FIC: In Another Life (11/22) - BtVS/Numb3rs
I'll finally be back in the land of constant internet connectivity tomorrow (thankfully) and be able to finally catch up on the stuff I've missed. Hope you all enjoy this nice, long chapter.
Title: In Another Life (11/22+Epilogue)
Author: lyl_devil
Rating: PG-15
Fandom: BtVS, Numb3rs
Pairing: Willow/Don
Beta: strangevisitor7 & kallie_kat
Words: ~37,500 (as of Dec 28, 2008)
Disclaimer: I don’t own either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes.
Summary: Every action has a consequence and every deal comes with a price. Willow’s life is wiped clean, so she makes a new one for herself in LA.
Master Post
Note: I don’t claim to know anything about magic, medicine or the FBI - what I didn’t pick up from tv and books, I made up.
~!~
Part 11
“Melanie? Melanie! Oh my God! Somebody help!”
Willow froze at those words, looking over towards where the crowd was starting to gather. The person calling for help was Suki, which meant that it was Melanie from the front desk. A nice woman who was only slightly older than Willow, but had two kids and a husband who was babysitting them tonight.
Watching the robbers fall apart in the aftermath, Willow could totally see what Don and Jack had been talking about. The guys were freaking out, as if suddenly realizing that this was all real and not some video game.
Over the crowd, Willow caught Darren's eye. He made a quick gesture towards his head with a hand, followed by a nod. It took a few seconds before she realized he meant that he'd called for help. Willow relayed that message to Don, and felt his shoulders relax a bit. Not a lot, but it was more than she had expected.
Looking back toward Melanie, Willow felt her heart speed up as Suki started to cry. Suki brushed a stray piece of hair off her face, leaving a smear of blood in its place. Willow bit her lip in indecision, wondering if she should go over and help. She knew instinctively that Don would object, but a woman's life was at risk and she could help.
“Oh my God - Melanie! Wake up! Please wake up!” More people started to panic, and Willow made up her mind.
Slowly standing up, Willow heard Don hiss her name in warning but couldn't pay him any attention. Her shaky rising had drawn the attention of one of the gunmen, and he had his weapon pointed straight at her.
“Get back down!”
“I can help her,” she announced, glad that her voice revealed nothing of the terror underneath.
“Why should we care?” asked a second one, all condescending and arrogant.
“If she di-dies, you'll be charged with murder,” Willow said, praying they couldn't feel her heart pounding in her chest.
“Bullshit,” said the second one, levelling his gun at her as well. Something about the sight of those weapons aimed at her with the full intention of killing her if she provoked them, caused something to harden in her. Possibly another unknown body-memory from when she still had a full memory to work from, but it gave her the strength to push down her fear. She hadn't let anything she didn't remember rule her actions, and she wasn't about to start now.
“If a death results during the commission of a crime, it's automatically first degree murder,” she said, hoping that it was close enough to the truth - it was hard to remember details when adrenaline was flooding her system.
“You a cop?” he asked, griping his gun tighter.
“I watch a lot of TV.”
“I think I remember hearing that, man,” added a third guy.
The second guy seemed to be a sort of defacto leader, so when he went silent with indecision, Willow repeated her statement from earlier. “I can help her.”
It seemed to take an eternity, but he finally nodded and motioned her over with his gun. She really wanted to look back at Don, grab his hand for comfort, but she didn't dare.
She made her way on shaky legs, feeling her blood trembling in her veins with each step. People moved out of her path as she made her way to the still and bloody form on the floor.
Kneeling beside the woman, mindless of the blood soaking into her new dress, Willow took a deep breath and tried to remember everything Milo had taught her.
Stay calm, she heard in her mind. You're not going to do anyone any good if you start panicking.
She looked at Melanie's unnaturally still form, and tried to focus on the details, not the person. If she let herself think about sunny, bright Melanie and the chocolate she would sell from her desk to support her son's school, she would break and be useless.
