Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed

Chapter Three

"Eppes."

"I need you to get down here. We've got a case."

"I thought I had today off."

"This can't wait. We've got a possible terrorist attack and there could be more in the works."

"I'll be there in fifteen."

Don squinted at the lit screen of his phone as he rubbed one hand over his eyes, trying to clear his vision enough to read the time. Three a.m. He'd gotten less than four hours of sleep. No wonder he still felt like shit. He pulled the covers down just enough to stick the top of his head out, eyes immediately glancing at the dark windows to verify what he already knew.

Making an executive decision, Don rolled out of bed as quickly as possible in the hopes that it would cause minimal disruption to his overall well-being. He was rewarded for his poor judgment with a run to bathroom to throw up once more, before taking a lukewarm shower because the time wasted being sick had to be made up somewhere. He pulled on jeans one-handedly as he brushed his teeth, reasoning it to be casual Friday, only to remember it was only Thursday. Well, damn it all, he thought, he wasn't supposed to be in the office today anyway. They're damn fortunate he didn't decide to show up in his boxers. He pulled a t-shirt over his head, shrugged into the warmest hoodie he owned, snagged his keys, gun, and phone from the nightstand, stepped into his shoes without lacing them and left.

He arrived in the bullpen exactly sixteen minutes after he hung up with the ADIC, greeting his somewhat bedraggled team with a "what've we got?" as he waved away Colby's offer of coffee.

"Five people reported to the ER yesterday with symptoms consistent with ricin poisoning," Megan said, pointing to government photos, presumably of the five victims, on the screen.

"Ricin, the biotoxin? As in the ricin letters sent to the White House?"

"Yeah," David replied. "Highly toxic and easily made. It looks like these people ingested it, which is probably why none have died yet."

"It takes at least twelve hours for the symptoms of ricin poisoning to show up," Colby added. "So by now…" he trailed off.

"Okay," Don said. "We need to know everything these people did in the last day. I'm talking who they talked to, where they went, if they bummed a cigarette from someone on the street, I want to know about it. Any of them well enough for interviews?"

"Emily Wyatt is conscious and so far is responding to treatment," Megan pointed to a picture of a redhead in her mid-twenties. "Carl Grogan and Dana Lifsey are experiencing hallucinations and seizures; we won't be able to talk to them. Elisa Simpson is sedated but expected to recover and," she paused. "Philip Chen isn't expected to make it through the night."

Don shook his head. "So we've got one interviewee. The others…talk to the families, friends, whoever was with them in the twenty-four hours before symptoms presented."

"We're on it, Don," Colby said, fitting a lid over his paper coffee cup and heading towards the door. "We'll call you as soon as we know anything." David followed Colby out, the two already making plans for splitting up the work.

Don redirected his attention to Megan. "Have we heard anything, any kind of demands or anyone trying to take credit?"

"Not a word," Megan said. "Fits the terrorist MO. They aren't looking to negotiate, they're looking to kill."

"Okay." Don sank into a chair, staring up at the screen. "Any commonalities between the victims jumping out at you?"

"Looks pretty random to me," Megan said. "Different areas, different incomes. Two white, one Hispanic, one Asian, one black. Three females, two males. At first glance, they don't seem to have a lot in common at all."

Don gazed at the pictures for a moment more before he said, "Let's check the homes, see if we can find anything there. ADIC is giving us some more guys to help out. We can send a team to each house and get this done quick."

Don and Megan arrived at Philip Chen's apartment after the longest half-hour drive of Don's life. After deflecting multiple probes into his health and well-being, Don finally snapped, resulting in a very long silence and many wounded looks shot in his direction. As Megan pulled the car up to the curb in front of the apartment building, Don finally sighed. "I'm sorry, okay?"

Megan smiled lightly. "Okay." Don broke into a long fit of coughing, doubling over. Megan placed a hand on his back, "Don, I'm worried about you."

Don straightened, panting. "As long as a scratchy throat isn't a symptom of ricin poisoning, I think I'll be okay."

