Doubling Down – Chapter Eleven – Emersli1

Reading Time:
12 Minutes

The small county hospital was a bustling hive of industry.

Buck and his team were quickly moved into the emergency room for treatment, with Marshall being sent for x-rays immediately to make sure the through and through hadn’t hit anything that would need repair.

All of the men were being treated for smoke inhalation  and concussion.  Buck sat and breathed carefully while he waited through his daughter’s first doctor’s visit.  He had produced the birth certificate and so far no actual questions had been asked as they whisked the baby away.  But he didn’t expect that to last.

He was sitting there trying to think up a convincing story that wouldn’t make him sound like a crazy person.  Surely they wouldn’t leave a baby in the care of a crazy person, even if he was mysteriously on the birth certificate.

It’s not like he could say the little forest people gave her to him.  And he didn’t think the saints would go over well either.

He had randomly come across a former one-night-stand, right after she had given  birth to his child?  Hurriedly filling out the birth certificate before dying in the arms of her new partner?  He shook his head.  Little people sounded more believable than that.

Suddenly, he heard his name being called … in a voice he loved.

“Evan!  Evan,”  Eddie was there in front of him, looking him over worriedly before grabbing him into a gentle embrace.  “Oh, cariño, I was so worried.  I’m so glad to have you back.”

Tony had followed a few steps back, but no less eager to see him.  “Hey Evan, good to see you looking … well … not as bad as you could have.  Are you hurt anywhere?  Besides the arm?”

Holding on to Eddie, he turned his head to look at his friend.  “Just the smoke inhalation.  Arm’s just a divot.  The bullet passed through Marsh first.  He’s in x-ray.  Maybe heading to surgery.  We don’t know yet.”

Eddie had stiffened at the word ‘bullet’.  “Bullet?  Evan Christopher Buckley, did you get shot?  After I specifically told you not to?”  His joking words were belied by the worry in his tone.

“Yeah, yeah.  But I wasn’t the one she wanted for a sacrifice.  That was all Jake.”  Buck leaned back into his seat, repositioning the mask for the breathing treatment he was supposed to be taking seriously.

“A sacrifice?  What?” Tony inquired blankly.  “What are you talking about?”

Jake looked sheepish under his breathing mask.  “Yeah, her name is Brittany Marks and I dated her last spring.  She was new in town and just looking for fun.  When she showed up on my porch at nearly midnight in May dressed like a deer and invited me out to ‘conquer and be conquered under the Mother Moon’ I said, ‘No, thank you.’.”

Mateo shook his head.  “She didn’t take it well.  We wound up calling the cops.  But there she was.  She’d knocked us out with a flash-bang planted under the carcass.  She had a rifle for back-up, and wasn’t a bad shot.”

A voice from the door added its own two cents worth.  “I don’t know if she was lucky or incredibly observant, but her shot managed to take down both armed members of the party.”  Marshall was being wheeled in by a tech, who looked overworked and exasperated.

“Behave, all of you.”  His gaze swept the room, apparently including Eddie and Tony in his directive, before he moved on to his next task.

“Anyway,”  Buck continued.  “She apparently was close enough to get to us while we were still disoriented.  She clubbed me in the side of the head, probably with the rifle butt.”

“Yeah.  She just came out of nowhere, got you first and took Marsh down with the back swing.  Then she nailed me and Mateo.  She told me she did Krav Maga.  Maybe she wasn’t kidding.”  Jake rubbed his aching head.  “She had me tied and hoisted up by the wrists.  I was really confused, but I noticed the guys over to the other side of the fire.”

“I think she flunked out of the villain academy, because she sure didn’t know how to search a body.  She not only missed my hidden knife, she didn’t even notice my ankle holster.”  Buck sounded indignant.  “And she taped Mateo’s hand together in front of him.  Classic no-no.”

“I managed to get Evan’s ankle gun and got off a shot, just as she was getting ready to slit Jake’s throat and bleed him out on the ground.  She seemed to think that would stop all the fires at once.”

“Thank you gentlemen, for that complete report.  I appreciate you saving me some time.”  Sheriff Nottingham had evidently made his way unobtrusively into the room as the guys were talking.  “Anything else I need to know?”

Mateo’s voice shook a little as he volunteered, “I killed her.  I mean, she was going to slit Jake’s throat.  She had this great big knife, and I …”  He looked shamefaced for a minute.  “I’m not a good enough shot to aim to incapacitate.  I had to go for center mass.”

“Mateo, right?  Well Mateo, you do what you have to do to protect the team.  It’s a good thing to know about yourself … that you can pull that trigger when there’s no other choice.”  Tony put his hand on Mateo’s shoulder.  “Jake is alive right now, because you were able to do that.  I know good people don’t want to think of themselves as killers … so don’t.  Just think of yourself as someone who can do whatever he must to make sure his team makes it home alive.”

