Alarm

Disclaimer: All characters are mine

Summary: Hal Carson, a jaded Detective, lost his partner, Jim Walker, in a warehouse shooting. He has a tumultuous relationship with his ex, Leah Laverne, but they draw close through Hal’s emotional crisis. Can he work a case that involves her?


Warnings: m/f, angst, lemon, violence, drama

** Asterisks indicate thoughts

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Chapter One



You can’t wake up.



Because you’re dead.





At least, that’s what he thought at first. As light started to creep into his vision, he thought that he had finally met his maker, that this was the tunnel of light that many people who had experienced death had described.

*Is this heaven?* He wondered.

He soon realized it wasn’t, as he became more aware of his surroundings, his body cried out in pain. Eyes slowly opening, he was greeted with a white ceiling, and the soft hum of electrical equipment. He tried to move his arms, but the slightest movement sent a sharp jolt of pain traveling through his entire body. He tried to speak, but his voice was dry and hoarse.

Turning his head slowly, he observed that he was in a hospital room, and the door had been pulled for privacy. His memories came flooding back fast.






He had been on duty, partnered with longterm friend and collegue, Detective Jim Walker. They had been sent to scout out an old warehouse, where there were reported gunshots. Waiting around the building, they hadn’t heard anything, finally deciding to enter and have a look for themselves. It was by far the stupidest thing they could have ever done. As if the people within knew they were camped outdoors, they waited until the two detectives were well within the warehouse before firing at them. Just like that, they were attacked without any decent cover.

Jim had been shot in the head. The image was still so vivid. He knew that Jim had died instantly, and he hated that it had been so easy to kill him. Jim was a good detective – he had been in the police service for many, many years, and now he was gone, having been on the receiving end of some teenage brat’s pistol. He had tried to escape, taking aim as he ran towards the entrance he came from. He managed to hit a few before they got a good hit on him. He had lost count of how many times he had been shot, but he had managed to leave his own deadly mark. He was certain that he was the only survivor.





“Hal Carson? Detective Carson?” He could barely turn his head to look at the young woman entering his room. She looked very timid, a child-like face and big inquisitive eyes, dressed in drab blue hospital scrubs. She came to his side, checked his vitals, and lifted the gauze off his chest.

“So glad to see that you are finally awake. I’ll let Doctor Hill know as soon as I finish up with you.” She discarded the dirty bandages in a waste pail, dusting some penicillin over the stitched up wounds before applying fresh gauze.

“How….how long have I been asleep?” He asked, voice scratchy from lack of use. She smiled kindly at him.

“About a week. At first we weren’t sure if you were going to make it or not. You had been shot six times – 4 in the abdomen, and twice in the back. Actually, it’s a miracle you survived. God must be on your side.”

*Evidently not. If He was then He would have let me die*

“Can I have some water?” Hal’s throat ached. She gave him that same, sweet smile.

“Of course. I’ll be right back.” She left the room, pulling the door behind her. He thought about what she had said. Shot six times….and still he had managed to live. One shot and Jim was dead. It seemed improbable.

The nurse returned a few minutes later, with a cup and a straw, a taller man lingering behind her. She adjusted the hospital bed so that Hal was sitting up slightly, and handed the plastic cup to him. He drank the liquid greedily, the water soothing his throat instantly. She waited until he was done, taking the cup from him when he had taken every last drop. The taller man waited until she had left the room before speaking.

“I’m Doctor Hill, I treated you.” He said, looking over the equipment attached to Hal, inspecting his morphine drip.

“When can I leave?” Hal knew he was in no position to be moving around just yet, but he wanted to hear what the Doctor had to say. The man looked at him, face slightly wrinkled with age, and thought about Hal’s question.

“Well, we extracted all the bullets…I’d like to see the stitches come out. You have dissolvable stitches in you from where your organs had been nicked, and those will take a couple weeks to heal. You can probably go home in two weeks, though you won’t be back on duty until the internal stitches have started to heal.”

Doctor Hill checked over his wounds, much the same as what the nurse had done. Asking if he had any more questions, Hal didn’t. The best thing he could do was wait out his treatment and think about what he had been through. He had no doubt that sometime during his hospital stay that detectives would be coming in and questioning him about the warehouse attack. After all, everything died there….everyone except him.


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Hal slept fitfully. Every four hours, his vitals needed to be checked, and when that wasn’t happening, he would lie in bed, trying to force himself to sleep. He was in a private room, so he wasn’t being disturbed by a roommate, but every time he managed to drift, disturbing images filled his head. Images of Jim’s dead, accusing eyes.

He had tried to cover him when they entered the warehouse. It was a lucky shot that ended Jim’s life. How often do shitheads with their daddies guns manage to score a headshot at that range? It didn’t stop the feeling of guilt rising in him though. It should have been him that was hit first. Jim had a family – wife, kids – and Hal was 34 year old bachelor, probably doomed to spend the rest of his life in loneliness. He deserved to, after Jim being shot.

