Coming in from the Cold 15/17

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Unbeta-ed. Mistakes mine.
Disclaimers: I am only playing with the people from Oz and SVU. They do not belong to me and I am making no money from this.
Copyright: Edgar C. Gambodge, Elizabeth Lightbody, Chris's professor and Mrs. Keller are mine.
Theme: B/K. What happened after what really happened at the end of Season Six. This overlaps with my previous story, "Settling the Bill”.
Warning: In my Oz-verse, many of the events from the last two episodes of Season Six are fictitious.

Coming in from the Cold 15/17

by rosybug

Part 15: Coming to light

I.

Minutes ticked by as they followed Andrei's sports car through the night traffic, which was all moving as smoothly as could be expected, but not smoothly enough. Too many traffic lights. Too many cars. Who knew what they'd find when they finally reached the warehouse? They should've found out how many people were playing on Junior's team. But at least they had the address. Elliot had made sure of that. Cragen had probably called for back up. Elliot hoped so. He hoped Cragen was making better decisions than he was tonight. He knew he could no longer be objective.

It took them far too long to get to the docks. Longer to find the warehouse. There were no sirens. No blue lights. No lights on in the warehouse that he could see. No call from Cragen either. Where were the police? The sports car, barely visible in the shadows, was parked a little way off around a corner from the warehouse. Elliot had his service issue gun drawn and was preparing to leap out of the car as it slowed down.

"We wait for the signal," cautioned the Spook.

"I'm not waiting any longer," said Elliot.

As he moved to open the car door, the child locks clicked shut. The young guy who had driven the car leaned over the back of his seat and stared at Elliot.

"We wait," said the Spook, staring into the night. "Andrei will fetch my nephew. Keep your head, Detective. You will have to be your brother for a little while longer if you want to see him again. It would be a pity to waste all those years of searching."

"How did you know I'd been searching for him?" asked Elliot.

"I've known for many years," said the Spook.

How? Chris had not been faking his shock to see Elliot standing on his front door mat in what seemed to be another life time. Elliot was sure of that.

"You knew about me before I tracked Chris down?" said Elliot. "But you never told him about me?"

"I like to run background checks on the people who work for me. One can't play it too safe these days."

A suggestion of a smile passed over the old man's thin lips.

"You never told him about me?" Elliot repeated. "I searched for him for twenty five years."

"I do not arrange family reunions for two reasons: It is not my job and I do not have much confidence in them."

A distant wail of sirens interrupted what Elliot was going to say. And then things happened very quickly. First of all, the bodyguard who had accompanied Andrei returned alone to the car and spoke to the driver.

"Where is Andrei?" shouted Elliot, shaking the door.

"It is time, Detective," said the old man and the door clicked open.

II.

Cragen arrived at the warehouse just after the police cars. Munch was still quizzing Fin about the Kevlar vests he had brought.

"You just happened to pack five Kevlar vests?"

"I was at the Precinct when I got the call. I thought better safe than sorry."

Olivia was checking her gun. She looked drawn with anxiety.

"Still no word from Elliot?" asked Cragen.

She shook her head.

"Me neither. I've tried his cell a few more times on the way here."

Andrei's sports car was around the corner. But the tan sedan was gone. And no one else was anywhere to be found.

"Captain Cragen?" A uniformed officer ran up to them. "We found a body."

It was someone Cragen didn't recognize, for which he was grateful, in the light of how the night was going. Guy in his thirties. Neck broken, according to the ME. Dead a couple of hours. He was slumped against one of the warehouse walls in the outdoor loading zone. There weren't any indications outside the warehouse of what it might house and the loading zone was empty other than a fork-lift truck and a van that the CSU was already busy with. Cragen hoped it was the same van that transported Beecher here and could yield a few clues. So close to the docks the warehouse was virtually on the water. So many places and ways to get rid of a couple of bodies. Cragen tried Elliot's phone again, but it went straight to voice mail. Munch was standing in front of him, looking pleased.

"You got an ID on the victim, John?" he asked Munch, putting his phone back in his pocket.

Munch nodded.

"That was quick," said Olivia.

"He's on everybody's most wanted list," said Fin. "One of the uni's told us he's one of the guys who busted Junior out of Bellevue."

"You just couldn't help yourself, could you?" Munch was pained. "It's not as if you packed a fax machine or a laptop with all those Kevlar vests so we could send a photo through..."