The bullet hole was easy to find, despite the blood; a neat, round hole in the white fabric at the shoulder that was rapidly turning the dress red. Reaching over, Willow ignored the way her hands were shaking, and ripped the fabric open at the hole. The bullet had made a messier impact on the flesh than it had on the dress, and was still pumping blood through the opening.
It had gone through the chest, below the heart, but Willow didn't know enough anatomy to determine if it had gone through a lung. Though she really hoped it hadn't.
“I need something to stop the bleeding,” she called out, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. She pressed down on the wound with as much force as she dared, until several cloth napkins - no doubt smuggled from the buffet table - were thrust at her.
Taking them in silence, she wadded them up and pressed them against the wound. The flow of blood was slowing, but only because there wasn't much left to pump out.
There was also the disconcerting lack of movement from Melanie's chest.
“Suki,” she called out to the woman who was cradling Melanie's head. She had to repeat herself, her voice sharp and designed to grab her attention. “I need you to come over here,” motioning with her head. “Press on this. Hard.”
While Willow knew she had a dozen people to choose from, sitting in a circle around them and watching with big, scared eyes, Willow figured Suki was the one she should concentrate on. She'd never been in a hostage situation - or any situation remotely similar to this (that she could remember) - but she figured that getting Suki quiet and focussed could only be in everyone's best interest. Her high-pitched whimpers were grating on Willow's nerves, and the guys with the guns probably weren't faring any better.
Once her hands were free, Willow moved up to check Melanie's breathing, only to find there was none. This part of Milo's training she remembered, as he'd drilled it into her head since day one.
Tilt the head. Listen for breath. Check the pulse.
Her pulse was faint but there, and Willow let herself have the barest of smiles.
Taking a breath, Willow leaned over and breathed once. Twice. Then stopped to listen. Hearing nothing, she tilted the head back again, making sure the airway was open. She breathed one, then two, watching to see if she was giving breath to the lungs, or the stomach.
“Come on. Breathe,” she whispered, her voice sounding unnaturally loud amongst the silence around her.
Still no sign of breathing from her patient, but the pulse was there. Still faint, but still there.
Willow repeated the movements again, knowing that she would continue to breath for this woman until someone forced her to stop or she started breathing on her own.
Luckily, Melanie decided to accommodate her by sucking in a small, rasping breath. Then another. And any elation Willow felt disappeared as she listened to the wet, raspy breaths that told her there was fluid in her lungs. Probably blood.
She looked around quickly, scanning the faces of the onlookers, and picked out the one that looked to be the least traumatised. Or at least he was hiding it better than the rest of them. Either way, he'd just been volunteered.
“You. Ethan. Come over here,” she said, hoping that was his name. She'd passed by him briefly in training and the lunch room, knowing he was from accounting but not much else.
“Did you see what I was doing before?” she asked when he'd scrambled his way over. He nodded, eyes wide. “Good. If she stops breathing again, do that until she either starts again, or I tell you to stop.”
At his nod of compliance, Willow moved back towards Suki, who had thankfully quieted down.
“The napkins are soaked,” Suki whispered hoarsely, the strain evident in her voice.
“That's okay,” Willow reassured. “It's the pressure that's important.”
At some point while she'd been getting Melanie back to breathing on her own, more of the crisp white napkins had materialized. Making another pad from some of the napkins, looked Suki in the eye.
“I need to check for an exit wound,” she said, cursing herself for not doing that first. “I'm going to roll her towards me slightly, but I need you to keep pressure on the wound.”
Suki’s nod was stilted but determined.
Willow reached across and wedged her hands underneath Melanie's chest. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
Willow pulled up slightly, using one hand to hold and the other to probe where the bullet should have emerged. She felt nothing but undamaged skin, and tried to decide if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, it meant that there was only bleeding out of one hole. On the other, it meant the bullet was still inside her.
“Ok, down,” she said to Suki, and they gently rolled her back into position. Picking up the pad of napkins she'd made moments ago - covered in smears of blood, transferred from her own hands - Willow leaned in close to Suki. “I'm going to take a look to see what damage the bullet did.”
She sounded more confident than she felt. She also hoped she was doing what she was suppose to, and not making things worse.
