A/N: I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to update. I appreciate everyone hanging in there though! This chapter is a little short, but I thought you would appreciate having a little something now rather than waiting too much longer. I hope so. :-)

There appeared to be no place on Tom's body that could be touched without causing pain, but Doug reached out and took the fingers of Tom's left hand and held them gently, rubbing his thumb over the tops of them. A moment later, he felt the fingers closing tightly around his own.

Tom kept his grip on Doug's fingers until the ambulance finally pulled up to the hospital. The paramedics quickly pulled the stretcher out, leaving Doug to hop out after it and follow them through the doors of the Emergency entrance.

The lights were bright, so bright, too bright. They were moving by quickly overhead as Tom stared up. Faces appeared and left just as quickly. Words floated around him in a fog.

The stretcher was pushed through the swinging doors of a trauma room as the paramedics shouted out information about their patient. The ER team quickly went to work, surrounding the injured man and transferring him effortlessly to the examination table. Nurses began to touch him all over, attaching monitors and wires to him and sticking needles in various places, and someone removed his shoes and began cutting away his jeans.

Tom was beginning to get more agitated as the activity around him increased. He was still confused, unsure of where he was and why, but he knew he was uncomfortable with all of the touching.

"Heart rate's rising!" shouted one of the nurses.

Tom felt the panic rising and tried to pull away from the prodding hands. They gently but firmly held him in place, causing him to resist harder. In a matter of seconds he was thrashing and trying to get away from everyone, crying out weakly in fear, "No, no, no…"

"It's okay, hon'," one nurse tried to soothe him as the doctor in charge, Phillip Marcus, ordered a sedative to be injected. The nurse stood over Hanson, her cool hand on his forehead, trying to keep him calm as the drugs began to take effect. Within minutes he was unconscious, his heart rate returning closer to normal.

Dr. Marcus ordered a portable x-ray and an ultrasound to be done in the trauma room and a full CT scan to be done as soon as possible after that. Nurses were cleaning the wounds on his face and wrists, but everything came to a halt when his jeans were finished being cut and were pulled away from his body.

"Dr. Marcus," said a nurse.

The doctor turned to look at the nurse, and his eyes fell upon the sight that had them all motionless. Their patient's underwear and upper thighs were covered with dried blood. There was another substance mixed in and crusted on the shorts as well, and Marcus was almost certain what it would turn out to be. He sighed. "Let's get those off of him. Be careful, and get them bagged for the CSIs."

A nurse carefully snipped the shorts up both sides and removed them, placing them into a plastic bag. Underneath them they saw more blood and semen on the young man's body.

The mood in the room was somber. The doctor spoke again. "Swab everything for evidence, then let's get him turned over. Somebody get me an SAE kit."

Captain Fuller and Chief Owens pulled into the driveway of a small house with a well-kept lawn. Fuller sighed and looked at Owens and nodded. The two men got out of the car and headed for the front door. This was a part of his job that Fuller dreaded, but he knew the best way to do it was to just do it…be direct and honest, although most family members seemed to already know what he was going to say before he said it.

Margaret Hanson was no exception. She opened the door immediately after the first ring of the doorbell. She recognized the captain but not the man with him, and she knew it was not good news.

"Mrs. Hanson," Fuller greeted her. "This is Chief Owens. We…"

"Is he dead?" she interrupted while keeping her eyes locked on Fuller's.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "But…we need to get to the hospital."

Without another word, she retrieved her purse and keys from a table near the door and exited the house, locking the door behind her. She sat on the passenger side of her car while Fuller drove and Chief Owens followed in his car. Margaret was quiet, lost in thought. This was not the first time she had been through this. Her mind sped backward to years before when officers had come to her door bringing the news that her husband was dead.

When her son had decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a police officer, she had prayed that she would never again have officers come to her door like that. She had prayed every day since, but today it had happened again.

"What happened?" she finally asked, breaking the silence.

"We aren't really sure yet," Fuller answered. "We found him in a park. He was tied up…unconscious…looked like he'd been beat up pretty badly."

Margaret tried to keep her composure, but Fuller's words brought to her mind images and implications that could not be ignored. She blinked back the tears as she continued to stare straight ahead. She tried not to think of what her son might have suffered through, knowing that he would need her to be strong for him.

