Title: The Fury of the Wind
Author: Windimere Wellen
Part: 7 of ?
Disclaimer: I don't own Numb3rs, so don't sue me…
Author's Note: All of my readers have continued to be amazing. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement. I wasn't sure where I was going at first, but now I'm back on track. I don't have a beta reader per say, but my mother looks over my chapters, though she confesses to not be the best at spelling or grammar, so please forgive any mistakes that get left. I try to make sure they're few and far between. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Lady Winter
Megan tugged again on the hand cuffs, impatient as Colby was unlocking them, willing him to hurry. It was taking him a terribly long time because he was also talking into his sleeve radio, desperately giving directions to the EMTs that David had asked to be standing by.
All Megan could think was that they were desperately needed. If only Colby would let her lose so she could get over to Don. Not that she was needed there. David was there, his hands pressed tightly against the profusely bleeding gun shot wound in Don's shoulder, while Charlie was holding desperately to his unconscious brother, completely oblivious to his own injury.
Finally Colby released Megan's hands, and she ripped the duct tape off of her mouth, relishing the burn because it meant that for the first time in a while, she could actually do something. She tried to feel something, anything, but inside she was simply numb. She felt almost detached as she looked at the scene before her.
She was vaguely aware that Colby was asking her if she was ok, but she just brushed him off, and made her way to where Don was lying on the ground, cradled in Charlie's arms.
Don was on his side, his eyes closed. His skin was unnaturally white and there was blood pooling on the floor, despite the pressure that David was applying to both the front and the back of Don's shoulder. Charlie was shaking, one hand stroking Don's dark and unruly hair, that if given the chance to grow out, would probably be just as curly and crazy as Charlie's.
David looked up at her, then past her, to see if the EMTs were coming yet, then turned back to her.
"He's not breathing," David said, and Megan didn't like the sound of his voice. It was the sound of someone pushed to the brink of what they could handle. Megan felt the same way inside, but she wasn't able to show that yet.
She was about to respond when suddenly the EMTs were rushing past her. Then they were pushing David out of the way, but it was clear in seconds that Charlie was not going to relinquish his brother so easily.
"Sir… Sir, you have to let him go," one of the EMTs was insisting, while the other was trying to stop the bleeding.
"No, don't touch him," Charlie insisted, in a voice that reminded Megan of a lost child.
"Colby!" Megan called, and in an instant, the junior agent was at her side. "Get Charlie. Be gentle with him though, he's scared."
Colby nodded, and carefully moved to extricate Charlie from the EMT's way.
"Charlie, let go of Don, they have to stop the bleeding and we need to get him to the hospital," Megan said soothingly.
"They're not going to hurt him," Colby told Charlie, as he gently hooked his hands under Charlie's arms. Megan thought Charlie might fight, but he looked up at Colby with recognition in his eyes, and bonelessly let go of Don. There were more EMTs coming in the door and Colby flagged one of them down. "He's been hurt," he explained, motioning to Charlie's arm.
Megan crouched near Don's head as the EMTs began to assess the situation.
"What happened here?" one of them asked.
"He's got four slugs in his vest," Megan said quietly, and the three men looked up at her, and David, who was standing a little out of the way, looked shocked. "And before that they broke some of his ribs. And I think he might have a concussion, and maybe a broken hand." She had spent her idle minutes, when she was a prisoner and could not help her partner, cataloguing his injuries for this moment, so she would be prepared to help.
"He's not breathing, but I've got a pulse," the younger looking of the three EMT's said. Megan read his name plate – Calkins. "I'm going to bag him now." Megan flinched when he produced the blue plastic apparatus and placed it over Don's mouth as they rolled him gently onto his back.
One of the others, whose shiny badge read Reddens, was cutting away at Don's shirt as the other EMT – Donovan – was removing the flak vest. Reddens produced a stethoscope and laid it gently under a part of Don's white shirt that had yet to be cut off, that was now stained red.
"Collapsed lung," he said suddenly and urgently. "We've got to move him now. He's got to be bleeding internally and with the arm wound…" he trailed off.
Donovan was already nodding, and he finished cutting away Don's shirt, revealing Don's chest. As soon as Megan saw the damage that had been done, she knew she would never forget it. Don's chest was a myriad of color, ranging from purple and black to a sickly yellow. Angry red marks showed where the bones were broken, pressing up against Don's skin. Megan winced and glanced up to see Charlie staring at his brother's still form, stock still in the grasp of the EMT who was bandaging his arm.
She realized there was more movement when another EMT team came rushing in. Calkins must have been in contact with the nearest hospital because he was reading off Don's heart rate and BP to someone, and explaining the direness of the situation.
There were suddenly sirens and Megan turned to see that an ambulance had been backed up to be as close as possible, and when she turned back, she found that they were putting Don on a stretcher.
