Chapter 13: Up In Smoke
Disclaimer: I do not own the TV show, characters etc. The plot and OC's are mine, for what that's worth.
-/-
The world came back in a hazy curtain of gray. Hunter stirred on the ground. Her left hand found the egg on the back of her head and she winced. Ow. Son of a bitch. She drew her knees underneath her and winced again, as pain shot through her skull. "Mother…" the curse died on her lips as the rest of her senses told her something was wrong. The apartment was no longer dark. A warm glow emanated from the direction of the kitchen. Again though, her senses screamed at her that it was wrong. A slight shake of her head brought a new stab of pain, but it also burned the fuzziness from her eyes.
Fire licked up the cabinets above the sink. The acrid smell of smoke already filled her nose. She watched dumbly as the fire reached Ezra's rather well stocked liquor cabinet, still half out of it. Instinct drove Hunter to her feet, though her legs still felt like half cooked noodles. Glass cracked. Flames and liquor met. It swelled, roaring like some great, hungry, living thing, spilling liquid fire over the counter and onto the floor. The smoke alarms were silent, sprinklers dry. Shit.
"Ezra!" Hunter screamed. She wasn't 100% surprised the southerner was still asleep, man could sleep through a damn bomb. Or inferno, she supposed. Legs unsteady, she lurched to the couch, grabbing the back for support. The smoke began to thicken in the air. The fire reached the kitchen island that separated it from the living room. She stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, till her legs solidified beneath her. As soon as she felt like her knees weren't going to buckle, she dashed to Ezra's room and flung herself through the door.
"Ez!" Inside the room, her eyes adjusted to the darkness once more. "Ezra!" The corner of his bed had been turned down, but he wasn't in it. It hadn't been slept in at all. Panic licked at her. Her eyes swept the room. There, a hand protruding out from behind the edge of his bed, next to the walk in closet. He was lying prone, bare chest twisted toward the floor, face pressed into the rug. She hurried over, crashing to her knees next to him. Fear wrapped it's vice grip around her heart. "No. No no no no no."
With a grunt, she rolled the undercover agent onto his back. Eyes and hands made a quick run over his torso. No blood, no holes, though his skin felt clammy and cold. She dipped her head toward his face. His breath washed over her cheek and the steady, reassuring thump of his heart, too fast though it felt, pulsed under her hand. Her relief was brief however. Alive, but very much unconscious still made for a large problem. Using the knuckles of her left hand she rubbed them vigorously over his sternum, to no response. "Come on Ez, you gotta wake up." Then she slapped his face, and not lightly. His breath remained steady and even, head lolling to the side away from her blow. Hunter shot a look back at his door, where thin tendrils of smoke began to curl under the door. "Shit." The fire was coming closer, and they were trapped in Ezra's room with nowhere to go.
-/-
JD was awake. Two cups of coffee and a red bull would do that. Buck had sacked out an hour ago. JD was knee deep in converting their den from well, a den, to a computer base. Temporary leave of absence. JD snorted in the midst of untangling a bunch of wires. Fine. He'd do the job from home… minus the paycheck. He scowled. He'd managed to leave the office with his laptop and a couple processors. Screens he had. Not that he'd have access to the ATF federal database network, at least, not officially. He'd been a pretty decent hacker in his day in college. Figured he could use those skills again. What the ATF didn't know… besides, Chris had more or less told him Judge Travis had given him the 'wink and nod' to continue investigating on their own time. And he meant to.
Beside him, JD's phone chirped, the distinctive tone for his email alerts. Mess of wires in his hands, JD only glanced down. Probably spam. The subject line made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. GREED. JD spun his chair to the right, flipping open his laptop, fingers flying across the keys to access his email. There was a link. Apprehension rising in every moment, JD clicked on it. It took him a minute to process what he was seeing, but as soon as he did he flew out of the chair. "Buck!" the kid bellowed. "Buck we gotta go!" Then he dug his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. Chris always slept light. He just wasn't sure if Larabee had crashed out in his office, or gone home to his ranch. In either case, he and Buck were closer.
"What in blue blazes got you barking like some yappy little dog at this time of night?" Buck rubbed a hand over his eyes. His jacket struck him in the face as JD flew by.
