Next Generation Adam-12 AU Fan Fiction: Jimmy Reed Jr. & Ally Malloy

Chapter 5:

Everything was so hectic in the Emergency Operating room. Medical personnel rushed about dutifully attending to Brinkman.

My partner lay on the table with more tubes, wires, and machines hooked up to him than I swear I had ever seen in my entire life. It felt as though my father and I had stepped out of the ordinary world and into a horrible sci-fi movie. I would have preferred this experience to belong to nothing more than a horror movie scene, instead of the living hellish nightmare it was. All the strange equiptment, tubes, and wires created a nauseating symphony of chaotic alarms, buzzers, beeps, and hums. It was as if every shopper in a large plaza had lost their cars and had pressed the panic button at the same time.

I swallowed fearfully as we stood in a corner of the room that wasn’t in the way of the ongoing surgery. I watched my partner as his life hung in an uncertain balance. He was teetering between life and death perilously. As my father and I watched helplessly, I couldn’t help but silently murmur every prayer that I could think of for his recovery.

When the nurses extracted the bullet from his spine, I buried my head bashfully into my father’s chest for fear that I could not stomach the sight of it much longer. I allowed my trembling fingers to caress my father’s silver badge.

The engraved numbers 744 had always brought me a wealth of relief, even as a child. I knew what the badge represented and that is why I too wear one pinned to my uniform. Daddy’s badge was special; it represented security, reassurance, and peace.

My father kissed the top of my head lovingly and he whispered, “seen enough?”

Something in me yearned to stay by my partner’s side and yet another part of me longed desperately for the fresh air of the outdoors. I was caught in a wild tangle of emotions that I didn’t feel strong enough to confront so I remained perfectly still in my father’s arms.

He repeated the question gently about to lead me out of the room, when the heart monitor burst into a frenzied, frantic, high pitched, and rapid wails.

My eyes locked on my gasping partner as the medical staff quickly picked up their pace around his bedside.

All at once the room was thrust into an eardrum shattering long beep and then a forlorn silence. The heart monitor no longer spoke of the life that had been coursing through my partner’s veins. I cursed the absence of sound the way people often curse the calm before a violent storm.

Mesmerized and paralyzed, I could not pry my eyes off of the scene playing out before me.

One by one the pleasant hum of the lifesaving machines faded into the eerily devastating and terrible quiet. The doctors and nurses heads lowered with the acceptance of their harsh defeat.

Brinkman was gone.

My fingers curled and dug into my father’s pressed uniform fabric and I allowed a muffled murmur catch in his uniform.

“No, Brinkman! Please….”

I tried to tug myself free of my father’s embrace so that I could make someone listen. Brinkman couldn’t be dead.  There had to be something they could do. There just had to be!

 My father’s grasp held me fast knowing the same shock he had received many times before, had just shook what was left of my world.

Denial raged through every muscle in my body causing me to tremble and every internal instinct urged me to keep on fighting for my partner.

Then seeing the doctors and nurses filing out of the room, I wailed,  “Wait… please don’t go! Someone please do something!”

Their ears were deaf to my desperate pleas. They didn’t understand! I was a rookie probationer; I was supposed to be the one making the mistakes. Brinkman had been on the force nearly as long, if not longer than my dad.

In that moment, I wanted to make Brinkman come back. I missed his proud ego, his lousy jokes, and even his wide array of peculiarities. I longed to hear his absurdly annoying laugh fill the corridors once more. Even worse, I yearned to hear the unfavorable comparisons he made between my father and myself.

Under the great burden of sorrow my knees buckled like a soda can under extreme pressure. I would have surely fallen if it had not been for the steady arms of my father catching me like the safety net they had always been. His fingers ran soothingly through my hair as he brought my head to rest upon his chest.

Shakily he cooed, “I’m sorry. Ally, I am sorry. He’s gone. They can’t do anything more to save him.”

A static wave of grief washed over my skin as I cast a final glance at Brinkman’s unmoving body still plagued with battle worn tubes and wires. There were no words that could adequately express the pain that tore through my chest at that moment. It felt as if my heart had been crafted of soft butter and a butcher knife had been driven through it.