Notes: Thanks to the people that have reviewed. And here I thought no one read fic from this series anymore. Remember, I can't answer reviews if you don't sign in
Here's a much lengthier chapter 1. Thanks to Angie and Pol for the beta.
Chapter 1
He could barely hear Laura's voice, muted, distant, and pleading over the ringing in his ears. Could feel her frantically covering his hands with her own. The scuffle as his staff secured the shooter was even more muffled. But he knew they'd done it. He'd always trusted those closest to him to get the job done. Mildred's harried stomping up the staircase filled his narrowing band of vision. Like an overdramatic dream sequence in one of those absurd television shows Laura liked to watch.
"Boss!"
It took all his strength to merely open his mouth again.
"Shh. Shh. Don't talk. Just breathe. Do you hear me? That's all you need to do. Just breathe."
Laura. He would do anything for her. His eyes slid to her face and his heart did a little flip when he noticed her eyes, distraught, determined, and wet. Felt her hands trembling, searching, frantically clutching his.
"Mildred! Call for help!"
Mildred's worried face darted instantly out of his line of sight but he could hear her impatient demands as she placed an urgent call to what glumly passed for Glen Cree's emergency services. The shrill tone in her voice grew to echoing proportions as she was transferred and transferred again before her voice faded away completely.
He exhaled a shaky breath and focused his slimming vision on his wife, her voice, her touch, her eyes. The pressure on his chest was intense and he resisted the urge to cough. He could smell the lingering scent of her perfume as she leaned close. He had tasted it earlier, too and he longed to feel its sweet tang on his tongue again. Instead, copper pervaded his senses. And pain. A deep, aching, piercing pain. His eyes crossed. His vision dimmed. She pulled him back from the encroaching shadows with a desperate plea.
"Stay awake! Please!"
He gasped for air and he couldn't hold back the cough that burst from his numbing chest. A sharper tang of fresh blood filled his mouth and pain from the sudden jolt made him see speckled stars.
He dimly heard Mildred's not-so-dulcet tone bellow up to them. "They're sending an emergency helicopter from Dublin, Chief!"
He supposed he should be comforted by the fact that someone didn't want the new Lord of Ashford Castle to die on their watch
"Tell them to hurry."
The urgency in Laura's whispered response was all the confirmation he needed, if his body hadn't already provided irrefutable proof of its own, that his condition was serious. He recognized the desperate plea that he was sure didn't come close to reaching Mildred's ears.
He shuddered from the cold, numb lethargy spreading like a narcotic through his body and memories of another cold, pharmaceutical-induced interrogation flooded his disorganized thoughts. All he could remember was Laura slapping him, demanding answers he couldn't give; was too afraid at the time to admit.
His head jerked with the force of the imagined slap. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, slipped closed to regain some sense of confused equilibrium. He exhaled a shuddering breath.
A warm, trembling hand caressed his cheek.
A question, demanding, harsh, piercing. Deserved. Do you love me?
Steele felt the answering groan sink deep into his very bones. I think so.
The scene shifted to blood-covered hands. How he looked up from where he lay atop a soft bed to find Laura yanking up his shirt, pressing a towel to his bloody abdomen.
London.
He'd been hurt there, too. In search of his name. His real name. Something, to this very day, he didn't even have. And probably never would.
Time flowed in flashbacks too numerous to track. His past, before he met Laura, fraught with danger but never had he sustained so many bloody wounds until he had assumed the name of Remington Steele.
The whirring sound of the approaching helicopter and Laura's desperate crooning pulled him from the unwelcome recollection. Realities were colliding in his addled mind and he didn't know which one was real. He clutched her hand and worked his lips around those words he had felt for longer than, until recently, he'd been prepared to admit.
"Shh. Please. Don't speak."
But it was time. Past time, really. He took a deep, shuddering breath but her finger on his lips interrupted whatever he'd been prepared, at long last, to say.
A wet cough bubbled up despite his best effort to stop it and his eyes scrunched closed as the pain of a thousand needles radiated from his chest. His vision darkened just as emergency responders burst through the front entry and raced up the steps.
Laura numbly watched as the medical personnel crowded onto the narrow landing, ripped off her husband's sweater and applied pressure to the grisly wound. She glanced passively at her own hands, slick with blood and felt the sting of unshed tears fill her eyes.
She was pushed to the side, down the steps, and was dimly grateful when she felt Mildred's supporting arm wrap tightly around her shoulders.
