Wrecked

by Kadi

Rated T

Disclaimer: It's not my sandbox, I simply enjoy playing in it.

A/N: Special thanks to my beta deenikn8, and the twin kate04us. The twin has put up with listening to this idea for almost a year. I'm finally writing it down.

Chapter 1

He wasn't aware of the hour, but Andy did not believe that he had been asleep for very long. It was a thought that was immediately pushed from his mind when he moved to reach for the ringing cell phone, which he identified as the source of his interrupted slumber. He grunted at the sharp pain in his shoulder, something that was caused by having slept too hard and in one place. Andy swore quietly as he moved again. He forced himself to roll onto his back and reached out blindly for the ringing phone.

The last thing that he remembered before falling asleep was talking to Sharon, and he realized now that he must have been far more exhausted than he thought because the time displayed on the phone put the hour at just past midnight. They had lain down at a quarter to nine, the both of them tired after a long day and even longer week. As he thought about that, Andy glanced beside him. Sharon had not even moved. She was out completely, and he was not surprised. She was laying on her side, and while her back was to him, he knew that she had an arm wrapped around her pillow and her face tucked into it. They never knew how much of a respite they would get after the end of a case, which was why, tired as they both were, they had forgone their plans for the evening and gone to bed just after dinner. Rest had been the most sought after activity of the evening.

Andy scrubbed a hand over his face as he answered the phone. Damn but that made him feel old. It was a terribly sad day when he was more excited about taking a beautiful woman to bed to actually sleep than any other activity that his mind could conjure up. To make it worse, they had caught this case right in the middle of Emily's visit. She didn't get away from New York very often outside of the holidays, but this visit had been a few months in the planning. Sharon had been talking about nothing else for the last few weeks. Andy knew that part of the reason that she was so wiped out was because she had made a point to spend as much time with Emily as she could, despite the case that had interrupted their plans.

It was over now, and Emily would still be in town for a few more days. That was another reason that they had decided to call it an early night. Sharon wanted to spend the day with her daughter and planned to start early. A phone call in the middle of the night never boded well, though, and even if it was Charlie, and not his partner, Andy had to question why the hell his son was calling so late. By the time he was grunting out a tired and rasping, "Hello," Andy had managed to remember that Charlie was pulling some extra shifts and was probably on duty. If he knew Charlie, his son had just forgotten the hour.

"Dad."

Charlie's voice was grim and serious. There was a lot of noise in the background. There were running truck engines and other machinery. The hairs on the back of Andy's neck stood on end at the sound. He sat straighter in the bed. "Charlie. It's late son, is everything okay?"

"No." Charlie sighed. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "It's really not. Listen, Dad, um… are you with Sharon tonight?"

His son wasn't exactly fond of this new relationship. It wasn't Sharon that he had a problem with, but Charlie seemed to have an issue with the entire idea of his father getting to start over with another family. It was a tenuous situation. Sharon told him to ride it out. She said that Charlie would get used to the idea. He just needed to get to know her better. For a moment Andy was tempted to lie and say that he was alone. Whatever reason Charlie had for calling this late had to be an important one. He didn't want his son to feel uncomfortable talking to him. The only problem with that idea was the churning in his gut. It told Andy that something wasn't right.

"Yeah, I am," he said instead. "She's still asleep. I have time to talk. What's going on, son?"

Charlie's jaw clenched. He turned where he stood and his gaze swept the scene behind him. "Wake her up," he said gravely. Charlie let a hand rest against his hip. His head bowed. "Dad." He sighed again. "Dammit. Shit, I hate this job sometimes."

Andy felt something in side of him shift. He looked at the woman beside him. She was still asleep, in spite of the disturbance of the call. Andy ran a hand through his hair. Charlie wasn't calling to talk. He was calling with news, and from the sound of it, it wasn't the kind of news that either of them wanted. "Who?" He asked carefully.

