Better Late Than Never: Chapter 5
Walker had just gotten home when his cell phone began beeping rapidly. He grabbed it off his belt and flipped it open to reveal a text message from the 911 call center. He read it aloud.
"Ranger Gage. Armed Robbery. Golden Moon Restaurant. 10:13 p.m." He looked at his watch. The call had come in ten minutes before and been routed to Walker through a new system known as "TLIN" or "T-Line", an acronym for Team Leader Incident Notification. Whenever a Ranger called in to 911, the information was automatically sent to the Ranger's team leader via T-Line.
"Alex, I'm sorry. I have to leave again," he called up the stairs to his wife, who had gone up to quiet their infant daughter's fussy cries. "Gage called in an armed robbery at a restaurant near Sydney's place. I'm going to check it out. I'll be back as soon as I can. Kiss the baby for me," he called just before running down the front porch steps to his truck.
Alex stood at the top of the stairs, staring at the space just inside the front door that her husband had so briefly occupied and so hastily vacated. While she hoped Gage was OK, she couldn't help feeling more than a little frustrated. Walker had called on his way home and told her that Sydney and Gage's relationship had changed significantly this evening, but refused to provide details over the phone. Now what was she supposed to do, use her imagination?
----
Sydney was starting to get worried. It was taking Gage an unusually long time to collect their standard order from Golden Moon: moo shoo pork and one egg roll for her and spicy beef with broccoli and three egg rolls for him. They'd ordered the same meal so many times that whenever they called to order dinner, Mr. Chen or his niece would just say, "The usual?" and have it bagged and ready to go in less than the ten-minute drive time from Sydney's place to the restaurant.
Thirty minutes had passed since Gage called. Sydney had already arrived at her house, shucked the shoes that she was sorry she let the saleswoman talk her into, and set the table for two, complete with white taper candles in the carved wooden candlesticks Gage gave her last Christmas. She decided to freshen her lipstick, brush out her hair and give her perfume one last spritz. Where was he?
She was looking through her CD collection, searching for some soft dinner music, when she caught the sound of sirens in the distance. Her intuition was tickling at her conscious mind, nudging her past worry, pushing her toward panic when her cell phone rang.
"It's about time!" she said without looking at the caller ID.
"Sydney, it's Walker."
She recognized the tone in his voice and her knees gave out.
"How is he?" she managed to say before the first sob broke from her throat.
----
Twenty minutes later, she was riding in Walker's truck toward St. Matthew's Hospital. They'd have left five minutes sooner, but Walker insisted that she change out of the copper velvet dress and into something comfortable enough for an all-night vigil. She had wanted to argue with him, to insist on fulfilling Gage's wish to see her in the dress again, but she knew Walker wouldn't budge and she couldn't waste time getting to Gage.
So now, she sat in the passenger seat of the truck, dressed in sweat pants and one of Gage's old sweatshirts, staring out into the night, unable to get Juliet's voice out of her mind. 'Have a wonderful life with that handsome partner of yours.'
"Dear God, I'll take any kind of life with him, just please let him be all right," she prayed aloud.
Walker reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. He had told her as much as he knew about what happened at the Golden Moon. Gage had come upon the robbery in progress after Mr. Chen had been shot and his niece, Mai Lee, had been assaulted by one of the three masked men. After calling 911 to report the incident and request an ambulance and backup, he had been struck from behind by one of the assailants and knocked unconscious. While he was down, the robbers had taken his gun and his cell phone. Walker guessed that the sound of the emergency vehicles approaching had caused the criminals to flee the scene before they could do any more harm.
"Did he ever regain consciousness?" Sydney asked, forcing herself to think like a Ranger instead of like a distraught girlfriend.
"No, not before they got him in the ambulance, but he may be awake by now," he said, trying to sound more hopeful than he felt. "You know how hard his head is."