Sheriff Nottingham nodded in agreement.  “Listen to the man.  Son, nobody wants to have to face that decision.  But you made the right one.  Once the fires are down a bit I’ll have a team go out and collect her body.  We’ll figure out who she was.  And how often she’s done this, and where.  You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”

Jake got solemn.  “Sheriff, she’s not the only one up there you need to collect.  On our way out, we ran across a burned out cabin.  Two people on the bed, killed when the fire came through.  But …”

At that point a cheerful nurse popped back in with the baby.  “Here you go, poppet.  See?  I told you I’d take you right back to Daddy, didn’t I?”

She handed the baby girl to Buck with a friendly smile.  “She’s a little small.  She was probably born early, but she’s met her markers.  We’ll want to keep her overnight, so somebody will be down to show you up to the nursery.  But I think she should be strong enough to go home tomorrow, so long as no trouble with her breathing crops up.”

“Thank you so much.”  Buck snuggled the little girl close.  He’d been about to climb out of his skin the whole time she’d been gone.  How had Eddie managed to leave Chris and go halfway around the world?  He felt as though he suddenly had just the least inkling of how his fiancé must have struggled every day to provide for his son.  Not against the enemy, but against himself.

“Um.   Daddy?”  Eddie looked blankly at the baby in his fiance’s arms.

“Well, I actually figured you’d be Daddy, since Chris already calls me Papa.  Keep it consistent, you know?”  Evan’s response said nothing and everything, all at the same time.

“Evan, did you steal a baby?”  Eddie was firm.  Evan couldn’t just pick up a baby and decide he could keep it.  Even if it sounded as though the parents were gone.  Surely the child had grandparents?  Cousins?  Somebody?

Buck looked up for a moment.  “No?  I mean, my  name’s on the birth certificate, so…”

Tony and the Sheriff looked at each other quickly.

“Evan, did you find the birth certificate with the baby?  With your name on it?  And the State Seal embossed?”  Tony asked the questions calmly, as though of course people found random babies all the time.

“Yes?  Well, Eddie’s and my names are both on there …”  Buck dug around in the pile of stuff the men had brought in with them and produced the official birth certificate, handing it to DiNozzo.

Tony took it, looked it over, and sighed, handing it to the sheriff.  The sheriff shook his head and handed it back.  “I’ll file the paperwork.  Dammit.  I hate dealing with that office.”  The man left the cubicle, presumably to file a report with someone about the baby.

“They’re not gonna take her, are they?  I mean, I know she’s not really mine …”  Evan’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest at the idea that someone might take the baby girl away from him.

“No Evan.  They won’t take her away from you.  Though you should probably think up a name, and get her birth certificate updated.”  Tony pulled a goofy face at the little one while reassuring her … father.

“Evan.  The baby?  Where did you get her?  And what do you  mean my name’s on the birth certificate?  Or for that matter that your name’s on the birth certificate?  Let me see that document.”  Eddie was trying to stay clear-headed, for both their sakes.  But it was really hard to resist the lure of his novio with a baby girl.  It was a good thing he didn’t have ovaries.

“Don’t worry about it Eddie.  We’ve been seeing this over the past century.  Babies, and even small children, who appear out of nowhere with paperwork proving they belong to the most appropriate person.  We still don’t know how it happens or who these children are, but every country now has a registry that deals with inexplicable babies.”  Tony tried to explain.  “We don’t publicize it, since we don’t want kidnappers using it as a ploy, but … yeah.  Law enforcement and Child Protective Services are well-informed.”

At that point Eddie just gave in and took a good look at the baby settling down to sleep.  She was small, as the nurse had said.  She had wispy rose-gold curls, and was slowly blinking blue eyes.  And on her forehead were two small pink birthmarks.  Angel kisses.  That’s what they used to call birthmarks like that.

“Mireya.  Her name is Mireya.  What’s Maddie’s middle name?”  He figured if he picked the first name, Buck should get to pick the middle name.

“Rose.  So, welcome to the family Mireya Rose.  Just wait.  Your big brother’s gonna be so excited to meet you.  And your Abuelita’s gonna spoil you rotten.”  Evan spoke tenderly to the mite in his arms, before his eyes opened comically wide.  “Eddie.  We don’t have a carseat.  We don’t have a crib.  Eddie.  We don’t have DIAPERS!”

Tony laughed.  “Don’t worry.  That department I mentioned?  They have a starter pack they’ll deliver to the address of your choice.  And I claim the uncle’s duty of providing a carseat.  I’ll pick one up and have it ready for tomorrow.”

