AN: Thanks for the reviews, I appreciate them a lot.

Also, sorry for the dark tone this story's getting. I promise it will pick up a bit before the end of the story… Probably.

Can't give too much away, though.

Enjoy…

"You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face"

Ian Fleming

Chapter 5

"No, wait!" Dr. Cox held out a hand for the warming blanket as the ambulance bounced and tore across the highway and through the snow back towards Sacred Heart hospital. The medic looked at him, confused.

"He is severely hypothermic ! We need to get his core temperature to rise!"

"His hypothermia may be the only thing protecting him right now!" Dr. Cox yelled above the wailing of the sirens, holding a hand on the blanket. "Rising his core body temperature will induce the blood flow, causing him to go into shock. Hell, he already lost enough blood as it is. His hypothermia is causing a lower demand of oxygen from his body, he might get hypoxic if we warm him because the demand will rise. I think we need to keep his body temperature at a controlled low level."

"We're not equipped to induce a therapeutic hypothermia."

"Well he already is hypothermic so shut the fucking radiator off then, hell, I don't care! Wait till we're at the hospital."

"He has a severe case of tachycardia, not rising his core body temperature will only induce this problem, making him go into cardiac arrest!" The medic pointed out and Cox growled.

"Unfortunately, shock would pose the same problem! This is our best option." He looked down at JD. His skin has sickly blue tone to it, an IV snaked out of both of his arms, they had immediately started blood transfusion. One of JD's hands was clenched into a fist, and when Dr. Cox pried it open he found the thing that JD was keeping such a death grip on was his pager.

It had been his last lifeline and it had saved him. Would save him. Dr. Cox could only imagine what had happened to JD.

When he had first found the kid, alone in the middle of nowhere, covered in blood and lying in the snow, he hadn't believed his eyes for several moments. JD had muttered something at him, obviously delirious and slipped into unconsciousness when he had approached. Had he had not said something, Dr. Cox would have thought him dead for sure.

He had already called for an ambulance when he had still been in the car on his way over; he could make sense of JD's page that someone or other had been shot although thanks to the unclear wording and horrible spelling he had not realised it had been JD himself.

He had checked for a pulse, and found a weak and rapid one, fluttering fast under his fingers.

He had seen the makeshift bandage, and checked the wound, whistling between his teeth when he saw the damage, trying to calm his panic. He had taken the kid carefully into his arms, extremely worried when this elicited not a single response from newbie, and taken him to the car.

He had started up the car, noting again how with every bounce or bump newbie gave not even a single moan. Finally he had gone back up the highway, keeping a weary eye on his unconscious passenger as he went ahead to meet the ambulance. He had stopped along the road when he saw the flashing lights in the distance and flagged them over while he got JD out of the car again, but then he had noticed that the younger doctor's breathing was almost completely non-existent.

A sharp turn made Dr. Cox snap back to the here and now as he saw one of the paramedics cutting away JD's scrubs and keeping pressure on his gunshot wound while the other held the oxygen mask in place. They were back in the city now, and not far away from the hospital.

"Hang in there, Newbie." He muttered, closing the cold and lifeless hand around the pager again. Unnoticed, in his own pocket, his cell phone went off but he did not notice it above the wailing of the siren.

---

"He's not picking up." Carla sighed and placed the receiver back on the hook. She hugged herself and frowned, looking worried. Elliot, Turk and she were standing around the Nurses' station all trying to hide their worry. Turk failed, miserably.

"I should have never thrown away that walkie-talkie watch!" He moaned, burying his face in his arms on the counter. Elliot and Carla looked him, briefly wondering what he was talking about.

"We could call the police…" Elliot voiced, looking doubtful at her own suggestion.

"And tell them what, exactly? JD's been missing only for a few hours, they won't come just because we tell them 'he looked worried' on the security cameras. They won't do anything about missing persons until it's been at least a day…" Carla sighed and started pacing.

"Found him yet?" Came a voice from behind. She looked up and saw the janitor leaning on a mop and looking much too happy for her liking. She noticed he was sporting a scarf, red with little blue penguins on it, which she thought was odd. She slowly shook her head.