III.

"Who's the dead guy?" asked Elliot. "And where's Andrei?"

He had to shout this last part after the Russians' retreating backs.

"Hey! How many people are we up against here?"

"My nephew and his remaining accomplice," said the Spook.

The sirens were growing louder.

"We need to act fast," the Spook said.

In other words, they needed to move before the police arrived. Maybe there was still a hope that Chris and Beecher could be alive. Elliot plunged into the dark warehouse after the Russians.

He found himself in almost complete darkness. It was hot compared with the outside air and smelled of damp sawdust, concrete and metal. Grime. Grease. He saw a thin beam of light. Someone had a torch. But who? He took the safety catch off his hand gun. The beam bobbed along at a distance, disappearing and reappearing. Elliot followed it, his eyes battling to adjust to the darkness. He stayed as still as he could. Way he saw it - if he couldn't see them, they probably couldn't see him either. No sounds other than his own breathing.

Then he heard two voices speaking. He couldn't make out what they were saying. He realized they were speaking in Russian. There was a faint and distant click and a light went on in what appeared to be a prefab office. It shone dimly through the slats of a blind and made bars on the concrete floor. The rest of the warehouse remained in shadow, but from what Elliot could see there wasn't very much in it, which explained the echo and why no one had tripped over anything in the dark.

"Over here!" called a voice.

One of the young Russians was standing in the dull glow cast by the neon light. Elliot ran over to him, his sneakers making horribly loud thuds. The young man gestured at the prefab office with a sideways movement of his head. Inside, tied to a chair, with duct tape stretched across his mouth was a man Elliot had never seen before. The other Russian stood over him, one hand twisted in his hair, the other jamming an automatic against his temple. The man was trying to writhe away from the muzzle of the gun.

"We make him talk," The man holding the gun raised it to strike his prisoner, evidently not for the first time, judging by the blood running down his face, and the prisoner cowered away.

"Wait!" said Elliot.

"If we wait, it could be too late."

"Too much noise," explained Elliot. "Maybe he'll talk to me."

But when the prisoner opened his eyes and turned to face Elliot, he gave a muffled scream and started struggling against his bonds with renewed vigor.

"Want to tell us something?" inquired Elliot dryly.

"You scream, we kill you," said the gunman, keeping the gun pressed against his prisoner's head.

The other Russian ripped the duct tape off the guy's mouth. That had to hurt. But his pain failed to move Elliot.

"Stay away from me!" whimpered the man.

He sounded American. Maybe he was one of the "guards" who had helped Junior escape. He figured that if this little jerk denied knowing anything about Chris, he'd pistol whip him himself. But the man started to babble:

"How did you get out? I saw him put you in the coffin. I helped him bury you."

"You did what?" roared Elliot.

The gunman brought his gun around to the front of the punk's head and pushed the muzzle hard against the skin between his eyebrows. The man's eyes widened.

"Speak," said the Russian.

"In the basement...there's a basement here...on the other side of the warehouse...he's in the basement where we buried you...man! I knew we should have killed you straight out..."

Elliot was off and running, any attempt at caution abandoned. As he tore across the concrete, the warehouse was flooded with light. One of the Russians shouted something after him, but he didn't hear what he said. On the far side of the warehouse stood five or six wooden packing crates, a fold-up chair, a crate of beer, a pile of old wooden planks and another couple of forklift trucks. Elliot slowed down, looked about him. All he saw was dirty concrete and a small insistent voice started saying to him, "Warehouses don't have basements..."

Then he saw it. A door in the floor, in the shadow of the crates. A large metal trapdoor.

IV.

Elliot clattered down the metal stairs, sliding the last part mostly. The light that had spilled put when he opened the door told him that the place was comparatively well-lit. If it was a basement, no one could get out without coming past him, so he didn't bother about keeping quiet anymore. He decided to surprise Junior by bursting in on him. What he didn't bargain on was that the basement would be really, really big.

He didn't realize how big it was until he'd charged down a corridor lit by overhead lamps and noticed that it went on quite a way. Then he saw the doors. He banged on them pushed them open, shouted Chris's name and Beecher's too. The guy didn't say anything about Beecher being buried. Maybe he'd hear him and be able to shout back. If he was still alive. The rooms were empty. They were small and were lined with shelves - looked to be store rooms of some type.

