Stun Gun…..
Charlie was in shock, he knew it - but he couldn't stop it from happening. He holstered his pistol, the bag guys forgotten, as the liquor store owner poked his head out of the store. He yelled "Call 911" at the man. But they were on a stake out, there should have been cops everywhere. Why were they still all alone? Where was backup?
Charlie knelt beside Dani who was gasping for breath, obviously struck in the chest, how bad? he wondered. He pulled his cell phone out, as he struggled to pull Dani into a sitting position braced against his chest. He ripped open her shirt feeling for her vest and breathing a sigh of relief when he found it.
"Come on Reese, you're gonna be okay" he coached her not aware he was speaking his concerns aloud. "You're gonna be fine, I got you" he whispered in her ear, as he felt under the vest and his hand came away wet with her blood. Okay, something got through - his brain processed. She tried to talk but no words would come and he could feel her heaving against his chest, drawing hard to get air, collapsed lung his brain told him.
"Sweetheart, I need you to focus. Help is coming. Reese can you hear me?" he asked hearing the fear in his own voice. Charlie willed himself to be calm. "You've got a collapsed lung, one must have gotten through the vest. I need you to try to be calm and breathe with me, slow and easy, honey. Just breathe for me Dani."
He talked to her, he was her lifeline. She needed to believe she could survive this.
"The ambulance in on the way. They are close. I just need you stay with me. Can you do that sweetheart? Stay with me Dani." He pleaded as he held her against him, feeling her struggle to breathe. He continued to talk more for himself than for her at this point. "You did good Dani, you did great." He stroked her hair and held her tiny frame against him, trying not to think about her blood oozing onto the pavement. "You got them all, Dani. You got them all."
The ambulance was coming, he could hear the siren, but it sounded so far away. "Christ, where are they? He thought. "Here they are now, honey, you're gonna be fine now. Just hold on Dani." He tried to convince her they were nearer than they sounded. "Hey, no passing out, you know I suck at paperwork." He joked, she tried to laugh, but only succeeded in coughing slightly as bloody bubbles frothed at her mouth.
Dani's breathing became more labored and she released her pistol and reached blindly for Charlie's hand. Her eyes fluttered shut and she limp against him. He held her and out of things to say simply told her his voice breaking as the tears came "don't leave me Dani. I need you, don't you dare quit on me."
As the ambulance pulled to the curb, medics sprang from all orifices and Charlie went from no help to too much help in milliseconds; they raced to the sidewalk and pile of bodies there. In a loud voice, Charlie barked angrily "not them, help her, help my partner". The medics looked conflicted when Charlie barked again "help her now" spurring them to action.
They took her away from him and he felt suddenly cool where she'd been against his body. Under the pink sodium lights he could see a dark stain on the sidewalk, so much blood. He said a prayer as he suddenly became obsolete, neither a policeman nor a medic at this point, simply a man willing his partner to hold on a little longer. As they loaded Dani into the ambulance, the lethargic backup units arrived and began to ask millions of questions, crime scene tape went up, CSIs poured in and red and blue flashing lights replaced the pink.
Charlie still dazed stepped over the men on the pavement reaching for one of the masks and realized one of the men was still breathing. He gurgled blood and Charlie simply placed a foot on the man's back and held him still until the man stopped struggling. Killing was too good for the man who shot Reese, but it helped fill the darkness that inhabited Charlie at that moment.
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Captain Kevin Tidwell was awakened by his cell phone in the middle of the night and that was never a good thing. Nothing good ever came from a middle of the night call. This time it was dispatch telling him the robbery surveillance had engaged the suspects and there were four civilian bad guys and one officer down.
"Who?" he questioned, looking at the empty bed beside him. "Which officer?"
They didn't know which officer was hit, but the officer was enroute to Cedar's Sinai Trauma Unit. Tidwell terminated the call and rang Dani's phone immediately. It rang endlessly before going to her terse voice mail message. He'd begged her to change it to something more friendly but he listened as her voice came through the phone to him "Uh… this is Dani Reese. Leave a message." He didn't, but he said a prayer as he dressed in the dark and grabbed his own badge and gun on the way out the door.
In the car, Tidwell called Crews' cell. Charlie answered on the second ring. 'Crews' he pronounced. "Where's Dani?" Tidwell said with no introduction, no pleasantries. "I…she….I let her get hurt….she's hurt" Crews stumbled through Tidwell's worst fears.
"Where are you?" Tidwell asked.
"I'm here" Crews said still in shock. Tidwell bit back the frustration and asked again a better question "Detective, are you with her?"
"No" he said sounding lost "They wouldn't let me go with her. I'm at the scene." Crews said Tidwell's use of his title bringing Crews back to reality.
"Stay there I'm coming to you." Tidwell said as the line went dead.
Tidwell pulled to the curb two blocks away, as close as he could get. This was an officer involved shooting and therefore the cordon was much further away the scene to keep the press out. He shambled along the sidewalk, under the yellow crime scene tape. Marked units ringed the scene, red and blue lights bounced off buildings and strobed quickly hurting his eyes, while he searched for the tall detective with red hair. "Crews" he shouted as soon as he caught site of him.
Crews turned, his suit jacket hanging open and his white dress shirt covered in blood from his armpits to his groin, soaked through. "Jesus Crews, get yourself looked at" shocked at the amount of blood on Crews.
Crews paled and swallowed hard "It's not my blood – it's hers, it's Dani's." He plucked at his shirt his fingers red with the blood of Dani Reese. Charlie's eyes brimmed with unshed tears and Tidwell simply nodded unable to say anything.
He wanted to say a million things. He wanted to ask what happened, how Crews had let her get shot, why he wasn't with her, but one look at Crews and Tidwell knew there was nothing the man could say. Crews stared out at the darkness, holding himself upright and biting back his tears. Crews was beating back his own fears for Reese through sheer force of will.
Kevin Tidwell was not unintelligent. He knew Dani loved Charlie Crews even if she had yet to realize it. He also knew that Charlie Crews was head over heels for his younger partner. He saw the way Crews sought to protect her, his fierceness, relentlessness and unwillingness to accept failure when Roman had taken her. Crews succeeded in finding Reese and saving her when the rest of the department couldn't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight.
Tidwell knew he was fighting an uphill battle hanging onto Dani and that eventually the two of them would recognize what he already saw. They would fit together despite all their broken parts like they were made to, but until then - Dani was his and he cherished every moment with her.
"Crews" he said softly "let's go to the hospital. Take that shirt off and let some one bag it." As a nearby CSI tech moved to take Crews' clothes, he shed his jacket and unbuttoned the shirt cuffs and shirt front in a daze. She motioned for the t-shirt too and he winced as he pulled the white t-shirt soaked in his and his partner's co-mingled blood from his body. There was a dark furrow of drying blood along his ribcage under his arm where a bullet grazed his right side
"Crews, you're hit." Tidwell told him.
"I'm fine." He said stiffly as he pulled his suit jacket back on. He looked ridiculous in a suit with no shirt, but Charlie Crews clearly didn't care.
"Where's Dani?" he looked right through Tidwell.
"Come on." Kevin said "My car's this way."