Wishing the happiest of birthdays to missDuncan - I wish I could celebrate with you. Lots of hugs. :) xx
Midnight
…
It's the smell that does it, that breaks through the surreal calm that took over during the fight and which she's been desperately clinging to ever since; a crutch to hold her upright when reality is so distorted, the ground yanked from beneath her feet.
The stinging burn barely registers, but the overwhelmingly harsh, prickly chemical edge of the antiseptic being used to clean the neatly separated edges of her upper ear is so familiar, so normal and natural and so similar to the scents she associates with her daily life that it melts through her defences in an instant, relaxes her and throws her back into the storm, into the chaos and the shouting, the blood and the screams.
The pain and the confusion. The crunch of broken bone beneath the wild, desperate but incredibly accurate swing of her torch.
She chokes, looks down. There are rivers of blood – smeared across her hands and arms, soaked deep into the very weave of her clothing.
There are so few things that she remembers, but those that she does are in terrifying, unearthly detail.
Her fingers slipping as she tried to help, tried to save, her grip useless and unable to...
Breathlessness burning through her lungs, yet still shouting, begging. Cursing, screaming. A litany of words she cannot recall, but can still feel.
Dying breaths. Wild eyes.
Pain.
Fear.
That look…
That look, those eyes… begging her to help, to do something. To make the pain stop.
To be a doctor.
To save.
That's not something she's ever going to forget.
Her attention rerouted, the gentle dabbing of the cotton wool stings more than when the knife sliced straight through, narrowly missing her temple and instead scouring lightly through her scalp – not deep enough to be worrying, but enough to warrant prompt medical attention.
Cleaning, poking; wincing.
She tries desperately to concentrate on the pain, on what the nurse is doing. Wants it to overwhelm her. To use it as relief from the replay of that prickle along her senses that whispered something wasn't right.
That split-second warning she should have heeded.
Outside the cubicle a trolley bangs into a door, a wall. The single gunshot explodes inside her skull again and Eve jumps, flinching away from the probing, helping fingers. The who and how and why of the gun she still hasn't worked out, didn't see, but that sound…
It plays and echoes and rattles around inside her skull.
The body drops to the ground, only feet away from her. She doesn't know him, has never seen or met him, only knows he tried to kill Boyd and before that he put a blade through her ear.
This is her fault, she could have stopped this.
She could have listened to her senses, her instincts.
It's like a perpetual shiver down her spine, crawling out through the rest of her body, each repetition colder than the last. She shakes uncontrollably, feels a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders, hears words that make no sense, that are bound up in a fog she cannot see beyond.
Don't do it, she thinks, but they all walk out through the door anyway. Straight into chaos and fists and the mad rush of angry bodies.
Into the flash of steel in the dying light of a warm, quiet evening.
An evening of laughter and joking, of fieldwork and theorising, of questions and answers. Of a family working in harmony.
The nurse is asking her to lie down. She needs stitches, glue, but it's all a blur – there's the prick of a needle, a rush of cold, Spencer's life bleeding out beneath her hands. Hands that are icy and unsteady, that clutch tightly at denim, the bed, the sheets. Anything that might ground her.
None of it works, and the onslaught continues, moments, minutes and memories all merging into one unsteady, unstable stream.
Grace is crying out in pain, Boyd is roaring in unmitigated fury.
She can hear Spence as he bellows an angry, authoritative, "Police!"
There's an intense scuffle and tussle of bodies – it's ferocious and brutal. Heavy seasoned muscle, youthful anger bent on revenge. A death-match, with the four of them unarmed but for a camera and a few forensics tools, and the sweaty, black-shrouded attackers with hoods up and blades out. It's ridiculously stereotypical.
Swearing, more shouting.
Orders for surrender.
Screams of defiance, threats of murder.
The crack of her torch impacting a jaw, the force of the blow reverberating up her arm and through her shoulder. Flesh yields, bone breaks, and her stomach threatens to rebel.
Grace crashes to the ground, and it's an instant, overwhelming rush of fear on her behalf as the blood begins to flow. Get to Grace, help her.
The only completely clear thought Eve remembers.
Help Grace… the intention is cut off by a blow to the side of her head that leaves her reeling. The world blurs, people become shapes, indistinct and unpredictable, unknown. Who and what and where she can't tell as she staggers, lashes out in resistance, strikes empty air.
Warmth trickles down her face, the side of her neck, and she kicks, defensive, desperate. A shadow curses as the fierce contact jars up and along her tibia, fibula and femur.
Retaliation is an explosion of power and strength and anger against her chest and the ground smashing into her, her palms grating across the tarmac as air evaporates and retreats.
She stays down, fights for focus, vision. Finds blue eyes that blaze, terrified – their gaze directed at Boyd, seeing his fists and nose bloodied, the way he's gasping, choking. A quick twist and the blade meant for him sinks into the man behind, downs him in an instant.
There's a violent, profane diatribe from the friend, an incomprehensible stream of words that rise into the air around them all, blurring and merging into the haze of chaos, and then a flash of clarity, another knife – this one at Boyd's throat, a graze of razor-edged steel kissing up against skin.
