The first few seconds he spent cognizant that he was unable to take in a breath sent his mind into a frenzy, overrunning his thoughts with desperation and panic. His lungs were stunned, rendered incapable of moving, as his close proximity to the detonator's blast had earned him a dozen small punctures all over his chest. He had been wearing no clothing above his waist, leaving him completely vulnerable to everything the detonator had sent his way, but...his heart was still beating? His concussive fog was already lifting? How long had he been out?
Horatio was finally able to draw in short, gasping breaths, and his eyes recovered from the bright flash that had lingered, but a sharp, burning pain along the left lower side of his rib cage was quick to steal his attention. He brought his hand to his side and felt the deeply slashed skin, the flowing blood, and he realized he had only precious few minutes before he'd either bleed out or suffocate. He had to act quickly; neither was his preferred way to die.
Willing his battered body out of its shock, he managed to get back up onto his feet, stumbling about his room as though he were intoxicated. The small, smoldering fires around him, the aftermath of the detonator that had just exploded, cast faint shadows on the walls as he moved, disorienting him further. It wasn't until he caught a brief glimpse of Liaa's turquoise skin on the floor next to the bed that his mind finally snapped to attention, and he painfully fell to his knees beside her.
"Liaa? Liaa!" he begged for her response as he groped around her neck for a pulse, but she gave none. He noticed a darkened lump on her forehead just as he felt her soft, warm breath breeze across his hand, but he couldn't immediately tell if anything else ailed her. Hopefully she had only suffered a concussion; he was no medic, though, and time was getting away from him. He had to protect her and Jewel from whoever had been fighting Wil and had thrown that detonator, so long as his own consciousness held out...
After grasping Liaa's blaster from the floor, he struggled to stand, pressing his other hand to his open side. His jaw clenched so mightily his teeth could crack under the strain, but he commanded his body to continue forward in defiance of the pain. Even through his pained gasps, he no longer heard any movement or sound coming from anywhere within his home, keeping him on edge. He slowly stepped into the hallway and out into the main room, only able to see the aftermath of the fighting strewn about the floor with each flash of lightning that lit up the dark house.
Tables and chairs had been completely overturned and broken, and their contents had been scattered in every direction, making it difficult to determine which way the two had come from or gone. He knew he had no chance of sneaking up on anyone, as desperate as his gasping had become, so he decided to forfeit stealth altogether and called out for his son. He got no response, though, from Wil or from his assailant, so he continued his search, making his way through his home completely unaware of the trail of blood he was leaving behind.
A loud, sustained rush of wind seemed to howl ferociously against the front facade, and as he turned towards it, he spotted one lone figure outside on the walkway, standing completely exposed in the rain just meters beyond the closed main door. Though without much lighting, he immediately knew that the form belonged to his son Wil, but...why was he out there? Where was the other?
Horatio ignored the icy, torrential rain as he left the shelter of his home, taking faster steps the closer he got to Wil. All he saw was his son ahead of him, all he wanted was to hold him, protect him from whoever had attacked them, and thank him for somehow finding them and intervening before their assailant had done even more damage. Horatio was merely one last stride behind him when Wil limply collapsed to his knees, and Horatio was only just able to grab his shoulders and support him before the young man fell the rest of the way to the ground.
As he knelt and held Wil against him, his own pain no longer registered, his mind completely numbed the instant he saw that Wil, too, had been gravely wounded. Dark red blood had quickly spread through his rain-soaked shirt, cascading down his torso from a single central chest wound. Wil's head fell back in Horatio's hold, entirely unaffected by the heavy rain that directly beat down on his face without mercy. He weakly gasped for breath and only recognized his father's face hovering over his after a long, painful moment.
"Dad," he choked, his skin becoming even more pale in the light of one lone glowlamp beside the walkway. "I'm - I'm sorry..."