This wasn't usually part of his job description. It was his job to patch-up and transport. Rarely did he have to deal with families. Delivering this kind of news was left to the well-trained expertise of others. This was a little different, though. Charlie knew the people involved. "There was a wreck out on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was Sharon's kids. From what the cops on scene could tell, a car veered into their lane. They couldn't get over, so the guy that was driving, um, the boyfriend. What's his name? Gus? He hit the breaks. The car behind them didn't notice. They got hit and it…" Charlie hated this part, he really did. He shifted where he stood. "Dammit. The car got spun around into the other lane, another one hit it; we've got a couple of cars involved, and there are several injuries. Rusty and Gus are okay for the most part. Cuts and bruises, Rusty might have a broken arm. They're on their way to Cedars now. You should take Sharon down there to meet them."

Andy's jaw was clenched so tightly that it hurt. He gripped the phone in his hand. His teeth ground together. For a moment he couldn't speak. He could barely even breathe. There was more. Rusty and Gus had not been alone tonight. They had gone to a movie. Emily had gone with them. The plan was dinner and a movie, and whatever else they might have wanted to do tonight, Andy didn't know. "What else?" No matter how he said it or when it wouldn't be any easier, but they needed to get it over with. Andy needed to know what they would be facing, and what he would be telling Sharon when he woke her up.

Charlie had been a paramedic for almost ten years. He had seen a lot of terrible stuff in that time. Accident scenes like this one were the ones that he hated the most. Inevitably there would be casualties. They already had at least one dead on scene. He exhaled quietly. "She's pinned. They're trying to get her out now. They were going to take the boys to St. Vincent's, but as soon as they get Emily out of the car they're air lifting her to Cedars. I thought it might…" He broke off for a moment with a silent curse. "I thought it might be easier if everyone was in the same place." There was nothing at all about this that would be easy.

The engines in the background, the machines that were running, the sound made Andy grimace. That would be the fire trucks, probably the ambulances. Beneath the familiar thrum of those motors he could hear the cranking of the jaws as they worked at cutting through metal. "Charlie," he spoke quietly, but with purpose. "How bad is it?" He needed to know. Sharon would want answers. It would be better to give her as many facts as he could.

Several moments of near silence followed that question. Only the sound of the engines and machines filled the line. Charlie knew that his father would understand when he started talking; he just didn't know how to begin or how to really describe it. He didn't want to be too coarse about it, but Charlie was really trying to keep himself separated from the scene. It was the only way to survive it. "Front passenger. Rusty was riding in the back. When the car hit the median it rolled. The front is pretty messed up. It's pretty bad," he said finally. "Look, dad, I should get back there. I just thought it would be better if I called you directly instead of one of those idiots from Traffic dropping by Sharon's place." He cursed quietly. "That's what I hate about working down here now. Some of the cops in this town are just morons. They put that kid through hell. Gus, the one that was driving; they made him do a field sobriety and then he had to blow a breathalyzer." Charlie ran a hand over his face again. He hated working night shift, but he was saving up for a new car. He had picked up the extra shifts for the money. "There was a bottle of wine or something in the car. None of them were drinking," he added. "Rusty said that his sister got it for Sharon. Either way, the kid passed the test."

"Son of a bitch." Andy pinched the bridge of his nose. So it had been a pretty messed up night all the way around, and they still didn't know anything about Emily. Having Rusty and Gus already on their way to the hospital might be the only thing that kept Sharon from going directly to the scene. It would still be a tossup. "Okay. I'll take care of it. Listen, Charlie, let me know as soon as you have more on Em, okay?"

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "Yeah, I can do that. Dad, it really doesn't look good," he said again, and wanted to make sure that his meaning was clear.

"I understand." He wished to hell that he didn't. Andy could recall having worked a number of accidents himself. He was able to picture the scene entirely too well. "Charlie…" he paused. Andy sighed and shook his head, despite the fact that his son couldn't see it. "Thanks for telling me. You're right. It's a lot better than a call from one of those idiots in traffic."