"Our perp sent me another email," JD informed him. At that, sleep flew from Buck's mind. "It's a live stream," JD continued, phone pressed to his ear as he waited for Chris to answer, hopping on one foot as he yanked on his shoes. "He's got camera's in Ezra's apartment. It's on fire."
Buck didn't even bother with shoes, just kept with the slippers he shoved his feet into as soon as he'd heard JD's call. He grabbed the keys to his truck and led JD outside, thundering down the stairs two at a time.
-/-
Hunter screamed in frustration, then was hit by a coughing fit that doubled her over. The smoke in the room was heavy now, and she could see the dim glow of the flames beneath the door. She wasn't sure how long had passed since she'd found the undercover agent unconscious on his floor, but it felt like a lifetime. A lifetime where she'd only managed to move him a couple of feet. She wanted to cry. She needed to get him to the fire escape, it was closer than the front door, and not currently enshrouded in flames, but it was inconveniently located on the far side of the room from where he'd passed out. A quick glance outside a moment earlier had reaffirmed her suspicions , there was no getting out through the apartment. And she was running out of time.
She stooped again, grabbing his wrist in her left hand. Were her right hand not still currently encased in plaster casting, she'd have been able to use both to get her hands underneath his armpits and his chest clear of the floor. But as it was she was stuck with one appendage, and despite being shorter than every other of his Team 7 brethren save JD, Ezra packed more muscle than most of them, save Josiah and maybe Buck. In short? He wasn't light. And she couldn't even get her whole hand around his wrist.
His skin was damp and clammy, and his wrist slipped from her grasp again. "Damn it Ez," Hunter growled. "Much as I appreciate the aesthetic, it would have been really helpful for you not to sleep shirtless." This was getting her nowhere. Her eyes stung and she coughed again. Desperate, she drove herself to her feet and into his closet. It was nearly pitch black, and she quickly passed over racks of suit coats and dress shirts by feel alone. Where the hell did he keep his ties? But near the back of the closet, situated up on the shelving up above the rack of his shoes, she found something better, the straps of a backpack. Hunter knew that the members of Team 7 liked to get out of town in their downtime, camping, hiking, climbing… She yanked the bag off the shelf and made her way back into the main room, where there was at least enough moonlight she wasn't completely blind.
She tore through the bag, discarding climbing shoes, water purifiers and a bag of camping cookware. At the bottom she found what she'd been after, a handful of carabiners and slings. Though the slings weren't quite long enough to encircle Ezra's chest, she snapped two together with a carabiner and secured them around his torso, underneath his armpits. Sirens blared in the distance. Thank God they were coming, but the imminent threat of burning or suffocating to death was still real. She connected the last sling he had with a set of draws to the slings secured on his chest, looped it over her head and one shoulder, got low to the ground, and pulled. The thin nylon strapping dug into her skin, but it didn't matter, they were moving. Flames licked at his door now, creeping beneath the gap between the floor and the door. She wasn't sure if it was the blow to the head, or the smoke, but she was getting light headed. The window was getting closer. Her vision narrowed.
A yell ripped from her throat as she drove her legs to propel them the final few feet to the window. She fumbled with the latch, her left hand not dexterous and the smoke making her brain foggy. But she finally managed it, flinging the window open with a crash. She sucked in deep breaths of the cool, clean night air. Her vision cleared even though her head still pounded. Red, white, and blue lights on the ground nine stories below winked in her peripheral vision. Hunter ducked halfway through the window, right leg on the grate of the fire escape, left inside the apartment, seated more or less on the sill. She bent, her left hand wrapping around the slings on Ezra's chest. Then she stood, driving through her legs to stand, to lift Ezra enough to get him through the window with her.
Muscles in her back and neck chorded. It was one thing to dead lift a bar off the ground with weight plates attached, something she did regularly when she didn't have a broken hand. It was totally another to lift the dead weight of an unconscious man through a window. But inch by inch she managed to leverage Ezra up, first into more or less a sitting position. Once he was there, she slid her left arm underneath the sling on his chest and then over top of it again, wrapping it around her forearm. She sat up and the nylon bit deep, but she ignored it. She pulled, her back screaming protest, but he rose. Inch by inch she pulled him up, till one arm and the better part of his torso was more or less in her lap. His head lolled bonelessly to the side. Using the brick wall as support, she threw herself backward, her combined weight and momentum carrying them both the rest of the way into the clear.
