He wasn't aware of too many things. It was hard to concentrate on any one sound or feeling long enough to really understand it. There was a loud, sharp, dangerous sounding noise somewhere close to his head. It was nearly continuous and every time it sounded out, it caused him to jerk in surprise.
His shirt was wet and clinging to him uncomfortably, but he couldn't seem to lift his arms to move it away from his skin and he didn't understand why. There were voices, people talking all around him and they didn't sound familiar, but they all sounded very serious. There was something laying over his chest making it impossible for him to move, not that his body was cooperating with him anyway. He really didn't understand that. Nothing seemed to be wrong with him, he just couldn't move, couldn't really feel anything for that matter.
Numb, he felt incredibly numb and he couldn't figure out why.
He heard someone say something about a dog and a moment later the loud noise was gone.
Then suddenly the weight across his chest was being lifted away and though it struggled and jarred him in the process, it was finally removed completely.
There was crying. He could very distinctly hear the sound of crying, loud sobbing wails that sounded suspiciously like Kat and he struggled to move, trying to sit up so he could find her and figure out what was wrong. Kat didn't make sounds like that, not his Kat. Something had to be very wrong with her. He needed to get to her. He needed to find her and make everything okay. He couldn't stand the sound. The terrible, gut wrenching noise she was making was tearing him apart.
He made another move to get up, summoning every last ounce of strength in his body to do so, but before he could complete the movement, a hand was resting on his shoulder, pushing him back to the ground forcefully.
" It's going be okay, Man." A strange voice was telling him as a dark haired man looked down at him. " I just need you to lay still and let us do our job."
He wanted to tell the man that he had to go, had to get to Kat. He wanted to tell him that whatever job the man was trying to do wasn't nearly as important as him getting to her and making sure she was okay. But the only sound that actually passed his dry, chapped lips was a croaked, disturbingly weak noise that could barely be recognized as her name.
The man looked away and he heard him say her name. Then she was beside him again, her face coming into view from above him and she was an angel looking down at him, smoothing his hair from his forehead. Her eyes were swollen and red, tears streaking down her face. Her bottom lip trembled uncontrollably and her whole body was shaking where it rested next to his.
He wanted to reach out for her, but all he could manage was a slight twitching of his fingers. Still, she apparently understood because she took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips to lay a gentle kiss against his knuckles.
" It's going to be okay. The paramedics are here." She told him.
Paramedics ? Why on Earth was an ambulance there ?
He felt something stick his arm, like a mosquito bite and he made a move to brush it away, swat at it, but Kat held his hand firmly in hers.
He tried to move again, wanting to sit up and put his arms around her. She looked so lost, so incredibly sad and he wanted to comfort her. But when he moved something in his side blazed to life and he saw stars it hurt so badly. He tried to take a breath, realizing for the first time how very difficult that had become. Then his entire body was racked with a cough that shook him like nothing else ever had. The pain was unbelievable. He had never felt anything like it.
Kat was crying harder now and she choked out a desperate sounding, " Oh God," as he felt something dibbling from the side of his mouth.
The man who had spoken to him before came into his view and he smiled down at him reassuringly but it did nothing to alleviate Patrick's growing concern. There was definitely something very wrong with him.
" I need you to relax, Buddy." The man was saying. " Just lay still and relax. Everything's under control. We've got you. Just slow, easy breaths. And don't try to talk or move." His smile deepened. "You're going to be alright. I just need you to stay with us, okay ? Can you do that ?"
Patrick tried to nod, tried to tell him he understood even though he didn't, but now his eyes felt heavy and he was having a hard time keeping them opened. He looked back to Kat and she was giving him a watery smile of her own.
He felt so cold, so incredibly cold, his whole body was trembling from it. Then there was a mask covering his face and he wanted to struggle against it because it nearly blocked his view of her but he couldn't make his head move. Then his eyes got heavier and he thought he heard the man again, telling him to stay with them again and Patrick thought it was strange because he obviously wasn't going anywhere. He couldn't even move.
" I'll be right here." She promised him. " I'm not going anywhere. Just keep looking at me."
It was the last thing he heard before it began too difficult to keep his eyes open any longer.
The paramedic made an expletive under his breath as Patrick's eyes drifted shut. Then there was movement. The two paramedics, one large and muscled with blond hair and a mustache, the other more stocky and compact with dark hair, were moving quickly, tearing at Patrick's shirt, examining the side of his chest, poking him with needles and taking vital signs.
" I put Spock in your room. And Daddy's on his way home." Bianca was telling her over her shoulder and Kat snapped her head around, tearing her eyes away from Patrick's face to find her sister.
