Hold On I’m Comin’
Sara Albertson loved her children. She really did. But after three days straight of rain, she couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more than she wanted school to start again. And so she’d packed up her children, picked up one friend for each of them, and determined to spend the day in the park. Four hyperactive six and seven year olds who had been cooped up in separate homes for three days were taxing, and she fantasized briefly of cool winter mornings with a cup of coffee and The View playing in the background while she folded laundry or planned dinner. It was a brief fantasy, interrupted as it was by “he pushed me” and “she took two turns on the slide”. Hadn’t she thought having her children be close in age would give them a built-in playmate?
She’d been a fool. She found a seat on the park bench and had taken a fortifying sip of her coffee shop mocha when it happened.
“Mommy! There’s a dead body in the bushes!”
Good lord, she really had to make sure they were in bed before turning on NCIS.
“Are you running an investigation?” She levered herself to her feet to help with their imaginary crime scene.
When she got to the bushes in question, she dropped her mocha.
“911 what’s the address of the emergency?”
“I’m at Wilkins Memorial Park. There’s a man lying in the bushes. My children found him. I think he might be dead.”
“Are you right beside him now?”
“No. No, I don’t want to get that close. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. My children found him!”
“Ma’am, I’ve got police and an ambulance on the way. What does he look like?”
“A punk.”
“Ma’am?”
“I mean literally. Like punk rock. Or Goth? Is that the word now? Bleached hair, black clothes, long leather jacket, black nail polish, silver skull ring, the whole bit. There’s blood all over him.”
Elizabeth felt her fingers go numb. She’d stopped typing.
“Ma’am, I need you to get close enough to tell me if he’s breathing.”
“Look, this guy doesn’t look like someone I’d…”
“I can tell you how to do CPR and what to do for the bleeding.”
“CPR? There is no way I’m putting my mouth - just no. And there’s blood. I’m not touching some stranger’s blood, there’s no telling what I’d catch!”
“Listen to me you uptight bitch, I need to know if he’s breathing!”
Oh my God. She’d said that out loud. Into the phone. Yelling. Elizabeth sat back, the woman who had remained somewhat calm now yelling things on the other end of the line that didn’t make it past the haze in Elizabeth’s mind. She took her headset off, left it lying on the desk, and Tara, who had heard her gargantuan unprofessional mistake, picked it up and gently pushed on Elizabeth’s shoulder until she had access to the station.
Things had gone kind of blurry, like a veil had fallen between her and the world. Voices echoed around her, and she moved closer reading more description as Tara had apparently talked the woman on the other end back into her calm.
“It’s Officer Down.” She sounded like she was underwater, but Tara looked up at her. The sergeant, who had up until now been glaring at her and planning her punishment, jumped in surprise.
“Summers?”
“Officer Down.” They’d joked about the stupid ring. It was gaudy and ugly and part of the part. He’d said he liked it. That it made the whole thing look real instead of like a costume.
“Know the difference ‘tween a wannabe and the real thing, is all. Can’t get something like this at bloody Walmart. You like the Ramones?’ His hand was sliding up the inside of her thigh, distracting her.
“The who?”
“Ramones. You know, punk.”
“Never heard their stuff.” Oh. My. Goodness. What he could do with that ugly ring against her clit.
“Well, that’s gonna have to be fixed when I get back, innit?”
There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her slightly, “What makes you think that?” the Sarge said, still glaring a bit. But he was listening.
“I know him. I’m right.” She was still reading what Tara was typing, heard her asking the woman again if she could tell if he was breathing. “Dammit! Tara, tell her he’s a police officer, he’s completely clean, she won’t catch anything, and he’s dressed like that for a reason. Or that it might be him and she needs to check for a wallet with ID or something. She’s just standing there!”
Her whole body was shaking now, and the Sergeant was guiding her toward the office, his hand lightly cupping her elbow. She jerked away from him, turning back toward the station. Everyone was looking at her, some still talking into their headsets, eyebrows all drawn together. She was causing yet another scene. Hadn’t she been the one all about the professional and discreet not so long ago?
“Summers.” The voice was softer now, almost even gentle. “You need to come with me and tell me what’s going on. They’ll handle it out here.”
“I can’t tell you.” Her voice was shaking. “But -”
“In the office.”