He didn't really know what to say to that. Charlie shook his head, but his dad couldn't see it. That was the problem with phone calls. "I'll talk to you later," he said. "Look, tell Sharon I won't leave until we get Emily out. I'll stay with her."

"I'm sure that she will appreciate that." As much as she might appreciate anything after he filled her in. Andy looked down when he heard her sigh. She hummed quietly and rolled on to her back. She was waking up. Andy ended the call and put the phone down. He scrubbed a hand over his face again. Beside him Sharon was stretching. Her eyes blinked open and she looked up at him. He was about to turn her world on its end, but first he took a moment to memorize how she looked. Sleep mussed, tired, but there was a light in her eyes. Andy dreaded watching that fade.

"Not another one already?" Her voice was still thick with sleep. She sat up in the bed and pushed her hair back. They had just finished one case, and she wanted to spend the next few days with Emily without the interruptions. Depending on the nature of the case she might still be able to take the vacation days that she had planned, the previous case had not really allowed that. It was too high profile and extensive.

"No." He reached over and laid a hand on her leg. "That wasn't work." Andy stroked her thigh through the blanket. He took a breath and let it out slowly before he reached for her hand. "It was Charlie. There was an accident…"

Phone calls in the middle of the night usually meant a new case in their line of work, but as a mother she was also perfectly aware of the fact that a ringing telephone could herald bad news. There were words that could stop the heart or freeze the world on its axis. Sharon wasn't sure how much she actually heard after the word accident passed his lips. Her world seemed to narrow. It was as if watching everything through a tunnel.

They rose quickly and began throwing on clothes. She wanted to go directly to the accident scene, but Andy was right. If the situation was as terrible as Charlie described, even their badges would not get them close enough to be of any help to Emily. They had to trust that Charlie and his colleagues were doing the best that they could. That wasn't easy. Sharon had never been very good at allowing other people to have control where her children were concerned. No one could care for them the way that she could. No one could protect them, or keep them as safe as she could.

Sharon tried to call both Rusty and Gus a few dozen times after leaving the condo. Neither answered, and she could only conclude that they either didn't have their phones or they were damaged in the accident. She was nervous and fidgeting in the car as Andy drove. Her palms were damp and her heart was racing. She was trying not to imagine the dozen or so scenarios that a lifetime of experience had planted in her mind. How many accidents had she worked while she was in Patrol during those early years of her career? How many accident scenes had she investigated since?

She made Andy give her the facts, all of them, as Charlie had explained them to him. Now her mind was torturing her with them. There were any number of images playing out on a constantly spinning movie reel inside of her head. She wished that she could stop them, but that would only happen when she could lay eyes on her daughter. When they finally arrived at the hospital, Sharon was out of the car before it was properly parked.

She walked briskly across the parking lot and was only vaguely aware of a hand wrapping around hers as she swept into the emergency room. They stopped at the triage desk to get information on the boys. Five minutes worth of Sharon's impatient foot tapping and Andy flashing his badge got them signed in as visitors and beyond the double doors that separated them from the treatment rooms.

The boys were in a small, curtained off cubicle. Andy grabbed the edge of it and pulled it aside when they reached it. They found Rusty sitting on the gurney and Gus in the chair beside it. Rusty's shoulders were hunched and his arm was in a sling. There was a bandage above his left eyebrow and a steri stripped cut along his jaw on the same side. There were bruises and other small cuts, and he felt like one giant bruise, but he straightened immediately the moment that the curtain opened.

"Rusty." It took exactly three steps to reach his side. "Oh god." Sharon tipped his chin up with one hand. With the other she swept his hair back from his forehead. The ends of his bangs were stiff and blood stained. Sharon drew a breath and let it out slowly. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." He hurt all over, and because he was afraid of taking anything stronger, they had only given him tylenol for the pain. Rusty leaned forward when she pulled him into a hug. He wrapped his good arm around her and held on tightly. "I'm okay, mom. I promise. It looks a lot worse than it is."