The corridor met a dead end and divided. How big was this place? The size of the warehouse on top? And why the hell would you put a basement in a warehouse anyway? Clearly to hide something. Remembering what Junior had been arrested for, Elliot felt his guts churn at the thought of what might have happened beneath the floor of the warehouse. And somewhere down here in this warren of corridors and rooms, Chris was buried alive. Should he turn left or right? He couldn't go in both directions at the same time and he had no idea where Cragen and the others were. He begged his instinct to kick in, but he was so panicked that his inner compass couldn't orient itself.

Footsteps pounded up behind him. He spun around, his gun pointed. It was the Russian with the gun.

"Turn left!" he shouted as came up to Elliot.

Elliot lowered his gun.

"You sure?" he said.

"We made him talk," the Russian grinned.

They hurried past more doors and a large room that looked like some type of laboratory. A guy could run a whole drug operation from down here, while a legitimate concern operated above, and never be caught. Elliot bet that the warehouse had been sub-let to another party. Or by one. On this side of the basement, the rooms - they were no bigger than cubicles - started showing some signs of human habitation. A towel thrown on the floor, dirty plates stacked near a bunk bed. After they passed a few of those, the corridor widened into a type of dead end where the walls housed four doors.

The Russian had slowed down and was walking as quietly as he could. Elliot did likewise, his gun at the ready. A muffled sound made him stop in his tracks. It came from behind the second door. Another sound - like someone struggling and a man's voice shouting something he couldn't make out. Elliot broke the door open with his shoulder.

It took him a moment to make out what the man was saying.

"You fucking cocksucker! I'll fucking rip your guts out!"

It was Tobias Beecher, still half-dressed as he had been in the video clip Elliot had seen at Chris's apartment earlier that evening. The good-boy lawyer was gone and in his place was a wild man with something bright and shiny in his hand that flashed silver in the swaying overhead light. He surged across the room and slammed something into the wall. The something gasped and slid down the wall. Beecher got a couple of swift kicks to the other man's kidneys before Elliot grabbed his arm and heaved him away from him. He twisted his arm until he let the weapon fall. The Russian dragged the youngest member of the Trinity to his feet and into the light.

The man had a gash on his forehead, a bloody mouth and his shirt sleeves were crisscrossed with bloody streaks from many small slashes. Average height, average build, brown hair, brown eyes, a completely unremarkable face. Button-down shirt and chinos. He could have been an accountant.

"Where is my brother?" Elliot pushed his face right up close to him. "You're gonna tell me where you buried him now!"

The man laughed. Then Elliot realized why Junior could pass as an accountant. Despite everything he still was completely calm and unphased. Junior turned his head to look at the Russian and said something to him in Russian. The Russian punched him in the stomach. He laughed as he doubled over. He'd never crack like Andrei. Elliot knew. Chris would die while they tried to get him to tell them where he was. The overhead light swung in the silence that followed and then Beecher spoke.

"Ring-a-ring-a-roses, a pocket full of posies..."

Elliot stared at him. He had sunk onto the floor, all the fight gone out of him, his chin on his knees. He'd lost it. Elliot didn't think he was bluffing. Nonetheless he wondered where the blade had fallen. He wondered what to do. He crouched down next to Beecher.

"Toby," he said.

"Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down..." Beecher turned his face away from Elliot.

"He'll never tell you anything. He's crazy," laughed Junior.

"Toby," said Elliot again. "You're safe now, but you've got to help me find Chris."

Beecher turned to face him again. Tears streaked his grimy cheeks.

"Chris is dead, Elliot," he said.

V.

"No, Chris is alive, Toby, but you've gotta tell me where they took him. Do you know?"

More tears spilled out of Beecher's eyes. He stood up slowly.

"He's dead. I saw them put him in a coffin and bury it. He was already dead when they did it. You're too late."

Elliot stood up to.

"They buried him alive, Toby," he said.

Beecher turned to face him properly.

"What?" he said and swayed slightly.

"Toby," Elliot stared into his eyes. "You've gotta stay with me now and help me, okay? You saw them bury him. Where did they do it?"

"Right here," Beecher's voice was starting to shake. "Right here in the next room."

Elliot turned to look at Junior. Later.

"Tie him up and check him for weapons. Make sure there's nothing he can get his hands on in this room and then follow me," Elliot told the Russian.