Time jumped, and she was sitting in a chair with a cold Sprite in her hand. Her face was wet again, she must be cry- no, leaking. Hormones. Oh, God. He was dead, he was gone, and he didn’t know he was a daddy. Oh God. No.
Her breathing outpaced her control, her chest was burning, and the Sprite was taken away and replaced with a paper bag.
“I need you to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
She wasn’t supposed to know.
Screw that.
“Call Captain Rogers. Tell him that Will let him blackmail him into that damned stupid job and now he’s - he’s hurt. He’s breathing. Did she check yet that he’s breathing?” Her voice went higher with every sentence, approaching those frequencies only dogs can hear, and panic was trying to break through again. But she was breathing easier. Sort of.
“Shit.” There was the sound of someone scrambling to another desk, but Sarge was still in front of her. Had there been someone else there?
“What’s going on Summers?” There was edge to the kindness in his tone, like he was trying to talk down someone on a roof. Calm, but not really.
“Can’t say. Not supposed to know. Oh, God. The park.” She was trying to stand, but a huge weight was holding her down. Her limbs wouldn’t obey her mind, which was probably wise since there was no coherency there. Just instinct.
She really saw him for the first time in that park. Talking about Adams and getting Christmas off. Laughing.
“I love him.” She said it like the death sentence it apparently was.
She loved him, so he must be gone.
She blinked, and she in the hospital parking lot, Sarge coming around to open the door for her. They didn’t even make it to the door when she heard voices off to the left, a detective and what had to be Captain Rogers, arguing.
“I want to know who the hell put it all over the radio that he was a police officer, and I want to know now!”
“Liam, calm down.”
“No. If that worthless piece of shit blows this investigation -”
“Look, I know you‘re frustrated.”
“Fine. He’s hurt. But now, thanks to his inability to keep his mouth shut and just one time do his damn job right he can’t heal up and go back in. This was a territory thing, he wasn’t blown, and now the whole damned case is shot to hell. I want to know who fucked up, and I want to know yesterday.”
“And you’re sure it was territory.”
Sarge was pulling on her arm, trying to guide her to the door, but she glared at him and nodded toward the detectives. Started walking that way.
Liam was talking again. “Had to be.”
“You said he wanted out last week. That he thought he was about to be made.”
“I said he was whining about wanting out, yeah. But he was wrong. I would know if they’d made him.”
“If you’d had that much of an inside line, we wouldn’t have needed him in the first place. What you should be worried about, detective, is what will happen to you if you refused to pull him out when there was every reason to believe something like this was going to happen. He was the one inside. He says he needs to get out, that’s it. Now get the hell out of my face.”
Elizabeth let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and met her sergeant’s eyes. There was something there that resembled the impotent fury she felt building behind her worry, and it comforted her somewhat to see it.
“Let’s go, Summers.”
“Yeah.”
Nothing else was said until they’d made it to elevators. The door shut with them alone inside, and her companion let out a breath.
“So, you and Spike then?”
Ouch.
“It hasn’t affected the job.” His look said, tell me another one. She sighed. “Well, today it did. But hey, no one even knew so obviously we were managing it.”
“How long?”
“A few months.” It felt like both longer and not as long, though, because for nearly two of those months they’d been restricted to intermittent phone calls.
“So it’s been worry making you toss your cookies all over the place.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been sick. It happens.”
“Yeah.” The doors opened, and they made their way over to the nurses station.
“I’m his sergeant.”
“We spoke to his captain. You can get an update on his condition from him. Other than that, immediate family only. I’m sorry, sir, but privacy laws forbid us from releasing any further information.”
She couldn’t take it any more.
“I need to see him.” She’d shoved herself in front of Sarge, and he looked slightly amused behind his worry.
“Ma’am, as I just stated -”
“I’m his next of kin.”
The nurse laughed, rolled her eyes, and said, “Nice try, honey. But I’ve got the information the police supplied us with and according to that you’re at least thirty years too young and the wrong sex. His condition is listed as critical, visits are for ten minutes every four hours for immediate family only. Have a nice day.”
She smiled at her. The uberbitch actually smiled.
She walked over the waiting room, found a folding chair with a direct view of the nurse’s station, and sat down to glare.
“Summers, they aren’t going to let you back there.” But he sat next to her.
