This is my first venture into Law and Order: CI fanfic, and I don't have a
handle on all the canon yet. Please review! Please? *big, hopeful smile*
The coffee is tasting bitter in my mouth and my eyes are stinging, and all I can think about is lying three feet away in a hospital bed.
This seat is hard. I've been sitting on it for about two or three hours now, and my legs are aching. My hands are numb, my feet are sore, and I really think I'm going crazy, but there's no way in hell I'm going to leave while she's in there.
Images reel through me in waves, sinking through my skull and swamping my brain. I'm flooded, drowning in my own memories. Bright white sunlight, lying in shining slants across the ground. Clacking heels and clopping loafers going up and down the stone steps, crossing the courtyard. Tables, clusters of people, a smoky, steaming hot dog stand, and chairs scraping across the tiles. I go through this place every day.
Eames is beside the coffee stand, two cups in her hands. The coffee guy, Paul, with his orange dash of hair and his nose ring, is talking languidly to another customer. "You're late," she calls to me, her voice coloured with laughter. "Hot date last night?"
I could look at her forever, listen to her talk, watch her smile, for she mesmerises me, but instead I manage to grin and get one of the coffee cups away with spilling or betraying anything. "Yeah, sure, with a mechanic and a monkey wrench. How about you?"
"Mmm. Not much to speak of. About that Cheyabani case, I think-"
And suddenly, suddenly-
Time stopped there. I think my heart did, too. I know my breath did, because I was choking afterwards. Because something exploded in my ears as Eames reeled, Paul gave a terrified shout, and then she was sinking to the ground with a hand at her chest while people were screaming and scrambling to get away.
I had my arms around her before both of us could think, catching her, gripping her. I don't remember much beyond that, but Paul told me later that I was yelling her name over and over, babbling incoherently.
All I could think of was blood, seeping through her fingers, staining her hands that felt so cold and limp. Her eyes were fluttering and I could only hear an uneven, wavering rasp when I leaned close to her. She was trembling, and I-I was shaking so hard I could barely get to my feet when the ambulance came.
This is horrible. I actually now what that word means now, because I've felt it right here, in my heart. I'm supposed to be a grownup and all I want to do is cry like a three-year-old.
Eames-she's my life. I can't live without her. I know that if she. I know that I'll fall apart somehow, everything will go to pieces. I think I've loved her ever since I've known her.
Wait. Something's happening. Doctors are running in and out of her room- if I grip this chair any harder it's going to snap-
A tall guy, silver hair, white coat, whisks a cart down the hallway and I can't see past him for a minute. When he's gone a doctor with pale blue eyes is in front of me. "Detective Goren?"
The coffee is tasting bitter in my mouth and my eyes are stinging, and all I can think about is lying three feet away in a hospital bed.
This seat is hard. I've been sitting on it for about two or three hours now, and my legs are aching. My hands are numb, my feet are sore, and I really think I'm going crazy, but there's no way in hell I'm going to leave while she's in there.
Images reel through me in waves, sinking through my skull and swamping my brain. I'm flooded, drowning in my own memories. Bright white sunlight, lying in shining slants across the ground. Clacking heels and clopping loafers going up and down the stone steps, crossing the courtyard. Tables, clusters of people, a smoky, steaming hot dog stand, and chairs scraping across the tiles. I go through this place every day.
Eames is beside the coffee stand, two cups in her hands. The coffee guy, Paul, with his orange dash of hair and his nose ring, is talking languidly to another customer. "You're late," she calls to me, her voice coloured with laughter. "Hot date last night?"
I could look at her forever, listen to her talk, watch her smile, for she mesmerises me, but instead I manage to grin and get one of the coffee cups away with spilling or betraying anything. "Yeah, sure, with a mechanic and a monkey wrench. How about you?"
"Mmm. Not much to speak of. About that Cheyabani case, I think-"
And suddenly, suddenly-
Time stopped there. I think my heart did, too. I know my breath did, because I was choking afterwards. Because something exploded in my ears as Eames reeled, Paul gave a terrified shout, and then she was sinking to the ground with a hand at her chest while people were screaming and scrambling to get away.
I had my arms around her before both of us could think, catching her, gripping her. I don't remember much beyond that, but Paul told me later that I was yelling her name over and over, babbling incoherently.
All I could think of was blood, seeping through her fingers, staining her hands that felt so cold and limp. Her eyes were fluttering and I could only hear an uneven, wavering rasp when I leaned close to her. She was trembling, and I-I was shaking so hard I could barely get to my feet when the ambulance came.
This is horrible. I actually now what that word means now, because I've felt it right here, in my heart. I'm supposed to be a grownup and all I want to do is cry like a three-year-old.
Eames-she's my life. I can't live without her. I know that if she. I know that I'll fall apart somehow, everything will go to pieces. I think I've loved her ever since I've known her.
Wait. Something's happening. Doctors are running in and out of her room- if I grip this chair any harder it's going to snap-
A tall guy, silver hair, white coat, whisks a cart down the hallway and I can't see past him for a minute. When he's gone a doctor with pale blue eyes is in front of me. "Detective Goren?"