Suki nodded her understanding, and when Willow motioned to her, she pulled back. Willow lifted the blood soaked napkins away, peering at the raw damage done by the bullet. The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle, but that still didn't comfort Willow as Melanie's breaths were getting more watery by the minute. The tissue was starting to look inflamed and red, though that didn't mean anything, really. But she couldn't find the bullet. Willow didn't want to poke around too much, because she was remembering something else Milo had said.
Sometimes you're better off leaving something where it is. Pulling the knife out of someone can often cause more damage than how it got there - a knife in the heart may not kill you, but pulling it out will.
Willow figured the same thing went with bullets, and hoped she hadn't done more damage with all her 'help'.
“How do you know this stuff?” asked Suki quietly, her voice steadier.
“I lived with a paramedic for three years,” she said, applying the new wad of napkins to the wound. “He taught me what he knew.”
And she'd never been more grateful in her life.
Putting Suki back on applying pressure, Willow moved back towards Ethan.
“She doesn't sound very good,” he said. Willow nodded in agreement, noticing someone had placed a balled up jacket under her head.
“We need to get her chest elevated,” she said, grateful when more than one person flung their jackets in her direction.
Rolling and folding got the various clothing into a semblance of cushions, which Willow gently pushed under Melanie's chest. She managed to elevate her head and shoulders a few inches, and hoped that was enough to allow gravity to help her breath a little easier. It seemed to work, as the woman's breathing eased somewhat.
“Willow,” whispered Ethan, and Willow was mildly surprised that he knew her name. “They were talking about Level Twelve.”
Willow looked at him for a minute, wondering what he meant before clueing in. Level Twelve was the name of the eighth floor server room, where Arctic Morgan's most classified work was stored. It was a term that only someone familiar with the company would know, not random robbers who'd decided to rob a release party. There had to be more going on than a simple robbery, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Her first priority was keeping Melanie alive until help could get here.
No sooner had she thought it, than a voice outside said, “This is the police. Come out with your hands up.”
Huh. They really do say that in real life.
Flashing red and blue lights could be seen reflecting through the glass doors and windows along one side of the room, and Willow had never been happier to see them in her life.
Apparently the robbers didn't feel the same way, as they started waving their guns around and shouting at each other. It appeared that this wasn't in the plans, and they weren't sure what to do.
Somebody knew what to do, though, as the robbers on the periphery of the room suddenly dropped to the floor amid scuffles. Then shots rang out and Willow was too busy throwing herself over Melanie's body to pay attention to what was happening.
An eternity later, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Clear.”
Looking up, Willow saw Don moving around the room, armed with one of the robbers' guns. Several other people were doing the same thing, returning his 'clear' signal, and Willow recognized them as Arctic Morgan security. She wondered how the bad guys could have gotten past these security guys - who all looked perfectly healthy - before she realized that these were the ones off duty, attending the party.
She only hoped the ones who had been on duty were all right.
Willow's attention was pulled away from the brilliant rescue by her boyfriend - well, she thought it was brilliant - when the wet, raspy breaths from Melanie stopped again.
No!
She may have said that out loud, as several heads turned in her direction, but at the moment she didn't much care.
Pulling the stack of jackets out from underneath, Willow moved through the same routine as before, but felt her heart stop as she checked her pulse.
There was none.
“Don! We need an ambulance!” she shouted to the room at large, not bothering to look up.
Directing Ethan to breath for her, Willow waited for him to administer two breaths, then started a series of chest compressions.
Suki started whimpering again, and the noise level around her dropped. Relief and elation at the rescue was dying as they watched their co-worker and friend die by inches in front of them.
Her arms and shoulders were feeling the strain, each chest compression hammering at her hope. Her world had narrowed down to counting and compressions, listening to Ethan as he became Melanie's lungs while Willow became her heart.
Then a pair of EMTs slid in beside her, and her world focus widened again.
“How long has she been like this?” the first one asked, pulling out a defibrillator.
Willow opened her mouth to answer, but honestly couldn't. She had no concept of time; hadn't ever since the first shot had been fired and Don had thrown her to the ground.