Then he pulled Beecher out into the corridor again. Junior's laughter followed them all the way.

"Which room?" he asked.

Beecher walked rapidly over to the left-hand door and turned the handle. Elliot knew that if it was an average sort of coffin and Chris lay real still in it and didn't panic, he'd have a couple of hours tops. How long had he been down there? Elliot decided not to ask Beecher. Instead he followed him into the room. This room was larger than the others and had an earth floor. The walls were oozing damp. They must be close to the water. Some spades leaned against the far wall near a largish patch of turned up soil. Elliot hurried over to them and grabbed one. From somewhere behind him, Beecher asked the question Elliot had been dreading:

"How much time do we have?"

"He doesn't know we're looking for him and if he's panicking, he's using up more oxygen. I don't know how long he's been down there. Time's running out for him - even if we get him now, I can't say what state he'll be in. Us - we got as long as we need."

Beecher grabbed a spade. They hit wood about four feet down. Just as well that psycho was a lazy shit, Elliot thought, shoveling the dirt off. He hoped he'd been lazy about screwing down the lid too. Beecher pulled himself out of the grave.

"They had a screwdriver here somewhere..."

Elliot could hear him above him scratching about though things. He kept shoveling soil off. His mouth was dry and he could no longer feel anything in his arms. They just seemed to operate on their own, digging, scooping, chucking. Elliot paused. Listened. Nothing. He banged on the lid with his fist and shouted, "Chris!" Still nothing. He banged with the blade of the shovel.

"Chris!"

Silence. Something landed next to him on the coffin lid. A screwdriver.

Beecher scrambled to the edge of the hole.

"Do you hear anything yet?" he asked.

Elliot shook his head and Beecher disappeared again. Elliot picked up the screwdriver and started unscrewing. After five screws came out, he pushed his fingers under the rim of the lid, but couldn't pull it up while standing on it. If he climbed out of the hole, he wouldn't be able to lever it. What about an ax? Too risky for Chris. A crowbar?

Beecher jumped lightly into the hole next to him.

"I found another screwdriver," he said. "Let's get this lid off."

As they scrambled out of the hole to pull the lid off, Elliot forced himself to look into the coffin and forced himself not to listen to the little voice that said, "Too late, too late." The little voice was getting louder.

"Chris?" said Beecher.

Elliot forced himself to look down into the coffin.

VI.

"I got no pulse," said Elliot, feeling Chris's wrist, then his neck. Put his ear to Chris's mouth. Chris's skin was cold.

Toby was starting to yell. He shook Chris's unmoving body. "Chris? Chris, c'mon!"

He looked up at Elliot. Elliot's face was as hard and unmoving as stone.

"He's dead, isn't he? Like I told you." Tears were streaming down Toby's face. "Chris, no, no, no..."

"Can you do CPR?" asked Elliot, in a voice like a razor.

"No, I..."

"Then Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

He shoved Beecher away from Chris's body and tilted Chris's head back. Made sure his airway was clear. Breathed into his mouth. Saw Beecher huddled in the background. Who'd have thought the little fuck would care so much now? Elliot looked up at him.

"We found him too late..." Beecher sobbed.

Elliot stared at him.

"Radio for a bus." He slid his cell phone across the floor to Beecher and pointed at it.

"What?" asked Beecher, looking dazed.

"Call 911. Call Liv."

Christ. He'd never get any reception in here. What was he thinking? Focus, Elliot. Focus on Chris. Get him breathing again. Call for assistance. Then worry about sorting Beecher out. And Junior.

"It's too late, Elliot, he's gone."

"It's not too late!" Elliot shouted. "He's my twin. I'd know if it was too late!"

That was when Olivia found them.

"Call Warner!" She shouted up the corridor. "Call the ME!"

VII.

Dr. Warner looked up satisfied.

"I've got a pulse," she said.

Elliot, who was standing away from the group huddled around Chris, looked over at her. She smiled at him.

"Your brother's one lucky man, Elliot. Judging by the cubic size of the coffin, he should have run out of oxygen by now. If his pupils are anything to go by, I'd say he's been drugged. That might explain why he lasted as long as he did. It would have kept him still and made him breathe more slowly."

Elliot walked over to them as if he was walking in his sleep.

"You okay, Elliot?" asked Cragen.

