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chapter twenty-three

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please don't make me cry
please don't make me cry
i'm just like you -- i know you know
i'm just like you, so leave me alone

oh, you humor me today
-Eisley, "Telescope Eyes"

xx

At Quantico, they tell you what to do in a hostage situation if you somehow get wounded. She even found herself in several simulated hostage situations during training.

All that left her as she fell to the ground, grunting in pain. She vaguely registered Naomi leaning over her and several of the others repeating "Oh my God" like a broken record.

Her breath came rapid and shallow. It was all she could do to focus on not hyperventilating; she could not afford to pass out. Not now.

"We need to wrap her leg!" Naomi shouted at Ted. "Get something to tie it off, a belt or something."

"Here, use this," Barry came closer to take a look, handing Naomi something in the process. But hearing Jack's voice calling through the phone, which was still hanging off the hook on the counter, he snapped back into panic mode and violently heaved the phone back into the receiver.

"Tighter," she grunted as Naomi worked to tie her leg off. "Tighter!"

"That better?" Naomi pulled the belt tighter as she whispered concern etched across her face.

"Yeah," she nodded, panting. "Better."

"Where did you get the gun?" Barry now had a hold of both his gun and her own, and he was pointing one of them at Richard as his voice rose, panicked. "Where did you get it?"

Richard began to mumble some generic response about finding it in the corner, apparently deciding that now was a good time not to give away her cover. What a complete idiot.

"Who's the cop?! Come on, who's the cop?!"

There was no getting around this, she realized. She grunted, panting, and gritted her teeth down as she took a breath. "I am! I'm FBI!"

Barry stared in disbelief, which only seemed to heighten when Naomi rose from where she sat and revealed herself as well.

"We're partners," she explained with an even voice, trying to infuse some calm through the chaos. Sam had wanted to give Naomi the option to keep herself hidden, but she thought it was the right call, given the situation they were in at the moment and how angry Barry was.

"Damn it!" Barry yelled to no one in particular, running his free hand along his face.

"I need --" Sam panted, trying to focus on anything else beside the sharp tearing pain in her left thigh. "I need you to elevate my leg."

"Is this okay?" Naomi asked, her eyes wide with fear as she propped Sam's leg up on the nearest chair she could find. "How bad is it?"

"It's a through and through," Sam grunted through the pain, but felt slightly better now that her leg was tied off and elevated.

"Damn it!" Barry repeated as the phone once again began ringing off the hook.

"My badge is over there if you don't believe me," Sam defended.

Barry walked behind her, and she heard him bend over to look at her bag. A soft thud sounded as he threw something to the floor, cursing again.

"Hey, look," Naomi turned to Barry and motioned back towards the phone. "If you don't pick that up in the next few seconds, they're going to send SWAT in here. And no one wants that to happen, right?"

Everyone was silent for a few moments, holding their breath. Then Barry walked to the counter to pick up the phone.

xx

"So what do you think was so important that Dad had to just up and leave the birthday party?" Rebecca flipped down the visor on the passenger's side of the car, adjusting her lipstick as she studied herself in the mirror.

"You know Dad," Caroline said in her best older-sister-knows-best voice. "It probably wasn't anything, but he just wanted to put in an appearance."

Caroline hit her turn signal and pulled off into the physician's parking garage at St. Michael's General Hospital.

"Don't think we're letting you off the hook," Rebecca hopped out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her. "We're just going to let Caro pick up her charts, first."

Martin waived his hand at her and flicked his wrist. "Yeah, yeah."

Secret Service pulled up behind them, the three agents all stepping out of the car to follow them.

"Do they really have to follow you everywhere, Martin?" Caroline groaned, faking exasperation.

Martin grinned sheepishly at his older sisters. "Talk to Mom about it, she's the one who absolutely insisted I have them."

Caroline swiped her ID card in the slot by the door, and it clicked as it unlocked. She turned around and held the door, smiling at him. "Nah, you should just get your FBI girlfriend to protect you."