Megan looked skeptical, but nevertheless dropped the subject as they marched up the stairs and rapped on the door. When there was no answer, Don knelt and picked the lock, standing up as the door swung open.

"Let me guess," Don said in a strangled voice. "Philip Chen is a college student?"

The apartment was lit only by various screens – the TV left on, a computer glowing in the corner. Surrounding one arm chair and one desk chair were the rubble of daily life minus the factor of occasional cleaning. Fast food bags and open food containers abounded, the trash looked like it had never been taken out, and judging by the heap of clothes in the corner, Don guessed that Chen was probably the type to buy new underwear instead of doing laundry.

Don backed away from the doorway, covering his mouth and nose as his stomach threatened to rebel. He took several deep breaths through his mouth and glanced up to find Megan staring at him again. "You okay? You ready?"

"Yeah," he said gruffly, forcing himself to enter the apartment. "Okay. We're looking for anything that may have been a way for Chen to ingest the ricin. Anything he may have eaten from and drank out of…" He trailed off looking around at all the containers. "And we are going to be here all day."

All day was a mild exaggeration, but "for the rest of the night" certainly wouldn't have been. The sun had long since risen before Don and Megan had sorted through everything, taking samples for testing and cataloguing each thing they found. Based on the various receipts they found in the heaps of rubble, they eliminated many things, but there was still plenty left to go.

"I think receipts are the way to go," Megan said. "If we could just find some kind of receipt indicating what he bought in the last week or so, that would narrow things down considerably."

"I was never this much of a mess in college," Don griped, pausing to lean heavily against the wall nearest the door, and thus, safety. "If he survives, I'm going to find him someone. No one needs to live like this."

"Some people just aren't neat," Megan shrugged. "Although, I'll admit, this takes it to a new, unhygienic level."

"It's a miracle he doesn't have bugs crawling all over this place. From the smell alone, he could be hiding a dead body and no one would ever know."

"Hey, look at this!" Megan held out a receipt found tucked deep into the chair. "Dated yesterday!"

Don moved forward to look at it, feeling his head spin as he lost contact with his support system. He took the receipt in one gloved hand and peered at it, waiting for his vision to clear.

"Convenience store, yesterday morning. Bottle of soda, chips, and beef jerky," he observed. "Guess it's something. We can check out this place." His stomach lurched suddenly. "I'm gonna take a quick break, take this out to the car and radio in for someone to head over there. I'll be back," he said in a rush even as he cleared the doorway and turned down the hall.

"Wait, take some of this with you!" he heard Megan call, but he ignored it as he walked as fast as he could, finally breaking into a run as he reached the bottom of the stairs, making it outside just in time to vomit in the bushes at the side of the building. He hadn't eaten today, so he was quickly reduced to dry heaves that just wouldn't seem to go away. When he finally began to regain a tiny bit of control over his body, he noticed a hand lightly patting his back.

"You're just everywhere, aren't you?" he said hoarsely, shakily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Wordlessly, Megan handed him a bottle of water. He used some to rinse his mouth, spitting it into the grass, then took a cautious sip. "Thanks." She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "I know what you're going to say. And believe me, there is nothing I want more than to go back to my bed and stay there possibly until I die. But this case…we can't afford it."

"You know things won't fall apart if you aren't here to hold them together," she said. "We've survived without you before."

Don winced. He knew his team was good. The shrink had been working with him on this, on learning to trust them. He knew Megan was a capable leader, that Colby and David were both very solid agents, capable of getting a lot done. He knew, in the back of his mind, that they would be fine without him. But no one wants to feel useless. He wanted to think that they did need him. He was a good agent – Charlie always said he had a ginormous ego, and no one got to that kind of ego without knowing they were good at what they did. But the counterpart to having that ginormous ego was the tendency to feel that he was necessary, that maybe even if they would survive without him, they were better off with him. That his presence was important. And right now his ginormous ego was throbbing a little from the blow of Megan's comment.

"Yeah, well, the ADIC called me specifically, so I guess you're stuck with me anyway." He popped a piece of gum, carefully folding the wrapper and slipping it back into his pocket. "Let's just get back to work," he muttered, striding back into the building.