Someone else answered, and Willow kept up her compressions.
End Part 11
Part 12
Title: In Another Life (11/22+Epilogue)
Author: lyl_devil
Rating: PG-15
Fandom: BtVS, Numb3rs
Pairing: Willow/Don
Beta: strangevisitor7 & kallie_kat
Words: ~37,500 (as of Dec 28, 2008)
Disclaimer: I don’t own either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes.
Summary: Every action has a consequence and every deal comes with a price. Willow’s life is wiped clean, so she makes a new one for herself in LA.
Master Post
Note: I don’t claim to know anything about magic, medicine or the FBI - what I didn’t pick up from tv and books, I made up.
~!~
Part 11
“Melanie? Melanie! Oh my God! Somebody help!”
Willow froze at those words, looking over towards where the crowd was starting to gather. The person calling for help was Suki, which meant that it was Melanie from the front desk. A nice woman who was only slightly older than Willow, but had two kids and a husband who was babysitting them tonight.
Watching the robbers fall apart in the aftermath, Willow could totally see what Don and Jack had been talking about. The guys were freaking out, as if suddenly realizing that this was all real and not some video game.
Over the crowd, Willow caught Darren's eye. He made a quick gesture towards his head with a hand, followed by a nod. It took a few seconds before she realized he meant that he'd called for help. Willow relayed that message to Don, and felt his shoulders relax a bit. Not a lot, but it was more than she had expected.
Looking back toward Melanie, Willow felt her heart speed up as Suki started to cry. Suki brushed a stray piece of hair off her face, leaving a smear of blood in its place. Willow bit her lip in indecision, wondering if she should go over and help. She knew instinctively that Don would object, but a woman's life was at risk and she could help.
“Oh my God - Melanie! Wake up! Please wake up!” More people started to panic, and Willow made up her mind.
Slowly standing up, Willow heard Don hiss her name in warning but couldn't pay him any attention. Her shaky rising had drawn the attention of one of the gunmen, and he had his weapon pointed straight at her.
“Get back down!”
“I can help her,” she announced, glad that her voice revealed nothing of the terror underneath.
“Why should we care?” asked a second one, all condescending and arrogant.
“If she di-dies, you'll be charged with murder,” Willow said, praying they couldn't feel her heart pounding in her chest.
“Bullshit,” said the second one, levelling his gun at her as well. Something about the sight of those weapons aimed at her with the full intention of killing her if she provoked them, caused something to harden in her. Possibly another unknown body-memory from when she still had a full memory to work from, but it gave her the strength to push down her fear. She hadn't let anything she didn't remember rule her actions, and she wasn't about to start now.
“If a death results during the commission of a crime, it's automatically first degree murder,” she said, hoping that it was close enough to the truth - it was hard to remember details when adrenaline was flooding her system.
“You a cop?” he asked, griping his gun tighter.
“I watch a lot of TV.”
“I think I remember hearing that, man,” added a third guy.
The second guy seemed to be a sort of defacto leader, so when he went silent with indecision, Willow repeated her statement from earlier. “I can help her.”
It seemed to take an eternity, but he finally nodded and motioned her over with his gun. She really wanted to look back at Don, grab his hand for comfort, but she didn't dare.
She made her way on shaky legs, feeling her blood trembling in her veins with each step. People moved out of her path as she made her way to the still and bloody form on the floor.
Kneeling beside the woman, mindless of the blood soaking into her new dress, Willow took a deep breath and tried to remember everything Milo had taught her.
Stay calm, she heard in her mind. You're not going to do anyone any good if you start panicking.
She looked at Melanie's unnaturally still form, and tried to focus on the details, not the person. If she let herself think about sunny, bright Melanie and the chocolate she would sell from her desk to support her son's school, she would break and be useless.
The bullet hole was easy to find, despite the blood; a neat, round hole in the white fabric at the shoulder that was rapidly turning the dress red. Reaching over, Willow ignored the way her hands were shaking, and ripped the fabric open at the hole. The bullet had made a messier impact on the flesh than it had on the dress, and was still pumping blood through the opening.