The stairs were awkward at best, as Hunter managed to half drag, half fall with Ezra onto the landing below. She collapsed on the eighth floor fire escape balcony, inadvertently pulling the undercover agent on top of her. His weight on her chest made it hard to breathe, but maybe that was the smoke. Either way, her vision pin pricked again, and this time there was no stopping to dark curtain from settling over her eyes.
-/-
"…. smoke inhalation, minor lacerations, possible concussion…." the words floated to her, distant. But there was pressure on her face, on her nose and mouth. Her body reacted, writhed, hands pawing at her face. Instantly, she felt hands on her, grabbing at her. She twisted away. Not again. She wouldn't let him do it again… She fought against the hands, sitting up off her back.
"Sam. Sam! It's Buck. You're okay." The familiar voice, edged through her panic, but she still railed against the hands on her. "It's okay," Buck's voice again, "leave her go a minute." The hands disappeared and her heart rate dropped. She blinked, finally registering what was in front of her eyes. Two EMTs, Buck on her right. A gurney. An oxygen mask on her face. She ripped it off.
"Ezra," she breathed, wildly looking around. "Where is he?"
"On his way to Swedish," Buck said gently, laying a hand on her leg. "Which is where you're going." The ladies man whistled. "Not that it was easy getting you to let go. Girl, you had him in some kind of vice grip." He smiled, but the look on her face sobered it instantly. "JD went with him."
"He's okay?" She looked down. Her left forearm was bloody where the nylon sling had dug into her skin. It dotted through the dressing the medics had wrapped around it.
Buck frowned, "unconscious and a concerningly high heart rhythm. EMTs aren't sure what to make of it. What happened?"
Sam lifted her hand to her head and grimaced. Yep, that was an egg and a half. "Don't know. We'd gone to bed, I was packing to head to Vin's this morning when I heard something. Went into the living room and someone hit me from behind. I woke up in the middle of an inferno." Her chest tightened and a coughing fit struck her. "I found him like that in his room," she managed to wheeze out.
Buck held out the mask. "Could you just… take the oxygen? Please? Make me feel better."
Sam obliged grudgingly, though it did make it substantially easier to breathe. She took a few breaths, then held it aside. "Why are you here?" she questioned. "How did you…?"
"He sent a video to JD. Lucky the kid was still awake. There were cameras in the apartment Sam. He was live streaming it. Under the title of greed. You two are damn lucky he only knocked you out for a minute. Otherwise…" the thought hung in the air.
Sam felt ill. Otherwise… "I almost couldn't get him out Buck," her lip quivered. "He could have…" Her shoulders trembled.
Buck shook his head and wrapped his arms around Sam. "But he didn't, that's the important part. He's alive, okay? He's alive." The bigger man's reassuring words were like a balm. Beneath his arms he felt her shaking ease. He released his hug. "Now let's go see if the docs managed to wake him up. I'm actually looking forward to hearing him bitch about losing his wardrobe."
Sam smiled thinly and nodded. Then she chuckled, "Ten bucks says he calls it his 'haberdashery'."
"Ooohhh, will not take you up on that bet. Now, will you please go with the nice young men with the oxygen tank so they can check you out on the way to Swedish?" He motioned toward the waiting paramedics.
"Can't I just take the oxygen tank in your truck?" she questioned. The EMT's eyes became saucers.
"She's kidding boys," Buck assured.
"I'm really not."
"Just," Buck pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, "get in the ambulance Sam." This is what it felt like to be Chris, he was sure of it. Next time they were out, he needed to buy that man a beer.
"Fine," she bit out. She put the mask back over her nose and took a breath. The truth is she'd have argued more, but relenting was the fastest way to the hospital, and the quickest means of checking for herself that Ezra was all right.
-/-
"Ketamine!?" Chris exclaimed. "How in the hell did Ezra get Ketamine in his system?" The doctor with the clip board shrank back a little.
The short man's fingers clutched nervously around his clip board. "Uh well, there are various means for the drug to be delivered. Injection. Inhalation is popular amongst users looking for a quick high." The look of absolute fury that crossed Agent Larabees face made the doctor swallow, hard.