" You called Dad ?" She demanded, anger quickly replacing the concern and worry that consumed her.
" You think I shouldn't have ? Someone was shot in our backyard, Kat. Police are running around everywhere and there's an ambulance out front. If I hadn't called him, don't you think one of the neighbors would have ? It's not like he doesn't have them waiting the house for him." Bianca defended herself.
Kat felt her anger deflate as instantly as it had expanded. Of course her sister was right. If they hadn't called there would be no living with him when he found out. Better he heard it from one of them.
" Do you want to ride with him ?" The paramedic was asking her. " We're about ready to move him ?"
" Of course I want to come with him. I told him I'd be here and I'm not leaving him." She answered immediately.
Another voice joined in the conversation. " I'm going to need a statement from you, Miss." A policeman was telling her.
" Then you'll have to come to the hospital to get it. I'm going with him." She told him as well.
" That's fine." He nodded in agreement. " We're be right behind you."
She wanted to tell him that the whole statement thing was dumb. They had seen the entire thing happen themselves. The shot had no sooner rang out than two uniformed policeman had Jeff on the ground, handcuffing him.
Too little, too late, She thought bitterly.
Bianca was standing right behind her and she put a hand on her shoulder to pull her away so the paramedics could move Patrick's seemingly lifeless body onto the stretcher.
" Come on, Kat. You have to let go so they can lift him." She was saying and it really did make sense, but letting him go was too difficult and eventually Bianca grabbed her hand and jerked her away from him.
Kat turned to her, almost angry. She would have been angry if she had any strength in her left to get angry with.
" Do you want me to follow you ? Joey has his car." She asked as she let her go and pretended as if there wasn't a mad look on her sister's face.
Kat's shoulders slumped in defeat and she nodded her head.
" Okay, we'll be right behind you." Then Bianca's arms were around her, pulling her into a tight embrace that nearly knocked the wind out of her. " He's going to be okay." She whispered into her shoulder as she held on to her.
Kat nodded again. Forming words just took too much effort, to much of her mental process and at the moment it was all consumed by him.
She let her arms fall away from her sister, not even realized she'd raised them to begin with and turned slowly back to the paramedics. They had Patrick on the stretcher now and were raising it to its full height so they could push it to the ambulance that waited in the front drive.
She walked along behind them, tying to ignore the looks from the curious neighbors as they watched the grime procession. It was somehow all so surreal to her. She could barely hear all the noise and chaos going on around her over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
The paramedics had tucked a blanket around Patrick, securing it tightly under the thin pad that he rested on and one of his hands had slipped out. It was coming very close to dangling over the side and she stepped up her pace, nearly running to keep up with the burly men that pushing him along. When she finally caught up, she took his hand in hers and held on to it as they approached the waiting ambulance.
The flashing, rotating red lights combined with the blue and white lights of the police cars that were parked everywhere. She glanced around and spotted something moving in the back of one of the cars.
A hatred like she had never known she was capable of almost possessed her and if it weren't for Patrick making a soft groaning sound as his mobile bed bumped over a crack in the sidewalk, she thought she might have ran to the car, yanked his stepfather out and beat him to a bloody pulp.
" What hospital are you taking him to ?" Bianca was asking as Joey jogged along behind her.
Joey gave her a sympathetic smile and she tried to return it. She really did, but she simply couldn't muster one up for him. She just looked away instead, letting her gaze find Patrick again.
" Mercy General." The paramedic answered as they stopped at the opened back doors of the vehicle.
One of the men gently, yet firmly moved her aside and he and his partner lifted the stretcher into the back of the ambulance with very little effort. Patrick's head lolled as they jarred him slightly in the process and Kat wanted to jump up beside him and hold him steady.
His lips were slightly parted and his eyes closed. His face looked relaxed and peaceful and she wondered if that was how he felt or if he were in a great deal of pain. She wanted to believe that it was the peaceful and relaxed alternative. She didn't want to think about him in pain. She didn't want to think about the blood covering the side of his white t-shirt so completely it was soaked from his shoulder to his hip when the paramedics had torn it away. Even now, under the blanket that covered him, she could see the beginnings of a trace of red where the bandage they had applied needed changing already.
How could they need changing already ? They had just put them on him. It was too much blood. There was just too much blood and she wondered how much he could possibly have left inside him.
Once they had the stretcher secured one of the men jumped up inside beside him while the other waited for her to climb in before closing the doors on them.
Something in her mind expected that once the doors closed there would be darkness. That was the way it worked in most vehicles, but the running lights above them stayed on, not altering in the slightest, even when the ambulance began to pull out of the drive and turned onto the street.
