Thirteen, for Euphoricagony
Title: Thirteen
Author: akamine_chan
Gift for: euphoricagony
Characters: Wordy, Ed, the Team
Word Count: 2,132 words
Rating: R for violence
Summary: Thirteen days in the life of the SRU.
Spoilers: All of season one
Notes: Thanks to my flist for cheering and encouragement. I <3 you all. Extremely useful beta work done by lamentables and waltzforanight but any and all remaining mistakes are mine.
i.
Wordy knew he'd find Ed at the shooting range, just like he knew that the haunted look would still be in Eddie's eyes.
He watched for a while as Ed aimed, fired, and reloaded in a series of smooth, careful movements. Again. And again, hitting dead center on the tattered paper target each time. The almost obsessive repetitiveness reflected the turmoil inside of Ed.
Aim, fire, reload.
Just like the perfect sniper he was, that he was trained to be.
Wordy waited until Ed lowered his rifle before approaching, squeezing Eddie's shoulder comfortingly before jerking his head toward the exit.
“C'mon, buddy, let's go.”
It would take a long time, countless hockey games and barbecues and nights at the bar, but Eddie would heal. The lost look would leave his eyes. Wordy was there to make sure of it.
ii.
Shot fired, shot fired, officer down.
Ed's blood ran cold, and he waited, and waited until he heard Wordy's pained voice checking in. The tension seeped out of him and he brought his attention back to the difficult situation at hand. He listened to Greg's voice, to the subject, trying to gauge stress levels, calculating shot angles in his head as he looked at the schematic on the monitor.
They needed a solution and they needed it soon. The heart was going to be unusable before too much longer.
There were too many bystanders, too many variables and it made Ed worry.
When Wordy slipped in to their command post, favoring his side, Ed spared a brief glance over his shoulder. Just to reassure himself that Wordy was alive and breathing.
It could have gone bad, but didn't, and he had to be grateful for that.
iii.
Wordy was ready to go in, ready to break down the door for an immediate entry. He felt the adrenaline kicking in, worry and tension tightening his muscles, driving his pulse rate and breathing higher.
Ed was holding them back, wanting to give the boss a chance to talk the subject down and it was pissing him off. There was an officer down and they were trying to negotiate.
The life of a brother-officer, someone Wordy knew, someone he'd partnered with, someone who'd watched his back and saved his ass, was at risk for because of a drug dealer and an unknown kid.
It was stupid; a quick tactical strike and the subject wouldn't know what hit him. It'd be over and done with and the EMS guys could come in, do their job.
He tamped down on his anger and concentrated on staying on his toes, praying that everything would be all right. It had to be.
iv.
Ed sometimes wanted to punch Wordy in the face. Wordy just didn't see how hard it was for Ed to deal with Clark. Wordy had three perfect girls who adored him; Ed had Clark.
Clark, who was the opposite of Ed in every way, like a changeling left on the doorstep. Cello and classical music, basketball; quiet, sensitive and thoughtful. They lived in two completely different worlds.
The rare times they did manage to talk, Clark looked confused and a little scared and Ed felt like an idiot. Which made it even harder to talk to the boy.
Wordy just couldn't understand what it was like and he couldn't leave it alone. While driving around the East End, they sniped at each other, sharp and biting.
“You're an ass,” Wordy finally muttered, disgusted.
Ed could only laugh at that, his anger slipping away.
v.
Wordy threw the flash-bang, quickly averted his eyes and braced for the explosion.
The hostages were panicking, screaming and trying to get away, but he stayed on Ed's shoulder, alert and ready, senses tuned for danger. Wordy kept an eye on him, taking his cues from Eddie's body language.
They followed the subject into the next room, watching as he forcibly dragged the hostage with him. Wordy noticed that he didn't aim the gun at her, but kept it pointed up. It was a strange thing for a professional bank robber to do. He lifted his shoulder and Ed nodded. It didn't make sense to him, either.
Ed tried to calm the subject, tried to get him to see reason. The subject refused to disarm himself, yelling at Ed, threatening to shoot the hostage. Ed nodded and Wordy moved and they pulled back to regroup. For now.
vi.
Ed raced for the ledge, barely aware of anything except his fear and the frantic pounding of his heart. He couldn't breathe-the air was trapped in his lungs until he leaned over the railing and saw Jules. Jules and the girl, dangling from the lifeline that had been hooked to the railing.
