Fic: Absolutely (1/1)
Title: Absolutely
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Word Count: 3,128
Summary: She should have known better than to make promises she couldn’t keep. For the 50scenes Prompt #17 - Tomorrow. Spoilers through 5.08 - LaFleur.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Apologies for the vagaries on certain bits, and the excess of details on others - this one started to get away from me in a really big way in terms of it being a “scene,” and so I kind of had to rein it in.
Absolutely
Jin knew something was wrong when they didn’t come back; when the sun had set and they hadn’t returned. He’d gone himself enough times to know that Richard wouldn’t risk their safety outside the pylons after dark, knew the ruse well enough to be sure that their absence upon the settling of dusk meant trouble.
He just hadn’t counted on this.
“What happened?” he demanded, his eyes narrowed as he watched Jerry jump down from the driver’s seat and slam the door shut, running awkwardly as he trembled, fumbling for the side door of the van.
“Negotiating with the Hostiles,” Jerry gasped, out of breath and ashen, his nervous pallor accentuating the sickening smear of blood - not his own - across the jut of his cheekbone as he shook his head absently, his eyes unfocused. “He’s an idiot, he’s-”
“He’s not breathing!” Phil interjected as the door flew open, shoulders shaking and chest heaving as blood-dipped fingers ran frantically through his hair, leaving flecks of red to slide against his sweat-drenched crew-cut.
Miles darted out from the passenger side, leaping up to kneel next to the doorjamb in an instant, driving his fingers to the side of the James’ neck and feeling for the artery, waiting for a moment during which his facial features tensed, held briefly in suspended fear, before falling.
“Fuck it,” Miles snarled as he grasped at the zipper of the jumpsuit, palms splayed against the sanguinated khaki framing the exposed, blood-slick chest as he began administering compressions on autopilot, saying nothing as his eyes narrowed, resting on the face of the man beneath his hands.
“What happened?” Jin pressed again, his questioning gaze moving frantically from Miles to Phil, who was crouched, half-standing in the back of the van next to the bleeding body.
“Jesus...” Phil hissed mournfully, sliding down the interior of the van and landing with his knees bent, head held between his palms.
Jin watched as Miles breathed into James’ mouth, the red mass of his chest rising and falling, but only barely, before his hands resumed pumping his heart with methodical, mechanical rhythm; his patience was running thin.
“What,” Jin gripped Phil’s jumpsuit with a sharp jerk, waiting until the echo of tongue on teeth as he emphasized the syllable faded entirely before shaking the man again, his tone dropping an octave with the gravity, the fear of seeing Sawyer, LaFleur... of seeing him like that: “Happened.”
“Alpert was apparently indisposed,” Jerry finally replied, his voice flat, leaden with the kind of resignation Jin wasn’t ready to give into - the implications of it were too severe. “He was supposed to meet with him, but he sent someone else. Some... boy.”
“Couldn’t have been more than twenty,” Phil added, his eyes focused on the upholstering of the seats, a haze thick across his gaze.
“Never seen him before,” Jerry affirmed, his own stare fixed on Miles, on the sickening way in which James’ body gave and retracted against his hands.
“And he just...” Phil trailed off, his mouth working soundlessly around whatever else he’d meant to say, gesturing fruitlessly at the place where James’ blood was beginning to color the metal of the VW’s trim.
“We didn’t hear what happened,” Jerry swallowed hard. “You know we’re not supposed to come along. We stay with the vehicle, observe. No interference.”
Jin knew, and cursed the Rules with a scowl - if they’d been closer, if they’d been nearby, this wouldn’t have happened. Not like this.
“Everything was fine,” Phil muttered, his shoes scuffing on the ridges in the steel siding of the van, his eyes on James’ ghost-white face - almost lavender, so pasty was the flesh beneath his stubble - watching, transfixed, as his forehead bobbed when Miles pressed his palm down against his chest.
“He was just being his normal self,” Jerry picked up for his shaken friend. “A little... you know,” he gestured indicatively in James’ trademark fashion. “And then, out of nowhere, the bastard jumps at him.”
“They’re going at it,” Jerry heaved an unsteady sigh, his peripheral vision catching the unnervingly quick spread of blood around James’ torso, “and LaFleur’s taking him, of course, no problem.”
