet that had ripped into the fleshy part of his upper arm had caused a superficial wound that would heal fast. No permanent damage. No surgery. A couple inches one way, the bullet would have missed him entirely. A couple of inches another way, it could have nicked an artery or shattered bone.

Luck.

He agreed to sit tight for a few hours.

Dr. Serina handed him his pants and shoes – he'd track down Longstreet for his weapon – and an orderly and the deputy guard wheeled him up stairs.

Natsume noticed the dried blood on the knee of his pants and the tops of his shoes.

Ruka's blood.

When he got to his floor, he understood the subtext of Dr. Serina's stubbornness. Control and security. No media allowed, more armed deputies/agents and a private waiting room for family members and any politician, FBI, Agents and Tokyo Police Department brass who wanted to check on the two wounded deputies.

No family members had arrived yet.

Thank God.

Natsume didn't think he could deal with Rei Serio A.K.A. "Persona" and his sister right now. The politicians and law enforcement types in the waiting room stayed put when he was wheeled past the open door.

They wouldn't want him off on his own too fast. A sniper had just tried to take out two Alice Agents in Central Park. All hell had to be breaking loose.

A nurse greeted him in his private room. Natsume asked about Ruka.

"He's still in surgery."

"Any word on his prognosis?"

She shook her head.

After she left, Natsume ducked into the bathroom and put on his pants. He dampened a paper towel and scrubbed the blood off his shoes. Nothing to be done about the blood on his pants.

He checked his reflection and winced."Hell."

It wasn't just pressure from his bosses that had compelled Dr. Serina to want to admit him. It was her medical judgment. He looked like shit. He was pale, he had dark circle on his eyes, he'd cut his lip from biting down too hard – no wonder she didn't want him going home right away.

He washed his face, felt his stomach turn over, almost barfed and decided, okay, maybe he should take it easy. He staggered back out of the bathroom. Another Alice Agent Kokoro Yome was waiting for him. "Thought I was going to have to go in there and scrape you off the floor. How you feel?"

"Like I look"

"I was afraid of that. Up to talking?"

Natsume knew Koko, although they'd never worked together. The shooting of two Agents was a federal crime that fell on the FBI to investigate, with the assistance of Alice and the Tokyo Police Department. The agents handled fugitive investigation and apprehension, prisoner transport, witness protection, the security of the federal judiciary and special operations – evidence gathering in federal criminal investigations was up to the FBI.

Natsume nodded. "Sure. Excuse the outfit."

"You've got someone bringing you a change of clothes?"

His uncle Persona would have been contacted by now in Hokkaido, about a six-hour drive to Tokyo unless they got a shuttle flight from there. (A/N: Don't know the exact hours of drive.) Aoi was in Kanagawa. Closer. But she was almost eight months pregnant. Maybe she'd stay put.

Not a chance

And his brother-in-law would be at her wife side.

Another Agent, straight backed, tense looking, maybe in her mid-twenties, stood silently in the corner by the bathroom.

"Any word on Ruka?

"He lost spleen," Koko said. "You can live without a spleen. It's the blood lost the doctors are worried about. It's still touch-and-go."

Natsume remembered the paramedics talking about internal bleeding at the scene. He didn't respond. What was there to say?

"How're you doing?" Koko asked.

"Fine."

The Agent gives him a look that said they both knew better.

"We walked down to Central Park after the news conference. Ruka – Christ, he wanted to see tulips. Someone shot us." Natsume sat on the edge of his hospital bed. "That's it. End of story."

Except he knew it wasn't. Koko would want to ask why they went into the park, who knew they'd be at the news conference, what they saw – and that was just for starters.

At this point, Natsume doubted anyone thought it was a random shooting, a guy concealed somewhere in or around the park with an assault rifle and a silencer, waiting for the right moment, as opposed to the right victims to shoot.

"He had to have an escape route," Natsume said.

"One thing at a time."

