I probably won't be able to update tomorrow, by the way. But as soon as I can I'll post the next chapter. Thanks for the awesome reviews!

There were only a few reasons why her phone rang in the middle of the night. She knew it wasn't because they were on call, because they weren't. They had just gotten off shift a few hours ago, and there was no way she could be dragged out of bed at this hour to go back to work after such a long shift. It wasn't Sam either. He occasionally would give her a call at odd hours of the night when they weren't scheduled the next day. That had ended with their relationship though. It better not be a telemarketer either, because if it was they were about to get a piece of her mind.

With a groan, she stretched to the other side of her bed to pick up her cellphone. She flicked it open without even thinking to glance at the caller ID. She blew the hair that had fallen in her face before sighing a "What?" onto the line.

"Jules? Is that you?"

It sounded like Spike. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she squinted into the bright light of the screen to confirm it was him.

"It's the middle of the night. Please tell me you aren't drunk," she said, clearing her throat in an attempt to sound a little more alert.

"Jules, something's happened."

The severity of his voice woke her up faster than a bucket of cold water. She sat straight up in bed, clutching the phone closer to her ear.

"What's wrong? Where are you?" She knew that Spike and Lou had gone out for drinks after work, which is why she had initially thought he might be drunk dialing her. She knew her teammates though, and she knew they wouldn't be stupid enough to drive intoxicated or do something dangerous. Or she thought she did.

"It's Sam and Ed. You need to get to the hospital. We'll fill you in here." Jules opened her mouth to protest, but Spike must have developed a sixth sense. "Just get up here. Please, Jules."

He sounded more tired than she felt. There was a weariness in his voice that suggested it wasn't for her benefit that he wanted to wait to inform her of what had happened. Even though a million questions were running through her mind and she wanted to just demand the answers right now, she asked which hospital and then stood up.

There was no time to get dressed. She had worn modest pajamas, but she threw on a jacket over her tank top and carried only her cell phone to the door, where she quickly grabbed her car keys and made her way outside.

She should have put on jeans over her capris pajama bottoms. It was colder outside than she had expected, but Jules was not about to go back inside. If Spike was calling in the middle of the night, distressed, it wasn't for no reason.

She broke more than a few traffic laws on her drive to the hospital. It was hard enough to concentrate on driving with all of the thoughts speeding through her head. She merely made her car go at the same pace as her thoughts. She knew where the hospital was. It didn't take any thought for the route. It was the same one she had spent the months of her recovery at after her bullet wound. She could get herself to that hospital from almost any point in town.

It was usually an eighteen minute drive there, with traffic. She made it in only a little over ten. Whether it was the speed of her trip or the illegal left turn, she didn't really care. Ten minutes was long enough.

It was long enough to think through possibilities she didn't want to really come up with. None of them really seemed plausible. She couldn't come up with any realistic idea as to why Sam and Ed had been together, or at least they were probably together, since they were at the hospital. The odds that both of them had simultaneously injured themselves enough for medical attention unrelated to one another seemed even more unlikely.

Ten minutes, though. That gave her time to come up with some creative ideas. She did make a living seeing people in distress, she could extrapolate from there. She pulled into her usual parking lot, the one she knew had the shortest walk and didn't have as much traffic as the others. From there she all but ran to the nearest entrance. Spike said they had been set up in a waiting room near the ER.

Like the last time she had been on a call at this hospital, she recognized more than a few nurses. But as if she were on a hot call, she moved without stopping to say hello. Sam and Ed were in the hospital. Both men were the kind of people who downplayed injuries, as if pretending they didn't exist would make it so. For either to be here…

She didn't want to finish that thought.

She couldn't finish that thought. Ed was her team leader. He made decisions in the field every day, and he insured that she came home alive every day. But he was more than her teammate. He was a friend. When the team went out for drinks, she could count on him to make her laugh with his dry sarcasm and quick wit.

And then there was Sam. She would like to say he was just another friend to her, but he was more than that. They weren't together, never would be again. They both loved the team too much for that. Still, she cared for him like she cared for anybody she loved. Not being in a relationship would never change her feelings toward him.

And they were both in the hospital, and she didn't know why. She should have demanded the answers from Spike. That's what she should have done, but that was selfish. She knew she did the right thing by waiting. She'd hear what there was to hear. In just a few minutes, she'd find out it was just some stiches and meds. She'd probably be laughing at the ordeal she turned this into.

Or she'd be crying on the floor, finding out that two of the most important people in her life were dead. That kind of idea floating around just made her push her steps further. She didn't want to alarm anybody, but this was a hospital. People probably ran through here all the time. But it'd give her fuel to yell at Sam and Ed for making her look crazy running through the halls. She'd give them a piece of her mind for scaring her like they did.