He heard Wordy's muttered “Thank God,” saw the relief on his face. Ed felt shocky and light-headed, and Wordy looked a little green. They helped Sam pull Jules and the girl back to safety, all of them uncharacteristically quiet. It was a close call, too close, and it had shaken them all up.
Thank God, indeed.
The girl was safe, Jules was safe. Another job done well.
vii.
Wordy, Ed and Jules walked through the grass toward the Hummer. Ed outlined their plan of attack, quizzing Wordy about escape routes, trying to plan for all the possibilities, hoping to predict all the things that could go wrong.
Wordy was nervous. The SRU was trained for the modern urban landscape, not the bush. They knew how to deal with glass and steel, stairs and elevators. All the trees made Wordy suspicious. It just wasn't natural. Jules looked unhappy with the greenery, as well.
It was too much cover for the subject.
Eddie wasn't worried, though. He stood straight and surveyed the area like he owned it.
Wordy adjusted his cap and checked his weapon, feeling more comfortable with every motion, following Ed's lead. It was going to be okay.
viii.
Ed walked away from the police cruiser, feeling some small measure of satisfaction. No one died today. No one died today.
He could go home tonight, crawl into bed next to Sophie and not worry about blood on his hands. He could hold his son with a clean conscience. He could look at his reflection in the mirror without flinching.
The tight knot in his stomach, present since he learned of the lawsuit, eased.
Wordy looked at him, the worry written clearly across his face as he patted Ed's shoulder. “You all right?”
“Good, I'm good.” And for once, it was the truth.
Wordy looked him over carefully, not totally convinced, before nodding. The rest of the team gathered, patting his back, reassuring themselves.
He would be all right.
ix.
They tracked the suspect from the basement into some twisty underground tunnels, Ed leading them through the dark. Not having to navigate gave Wordy a brief opportunity to examine the passageways.
It was chilly and Wordy could smell a weird combination of mold, mildew and old bricks. He could feel a current of fresher air coming from in front of them and it made him wonder where the tunnels ended.
He thought about the two girls they'd left behind in the house, two young girls who'd been kidnapped from their families and taken away from everything they'd ever known. It made him angry, as a police officer, as a father, as a person.
He reassured himself that his own girls were safe at home, protected.
The tunnel eventually opened up into an old warehouse, and the suspect took a potshot at them with a revolver. Six bullets in the chamber, Wordy realized, and they counted out the shots.
“Where's six, where's six?” Eddie mumbled.
Ed tried to talk the suspect down, but Wordy knew it wasn't working.
In the end, with the sound of the gunshot echoing his head, Wordy could feel nothing but relief.
x.
Ed walked with Eagle One into the conference room, trying to keep him calm and focused on what needed to be done. The man was frantically worried about his wife. Ed understood that. The idea of a bomb anywhere near Sophie sent a wave of anger rushing through him.
There was a raw passion between Eagle One and his wife, open and honest. Even Ed, cynical as he was, could see it. Watching them together made him uncomfortable and he didn't want to think about why.
He saw Wordy and raised a questioning eyebrow, ignoring the frisson of fear when Wordy shook his head. Nothing. They had nothing. No clues, no leads.
They were running out of time and Ed had run out of ideas.
xi.
The tension was thick in the briefing room, and Jules was mad.
She was just expressing the anger that they all were feeling.
Wordy wasn't sure that negotiation had been the best choice, and now he had the luxury to rethink and second guess their actions. And it always came down to talk or tactics.
Jules was sure that they should have gone tactical, Sam and the boss standing by the decision to negotiate. Wordy was thinking that maybe Jules was right, that an earlier tactical response would have saved them a lot of trouble, and the subject wouldn't be in critical condition.
He wanted to know what Ed would have done, and Lew backed him.
Ed looked at each of them, solemn. “Sometimes you do everything right. Things still go wrong.”
Wordy had nothing to say to that. Because Ed was right.
xii.
Sam's remark about Danny pissed Ed off. It was not the best way to start a bomb call.
It was a sucker punch to find that the priority call at the station was Danny.
Wordy worked with him to get eyes in, discarding the snake in favor of the fiber optics, then switching over to thermal detector. Ed couldn't understand what they were seeing, Danny acting crazy, drinking and yelling at nothing. Shooting at chairs.
