A/N: Haha sorry guys, you were right; that cliffie was rude of me. Hence the super-fast new chapter. Thanks a million to my reviewers supernaturalsam (You caught me, I'm totally after your crown.), SC15, KennaC, Stork Hardy, Caranath (Sorry/Not sorry.), and max2013. Thank you, you're great!

"No!" Nancy didn't know whether the word came out as a whisper or a shout; the pounding of her heart was drowning out everything else. Without thought she vaulted out of her chair, only to be brought up short as Buck aimed his gun at her.

"Don't move."

It took her a moment to decipher what he meant. She became vaguely aware that the other patrons were panicking. The husband clutched his wife. The busboy buried his ashen face in his hands. The waitress had dissolved into sobs, choking out "This wasn't supposed to happen..." over and over. Why should she care? She didn't even know Frank.

Nancy looked at Buck, and then at Buck's partner, taking a slow step towards them. The room quieted, as though they were taking their cue from her... or perhaps it was just that her focus on Frank meant blocking out everything else. "I'm going over to my friend." she somehow managed to say. "If you want to stop me, you're going to have to shoot me too."

Buck looked like he might want to take her up on that offer, but his partner simply waved her over with his gun.

A few shaky steps took her to where Frank lay crumpled on his side, and she got to her knees beside him, hands hovering, unsure where to touch. Finally she reached out and felt the pulse in his neck; it was there, and strong, giving her the courage to explore further.

She slid her hand between his face and the floor, turning his head to see the injury. It looked gruesome, half his face coated with blood, but it was only a graze, a scalp wound. She let out a shaky breath and tried to roll him over, to move his head out of the pool of blood. Bracing her hand against his shoulder, the relieved breath caught in her throat as it came away sticky with blood.

Already knowing what she'd find, she rose up higher on her knees to peer over his shoulder. A dark stain blossomed in the middle of his back, oozing slowly but steadily towards the floor. She plucked the sweater carefully between her fingers and pulled it back to look at the wound, welling with crimson blood. An entry hole, but no exit. This was bad. Very bad.

She acknowledged the fact and moved on, forcing her mind into emergency medical training mode.

She hardly noticed the stares of the onlookers as she reached up to grab the cloth napkins off a nearby table, wiping the blood from his face before wadding them up to push under his head as a pillow. Then she grabbed the tablecloth, yanking it to the ground and sending silverware, candles, and menus clattering to the floor. Twisting it into a long makeshift bandage, she gingerly pressed the center of it to the source of the blood on his back.

"Ow..." Frank came out of it with a pained groan.

"Sorry, sorry!" Nancy whispered, torn between causing him pain and fixing the bandage. She could feel him beginning to shiver under her hands, and she fought to erase the panicked edge from her voice. Keep it light. Don't scare him. "I'm sorry. Can you hold still for one more minute?"

"Nancy?"

"Mm-hm. What's up, Frank?" This was one of those situations where you were supposed to keep the person talking, wasn't it? Anyway, anything was better than those few moments of dead silence between the shots and when she'd felt his pulse beating against her fingers.

The corner of his mouth twitched at that. "Think I got shot."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yeah," she said, "A little bit..."

"How bad?"

She did the only thing a friend could do in this situation: lie. "It's not bad, you're going to be fine. One's just a little graze and the other one got you in the shoulder, kind of." She pulled the tablecloth around under his body while she talked, hoping the conversation would help to distract him. Then she tied the ends in front of his chest, as tightly as she dared.

"Kind of?" he repeated, hissing in pain at the tightening of the bandage.

"Sorry, sorry." she apologized again. He was shaking badly now, and she had to fight the instinct to pull him into her arms and warm him up. The responsibility for his life had somehow fallen right into her hands, and nothing scared her more than knowing she wasn't going to be enough. "Hey Frank? Can you hold this right here for me?"

He groaned again, but closed his hand around the napkin she had pressed to his head anyway. "Okay... For you."

"Always a gentleman." she whispered teasingly, giving his hand a quick squeeze. "You relax for a minute, I'll be right back."

"...'Kay."

She got to her feet, wiping her bloody hands on her pencil skirt, and marched back to Buck and his partner. "You need to get my friend some help." She was talking mostly to the partner, instinctively knowing that Buck wasn't a man who would be brought around by a rational argument.

"Fat chance, Red. Besides, I thought you said he was gonna be fine." Buck scoffed.

Nancy ignored him. "Your partner shot my friend in the back. Let me call an ambulance. It's not murder yet." she said in a hushed, even voice.

"No ambulance." said the partner. His tone indicated that he was impressed by her actions—and not so by Buck's—but that he had a job to do and he wasn't willing to let a few snags land him in prison now. "Get him out of here. You got a back office or something?" he asked the tearful waitress.

Theresa nodded. "There's a couch in it, you can put him there."

"But—" Nancy protested.

"Get him out." said the partner, the final word on the matter.

"Unless you want we should just put him out of his misery, right, Sal?" Buck sneered, waving the pistol to everyone's alarm.