"Are you implying my agent ingested these drugs of his own accord?" Chris growled lowly.
The doctor edged closer to the room's door. "Well, statistically law enforcement officers, especially those that engage in operations around narcotics tend to…" he trailed off. Chris's eyes threatened to burn a hole through him.
"Agent Standish," Chris spoke slowly, "does not engage in recreational drug use." None of his agents used drugs, not even legalized marijuana, since they were a federal agency. Now, he'd fully admit most of his agents had a rather liberal relationship with alcohol from time to time, but beer and liquor were a far cry from ketamine. And given the cases they often fielded, he wasn't about to judge them from blowing off steam here and there.
The doctor had one foot out the door. "One of our psychiatric staff will be by to speak with him when he regains consciousness," he squeaked. "Procedure." Then he was gone. Chris's jaw clenched hard enough for his teeth to ache.
Buck's whistle emanated from the doorway. "Well shit Chris, I do think you sent that man running for a toilet. Anyone ever tell you you're right scary sometimes?" The teasing of his oldest friend managed to ease a little of the tension Chris carried. Buck came in, Hunter trailing in his wake, dragging a portable oxygen cart in hers.
"Sometimes?" Chris lifted an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirked upward. "I'm losing my touch."
"You're really not," Hunter grunted as she wheeled the tank closer to Ezra's bed. The undercover agent looked like he was sleeping. Electronic leads attached from his chest to steadily beeping monsters.
"Shouldn't you be in a room?" Chris asked wryly.
"I'm going to ignore the tone that implies a padded one," Hunter shot back, voice dripping dry. She held up her wrist, showing off the hospital bracelet. "Technically, I'm admitted." Admitted, but she hadn't so much as washed the dark residue of soot and dust off her face. Her pajama pants had a sizable rip in one thigh, where one very dark, large bruise had taken root. Chris doubted she'd even noticed. "They mostly just wanted to observe me and have me on oxygen. So," she patted the oxygen tank next to her and replaced the nasal canula over her head, "oxygen. I suppose if I collapse one of you should call for a nurse." Chris recognized the challenge in her hazel eyes when she looked at him.
Chris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. She was definitely as bad as the rest of them. "Fine. You pass out I'm leaving your ass on the floor."
"Fine."
"Where's JD at Chris?" Buck queried, trying to fight off the smirk watching the two of them stand off. He hoped his mustache masked it. Judging by the thundercloud on Chris' face, he wasn't that lucky.
"Lettin' Vin know what happened. And then getting a hold of Nathan and Josiah."
"And what all exactly did happen?" Buck asked. "Feel like I've arrived at this party a bit late."
"Ezra has ketamine in his system," Chris explained. "It's why he's unconscious. Not a small dose either. Enough to mess with his heart rate and breathing. It was up near 200 when he came in. Docs want to keep him under observation at least for the day once he wakes up. Which he should do soon. Ketamine packs a wallop, but it doesn't last too long."
"The hell…" Buck muttered.
"I suppose burning to death while unconscious is this guys version of mercy," Chris growled. "Hunter, anything seem off tonight before all this started?"
"No. Normal kind of night. Couple drinks, ordered some takeout, went to bed. When I heard a noise in the living room I figured it was Ezra so I poked my nose out. Next thing I know I'm picking my ass off the floor and the place is lit up. So many damn blows to the head lately it's a wonder I don't have any permanent deficits." Her hand shot up, pointer finger directed at Buck. "Not a word there peanut gallery." she said without looking at him. Bucks mouth snapped shut.
"I suppose he could have snuck up on Ezra, injected him, but it doesn't seem likely. There would have been a scuffle and a lot more noise than what i heard." She frowned, "must have been the bourbon. Ezra had a glass. I didn't. It's the only thing that makes sense."
"That'd track," Chris nodded. "It would have hit him slower that way, but the alcohol would also explain the heightened reaction. Drink, twenty, thirty minutes passes, drug hits him, he passes out." The team leader scowled. "Since he's got god damn cameras in the apartment, he's watching, sees it play out and goes in to finish the job. He had to be close though, had to be sure the drug wouldn't work through Ezra's system before he got there." He turned to Buck.