Sharon held him for several moments before pulling back. Her hand hovered over his sling-encased arm. "What happened?"

It was then that Gus pushed out of his chair. He had been sitting slumped forward, head in his hands. "This is all my fault," he began, "Rusty wasn't even driving. I am so…"

She cut him off before he could continue. Sharon pulled him into a hug. "As I understand it, the accident was definitely not your fault." When she leaned back she took a moment to let her gaze sweep over the older boy. Like Rusty he had several cuts and bruises but he appeared to be otherwise okay. She looked back and forth between them. "Are you both okay?"

"You'll be glad to know that the airbags worked," Rusty said lamely. He sighed. "We're okay, mom. My arm isn't even that bad. It's broken, but they said it was a clean break. We were just waiting for you to get here."

"We have to do a couple of follow-up CTs in an hour or so," Gus explained to her, "because we both bumped our heads, but no concussion and nothing else is seriously injured. It's just a precaution." He jerked his head toward Rusty's arm. "They put it in a splint until the swelling comes down. The doctor said they would have to wait a day or two before they put it in a cast."

"Broken bones are not okay," Sharon pushed Rusty's hair back from his forehead again. "But I am glad that you were not more seriously injured."

Andy had his hands in his pockets. He stood beside Sharon and let his gaze wonder over the two boys. "Maybe you can tell us exactly what happened," he suggested. "Charlie didn't have all of the details when he called me."

"I'm not even sure," Gus admitted. "We were on our way back to your place," he said to Sharon. "Rusty and Emily were trying to look something up on his phone, so I volunteered to drive. Everything was fine."

"We were looking for a store that had that wine you like, the one that Emily introduced you to in New York last year," Rusty said. "We went and picked it up, and then we were on our way home."

"But no one was drinking," Gus said immediately.

Andy saw the anger flash in the boy's eyes and nodded. "We know. We trust you, Gus. Believe me, I will be taking that up with the idiots in Traffic."

"Not if I get there first," Sharon muttered. She touched Gus's arm and gave it a squeeze. "I'm very sorry about that. I would like to say that the officers were just doing their jobs, but there is a proper way to—"

"Mom, it's okay." Rusty shook his head and managed a small smile. The last thing that they needed was for her to get started on the rules.

When Rusty looked up at him from over Sharon's shoulder, Andy nodded his head. They would let Sharon save that tirade for the idiots in Traffic. "Someone crossed in to your lane?" He asked, prompting Gus to continue.

"Yeah." Gus ran a hand into his hair. "The car in the inside lane drifted toward the middle. I guess he over compensated or something. He came into my lane; almost hit the front of the car. I didn't have anywhere to go so I hit the breaks to make room for him. I don't know what happened after that. I guess the car behind us was too close?" He looked at Rusty for confirmation.

"We got hit from behind," Rusty explained. "Then we were just spinning. Another car hit us and I don't even know what happened. Everything happened pretty fast. We went from spinning to rolling, and then it stopped."

"We ended up in the oncoming lanes," Gus told them. "We got hit again, and the cars were kind of wedged together." He noticed that Sharon had paled as they gave her the run down of the accident. He shifted uncomfortably where he stood. "The doors were stuck and Rusty's seatbelt was jammed. We couldn't get out so we had to wait for help."

"How…" Sharon stopped and cleared her throat. She looked at Rusty and found that she had a difficult time swallowing. "How was your sister?" She asked. Her voice was thick with worry. Neither of them had really mentioned Emily.

Rusty glanced at Gus and then at Andy. He fidgeted with the edge of his sling as he met her gaze. "I don't know," he said quietly. "She was talking for a minute. She wasn't making a lot of sense."

"She thought I was Ricky," Gus said. "She kept saying something about getting the car home and not waking up the Goldsteins' dog." He gestured helplessly. "We didn't know what she meant. She was really out of it, but she was awake." He shrugged. Gus was sure that she had hit her head and he didn't know what that meant.

