Chapter Twenty-one

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1130 hrs CST

Gibbs, his dress shirt sodden with half-dried blood, all of it Captain Nakamura's, somberly regarded his contingent who were there at the hospital waiting room. He quietly paced the floor, then looked up at his men. "I want that bastard found."

Just then Harm, Meg, Lia and Bud came into the hospital on the run. "What happened?" Harm inquired, looking over at Gibbs with a what the hell happened stare.

"We were going after the guy who uploaded the encrypt program. Turns out he was armed. Captain caught a ricochet which punctured his lung. They've been operating on him for the past two hours."

The swinging double doors that led to the operating areas, swung open bringing out a tired looking doctor whose surgical gown was liberally dotted with blood. All their eyes turned towards the doctor. "Your man is extremely lucky, the bullet was a hollow point which expanded upon penetration from the rear. There were several lacerations and one puncture to his lungs which were repaired. Luckily due to the angle of entry and lowered speed, the bullet fragments missed arteries and veins, as well as slid right by the third and fourth rear ribs but your man is in a medically induced coma which we will keep him under for two days so that he will regain the strength to fight any potential infections arising from the fact that he fell onto what amounted to grass and dirt. There is the threat of liquid in the pleural cavity as well as pneumothorax, in layman's terms it's a collapsed lung, and thus we've inserted a cannula to drain away any air buildup in the chest cavity and a chest drain tube to remove any liquid from the lungs. His prognosis looks positive, his brain activity is good, there was no tachycardia, his heartbeat is strong, but there are always cases of relapse due to infection, so I would remain guarded about his health at this time."

Harm said somberly, "I need to get a hold of Irish." He wasn't relishing the conversation that they were going to have. Both Meg and Lia looked pale. Bud stared off into space wondering how life's fortunes could turn in an instant.

Meg asked; her voice shaky, "How long before I…"…she corrected herself before everyone else could stare at her. "I mean…we can see him."

The doctor, weary as he was, didn't catch the slip-up, and just mentioned. "For now, we want him on bed-rest while in the coma. We'll let you know when you can see him."

Gibbs nodded at the statement, he had another crime scene to get to. "Lieutenant Commander Austin, Lieutenant Commander Gracen…The JAG team and Lieutenant Commander Rabb can stay here…update me on the status of Captain Nakamura… We've left the crime scene unattended for almost three hours. I need to get back there." Gibbs thought there were shell casings near the area from where the shots were fired and he wanted to collect them before the evidence became contaminated.

"Of course." Harm replied as he looked towards the double doors through which the doctor had walked back through. The other three had grabbed chairs in the waiting room and slumped into them. It appeared as though all the enjoyment of working together as a team had been taken out of them with the near fatal injury to one of their joint crew. Gibb's team and the rest of the NCIS crew shook hands with them and headed back out, their minds on the work that needed to be done.

Harm, not liking the fact that he was the bearer of bad news, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

VF-41 Black Aces Hangar, CO's Office, Naval Air Station Fallon, NV 0945hrs PST

Maegyn "Irish" O'Bannon picked up the phone after it rang twice on her desk, "VF-41 Black Aces, CO speaking."

"Irish?" Maegyn's eyes widened as she heard Harm's voice on the other end.

"What is it? Harm." She asked, her gut twisting. She'd just taken over command, hell…her change-of-command ceremony was yesterday and she was just now digging into the squadron and making it hers.

"Something's happened to Animal." Harm said. "We were investigating an incident at this base that we found in the accounting records and…"

"What happened?" Maegyn snapped. "Is he hurt, is he in the hospital?"

Harm was silent. She was an O5 and a commanding officer, so brusqueness was a requirement in her trade. "Yes…" he stammered "Yes to both questions."

The shock of the answer made Maegyn silent for a long moment.

"Irish, are you OK?"

Maegyn summoned up the energy to ask, "How is he?"

"He's in a medically induced coma. He caught a bullet while chasing down a bad guy." Harm's voice sounded strained.

"HOW THE HELL…DID THAT HAPPEN?!" Maegyn's voice was shrill with fear and rage as she drummed her fingers on the desk trying to dispel the anxiety that she felt over Animal's condition. "I thought that chasing down bad guys was not in NAVINSGEN's mandate?"

"Can you make it here." Harm's voice was nervous.

"You're damned right, I'm going to make it there. Give me twenty minutes…and I'm going to get permission from the CNO and call you right back." Maegyn barked into the receiver, then slammed the phone down. She wasn't a happy camper and intended to grab the first F-14 that she could off the flight-line after plotting a flight plan. Animal did in his last phone call tell her that he was conducting an investigation at a black base in Wisconsin and that narrowed it right down to where she knew exactly where he was at, in terms of hospital. She'd make damned sure that she could fly into Dane Regional.