"He was there," Buck shook his head. "Son of a bitch. Hell, mighta still been there tonight when the fire department rolled up. There was a pretty decent crowd." Buck's hands balled into fists. He'd been close, close enough to lay hands on. Close enough he could have paid the bastard back for Ashley and Lucia.
"Grab JD and head back to Ezra's. Talk to the arson investigator. Building security. I want as much footage as we can get our hands on from everywhere within a ten block radius. We are ending this before anyone else gets killed," Chris growled.
Buck nodded, face grim. "On it pard." His long legs swept him from the room.
"Would someone care to illuminate me…" The familiar lilt of Ezra's accent grabbed Chris' attention a few minutes later. "…as to why I appear to be currently residing in a hospital bed and not the one in my domicile?" The undercover agent winced. "And why I have such a splitting headache?" Chris couldn't help himself. He grinned.
-/-
An hour or so later, Ezra was fully caught up to speed as to the nights events. Chris and Hunter had even sat through an impressively long tirade about the 'insolence of a man so cowardly as to attack a man's home and destroy all his possessions.' He'd even gone on a tangent about his Jag. Chris just found it impressive Ezra could manage to remain sounding dignified through the litany of cursing he had done in his rant. Chris' phone buzzed. Buck. He stepped out into the hall.
Ezra turned to Hunter. "You mean to tell me you couldn't have saved anything?"
"Oh I'm sorry Ezra, next time I'll be sure to throw a couple Armani outfits out the window before I come back for you!" Hunter snapped.
Ezra eyed the bandage encircling her forearm and he took a breath. "Of course. Apologies Hunter, my temper got in the way of my sensibility."
"It's fine. I get it. Having all your stuff obliterated is… distressing."
"Precisely. You lost all your possessions when this miscreant blew up your apartment. Now just imagine if your things had also been valuable." Hunter closed her eyes, bit her bottom lip and counted silently back from ten.
"Yeah," she grit out from between her teeth, "imagine." He'd nearly died, only he hadn't, and she was absurdly grateful but God there was still that urge to throttle him, right there. She avoided saying anything else by fiddling with the oxygen tank.
"You saved my life," Ezra said quietly.
Her eyes flicked in his direction. The way he looked at her, through her, that uncanny knack he had for seeing people. And there was something in his face she didn't dare put a name to, but that she could definitely put an end to. Self preservation was like that. "Well wasn't gonna let you burn," she said, flippant.
And just like that, the look on his face was gone, replaced by the familiar amused irritation. "Well how generous of you," his accent thickened when he went heavy on the sarcasm.
"Oh, there's the gratitude," she teased, mouth curling upward in a smirk, "your ass is heavy." She held up her bandaged forearm. "War wounds, just for you." Ezra's laughter turned into a coughing fit. Damned smoke.
When the racking coughs subsided, Ezra reached for her arm. His hand gently cradled her wrist as he inspected the damage. Even through the bandage the light, careful touch made goosebumps stand up on her arm. "Painful?" he asked.
"One a scale from one to the past few weeks?" she tried to joke. "Hell, this don't even make top five."
"No jokes," the southerner scolded, though without any force behind it, "I'm being serious Hunter." He watched her avoid his eyes, the muscle in her jaw flex, back stiffen. But he wasn't going to let her brush it off, not this time. She pulled her arm back from him slowly. Her fingers brushed tentatively beneath his own and they paused there.
"Yeah," she nodded, "it hurts." Their fingers danced over one another's, two hands tickling the keys of a piano. She fixed her eyes on his and there was no joking to be found. "One hundred percent worth it." Ezra felt a hitch in his breath that had nothing to do with smoke.
"Hey Hunter," Chris poked his head in from the hall where he'd been out fielding calls from Buck, and then Vin.
Her hand was gone so fast Ezra wasn't sure it had ever been there to start. The mask she wore as her face was firmly back in place, and she looked everywhere but at him.
"You still planning on taking Vin back to his place?" Chris asked, seemingly unaware of the sudden change in energy of the room. "He's gonna claw down the walls. He just called and said he's coming up here to see Ezra then leaving, even if he has to walk."