Sharon pressed her fingers to her lips. She closed her eyes and nodded. That meant Emily probably had a concussion or worse. "Ricky and Emily would take turns borrowing my car during the summer. The Goldsteins' were our neighbors. They both made a science out of sneaking back into the house without waking up the neighbors' dog. Otherwise I might hear them, and know that they had snuck out in the first place. The only problem was that neither of them were ever exactly quiet about sneaking out of the house." Her head tilted and she hummed. They had not heard from Charlie again, but Sharon knew that the longer the extraction took, the worse it would be.

Andy laid his hands against her shoulders and drew her back against him. The waiting would be the hardest part. "He'll call," Andy told her.

"I know." Sharon let him wrap his arms around her. She let it anchor her. "I should call Ricky and Jack, but I don't want to until I have something to tell them." Why should anyone else be stuck in this hell with them.

"No, I agree," Andy said. He just didn't think that Sharon needed to deal with Jack right now. He didn't think that any of them needed that headache. He might be Emily's father, but Andy thought that they all had enough to worry about without adding him to the mix.

"So that's it," Rusty said, "there's nothing we can do? We just have to sit here and wait? Isn't there someone that you can call?"

"I am afraid not." Sharon sighed. "The best thing that we can do for Emily right now is to stay out of everyone's way and not distract them. Charlie said that he would call his father again once she was extracted and on her way here."

"I'm sure that it will be soon," Andy told them. He couldn't imagine it taking too much longer. He had heard the machines in the background when he was talking to Charlie. "But yeah, all we can do is wait." His hands rubbed up and down Sharon's arms as he spoke.

"Sharon, I'm really sorry." Gus shoved his hands into his pockets. The cuts and bruises on the backs of them ached from the action but he ignored it. "I feel like maybe I could have done something different, or if I wasn't even driving…"

"No." She smiled sadly at him. "Gus, it was an accident. No one here blames you. I promise, whatever happens tonight, this was not your fault."

"I've been telling him that," Rusty said. "It doesn't matter if I was driving or if Emily was driving. It probably would have happened anyway, and besides, Gus drives like a grandpa when he drives my car. It's not like we were going too fast or doing anything wrong. You weren't texting, you weren't drinking," he told his boyfriend, "some people are just bad drivers, and anyway, we don't even know why that other car swerved."

Andy recognized the signs of survivor guilt. The boys were more or less unharmed and there was barely a scratch on Gus. He had a couple of cuts, probably from broken glass. There was a bandage wrapped around one forearm, just beneath the elbow. The boys had been lucky. That was just how it happened sometimes. It could have been worse, a lot worse, and from what Charlie had told him, it was. There was a fatality on scene and Emily was in bad shape. He squeezed Sharon's shoulders again. "Listen to them," he said quietly, and knew that Gus would take his word for it. "No one here is at fault. That's why it's called an accident. Okay?"

Gus sighed. He nodded. "Yeah, okay." He didn't feel much better, but he would listen to what they were telling him. These people had been nothing but good to him, and tonight was no exception. He just felt terrible that he was okay and Emily was not. "Look, I'm going to get some air," he decided. "There are really only supposed to be two back here. You okay?" He directed the question at Rusty.

"Yeah." He was worried, but he could tell that Gus was restless. It was better to let him work it out when he was like this.

Sharon turned as Gus left and cast a look at Andy. Her brow arched and when he nodded, she offered a smile. She stepped forward and leaned her hip against the side of the gurney as he followed Gus. She touched Rusty's arm again. "How are you really?" She asked, once they were alone.

Rusty just shook his head at her. "Really okay," he promised. "It's not as bad as it looks," he repeated, and hoped that this time she would believe him.