Sydney smiled in spite of herself. "How are Mr. Chen and Mai Lee doing? Were they able to give descriptions of their attackers?"
"Only that there were three of them and they wore masks. They're both in pretty bad shape, Sydney. Mr. Chen lost a lot of blood and Mai Lee was raped and beaten. They were taken to St. Matthew's as well, so we can check on them after we see about Gage."
As they pulled up to the hospital's emergency room entrance, Sydney didn't wait for the truck to come to a complete stop before jumping out and running through the sliding doors, slamming headlong into Trivette who had arrived a moment earlier with Erika.
"Oh, Jimmy, I'm sorry," Sydney said as she righted herself and kept jogging toward the admissions desk.
"It's OK. Just go," he called, understanding her hurry.
As he watched her run, her hair flying behind her, he felt a lump rising in his throat and bitter tears filling his eyes.
"It's just not fair," he said, gritting his teeth and swallowing hard. "They are so happy, finally, and now this, tonight of all nights. It's not fair."
Erika reached up and hugged him. "I know, honey. I know," she said, soothingly. She remembered her own sleepless nights sitting at Jimmy's bedside while he recovered from nearly being blown to bits by a car bomb planted by Emil Lavocat. She knew what it felt like to wonder if the job her man loved would cost them their future. Her heart went out to Sydney and she said a silent prayer for Gage.
Sydney skidded to a stop in front of the admissions desk just as a familiar face came through the doors that led to the ER's treatment rooms.
"Dr. Clark!" Sydney shouted as she recognized the doctor who had treated Gage when he lost his hearing. "Have you seen Gage? Where is he? Can I see him?"
"Yes, I've seen him and no, you can't see him just yet," Dr. Clark said, taking Sydney by the arm and leading her to a chair in the waiting area across from the desk. "Please, sit down."
"I can't sit down, doctor. I need to see Gage," she insisted.
"He's still unconscious, Ranger Cooke. He took a severe blow to the back of his head, which caused a concussion, but fortunately didn't fracture his skull. His pupils are reacting normally, so it's unlikely that there is any bleeding in his brain, but we won't know the full extent of any damage until he wakes up."
Sydney felt like she was on a roller coaster, one second climbing hopefully toward the sky and the next plunging earthward hanging on for dear life. Dr. Clark's words bumped around in her head, their mixed meanings bringing more confusion than comfort. Concussion. Not fractured. No bleeding in the brain. Full extent of the damage. Brain damage?
Finally, the weight of his words was too much and she had to either sit down or fall down. She collapsed into the chair just as Trivette, Erika and Walker joined her.
"I have to go back in with Ranger Gage now," Dr. Clark said, "but I'll be back as soon as I know more."
"Thank you, doctor," Walker said, shaking his hand. Turning to Sydney he said, "Listen to me, Sydney, don't you lose faith now. Gage has been through worse than this and come out of it just fine."
"Walker's right," Trivette added, squeezing Sydney's shoulder. "I've never met a more hard-headed Ranger than Gage. He'll be OK, you'll see."
She knew her friends meant well; their support meant a lot to her, but what she needed most was to see Gage, to touch him, to tell him she loved him.
Just then Alex came in carrying Angela in her car seat. Handing the baby to Walker, Alex carefully knelt down and put her arms around her friend.
Alex's quiet hug was Sydney's undoing. "Oh, Alex, I love him so much. I can't lose him," she sobbed, realizing that she didn't have to be strong in front of her Ranger family.
"You aren't going to lose him, Sydney. That man loves you more than anything and, believe me, he's not going anywhere," Alex said, looking her friend straight in the eye.
"I know you're right. I just wish they'd let me see him," she cried.
"Excuse me, are you all here for Ranger Francis Gage?" asked a petite redhead with green eyes and a pleasant smile. She was holding a clipboard full of forms.
Sydney was out of her chair in a flash at the sound of Gage's name, but Walker spoke first.