“The asshole pulls a gun,” Phil interjected, his voice suddenly strong again as he spat the words. “A fucking gun, and hits him,” he raised his arm and formed the shape of a firearm with his thumb and index finger, jerking his wrist violently upwards in morbid illustration, “straight in the chest.”
“And LaFleur,” Phil continued, his tone growing angry, almost vengeful, “he doesn’t go down straight away, but they catch him off-balance,” his voice lowered, a growl in his throat, “and they beat him to the ground.”
“We got to him after they’d emptied three more bullets into him,” Jerry finished, his voice barely a whisper as he watched Miles continue to breathe for his boss. “He was unconscious, but he was still breathing... until we got back here.”
“We tried to stop the bleeding on the way back...” Phil attempted to explain, defeat seeping into his voice again as he spoke of how they only tried, the weight of the failure that followed crushing him once more. “They hit him in the side, the shoulder...”
“Only grazed his ear, thank God,” Jerry whispered, eyes glazing over between blinks.
“He violated the Truce,” Phil breathed in shock, in absolute disbelief.
“Fuck the Truce!” Miles yelled, cutting him off as he rose from breathing into James’ mouth and forced his weigh upon his chest again, “Jim needs...”
“We need a doctor,” Jerry said solemnly, glued to the lax features, the complete immobility of the man they all knew to be anything but, who was living only in the abstract as Miles began to lose his fervor, began to tire.
“I called him,” Jin reassured them; he’d phoned the infirmary and asked for Finn, the Initiative physician, to come to the checkpoint outside the compound when they hadn’t returned on time as a general precaution, knowing something was amiss. The doctor couldn’t be more than a minute or two out from their location, now. Taking in the image of Miles, frustrated and weary as he bent over the motionless body of James Ford, he couldn’t help but feel his own chest clench, the implication that they were already too late lost on no one.
“Don’t stop!” Jin snapped at Miles, whose hands had stilled for the slightest moment in their incessant pressing between James’ ribs. The bark of his voice drew all of their attention; it was Jerry this time who lost his composure as he toppled from his seat against the tire-rim and fell gracelessly to the ground, his head tilted to the sky in askance, more lost than anyone else had the courage to look, knowing that to do so would be their unraveling.
“Fuck,” Jerry murmured, banging his head back against the metal shell of the van in emphasis of his utter uselessness, his inability to do anything; “Fuck...”
“Get Juliet,” Jin cut off his wallowing, his feet aligned with Jerry’s knees as he stared him down with ruthless precision. Jerry blinked up at him, doe eyes empty and confused. Undeterred, Jin simply leaned closer, his face hovering just above Jerry’s as he nearly screamed:
“Get Juliet!”
Jerry had scrambled to his feet and was off towards the barracks before Jin could even catch his breath.
______________________
It was only through glass that she could look at him; a nurse she vaguely recognized was checking his vitals and marking them down on his chart as he slept - or else, she prayed that he only slept. Prayed he’d wake up when she sat down next to him, when she slipped her hand into his.
She’d known before Phil had said anything; known because her heart was already pounding, already bracing for the worst. She didn’t even have to look at him, didn’t have to listen to the strain of his voice or wait until he’d entered the house - their house - before she knew; all she’d needed was the knock on the door, the quick, foreboding raps against the wood, and the knowledge that James’ book was sitting closed upon the end table instead of cradled in his hands. That had told her enough, and she was out the door with Phil before he even had a chance to explain.
She’d been standing outside for hours before they finally let her in, pacing on the porch of the infirmary, wondering everything from how she needed a new pair of sneakers because the ones she was wearing were starting to come apart at the soles, to what the hell whoever had picked the paint color for the med building had been smoking (given the particular shade of mustard and the decade they were in, she could guess that it was something good) - anything to avoid thinking about him, because every time she so much as brushed the part of her mind that contained nothing but knowledge of the smooth twang of his accent, the careful edge in his eyes, the weight of his gaze and the brush of his skin and the reassuring presence of him just being, somewhere nearby, she felt herself begin to drown.
She shuddered as a whirlwind of tomorrows - a thousand tomorrows cascaded suddenly through her mind, painted in vivid, rushing color and painstaking detail, showing her all of the things that she wanted but that weren’t, things that had almost lost the chance of ever becoming reality. Her heart ached for those almost-futures, those maybe-worlds that had nearly disappeared forever in the very blink of an eye, the beat of a heart. She knew how close it had to have been, to leave him so frail-looking, so weak against the stiff, sterile sheets of the infirmary - to leave the stagnant weight of tension, of the age-old battle of life and death so present in the air, even after the worst was over.