It had gone through the chest, below the heart, but Willow didn't know enough anatomy to determine if it had gone through a lung. Though she really hoped it hadn't.
“I need something to stop the bleeding,” she called out, surprised at the steadiness of her voice. She pressed down on the wound with as much force as she dared, until several cloth napkins - no doubt smuggled from the buffet table - were thrust at her.
Taking them in silence, she wadded them up and pressed them against the wound. The flow of blood was slowing, but only because there wasn't much left to pump out.
There was also the disconcerting lack of movement from Melanie's chest.
“Suki,” she called out to the woman who was cradling Melanie's head. She had to repeat herself, her voice sharp and designed to grab her attention. “I need you to come over here,” motioning with her head. “Press on this. Hard.”
While Willow knew she had a dozen people to choose from, sitting in a circle around them and watching with big, scared eyes, Willow figured Suki was the one she should concentrate on. She'd never been in a hostage situation - or any situation remotely similar to this (that she could remember) - but she figured that getting Suki quiet and focussed could only be in everyone's best interest. Her high-pitched whimpers were grating on Willow's nerves, and the guys with the guns probably weren't faring any better.
Once her hands were free, Willow moved up to check Melanie's breathing, only to find there was none. This part of Milo's training she remembered, as he'd drilled it into her head since day one.
Tilt the head. Listen for breath. Check the pulse.
Her pulse was faint but there, and Willow let herself have the barest of smiles.
Taking a breath, Willow leaned over and breathed once. Twice. Then stopped to listen. Hearing nothing, she tilted the head back again, making sure the airway was open. She breathed one, then two, watching to see if she was giving breath to the lungs, or the stomach.
“Come on. Breathe,” she whispered, her voice sounding unnaturally loud amongst the silence around her.
Still no sign of breathing from her patient, but the pulse was there. Still faint, but still there.
Willow repeated the movements again, knowing that she would continue to breath for this woman until someone forced her to stop or she started breathing on her own.
Luckily, Melanie decided to accommodate her by sucking in a small, rasping breath. Then another. And any elation Willow felt disappeared as she listened to the wet, raspy breaths that told her there was fluid in her lungs. Probably blood.
She looked around quickly, scanning the faces of the onlookers, and picked out the one that looked to be the least traumatised. Or at least he was hiding it better than the rest of them. Either way, he'd just been volunteered.
“You. Ethan. Come over here,” she said, hoping that was his name. She'd passed by him briefly in training and the lunch room, knowing he was from accounting but not much else.
“Did you see what I was doing before?” she asked when he'd scrambled his way over. He nodded, eyes wide. “Good. If she stops breathing again, do that until she either starts again, or I tell you to stop.”
At his nod of compliance, Willow moved back towards Suki, who had thankfully quieted down.
“The napkins are soaked,” Suki whispered hoarsely, the strain evident in her voice.
“That's okay,” Willow reassured. “It's the pressure that's important.”
At some point while she'd been getting Melanie back to breathing on her own, more of the crisp white napkins had materialized. Making another pad from some of the napkins, looked Suki in the eye.
“I need to check for an exit wound,” she said, cursing herself for not doing that first. “I'm going to roll her towards me slightly, but I need you to keep pressure on the wound.”
Suki’s nod was stilted but determined.
Willow reached across and wedged her hands underneath Melanie's chest. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
Willow pulled up slightly, using one hand to hold and the other to probe where the bullet should have emerged. She felt nothing but undamaged skin, and tried to decide if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, it meant that there was only bleeding out of one hole. On the other, it meant the bullet was still inside her.
“Ok, down,” she said to Suki, and they gently rolled her back into position. Picking up the pad of napkins she'd made moments ago - covered in smears of blood, transferred from her own hands - Willow leaned in close to Suki. “I'm going to take a look to see what damage the bullet did.”
She sounded more confident than she felt. She also hoped she was doing what she was suppose to, and not making things worse.