Nancy speared him with an icy glance as she moved back to Frank. Theresa was holding open the back door, and Nancy looked hopelessly at Frank, trying to figure out how she could move him without hurting him, even if she had the strength to lift him. Swallowing hard, she crouched down and pulled his good arm around her shoulder.

"We going somewhere, Nan?" Frank asked as she tried to hoist him to his feet.

"Yeah, somewhere you can lie down." she told him. He was trying to move, she could tell, but the shock and blood loss were affecting him and his body was being less than cooperative.

"I thought I was lying down." he said, hissing in another pained breath.

"Would I leave you to languish on a tile floor, Hardy?"

"You might have to." he gritted out. His eyes were brighter now, and he seemed more lucid, which meant the shock was starting to wear off. Unfortunately, it also meant he'd be feeling the pain much more acutely.

"No," she grunted. Buck stepped forward, to help or harm she didn't know, and she pointed a halting finger at him. "Don't touch him."

The married man untangled his hands from his wife's and stood up, drawing everyone's attention. "Nancy. It's Nancy, right?" He kept his eyes fixed on her, only briefly letting them flicker to Buck and Sal.

Nancy nodded.

"If you hang onto his shoulders and let me take his legs, we should be able to get him in there." said the man.

The fact of the matter was that she and Frank needed help. It wouldn't be the first time they'd gotten by on the kindness of strangers. "Okay. Thank you."

Frank did his part by not saying a word as Nancy and her new friend manhandled him down a short hallway and into the back office, finally managing to settle him on the threadbare couch. At Sal's instruction, Buck followed them into the tiny room and ripped the phone jack out of the wall. The window faced into a back alley and was tiny—too small for even a child to fit through. Whatever else may be the case, they weren't getting out from here.

The stranger supported Frank's shoulders as Nancy readjusted the bandage, trying to put as much pressure on the wound as possible. By the time they got him laid out in any sort of comfortable position, Frank's face was white as a sheet and covered with sweat from the strain. Nancy tried to wipe it away as best she could with the bloodstained napkin. She offered her other hand to the man who'd helped her carry Frank before belatedly realizing she was still rather bloodstained herself. "Thank you... sir." She blushed, realizing she'd forgotten to ask his name.

"Joseph." the man said, shaking her hand anyway. "Joseph Hawk."

"Joseph." Nancy said. Despite the circumstance she couldn't help but smile at the coincidence.

"Joe." Frank repeated, with a rasping laugh that turned into a cough.

Then Theresa was there, offering them clean linens and a pitcher of water with shaking hands. Nancy wet a napkin and ran it lightly over Frank's face while Joseph draped a couple of tablecloths over him like blankets, tucking in his feet.

"...Ask Theresa..."

Frank tried to sit up, but Nancy held him down gently. "What do you need, Frank? I'll get it."

"Ask her... what was supposed to happen."

Theresa had been standing helplessly in the corner, but at Frank's words she paled and started backing away. Automatically, Nancy leaped up and grabbed her wrist, tugging her back into the room. "Hold on there." Suddenly she recalled what Frank was talking about. "Right after he was shot, you kept saying 'this wasn't supposed to happen.' What wasn't?" Of course, the real question was the one Frank had already asked. "What was supposed to happen, Theresa?"

"Nobody else was supposed to get hurt." Theresa said miserably. "I'm sorry!"

Theresa wasn't just falling apart in the face of a dangerous situation; she was actually taking some kind of responsibility for the mess. "Nobody else was supposed to get hurt?" Nancy repeated slowly, anger beginning to tighten her jaw. Sal and Buck had both brought guns to the restaurant, had sat down and eaten a full meal, as if they were lying in wait...

"A hit." Frank said, reaching the conclusion at the same time as Nancy.

She ran a gentle hand through his sweaty hair, but the look she gave Theresa was anything but gentle. "Who's the target?"

Theresa's eyes filled with tears again. "I can't. I can't tell you, I—"

"Who?!" Nancy demanded, but Theresa only shook her head.

"Theresa..." Frank said softly. "This isn't a simple hit and run anymore. Those guys..." He was having a hard time catching his breath, and Nancy tried to motion for him to relax, but he kept on. "They blew it when they alerted everyone in the restaurant. We've all... seen them, we all know them now... They're..."

"They're not just going to let us go when this is over." Nancy finished for him.

"Right." Frank closed his eyes in relief that the thought was out.

Theresa looked at his pale face miserably and said, "It's Vic Leonetti."

Nancy's heart sank. She wasn't too familiar with the New York mafia families, but dollars to donuts Leonetti was some kind of crime boss. "And you told those guys when he'd be here."

"They can be very persuasive!" Theresa protested. "Vic is a big up-and-comer on the scene, and there are certain people who don't like that. They said, if I didn't help them, my family would be in danger. They said they could arrange for my brother to have an 'accident'. He's just a kid!"

Nancy's grip on Theresa's wrist loosened. "How much time do we have? What time is he coming?"

"Ten o'clock."

The grandfather clock in the corner said 9:35. They had less than thirty minutes to make a plan, or they were going to be stuck in the middle of a mob hit.