A/N: I'm so sorry this update took so long. Life has been happening. But I have been working on this story and I'm really close to having it completely done so the updates can happen more often than a year apart. Oh, and in case any of you read Silent Witness and noticed some discrepancies between what was said in that story and what is said in this story, remember that the other story is strictly Kiri's point of view. Sometimes we misunderstand or completely miss things other people say so I decided that there were things she misunderstood or missed entirely as well (and yes, I planned it that way from the beginning). Thanks for reading!

Chapter 81

Quatre hated that Kiri had been allowed back into Chase's clutches and that she'd been hurt again because of it. He wasn't sure what he could do to help her to calm down. Fortunately Heero returned with Sally quickly. Heero excused himself as he didn't want to be in the way and he wanted to make sure Trowa wasn't hurt worse than he claimed.

Sally was immediately all business as she took in the situation.

"It's okay, Kiri. I just need you to relax for me and tell me where you're hurt."

Kiri didn't respond. She just kept crying, so Quatre decided to take over.

"She's in shock, Sally. Chase kicked her in the ribs pretty hard, so you'll want to check and make sure none of them are broken and then there's her foot." Quatre lifted the blanket so Sally could assess the damage.

Sally frowned and clicked her tongue. She gently prodded Kiri's foot to see if any of the bones had been broken and Kiri cried out in pain. Sally immediately pulled her hand away and Quatre placed the blanket back over Kiri's feet.

"And Duo said that he shot Chase," Quatre lowered his voice as Kiri whimpered, "right in front of her, so that's probably affecting her, too."

"Okay. Kiri…can you calm down?"

Sally bit her lip as Kiri's hysteria continued. She wasn't even sure Kiri had heard the question.

"I think you'd be better off giving her something," Quatre told her. "It might be kinder for her not to be conscious right now."

Sally nodded and got a syringe with a sedative. Kiri didn't fight as she gave her the shot. Sally watched as Kiri sank into unconsciousness. She brushed Kiri's bangs out of her face and turned to Quatre.

"Tell me what happened in there."

Quatre explained everything that had happened since he regained consciousness while Sally quickly wrapped Kiri's foot and checked over his injuries.

"You'll have a black eye and some bruising but it doesn't look like you sustained any lasting damage."

Quatre nodded. "How is Trowa's shoulder?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine once I dig the bullet out. He insisted that I see to Kiri before he'd let me do anything, though."

Quatre chuckled. "Well, he does have a thing for her. It'd be a shame if something happened to keep them apart at this point."

"Une might have something to say about that," Sally said as she carefully tucked the blankets more securely around Kiri.

"Trowa doesn't care at this point. He's quitting the Preventers as soon as we wrap this up."

Sally nodded. "Well, I suppose he can deal with Une if it comes down to it. We should really head back so I get started on Kiri's foot. Do you suppose the others will mind if we just go? It'll be easier to get Trowa taken care of at an actual hospital as well."

"I'll go check. You stay here with Kiri."

Quatre returned after a few minutes with Duo in tow. "We can head out. Heero and Wufei will ride back with Trowa in the other ambulance in a few minutes. They'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid to his arm."

"Good." Sally told the driver to get a move on.

As the ambulance headed back to the Preventer hospital, Sally assessed Kiri's vitals. She hooked her up to an antibiotic drip as a precaution and gently prodded Kiri's ribs. Something was definitely broken in there but how many of her ribs were actually broken would need to be determined with an x-ray.

"You said he kicked her?" Sally asked Quatre.

Quatre nodded. "He wasn't holding anything back. He was angry because she spat at him after he tried to force his tongue down her throat."

Sally wanted to throw up. Knowing what Kiri had already been through was bad enough but to have been part of the plan that put her back into that situation upset her more than she thought was possible.

"How could we do that to her?" Sally whispered.

Quatre could feel how upset Sally was so he quickly moved to her and pulled her into his arms.