Suki nodded her understanding, and when Willow motioned to her, she pulled back. Willow lifted the blood soaked napkins away, peering at the raw damage done by the bullet. The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle, but that still didn't comfort Willow as Melanie's breaths were getting more watery by the minute. The tissue was starting to look inflamed and red, though that didn't mean anything, really. But she couldn't find the bullet. Willow didn't want to poke around too much, because she was remembering something else Milo had said.
Sometimes you're better off leaving something where it is. Pulling the knife out of someone can often cause more damage than how it got there - a knife in the heart may not kill you, but pulling it out will.
Willow figured the same thing went with bullets, and hoped she hadn't done more damage with all her 'help'.
“How do you know this stuff?” asked Suki quietly, her voice steadier.
“I lived with a paramedic for three years,” she said, applying the new wad of napkins to the wound. “He taught me what he knew.”
And she'd never been more grateful in her life.
Putting Suki back on applying pressure, Willow moved back towards Ethan.
“She doesn't sound very good,” he said. Willow nodded in agreement, noticing someone had placed a balled up jacket under her head.
“We need to get her chest elevated,” she said, grateful when more than one person flung their jackets in her direction.
Rolling and folding got the various clothing into a semblance of cushions, which Willow gently pushed under Melanie's chest. She managed to elevate her head and shoulders a few inches, and hoped that was enough to allow gravity to help her breath a little easier. It seemed to work, as the woman's breathing eased somewhat.
“Willow,” whispered Ethan, and Willow was mildly surprised that he knew her name. “They were talking about Level Twelve.”
Willow looked at him for a minute, wondering what he meant before clueing in. Level Twelve was the name of the eighth floor server room, where Arctic Morgan's most classified work was stored. It was a term that only someone familiar with the company would know, not random robbers who'd decided to rob a release party. There had to be more going on than a simple robbery, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Her first priority was keeping Melanie alive until help could get here.
No sooner had she thought it, than a voice outside said, “This is the police. Come out with your hands up.”
Huh. They really do say that in real life.
Flashing red and blue lights could be seen reflecting through the glass doors and windows along one side of the room, and Willow had never been happier to see them in her life.
Apparently the robbers didn't feel the same way, as they started waving their guns around and shouting at each other. It appeared that this wasn't in the plans, and they weren't sure what to do.
Somebody knew what to do, though, as the robbers on the periphery of the room suddenly dropped to the floor amid scuffles. Then shots rang out and Willow was too busy throwing herself over Melanie's body to pay attention to what was happening.
An eternity later, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Clear.”
Looking up, Willow saw Don moving around the room, armed with one of the robbers' guns. Several other people were doing the same thing, returning his 'clear' signal, and Willow recognized them as Arctic Morgan security. She wondered how the bad guys could have gotten past these security guys - who all looked perfectly healthy - before she realized that these were the ones off duty, attending the party.
She only hoped the ones who had been on duty were all right.
Willow's attention was pulled away from the brilliant rescue by her boyfriend - well, she thought it was brilliant - when the wet, raspy breaths from Melanie stopped again.
No!
She may have said that out loud, as several heads turned in her direction, but at the moment she didn't much care.
Pulling the stack of jackets out from underneath, Willow moved through the same routine as before, but felt her heart stop as she checked her pulse.
There was none.
“Don! We need an ambulance!” she shouted to the room at large, not bothering to look up.
Directing Ethan to breath for her, Willow waited for him to administer two breaths, then started a series of chest compressions.
Suki started whimpering again, and the noise level around her dropped. Relief and elation at the rescue was dying as they watched their co-worker and friend die by inches in front of them.
Her arms and shoulders were feeling the strain, each chest compression hammering at her hope. Her world had narrowed down to counting and compressions, listening to Ethan as he became Melanie's lungs while Willow became her heart.
Then a pair of EMTs slid in beside her, and her world focus widened again.
“How long has she been like this?” the first one asked, pulling out a defibrillator.
Willow opened her mouth to answer, but honestly couldn't. She had no concept of time; hadn't ever since the first shot had been fired and Don had thrown her to the ground.
Someone else answered, and Willow kept up her compressions.
End Part 11
Part 12