Even though her command was important, Animal was more vital to her in terms of her future. And if she cleared it with the Navy's top brass, she'd be able to be at Animal's bedside when he woke up. She didn't want to consider the other outcome; she'd seen bullet wounds before as a combat naval aviator and she knew the potential internal injuries that could present. She had to believe that Animal would wake up. Even more so, she knew that she had to remain strong…at least until she got to Animal's bedside. At least there, she'd be amongst friends and not her squadron-mates for whom she had to appear every bit the bulwark of strength, the very image of the way that a commanding officer should present herself.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1200 hrs CST

"Meg, you have to get something to eat." Lia coaxed Meg to try to get her up from the chair in which she was slumped, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What if…why is life full of what ifs…?" Meg said, her voice husky with grief. If she had only expressed her interest in him before Maegyn had shown up at the Pentagon…if only she had known what it was that she wanted out of life, before now, if only she had made her interest to him known at the Medal of Honor investigation, if she hadn't been so interested in trying to fend off Mackenzie's barbs (she knew the Marine lieutenant colonel hadn't been very friendly to her – Mackenzie probably thought that she was trying to grab Harm for her own) and be able to understand that her interest in Harm had been but a precursor to an attraction to Animal. But all those were big ifs and the unforgiving reality of the here and now was the fact that Animal was in a medically induced coma with a 50/50 percent chance of survival.

Harm paced the floor of the waiting room so much that Lia and Bud thought that he would wear a hole in the carpet. This was his friend that was in a coma after being shot. He should have been there. He had failed, yet again to protect those important to him. He paced the floor lost in the thought that he should have killed the man who'd shot Animal. And from what Gibbs had let on, the man was someone that Harm knew all too well.

Bud got up and walked over to Harm. "Don't think that you brought this on him, sir." He said firmly. "He knew the risks…"

"But…" Harm objected. "If I was there…"

"You're playing into a whole pile of ifs there. Sir. If you went, perhaps it wouldn't have been him; it could have been you in that operating room. Or even worse both of you."

It was a somber waiting room to which the doctor returned not more than half an hour later. "We've got him stabilized…and in a room now, but he's in a medically induced coma to allow his body time to heal. So he won't be responsive. I'd suggest that you give him another hour or two and then you can go in to see him one at a time. Go get something to eat. You four look like you're dead on your feet and I don't want to have to treat the four of you for exhaustion."

Harm looked at the doctor and nodded quietly. The doctor was right.

The doctor saw Harm's question in the look and said, "Commander, he will come out of the coma. There's nothing that I saw in the scan that time and rest wouldn't heal." The words may have sounded trite in the face of this horrific injury, but it did the trick. Harm coaxed Meg, Lia and Bud to get something to eat and the four of them headed to the hospital cafeteria to find something edible.

VF-41 Black Aces Hangar, CO's Office, Naval Air Station Fallon, NV 1120hrs PST

"Irish…what's wrong?" her XO asked as she hurried around trying to get the flight plans filed for a flight to Dane County Regional Airport. The look on her face was that of stricken grief. He's not dead she thought to herself, So why am I in grief? Is it because he's lost so much already that he can't fly in the military any more? Is it because I care about him more than I'm willing to admit to myself? Aware of her appearance to her subordinates, she squared her shoulders and fought down the wells of sorrow and spoke to her XO.

"I need to get to Dane County Regional Airport. Something serious has come up. I called the CNO and got clearance from him to take some time off. I'm going to need you to take charge for the two weeks that I'm away." She surprised herself at how firm her tone was and that her voice didn't shake.

"Of course." Her XO replied as he looked at her. "I take it Lieutenant JG Tanner is your RIO for this hop?"

"Yes." Irish replied off-handed, her mind on other priorities. "…and he'll be taking the F-14 back when you guys send him another driver. I'll leave you to work out the details. I need to get Tanner and get going. I'll be returning on the COD in two weeks." She kept her voice steady and firm. She just needed to get on that Tomcat and get out of Fallon. Goddamn it, Animal, you are not going to die on me…not when you promised forever…

It took another half-hour; a stretch of time that almost felt like a lifetime before she was able to grab her flight helmet and gear…corralling her RIO and head for the flight line and another twenty minutes of pre-flight checks before she was wheels up, twin afterburner flames trailing pointing her nose towards Wisconsin and her unconscious lover.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1400 hrs CST

Meg sat by Animal's side in the hospital room trying to remain strong as she held his hand. Animal's body was so still; the only sign that he was alive was the incessant hissing of the breathing tube down his throat assisting his lungs to breathe. The re-inflated lung until the hole healed would be prone to collapsing again and thus the breathing tube was inserted so that there was enough air pressure to keep that lung inflated.

She looked again at his body; there was no movement at all, no sign of animation in a comatose frame that lay on the bed like a sack of potatoes. It may have been a medically induced coma calculated to help him recover but there was nothing to distinguish him from a cadaver. He was pale and for all intents, almost unsettlingly lifeless if it weren't for the breathing machine.