Koko took him through the shooting step by step, minuet by minuet. Natsume could feel his anesthetic slowly wearing off, the bandage heavy on his arm, the reality of what had happened earlier in the day hitting him. He'd been taking down fugitives for a long time, guys wanted for murder, drug dealing, torture, and every other manner of violent crime. He'd been shot before, but never like this – never a sneak attack, never with a fellow agent collapsing, maybe dying, at his side.

"Agent Nogi called her sister before the paramedics arrived?" Koko asked.

Natsume pulled himself back to the matter at hand. "That's right."

"You dialed?"

"He had her number in memory. He wasn't in any condition to talk. I think he just wanted her to hear what happened from him."

"Then you talked to her?"

"That's right. Ruka couldn't hold on to the phone. I took it." Natsume related his brief conversation with a shocked, frightened Mikan Sakura. "I told her I'd call her back, but I haven't been able to. I'd need Ruka's cell phone. I don't have her number."

Koko wanted to know what Ruka said to his sister. Natsume never told him.

There were more questions. The guy wasn't leaving a stone unturned.

Natsume's head throbbed, and Special Agent Koko was getting on his nerve. Anyone would. He felt woozy from whatever crap Dr. Serina had pumped into him. A couple of Tylenol and directions to the exit would have suited him fine.

"They're half-siblings" Koko said, "Ruka and Mikan. You have sister, right? You call them?"

"Not yet, no. What the hell, Koko? You suspicious because Ruka called his sister? For God's sake, she didn't shoot him."

Koko ignored him. "Okay, you rest. Doctors say they might spring you later on, let you sleep in your own bed tonight. That must sound pretty good right now."

"Just find the damn shooter. Never mind me."

"Yeah. We're on it. You're not going to get in the way, are you?"

Natsume said nothing.

"One last thing." Koko said. "What were you and Ruka talking about before you got hit?"

"Tulips."

The Agent manages a small grin before he left. Even the stone-faced female agent in the corner had a twitch of a smile.

Natsume had his bed cranked up to sitting position and was lying against the skinny pillow, his shoes still on and his ankles crossed, when his family descended.

Persona, Aoi and her husband, Youichi Hijiri.

Koko had left almost an hour ago before. Since then, Natsume had refuse all company and stared at the ceiling, seeing Ruka's body jerking up as the bullet hit, hearing hi sister's shocked frightened voice when Natsume talked to her. He saw the blood on the phone. He heard his own calm voice, as if he wasn't really there, in the middle of chaos, shot, trying to save his colleague, trying to find the shooter. So much happening at once, but certain things stuck with him, wouldn't recede.

He hadn't called her sister back. He couldn't – her number was on Ruka's phone.

Someone must have contacted her by now.

Half-siblings. Natsume couldn't remember Ruka saying much about her.

The image started to replay itself. Like a movie, but Natsume pulled himself out of it and sat up straighter. He tried to smile at his family. "I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. All I need is Toto to show up. They let you all in here at once?"

His uncle grunted. "It's Aoi's fault she told your doctors you could handle all of us."

Natsume eyed his out-to-there pregnant sister, wearing what at a guess was one of her husband's shirts. "I can handle the stress, but can you, Aoi? You look like you're going to have the baby any second."

"Not for a few more weeks." Always the doctor, she picked up his chart and scanned it, sighing. "How's your arm?"

"Anesthetized. I can't feel a thing. Ruka Nogi's the one in rough shape."

She nodded. "So I understand."

Her husband spoke "A wound like that. Chances are he's either going to make a full recovery or he's going to die. There's not much in between."

Aoi winced "Youichi for God's sake – "

But Youichi wasn't the one to pussyfoot around. They'd all been friends since childhood, and Natsume appreciated his straightforward assessment. Aoi sigh and leaned over his bed, the stress of the past hours evidence in her drawn, pale look, in the crimson eyes of the siblings shared. "I'm glad you weren't killed," she whispered.

"Me , too."