"No…"

"Hey!" The sudden exclamation alarmed her as she saw Turk scrambling up into a standing position. He strode over to the janitor and grabbed the scarf. "This is JD's!"

"Says who? Don't see his name on it." The janitor said smartly, pulling the scarf back from Turk and flinging it across his shoulder. Turk squinted his eyes, looking angry.

"I found it fair and square, finder's keepers, eh?"

"And where, may I ask, did you find it?" Carla asked sternly, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at the janitor.

"Oh, just lying around in the locker room…"

"Where in the locker room?"

"Well, you know, in a locker." The janitor said, waving his hand dismissively. Carla sighed and rolled her eyes. Elliot blinked and frowned.

"Janitor… You really surprise me, you can't just take people's stuff like that! Don't you remember that lost and found box? Here, give it to me and I will return it." She said, sounding surprised by the Janitor's behaviour. She held out a hand and the janitor groaned; he had forgotten about her. With a glare at Turk, he slowly and deliberately unwrapped the scarf from his neck and offered it to Elliot.

"Here you go, miss." He said and turned around to go and finish whatever mopping job he had been busy with. At least he still had Scooter's… well, scooter keys. He grinned.

Elliot wrapped the scarf around her neck and buried her face in it, smiling.

"Hmm, snugly." She muttered.

Now the distraction was over, Turk looked back sadly at the scarf and Elliot. The scarf was there to remind him of JD and how his vanilla bear was probably out there in the freezing cold without it. Carla saw his look and reached out to him in an effort to comfort him.

"Baby…"

Just then Turk's pager went off and he jumped in surprise and looked down. He grimaced and shrugged with his shoulder apologetically.

"Sorry, Baby, emergency surgery, they're just bringing the patient in. I gotta go." And with that, he took off down the hallway. Carla and Elliot watched him go and then looked at each other.

"What are we going to do now?"

"I'll try phoning Dr. Cox again…" Carla said glumly.

---

"Come on…" The heart monitor incessant whine filled the cabin. One. Two. Three. He let go of the pump. The violent zap of the defibrillator.

"Come on!" Dr. Cox yelled, ready to tear his hair out. Behind him the doors of the ambulance were flung open as they arrived at the hospital.

"I've got a pulse!" The paramedic screamed, letting go of the defibrillator. "It's barely there…" Strong hands came from behind, taking the bed out of the ambulance. Holding the IV, the paramedic jumped off the ambulance behind the other staff and ran with the gurney. Dr. Cox let out a shaking breathe, filled with relief, as he also followed them, running to catch up.

"We need to get him to surgery immediately, is everything prepped?" He heard someone say, he looked down at newbie as he ran. They were placing a ventilator, JD's face obscured by the mask and the machine as they wheeled him to the OR. The closed eyes, the messy hair, the sickly pale skin. The gurney flew through the OR doors and Dr. Cox slowly came to a halt, staring at the doors as they closed behind them.

He stood there, seconds passing. Then his eyes slowly shifted down to his hands, noticing the blood covering them. Suddenly his head snapped back up and he looked purposefully down the hall. He started walking.

He passed several doctors and nurses on the way, ignoring their startled looks when they saw him stride by. Finally, he arrived at the nurses station and saw those who he had been looking for. Carla and Elliot had their backs to them. Carla had the phone to her ear.

Dr. Cox slowed. How was he going to tell them? They didn't know anything yet. Maybe it was better if-

Suddenly his cell phone went off. Carla and Elliot looked behind them, startled at the noise. They looked even more alarmed when they saw him.

"Dr. Cox!" Carla said, surprised. "I thought-"

Elliot cut her off; "Oh my god! Whose blood is that? What happened—are you hurt?" The words tumbled out her mouth like a waterfall and Dr. Cox grimaced.

Nice move, there, coming back in his normal clothes, covered in blood and looking crazy eyed. He bet his hair was standing up because he had been pulling it so much back in the ambulance.

Carla saw his look and froze. Slowly, she put the phone down. In his pocket, Dr. Cox's cell phone stopped ringing.