Danny fired two more shots and they all flinched at the sound, Greg reflexively shoving Ed against the wall. Hallucinations? Or flashbacks? Ed recited the symptoms in his head: re-experiencing, avoidance, hyperarousal, emotional numbing. Posttraumatic stress disorder. The idea made him uneasy.
Ed snapped at Wordy, who just gave him a look and got his shield, holding it up to protect them all.
It was the hardest thing Ed had ever done in his life, trying to talk down the man who'd trained them, the man who'd taught them everything they knew, who'd made them the SRU team they were. The man who mentored them.
It was worse because Ed saw it wasn't working.
“Pull the plug,” Danny begged.
Ed's chest was tight, suffocating him. He was breathing hard, like the air was thick and it made him sweat. Ed glanced at Wordy, saw the understanding and with a nod, stepped out from the shelter of the shield, disarming himself.
He understood. He finally understood. “I get it.”
xiii.
Wordy took a couple of deep breaths to center himself, to collect and focus his concentration. Jules was down, Sam was under fire and they need to get both of them to safety.
He heard Ed's voice over the comm, his suggestion of drawing the sniper's fire, caught the undercurrents of fear and worry. For Jules, for the team.
They got Jules and Sam to safety, a coordinated maneuver that they'd practiced so often that it had become second nature to them-Sarge and him shielding Lew and Sam while they carefully carried Jules back into the building.
Once they placed Jules in the competent hands of the EMS guys, they headed up the west tower where Ed and Spike were playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the sniper.
“He's got Ed. He's got a gun to his head.”
Spike's words were steady, and they could hear Ed talking to the subject, trying to calm him down, talk him away from the edge he was teetering on.
Wordy felt helpless and anxious, impatient with the service elevator as it slowly climbed up, up to where Ed needed them to be. He bounced on his feet, lifting his shield, ready.
As they raced up the stairs, Wordy listened to Sam trying to get Ed to move forward with the sniper, past the pillar that was blocking Sam's shot. A long pause, then Ed's voice, a little shaky, “Subject's down.”
Wordy stopped, and for one long moment, he was glad that the subject was dead. He'd shot Jules, held a gun to Ed, threatened the team, his team. And then he remembered the kid's face at the First York Plaza, recalled his youth, and his grief for his father.
Nothing was ever easy.
-fin-
Author: akamine_chan
Gift for: euphoricagony
Characters: Wordy, Ed, the Team
Word Count: 2,132 words
Rating: R for violence
Summary: Thirteen days in the life of the SRU.
Spoilers: All of season one
Notes: Thanks to my flist for cheering and encouragement. I <3 you all. Extremely useful beta work done by lamentables and waltzforanight but any and all remaining mistakes are mine.
i.
Wordy knew he'd find Ed at the shooting range, just like he knew that the haunted look would still be in Eddie's eyes.
He watched for a while as Ed aimed, fired, and reloaded in a series of smooth, careful movements. Again. And again, hitting dead center on the tattered paper target each time. The almost obsessive repetitiveness reflected the turmoil inside of Ed.
Aim, fire, reload.
Just like the perfect sniper he was, that he was trained to be.
Wordy waited until Ed lowered his rifle before approaching, squeezing Eddie's shoulder comfortingly before jerking his head toward the exit.
“C'mon, buddy, let's go.”
It would take a long time, countless hockey games and barbecues and nights at the bar, but Eddie would heal. The lost look would leave his eyes. Wordy was there to make sure of it.
ii.
Shot fired, shot fired, officer down.
Ed's blood ran cold, and he waited, and waited until he heard Wordy's pained voice checking in. The tension seeped out of him and he brought his attention back to the difficult situation at hand. He listened to Greg's voice, to the subject, trying to gauge stress levels, calculating shot angles in his head as he looked at the schematic on the monitor.
They needed a solution and they needed it soon. The heart was going to be unusable before too much longer.
There were too many bystanders, too many variables and it made Ed worry.
When Wordy slipped in to their command post, favoring his side, Ed spared a brief glance over his shoulder. Just to reassure himself that Wordy was alive and breathing.
It could have gone bad, but didn't, and he had to be grateful for that.
iii.
Wordy was ready to go in, ready to break down the door for an immediate entry. He felt the adrenaline kicking in, worry and tension tightening his muscles, driving his pulse rate and breathing higher.
Ed was holding them back, wanting to give the boss a chance to talk the subject down and it was pissing him off. There was an officer down and they were trying to negotiate.