Elliot wasn't sure if he answered or not. He stared down at Chris. They'd covered him with a blanket and he had an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. His eyes were closed and he still wasn't moving. Beecher was holding one of his hands, smiling down at him, talking. Disguising his horror pretty well under the circumstances.

"Hey," he said.

Chris's lips moved slightly, but his eyes didn't open.

"We need to get him out of here," said Warner.

"Junior..." began Elliot, still staring at Chris.

"We got him, Elliot. Munch and Fin are booking him. We've sent him down to Sing Sing this time and he won't be getting out again." Cragen studied Elliot, trying to assess his state of mind. "He's looking at the injection now, even if he manages to walk on the other charges. The Russians were gone when we got here."

Elliot nodded, half listening, still staring at his brother.

"Get some rest, Elliot. Everybody's safe now."

Cragen clapped him on the shoulder as he moved past him to bark orders about putting up a crime scene cordon and making sure the rest floor of the room was dug up too.

As Chris was taken up to a waiting ambulance, the paramedic put a hand on Toby's arm, to guide him out of the basement. Olivia watched Toby go slack. Passive. She had seen this before in people who'd been institutionalized. Mental patients, prisoners. That sort of obedience seems to get ingrained. Someone had put a blanket around his shoulders. He looked older. Olivia was watching her partner too. He was the one immobile figure in a room of uniforms all talking, measuring, writing, taking crime scene photographs.

"Elliot, your brother needs you," she said.

VIII.

Back above ground, Elliot made his way through the crime scene squad and other officers to the two ambulances were parked, their lights still revolving. The numbness was wearing off and he found it strange to be the one going to sit in the ambulance while his fellow officers went briskly about their business. Beecher was sitting in the doorway of one bus, being examined. Chris must be in the other, if Beecher's anxious glances in that direction meant anything.

Inside the other Elliot saw Chris, still flat on his back, with the oxygen mask strapped to his face. He was trying to move his arms and was mumbling something. The medic was battling to get a line in.

"No," Elliot said to the medic, "stop - he doesn't want to be touched."

Chris relaxed infinitesimally as the medic backed off.

"El, he's going to have to be examined," said Olivia behind him.

"He doesn't have to be examined now," Elliot said, climbing into the ambulance.

"Can you find out where else he's hurt?" asked the medic, getting out to give him more room.

"Yeah," said Elliot.

"Elliot."

It was Chris. His voice was unclear through the mask. Elliot got as close as he could to Chris's mouth to catch what he was trying to say.

"Don't let them drug me. Toby..."

"We got Toby, Chris, he's safe."

"Toby, where's Toby?"

"Chris, Toby's safe... no, listen to me - Toby's safe ... we found him ... you saw him when we brought you up, remember? ... Chris, look at me ... Toby's just being checked by the medics..."

Chris started struggling. Elliot tried to hold him still.

"I'll see how they're doing with him," said Olivia.

Beecher came back to the ambulance, hobbling, Olivia propping him up. He looked exhausted. His face seemed to sag a little more when he saw Chris. Elliot helped him into the ambulance and Beecher maneuvered himself onto the stretcher somehow, wriggling in between Chris and the side panel of the ambulance.

"Chris," Toby had to say his name twice before Chris registered and turned to face him.

Chris seemed to dissolve.

"Toby, don't leave me," he sobbed.

"I'm right here, Chris," Toby said. "C'mere."

He held him like a child, while Chris poured out his grief and fear, and kept saying "I know, I know, we're safe now" and "Elliot found us, remember?" and stroking Chris's hair.

Chris nodded. "Yeah, I remember. Elliot."

"That's right and we're okay now. Leave the mask alone. It's oxygen, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Put your head on my chest, Chris. Listen to my heart. Can you hear it?"

Chris nodded, eyes tightly closed, his head against the police issue sweatshirt Toby was wearing. His shoulder muscles began to relax as he focused on the rhythm of Toby's heart beat. His hands left bloody smears on Toby's shirt as his stiff fingers fumbled with the cloth.

Elliot watched how their bodies fit in together in the small space with the ease of familiarity. Muscle memory. He felt uncomfortable, watching them together like that. He suddenly realized why the intimacy bothered him. It wasn't that they were two guys. It wasn't that this was sexual, because, in a strange way, it wasn't. It was because he'd never experienced that sort of closeness with anyone after he and Chris were separated as small children. He'd always been alone since then. And he felt bereft.