"Yes, we are," he replied, stepping in front of Sydney to act as spokesperson for the group. He knew she needed to concentrate on Gage, not some stack of paperwork.
"We'll need some information for Ranger Gage's records. Are any of you his next of kin?" the young woman asked. Walker took the clipboard from her.
"Not exactly. I'm his boss and Ranger Cooke is his partner," he said, nodding toward Sydney. "Between us we can probably answer most of the questions."
The phrase 'next of kin' finally penetrated Sydney's consciousness.
"Julie! Oh, no, somebody needs to call Julie!" she said, reaching for her cell phone.
This time it was Alex who spoke up. "Sydney, maybe we should wait until we get another report from Dr. Clark. It's late, and all we have right now are questions. She's hours away and she'll just worry all the way here if we call her now."
"OK, but if we don't hear anything in the next half hour, I'm calling her anyway, and if we have to get her here in a hurry, we put her on a chopper. Agreed?" she said, looking straight at Walker. She didn't even want to think about why Julie might need to hurry to Dallas from Houston, but she wanted that base covered, just in case.
"Agreed," he said. Now that Sydney seemed to be in full take-charge mode, she was a force to be reckoned with and Walker wasn't about to stand in her way. Besides, there was nothing he wouldn't do for Gage. The younger Ranger had saved Walker's butt more times than he could count and he didn't want to lose him any more than Sydney did.
The rest of the group passed the next twenty minutes in relative silence as Walker and Sydney turned their attention to the hospital forms. They were able to fill out most of the information from memory, but had to ask Trivette to call headquarters to find out Gage's insurance information. When they were finished, Walker returned the forms to the young woman at the desk.
"I do hope everything turns out all right," she said.
"Thanks. Me, too," he replied.
A few minutes later, Dr. Clark returned to the waiting room. Five eager faces turned to look at him as he approached, the look on his face unreadable.
"Ranger Gage is awake and talking," Dr. Clark said, pausing before he delivered the rest of the news. Sydney sat on the edge of her chair, ready to leap up in happy celebration, but Walker spoke before she could react.
"Why do I think I hear a 'but' coming, doctor?" Walker asked.
"I'm sorry to say you're right, Ranger Walker. The news isn't all good."
"What's wrong?" Sydney demanded.
"Physically, he is fine, except for a Texas-sized headache. The problem is his memory. He has no recollection of anything that happened tonight before he woke up here a little while ago. He couldn't recount a single detail of the incident at the restaurant. Dr. Peter Ainsley, our chief of neurology, is with him now trying to determine the extent of his memory loss."
"Isn't it normal for people with head trauma to have some short-term memory loss?" Trivette asked.
"Yes, but that is usually limited to the incident that caused the injury, like a car accident victim not remembering the impact. Ranger Gage doesn't remember anything from the previous twenty-four hours."
Sydney felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. The kick in the head came with Dr. Clark's next statement.
"In fact, when he woke up, he was delighted that he could hear again. He is convinced that he was waking up from the surgery to graft his eardrums."
"What? That was six months ago! You mean he's lost half a year of memories?" Sydney cried. "How is that possible? Will it come back? Is it permanent?"
"I'd rather let Dr. Ainsley give you the details when he's finished examining Ranger Gage," Dr. Clark hedged, trying not to look Sydney in the eye.
"No, Dr. Clark. You were always straight with Gage and me about his hearing loss. Don't start coddling me now!" she spat, tears spilling down her cheeks, her fists clenched at her sides.
"The reality is, Ranger Cooke, this kind of amnesia is usually permanent. There's a very good chance those memories will never return in their entirety, if they return at all."
All the anger washed out of her along with most of the color in her face. In their place were a vast emptiness and a pale, blank stare. Alex and Erika stepped quickly to her side and guided her to the waiting room's couch. She didn't even realize they were with her. All she knew was that the brightest day of her life had suddenly become the darkest.
End Chapter 5.