“I’m not leaving.” She crossed her arms, and glared harder at the nurse.
“Well, I have to get back to work, and I can’t leave you stranded here.”
“I’m not leaving.” She turned her glare on him. Only for a moment, the nurse deserved it more, and she aimed it back at the imbecile keeping her away from Will. He was there. Just through those doors. Hurting. She needed to see him, to touch his face, to see him breathe so she could be certain that he was still here. Not gone.
“Okay. Is there anyone I can call for you? Someone who can pick you up in a few hours?”
She blew out a breath. Blinked hard. “No, sir. I don’t have anyone I could call for something like this.” That wasn’t fair. It was no longer true. “Well, no one other than Will. And he’s already here.”
“Is that so?” He stared at her for a long moment. “How about I send Rosenberg over after shift? You two are friends, right?”
Oh. Yeah. Well, sort of. “That’s fine, sir.”
She thought she felt his hand on her back for a moment just before he walked away. But she couldn’t be sure.
She glared at the nurse, and did not cry at all. Not even a little.
She may have leaked just a wee bit, though.
Sound came first. Muffled, beeps and hisses and a deep voice that he suspected he should know, but didn’t. Not at first. And another, not familiar at all. Female. Words bled together, voices distorted, and then peace again.
The second time the sound was accompanied by pain. Everything hurt. Everything. There wasn’t a single spot on his body that wasn’t screaming at him. He opened his eyes, and discovered that there had been. Before. The light was blinding, and he blinked, tried to make a sound but there was something in his throat. It was suffocating him. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t speak, he was choking to death.
“Don’t try to talk. The tube in your throat is to help you breathe.”
The female voice. He couldn’t focus on her. He tried to focus on relaxing his muscles, and breathing suddenly became easier. He wanted that out. Wanted to talk. Needed to.
“Let’s give that just a bit longer. You’re breathing almost completely on your own, so hopefully we’ll be able to lose the tube soon.”
He lifted his hand, almost surprised that it obeyed him. He was trying to tell her something, and the older lady at his side became his favorite member of the nursing profession when she immediately understood him. Bloody brilliant, she was.
“You want to try to write something?” She leaned over him, so he could see her when she smiled at him. “That’s good. There are some people who are going to be very happy to know you’re awake Officer Giles.”
She held up a white board and helped him get somewhat of a grip on the marker. She put her other hand under his elbow, helping hold his arm up to write. He could almost kiss her.
Almost. But there was a tube down his throat, and Beth wouldn’t like it.
He’d almost managed to write his whole message before sleep dragged him under again.
“What are we doing?”
“Stopping.” Tara’s voice was soft but firm as she pulled into the diner.
“No. We’re going to the hospital.” Elizabeth glared. Tara was apparently immune to glaring. Which she should have learned by now, really. The other woman was apparently immune to glaring, rudeness, shouting and even her patented Summers Pout.
“Yes. As soon as we have something to eat.” Tara smiled at her, and she wanted to scream.
But she couldn’t, really.
Elizabeth had learned a lot in the eight days Will had remained unconscious. Tara was the big date and new love of Willow’s, and wasn’t that a shock. They’d done as good a job at keeping their relationship out of the work gossip mill as she and Will. Better, actually, since she and Will had become the talk of the communications center when she fell apart that first day. Andrew was hacker-level good at computers. Dispatchers — even the brass — kept quiet about illegal hacking into hospital computers in exchange for updates on Spike’s condition as long as Andrew understood it was the only hacking allowed. Sarge had an actual name — James — and expected people to only use it in the ICU waiting room.
That first day, she’d been surprised when Tara had arrived with Willow to pick her up. She’d been even more surprised that Harris was with them. He’d given her a sort of half smile, told her the sergeant had filled everybody in, then sat down next to her and told her that he was her relief, and which nurse was it he was supposed to glare at?
When she returned early the next morning, it was to find Andrew sitting in the chair, in dress uniform of all things, glaring at the nurses station. As funny as she would have said Andrew glaring would be before, it wasn’t funny when she saw it. And one after the other, they all showed up. Dress uniform, buttons shined, spotless and professional, sitting in that chair with their arms crossed. Glaring. They came in pairs, so that even if someone needed to go outside for a smoke, or to a vending machine or a restroom, there was always someone in her chair. They just kept coming.