Spence is on his knees, clutching at the hilt protruding from his chest. Blood blooms on his lips, his breath issuing as a rasping, bubbling cough rather than a steady stream of air. She's beside him in seconds, reaching, assessing.
Science, medicine will help him.
She can help him.
A booming crack cleaves the air in two, makes her head pound and her ears pop and ring.
She can help Spence, she knows it. Help him, do something. Help him.
Her hands slip in the blood as she checks and listens. The wind rushes, mixes with an angry howl; throws her hair across her face, obscures her view.
Grace screams a warning, Boyd snarls at his attacker.
Help him, help him, help him.
Shaking her head, Eve cranes her neck, just in time to see Boyd's attacker crumple to the ground. The last man standing, the leader makes a break for it, sprints off into the glare of the sinking sun.
Boyd sways on his feet, battered, bloodied, but still alive. Spencer groans and stares up at her, his fingers clutching hers.
Help him, help him. The mantra in her head never ends, even as she runs through mental checklists and a physical assessment. "It's okay," she murmurs, doing everything she can.
It is a lie.
Pulse, breathing. Wound check.
Heavy blood-loss.
Spence's eyes are begging her. Pleading with her as blood bubbles in his breath, a sickening, wet raspy sound that breaks though everything else, deafens her as much as the gunshot.
"It's okay," she repeats, smiling gently at him, hoping that it reaches her eyes.
But there is only silence in return.
Long, cold, unending silence.
It drags on and on and on until she can't breathe either, and pale grey eyes are suddenly level with hers. Forcing her to focus, pulling her out of it.
The nurse takes her hand and squeezes, counts with her. Slowly, slowly… and the world rights itself.
Sit up, sip some water. Breathe some more.
Focus on the moment, think about the science, the hospital routine. Ask the medical questions. It works, grounds her again faster than anything else. Gets her the discharge papers, and an escape.
…
Released from the treatment bay, Eve searches, finds easily.
Boyd's on edge. Jumps a mile every time someone drops something, speaks too loud. Moves too quickly into his peripheral vision. It's understandable – she does the same.
It feels so… abnormal. Strange. Unlike her.
It's not a reaction she can quantify, and that bothers her.
Broken arm splinted and bruising already mottling his skin, she wonders why he isn't shouting, then sees how red raw his throat is. They tried to strangle him. No wonder.
His eyes though... they are frantic. They connect with hers and hold on tightly. She can feel his desperation – a visceral, terrified thing that infects her mind, her body. That fear, it rushes through her, squeezing her heart and chilling her bones.
"Have you seen Grace?" It's little more than a squeaky whisper.
Has she? Maybe... When was the last time?
Memory isn't cooperating, her mind is aching, pounding.
Is that even possible?
"I need to find Grace." It's a tone she's never heard from him before, and even with her thoughts as slow and confused and difficult to put together as they are, it registers deeply. Weighs heavily.
For all his strength and character and perseverance he is falling apart in front of her now. He looks battered. Defeated, almost. Very nearly. Physically, and mentally.
He needs a leader, she thinks, and is stunned by the thought, the idea. It's… so foreign, alien. But… she needs a task, a focus to stop the chaos in her mind so maybe today she needs to be the strongest one.
"Grace…"
She nods, but his eyes stay wild, crazy. Indescribably fearful.
A nurse passes by. "I need to find Grace." It's a metronome, a tattoo of words. "I need to find Grace. Where is Grace? Help me find Grace. Please…"
Find Grace, help Spencer. Find Grace, help Spencer. For one terrible moment it all merges, tugs and yanks from all directions.
Find Grace. Find Grace.
It seems no one can help, no one knows. Or they know, but they won't share.
Can't or won't.
It's a significant difference, Eve thinks, slowly picking her way through it all.
One she can fix, though.
A finger to her lips, she ghosts away between the curtains. Checks the row and aisles, the bays and the hallways.
No Grace.
No Grace anywhere.
Circuit complete, she shakes her head, heart pounding. Where is Grace?
His eyes are haunting her, telling her something has changed. He has changed. And it's not just the loss…
Spencer.
Oh, Spencer...
The sob is fought back, just. The tears aren't, they break through and tumble in a silent freefall of emotion, a shuddering, shaking rush of grief bursting through the tenuous, remaining strength of the walls she had hurriedly thrust between herself and her emotions. The walls that have been battered and bruised, gnawed at and abused for hours but have faithfully been holding her together until now.
Help was more important.
But it failed. She failed.
He's still gone. Still dead.
Maybe Grace is, too.
Another body under a sheet.
Still warm. Still loved.
Still a member of their team.
Their team, her family. The group who took her in and made her welcome. The collection of misfits where she finally fits, where she is happy, healthy, at home. Doing something purposeful, something real.
Making a difference.
Helping.
Her hands are in his. How, why, she didn't notice, but when Boyd squeezes slightly the silent solidarity, the trembling show of something he can't quite express tells her everything. For just a moment she can see straight into the battered, scarred heart of him where the secrets he keeps so tightly hidden are burning.
