Recap: Ranger is in the presidential limo when Ram falls through the windshield. Bobby rushes to treat Ram. Both Lester and Stephanie see blood on the pavement.

Ranger

We were a mile away from the rally before we started to pull ourselves off the president's body. It was like watching a football dogpile in reverse, with each one of us pulling ourselves off one at a time.

"He's hit!" yelled one of the agents. "UPenn, NOW! BLUE BLUE BLUE!"

The car made a 180, throwing us around again. Lights and a siren blared, and we careened through the streets of Philadelphia.

"I'm hit?" Asked the president, "I don't feel anything."

"There's blood on your shirt, sir."

The agent pulled at the shirt, trying to get to the wound to put pressure on it.

"Really, guys, I feel fine. You all did an amazing job out there." He winced as he said that, holding his hand to his side. "Just a little sore."

"It's not him." said the agent, having inspected the skin under the blood. Relief flooded through me, so much that I felt lightheaded. But then the lightheadedness got worse. I looked down at the same time as the frantic agent was looking for the source of all the blood.

"Manoso's hit! What's the ETA on that hospital?" I heard as I slipped into unconsciousness.

Stephanie

My heart stopped when I saw the Ambulance. Forgoing all politeness I shoved people aside to get to the covered area, now strewn with debris. Lester and Bobby were standing over someone. Was it…

"Ranger?" I asked as I crashed into Lester's shoulder. But it wasn't Ranger on the ground. It was Ram.

"Hey Bomber." Ram said from his prone position on the ground. "Sorry I wasn't who you expected. Still, I hope you don't mind me dropping in."

Everyone's a fucking comedian.

Lester pulled me away and spoke into my ear, his tone low and rushed. "Beautiful, we don't know what's going on, but someone said they saw Ranger get into the Beast under his own power. They will likely go to the designated hospital per emergency protocol. So even if he's hurt, he's already on his way to help. But I don't know which one, this city must have a couple dozen hospitals."

"OK," I said, trying to mask my panic with logical thought, the way Ranger would in my situation. "Ranger said UPenn was one of the top 10 hospitals in the country. That's where they'd go, right?"

"That's where Susan works. She's on duty, it's why she couldn't come today." Bobby said behind me.

"Susan?" I said Who the fuck was Susan?

"My Girlfriend. You met her this weekend. Took down a skip with her."

Right. That Susan.

The EMTs were loading Ram into the back of the waiting Ambulance. He was joking around, so I hoped he wasn't too hurt.

"I'll go with Ram in the Ambulance and meet you there," Bobby said, climbing into the patient compartment.

Lester pulled out his phone and tapped a button. "Directions to UPenn Hospital" he looked at the screen. "Five minutes. Let's go." He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the crowd, headed for a Rangeman vehicle parked a quarter mile away.

Susan

There's never really down time at an ER. There's always something going on, between a sprained ankle and multi-car pileup. Eventually you see it all. At least you think you do, but I'd never seen anything like this.

The ER flooded with people dressed in dark suits as a gurney came in. They started shoing out the patients in the waiting room and poking their noses into every corner. I was about to ask what the hell they were doing in my ER when I saw who it was.

"Hispanic male, mid-30s. Gunshot wound to the leg. Blood loss, but we aren't sure what else."

I recognized the man on the stretcher. I'd seen him two days ago. My pager went off and I instinctively looked at the screen.

"Gunshot at event. POTUS and Ranger may be coming to you. Ranger bloodtype = O-. Please inform.-B"

"I need 3 units of O- blood, STAT" I yelled as I started walking next to him. "Get him to OR 3."

Lester

Traffic shouldn't have been that bad in the mid afternoon, but you usually don't have to deal with panicked people flooding the streets. The cops were trying to keep everyone together, but I knew how to evade them. Beautiful was in the passenger seat, her eyes wide and staring.

"He'll be fine. We don't even know if he was the one who got sh….got hurt."

"If you don't even know IF he got hurt, how can you know that he'll be OK?"

She had me there.

"Because I know my cousin and Dios man, learn to drive!" I yelled as I swerved around a car inconveniently in the road where I wanted to be. My swerving turned out to be pointless, as we immediately hit a red light. I turned to look at her, her face pinched with worry and her hands trembling. I grabbed her shoulders, staring directly into her eyes. Oh those eyes, they'd looked at me so differently just a few days ago…

"Ranger is the toughest man on the planet. Even if he IS hurt, he will be fine. And you are going to punch him in the arm for scaring you like this, OK?"

She let out a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. I couldn't tell, and as the light turned green I floored it, careening towards the hospital.

Susan

There is a barely controlled chaos in an operating room. It's like a frantic dance where everyone knows the steps, no matter how random it seems to an outsider.

Ranger lay in front of me, much paler than he had been when I'd seen him this weekend. His skin was the color of weak tea, and he was showing signs of shock. The anesthesiologist was working on putting him under, and the others were scrambling to get in place.

"Do we have the X-Rays?" I asked as the nurses worked at cleaning the wound and draping him.

"Just got'em. Shrapnel everywhere. There's one fragment wedged against the femoral artery, it's causing a lot of bleeding."

Shit. "OK folks, you know the drill. Shunt the blood away from the artery while we work on repairing it. With any luck, he'll still be able to walk." That was being optimistic. It would take a lot of luck.

Tank

The most stressful thing for a soldier is not having any power to do anything. And watching my best friend get wheeled into the hospital was one of the most helpless feelings of my life. I wanted to follow, but I knew what he would say. 'Finish the mission Tank'. So I stayed where I was, watching our surroundings.

"Mr. President, we need to get you checked out. It's protocol." One of the Secret Service agents said from the car. We moved as a group from the ambulance bay to a private room one of the nurses pointed us to.

"Look, I'm fine. There was only one shot, and it missed me, thanks to Mr. Manoso." He replied.

"Ranger. He goes by Ranger." I said without thinking. Shit. I was so distraught I was correcting POTUS on what Ranger prefered to be called. "I'm sorry sir."

He stepped to me and laid a hand on my arm. "No need to be sorry. Your friend is incredibly brave. We're all praying for him to pull through."

I looked at the hand on my arm, the skintone so close to my own. "Thank you sir. Ranger's tough."

He nodded and gave one of his reassuring looks. "I only spent a few minutes with him, and I could tell. Does he have a wife, children, someone who should be notified? I'll call them myself."

"He has a girlfriend. She's the one who tackled the shooter. I'm assuming she's on her way."