"Don't talk," Horatio bit back shortly, limited by his own diminished breathing. He began to press his palm over the hole in Wil's chest, but in his haze, he hesitated for some reason. He wanted the rain to stop. He wanted Wil to be comfortable, not drenched and frozen to his core by the merciless downpour. Maybe...maybe back in the shelter of his home he could better help his dying son...
Inspired by the thought, Horatio scrambled to his feet as he lifted Wil under his arms, somehow managing to drag him down the walkway. It took all the willpower he had left to move Wil's lifeless weight, but he was nothing but determined. His open side screamed with unbearable pain with each step, his head was spinning without enough oxygen, his muscles trembled as they fought for his final reserves of energy, but still he pressed on...
The span between the spot where Wil had fallen and the main door had never seemed so long. Every stride he took threatened to be his last, and every moment's hesitation cost him precious seconds neither of them could afford. Each mighty effort he gave dragging Wil to safety drained him substantially, until he felt his hip strike the door behind him. He fumbled for the control panel to open it, cursing his numb, slick, bloody fingers for the dexterity they'd suddenly forgotten. Finally bringing them both back inside and out of the rain, Horatio collapsed beside Wil, no longer able to keep his eyes open or take in a breath. He quickly drifted between consciousness, hearing the ongoing storm but also feeling the perilous pull of the calm darkness. His body no longer responded to his commands, though he wanted nothing more than to tend to Wil, to stop the bleeding, to save him...
...Horatio!
A familiar voice echoed through his thoughts, perhaps a long buried memory brought to the surface in his waning minutes of life. His former Huxnel partner had yelled at him a number of times over their tumultuous past, often out of anger, or surprise, but her tone this time was...worried.
Horatio, Horatio! Can you hear me? Rech, he's hardly breathing...
Her voice was densely muffled, a far cry from the usual sharpness that, out of habit, had always cut through to his ears like a vibroblade. He had been able to hear her voice kilometers away, as clear as if she had been standing next to him, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion. He would have easily remembered an abnormal encounter such as this, even in his oxygen-deprived haze, leading him to realize that this was no memory.
...time, but Wil's critical, I can't keep...
A different, deeper voice floated below hers, belonging to her husband. They...they were there with him? And Wil...were they helping him?
Renewed by a wave of energy coming from somewhere deep within himself, Horatio forced his eyes to open little by little, meeting Mand's intense gaze as she searched his face.
"Horatio? Hold on," she commanded breathlessly, gently brushing his rain-matted hair from his forehead as water continued to drip off her face onto his. "Stay with me, okay?" Her gaze quickly tracked down to his left side, though, where he felt the pressure of her hand, but little pain. She lingered there only a moment before she turned to look behind herself, calling down the hallway. "Elena? Adalia?"
"Adult twi'lek woman, unconscious in the back bedroom. Head trauma."
"And I found Phantom," Mand's voice also echoed down the hall from the other end of the home, though Horatio watched Mand's lips make no movements. "She's wounded, too."
Color was draining from Horatio's vision as he continued to gasp in earnest, his lungs almost completely collapsed from the extreme trauma they'd sustained. He willed himself to stay conscious, though, waiting for one of them, any of them, to call out that they'd also found his daughter. She should have been safely secured in her room, untouched by the fighting or the detonator blast...but none of his four rescuers mentioned anyone else.
Fighting the darkness that once again had him in a vice grip, Horatio forced air out of his mouth and formed his daughter's name, but he hardly even heard himself. He tried again, frustrated that at that moment Mand wasn't paying him any attention, instead more focused on his gushing side wound. Even less strength was behind his breath, and his voice was completely inaudible. As the rest of his body shut down and sealed him under the black once more, he mouthed her name a third time...terrified as he'd never been before that he had just lost both of his children in one fell swoop, and he hadn't been able to stop it.
With her hand pressed against the bacta tank's transparisteel, Mand studied Horatio pensively, watching his battered body floating listlessly in the warmed healing fluid. He remained unconscious and suspended in the tank by his shoulders, bringing his arms away from his sides and allowing Mand to clearly see his most grievous wound. The medics in the remote Paneau base had quickly stitched his side closed before submerging him to help the bacta along, but she knew he had extensive internal damage to recover from, too.