"Where are you taking him?" she demanded, catching Reddens' arm as the other EMTs whisked Don towards the waiting ambulance.
"Grace Memorial. We'll take your other gun shot wound there too," he said quickly, then disengaged himself. It took Megan a moment to realize he'd been talking about Charlie and she turned to find Charlie staring forlornly after the gurney that was taking his older brother away.
She thought he was in shock, but suddenly he started forward, pushing away from the EMT who was trying to cut the sleeve off the jacket he was wearing. Megan moved to stop him and Colby was there too.
"Charlie, stay here. You're going in the next ambulance," Colby told him, and Megan smiled at the other agent, glad he was being so patient with Charlie.
"No! I want to ride with him!" Charlie was insisting, but his eyes were unfocused, and Megan knew he was in no shape to be making any decisions, certainly not after what he had been through today. Not after what had happened. Megan swallowed hard, trying to fight back her own tears. The numbness was starting to fade but she fought to keep it in place for the time being.
She could only imagine how Charlie must have been feeling. After all that had happened, he had had to watch his brother take a bullet to protect him. No doubt Charlie was on overload. She couldn't imagine how he hadn't completely shut down yet.
"Charlie, they have to take Don as fast as possible, and they need as much room in the ambulance as they can get. You'll be there with him soon enough, but you have a bullet in your arm, and we have to take care of that first," she said soothingly, though she felt anything but calm.
"He's going to want to know where I am," Charlie said almost desperately.
"Then we'd better get you to the hospital as soon as possible," came a soft and kind voice from behind Charlie. Megan looked up to see it was the EMT that Charlie had pulled away from. She was young – maybe Charlie's age, and she was staring worriedly at the distraught mathematician.
What she said seemed to make sense to Charlie, because he turned to face her.
"We can put you in the ambulance right now Mr…" she trailed off, looking to Colby and Megan for help.
"Charlie," he responded before either of the agents could respond. "Charlie Eppes. And they just took my brother, and, oh God, I didn't save him after all," he stuttered, turning wide frightened eyes on Megan. "I did the calculations. I knew there was a huge probability that it wouldn't work, but I had to try. There was more probability that they would just kill us anyway since we knew who they were. But I couldn't let them kill Don. But it wasn't supposed to happen that way. I didn't figure the rest of it into the equation…" just as quickly as he had started talking, he stopped. "Oh God, why did he do it?" the last part was so quiet, and so full of anguish that Megan barely caught it, but when she did, she wanted to cry.
"Oh Charlie, you know why," she said softly, as the young genius began to sway. Colby caught his good arm. "Charlie, you did great. I know Don is so proud of you," she tried to assure him. Charlie just looked down and the EMT looked pointedly at them, obviously realizing they would be the only ones who could help her.
"Come on Charlie. Let's get you to the hospital," Colby insisted, clearly at a loss for what Charlie had been talking about, but the look he gave Megan told her clearly what he was imagining, and it wasn't pretty.
Charlie didn't fight them, and Megan stayed with him long enough to make sure he got into the ambulance. Colby offered to ride along when she insisted that she was going to stay to make sure David got the scene wrapped up and he promised to call her if he heard anything before she made it to the hospital.
Very quickly, as the ambulance was radioing in, the EMT, whose last name was O'Mara, told Megan that the bullet was still in Charlie's arm, but because it had lost most of its momentum passing through Don's shoulder, it was just under the surface and Charlie would be fine, barring any unforeseen complications.
Megan had felt relieved when she heard that. Even if, God forbid, Don didn't make it, he would be satisfied to know that Charlie would be all right, at least physically. Megan didn't know about mentally.
When the ambulance finally pulled away, it seemed eerily quiet to her, and she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and turned to look at the place that had been her prison for what seemed like forever, but had only been for less than two hours.
There was glass littering the floor, but the bodies of the two security guards had been marked out for the forensic guys. The man that had overpowered her, the one in the suit was also dead, lying in a pool of his own blood not far from the pole that had been Megan's personal prison. In one corner, the man with the duct tape and Skellet were cuffed and being prepared for transport. There in the middle of the room, near Don's blood, which looked strange on its own on the cold marble, was the woman that had done so much damage, but she was clearly dead.
Megan noted that the first shot had taken her in the shoulder, while the other had taken her in the back of the head. David was there, near her body, on the phone, no doubt reporting on the status of the operation.
She approached him as he hung up, and without a word, the two embraced and they hugged for a long time, standing in the middle of chaos.
Finally, he backed away, and she noted that his hands were covered in Don's blood, and there was blood on his shirt, but he had managed not to get it on her.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
She laughed a little, and she knew it sounded a bit hysterical. "No I'm not. Oh God David…" she said. They both were imagining Don pushing the woman, getting in the way of the bullet – watching him fall, watching him not get back up. Don always got back up. Just not this time.