“Those bullets were laced.” Her head snapped up to find the voice, the dancing possibilities taunting her imagination fading into the shadows as her heart leapt, apprehension and hope vying for dominance over her - their GP, Albert Finnegan, was glancing at a mismatched stack of printouts, his fingers poised above the papers as his bespectacled gaze barely even acknowledged her, his attention seemingly fixed upon the information in his hands. “We’re pretty sure that was what caused him to go into arrest, but we’re still looking into it. It’s new, whatever it is. Nasty stuff.” He shifted his weight so that his shoulder leaned into the observation window at an angle where Juliet could see the smudges of her breath against the glass inside his subtle reflection. “He’s lucky.”
She hugged her forearms closer to her chest, refusing to meet Albert’s eyes, her nails digging into the wrinkled flesh at her folded elbows, her eyes shut tight as she imagined James as he always was - vibrant, smirking, scowling; filled to the brim with such life. “He usually is,” she murmured, holding herself closer and pretending her arms were his, sinking into the embrace for just an instant, escaping the now for as long as she could.
“Juliet...” Albert trailed off, glancing at her over his horn-rimmed frames meaningfully, the significance in his gaze enough to strangle her. “He was lucky.”
It was all she could do to nod while she tried to swallow a sob.
“The poison, which we’re still trying to break down, didn’t respond to the regular course of agents for the common Island toxins,” he commented offhandedly, gaze turning towards his convalescing patient. “We’re still not sure what stopped it. Hell, maybe he bled most of it out.”
Juliet turned sharply at the sardonic tone in his voice, pinning him with an acidic sort of glare that made him shrink just a tad. “He took all of what we had in the donor bank,” he explained, eyes narrowing a tad as the nurse left James’ bedside and moved to check his IV line.
“The bullet...” Albert began, his voice strained as he searched her gaze for some unknown permission to tell her the truth. “It barely missed.” He didn’t have to say what. “He would’ve been a goner for sure, then and there.”
With a sigh, he pushed himself from the wall and adjusted his glasses, preparing to take his leave down the hall of the medical building, turning back for just a moment and pausing thoughtfully before adding: “He fought like hell, Juliet. I think that means he figures he’s got something worth fighting for.” With a pointed look, he disappeared around the corner that led to the toxicology lab, where she suspected he’d be running analyses on something other than polar bear sedatives for the first time in months.
She was too afraid to dwell on the implications of what he’d said just yet.
She didn’t hear the nurse emerge, didn’t feel the sympathetic hand upon her shoulder, and only barely heard the gentle whisper of: “You can sit with him, Juliet, if you want to,” but there was something in her that knew what was happening, something below her consciousness, something instinctual that had started drawing her to him regardless of everything - it was that something that knew she could be near him now, and it took control.
Her feet seemed to carry the weight of the world as she tried to place one before the other, shuffling awkwardly, almost reluctantly, to his side - ironic, because it was the only place she wanted to be. She fell hard into the chair next to him, the scrape of it against the floor echoing harsh around the small room, overpowering the various sounds of the monitors and machinery scattered behind the bed and tricking her into believing for just an instant that they were somewhere else entirely; that she had crept into his bedroom to wake him when there was a knock on the door in the middle of the night, her hand reaching out to nudge him from his sleep. She could pretend in that singular moment that the heat under her hand as she ran a palm up his arm was just the summer evening seeping into his skin, and not a feverish sweat; the beat of his heart in her mind was stronger - steadier - as she dared to trace the angry red tear in flesh above it, stitched and bandaged, but with the damage still peeking obviously from under the blood-spotted gauze.
Her hand slipped down, clasping his in both of hers as she slumped onto the bed, her eyes never leaving him, her breath catching with every inhale as she squeezed desperately at his fingers, feeling the lines of the knuckles, the nails, and silently pleading with him to move, to moan; to do anything but just lie there, so still and silent that she felt like she was already in mourning.