Because this was all just some misunderstanding. Sometimes Spike got a little carried away with things. Sure, him calling her to the hospital, sounding like he did, it was a bit of a stretch to say that this was nothing, that he exaggerated. But then again, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility. Nothing was outside that realm as she approached the desk in the Emergency Room.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?" She got the attention of the nurse working on her computer. "Two of my friends came in here recently. Sam Braddock and Ed Lane. Do you know where I could find some information about how they're doing?" Her voice was much calmer than her mind. In the SRU, she had to know how to appear outwardly calm amidst inner turmoil.

"Let me check," the nurse said, turning back to her computer. She typed something in, squinted, and then typed again. Jules had to hold back her impatience. The nurse worked for another moment of two before looking up. "Waiting Room One is available for the family and friends of Mr. Braddock. I don't have any information on Mr. Lane. I'll page someone to show you to the waiting room."

"No need," Jules quickly interrupted her. "I know where it is."

It was a bit of a walk to the room in question. Spike had said they were there. She hoped the fact that Ed didn't have a waiting room of his own meant that he was okay. Then again, she hoped that the fact Sam did have a waiting room meant he was okay too.

The door was closed to Room One. She didn't knock before entering. She had been in one of the rooms before. There were chairs lining either sides of the wall, one on the two ends. They had a phone in the corner and rather pleasant pictures on the wall. All of the colors were neutral, the walls, the carpet, the chairs. She hated these rooms.

More than that, though, she hated the expressions on her teammates' faces when she walked in the room. They immediately squashed the tiny hope she still had that this was just her overreacting, that it was Spike overreacting. It wasn't. Sarge, Wordy, Lou, and Spike. They were all there, sitting in the provided chairs. Nobody spoke, not even when she came in.

"Are they alright? What happened?" There were fifty more questions she could fire off, but she settled for those too. She looked at the Boss when she spoke, looking to him for direction. He was their ultimate leader in the end. He would give her the answers she didn't want, but needed.

"There was a robbery gone wrong. Ed and Sam got caught in the middle of it." He paused. She knew he was watching her for any ill-reactions to the slim news he had given her. She gave him nothing, silently demanding more answers. He only gave her more questions.

He moved his hand familiarly to his forehead, moving his hat so he could properly massage his head. It was then that she noticed he was in uniform. In fact, all of them were in uniform, except for Wordy who appeared just as unkempt as she probably did.

"Ed's alright. He's getting checked out in the clinic. He had some bruises. He'd been kicked around a bit," Sarge said slowly.

"And Sam?" she asked when he didn't continue. She hated the way her voice cracked with emotion. He was just her teammate. She should have felt relieved to know that Ed was alright, but her worry for Sam overshadowed that.

"He was shot, Jules, in the chest. They're working on him. We don't know anything beyond that."

She sank into one of the chairs. She hated these chairs.

"But he's going to be alright, right?" The words were out of her mouth before they processed in her brain. She wanted, wanted more than much of anything at the moment, Sarge to just nod his head and say everything was going to be just fine. But the Boss didn't lie. Not about things like this.

"We don't anything for sure yet, Jules."

He kept using her name. You're supposed to do that to subjects to keep them calm. It helped the connection, kept them in the same plane as you. It didn't help. It made her think of when Sam said her name, and those weren't the type of thoughts she should be having. Not now. Not ever. He was probably dying in some room, maybe as close as fifty feet away from her, and she was sitting here thinking about how her name sounded on his lips.

She hated herself.

"But Ed's alright? He's going to be fine?" She had to focus on the positive, had to get her thoughts away from him.

Sarge nodded this time, like she had wanted him to do before. It helped a little.

"What happened in the store? Why are you guys in uniform?" She motioned to Lou and Spike, but her eyes remained on the Boss.

So he told her, He told her his account of the night. Some kids decided it'd be fun and games to take their parents handguns and put them to use. The robbery hadn't gone as planned and one of the teenagers had a breakdown. He was the one who shot Sam and hurt Ed. He told her about how the negotiations were not working and she felt the frustration hidden under the Boss's calm demeanor. They had been in a Catch-22. They don't know what kind of damage the CS gas did to Sam's weakened lungs.

She didn't want to hear anymore, but Jules didn't stop Sarge. She was an SRU officer. She could handle the details of a hot call. She had been on plenty very similar to this. Just recently they had been sent to a grocery store robbed by two angry teens. They had shot a guard that time. He lived.