Hunter grunted. "That would be a sight headed down Colfax. I mean yeah I was still planning on driving him, but I still gotta get back to the office to get his Jeep." Then she winced. "Except his keys were on my nightstand. I guess I could hotwire it…"
Chris dug around in his pocket for a moment before tossing her a set of keys. "Take my truck. Easier to get him in my back seat than his anyway. We'll figure out sorting vehicles later. Besides, no reason to terrorize an Uber driver this early in the morning going to that neighborhood."
"But you're perfectly fine terrorizing me?"
"You're special," the blonde team leader deadpanned.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "You manage to say that like it's an insult."
"Do I?" His face was a mask, but there was mirth twinkling in his eyes.
She resisted what she knew was the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. "I should go get started with my discharge then." Hunter rose from her chair. "Hopefully he has patience enough to wait that long." She purposefully didn't look at Ezra. That had been stupid. And he was, well, something anyway, with Vanessa. And even if he wasn't, it was just as bad an idea.
"Oh, he will," Chris assured. Hunter nodded and began to wheel her oxygen cart toward the door.
"If my two compatriots are checking out, does this mean I may be able to soon effect my own emancipation?" Ezra queried.
"No!" Chris and Hunter instantly cried in unison.
"It's a day Ezra," Chris went on with a sigh. "Twelve hours. After that, I'll come get you myself."
Vin was waiting in a wheelchair when Sam returned, his leg casted from mid thigh to his foot, propped erect out in front of him. A pair of crutches balanced across the armrests of the chair. The sharpshooters ever present stubble on his square jaw had morphed in the last week into a full blown scruffy beard. It wasn't enough to hide his sunken cheeks, or his wan complexion. He'd lost weight he didn't have to lose, even despite enchiladas from Inez and Sam's taco takeout.
"What's the next move pard?" Vin asked.
Chris ran a weary hand through his hair. "Next move is you go home. Rest. Heal. If you're going to insist on working, keep looking through those damned files. Our guy is in there somewhere, I can feel it. He's bound to make a mistake sometime. We just need to be ready for when he does."
"He's hamstringing us Chris, and he's doing it on purpose."
"I know." The team leader frowned. Two men on administrative leave. Two men down to injury. He was whittling away at them, piece by piece. But to what end? "Go home," he said again. "I'll keep you in the loop after I talk to Buck and the others, see if there were any hits by Ezra's apartment. And you," he raised a finger at his undercover agent, "twelve hours observation. After that? I'd like a solid 24 hours not having to walk through the doors to this place. Hell I'd like a lot more than that, but let's start with the bare minimum. Now get out of here."
-/-
Vin's building in Purgatorio, a slum on the East side of Five Points, was in no better condition than the last time Sam had been there. Trash clogged the sewers. A tent city had been erected only a couple of blocks to the North. Teens sporting gang colors loitered on the street corners. Vin's building was flanked on either side by half crumbled edifices, and his building looked like it was one city inspection away from being condemned. Bars covered windows on the first two floors, and they still didn't stop the windows themselves from being broken.
Sam parked Chris's truck in the cracked, weedy parking lot next to the building, trying to ignore the people eyeing it from across the street. She opened the back door, where Vin sat with his leg splayed across the bench seat and gathered his crutches. The lean sharpshooter slid his way to the truck door with more grace than Sam imagined she could have managed, and using the headrest of the passenger seat for support, hopped out onto his good leg. Sweat dotted his brow, but Sam knew better than to say anything. She handed him the crutches wordlessly and Vin tucked them under his arms, moving toward his apartment without waiting. His movements with the crutches were still awkward and halting, he knew she'd catch up.
The lock on the front door was broken, and Vin didn't even bother reaching for his keys. So it had obviously been that way for a while. Thankfully, he'd only given Sam the keys to his Jeep. Not that breaking into his apartment would have been hard, but still. Sam held the door for him and he crutched his way across the foyer to the elevator and stairs. The 'Out of Service' sign still hung on the elevator. He sighed. Stairs it was. Three flights. A molehill. Or a mountain. Depending on the state of your legs, he surmised. He scowled. He hated this. Being incapacitated, weak. He hadn't needed people in a long time, not since he was a kid in the foster system, and he preferred it that way. Hell, he'd cultivated his life that way. The Team was different of course, that was a choice, he didn't need them, but they could all rely on each other to have the other's backs. This wasn't that, this wasn't trust, it was helplessness.