Andy followed Gus outside. It was a cool night. They could hear the sounds of traffic in the distance, and he knew that both of them were really listening for the sound of an approaching helicopter. They walked around the side of the hospital and found a concrete landscaping ledge to sit on. The smell of stale cigarette smoke still hung in the air. From the butts on the ground, it looked like a popular place for smokers to go, but they ignored it.

He was silent for a few minutes. He just sat there, staring at his boots. Gus had been in worse situations than this one, and could easily count a number of incidents in Afghanistan that had been a lot more frightening. Losing his own sisters was a lot worse than this and all of those situations, but he still felt pretty bad. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the pavement and shook his head. When he glanced up, he found the other man just waiting. "Rusty didn't see Emily. The passenger door on the driver's side was all jammed in, and the other car was in the way, so they took him out the rear window." He stared at Andy for a few moments before he added quietly, "It's bad. I didn't tell him."

His jaw clenched. "Charlie said that it didn't look great." Andy turned his attention to the parking lot. It was silent at this time of night. "He didn't really elaborate."

"The front of the car was all smashed in," Gus told him. "The other car was all folded in on that side. It looked like…" He stopped talking and looked away. He was silent for a moment. His throat was trying to close up. Gus took a breath before trying again. "It looked like she was all folded up in the dash. It was bad," he said again and let his gaze fall back to the pavement beneath his feet.

"Yeah," Andy spoke on a sigh. "That's what I kind of figured too. That's why it's taking so long." He glanced back toward the hospital and shook his head. "Sharon is going to realize that pretty soon. We've both seen our share of accidents. Listen, do me a favor," he looked at Gus again. "She works better with facts, but if she asks you, just say that it was dark and you didn't see a lot. She doesn't need to picture that. You don't have to lie," he said, because they both knew that Sharon would see right through that, "but you don't have to elaborate either. It's bad enough, but she doesn't need all of that in her head."

"I know." Gus agreed with a nod. "It's why I didn't tell Rusty. He doesn't need to know either, and he would feel like he has to tell Sharon. But I thought someone else should know." Gus looked away again. "In case, you know, this night didn't end so well. Someone should be prepared. Maybe…" He felt a little awkward suggesting it, but Gus decided to go ahead. "Maybe you should go ahead and call Ricky. I know that Sharon said she didn't want to worry him yet, but maybe he should already be trying to get here. I know if it was my sister…" He trailed off and shuffled his feet again. "I wish I had known about Marianna sooner," he finished quietly.

"Yeah, I know." Andy stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. "That's why I called Ricky while Sharon was in the bathroom changing. He's on his way down here. I told him to be careful. He's supposed to check in with me every hour." Andy pulled out his phone and checked the time, since the lighting on that side of the hospital was too dim for him to see his watch. "I should be hearing from him in about another twenty minutes."

"Good." Gus turned his attention to the sky. He still didn't hear anything. "She was laughing. In the car, before the accident, Emily was laughing. Rusty was joking about calling ahead, before we got back to Sharon's place, to make sure we didn't walk in on anything. He was telling Emily that she didn't have to live with it; she didn't know how bad it was. He might have been exaggerating a lot." Gus glanced at Andy and they shared a look. Rusty didn't mind the relationship so much, but he was very vocal about not witnessing certain parts of it. "Emily was promising him that she would go inside first, and if there was anything going on that we shouldn't see, she would take a picture of it and send it to Ricky so that everyone could share the torture." His smile slowly faded. "Then there was just glass, and metal, and screaming."

Andy opened his mouth to reply, but his phone buzzed. He looked down at it. There was a text message from Charlie. In the air, headed your way. Not good. I'll get there as soon as I can. Andy stared at his phone for a moment. He drew a slow, measured breath. "Okay," he said finally. "Here we go." He squinted at Gus. "You ready for this?"

He wasn't sure that he was, but he nodded. Gus stood up. "I'll take him, you take her."

"Let's go." Andy didn't know which way that the world was about to tilt, but it would, and it wouldn't be pretty.

-TBC-