Title: Ring of Fire

Series: Ring of Fire
Universe: Ulysses
Author: loozy
Characters: Don
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary: The first time he is hit, Don is about to open his car door.
Word Count: 164; 148; 171; 140; 181; 107; 196; 136; 207; 118; 233; 140
Spoilers: none
Notes: Inspired by the challenge on hurt_don and beta'ed by the awesome valeriev84... This is also rinkle's birthday pressie... It is a tad bit late, but I hope this makes up for it...
Prompt: # 163 Strike; # 165 Victim; # 191 Fireplace; # 178 Combat; # 198 Beneath; # 187 Debate; # 210 Trap; # 213 Overpower; # 224 Walk; # 197 Hover; # 3 Humanity; # 21 Survival
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

Ring of Fire

Strike

The first time he is hit, Don is about to open his car door. He can feel the hardness of whatever was used to hit him with as it impacts with his skull. He smashes against the driver's window, his fingers losing their hold on his keys, his knees buckling.

The second impact whacks his head again against the car, though not at the window. This time, it is against the rim of window pane and he can feel his skin break and blood trickle down his forehead.

His vision is swimming by the third hit and the gravel underneath his knees feels rough, tiny stones digging into the fabric of his jeans.

The fourth hit is against his back and takes his breath away. He can see the gray approaching, but tries to fight it, the nausea rising.

The fifth hit does him in and he vomits.

The sixth hit he does not really feel anymore.

By the seventh hit, he is unconscious.

Victim

When he wakes up, his head is killing him and he can smell petrol on the ground beneath his right cheek.

There is blood in his eyes and it hurts to even blink.

So he just closes his eyes again, and fights again the sick feeling that is coming and going. He wants to move, but his head is too heavy to actually do anything but just have it rest on the ground. It feels cool against the heat emanating from behind him, and he really wants to turn around, but he cannot.

He feels as if he was struck several times with something hard, and it takes his brain a couple of moments to catch on that he was actually hit several times with something hard.

He wonders if maybe it was alright if he closed his eyes for a moment, just for a second.

He does.

Fireplace

He wakes up bare moments later and feels even more like shit than before.

The heat is increasing, as is the smell of petrol and he does not know what to do. He wants to do something, but his body is not responding to the feeble commands he is sending it. It is a fight to even raise his head a bit, and then he smacks it against his car.

Bleary eyes open to assess his situation more properly and what he sees would have made him jump in a moment of terror had he had the room.

He is lying underneath his car which has a circle of petrol around it, and there is a line of fire coming steadily towards it.

He slowly shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, which does nothing to help him, but he fights for a split second of coherency.

He gets it.

He decides, in this split second of coherency, that he needs to get out from under the car.

Now.

Combat

He would get out from under the car if only he could move.

But, as he discovers now, his hands are tied, literally and his legs, something feels wrong with them, too.

He rests his head against the ground again, and inhales the smell of petrol, nearly gagging at the vile taste it leaves in his mouth. The flames are moving towards the car quicker with every second and he is sure going to blow it up by the time the circle is reached.

He would like to panic right about now, but that would not help him get away from here.

He would like to hyperventilate, but he cannot do that, either, because there is not enough time for him to properly do so.

He simply cannot afford to lose it now, as much as he would love to.

Beneath

He has always been commended on his calm and control in situations of panic and chaos.

Now he needs to use this control, this calm, to get out of here.

There is no other thought in his head but get the fuck away from here.

He will die if he stays, he knows that, and he will not die like this. It does not matter that his head is killing him, and that he needs to rest his head against the floor every couple of seconds because his neck simply is not able to hold it up long enough.

What can he do?

His hands are cuffed together on his back, but there might be enough space for him to use his legs bent them up a bit, if only he could feel them well enough to make them move.

It seems as though they are weighed down with lead, and for a moment he even believes that, until he manages to actually move his left foot and it does follow his command.

Then he has to rest his head again.

Debate

Time is running out, and he is aware of it.

But what is he to do? He wants to get away, he really does, but it is painstaking work. Everything has to be planned in advance so he cannot waste precious energy by doing something, anything that will use up his resources.

His strength is nearly non- existent.

The flames are getting closer. It is now or never.

With careful, precise movements, he gets his body turned slightly to the left, the side away from the flames. Then, he closes his eyes for a second longer than usual, fighting to pull everything in him together for this.

Trap

It is painstaking work.