She can see loss and bitter experience and a host of other disappointments and memories, but she can also see something else. A tiny shred of hope along with something he's kept hidden and she's guessed for far too many years now.
Something only a moment like this would have revealed.
It's enough to push her back into her roll of leader, to allow her to take the tissue he's somehow conjured from nowhere and is holding out in one swollen, bloody palm. She stares at that blood… it could be his or hers, or Spencer's or Grace's. She doesn't know, thinks he doesn't either.
They can't lose both, they just can't.
Grace... she must be here somewhere, but Boyd's expression, Spencer's eyes… it's all a swirling, chaotic tangle forcing its way into the rationality of her mind.
It's confusing, overwhelming.
Boyd is trying to get to his feet, and it's the sight of him swaying and staggering, injured leg almost buckling, that breaks through the encroaching spell. Allows clarity to return. Really return this time.
Eve shakes her head, rests a brief but gentle hand on his arm. A meaningful gaze, a silent promise and off she wanders again, slipping behind a door left carelessly ajar.
Think... where would they take her? Think...
Boyd said she collapsed at the scene – in his arms. Blood loss... her shoulder...
Of course.
The other side of the department, the critical care patients.
She's right, but the sight that greets her still causes her heart to catch, to beat harder and faster. Neck brace, immobilisation. Bloody shoulder wound, ragged skin; muscle, bone. Bruised temple, split brow.
The threat of another head injury…
Another horror that still sometimes haunts her dreams.
Grace is unconscious or drifting, a nurse talking softly to her as she works, hands and voice equally gentle. Soothing.
The monitors hum and beep, tell Eve mostly positive things. Reassure her.
Still, she asks.
The nurse eyes her stained clothes and blood-streaked skin, her weary, red eyes and the bright white bandaging but says nothing, her gaze instead tracking the way Eve takes everything in.
"Doctor?" she guesses.
"Pathologist."
"Not the bedside manner she needs then." The words come with a smile, no malice intended.
"Probably not, no." It's sad, but true.
"You were there? When it happened?"
The news has spread already. It's hardly surprising, but even so... The reminder hits like a hammer blow, allows a flare of agony to roar through.
Ready this time, she fights back, forces it down. Wins enough to hold on, to keep thinking.
It's a constant roller coaster of emotion, alternating with every distraction. It's desperately draining, yet oddly a great reminder that she – they – are still alive.
"Yes."
The admission burns through her like liquid fire, tearing chunks from her heart and the scene plays for the hundredth, maybe thousandth time. The scent of summer flowers and sweat tickling her nose. The sickening rasp of lungs taking their last breath, dying words begging her to help.
To do something.
Anything.
She blinks, tries to focus on Grace. Only on Grace.
Edges forward, takes her hand. Cool, soft skin under her own. The ragged edges of torn knuckles, crusty flaking blood.
They've been here before, three times now, in fact, and Eve shivers, her mother's words echoing through her mind, Bad things come in threes.
Grace is still very pale but the brachial pulse doesn't lie and Eve finds a scrap of comfort in the strong rhythm under her fingers.
Proof of life.
A moment, a memory, stirs in her mind. Years ago, in the lab. White coats, small talk, the two of them hiding from Boyd-on-a-rampage. Small talk that grew heavy, turned into a half-prompted admission. A not-so-startling revelation. A host of questions and a refusal to believe, to allow hope.
She remembers, quite clearly, the sadness she felt for her friend that day.
Nothing has changed with those feelings, she knows, even though Grace is in no position to argue or confirm or deny.
But now she knows, even if Grace doesn't. Yet.
"You're wrong about Boyd," she murmurs, "I saw it in his eyes tonight." She squeezes fingers that remain still, unmoving. Wills her colleague, her friend, to listen, to hear. "You should trust him, let him show you."
…
It takes a while, but she gets Boyd there. He sways on his feet from pain and injury and she staggers with the sudden wash of crippling tiredness as the adrenalin begins to fade, but they lean together, holding one another up.
Grace hasn't come to, and it's a startling realisation that the eerily pale tone of her skin is reflected in both of them as they stand beside her bed, both silent and a little lost. Ashen survivors still struggling in the immediate aftermath.
There's a tremor running through Boyd, she can feel it where his arm is pressed against hers, and when she looks up his expression is so defeated, so disturbed that she thinks he might, after all these years, actually crumble under the weight of it all.
It's understandable. His gaze is fixed on the ragged wound in Grace's shoulder, on the torn fabric of her top that is still wet from the sheer amount blood that has soaked in. It's a far cry from the laughter and banter, the jokes and the theories and the mild professional squabbling and sparring from mere hours ago.
From the four of them working together as a team, fighting together as a team.
She remembers how, when Stella died, the cracks began to turn into fissures, and it took a long, long time for those wounds to heal. Everything she's heard says that with Mel it was worse.
Without Spence… With just the three of them left…
What, she wonders, happens now?