Part 9

~~Fire.

The smoldering wreckage of the truck. Flares. Red and blue emergency lights eerily marking the familiar landscape.

A closed body bag being carried to a long black station wagon.

Adam, his small body bandaged, first crying, screaming in his agony, then unable to breathe...life support...drifting away.

Grief welling up, rage taking over...yelling something-something at Buck. Buck's face going white and still, his eyes closing...

The body bag in front of him. Opening it. Ezra staring up at him.

Buck's face, white and still, the eyes closed.

No!-

"Chris!"

Larabee snapped awake, eyes staring around wildly until he recognized his surroundings. Recognized that they were on a multi-laned freeway and the lights of downtown Denver glowed in the distance.

He glanced at the dashboard clock. Almost midnight.

"You shouldn't have let me sleep," he growled.

Tanner shot him a sidelong glance. "Didn't need two of us to drive," he pointed out quietly. "Where do you want to go first?"

"Ezra's place, I guess. It's the closest."

Vin nodded. "We'll find 'em, Cowboy."

"We'd better," Chris grumbled under his breath. He sighed. "I should have made them come with us."

Vin quirked his lips. "You got some secret super power I don't know about? No one was goin' to make Ezra spend his vacation in 'uncivilized surroundings'." He imitated the undercover agent's drawl. "And I ain't never seen you make Buck do anythin' he didn't damn well want to do anyway."

Chris couldn't help the smile that briefly crossed his face. "No. Buck does what he thinks is right. Always been that way." He wondered-again-why Buck had suddenly changed his mind about accompanying them, then realized with a sudden chill he might never know. 'Damn it, you two'd better be all right.'

His cell phone rang. Chris grabbed it up off the dashboard and fumbled it to his ear. "Larabee," he snapped.

"Chris. Travis here. We found them."

~+~+~+~

Chris busted through the entrance of Lakewood-Saint David's Hospital, Vin hot on his heels. A uniformed security officer moved to block them. "Visiting hours are over-" he started.

Chris didn't stop. "Which way to room 4712?" he demanded.

"Visiting hours-"

Vin scrabbled in his pocket and yanked out his badge, forestalling Chris from simply decking the man. 'He's just tryin' to do his job,' he reasoned to himself. Waving the identification in the startled man's face, he repeated Chris' words. "Which way to room 4712?" His voice was soft and menacing.

The guard blinked, looking from the long-haired man to his glowering companion. He shuddered at the feral look on both of their faces. 'Hell they don't pay me enough to get in the way of guys like this-'

He pointed down the hall to the left. "Take the first set of elevators to the fourth floor, turn right when you get off and follow the signs." He moved toward the phone on his desk. "I'll let the nurses station know you're on your way up."

There was only one nurse on duty at the big round Nursing Station on Four East. She hesitated when she saw the two men storm off the elevator, but she didn't try to stop them. Instead she pointed down the hall directly across from her position. "Third door down on the right," she said quietly. Vin nodded his thanks. Chris ignored her but moved swiftly in the indicated direction. Vin lengthened his stride and reached the door a half step before his friend. A red and white sign posted at eye-level proclaimed "Warning! Oxygen In Use." Aware of Chris hovering impatiently behind him, Vin carefully eased the door open.

The only light in the room came from the half-panel over the bed. Vin could see Ezra asleep in the bed. The Southerner was much too pale. IV's fed into both hands and a tube in his nose delivered oxygen. Thin wires running from one of the monitors next to the bed disappeared under the plain hospital gown, and something that looked like a white plastic clothespin was clipped to his left index finger.

And next to the bed-his tall body folded awkwardly into a typically uncomfortable-looking hospital chair-Buck Wilmington slumbered. His level of exhaustion was apparent when he merely stirred at their entrance but didn't open his eyes.

Vin felt Chris relax for a split second, then tense up again. The sudden anger rolling off him like steam, Larabee dodged around Vin and yanked Buck out of the chair, shoving the taller man against the wall and shaking him. "Where the hell have you been?" he yelled when Buck's eyes snapped open.

Vin winced at the look on Buck's face. He started forward, then hesitated. If it had been anyone else on the receiving end of Chris Larabee's ire he might have interceded, or at least tried to calm Chris down, but Vin never interfered between Chris and his oldest friend. Their relationship went back too many years, had too many layers, too much history, for Vin to feel comfortable getting in between them. Instead he moved around the bed as Ezra moved his head restlessly on the pillow. "Go back to sleep, Pard," he whispered reassuringly. "It's okay."

Buck Wilmington didn't know what the hell was going on. One minute he was dozing restlessly in that cursed chair, the next minute he was flying through the air and slamming into the wall. He forced open his eyes to see very familiar icy green ones staring menacingly at him. "Chris?" he asked, feeling muddled. "What are you doing here? Somethin' wrong?"

"Is something wrong?" Chris hissed. "Ezra's in the hospital...no one could find you two all day long...I thought you were dead, you stupid bastard!"

In all fairness to Buck, he had no idea that Hoyt or his men had been released or that he and Ezra had been in any danger from anything other than food poisoning. Besides, his head was pounding and having his old friend slam him into a wall wasn't helping any. Sometimes Buck got real tired of being on the receiving end of Larabee's bad moods.

Larabee's face wavered in front of him and suddenly Buck was transported back to another time, a dark time in both of their lives. He couldn't help it, he threw up a hand to protect his face.

A shocked Chris dropped him as if scalded. He stepped back, staring at Buck in horror. "Buck, I-" he started.

Vin was rapidly regretting his decision not to get involved. He was almost as shocked as Chris at the way Buck reacted. He'd never seen such a look on Wilmington's face before-lost, hopeless. Chris must have known the look, though...he backed away from Buck and held his hands out pleadingly. "Buck, I-" he started.

Buck shook his head, blinking rapidly, trying to clear his vision. The room was spinning around him. He could hear Chris saying something but he couldn't make out words over the buzzing arising in his ears. He felt himself falling forward and everything went black.

Chris jumped forward to catch him. He gently lowered his friend to the floor, pulling his head into his lap. Buck's eyes were closed and he didn't respond when Chris anxiously called his name. Vin started over to them, only to whirl around, drawing his weapon, as the door slammed open. The nurse who had been at the desk rushed in, stopping short as she found herself confronted with Vin's gun. The sharpshooter quickly slid it back into his shoulder holster. "Sorry, ma'am," he muttered sheepishly.

Dixie Dunn had been a RN for over thirty years, including three tours of duty in Viet Nam. Her eyes didn't even flicker as she said, "Don't you ever point that thing at me again, Blue Eyes. What the hell is going on in here, anyway?"

Vin blushed.

The door slammed open again. Two uniformed cops burst in, weapons drawn. "Freeze! Denver PD!"

The sudden silence that followed was broken by a soft southern voice from the bed. "Gentlemen, what...has transpired while... I have been sleeping to have brought...us to such extreme circumstances?"

tbc...