Title: Missing
Summary: Dixie goes missing after a long night at the hospital. Can they bring her home? A Kel/Dix romance

Notes: This is my first Emergency fic and my first fic at all in awhile. Please be kind.

******

"You know my rule, Kel." The battle-weary yet beautiful nurse Dixie McCall said, looking into the eyes of her favorite person.

Kelly Brackett couldn't help but smile, although he was as physically and mentally exhausted as she was. "Which ten?" He lightly teased, holding her hand, his thumb gently rubbing over the top.

Her eyes narrowed although they both knew this wasn't a real fight, although they'd had plenty over the years. "I don't go home until you do." She kept her voice calm and quiet, but firm. No one was around that they saw, but still, they had a closeness, a connection, that couldn't be missed even to the casual observers.

"Tonight you do, I'm afraid." He smiled at her, knowing she worried about him more than she did herself. He couldn't fault her for that; if it weren't for her, sometimes he'd forget to take care of himself at all. She reminded him to eat, to drink, to sleep, and that there was a life outside Rampart. "I have to catch up on paperwork. I'll leave in a few hours."

"Paperwork can wait. You're no good to anyone when you're this exhausted. You know this." She took the opportunity to stroke his cheek gently. She could see how worn he was and it frustrated her that he couldn't. "I'll stay to make sure you actually do leave tonight."

"Joe's still here. He's almost as much a babysitter as you are. Almost." He'd meant it teasingly, but he could see something in the comment had bothered her.

"A babysitter. Is that what I am?" The tone was there and she hated herself for it, but she couldn't take it back. It was out there and they were too tired for it to go anywhere but a fight tonight. "Forget it."

"Call me when you get home?" He worried about her being out in the city alone at this time of night, but part of him knew heaven help the person who confronted her when she was like this. It frustrated him when it was directed at him, and sometimes hurt, but he knew he gave as good as he got which was why he wasn't responding to the 'babysitter' remark.

She sighed, withdrawing her hand from his cheek again. "Why don't you call me? If you actually leave tonight."

He started to say something else, started to kiss her cheek, but an ambulance pulled up to the bay. "I'll call you, Dix." He called behind him, running to help.

Dixie sighed again, shaking her head. "Stubborn fool," she muttered, but the truth was although he was the most stubborn person she'd ever met, except for her, he was anything but a fool. She was just tired, bone tired as her grandmother used to say. She'd never understood as a child but since the war, now the hospital room, trying to keep up with her surrogate family, she understood more and more.

All she wanted was a hot bath, a glass of wine, a record, her favorite fluffy robe, and reading the book she'd started weeks ago. Every night she started it with good intentions and every night she was lucky to get a chapter read. She was so tired that she contemplated turning around and going back to the office, sleeping on the couch; it wouldn't be the first time she'd done so. She knew that if she did, she'd get drawn back in, just as he would, to fixing problems or helping him with the paperwork the office was constantly on him to complete.

"Not tonight," she whispered, getting into her car, behind the wheel. Normally she was very careful about driving exhausted. Kelly had healed from the wreck earlier that year, but she hadn't from the pit in her stomach that she felt when Mike simply told her that there'd been an accident, that Brackett had been injured. She was all right to drive tonight though, able to stay awake long enough to arrive home safely, but not alert enough to see that she was being followed.

*****

Joe Early passed by his friend, putting his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I thought you went home hours ago."

Brackett shook his head. "I just went to dinner. Came back with the ambulance and then finished my paperwork." He looked at the clock on the wall. It was later than he'd thought and Dixie had never called to let him know she got home all right.

"I thought you weren't allowed to stay at the hospital by yourself," Joe lightly teased, loving that as stubborn as Brackett tended to be, he usually fell in line for the petite, pretty nurse just like the rest of them.

"I'm not by myself. I'm with you." He attempted to joke, but his smile didn't last long. "She didn't call you, did she?"

Joe shook his gray head. "No. No, why would she?" He groaned of the sheer possibility of what he was about to ask, "Another fight?"

"What? No. I mean, not that I know of. And she usually lets me know." He smiled at the last. One of the reasons he and Dixie got along so well was they let each other know what they thought and then found a way, with or without help, to get over it. "I just…she hasn't called that she got home. I thought maybe I was in with a patient and she talked to you instead."

Joe frowned, knowing the phone call was something they'd started after Brackett's near miss earlier that year, driving home exhausted and getting hit by a drunk driver. He'd never seen Dixie so rattled as that day, although no one else had seen it, including Brackett himself. "That's not like her. Have you tried calling?"

Brackett shook his head. "Lost track of time." He looked at the clock again. "It's too late to call her. If she's asleep, I'll never hear the end of it." Joe smiled in agreement, mentally hearing her telling him off already. She didn't mind calls in the middle of the night for emergencies, but she would not consider a wellness check an emergency. "I'll drive by and check on her. If she's home, no harm done. If she's not…"

"She'll be home, Kel. But it's not a bad idea. Put your mind at rest." It wouldn't be the first time Brackett had spent the night at the apartment if he chose to do that. "Why don't I drive? I'm headed out anyway."

Brackett hesitated and nodded. He could always catch a cab in the morning or ask one of them to pick him up. He was too tired to stand, much less drive. "Thanks, Joe."

The last thing either man expected upon arrival was flashing lights: a firetruck, station 51 of course, and several cops. Both men instinctively looked at each other. The obvious answer was that Dixie had gotten tied up helping with what was going on, but there was something inside both that said it wasn't the truth. The look on Roy De Soto's face when they arrived told them everything they needed to know and nothing they wanted to, something was wrong.

"Where is she? What happened?" Kelly asked, his no-nonsense voice on high alert, the adrenaline already starting in his body, waking him up again.

"We don't know." Roy paused, not wanting to be the one to tell them this but not wanting anyone else to do it either. This was Dixie's family; besides him and his partner, they were the only family she had. "Neighbors heard a scream so it got called in as an unknown; we recognized the address. By the time the cops got here, we got here…Dix…Dix was gone."

"What do you mean gone?" Brackett almost shouted. Neither option for that word was satisfying. Nothing would be satisfying until he saw Dixie alive and well with his own two eyes. What Roy was saying might not make it impossible, but at the very least it would be far longer than he wanted to wait.

"Missing. Dixie is missing."