They should have exercised more caution. They should have called back-up, instead of trying to be heros. They were good detectives, smart and quick thinkers that ended up doing the most stupid thing. There were reported gunshots, for God’s sake! Why did they think they could just waltz in there without securing the building?

Finally, Hal managed to fall into a light sleep around 5am. The nurse would be in around 7, but any sleep was better than none.


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Two detectives and a police officer came to visit Hal about four days after he regained consciousness. Hal had expected them to blame Jim’s death on him, to take away his badge and eventually throw his ass in jail, but nothing of the sort happened. He knew that he was being irrational, but he felt like complete shit.

The men standing before him were some of his colleagues, good friends, people he hung with when they were off duty. They had hard faces, though there was a soft edge in their eyes as they sat beside Hal’s hospital bed, taking in the view of their fallen friend. As much as Hal tried to convince them he was in better shape than he looked, it was obvious the injured detective was in immense pain and trying his best to cover it.

“Jim had his funeral while you were still in a coma.” Detective Roberts told Hal. Trevor Roberts was a good friend of both Hal and Jim’s, a tall man with dark hair and deep gray eyes. On duty, he could look like the scariest bastard alive, but in private, he had the gentle eyes of a good friend. Hal admired him.

“His family?” Hal asked. Trevor bowed his head slightly.

“God bless them. Torn up, as you would expect. His wife could barely hold herself together. She did it for the sake of her children though. It’ll take some time until they can recover from their great loss.” Hal had expected as much. The Walkers were a good, close family, and he had often gone over for barbeques and various holidays. He would pay Mrs. Walker a visit when he left the hospital and give his condolences. It was the least he could do.

At last, Trevor got to the point of his visit with Hal. He needed a statement from the injured man, about what happened during the warehouse shooting. Hal recalled the details as best he could, Roberts confirming his suspicion that he was the only survivor.

“You’re one lucky bastard.” Trevor said, his gray eyes holding a twinkle of humour. Hal
knew that he was just trying to make him feel better.

“Sometimes I question that.” Hal murmured. Trevor could see that it was a sore spot within the pained detective, and he wasn’t going to push it.

“One more thing,” Trevor said. Hal leaned his head against the pillow, blinking.

“What?”

Trevor seemed a little nervous.

“Ah…well, we know you don’t have any immediate family around, so we contacted your ex-girlfriend to let her know about this. Before you go all ripshit, she is still listed as your next of kin. We didn’t have much of a choice.” Trevor spoke quickly. Hal grimaced.

“Shit.”


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Leah was in her kitchen, washing up the last of her dishes when the telephone rang. Wiping her hands on her dish towel, she picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Miss Laverne?”

“Yes, this is she. May I ask who is calling?”

“This is Detective Trevor Roberts, from the LAPD.”

Immediately she knew that this call had something to do with Hal. There could be no other reason anyone from the police department would phone her. Sighing, she sat down at the kitchen table.

“What has he done now?” Her voice held a touch of irritation. Detective Roberts hesitated over the line. In a calm voice, he filled her in on the situation. Hal Carson and Jim Walker responded to a report of gunshots in an old abandoned warehouse, and upon entering, Walker was shot in the head, fatal wound, and Hal had escaped, suffering six gunshots.

The shooting had been nearly a week and a half ago. Leah was angry that they hadn’t contacted her earlier. Hal had been in a coma for the first week, and had regained consciousness almost four days ago. She was surprised that the police department had waited so long to notify her. Although she and Hal weren’t together anymore, and God knew they weren’t friendly, but she was the closest person Hal had to family in the entire city, no matter how hostile they got with one another.

After squeezing as much information out of Detective Roberts as she could, she hung up the phone and sat leaned against the table. Without a doubt, she knew that the Walkers would be in a very emotional state. When she and Hal had been together, they were often invited over to the Walkers, where they talked with Jim and his wife, Carol, and occasionally delighted in the plays the children put on for them.

Things had changed since then, but she still kept in touch with them, even though she and Hal weren’t a pair anymore. Feeling slightly guilty, Leah realized that she hadn’t talked to Jim or Carol in some time, (a few months, at least) and felt that she owed the family a visit. First things first though, she owed that lunkhead Hal a visit. As much as they hadn’t talked in over a year, she knew already that Jim’s death would weigh heavily on his heart. He would be very dark about it, retreating into his shell, something that she had always tried to get him out of. It was one of the many reasons for their separation.

Calling the hospital, she jotted down the visiting hours on a piece of scrap paper. Thanking the person on the phone, she hung up. Deciding to go tomorrow morning, she put the paper on the kitchen table to remind her.




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A/N: Thanks for reading. More to come soon. Please review!


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