Doug sat alone in one of the waiting areas in the ER. There were other officers at the hospital, concerned about Hanson and angry over the attack on one of their own. But Doug could no longer stand all of the activity…the questions…and already the press was starting to hang around looking for details to publish.

Try as he might, he could not get the images of his broken and bloodied partner out of his mind. And he couldn't help wondering how it had happened. Had Tom even gotten into his apartment that night or had they grabbed him on the street? If it was the latter, then it must have been right after Doug dropped him off. If he had checked his rear view mirror, would he have seen them? If he had waited until Tom had gone inside, would it still have happened?

"Doug!!"

Captain Fuller's booming voice startled him back to the present. He looked up to see the captain standing in front of him and noticed that Hanson's mom had arrived as well and was sitting in the chair across from him talking to Detective Michaels. Chief Owens was out in the hallway trying to appease the reporters who were still clamoring for more information.

"Sorry," Doug sheepishly answered. "I was just…thinking. What'd you say?"

"I asked you if you've heard anything. How's he doing?"

Doug shook his head and looked down at his hands as he clasped and unclasped them nervously. "Nah…nothing yet. He's still in there." He gestured with his head across the hall toward the doors marked Trauma Room 3.

Fuller nodded his head and sat down next to Doug to wait. It was only a few minutes, however, before the trauma room doors opened and medical personnel bustled out. Everyone in the waiting area stood up anxiously, trying to see what was happening, but the group of nurses and doctors were gone as quickly as they had come, pushing among them a prone body on a stretcher. One doctor, however, approached them and asked, "Tom Hanson's family?"

Margaret stepped forward and announced, "I'm his mother. How is he?"

"Mrs. Hanson, I'm Dr. Marcus. I treated your son when he was brought in." He paused and looked around the now crowded room. "If you'll step over here, there's a private room where we can talk."

"No, I'm fine here. Tell me how my son is," she replied anxiously.

Dr. Marcus looked around the room. "I really think it's better if we have some privacy."

Margaret's fear was increasing at the doctor's avoidance of her question. "All right," she conceded, her voice flat as she stared at the doctor. "Doug…Captain Fuller…will you come with us please?"

Doug and the captain looked at each other, and Adam answered, "Of course."

The doctor led them to a small room, sparse in decoration but housing several comfortable looking chairs in close proximity to each other. Dr. Marcus took a seat opposite the others and inquired, "Are you gentlemen family as well?"

"Dr. Marcus," Fuller explained, "Tom is a police officer. I'm his supervisor, Adam Fuller, and this is his partner, Doug Penhall."

The doctor nodded at them and then asked, "Will you be doing the investigation of this crime?"

"Detective Mark Michaels will be the lead on the case, but we'll assist as much as we can along with the lead CSI, Angie Hicks."

"Good…good," Marcus said. "We have quite a lot of evidence to turn over to her."

"Excuse me!" Margaret interjected loudly, her voice breaking. "I would like to know what's going on with my son and I want to know now!"

The three men looked at her sympathetically as she fought to keep her composure. "Of course," the doctor answered. He took a deep breath before continuing. "We've sent him up to surgery. The ultrasound showed some internal bleeding, and he was in shock. It's possibly a ruptured spleen or a liver laceration."

The three looked at the doctor, waiting, knowing there was more to come.

"He's also got a severe concussion, a hairline fracture of the skull, a broken nose and several other facial cuts and abrasions. There are three broken ribs and two cracked, and both wrists were cut deeply. There's a possibility of nerve damage, but we can't tell for sure yet."

Doug and Fuller both felt their anger rising with each word the doctor spoke. Their friend had suffered immensely at the hands of another, and they were clueless as to what to do next. They were anxious to get to the "business" side of this case, but the personal side was taking its toll on them.

Tom's mother was taking it even worse. Hearing her son's injuries detailed one by one was like having a knife stabbed into her heart over and over again. She didn't know how long she could stand to listen to the doctor before she would break down and lose it altogether. But she was about to find out.

Dr. Marcus sighed heavily. "And…" he said, "we found evidence that…he'd been…sexually assaulted as well."

More to come soon! In the meantime, give me a little encouragement. :-D