A pair of soft footsteps strode up beside her, and only after retracting her hand from the tank did Mand turn to see that Elena had joined her in the treatment room. Elena wore a solemn, worried expression, as well, as she glanced up at Horatio, but she returned to Mand a moment later.
"They've stabilized the Twi'lek woman," she reported gently. "They're keeping her lightly sedated a little while longer, though, so she doesn't exacerbate the swelling in her head." She swallowed weakly and hesitated a long moment, afraid to speak. "...Wil?"
Mand kept her voice soft. "Still in surgery. The hole in his heart is...proving difficult to repair, but," she paused, gripping Elena's shoulder to reassure her, "Rech is with him. If anyone can keep Wil alive...he can."
Elena nodded weakly, seeming to distract herself by quickly focusing on Horatio instead. "What about him?"
"Multiple chest punctures, one completely collapsed lung, lacerated spleen, and mild hypothermia. He's lucky he didn't bleed out, too. Looks like we arrived just in time to save both of them."
But Elena didn't appear to share her optimism. "Mand...what did we walk in on?"
That same question had been churning through her mind, too, but she had been waiting to ask it until any of the three they had rescued had woken up. She had no answers herself. "...I don't know."
"You never saw the back hallway, where Adalia and I were looking," Elena continued, sounding almost haunted. "There was a blast pattern...there were scorch marks on the walls. Some kind of detonator went off there, inside."
Looking back up at her former partner, Mand nodded solemnly. "That would explain Horatio's wounds."
"But not Wil's."
Nothing about the scene they found made any sense, Mand agreed. So much damage inside the home from a lengthy, violent struggle would have been off-putting enough, but finding the two Sheridan men together, so gravely injured, barely clinging to life...
"I think Wil was stabbed outside," Mand thought aloud, "and Horatio brought him back in. It was hard to see because the rain had partially diluted the trail, but...I remember we followed the blood into the house when we arrived. Whoever had attacked them was long gone."
Elena crossed her arms over her chest anxiously. "I don't understand the timing of it all. Either that fight went on for more than an hour...or Wil sent that distress signal to us before any of it even started."
So did that mean Wil knew who their attacker was? Why hadn't he included any information, other than a signal for them to track, in the message he had sent them? Whatever they had stumbled upon in answering Wil's urgent request for their help, it was becoming far more complicated than Mand had anticipated.
Before Mand could continue with their discussion, a dark-skinned, curly haired young woman raced up to them, nearly out of breath as she came to a stop just before them. Her gaze locked on Elena immediately, and Elena appeared to recognize her in turn.
"Master Rys'tihn," the girl addressed her frantically, glancing about the other empty bacta tanks beside Horatio's. "Where is Wil?"
"Embrey," Elena addressed her with mild surprise. "He's...in a surgical suite down the hall. How did you..."
Still calming her breathing, Embrey swallowed hard, glancing between the two Masters. "He sent me the same distress call you all got. Is it true what the other agents are saying? The whole family was attacked?"
Mand and Elena exchanged uneasy looks. "Family?"
Embrey nodded. "I saw Wyliaa, the rutian Twi'lek, when I came in. She's been Horatio's partner for a few years now. So is Jewel somewhere else? Is she okay?"
Mand felt her heart flutter to a stop. "...who is Jewel?"
Embrey's eyes widened in fear as she recognized the same look of confusion on their faces. Her voice became weak. "...she's Horatio and Wyliaa's daughter. A hybrid. Five years old. You...you didn't find her?"
"We searched all of the rooms," Elena defended in mild shock, shaking her head.
Mand stood dumbfounded, too. "There was no one else in that home. I would have sensed them."
Overcome with emotion, Embrey brought a hand to her mouth as she trembled in sorrow.
"...who would kidnap a five-year-old girl?"