Two crutches were awkward, and the hand rail of the stairs was sketchy on it's best day. Blue eyes flicked to Sam's face. "You mind?" he grumbled.
She gave him a soft smile. "Why I'm here." She took one crutch from him and took up position on his right side. His right hand grasped her left shoulder and they began their slow, arduous climb to his apartment. Place crutch on the stair above. Lean into it. Hop up stair on good foot, using Sam for balance. Rinse. Repeat. By the time they reached the third floor landing sweat had darkened the collar of Vin's t-shirt, face gray from the effort.
"That was fun," he panted.
"Yeah, and just think how may times we'll get to do it in the next… how long are you in that?" Sam asked, pointing to his cast.
"Four weeks in the full leg cast. Another four in the short cast below the knee." Vin scowled at the thought. He took his other crutch back from Sam and made his way to his door. This time, he did pull his keys out. The door swung open easily. Still, Sam held back. "Coming in?"
"Where's the cat?" Her voice was so suspicious Vin had to laugh.
"Cuervo?" he said, naming his half feral feline companion.
"Who else would I be talking about?"
"You're afraid of Cuervo?" he snickered.
"He's a damned attack cat and you know it," Sam protested in a huff.
"One time."
"I have scars." Vin passed through the doorway. Sam stuck her head in, wary.
"You startled him."
"By breathing?" She asked, sarcastic. She eyed the top of the refrigerator. No cat. She took a tentative step over the threshold.
"You realize Cuervo is part and parcel with bein' here right?" Vin clarified. "He's usually around."
"As long as we can work out mutually acceptable terms we'll have no problems."
"He's a cat Sammy. Not sure you can parley."
"I'm willing to try."
Vin snorted. "He comes and goes as he pleases," he reminded her. "I haven't been around to feed him for a bit, so my guess is he's hanging with Carlos and his mom on the second floor." Vin paused to survey his apartment. Damn but it was good to be home. Big enough to be a three bedroom, his place was missing nearly all it's walls save for the bathroom, so in essence he had a very large studio. A beaten up green couch sat near the middle of the space facing the windows and an ancient TV. His bed, a box spring and queen sized mattress on the ground was near the back wall on the opposite side. A punching bag hung not too far away.
"I don't have another mattress," he said. "But the couch is pretty comfortable, for what that's worth."
"It's worth a lot," Sam sighed. She went and placed Vin's duffel next to his dresser by the bed. Vin made his way haltingly into the kitchen and started making coffee. Sam joined him. "I can do that," she told him. "You should go sit."
"I ain't an invalid!" Vin snapped. She pulled back from him, hands up, palms out. Instantly he regretted it. "I can't sit no more Sammy. All I been doing is sitting on my backside for over a week, reading reports that don't get us nowhere. While Lucia and Ashley died. You and Ez get hurt." The look on his face was pained. "I just need to do somethin' even if it's just making you and me coffee."
"Yeah I get that." Sam leaned her shoulder against the wall. "And no, you're not an invalid. But Vin, it's not a failing to take some help either." She smiled softly, "even if it's just making coffee."
Vin's chin dropped to his chest, and he let out a deep breath, the knot between his shoulder blades unwinding a little. "Sorry Sam."
"No worries. Look, I promise I won't hover, but I'm here to help you. Use it sometimes huh? Like, I can watch the coffee if you want to get cleaned up a bit."
The sharpshooter eyed her sideways, and he started to chuckle, which still hurt. "Me cleaned up? Sammy, you take a look at yourself here lately? Think you got dibs on the shower first, especially if you're planning to sit on my couch."
Surprised, Sam glanced down. Her hands were streaked in soot and black grime, it had solidified in her nail beds, the bright white bandages from the hospital on her left forearm were in stark relief to the rest of her skin. Even the cast on her right arm was dirty. Not much to do about that though. There was a gaping hole in the flannel pajama pants she wore that ran from her knee to nearly her hip. Everything smelled like ash and smoke. She started to laugh. "I don't suppose my face looks much better than the rest of me."
Vin grinned, "you do kinda gotta a coon thing going on with your eyes." He motioned to the bathroom with his chin. "Go on. Theres some bandages and gauze under the sink so you can rewrap that arm when you're done. Coffee will be waitin' when you get out."