Watching him, she could see every patient, every person that she’d ever failed. Henrietta, Sabine; all of those women who had just wanted to be mothers, and she couldn’t even let them have that much. Her sister, her nephew, who she couldn’t go back for. Those children from the crash, Zach and Emma, who only wanted a mother she knew they’d never see again. Her marriage. Her career; her family and friends. Everyone and everything she’d ever let down or disappointed flashed in front of her before settling into the harsh lines of his face, made gaunt and pale by the trauma - the blood loss - and highlighted with the deepening bruises blossoming around his eyes, across his cheeks, sinking into the rosy split of his lower lip. Everyone else disappeared, leaving only James stretched before her, only him to remind her that despite her best intentions, she was not, and would never be, enough.
She had told him, she had promised him that she would have his back. Always. Absolutely. She had given him her word, and more than that, she’d meant it with everything in her. She wanted to have his back, she wanted to protect him - she needed to protect him; she needed him safe.
She should have known better than to make promises she couldn’t keep.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, bringing his hand to her cheek and breathing deeply, swallowing hard as she trailed his finger down the line of her jaw. Tears pricked her eyes but she held them at bay, focusing instead upon watching his chest rise and fall with a gentle cadence that might have lulled to her sleep; that someday could...
Her chin sank to the hard cushion of the mattress, catching his scent masked vague and weak below waves of antiseptic, the bleach clinging to the linen. She gasped, her breath a shaking sob as she pressed her lips to the line of his hand caught between her own in prayer, the tears already dripping from her lashes before she could so much as think to stop them.
“Oh, God...” she cried into the sheet gathered at his waist, the tears turning the thin white cotton translucent as she her body shook; she fell from the chair and onto her knees as she leaned heavier into him, burying her face on the right side of his torso, savoring the quiet rush of air from the lungs beneath her in every minute pause between her rasping sobs. She turned her face against his bare skin, her open mouth trailing wet along his flesh as she tried to calm herself, as she tried to tell herself that he was okay, he was going to be okay, and that her tears weren’t warranted - that there were more constructive ways to purge the fear that had been thrumming in her veins all night - and yet, all she could do was moan against him in barely-restrained agony, the tension in her chest releasing, relaxing, and leaving her feeling empty and alone. Desperately, she clenched his right hand in hers, lacing their fingers together with purpose, as if daring the universe to make her let go.
As her breathing evened, matching his closer as it grew a little stronger, a little more even, she knew she was a goner; she was falling for him, goddamn it, and there was no turning back.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Word Count: 3,128
Summary: She should have known better than to make promises she couldn’t keep. For the 50scenes Prompt #17 - Tomorrow. Spoilers through 5.08 - LaFleur.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Apologies for the vagaries on certain bits, and the excess of details on others - this one started to get away from me in a really big way in terms of it being a “scene,” and so I kind of had to rein it in.
Absolutely
Jin knew something was wrong when they didn’t come back; when the sun had set and they hadn’t returned. He’d gone himself enough times to know that Richard wouldn’t risk their safety outside the pylons after dark, knew the ruse well enough to be sure that their absence upon the settling of dusk meant trouble.
He just hadn’t counted on this.
“What happened?” he demanded, his eyes narrowed as he watched Jerry jump down from the driver’s seat and slam the door shut, running awkwardly as he trembled, fumbling for the side door of the van.
“Negotiating with the Hostiles,” Jerry gasped, out of breath and ashen, his nervous pallor accentuating the sickening smear of blood - not his own - across the jut of his cheekbone as he shook his head absently, his eyes unfocused. “He’s an idiot, he’s-”
“He’s not breathing!” Phil interjected as the door flew open, shoulders shaking and chest heaving as blood-dipped fingers ran frantically through his hair, leaving flecks of red to slide against his sweat-drenched crew-cut.
Miles darted out from the passenger side, leaping up to kneel next to the doorjamb in an instant, driving his fingers to the side of the James’ neck and feeling for the artery, waiting for a moment during which his facial features tensed, held briefly in suspended fear, before falling.
“Fuck it,” Miles snarled as he grasped at the zipper of the jumpsuit, palms splayed against the sanguinated khaki framing the exposed, blood-slick chest as he began administering compressions on autopilot, saying nothing as his eyes narrowed, resting on the face of the man beneath his hands.
“What happened?” Jin pressed again, his questioning gaze moving frantically from Miles to Phil, who was crouched, half-standing in the back of the van next to the bleeding body.
“Jesus...” Phil hissed mournfully, sliding down the interior of the van and landing with his knees bent, head held between his palms.