The life of a brother-officer, someone Wordy knew, someone he'd partnered with, someone who'd watched his back and saved his ass, was at risk for because of a drug dealer and an unknown kid.
It was stupid; a quick tactical strike and the subject wouldn't know what hit him. It'd be over and done with and the EMS guys could come in, do their job.
He tamped down on his anger and concentrated on staying on his toes, praying that everything would be all right. It had to be.
iv.
Ed sometimes wanted to punch Wordy in the face. Wordy just didn't see how hard it was for Ed to deal with Clark. Wordy had three perfect girls who adored him; Ed had Clark.
Clark, who was the opposite of Ed in every way, like a changeling left on the doorstep. Cello and classical music, basketball; quiet, sensitive and thoughtful. They lived in two completely different worlds.
The rare times they did manage to talk, Clark looked confused and a little scared and Ed felt like an idiot. Which made it even harder to talk to the boy.
Wordy just couldn't understand what it was like and he couldn't leave it alone. While driving around the East End, they sniped at each other, sharp and biting.
“You're an ass,” Wordy finally muttered, disgusted.
Ed could only laugh at that, his anger slipping away.
v.
Wordy threw the flash-bang, quickly averted his eyes and braced for the explosion.
The hostages were panicking, screaming and trying to get away, but he stayed on Ed's shoulder, alert and ready, senses tuned for danger. Wordy kept an eye on him, taking his cues from Eddie's body language.
They followed the subject into the next room, watching as he forcibly dragged the hostage with him. Wordy noticed that he didn't aim the gun at her, but kept it pointed up. It was a strange thing for a professional bank robber to do. He lifted his shoulder and Ed nodded. It didn't make sense to him, either.
Ed tried to calm the subject, tried to get him to see reason. The subject refused to disarm himself, yelling at Ed, threatening to shoot the hostage. Ed nodded and Wordy moved and they pulled back to regroup. For now.
vi.
Ed raced for the ledge, barely aware of anything except his fear and the frantic pounding of his heart. He couldn't breathe-the air was trapped in his lungs until he leaned over the railing and saw Jules. Jules and the girl, dangling from the lifeline that had been hooked to the railing.
He heard Wordy's muttered “Thank God,” saw the relief on his face. Ed felt shocky and light-headed, and Wordy looked a little green. They helped Sam pull Jules and the girl back to safety, all of them uncharacteristically quiet. It was a close call, too close, and it had shaken them all up.
Thank God, indeed.
The girl was safe, Jules was safe. Another job done well.
vii.
Wordy, Ed and Jules walked through the grass toward the Hummer. Ed outlined their plan of attack, quizzing Wordy about escape routes, trying to plan for all the possibilities, hoping to predict all the things that could go wrong.
Wordy was nervous. The SRU was trained for the modern urban landscape, not the bush. They knew how to deal with glass and steel, stairs and elevators. All the trees made Wordy suspicious. It just wasn't natural. Jules looked unhappy with the greenery, as well.
It was too much cover for the subject.
Eddie wasn't worried, though. He stood straight and surveyed the area like he owned it.
Wordy adjusted his cap and checked his weapon, feeling more comfortable with every motion, following Ed's lead. It was going to be okay.
viii.
Ed walked away from the police cruiser, feeling some small measure of satisfaction. No one died today. No one died today.
He could go home tonight, crawl into bed next to Sophie and not worry about blood on his hands. He could hold his son with a clean conscience. He could look at his reflection in the mirror without flinching.
The tight knot in his stomach, present since he learned of the lawsuit, eased.
Wordy looked at him, the worry written clearly across his face as he patted Ed's shoulder. “You all right?”
“Good, I'm good.” And for once, it was the truth.
Wordy looked him over carefully, not totally convinced, before nodding. The rest of the team gathered, patting his back, reassuring themselves.
He would be all right.
ix.
They tracked the suspect from the basement into some twisty underground tunnels, Ed leading them through the dark. Not having to navigate gave Wordy a brief opportunity to examine the passageways.
It was chilly and Wordy could smell a weird combination of mold, mildew and old bricks. He could feel a current of fresher air coming from in front of them and it made him wonder where the tunnels ended.
He thought about the two girls they'd left behind in the house, two young girls who'd been kidnapped from their families and taken away from everything they'd ever known. It made him angry, as a police officer, as a father, as a person.