Megan had hardly been able to believe her eyes when she'd seen him get up. She knew he'd been up to something, even figured out he might be trying to get to his keys. The fact that he had been able to unlock the cuffs at all was amazing, but she couldn't believe it when he'd gotten to his feet. Being a good profiler, and knowing Don so well, she knew she shouldn't have been that surprised. Charlie was his whole life, even if he didn't want to admit it. She was also well aware of what the body was capable of when fueled by adrenaline and fear. It was capable of doing unbelievable acts. Still, it seemed so unbelievable.
She could only hope it hadn't cost Don his life.
"You should go to the hospital and get checked out. I'll finish this up and go talk to Mr. Eppes," here, David blanched and Megan's heart felt like someone was squeezing it.
"No, let me do that. I'll go get him and take him to Grace Memorial, you finish up here and get to the hospital."
"Megan, you just went through a hostage situation," David began to argue, but she seized him by the wrist.
"David, you can't go see Mr. Eppes looking like this," she paused, forcing her breathing under control as she looked down at his hands. "Covered in Don's blood. You can't. Let me go. I promise I'm ok."
David looked down, silently regarding his own hands for a few seconds. "Ok," he finally relented. Megan nodded, then retrieved Don's keys from where they lay on the floor behind the pole where he'd been cuffed. She hoped she was contaminating the scene, but she would need to take Don's SUV. There was part of her that simply didn't care.
Megan still felt fairly numb for the whole twenty five minute ride to the Eppes house, her mind refusing to think of Don – her partner, her boss – her friend. Instead, she tired to imagine how she was going to tell Alan Eppes that both his sons had been in a hostage situation, both had been injured, and Don… Well, Don hadn't really been breathing the last time she'd seen him.
Mentally berating herself for thinking so negatively, she almost missed the turn onto the street where the house Charlie had bought from his father was. She was more than familiar with the location of the house, having been there many times. It was that familiarity, not just with the house, but with Alan Eppes, that would make this so much easier and so much harder.
She pulled into the driveway, surprised to see the car she thought belonged to Amita in the driveway. Megan was halfway up the walk when Alan appeared anxiously in the doorway, frowning when he saw Don's SUV but clearly noticing that Megan had been driving it – not Don. He held open the screen door to her.
"Megan, hello, what a pleasant surprise," he told her, and he sounded genuine. Alan Eppes was too much of a gentleman to demand answers immedielty, like why his son's partner had brought back his son's car, but neither of his sons, who were supposed to have been home already, together.
"Mr. Eppes!" she said as warmly as she could, her voice nearly sticking in her throat. "Can I come in?" she asked.
"Of course, of course," he said quickly, ushering her in, and she didn't miss him glance once more outside to make sure he hadn't missed something.
Once inside, Megan noticed that Alan was indeed not alone. Amita was there, sitting perched on one of the chairs, looking anxious, her face drawn and Megan wondered if the young woman somehow already knew. Megan thought it was strange that Amita was there, especially without either of the boys.
She was aware that Charlie and Amita were no longer even close to thinking about being a couple. Larry had told her that. Apparently, the two had finally settled on friends, which seemed to work better for both of them, and Charlie had shown interest in someone else, though it hadn't turned out to be overly serious. Amita however had recently seemed more interested in talking to Don, but Megan hadn't given it much thought before, and now wasn't the time.
If she'd been paying more attention, she might have noticed the family photo albums on the coffee table, that Alan had clearly been sharing with Amita, and in Amita's hands, clenched tightly, was Don's baby book.
All of this was missed by Megan because of the direness of the situation. When she was far enough into the room, she turned to face Alan, and found him right behind her, staring at her like Don did when he was trying to figure something out that he wasn't being told.
"This isn't just a friendly visit, is it?" Alan asked. "You brought Donnie's care back, but not Donnie. Or Charlie for that matter."
Megan tried to speak, but suddenly her throat was dry. "No, I'm afraid it isn't." Amita was on her feet now, the baby book in one hand. "There was a problem," Megan began, the words coming out haltingly. "A hostage situation," she said slowly, watching Alan's pallor fade visibly. "Both Charlie and Don were injured," she finally managed to get out in a strangled tone. She'd done this before – informed families that their loved ones were hurt or dead, and it was never easy, but this – this seemed impossible.
The look on Alan Eppes' face was enough to break her heart, so she rushed to ease his pain. "Charlie's going to be just fine." It wasn't the complete truth, but it was a start. "They've been taken to Grace Memorial, and I can take you there now," she said, and was about to continue on when Alan reached out to touch her hand.
"And Don?"
"I… I don't know."
Neither Megan nor Alan heard the baby book fall to the carpeted floor when Amita's fingers became nerveless.