Rebecca and Caroline both laughed, and it echoed down the empty stairwell. Martin just shook his head and blushed. His footsteps echoed behind theirs as they bounded the two floors down the stairs to the metal door that led to the ER.

Immediately upon entering the busy emergency room, a blonde woman in pink scrubs approached Caroline. Martin recognized her as Joanne, the charge nurse and one of Caro's closest friends. Back when he worked for the Dalton Corporation and before he had started preparing for the Senate race, he had met Caroline here for lunch on a regular basis and had the chance to get to know several of her colleagues.

"Hey, Caroline!" Joanne came up to hug her. "Hey Martin, Rebecca."

"Hey, Joanne," Martin smiled at his sister's friend. "How are you doing?"

"I'm great, thanks," she replied, motioning for the group to follow her into the doctor's lounge. "How was Bridget's party?"

"It was great." Caroline beamed.

Rebecca playfully batted her hand in the air as the lounge door opened. "Oh, you know she just loves being the center of attention."

"Hey, Jo, listen to this! -- Oh, hey Dr. Fitzgerald." Another nurse looked up at the group as they entered, turning up the volume on the radio. "Isn't your Dad a Fibbie?" The nurse continued, nodding at Caroline.

"Yeah, he is. Why?" Caroline punched the combination for her locker, opening it and grabbing several charts from the top.

"Listen to this," the nurse repeated, adjusting the tuning knob on the radio to minimize the static.

"... According to the FBI, the shooting is now believed to have been an accident, and they are working closely with the gunman to arrange for the victim to be transported to a hospital. More on the situation coming as soon as we hear anything ..."

"Hey, I wonder if the agents who were involved in the girls' case know anything about that," Joanne sat down at the table, tilting her head pensively. "They were nice, very thorough. Not too intimidating for Fibbies."

Martin looked down at his feet, not daring to look Becca in the face. He checked his watch and fought the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It had to be nerves, as it was almost 7:00 and he was going to check in with Sam about dinner plans at 8:00. Because she was on call that weekend, she said she assumed she would be done with work by then but that he ought to call to check, on the off chance that a big case came in. He was quickly learning that two people with schedules as full and busy as theirs were, that scheduling was definitely a problem.

He still felt entirely unsure about how things were going to go tonight, and he choked back his own nerves as he listened to Caroline, Joanne, and Rebecca chat easily amongst themselves.

xx

"Okay, you're going to go out," Barry turned to Richard.

Sam sucked in a breath as Naomi continued to put pressure on her injured thigh.

"I really think you should reconsider," Naomi countered with desperation in her voice, her hands drenched with the blood soaking through the jacket that covered Sam's wound.

"This isn't a discussion," Barry insisted. "I want 'Dick' out of here."

"No!" Naomi said, louder and more forcefully.

"Why should I listen to you?"

Sam shivered, feeling cool all over as she felt her body slowly lapsing into shock. Weak and barely able to move, she drew in a shallow, ragged breath and tried to keep her focus on the argument between Barry and Naomi. Tried to keep her focus on anything other than the pain, anything that would keep her conscious for as long as possible.

"Because she's lost a lot of blood!" Naomi breathed, sweat pouring down her face. "She's dying, Barry! She's dying. And no one deserves to die like this!"

"Oh yeah!? Well, no one deserves to die like my wife did, and nobody else seemed to care about that? So maybe now there will be some justice!"

"Where's the justice, Barry?" Naomi urged. "Thousands of people died that day, and the whole city -- the whole country -- everyone cares. You have to keep going, Barry, it's what your wife would have wanted you to do, isn't it?"

Barry remained silent. Through her pain, Sam could recognize that Naomi was beginning to get through to him.

"Come on, Barry. Let Sam go, let her get the medical attention she needs."

"No!" Barry cried, his voice breaking. "It's not fair! It's just not fair!"

"What is it, Barry?" Naomi soothed. "What's not fair?"