He reassured himself that his own girls were safe at home, protected.
The tunnel eventually opened up into an old warehouse, and the suspect took a potshot at them with a revolver. Six bullets in the chamber, Wordy realized, and they counted out the shots.
“Where's six, where's six?” Eddie mumbled.
Ed tried to talk the suspect down, but Wordy knew it wasn't working.
In the end, with the sound of the gunshot echoing his head, Wordy could feel nothing but relief.
x.
Ed walked with Eagle One into the conference room, trying to keep him calm and focused on what needed to be done. The man was frantically worried about his wife. Ed understood that. The idea of a bomb anywhere near Sophie sent a wave of anger rushing through him.
There was a raw passion between Eagle One and his wife, open and honest. Even Ed, cynical as he was, could see it. Watching them together made him uncomfortable and he didn't want to think about why.
He saw Wordy and raised a questioning eyebrow, ignoring the frisson of fear when Wordy shook his head. Nothing. They had nothing. No clues, no leads.
They were running out of time and Ed had run out of ideas.
xi.
The tension was thick in the briefing room, and Jules was mad.
She was just expressing the anger that they all were feeling.
Wordy wasn't sure that negotiation had been the best choice, and now he had the luxury to rethink and second guess their actions. And it always came down to talk or tactics.
Jules was sure that they should have gone tactical, Sam and the boss standing by the decision to negotiate. Wordy was thinking that maybe Jules was right, that an earlier tactical response would have saved them a lot of trouble, and the subject wouldn't be in critical condition.
He wanted to know what Ed would have done, and Lew backed him.
Ed looked at each of them, solemn. “Sometimes you do everything right. Things still go wrong.”
Wordy had nothing to say to that. Because Ed was right.
xii.
Sam's remark about Danny pissed Ed off. It was not the best way to start a bomb call.
It was a sucker punch to find that the priority call at the station was Danny.
Wordy worked with him to get eyes in, discarding the snake in favor of the fiber optics, then switching over to thermal detector. Ed couldn't understand what they were seeing, Danny acting crazy, drinking and yelling at nothing. Shooting at chairs.
Danny fired two more shots and they all flinched at the sound, Greg reflexively shoving Ed against the wall. Hallucinations? Or flashbacks? Ed recited the symptoms in his head: re-experiencing, avoidance, hyperarousal, emotional numbing. Posttraumatic stress disorder. The idea made him uneasy.
Ed snapped at Wordy, who just gave him a look and got his shield, holding it up to protect them all.
It was the hardest thing Ed had ever done in his life, trying to talk down the man who'd trained them, the man who'd taught them everything they knew, who'd made them the SRU team they were. The man who mentored them.
It was worse because Ed saw it wasn't working.
“Pull the plug,” Danny begged.
Ed's chest was tight, suffocating him. He was breathing hard, like the air was thick and it made him sweat. Ed glanced at Wordy, saw the understanding and with a nod, stepped out from the shelter of the shield, disarming himself.
He understood. He finally understood. “I get it.”
xiii.
Wordy took a couple of deep breaths to center himself, to collect and focus his concentration. Jules was down, Sam was under fire and they need to get both of them to safety.
He heard Ed's voice over the comm, his suggestion of drawing the sniper's fire, caught the undercurrents of fear and worry. For Jules, for the team.
They got Jules and Sam to safety, a coordinated maneuver that they'd practiced so often that it had become second nature to them-Sarge and him shielding Lew and Sam while they carefully carried Jules back into the building.
Once they placed Jules in the competent hands of the EMS guys, they headed up the west tower where Ed and Spike were playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the sniper.
“He's got Ed. He's got a gun to his head.”
Spike's words were steady, and they could hear Ed talking to the subject, trying to calm him down, talk him away from the edge he was teetering on.
Wordy felt helpless and anxious, impatient with the service elevator as it slowly climbed up, up to where Ed needed them to be. He bounced on his feet, lifting his shield, ready.
As they raced up the stairs, Wordy listened to Sam trying to get Ed to move forward with the sniper, past the pillar that was blocking Sam's shot. A long pause, then Ed's voice, a little shaky, “Subject's down.”
Wordy stopped, and for one long moment, he was glad that the subject was dead. He'd shot Jules, held a gun to Ed, threatened the team, his team. And then he remembered the kid's face at the First York Plaza, recalled his youth, and his grief for his father.
Nothing was ever easy.
-fin-