“Wonderful.  Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll just take the new daddies and their little princess up to the fourth floor.  The nursery is up there, and just waiting for this angel.”  A new nurse had popped in, startling Buck, who had been completely focused on staring at his baby girl.

Jake looked at Marsh.  “They gonna keep you?  Or are you free to go?”

“Nobody’s going anywhere until they actually FINISH a breathing treatment.”  The exasperated LPN was back with a mask and setup for Marshall and a stern look for the other three.  “Gentlemen, may I SUGGEST Daddy number 2 go to the nursery with Nurse Campbell while Daddy number 1 finishes his treatment?”

Eddie and Evan looked at each other, and had a whole conversation with one eyebrow twitch, a quirked lip, and a head bob.

The other men watched in amazement as Eddie turned to follow the nurse while Buck settled back in his seat to breathe.   Tony laughed softly.  “So that’s what Maddie meant.”

Buck looked up and arched a brow in question, not wanting to be scolded for talking when he was supposed to be breathing.

Still chuckling Tony continued, “Maddie was telling me at the barbecue that you and Eddie had been frustrating your friends for years with your oblivious synchronicity.  She said you could hold a conversation just by facial expression and sometimes seemed to even read each other’s minds.  And yet you were completely clueless to how in love you were.  I missed the ‘clueless’ part, apparently, but now I get what she was saying about the synchronicity and silent communication.”

Evan shrugged.  Yeah, he and Eddie had been a little slow … but in his defense, he’d never really had a best friend before.  It took him a while to figure out the difference.  That’s his story, and he was sticking to it.

He didn’t know what Eddie was going to use as an excuse.

Eddie wasn’t thinking about excuses.

Eddie was thinking about logistics.  How was his family going to operate, living in two very separate places?

Buck had no idea how difficult it was to be a single parent.  And even Eddie hadn’t been a single parent until  his child was toilet-trained and able to talk.  Definitely able to sleep through the night.  

Just this last week without Evan … with Chris so helpless after surgery … if it hadn’t been for Carla, Eddie wouldn’t have been able to work.  And Mireya was a baby.  She’d only sleep a few hours at a time and she couldn’t care for herself at all.  Even if Evan found a good, reliable daycare for working hours, he’d be exhausted getting up and down with her all night.

The nurse stopped in front of a small alcove to the side of the larger nursery proper.  “I hope this is ok.  With all the people needing care from the wildfires, we’re a little crowded, so I can’t give you a private room.”

“This is fine, as long as it’s ok for me to use my phone here.  She’s a bit of a surprise, so I need to make some logistical arrangements.”  Eddie looked rather doubtfully at the signs forbidding phone conversations.

Smiling, the nurse moved some things around pulling in a small isolette for the baby and what looked to be a miserably uncomfortable chair for him.  “It’s fine, so long as you understand you have no expectation of privacy.  And keep the phone’s camera pointed away from the other babies.  I assume you know better than to be too loud.”

Nodding, Eddie carefully settled his precious, sleeping bundle in the small bed.  “Yeah.  I’m just gonna call my Abuela and leave her to it.  I won’t have to be loud.”

The nurse bustled on off to her next charge, and Eddie sat down in the chair and pulled out his phone.  He actually might have two calls to make.  He’d updated Bobby by text message in the car on the way to the hospital, but this felt like it might require an actual conversation.

But first …

The phone only rang once before it was answered, the voice on the other end steadying something in Eddie that had been quivering ever since he realized this baby was actually his daughter.

“Eddito?  Tell me our Evan is ok.”  Isabel Diaz was ready to throw down with the universe itself if it thought it was going to separate her boys now.

Eddie smiled at the fierceness in his grandmother’s tone.  Buck had been completely adopted by the Diaz clan, and the matriarch was giving notice.  “Yes, Abuela.  Buck’s going to be fine.  He’s downstairs doing a breathing treatment, and he needed a few stitches in his arm after a too close call with a deranged neo-pagan.  But he picked up a beautiful complication on his way back to civilization.”

Looking out into the wider room, Eddie turned his back and dropped his voice.  No one was paying him any attention, but Tony had indicated that this was on the down-low, so … 

“Abuela, has oído de los niños que aparecen de la nada?”  It was the best he could do.  Spanish wasn’t exactly an unknown language in California, but Abuela didn’t speak Farsi, and it was the only other language Eddie knew.

“Children that come out of nowhere?  All children come from somewhere.  What are you talking about?  Or … wait, Paco wants the phone.”  There was a bit of movement over the line, then Paco’s strong voice came through the phone.

“Sobrino, did Evan find an inexplicable baby?”