"Nicole shouldn't have been in there."

"No," Naomi agreed. With her free hand, she reached out to touch Barry on the shoulder and whispered. "My husband shouldn't have been there, either."

"He -- I -- what?" Barry sat down on the floor, and Sam heard his heavy breathing somewhere near her head. He was barely visible in her peripheral vision.

Naomi nodded and her voice broke slightly as she continued to explain. "My husband worked for a banking company that had their offices in the top floors of the South Tower. I was away at Quantico, I only had a few weeks left of my training... When everything went down that morning, I just knew." Naomi's chest heaved as she paused to take a breath. "If you don't believe me, go find my bag by the back bookshelves. The bank had a huge corporate dinner in Windows on the World, there's a picture of Thomas and I there."

Sam felt Barry rise wordlessly to go inspect for Naomi's bag and tried to wrap her mind around what Naomi had told them. She knew Naomi well enough to realize that she wasn't lying.

She felt Naomi's hands lift off of her thigh, Naomi whispering silently for Libby to come forward to put pressure on the wound. In the small window of opportunity, Naomi bolted silently to grab both guns from where Barry had left them on the countertop.

"What are you doing?" Barry demanded the second he returned and saw Naomi with both guns trained on him.

"Hey, hey," Naomi warned, her voice calm and even. "It's alright, Barry. I just need to get us all out of here."

"I have nothing else left to lose." Barry dropped his posture, appearing defeated but not yet willing to admit it.

"Then don't lose," Naomi said, walking forward to where he stood. "Let her go, let Sydney go, let all of us go. It's what Nicole would have wanted."

Barry slumped down against the bookshelf, his tears evident in his voice. "I can't let go."

"Yes," Naomi bent down to his level, reaching out to him. "You can. You have to.

"But how can you do that? Just forget everything that happened... ?"

"You don't. That's the thing: you don't forget, you just figure out how to keep going," Naomi said frankly, pausing to let her words sink in. "I think it's time for us to get Sam outside."

The next thing Sam knew, she heard Naomi pick up the phone to let Jack know that there was a change of plans and that they would all be exiting together.

The doors swished open once, then again, and she heard everyone else moving around her. Suddenly, several male agents had surrounded her, lifting her slowly and carrying her outside to a bench on the street corner.

Finally able to let her guard down, she was only vaguely aware of talking to Jack as he bent over to confirm that her condition was not serious. Agents buzzed around her, and she heard the sound of sirens approaching from the distance.

Paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher and began to work around her. She felt instantly better when they slipped an oxygen mask around her face, finally able to breathe a little bit deeper. She inhaled, feeling lightheaded.

"Hey," Naomi approached the stretcher, giving her a tentative smile. "You're gonna be okay."

At that, the water gates broke and she began to cry. "I'm so sorry!"

"Hey, hey..." Naomi ran her hand up and down against the side of Sam's face. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You were great in there."

Sam exhaled, trying once again to gather her composure. "What you did was pretty risky, you know."

At that, Naomi smiled fully for the first time all day. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"How are we doing?" Jack walked up behind Naomi.

"She's going to be fine," Naomi turned around to reply. "I'm riding with her. I'll give you my report tomorrow; you can call me if you need anything else tonight."

Jack nodded and waved in agreement, then turned to leave them alone with the paramedics once again.

Sam opened her mouth to speak once again, but Naomi held up her hand as if to stop her. "Later," she promised. "We'll talk about it later, okay?" Sam nodded wordlessly, and Naomi reached out to clasp their hands together. "Can I do anything else for you before we go?"

"My bag --" Sam whispered weakly.

Naomi lifted the hand by her side, showing that she had picked it up already.

"I --" Sam hesitated. She knew what she needed Naomi to do, but was not certain of how to ask. Too weak and lightheaded to think any further, her voice cracked as she made her request. "Take my phone and call Martin. Tell him I'm going to need a rain check on dinner tonight..."

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