The man beside her was fiddling with something hanging from a pole above Patrick's head and she wanted to ask him what the bag contained. But again words escaped her. She couldn't concentrate long enough to make them pass her lips. Her tongue refused to move in order for her to make coherent sound so she stayed quiet and let her eyes fall to Patrick's face.
Other than a few quiet groans as they turned a corner or bumped over a pothole, he was completely silent. Even as he made those noises, his expression didn't change.
The ride seemed endless yet it took them little more than ten minutes to make the journey. The wails of the sirens rang in her ears and the lights from the police car following them made her dizzy, made her vision blur and she had to blink against it's effects.
Once they arrived everything began happening so quickly around her it was hard for her to keep up. The paramedics ushered her out of the back doors almost the moment they swung open and she watched as they moved the stretcher to the ground and lifted it to its full height once again.
Her mind was playing tricks on her. Thinking about the most inappropriate things and she figured it must be some kind of defense mechanism trying to take away some of her anxiety. She just couldn't help but marvel at the gurney and appreciate it for its ingenious design.
Then she was moving along with them, the hand in hers felt cold and she looked down to see that she had somehow managed to take hold of him again. She'd done it without even thinking about it.
They stopped at a set of double doors and the paramedic that had ridden beside her gave her a sympathetic smile that reminded her of the one Joey had given her a few minutes before.
Like he was trying to tell her everything was going to be okay without speaking the words and she appreciated the effort though she couldn't make herself believe the sentiment.
" I'm sorry, Miss. This is as far as you can come. Someone will be out soon to tell you how he's doing." He told her and she watched as he slipped Patrick's hand out of hers and tucked it into his side.
" But I told him I wouldn't leave him." She protested. " I said I wasn't going anywhere."
The bigger man continued to move the stretcher through the doors, pulling Patrick away from her while the other man took her hand and lead her over to a set of chairs in a tiny, cramped waiting area.
She let him move her around like she was some kind of doll he was posing. He pushed on her shoulders gently and suddenly she was sitting in one of the chairs.
" I know you said you weren't going anywhere, but we need you to sit right here and let the doctors do what they need to do to fix him. Can you do that for us ?" He asked and his voice was low and gentle and he was speaking slowly as if she were a moron that couldn't understand simple English.
She bristled inwardly but gave him a slight shake of her head in answer.
" Good." He smiled. " Can I get you anything ? Something to drink maybe ?"
" Coffee." She muttered.
He nodded. " How do you take it ?"
" Black." She muttered again. " I don't approve of processed sugar." Her words were flat and meaningless. She sounded like some kind of robot drone spurting out parts of her programing.
" Okay." He answered. " You wait right here and I'll bring you some."
" Will you find out if he's okay ?" She asked when he stood and turned away from her.
He nodded again. " Absolutely."
Then he was gone and she was alone and all she could do was think.
She tried to close her eyes, but every time she did the images repeated themselves over and over like they were on an endless loop in her mind.
It was her fault. If she hadn't jumped out from behind him to get to Spock, he wouldn't have dive in front of her and she wouldn't have had to see the image of his body jerking in mid air before it fell to the ground in a heap. He got shot protecting her. His instinct had been to save her regardless of what it meant for him.
She shuddered at the thought. She had heard people say they'd die for someone before, but it never really hit her like it did now. He was willing to die to protect her from harm.
" Miss Stratford ?" A new voice interrupted her and brought her back to reality. She jerked her eyes opened at the intrusion. " Do you think you can talk to us now ?"
It was the policeman again and she shook her head no. She didn't want to relive those moments again. She didn't have it in her to rehash everything that had happened.
She remembered somewhere in her mind something she had heard once seen on some cop show and she snatched on to it to make him go away, if for no other reason.
" I'm a minor. I don't have to talk to you without a legal guardian present." She said, her words sounding much more like her than they had in what seemed like hours.
He nodded and gave her a smile, this one less understanding than the nice paramedic and much more forced like he was somehow blaming her for the whole thing and suddenly her resolve not to talk to him strengthen.
" That's true. You don't have to talk to us without one of your parents here. But we aren't trying to charge you with anything. We just want to finish up our work here so we can put the man that did this behind bars where he belongs." He explained, taking a chair next to her.
Damn him, she thought, he was using reason on her. She hated that. She wasn't in the mood for reason.
Still there was something in his face that she didn't like. Something about him felt vaguely accusatory and she resented that.
" What do you want to know ?" She asked tiredly. Maybe if she just gave him what he wanted, he'd go away.