"It's okay, Sally. She didn't regress. She's just hurt," he murmured as Sally started to cry. He frowned at Duo over Sally's head. She shouldn't have gotten this upset over this situation. Yes it sucked but it had to be done. Kiri had agreed to going. She knew the potential dangers. It had gotten a little further out of control than they had wanted but everything had turned out…well, it wasn't okay. It was bad and Quatre felt bad that Kiri was hurt again but Sally was just plain overreacting.

"Doctor Po."

They both looked up in surprise at Duo's stern tone.

"Doctor Po, Kiri's foot is bleeding rather profusely. Perhaps you should look at it."

Sally blinked as Duo's words set in. "O-of course." She wiped the tears from her eyes and got to work. Duo was right. There was work to be done and this was no time to get emotional. Wufei would have been horrified to see that display.

Quatre mouthed "Thank you" to Duo before settling himself back into his original seat so he would be out of Sally's way.

Duo nodded to Quatre and settled in to observe the situation. Something was off about Sally but he wasn't sure what. Perhaps it was "that time of the month." He wondered if Wufei knew what was wrong with her and if he ought to warn him about the potential hormone tsunami.

"This is worse than I thought," Sally muttered to herself as she pulled off the blood-soaked bandages.

"What's wrong?" Quatre asked.

"This already looks like it's infected," Sally told him with a frown. "I think I ought to get it cleaned up as soon as possible. Kiri's immune system has been affected enough with what she's been through that I'd hate to have this set in and take over on us."

"What do we need to do to help?"

"Just watch her for me. I'm going to get Ben to help."

Sally opened the small partition that separated the back area from the driver and passenger seats. "Ben, can you come back and give me a hand?"

Ben got out of the passenger seat and came back. Duo and Quatre nodded to the EMT. They'd had interactions with him before on previous missions. In fact, he'd been one of the first responders when Duo had been injured by that bomb blast a few years back.

"We need to get her foot cleaned up. I don't like the way it looks. And if we can get her stitched up now then we can focus on her other injuries when we get back."

Ben nodded and got to work helping Sally with Kiri's foot. He was quiet, but knew his stuff. Everything seemed to be going well until Kiri started squirming.

"This might not go well," Quatre muttered to Duo when it became obvious that Kiri wasn't going to settle down again.

Sally was trying to get Kiri's foot cleaned up without restraining her but she finally had to admit defeat. "I can't do this with her flailing about," she growled.

Quatre raised an eyebrow. Did she realize how much she sounded like Wufei?

Duo elbowed Quatre to get his attention. "What's that look for?"

"That's what Wufei said the first night we had her. She sounds just like him," Quatre answered in a low voice so that Sally wouldn't hear him.

Duo sniggered.

Sally glared. "Stop laughing and hold her so she doesn't hurt herself."

Duo bit back his laughter and stood, grabbing Kiri's shoulders and holding her in place. Just as he got her in hand, she let out an earsplitting scream and pulled even harder, yanking her leg out of Ben's grasp. Sally barely managed to keep hold of Kiri's injured foot.

"Hold her!" Sally ordered again. "Don't let her move; she could do more damage to her ribs!"

Quatre carefully, but firmly, held Kiri's arm down so she wouldn't accidentally hit him. "Kiri, you need to stop. It's okay, you're safe," he told her gently, working to calm her with his empathy.

Kiri's eyes opened and she looked afraid and confused as her eyes darted around her. She tried to pull away from Duo, who increased the pressure on her shoulders to keep her down.

"You need to stop. You'll hurt yourself," Quatre told her, drawing her attention back to him.

"They're hurting me," Kiri told him as she started to cry.

Quatre gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "It's not on purpose. Your foot is cut open really bad and they need to stitch it up. Sally didn't think the tranquilizer she gave you would wear off so soon and it isn't really safe to give you a shot of anything else yet."

Kiri whimpered and tried to sit up, presumably to see what they were doing to her but Duo firmly held her shoulders so she couldn't.

"No you don't kiddo. You'll be sorry if you do. You've got at least three broken ribs and it's gonna hurt like hell if you sit up right now," Duo told her.

"It hurts anyway," Kiri said.