Jin watched as Miles breathed into James’ mouth, the red mass of his chest rising and falling, but only barely, before his hands resumed pumping his heart with methodical, mechanical rhythm; his patience was running thin.
“What,” Jin gripped Phil’s jumpsuit with a sharp jerk, waiting until the echo of tongue on teeth as he emphasized the syllable faded entirely before shaking the man again, his tone dropping an octave with the gravity, the fear of seeing Sawyer, LaFleur... of seeing him like that: “Happened.”
“Alpert was apparently indisposed,” Jerry finally replied, his voice flat, leaden with the kind of resignation Jin wasn’t ready to give into - the implications of it were too severe. “He was supposed to meet with him, but he sent someone else. Some... boy.”
“Couldn’t have been more than twenty,” Phil added, his eyes focused on the upholstering of the seats, a haze thick across his gaze.
“Never seen him before,” Jerry affirmed, his own stare fixed on Miles, on the sickening way in which James’ body gave and retracted against his hands.
“And he just...” Phil trailed off, his mouth working soundlessly around whatever else he’d meant to say, gesturing fruitlessly at the place where James’ blood was beginning to color the metal of the VW’s trim.
“We didn’t hear what happened,” Jerry swallowed hard. “You know we’re not supposed to come along. We stay with the vehicle, observe. No interference.”
Jin knew, and cursed the Rules with a scowl - if they’d been closer, if they’d been nearby, this wouldn’t have happened. Not like this.
“Everything was fine,” Phil muttered, his shoes scuffing on the ridges in the steel siding of the van, his eyes on James’ ghost-white face - almost lavender, so pasty was the flesh beneath his stubble - watching, transfixed, as his forehead bobbed when Miles pressed his palm down against his chest.
“He was just being his normal self,” Jerry picked up for his shaken friend. “A little... you know,” he gestured indicatively in James’ trademark fashion. “And then, out of nowhere, the bastard jumps at him.”
“They’re going at it,” Jerry heaved an unsteady sigh, his peripheral vision catching the unnervingly quick spread of blood around James’ torso, “and LaFleur’s taking him, of course, no problem.”
“The asshole pulls a gun,” Phil interjected, his voice suddenly strong again as he spat the words. “A fucking gun, and hits him,” he raised his arm and formed the shape of a firearm with his thumb and index finger, jerking his wrist violently upwards in morbid illustration, “straight in the chest.”
“And LaFleur,” Phil continued, his tone growing angry, almost vengeful, “he doesn’t go down straight away, but they catch him off-balance,” his voice lowered, a growl in his throat, “and they beat him to the ground.”
“We got to him after they’d emptied three more bullets into him,” Jerry finished, his voice barely a whisper as he watched Miles continue to breathe for his boss. “He was unconscious, but he was still breathing... until we got back here.”
“We tried to stop the bleeding on the way back...” Phil attempted to explain, defeat seeping into his voice again as he spoke of how they only tried, the weight of the failure that followed crushing him once more. “They hit him in the side, the shoulder...”
“Only grazed his ear, thank God,” Jerry whispered, eyes glazing over between blinks.
“He violated the Truce,” Phil breathed in shock, in absolute disbelief.
“Fuck the Truce!” Miles yelled, cutting him off as he rose from breathing into James’ mouth and forced his weigh upon his chest again, “Jim needs...”
“We need a doctor,” Jerry said solemnly, glued to the lax features, the complete immobility of the man they all knew to be anything but, who was living only in the abstract as Miles began to lose his fervor, began to tire.
“I called him,” Jin reassured them; he’d phoned the infirmary and asked for Finn, the Initiative physician, to come to the checkpoint outside the compound when they hadn’t returned on time as a general precaution, knowing something was amiss. The doctor couldn’t be more than a minute or two out from their location, now. Taking in the image of Miles, frustrated and weary as he bent over the motionless body of James Ford, he couldn’t help but feel his own chest clench, the implication that they were already too late lost on no one.
“Don’t stop!” Jin snapped at Miles, whose hands had stilled for the slightest moment in their incessant pressing between James’ ribs. The bark of his voice drew all of their attention; it was Jerry this time who lost his composure as he toppled from his seat against the tire-rim and fell gracelessly to the ground, his head tilted to the sky in askance, more lost than anyone else had the courage to look, knowing that to do so would be their unraveling.
“Fuck,” Jerry murmured, banging his head back against the metal shell of the van in emphasis of his utter uselessness, his inability to do anything; “Fuck...”
