AN: Sorry for the delay, but I'm pretty sure we'll be smooth from here to the end which should be in a few days.

My medical knowledge is limited at best, so I apologize if anyone more knowledgeable than me in this area spots a glaring mistake or misconception.

Kaile felt herself drifting away. I'm sorry, Dad. More than anything else she was sorry that she would be leaving him alone. The last thing she heard as she closed her eyes was Scagnetti yelling desperately at her and struggling so much against his restraints that his handcuffs were clanking loudly against the pipe he was bound to. Remembering an old Christmas movie she had watched with her dad when she was little, Kaile wondered whether the sound meant she would be getting her wings…

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"Clear!" Ana called out from her corner of the basement, bringing her weapon back down. JD, Ella and Jack all chimed in with the same call from the areas they had been searching, so Dominic came forward from where he had waited by the stairs.

"They're not here," Ella commented unnecessarily.

"They have to be, or there has to be some clue to where they went!" Dominic insisted. "Connors wouldn't have brought Jim here for nothing."

"It's possible she just hid some money or something here, Dom," Ana reasoned, putting a hand on his arm, but he didn't want the comfort and shook her off.

"No! You guys can leave, but I'm staying here and checking every crevice if I have to. You all know as well as I do that there are secret passageways and rooms built into many of New York's old buildings like this one. I'm not giving up on them."

"And we are?" Ell asked, eyes flashing at his implication. She stepped right up to her older brother. "Have you ever thought that by wasting time here we're taking longer to find them?"

"I didn't say you were giving up on them, Ella." Maybe subconsciously he had thought it, but deep down he didn't really think anyone in their group would ever give up on Kaile or Scagnetti. He knew they were just thinking with the cool heads that their various law enforcement agencies had taught them to have, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that they were there for a reason. "But I don't think we're wasting time. There haven't been any other leads to try-"

"We don't know if there were any other leads because we haven't been in the information loop, Dominic," Ell said calmly, regaining her standard control.

"Shut up, you two," JD suddenly broke in.

"Excuse me?" Ell asked incredulously as they turned towards the NYPD detective.

"I said shut up," he repeated from where he stood at the far end of the room looking down at the floor.

Dominic's heart pounded as he waited. And then suddenly he heard it, too. "Was that a clanging?"

JD looked up. "I think so. It's coming from this pipe here." He indicated one that ran from the floor up to and through the ceiling. "And I think it's coming from below." He took his gun and clanked out the standard S.O.S. signal as everyone else crowded around. After a few seconds of silence, Deveraux repeated his action, this time a little harder. After a few more seconds, the longest seconds of Dominic's life, they got a response.

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Sheldon held onto the car door as the patrol officer driving took the last turn to the community center. As soon as Ana had called in, they had all left Lindsay's office to follow the kids on their lead. Not wanting to risk any of them driving in their distress, Mac had called in for a couple of black and whites to drive them. The squad cars were ready at the front door of the lab by the time they took the elevator all the way down.

The patrol car ahead screeched to a halt, Don jumping out of it almost before it came to a complete stop. Danny and Lindsay weren't far behind and seconds later Sheldon and Mac got out of their car to follow the others into the deaf community center.

The sight that greeted them would likely stick in his mind forever. Ana and Jack were leading the group with Ella and JD in the back escorting a shaky Scagnetti. Between those two groups was Dominic carrying Kaile who was limp and pale, her head lolling back lifelessly against Dom's arm. Hawkes flashed back through some of the death he had seen over the years because his niece looked like she was already gone.

"She's still alive and we've got an ambulance on the way," Ana told everyone. Sheldon steadied himself and moved forward quickly as Dominic practically collapsed, more from the emotional weight than the physical, falling onto his knees with Kaile still in his arms and Don kneeling next to him.

"Okay, guys, lay her flat," Hawkes commanded as he knelt down. The men seemed somewhat relieved to just have someone tell them what to do and did as Sheldon instructed. "Ana, Jack, find some towels or something, anything that will soak up blood well," Sheldon barked out. He wasn't a commanding person by nature, but medical situations like this were when Mac would say that Sheldon's inner drill sergeant came out. "Dominic, raise up her legs so we can get more blood flowing towards her heart and her head," he ordered next while he checked Kaile's pulse and breathing. "Don, keep pressure around her wrists until those towels get here." He was proud that his nieces and nephew had remembered their first aid training. What must have been Dominic and Deveraux's ties were tied as improvised tourniquets around Kaile's arms and what looked to be their cotton undershirts were currently around her wrists and already soaked almost completely through with Kaile's blood. He took a quick look under one of the t-shirt bandages before putting it back down and letting Don reapply pressure.

"What the hell happened?" Hawkes asked Scagnetti. "With that kind of wound she shouldn't be losing this much blood."

"She was drugged," Scagnetti told him while rubbing his own wrists which sported the beginnings of bruising. "I have no idea with what."

"It must have been something that thinned her blood and is making her bleed more profusely than she would otherwise." Ana and Jack approached with some towels that Sheldon quickly switched out the t-shirts for just as the paramedics came rushing in. "We need to scoop and run, gentlemen," Hawkes ordered. He rattled off the vitals he had managed to take as he helped to move Kaile onto the stretcher, then they quickly wheeled her out to the ambulance. He got in and continuously applied pressure to Kaile's wounds as one of the paramedics efficiently began hooking her up for a blood transfusion. Don hopped in and the second paramedic slammed the ambulance doors before coming around and climbing into the driver's seat.

As they started to drive away with lights flashing and sirens blaring, Sheldon glanced up and out the windows in the back of the vehicle. His heart clenched at the looks on the faces of his family. From stoic to desperate they all gazed after the ambulance, Ana and Lindsay clutching Jack and Danny respectively, Ella holding herself up but subtly receiving the support Deveraux gave her with a hand on her shoulder, Scagnetti standing near Mac and probably already telling him what had happened. In front of the group was Dominic standing with his arms hanging limply and a devastated, lost look that eerily reminded Sheldon of another day involving Kaile.

Looking over at his longtime friend who was talking to his daughter and trying to wake her up, Hawkes remembered when Don had worn a look much like Dominic's the day Kaile Maka had died. That day there hadn't been anything anyone could do, but Hawkes was determined that this day would be different. This day there would be reason for that look to dissolve into relief rather than having to fade slowly away with time.