Her lip quivered and Duo was certain she was going cry some more. Sally noticed that Duo was talking to Kiri and moved to hand Quatre an anesthesia mask. Kiri was better off sedated until they could get her settled in the hospital again.

"Quatre, put this on her."

Quatre slipped the mask carefully over Kiri's mouth and nose, lifting her head so he could put the strap around to hold it in place.

"Kiri, I want you to try and breathe normally, okay?" Sally told her as Quatre worked. "This is going to make you fall asleep so you won't feel us working on your foot anymore."

Sally felt bad for drugging her, but she didn't want Kiri to feel any more pain than was absolutely necessary. The poor girl had been through enough.

Quatre could feel panic surge through Kiri just before the anesthetic took effect. As her eyes drifted shut and her breathing evened out, he looked at Sally.

"Is it really necessary to put her under?"

Sally sighed. "Even if I wasn't trying to stitch up her foot I'd probably put her out. If she moves too much she could shift those broken ribs just right and puncture something. It's better for her to hold as still as possible and this is the safest way I can think of to manage it."

Quatre nodded but he looked grim as he resumed his seat in the ambulance.

Duo sat next to him. "She'll be okay. None of us wanted her to get hurt and now we've got some of Chase's men in custody. We can interrogate them and we can focus on finding the headquarters for the trafficking ring and we can shut it down. That'll make her feel better when she wakes up. You'll see."

Quatre sighed. "I guess. I hate that we did this to her, though."

Duo frowned. "What else could we have done? We got there as fast as we could, we just couldn't stop him in time."

Quatre wasn't really sure how to answer that. "I just hope she forgives us for not protecting her again. I told her when we found her that she was safe and she hasn't been. She's lost the sight in one eye and now her foot's torn up and her ribs are broken. Maybe she had a point when she told us that it wasn't possible to keep her safe."

"Chase is dead. If Whitaker comes after her, we're ready for him this time. We've got the recordings from Kiri's parents and we'll find out where the video feeds are if we have to raid Whitaker's place to do it. They're going down and we can make good on that promise you made to her. Stop beating yourself up. I'm sure that Kiri won't hate us when she wakes up. And Sally'll have her right as rain again in no time."

"You're right, Duo. Thank you."

Duo smiled at his friend. Things were finally starting to look up.

Back at Branaugh's mansion, the second ambulance was about to pull out when one of Heero's men ran up, yelling for them to wait.

Heero opened the back of the ambulance. "What is it?"

"Agent…Yuy…" the man gasped out, trying to catch his breath after running full out to get to them before they left. "We…we found it!"

"Found what?"

"The Video Room. All the vid feeds from every location these guys have been running is there!"

"What?!"

Heero and Wufei jumped out of the back of the ambulance. Trowa made to follow but Wufei turned back.

"If you move I'll tell Cathy," he threatened.

Trowa snorted. "Yeah, like she can do anything to me." He started to rise again.

"Fine then. If you move I'll tell Sally not to let you see Kiri until your shoulder is completely healed. That will be at least six weeks if I tell her to include the physical therapy. Probably longer since you don't know how to follow doctor's orders."

Trowa grunted and settled back on the stretcher. "Fine. But you have to tell me everything! No making me wait until the debriefing."

"Deal." Wufei turned and ran after Heero and the other agent.

He found them by following their voices down the hall into the main living room. He was surprised to find a door that opened on a narrow, steep staircase. Heero's voice was coming from down the stairs.

Wufei went down the stairs and let out a low whistle. The room had a wall of television screens and several computers that were recording everything. Heero was already at one of the computers clicking through files and giving instructions to the other agent.

"Is it what we needed, Heero?" Wufei asked as he made his way over, his eyes scanning the feeds on the various monitors.

Heero turned to him. "Yes! This is exactly what we need to charge everyone and to wrap everything up!"

"Excellent. Do you want to stay and work on this? I can get Trowa back to the hospital without you if you want."

Heero nodded. "That would be best. Then I can get started on this and we'll have a great head start on compiling this evidence."

Wufei had to work not to smirk at Heero's enthusiasm. "I'll text Duo and let him know that you'll be late tonight."