He wondered how Kathy would have reacted if it had been him buried alive. She would have been very upset. Even now. Would she have come to see if he was alright after he'd been dug up, exhausted and terrified? Would she have told him everything was alright and held him, after everything they'd been through, all the disappointments and failures? He didn't know. He figured he and Kathy'd been through less than Chris and Beecher. But he still didn't know she'd be there. He wondered how it would be to have survived something like Chris had and to return to the living only to find no one waiting for you. It seemed strangely familiar.

Elliot continued his assessment of Chris as best he could under the circumstances, taking in the grazes and bruises along his shoulders. The blood-stained tank top.

"Let me take your pulse, Chris," he said, waiting for Chris to offer his arm, not wanting to startle Chris by taking it until he offered it.

Elliot held his own arm's mirror-image by the wrist and elbow, felt muscles quiver beneath the skin then relax slowly. Saw Chris's damaged hand properly for the first time.

Elliot got out of the ambulance and stood with his back to it.

"What happened to his hands?" he asked the medic. "They're torn to pieces."

"I guess he tried to dig himself out of the coffin," said the medic, "before he ran out of air."

Elliot turned to Olivia. His face was angry, but his eyes were wet. He was breathing hard.

"Where's my phone?" he demanded. "I'm calling Munch. I want time alone with Junior."

"Elliot, you need to get back into the ambulance and be with Chris. That's more important now," said Olivia quietly.

"His hands, Liv. He tried to claw his way out. His fingers are just a bloodied mess. He tried to dig through the coffin with his bare hands..."

Olivia put a hand on Elliot's back.

"Go back to Chris," she said.

Elliot shook his head.

"He wants Beecher," he said.

"He needs you," said Olivia.

"He needs an IV line," said the medic pointedly. "He's in shock and needs electrolytes."

He backed away from Elliot's glare.

Chris wouldn't let the medic near him the whole way back and wouldn't let Toby go either, so the two of them lay melded together on the stretcher, not talking, Chris's face buried in Toby's neck, Toby resting his head on top of Chris's, too tired to think or move. Elliot rode with them in the back of the ambulance, silent and grim, staring at the floor, his elbows on his knees.

Something he'd overheard Beecher say to Chris kept running through his mind. He'd caught the tail end of it as he'd got back into the ambulance.

"If that fuck comes near you again, I'll kill him. I swear. With my bare hands. I swear, Chris. I'll kill him."

Beecher was murmuring against Chris's head, soothingly, as if his words were sweet nothings. Elliot wondered how savage Beecher had been before Oz. The man was a mystery to him. But he understood him perfectly on this point. He'd kill Junior too, with his bare hands, given half a chance. He kept this to himself though.

When they reached Benchley Memorial, Toby had to get off the stretcher, so Chris could be wheeled into the emergency room and he himself could be put into a wheelchair.

"You've got to let the doctor examine you now, Chris," said Toby from his wheelchair. He was still holding onto Chris, trying to hold his hand without hurting him. "I've got to get my ankle looked at too - it's hurting like hell. Do you want me to stay with you?"

"No," said Chris. "Get your ankle checked out. I'll be okay."

"You sure?" asked Toby, surprised after the past hour or so in the ambulance.

"Yeah," said Chris.

"You're going to let them examine you?"

"Yeah, it's okay now. When I was in the coffin, I had this ... I dunno ... dream or vision or something of O'Reily coming for me with a mask, just like the medic was wearing, telling me I was dead and he was gonna lay me out. I guess I kind of panicked when I saw the mask again."

"I forgot about O'Reily's career change from cooking to laying out bodies," Toby said. "Elliot will stay with you."

Chris gave a smile that was almost a grimace. He didn't let go of Toby's arm.

"Chris, it's okay. They got Junior, remember?"

Looking up at Toby, Chris seemed old around the eyes suddenly.

"Chris."

Chris lowered his gaze. A muscle in his jaw jumped.

"I'll be careful, okay? Benson will be with me."

Benson wasn't Toby's type, so Chris released his arm.

"Yeah."

He watched Toby get wheeled away and quelled a spike of panic as Toby disappeared from sight. His body felt like lead and his head ached. He wondered how long they'd take with Toby's ankle and whether they'd discharge him. He didn't think he'd be going anywhere tonight.

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