" Start at the beginning." He told her. " The man that shot your friend is his stepfather ?"
She nodded. " His name is Jeff Baker."
" And how did Mr. Baker end up in your backyard ?"
" He came there looking for Patrick." She answered quietly.
" Patrick is your friend that was shot ?" He continued.
" Patrick Verona, he's my boyfriend." She said snappishly.
" Okay, so Mr. Baker came to your house looking for Patrick. Why ? What was Patrick doing at your house ?"
" Patrick left home Saturday after he and his mother and stepfather had an argument. He's been staying with me since then." She explained in exasperation.
" So Patrick is a runaway ?"
And there it was, that accusatory tone again and her eyes shot to his face. " You can put your little notebook away. I'm done talking now until my legal guardian arrives." She told him, leaning her head back against the wall behind her and closing her eyes.
" Look, Miss Stratford." The officer began.
Kat snapped her eyes opened and felt the anger rush over her. " I said, I'm done talking to you." She repeated.
" Leave her alone, Nate. She's been through hell. This can wait." The paramedic was back and he was holding two cups of coffee in his hands.
" Back off, Pete, I'm just trying to do my job."
" It can wait." Pete answered, coming to sit on her other side and handing her a cup of coffee. " Right now she's concerned about someone she loves. Let her be."
Nate gave a little huff, snapped his tiny notebook shut and got to his feet. " We need to talk as soon as one of your parents arrive, Miss Stratford."
" Fine, I can't wait." She told him sarcastically. She turned to the man sitting next to her the moment he was out of sight. " How is he ? What's happening ?"
" Drink your coffee." Pete told her gesturing towards the cup in her hand.
" Tell me." She demanded sensing an attempt to veer her off the subject.
" Kat !" Bianca called as she came around the corner and spotted her sitting there. She came to her and put her arms around her, bending over her chair awkwardly. " How is he ?"
" I was just about to find out." She answered, turning her attention back to Pete.
" They're just about to take him to surgery." He said, quietly.
" There's more." Kat said. " I'm not stupid. You wouldn't have that look on your face if there wasn't more."
Pete blinked at her rapidly and his eyebrows raised to his hairline. " He has a ruptured diaphragm. We knew that." He answered. " That's not so uncommon and usually it's pretty easy to repair."
" Usually, but not this time ?" Bianca asked, sitting down next to her sister.
Pete took a deep breath and run his hand through his dark hair. " The doctor's think the bullet may have broken one of his ribs. They think the piece of his rib may have pierced an organ." He told them. "They're running tests now to see what kind of damage was done. He's lost a lot of blood and he's in shock."
Kat felt her eyes getting bigger the more he talked. There was a grime look on his face that she definitely didn't like. " What are you saying ?" She demanded, cutting him off before he could continue. " Is he going to die ?"
" Just calm down." He was telling her, resting a hand reassuringly on her leg. " We'll know more after they get him to surgery."
Kat jumped to her feet and started to move, no longer able to sit still. She had to do something. She had to get up and move around. " You didn't say no." She said after a minute.
" What ?" Pete asked, clearly confused.
" I asked you if he was going to die and you didn't say no." She repeated, explaining herself more clearly. " I need you to say no." She started pacing and wringing her hands so hard it made her fingers hurt. " See, he did this to save me. He jumped in front of the fucking bullet to save me. So, I need you to tell me he isn't going to die."
She was pretty sure she wasn't making much sense. Even she could barely keep up with the panicked staccato of words falling from her mouth. People lived through getting shot all the time. They were in a hospital. There were doctor's here. Her father worked here. He always said he worked with some of the best doctor's he'd ever known. And people didn't die from gunshot wounds anymore. Not when they got to a hospital so quickly. And they had gotten here quickly.
Bianca and Pete were watching her carefully and she realized she had just said all that out loud. Words were tumbling out of her mouth without meaning, without anything lacing them together except the one underlying thing she couldn't get past.
He just simply couldn't die.
She'd already lost so much. She couldn't lose him, too. She'd never survive it. She'd never recover. And he still hadn't said he wasn't going to die and she felt like she was going to fall apart if someone didn't tell her that soon. She needed to hear it, needed the words to grab on to, to hold her sanity together.
They were still watching her as she ranted and paced and she was still talking out loud without meaning to and she couldn't seem to stop herself. Everything that popped into her head fell from her lips with no filter to stop them.
Finally Bianca got to her feet and moved in front of her, wrapping her arms around her and holding her tightly and all Kat could think as she sobbed uncontrollably into her sister's shoulder was that no one would just simply tell her he wasn't going to die.