Sam obliged without argument, pausing to grab a clean towel from the closet next to the bathroom. Even though it was June, she turned the heat of the shower high, stripping down while she waited for it to warm up. Vin hadn't been wrong about the raccoon look, she thought as she peered into the mirror. The white of her eyes stood in stark contrast to the dark soot that had settled around them. Even her hair looked more gray than it's customary copper brown. She peeled the bandage off her left arm, half the time using her teeth when her casted hand failed to get a good grasp of the tape. The abrasions were deep and stung anew in the damp air. More scars to come, these to balance the ones she'd earned more than a decade earlier.
Steam rolled out from the shower. The water was going to hurt. Not that there was much way around it. She couldn't get the cast on her right arm wet and she needed at least one functioning appendage to bathe. She stepped over the rim of the tub into the hot water, leaving her right arm outside the shower curtain. She turned her face up into the stream, like the water could cleanse… everything. This man had taken so much, hurt so many. And it had started with her. If only she'd been able to fight him off, none of them would be where they were right now. Neither innocent woman would be dead. Pain squeezed at her chest. She closed her eyes, but it just brought her back there, to the parking garage where he'd first jumped her. If only he hadn't drawn the knife, the knife that tipped the scales in his favor. Frustrated by the memory, Sam's eyes flew open and she slapped the tile of the shower with an open palm. Hindsight was perfect, she reminded herself, but it wasn't reality.
Sam finished showering, turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. She hadn't really considered the only clothes she had left to her name were sitting in a dirty pile next to the shower. She opened the door, and found a shirt and sweats folded neatly in a pile in front of the door. From across the room, Vin raised a coffee mug in her direction. Grateful, she scooped them up, Despite the fact that Vin was neither especially tall, nor especially large, he still had a few inches on Sam's 5'7" frame, and his clothes more or less swallowed her. She cinched down the drawstring of the pants as tight as it would go. She was going to need to go shopping, again, god her credit card company was going to love her.
Vin went next, setting aside his half emptied coffee mug to crutch to the bathroom. Showering itself was more or less out, at least until he could figure out how to stand in the shower while keeping the full leg cast dry. Sam might have been right about his accepting help, but helping him bathe was a step farther than he was willing to go. He wiped the lingering steam from the mirror. The image that stared back at him made him grimace. Aside from the weeks worth of stubble on his face, was the approximate four by four inch square the doctors had shaved into the right side of his scalp. The rest of his long, usually curly hair had matted itself together between the building debris and the week of unconsciousness. Even if he could take a shower, he doubted he'd be able to get the knots out. He stood staring at his reflection for a long time.
Sam was neck deep in the fridge when she heard the bathroom door open a short while later. "Hey! Just let me know some stuff you like to eat and I'll pick up some groceries. I need to go out in a bit and get some clothes, maybe like a bra and your pantry is pretty…." she turned around, jaw dropping loose momentarily before she shut it with an audible snap, "…whoa."
The beard that the sharpshooter had been sporting was gone, replaced by his typical 5 o'clock shadow. Along with his hair. Though he hadn't used his clippers to get quite the same buzz cut the doctors had, his long, shoulder length waves were gone. Vin leaned against his crutches and shrugged. "It's hair," he said simply, fighting the flush trying to work it's way up his neck, "it'll grow."
"No, for sure. I didn't mean it like a bad thing," Sam hurried to explain. "Just, wasn't expecting that."
Vin ran a hand over his head and scowled. "I look like the mailman," he muttered.
Sam snorted a little. "Only if your mailman looks like he stepped right out of GQ." Her head cocked to the side. "Minus the track pants and beer brewery T-shirt anyway," she amended.
Vin had good enough humor to smile at that. He crutched the rest of the way toward the kitchen and his half finished mug of coffee. "Only pants I got that fit over this damn cast. Got snaps all the way up the side." He lifted his coffee mug, eyes twinkling. "GQ huh Sammy? Good to know." He took a sip and smirked.
She rolled her eyes, "oh shut up Tanner," and threw a wadded up dish towel in his direction. He caught it on reflex and took another sip of coffee. Yeah, despite everything, it was good to be home.
-/-
Chapter 13