It is work that he deems nearly impossible to finish because his body keeps giving up on him. The smell of petrol surrounding him is overwhelming and his head feels as if it was stuffed with cotton. His awareness is coming and going, and coherency is something that he would love to have, if only he knew where and how to get it.

It sure sounds like something important.

His ribs, compressed against the ground until now, suddenly make themselves known when he starts to buck up and down while trying to move forward.

He guesses that the hits he received hard went on after he lost consciousness because they feel broken. If he had the coherency, imagination and time, he would envision the ragged ends of the broken bones moving towards his oxygen- starved lungs, ready to pierce them.

He cannot bring himself to care enough that he could die.

Not right now.

He is depleted, his strength nearly gone, and when he finally cannot move anymore, his head flops down into the puddle of petrol, half his body sticking out from under the car.

And the flames are coming closer.

Overpower

Swallowing petrol cannot be good, and he really wants to move forward but cannot.

His breaths are coming in short uneven pants, and whenever he manages to suck oxygen in, he also swallows dribbles of petrol. If he had the energy, he would try and throw up, but as of now, he is all out of energy.

Darkness is beckoning him, and he decides that it is probably better to follow because he sure does not want to be there when the flames reach him.

So this is it, the glorious end of Don Eppes. Beaten up by some perp, left to die underneath his own car, burned to death.

Darkness is encroaching and he feels the sweet vision of oblivion enveloping him.

He spares a last thought to his family.

And then he welcomes unconsciousness.

Walk

A man walks along a road in the woods somewhere outside of Los Angeles.

He is wearing a pair of jeans with a ratty shirt into, a belt that keeps his jeans from sliding down his hips and a pair of scuffed Doc Martens. His hair is spiked randomly with strands of green, blue and red.

He turns into an abandoned road that once led to an old wood factory. It is a good place to bum around, maybe, with no- one around to disturb him.

If memory serves correctly, there is a roundabout with a set of benches in the middle of it. It is a nice place, actually, he remembers cycling there with his friends back in the day.

The closer he gets to his destination, the more he can feel the early morning heat of an LA- summer rise steadily, as well as a fierce and angry red- orange turning the woods into menaces set against the slowly brightening early morning sky.

He wonders what is going on.

And then he sees it.

There is fire all around a black SUV parked in the middle of the roundabout.

And through the flickering flames he can just about make out a form lying beneath it.

Hover

The man is not a hero, at least that is what he tells himself as he stands and stares at the flames.

They are in a circle around the car and the smell of petrol is everywhere. There is not a chance that he would get out of here without any injuries should he try and help this person.

Besides, he or she may already be dead. Who knows how long the fire has been going...

He is about to turn away when his conscience makes itself known.

He has a blanket in his backpack and some water that he could wet it with to protect himself from the flames.

The man contemplates the thought for a moment.

Humanity

At 3am in the morning an anonymous call goes in to the LAPD.

The caller, a male who refuses to give his name, tells the operator of a fire on a road leading to the old McFadden's gigantic Wood Factory with an SUV and a man. He tells them that they have to hurry and send EMTs because the man is badly injured.

He is a fed and has a badge on him.

While speaking with the man, the operator alerts units to immediately head out to the location and contacts ambulances and the fire department.

The victim, according to the caller, is barely breathing and there are burns on his body.

The fire is still raging, the lack of rain in the last couple of weeks having dried the trees so that they are receptive to the fire like nothing else. The man says that he managed to get the fed away from the fire to protect him from the petrol that was sprayed all over the road by whoever laid the fire in the first place.

Then he hangs up.

At 3.30am in the morning, two police squad cars, an ambulance and two fire trucks arrive at the beginning of the road, where there is a bundle of cloth lying by the curb, just about visible.

The EMTs get to work immediately as the other cars drive on to the roundabout.

Survival

At 4am, Don Eppes, identified by the badge clipped to his belt, is brought into the ER of the nearest hospital.

At 4.12am he flat lines.

At 4.14am he is revived and taken up to surgery to repair the damage to his lungs by broken ribs, a broken foot and ankle and his burns.

At 4.20am, a nurse calls Robin Eppes, his pregnant wife.

At 4.24am, Robin calls Alan and Charlie.

At 4.25am, Charlie calls David who then calls Colby and Liz while Robin leaves the house.

At 4.26am, Lt Walker is called to the scene when the car is identified as Don's car and Alan, Charlie, Amita and the twins are on their way.

At 4.27am, David has delegated his 2IC to drive up to the scene and drives to the hospital.

At 4.28am, the man hunt is on.