“Get Juliet,” Jin cut off his wallowing, his feet aligned with Jerry’s knees as he stared him down with ruthless precision. Jerry blinked up at him, doe eyes empty and confused. Undeterred, Jin simply leaned closer, his face hovering just above Jerry’s as he nearly screamed:
“Get Juliet!”
Jerry had scrambled to his feet and was off towards the barracks before Jin could even catch his breath.
______________________
It was only through glass that she could look at him; a nurse she vaguely recognized was checking his vitals and marking them down on his chart as he slept - or else, she prayed that he only slept. Prayed he’d wake up when she sat down next to him, when she slipped her hand into his.
She’d known before Phil had said anything; known because her heart was already pounding, already bracing for the worst. She didn’t even have to look at him, didn’t have to listen to the strain of his voice or wait until he’d entered the house - their house - before she knew; all she’d needed was the knock on the door, the quick, foreboding raps against the wood, and the knowledge that James’ book was sitting closed upon the end table instead of cradled in his hands. That had told her enough, and she was out the door with Phil before he even had a chance to explain.
She’d been standing outside for hours before they finally let her in, pacing on the porch of the infirmary, wondering everything from how she needed a new pair of sneakers because the ones she was wearing were starting to come apart at the soles, to what the hell whoever had picked the paint color for the med building had been smoking (given the particular shade of mustard and the decade they were in, she could guess that it was something good) - anything to avoid thinking about him, because every time she so much as brushed the part of her mind that contained nothing but knowledge of the smooth twang of his accent, the careful edge in his eyes, the weight of his gaze and the brush of his skin and the reassuring presence of him just being, somewhere nearby, she felt herself begin to drown.
She shuddered as a whirlwind of tomorrows - a thousand tomorrows cascaded suddenly through her mind, painted in vivid, rushing color and painstaking detail, showing her all of the things that she wanted but that weren’t, things that had almost lost the chance of ever becoming reality. Her heart ached for those almost-futures, those maybe-worlds that had nearly disappeared forever in the very blink of an eye, the beat of a heart. She knew how close it had to have been, to leave him so frail-looking, so weak against the stiff, sterile sheets of the infirmary - to leave the stagnant weight of tension, of the age-old battle of life and death so present in the air, even after the worst was over.
“Those bullets were laced.” Her head snapped up to find the voice, the dancing possibilities taunting her imagination fading into the shadows as her heart leapt, apprehension and hope vying for dominance over her - their GP, Albert Finnegan, was glancing at a mismatched stack of printouts, his fingers poised above the papers as his bespectacled gaze barely even acknowledged her, his attention seemingly fixed upon the information in his hands. “We’re pretty sure that was what caused him to go into arrest, but we’re still looking into it. It’s new, whatever it is. Nasty stuff.” He shifted his weight so that his shoulder leaned into the observation window at an angle where Juliet could see the smudges of her breath against the glass inside his subtle reflection. “He’s lucky.”
She hugged her forearms closer to her chest, refusing to meet Albert’s eyes, her nails digging into the wrinkled flesh at her folded elbows, her eyes shut tight as she imagined James as he always was - vibrant, smirking, scowling; filled to the brim with such life. “He usually is,” she murmured, holding herself closer and pretending her arms were his, sinking into the embrace for just an instant, escaping the now for as long as she could.
“Juliet...” Albert trailed off, glancing at her over his horn-rimmed frames meaningfully, the significance in his gaze enough to strangle her. “He was lucky.”
It was all she could do to nod while she tried to swallow a sob.
“The poison, which we’re still trying to break down, didn’t respond to the regular course of agents for the common Island toxins,” he commented offhandedly, gaze turning towards his convalescing patient. “We’re still not sure what stopped it. Hell, maybe he bled most of it out.”
Juliet turned sharply at the sardonic tone in his voice, pinning him with an acidic sort of glare that made him shrink just a tad. “He took all of what we had in the donor bank,” he explained, eyes narrowing a tad as the nurse left James’ bedside and moved to check his IV line.
“The bullet...” Albert began, his voice strained as he searched her gaze for some unknown permission to tell her the truth. “It barely missed.” He didn’t have to say what. “He would’ve been a goner for sure, then and there.”