"Come on, hon. We gotta let them work."
Laura felt her heart plummet to her toes when a technician's head snapped up. "He's arrestin'! I need an AED, stat!"
"Oh God," Laura sobbed as Mildred tugged her further down the stairs.
"We don't need to watch that, honey. They've got him."
Laura was unable to alleviate her growing unease as she found despair mirrored in her dear friend's eyes. After a few tense, time-stopping minutes, his unresponsive body was lifted onto a stretcher and carried down the stairs.
She tried to pull away but Mildred held on tight. "I have to go with them, Mildred." Frustrated, the next words came out as a demand. "Let me go."
A passing emergency responder laden with bags shook his head, "We don't have no room, your ladyship."
But Laura didn't hear him. She followed anyway until Mildred stopped her. "There's no room, honey. We'll-"
Mikeline was suddenly at her side. "We'll get ya there, your ladyship."
Laura, Mildred, Mikeline and the rest of the castle staff stood in utter silence, watching numbly as the helicopter vanished into the thick shadowy Irish mist.
Mildred hurried to the Rolls with Laura in tow and the chauffeur quickly opened the door. Laura felt herself being pushed inside and then over as Mildred scuttled in right behind her.
Laura dimly heard Mikeline assuring her that he'd take care of that blisterin' bugger and then they were off.
But by the time Laura's frazzled brain could piece together what he meant, Mildred filled in the missing detail. "Mikeline's gonna stay behind and brief the constable."
Laura acknowledged Mildred with a barely perceptible nod and slumped against the seat, eyes staring vacantly out the window.
Mildred patted her hand. "He'll be okay, honey."
Mildred's unwavering confidence had always been a lifeline in hopeless situations but Laura could hear the quiver in the older woman's voice and it did nothing to abate her growing desperation and sense of dread.
"I can't lose him now, Mildred."
"Won't happen."
Laura forced a sad smile and clutched Mildred's hand tightly. They rode in silence the rest of the way to Dublin.
Mildred's short legs lagged behind as Laura, covered in blood, marched right up to the admissions desk at the emergency ward of the Royal City of Dublin hospital. "My husband was brought in under an hour ago. Gunshot wound. Where is he?"
An attendant with a wheelchair stopped beside her. "Ma'am if you'll sit here, I'll take you to be-"
"She's not hurt!" Mildred exclaimed with a glare at the attendant. "It's Mr. Ste - er, her husband's blood."
"Where is he?" Laura repeated, and Mildred recognized the demanding tone giving way to desperate by the second. "Remington Steele. He was flown in from Ashford Castle."
The young woman's eyes widened. "Oh!" She yanked the phone off its cradle and made a call.
A uniformed garda entered through a non-descript door and motioned to Laura. "If you be followin' me, ma'am. I'll be takin' ya back."
Mildred trailed her charge as they followed the officer through a winding mass of sterile hallways and into a small ICU waiting room.
"You got a bathroom?" Mildred asked the guarda. She pointedly glanced at the splotches of dried blood that littered her clothes and covered Laura's.
The guarda pointed to a doorway at the end of the room. "Loo's in there. Lots of room for you ta be washin' up. "
By the time Mildred had maneuvered Laura into the good sized bathroom, she'd shaken herself out of her funk. She scrubbed the blood off her skin with a determined vigor, set her jaw and met the older woman's eyes in the mirror.
"I need a birth certificate for him, Mildred," Laura said as she swept off her bloodied sweater and tossed it in the bin. With trembling hands she reached beneath the thin turtleneck and refastened the clasp of her bra. "Call the defense ministry in London. His father died a national hero. They can fabricate something if they can't track down the real thing. We have that letter that we found in Daniel's case yesterday if they need proof."
Mildred recognized the growing signs. Laura always had to stay busy when faced with an onslaught of emotion. She'd seen it too many times. "Don't you worry. Krebs'll get it done."
Laura desperately scrubbed at her pants but only succeeded in diluting the deep burgundy into a smeared dull red. "I can't-"
"I'll find ya some clothes, honey."
When the blur of motion suddenly stopped, Mildred watched helplessly as the younger woman flattened her hands on the sink and heaved a long, deep breath.
"I need to have it, Mildred."
"No one says no to Krebs, Miss Holt- er, Steele." Mildred flushed with embarrassment. She should be able to get it right. Even if the kids hadn't figured it out yet. She tried to laugh her mistake off with a shrug. "Sorry. Haven't gotten used to it yet."