"Where is JD?" The question was calm, but he could hear the urgency in it. Silence followed it and he noted they were waiting for him to break it.

"He-" Dr. Cox faltered. He sighed, rubbing his neck awkwardly. "He was shot."

Carla eyes widened and Elliot gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. "It wasn't- I- He was – " He hated their worried faces, wanted to take the worry away. "It isn't really that bad a injury, but he was out there for a long time and-". He failed.

"…he lost a lot of blood" He finished slowly. Carla and Elliot stood, frozen.

Then, very slowly, Carla took in a breathe. "Where is he?" She asked, her voice stern but wavering ever so slightly.

"In the ER, we just brought him in. I don't know…" He let the sentence die out. What else was their to say? Newbie had gone into cardiac arrest. It could go any which way now, he had no way of knowing.

A soft sob escaped Elliot's lips and he decided there and then not to tell them that JD's heart had stopped. Ever.

"Where's….Where's that husband of yours, Carla?" He couldn't make himself use any of the stupid nicknames he had for that black surgeon.

The question had an effect he had not been expecting. Carla en Elliot looked at each other in shock.

"No…" Carla whispered and then gave Dr. Cox an alarmed look. "He was paged! Emergency surgery… You don't think?"

A weight fell on Dr. Cox. Good god, no. Without warning, without any idea what to expect. Ghandi would freak, would freeze up!

---

"Aortic clamp."

Turk held out his hand and received the instrument as he worked to stop the bleeding. This guy was pretty banged up. He looked over to the heart monitor and grimaced behind his surgical mask.

He had to block off this artery quickly now. He worked feverishly, his hands a blur of different instruments as time passed. He wasn't an emergency surgeon, he wasn't really used to dealing with cases like this. But it just so happened he was on call and that one emergency surgeon was busy with another surgery and the other on call surgeon was stuck in the snow. Just his luck.

Suddenly the heart monitor beeped.

"Doctor!" The surgical assistant looked at him alarm as the patient's vitals plummeted.

No…Had he nicked something? Turk looked in alarm down at the patient and then back at the heart monitor, blood was pooling from of the wound. He had to do something quickly. He turned around the grab an instrument of the tray and cast a quick look down at the guy's face, which was obscured from his working position by green surgical sheets and not to mention the oxygen mask and tubing.

So familiar. The hair… the face.

He froze. Coldness gripped his heart as he stared in shock.

"Dr. Turk?"

He backed off. This couldn't be. No. Why?

"Dr. Turk! He's going into cardiac arrest! We need to do something now."

The insistent whine of the heart monitor made him snap back to the situation at hand.

He couldn't do this.

A nurse pushed passed him, reaching for the crash cart as valuable seconds ticked passed.

No, he would have to do this. Needed to do this.

He was a doctor.

---

Dr. Cox paced up and down the doctors lounge. Carla and Elliot were sitting on the couch, Elliot's eyes following him as she snuggled with her scarf, as if it gave her some kind of comfort. Ever so often a sob would escape her. Carla just stared at the wall with a stony face, not saying anything.

Carla was creeping him out the most. He couldn't deal with this right now. He looked down at his hands again, noticing he had still forgotten to wash Newbie's blood off. Frankly, he found that he couldn't care less about his looks right now.

This waiting was driving him mad! He needed to do something, needed to get out… He let out an irritated growl and changed direction towards the door. However, before he had even the change to get close to it, the door suddenly opened with an incessant creak.

All of their eyes snapped to it.

Turk appeared in the opening, looking around him with a dazed expression. His eyes fell on Carla, not even noticing Dr. Cox. Gradually he let go of the doorknob and took a step in her direction, as if she was the anchor of his universe and was pulling him in.

Dr. Cox's heart clenched. Ghandi looked so… crestfallen.

Turk lowered his eyes. "My patient, it was…" He faltered, the last part of the sentence dying on his lips. He looked up slowly and swallowed.

"I think I just killed him."

TBC

Good god, I'm cruel, no? Sorry about that.

I've been noticing that lots of people are adding this story to their story alert, but you have to know that nothing keeps a writer going like a good review… Thanks :)