Youichi slipped an arm around his wife and eyed Natsume. "Is there anything I can do?" Once a helicopter pilot now the youngest senator in Japan, Youichi like the rest of them, was used in taking action.

"Get me a shirt. I feel like an idiot in this gown."

Aoi hissed. "I knew you'd be impossible. Didn't I tell you, Uncle Rei?"

Their uncle stared at the window with its view of the streets. He was in jeans and a hiking jersey. He was one of the best outfitters in the White Mountains, content to stay home in Hokkaido and hike, cook, and redecorate the house he'd inherited from his older brother. But Persona had been shot at more than any of them. He'd served a year in combat in different places before coming home, only to end up raising his orphan niece and nephew.

He glance back at Natsume. "Why don't you drive home with me? The mountain air'll do you good."

Natsume shook his head. "The last time I was home, you served orange eggs."

"They are not that orange. You're just used to Tokyo eggs."

"I'm used to yellow eggs."

"It's what Nobara feeds them.

Nobara Ibagri. She was a newcomer to Hokkaido. People called her the Ice princess because she is isolated to other people not because she is a cold person she's just shy. She and Persona had been seeing each other for a couple of months. "Ibagri-san's really into chicken now, isn't she?"

Natsume started to feel sluggish and achy, some of his earlier adrenaline rush wearing off. Or maybe now that his family was there, he could allow himself a letdown.

"Who knew that there were that many different kinds of chickens?" Persona said. "I thought she might be one of your people, with fake name like Nobara Ibagri."

"What do you mean, one of my people?"

Persona shrugged. "You know, some lowlife you're protecting so they can testify against bigger lowlife you're not protecting."

He means WITSEC. The Witness Security Program. Persona's rendition of its mission of protecting government witnesses and their dependents was over simplified and biased, but Natsume was I no mood to argue. "Not all protected federal witnesses are criminals, and I'd be surprised if we ever gave one a name like Nobara Ibagri – "

"I know, I know."

Aoi touched their uncle's arm. "We should go."

Persona didn't budge, his black eyes pinned on his nephew. With ten –year age difference between them, Persona was in some ways like an older brother to Natsume, in other ways like a father. "I turned on CNN before the marshals called, and I knew it was you. I'm telling you. I just knew."

"I'm Sorry, Persona. It's my job – "

"It's not your job to get shot by some asshole in Central Park."

Aoi groaned. "Uncle Rei! Now's not the time," she shifted her attention to her older brother. "You'll do what your doctors say, won't you? And don't be stingy with pain medication. Take what you need."

"Hn. Got it."

She wasn't convinced. "You do not. You're itching to get out of this bed and go find who shot you."

"And you wouldn't be?"

She didn't answer. No one did, because his uncle and sister and the man she married were all cut from the same cloth when it came to waiting patiently for others to do what they wanted to do themselves. They simply didn't.

Natsume felt bad about what they'd been through today. He knew what it was like – he remembered how he'd reacted when he learned about the close calls his sister and brother-in-law had last fall. "Where are you guys staying tonight?"

No one wanted to answer that one either, but finally Youichi did. "Your place. I'm heading out tonight, but your uncle and Aoi are staying. Persona took lasagna out of the freezer and brought it down."

The thought of Persona's rich, uncompromising lasagna made Natsume nauseous. Spending the night in the hospital suddenly didn't look bad. Armed guards and medical types hovering over him – or his family.

When his nurse enter the room, his entourage retreated, but Natsume could hear them out in the hall. If his bandage arm hadn't forced the reality of his situation to sink in, their presence did.

He'd been shot.

He'd damn near been killed.

And Ruka Nogi – it could go either way with him.

After the nurse left, Natsume tried to get the deputy at his door to find who needed to see about checking himself out.

No dice.

He'd just have to wait.

What do you think? Is it a Lousy or a Good chapter?

Don't forget to Review so I'll know your opinion(s).

Have a Happy Easter Everyone :)

Lots of Love
~Claire-chan :3