If it wasn't for the steady peaks and valleys denoting brain-activity on the monitor, she would have thought that he had gone to his final reward. She sat silently in watch as he continued to lay motionless and it wasn't until Harm came in to trade-off monitoring duties, that he noticed that she was silently crying.

Harm moved towards her and casually put his hand on her shoulder. "He'll be OK…you have to believe that."

"I'm hoping that…" Meg said, her voice wavering. "…it's just seeing him here like this…" She got up and buried her face in Harm's chest, her heaving sobs muffled by his khakis. The only thing that Harm could do was rub her back and hope against hope that Animal would somehow wake up.

Dane County Regional Airport, Madison WI, 1420 hrs CST

Maegyn radioed the tower. "Fast Eagle 101, Truax Tower…inbound final Runway 21. ETA One Five, Distance 500 miles out, dropping speed to 400 knots."

"Truax Tower, Fast Eagle 101, what's your type? Over."

"Truax Tower, we are a Fox – One Four." Maegyn snapped out crisply, she didn't have time for this. "Do we have clearance to land inbound Runway 21?"

"Fast Eagle 101, you have clearance, runway is a straight in at 021 degrees."

"Adjusting 021." Maegyn snapped and cranked the F-14A into a tight turn to line up with the runway. The distance bled off as she angled her F-14 at 14 degrees AOA and lined up, her right hand reaching for the landing gear lever as the aircraft descended through five-thousand as the runway came into sight in the distance.

"Truax, we are going to be taxiing in upon landing, do you have a spare parking space?"

"Roger that, Fast Eagle, you're clear." Came the response as Maegyn's mainmounts touched runway and she popped the speedbrake, to slow the F-14 down to taxi-speed.

Once they were down, she counselled Tanner to take care of the post-flight checklists and safety inspections and to find himself a place at the AF Inn until such time as ground-crew and driver could be found. A willing AF major was ready to take her to the Oakville Hospital as soon as she grabbed her go-bag from the luggage pod.

Oakville Regional Hospital, Oakville, WI 1500hrs CST

Meg looked up to see a redhead with blazing green eyes coming through the sliding double-doors of the hospital waiting room. She stalked up to the nurse's station and growled. "Is Captain Toshio Nakamura out of surgery?"

"Yes and who might you be?" The nurse at the station replied, her eyebrow raised, deflating Maegyn's anger.

"I'm Commander Maegyn O'Bannon, his girlfriend." The redhead said shortly, then she turned around to see Meg, Lia and Bud sitting there. "You know where Harm is?"

Meg replied. "He's with Captain Nakamura, we're taking turns staying with him so that he's not alone when he comes out of his coma." Maegyn nodded at the three.

"Sorry, if I'm a bit short." She apologized deflating a bit. "I just flew a Tomcat from Fallon to Dane in two and a half hours." She slumped in the nearest chair as she dropped her go-bag by her side. "Is he…"

Meg sniffled a bit. "There's no response when we take his hand or massage it. The monitor tells me…uh, us…he's in there, but it just seems like he's not responding."

"It's still early in the healing process, isn't it?" Maegyn asked, wondering who this Meg was and why she was so emotionally wrought-up about Animal getting shot. Also, Maegyn wondered why she was holding up so well at this point when she just wanted to curl up somewhere or beat the wall to a pulp or scream at the heavens.

"Harm is beating himself up about not being there." Bud pointed out. "He keeps saying that he should have been there."

"Harm's always had a God complex." Maegyn explained as she looked up at the ceiling lights "Even when he was flying. He wants to protect everyone who is important to him; even though he knows that he can't."

Meg snorted…what Maegyn had said was exactly as she'd seen, when Harm was her partner. He was always trying to protect her or anyone that he felt needed his protection. That was why she felt that they couldn't have a future together. She'd be too afraid for his own safety due to his own penchant for wanting to protect people; risking his own life, risking their future. And yet, she thought to herself; the one other person that she thought would be someone that she would be willing to take the risk to get to know had a) was already romantically attached to the person that she was now seeing sitting only two seats away from her and b) ironically he was laid up in a bed in a medically induced coma due to an errant gunshot which put his life at risk. She finally settled her tumbling emotions enough to say, "That's Harm alright…always blaming himself for other people's actions."

"…and why shouldn't I?" They turned around to see Harm's eyes flashing with anger. "It's a big if, isn't it? Maybe if…"

"Don't you start, Harm." Maegyn got up. "Tosh did what he thought he should have done. You need to understand that you're not able prevent every goddamned thing from happening."

Just then alarms started blaring. "Code blue; Code blue…Dr. Winthrop to Room 105… Dr. Winthrop to Room 105. Code Blue…Code Blue…" There was a flurry of activity as medical personnel rushed towards a room.

"Oh…dear god…" Harm and Meg gasped. The crash cart was headed towards Animal's room.