On the third day, when she’d had to return to work, she learned that Sarge had a schedule. It was part of roll call. First the radio assignments, then today’s SpikeWatch. People signed up.
Every. Last. One.
Tara, however, wasn’t on SpikeWatch. She was Summers Sitting - which sounded a lot like babysitting but was actually kind of comforting. She drove her to the hospital after work, gave her occasional breaks when she needed them at work, put casseroles in her refrigerator, and yesterday she’d actually caught the other woman vacuuming her living room floor.
Tara kept her sane.
“I don’t want to eat.”
“But you have to.” Tara smiled again, damn her, and there was no saying no to that sweet look on her face. “You have to take care of yourself.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. Why? Is there something else I could have meant by it?” She was teasing.
She knew. Elizabeth wondered if anyone else did, then shoved that thought away.
“Don’t say a word. Please.” She whispered. “He has to know first.”
“Then don’t make me.” Tara replied, smiling again. “We stop, we eat, we go see Spike.”
“Okay.”
There were five people today. Elizabeth, Tara, Willow, Harris and Andrew. Harris was in the chair glaring when Elizabeth and Tara came in. Andrew stood beside him at parade rest, staring straight ahead like he was part of an honor guard. Willow sat next to Harris, holding a huge soda that Harris would occasionally lean over and sip from through the straw. He took his glaring seriously, and wouldn’t even uncross his arms to hold the cup if there was someone available to hold it for him.
Elizabeth thought that last part was his goofy sense of humor showing through, but just in case it wasn’t she refrained from mentioning it. She didn’t want to insult him by thinking it funny if the guy wasn’t trying to be humorous.
“Anything?”
Andrew relaxed, and turned to her. In a loud, clear voice - meant to inform the others in the waiting room what was going on, and possibly to annoy the nurses station - he said, “Ma’am. Had a brief scare earlier when someone back there coded, but it wasn’t Spike.” He glanced meaningfully at his laptop so she would know he was certain, then continued, “The nurses station was approached for an update every hour on the hour. Condition is currently ‘guarded’. Captain Rogers was here for seventeen minutes and thirty four seconds. He left without offering us a more detailed update on our personnel’s condition. Patrol Officer Gunn was here for one hour and twenty two minutes. He attempted conversation three times, but was informed by Corporal Harris that Dispatch is not speaking to Active Sworn Personnel at this time because they took Spike and then they broke him, ma’am.”
She sighed. The first report she got from Andrew had made her smile a bit, but she was used to his — well, to him — by now. And the information was nice to have, however it was presented. “Thank you, Andrew. Are you going now?”
“No ma’am. I am scheduled for another three hours tonight. Would you like for me to bring you some dinner from the cafeteria, ma’am? Or I have a Hot Pocket in my briefcase.”
“What did we say about the ma’am thing?”
“That it wasn’t necessary, ma’am. Have you eaten yet?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Andrew resumed his position, and Harris stopped glaring just long enough to look up at her and wink, take a sip of soda, then turn back around and resumed glaring position.
She loved these guys. She really did.
She was just about to relieve Harris — and she would manage to call him Xander in her mind soon, she really would — when conversation at the nurse’s station stole all of their attention.
An older, heavyset woman was holding a white board out toward the waiting room while she loudly told the nurse engaged in the ritual glaring with Harris to please page Dr Wyatt. Officer Giles had woken briefly, and had even written a bit although he didn’t appear to have finished before falling asleep.
The whiteboard, in large shaky looking printing, said ‘BET’
Her legs buckled. Harris caught her, put her in the chair. He was up again like a shot, but the quiet one — the soft spoken kind one — beat him to it.
Tara stalked over to the nurses station and was shouting. “See! He wants to see Beth!” She pointed over toward their contingent. “You can’t keep him from seeing her if he wants to.”
“Officer, I’m afraid that doesn’t change anything. When the doctor has seen him, he may change the orders, but at this time only Captain Rogers and immediate family are allowed into the ICU.”
Tara glared.
Elizabeth was amazed at how good the usually sweet girl was at glaring.
But it was enough.
Will was asleep. Not unconscious, not in a coma, but only asleep.
And he wanted her. In a moment, she would be trying to kick in the heavy locked door separating them, but for now it was enough that he wanted her.
He was awake. And he wanted her.