Laura whirled, eyes hard and determined, her lips trembling with restrained emotion. Her voice shook as she explained. "I have to have a birth certificate for him, Mildred. Before - before I have to sign his death -"
"Now you stop right there." Mildred drew herself to her full height, imagining herself in the role of an affronted Queen. She used everything in her considerable repertoire to keep Laura from hearing the wobble of uncertainty and fear in her voice. She took the distraught woman's hands, squeezed them tightly. "Mr. Steele is gonna be fine. You'll see. And I'll take care of the certificate. So when he gets better, you two can get a license and have the wedding shindig all over again. All on the up and up this time."
For a split second, Mildred thought she'd said the wrong thing, but after a long, long moment of tense silence, a bubble of laugher escaped Laura's trembling lips. And then another. And then another until Mildred found herself embraced tightly in the arms of her surrogate daughter.
"A priest by his bedside would do. So long as his eyes are open and he's talking to me." Laura inhaled deeply and glanced out the bathroom window. "I'd even learn the Gaelic words. Can't be that hard. He'd probably love it."
Mildred smoothed Laura's hair and gave her a warm, slow smile. "Oh. You need more than that, honey. You need a nice, long, relaxing, uninterrupted honeymoon."
A voice so sad and somber sent chills down Mildred's spine. "From your lips to God's ears, Mildred."
When they walked out of the bathroom, the room was empty. No guarda, no doctors, no nurses.
Mildred guided her charge to a chair and they sat down to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Mildred could only watch helplessly as the adrenaline from the past few hours wore off, leaving behind an exhausted and temperamental Laura in its wake. She sat calmly for a while, staring out the window at the street below, bustling with the comings and goings of a multitude of ambulances.
But after a while, restlessness seeped through the exhaustion and it was all Mildred could do to keep the distraught woman from marching right out of the ICU waiting room and demanding information.
When she began to pace, Mildred knew it was the beginning of the end.
"Where are they?" Laura demanded, dark circles standing out more vividly against her bloodshot eyes. "Why haven't they come to brief us?"
"Maybe they do things differently here?" Mildred offered helpfully, wondering how she would keep the distraught woman from verbally filleting the first doctor to walk in the door.
"That's ridiculous."
When a stout, grey-haired doctor finally walked in the room, Laura had worked herself into such a worried frenzy that Mildred had to step between them.
"Where have you been?" Laura demanded as Mildred asked at the same time, "How is he?"
It was clear the man was experienced with such demands and he took the vehemence in the younger woman's tone in stride. "Surgery was successful but his condition is still quite serious."
"Details?"
The doctor hesitated but Mildred gave him a sharp nod and a stern look.
"There was a lot of blood loss. We're still transfusing. We've got him sedated and on a ventilator-"
"He can't breathe on his own?" Mildred thought the normally stoic woman would collapse right then and there.
"Oh, he probably could but we're keeping him under to give his body a chance to heal. If he doesn't have to struggle to breathe, you see, he'll heal all that much faster."
"I see."
The doctor watched on with kind, soulful eyes. "I can tell that you do, your Ladyship."
"When can I see him?" The voice was wavering again, doubt and fear no doubt warring for dominance in her mind. Mildred gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze.
When the doctor smiled, Mildred felt lighter than she had in hours. Seeing Mr. Steele would calm them both. "I'll take you back when you're ready."
"I'm ready now."
They moved toward the door but Mildred felt her way blocked. "I'm sorry, right now we can only accommodate family only. You understand."
An incensed Laura, hands on hips, nostrils flaring, glared at the short, stocky doctor. Mildred, even at her most affronted, could not hold a candle to the enraged woman.
"Mildred is family! She's like a mother to my husband-"
"Well, more like a step-mother," Mildred corrected, rare vanity slipping out at a not particularly opportune time. "Not quite old enough, you see."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Steele, one visitor at a time."
Laura huffed. "Well why didn't you say that the first time?"
Mildred motioned the younger woman toward the door when she hesitated. "Go see him, kiddo. I'll be right here."
Mildred watched Laura school her expression, bury her fear, glare once more at the doctor and stalk down the hallway. With a sigh, she flipped on the small television sitting in the corner and settled in to distract herself.
Instead, plastered across the screen was Mr. Steele's face and a news report that he had been fatally shot in a castle he'd recently inherited from the Lord of Claridge.
TBC
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