With a sigh, he pushed himself from the wall and adjusted his glasses, preparing to take his leave down the hall of the medical building, turning back for just a moment and pausing thoughtfully before adding: “He fought like hell, Juliet. I think that means he figures he’s got something worth fighting for.” With a pointed look, he disappeared around the corner that led to the toxicology lab, where she suspected he’d be running analyses on something other than polar bear sedatives for the first time in months.
She was too afraid to dwell on the implications of what he’d said just yet.
She didn’t hear the nurse emerge, didn’t feel the sympathetic hand upon her shoulder, and only barely heard the gentle whisper of: “You can sit with him, Juliet, if you want to,” but there was something in her that knew what was happening, something below her consciousness, something instinctual that had started drawing her to him regardless of everything - it was that something that knew she could be near him now, and it took control.
Her feet seemed to carry the weight of the world as she tried to place one before the other, shuffling awkwardly, almost reluctantly, to his side - ironic, because it was the only place she wanted to be. She fell hard into the chair next to him, the scrape of it against the floor echoing harsh around the small room, overpowering the various sounds of the monitors and machinery scattered behind the bed and tricking her into believing for just an instant that they were somewhere else entirely; that she had crept into his bedroom to wake him when there was a knock on the door in the middle of the night, her hand reaching out to nudge him from his sleep. She could pretend in that singular moment that the heat under her hand as she ran a palm up his arm was just the summer evening seeping into his skin, and not a feverish sweat; the beat of his heart in her mind was stronger - steadier - as she dared to trace the angry red tear in flesh above it, stitched and bandaged, but with the damage still peeking obviously from under the blood-spotted gauze.
Her hand slipped down, clasping his in both of hers as she slumped onto the bed, her eyes never leaving him, her breath catching with every inhale as she squeezed desperately at his fingers, feeling the lines of the knuckles, the nails, and silently pleading with him to move, to moan; to do anything but just lie there, so still and silent that she felt like she was already in mourning.
Watching him, she could see every patient, every person that she’d ever failed. Henrietta, Sabine; all of those women who had just wanted to be mothers, and she couldn’t even let them have that much. Her sister, her nephew, who she couldn’t go back for. Those children from the crash, Zach and Emma, who only wanted a mother she knew they’d never see again. Her marriage. Her career; her family and friends. Everyone and everything she’d ever let down or disappointed flashed in front of her before settling into the harsh lines of his face, made gaunt and pale by the trauma - the blood loss - and highlighted with the deepening bruises blossoming around his eyes, across his cheeks, sinking into the rosy split of his lower lip. Everyone else disappeared, leaving only James stretched before her, only him to remind her that despite her best intentions, she was not, and would never be, enough.
She had told him, she had promised him that she would have his back. Always. Absolutely. She had given him her word, and more than that, she’d meant it with everything in her. She wanted to have his back, she wanted to protect him - she needed to protect him; she needed him safe.
She should have known better than to make promises she couldn’t keep.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, bringing his hand to her cheek and breathing deeply, swallowing hard as she trailed his finger down the line of her jaw. Tears pricked her eyes but she held them at bay, focusing instead upon watching his chest rise and fall with a gentle cadence that might have lulled to her sleep; that someday could...
Her chin sank to the hard cushion of the mattress, catching his scent masked vague and weak below waves of antiseptic, the bleach clinging to the linen. She gasped, her breath a shaking sob as she pressed her lips to the line of his hand caught between her own in prayer, the tears already dripping from her lashes before she could so much as think to stop them.
“Oh, God...” she cried into the sheet gathered at his waist, the tears turning the thin white cotton translucent as she her body shook; she fell from the chair and onto her knees as she leaned heavier into him, burying her face on the right side of his torso, savoring the quiet rush of air from the lungs beneath her in every minute pause between her rasping sobs. She turned her face against his bare skin, her open mouth trailing wet along his flesh as she tried to calm herself, as she tried to tell herself that he was okay, he was going to be okay, and that her tears weren’t warranted - that there were more constructive ways to purge the fear that had been thrumming in her veins all night - and yet, all she could do was moan against him in barely-restrained agony, the tension in her chest releasing, relaxing, and leaving her feeling empty and alone. Desperately, she clenched his right hand in hers, lacing their fingers together with purpose, as if daring the universe to make her let go.
As her breathing evened, matching his closer as it grew a little stronger, a little more even, she knew she was a goner; she was falling for him, goddamn it, and there was no turning back.