She whimpered a dragging frustration into the sound of the house phone invading the delightfully comfortable way he'd curled her up from the mattress and into his still denim covered lap, her hands digging on his bared shoulders in frustration. Chibs hissed into the scrape of her nails against his skin as he dropped his forehead hard into her collarbone, letting a rattle of curses litter over her clavicle before he lifted his head.
"He won't be able to dial a phone number by the end of this night." His voice was a thrummed sound of jagged frustration, his fingers drawing damp from the way he'd sloped them between her thighs so that he could balance her shifting.
"I'll handle it, okay?" Ally just pushed into his shoulders, letting his palms grace along her hips as she leaned back onto the mattress and jerkily clipped the hand set from the bedside table with a tone nearly as frustrated as his. "What?"
He watched her throat flex as she swallowed, a full frown crowning over her angled features as she pressed her shoulders back up rapidly. The dip of her hair over the marks he'd left along her throat caught his attention only a moment before she used the heel of her palm to shift against his reaching. Filip cocked a darkly scrutinizing glance over the way she withdrew from him, drawing higher on the mattress and breaking any connection they'd held.
"Bring it in and lock it down." Her voice had a sudden throttle of control that rivaled the tone he traded in during some less than amenable situations and it pinned his focus directly on her face. "Where is he?"
She was already shifting off the bed and he could see the stringent ride of her muscles tightening as she took the phone with her, jerking her uniform pants from the floor rapidly, "I don't give a shit what they're telling you, I want officers covering him. It's not a request, Nick. You're the one with the badge, put yourself in the fucking room."
He angled himself up on the bed, breathing intentionally slowly as he roughly jerked the pants from her gripping hands, catching the fierce darkness in her eyes and nodding support as he stood into her. His hands shifted into drawing the pants onto her as her breathing exhaled sharply into the phone.
"Breathe." He whispered as he stroked the black shirt off one shoulder and down her arm, letting her shift the phone from one hand to the other to finish pulling it from her.
"I'll be there in twenty." She spoke sharply. "Have dispatch do a full recall. Everyone in. Have Grady lock down the scene. Do it quietly."
The sharp way she hung up with no further discussion drew his attention back up but he just watched the flinching of her face.
"Somebody put a bullet in Carreira's chest." Her tone was brooding and flickering on rage. "In the middle of his kitchen, Filip."
His eyes met hers and he caught the flinching of near betrayal that shattered the colors in her eyes into a million fractions of darkness.
"Don't look at me like that." He told her swiftly as she let the phone drop to the bed.
"Eglee?" she sharpened at him before turning, "Now Carreira?"
"We had nothing - "
"Don't lie to me." The snap in her voice ranged high and achingly broken as she pulled on her tank and grabbed the weighed down gun belt from the chair. "Goddamn it, Filip. Dogs don't shit in this town without one of you knowing."
"Ally." The hissed warning of his tone did little to match the indignation of her angry body.
"I don't have time for this." She was already turning on him, maybe in more ways than one. "Lock the door when you leave."
"I didn't do this, Althea. We didn't do this." He caught the way she paused into the scattered honesty in his voice, her hand catching against the doorframe to stall her movements briefly.
She just gave him an already weary look, shoulders loosening as she leaned into the door frame. "Then find out who did."
He nodded a solemn agreement, "Go take care of your boy."
"He called it in himself. Still conscious when the EMTs landed but he dropped out by the time they got him on the road."
She just nodded a sharpened acceptance of the information, letting Dulane keep up with the speed she was keeping through St Thomas' halls. "They tell you anything?"
"Collapsed lung at least." There was an obviously scattered range of trepidation in the younger man's eyes as she glanced back into his explanation, "He's in surgery, Lieutenant. They're not gonna let you near him."
"I don't give a shit." She shunted back as she continued moving toward the intensive care unit. "Tell me you have officers on the floor?"
"And hospital security's been briefed." His voice hedged lower.
"Which paramedics responded?" Ally asked him as her palm shunted hard into a swinging door, bounding it forward. "They give you anything?"
His voice dropped into sudden apology, "I'm not sure."
"Jesus Christ, Nick." And that's when she left him behind her, unconcerned with the way he plainly stopped and watched her go.
"Whoa there, Sheriff." The sharp break of a hard masculine voice caught her as soon as she'd passed the door, "You're in the wrong locker room, sweetheart."
Ally dropped a glare into the term and just cocked a glance into the way the man snugged a towel tighter against his hips, his hair still dowsed wet from the showers. "Abrams?"
"Yeah." He nodded tightly into the way she ignored the first rattle of humor he'd attempted, his frame going a little tighter as he lifted his head and called backwards across the room. "Towels on boys. There's a lady present."
"You picked up Carreira?" she relaxed into the swift turn of some kind of professionalism that raked over him, his hand already drawing a t-shirt from inside his locker as she let her shoulder rest a few lockers down. "He say anything to you?"
"Same thing most Catholic boys say when they're spitting up a lungful of blood." His eyes were a dark brown that seemed familiar in their velvet and she instantly pushed back the thought of another pair of brown eyes that could trouble her lungs up. "Mary, Mary, I want Mama."
"You know what I mean." She stiffened into the detached vacancy of emotion in his voice.
He shook his head as he tugged the shirt over his head, an apologetic paleness on his face as he shrugged at her, eyeing her insignia. "I got nothin' for ya, Lieutenant. He wasn't lucid. He was dying."
"Is he?" she asked into a quieted tone, "Am I burying this kid in a few days?"
The sympathetic twist on his features rang up her spine, "Possibly. Probably. Sorry."
She swallowed the thickness in her throat as she nodded and back-stepped toward the door, "Call in if you remember anything?"
"Lieutenant?" he sharpened up after her, a hand wiping water off his forehead. "He had his badge in his hand. Kept trying to show it to Nancy. It's at the nurse's station."
She banked him a confused glance, "Still in unform?"
"Naw." He shook it off as his hand roughed through damp dark hair. "Looked like he came from the gym or something."
"Nancy?" she cocked into questioning.
"Leeds. The other EMT." He shook off. "But she saw everything I saw."
"Did she drive or ride?"
He tipped his head into understanding, "She was in the back with him. But he went unconscious halfway here."
Ally nodded slowly, "She still on duty?"
"We were off an hour ago and she's got two kids.." He offered to her back as she moved away from him quickly. "I sent her home."
He hadn't locked the door because he hadn't left, and he felt no need to guard against anything that could come through her door at him. This place was a safety that he could both savor but also guard if he needed to do so. He'd already done it once, and in the bending of being her partner in security, he'd made a silent pact in his head that he'd be the hand at the door that stalled any threats. But he hadn't realized he'd even made that promise to himself until she'd left him alone in her bedroom, uncaring that he could search every inch of anything that smelled like her. Just as she'd had no complaints when walking into the house he'd already been sitting in – just leaned into his lap in search of a comfort for a too long day that had now bent still unending.
He'd sat long at the side of her bed, listening to the quiet of her house before the bones in him had been too anxious to stay still any longer. So he'd ended up in her kitchen, pouring whiskey that he didn't actually plan to drink as he leaned into the flat of her table with both hands spread still. The smell of the drink was enough to wave his nerves calmer but not still the jitter that was rioting in his bones. It wasn't something that could be swayed by whiskey or any other numbing. He wasn't exactly sure what was going to stay it still. So he left the glass and headed for his keys.