But they had shot him for trying to get the gun away. She didn't know why anyone would shoot Sam. Yeah, he was more than annoying at times, but she would never be able to hurt him, not like that.

But she had hurt him when she broke things off. It was to protect him, to protect herself. He didn't know what was best for the two of them. She did. She didn't really hurt him. It was to protect him.

Jules wished she could protect him right now. But she couldn't do much of anything. So she sat in the damn chairs that she hated quietly, even after the Boss had finished recounting the events. There was nothing to say, nothing to do.

There was a clock on the wall, but she couldn't bring herself to look at it. She didn't want to know how long she sat there in silence with her team. They were supposed to be at home right now. Lou and Spike were supposed to be having fun if they hadn't decided to retire already. Wordy was supposed to be snuggled in bed with his wife. The Boss was supposed to do whatever it was that he did after his shift before he showed up to the next one.

They were not supposed to be here.

When the door opened again, Jules jumped. She was trained for vigilance, to deal with surprises. She was not trained to deal with this. She turned slightly to have a view of the person entering, thinking maybe it would be a doctor with an update or a nurse telling them they had to move.

It was Ed.

The lower half of his face was marred with color, bruises already having formed. His jaw had begun to swell too, which was why he had an icepack rested against it. Before he could even enter, Jules was on her feet, giving him a hug. He grunted in pain and she jumped away.

"I'm sorry." She hadn't meant to hurt him.

"It's alright, Jules." He turned to Sarge. "Any news on Sam?"

The Boss shook his head.

"Have you called Sophie yet?" Ed asked.

"I didn't want to alarm her. I thought it'd be best for you to talk to her at this time of night."

Ed shuffled over to the closest chair which happened to be the one next to Jules.

"What did the doctor say?" Sarge asked.

"Just bruising. I'll be fine in a few days." Ed's voice was slightly slurred from the swelling. He kept the icepack on his face. Jules was beyond relieved to see Ed alive and standing after the fifteen minutes or so she had to worry about him being dead. Seeing Ed so bruised, though, that made it so much more real. If she thought the rest of them looked tired, Ed looked worn out. He was pretty pale, resting against the back of his chair. He switched the hand that was holding the icepack up.

She let out a gasp.

For someone to be shot, there had to be blood. She'd been shot. She would know, but somehow the blood on Ed's hands surprised her. He didn't turn his head when he looked at her, but Jules sheepishly looked down. Of course there would be blood.

"You should go home and get some rest," Sarge diffused the awkward silence. He was talking to Ed. He scoffed.

"I'm fine right here."

There was no argument. There was nothing else to say. Jules knew if she were in the same situation as Ed, she would say the exact same thing and she would be asking for someone to disagree with her just to see what happened.

It was quiet for a moment longer before Wordy stood up. "I'm going to see if they can get someone who knows anything," he said. Jules wished she had thought the same thing earlier.

He maneuvered around the team's knees in the small room before he exited. Jules watched him leave. No news was good news, or at least that's what they say. Still, she wanted to have something to work with, at the moment, they had close to nothing. All she knew was that he had a bullet wound to the chest. She'd had the same thing, but she'd been lucky. The doctors had said if she had gotten to the hospital any later she would have died.

It had taken much longer for Sam to get medical attention. That didn't mean too much though. Bullet wounds were tricky. It all depended on the weapon and where the wound was. Sam had one thing on his side, the fact the weapon was relatively small. She wasn't sure about the latter. She would have died, but she had no idea where Sam had been shot, if it had hit anything too vital. It was all just a guessing game at this point for her.

Wordy entered sometime later alone. "They said they'd send one of the doctors down as soon as possible for an update."

That meant he wasn't dead yet. Jules didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry at that thought. There weren't many situations to compare this with, not knowing how someone was, whether or not they were alive. She almost felt guilty about the day she had been shot. That wasn't her fault though. She would have to talk to Sam before she decided whether or not he could have prevented this.

And she would talk to Sam. He was strong, definitely stronger than her. If she could survive a bullet to the chest, he could.

Someone entered for a third time, and this time the team was accounted for. She doubted Sam was in a state to enter, but the naïve, innocent side of her had her hopes ever so slightly when she turned. It was the doctor, presumably the one Wordy had tried to talk to. He took one step into the room so that he completed the sort-of circle the team had formed in their chairs. He then crouched down so that he was on their level.

He glanced around at the team, taking in their state. His eyes lingered on Ed for just a moment before he opened his mouth to speak. Jules wanted him to just spit it out. She was tired of all the waiting, of all the speculation. She hated it.

She hated this whole situation.

So, what do you think? Please review with your thoughts =)