Retaliation Chapter 4/?
"Good news and bad news?" Ed repeated. It doesn't sound good was what he was thinking.
"Give it to us." Parker demanded.
" looked at him and nodded. "The good news is that Miss Callaghan is out of surgery."
An uneasy relief went through the room. Yes, that was good news but if there was also bad news maybe it wasn't such good news.
"The bad news?" Wordy asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot nervously.
"The bad news is that she has lost a good deal of blood and her left lung was punctured by the bullet."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that she is in serious condition. We stopped the bleeding and gave her two blood transfusions. Also, we inflated the lung and patched it and it should be good as new but the next twenty four hours will be critical."
"Will she be all right?" Lou asked.
"I think so, yes. Miss Callaghan is quite a fighter. Many people with similar injuries never make it out of surgery. But, like I said, the next twenty four hours will be crucial."
"Thank you, Dr. Connor." Parker said. "We'll be waiting for updates."
"Oh, and one more thing." Dr. Connor turned back from the swinging doors. "Two actually. One, has been asking for you, and Miss Callaghan will be moved to the ICU shortly and you'll be able to visit her one at a time, for about five minutes at a time."
"Thank you, . We'll do that." The relief was written across Parker's tired face, and repeated on every face around the room. The worst was over.
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Sam Braddock was awake, wide awake, and lying in a stark white hospital room, with nothing and no one to keep him company. At least for the moment anyway, he had been begging every nurse that came in to check on him to please contact Sergeant Parker, or any member of his team, that he wanted to see them, to find out what had happened, why and how Jules was.
The last thing he remember clearly was her pale shocked face as Jules had realized all that blood was her own.....
"Jules, are you okay?" Sam had shouted after the shots had rang out. He knew he had been hit but it wasn't too bad. Upon turning around, he found a sight he had hoped to have left in Iraq - a team member lying in a pool of their own blood. "Jules!" Even though it caused him great pain, he rushed to her side. "Oh, Jules."
Frantically, hr attempted to stop the bleeding. It wasn't working! Then he remembered his radio. "Officer down, officer down! I repeat, officer down! Immediate medical attention needed!" he shouted into it.
"C'mon Jules, don't do this to me." Sam pressed his hands tightly against her chest, something he felt she would probably karate chop him for if she had been totally aware of what he was doing.
"Sorry, Sam." Jules whispered.
"You're going to be fine. Help is on the way." He hoped anyway. He hadn't heard any more shots so the team members on the ground were probably all was quiet, too quiet. "Say something, Jules."
"Should've been nicer to you."
"No, no, no, you're plenty nice to me." He wondered where the paramedics were as he tried to keep her talking. As long as she was talking, he felt reassured she'd be okay. "You're going to be fine, and when this is all over, I'm taking you out to dinner. Where do you want to go?"
"Don't date team members." Jules' eyes grew big as saucers looking at the front of his bloody shirt. "Is that mine?"
"Sam glanced down at himself."Well, yeah. But it's all right, I never liked it anyway."
"Looks good though."
He almost laughed. Here she was, nearly bleeding to death on the top of a building roof, and Jules was flirting with him!"
Sam grinned a little at the memory then it faded. That was the last he had seen of Jules and he had no idea what had happened since.
"Knock, knock." Parker said, coming into the room. "Actually, you don't have a door, just these very lovely pink curtains."
"Yeah, so I noticed." Sam said.
"Homey." Parker looked around the room. There wasn't much, just a table, a chair by the bed, and the bed. That was it, not even a picture on the wall. "Not even a television, eh?"
"Nope. Sarge, how is Jules?" Sam didn't want to beat around the bush and joke about the room.
Parker sighed heavily and lowered himself into the chair beside the bed.
Panic seized Sam. "Sarge, she, she is alive, isn't she?" he stammered.
"Yes, yes, she is."
"Thank God." Sam exclaimed, relieved. Then he looked at Parker. "There's more, isn't there?"
"She just came out of surgery a little while ago. It does look good so far but the doctor says the next twenty four hours will determine if anything will happen."
"So, Jules will be all right?" Sam was anxious to know.
"Looks that way. You didn't think she would actually die on you, did you?" Parker said, trying to smile but it had been a long day, he had not slept in two days, and just a little while ago he had been afraid of that very thing. And not much scared Gregory Parker.
"She didn't exactly look good the last time I saw her."
"Oooh, I would not let her hear you say that, ever." Parker actually smiled then. "Can you tell me what happened?"
Sam nodded and started to speak. "We were up on the roof. I had a shot but Wordy said to stand down so I did."
"Good. Anything else?" Parker was writing it down for the paperwork now, and later the trial, if and when they caught the shooters.
"Then you came over the radio, told us to be careful. But it was too late, we didn't have time to run. Then I realized she had been hit. Why didn't her vest work? Why did it fail when Jules needed it most?"
"I don't know, Sam. I really don't know."
And that was something Gregory Parker wanted to know.
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