What was going through the minds of Jerry, Sam, Andy, Traci and Gail during episode 3x09. Major spoiler if you haven't seen the episode yet. This is much more sad than my other stories, but I do hope you enjoy it. Please leave a review and let me know what you think. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Rookie Blue.
Guilt
By the time Jerry hit the floor, he knew he wasn't getting out of this. The first image that popped up in his mind was Traci. He'd never have his happily ever with the woman he loved. He'd never watch Leo grow up or have a child of his own with Traci. There'd be no more Christmases or birthdays together. The dreams of a four-bedroom home with a white picket fence was just that, a dream. He wanted to cry for the pain Traci would feel and he lost himself in the sadness.
For a moment, he'd forgotten why he had come to the house in the first place, until he heard commotion from the basement stairs, followed quickly by Gail being pushed into the room with the cab driver behind her. Jerry had pulled out his cell phone to try and call for help, but he quickly realized there was a better chance for his fellow officers to save Gail than him. In a deliberate move, he fought through the blinding pain to stand up and struggle with the cabbie. He had no intention of winning the fight, already weak from blood loss. But he succeeded in dropping his phone in the other man's pocket.
He heard muffled voices, Sam shouting at him to stay with him, others demanding he hold on. He saw Andy standing next to his best friend and realized she was going to have to help Traci and Sam get through this. He wanted to say something, tell her how important she was going to be to the both of them, but the words were lost in his head. He hoped she was strong enough for the both of them.
It was his own choices that got him in this position. His decisions that were going to take him from the ones he loved most, his fiancé, his best friend. He wished he could go back in time. Wished he could have been less impatient and waited for someone, anyone, to back him up when he went to the cabbie's house. But he couldn't change history, and his future was this, slowly slipping away. The world started to fade and he knew he wasn't going to be able to say goodbye to Traci. He felt guilty for breaking his promise to the woman he loved, the promise to always be there for her.
With love and guilt he slipped into darkness.
Sam scrubbed his hands under the scalding water in the bathroom at the hospital. He couldn't get them clean. Every time he looked at his hands he saw Jerry's blood. He stared at the white basin of the sink and saw the image of his hands pressed against Jerry's wound, not doing anything to stop the blood pouring out. His hands would never be clean again. He rinsed the remaining soap off his hands and shut the faucet off, drying his hands as he walked back out to the lobby.
He saw Andy holding Traci's hand as they stared out at nothing in particular. He walked past where they were sitting and looked out the window at the cars passing by. He pulled out the pocket watch Jerry had given him and read the inscription as he fingered it with his hands. To all the good times.He thought back to when they graduated the academy together, to their first day on the job, to their many poker nights, to their drunken stumbles home from The Penny. He thought about the times they were supposed to have, the bachelor party, the wedding, the double dates he was sure Andy and Traci would force them on. The thought of that almost made him chuckle. Jerry was probably the closest thing to a brother Sam had. And now he was gone.
He looked over his shoulder at a grieving Traci and realized he couldn't do that, couldn't be the grieving boyfriend. If it was this hard to lose a friend, he could never lose someone he'd given his heart to. His gaze drifted to Andy. He loved her too much, even if he hadn't told her yet, and the pain he felt from just the thought of something happening to her had him taking a deep breath to steady himself. In this job, death was such a real possibility, especially when she was such a danger magnet. But what could he do about it? All he knew was it would break him if he were in Traci's position and Andy's lifeless body was lying in the operating room.
Shaking off those thoughts, he looked back at the pocket watch before gingerly placing it in his pocket. He relived the day in his mind to figure out what had gone horribly wrong, what he could have done differently. He ran through the events and realized the moment. The decision he made to check out the bartender with Andy. That had left Jerry following up with the cabbie. Of course Jerry should've taken someone with him, but he wouldn't have had to do it at all if Sam had forced Andy to listen. If he'd acted like her superior officer and told her they were checking out the cabbie. No ifs ands or buts. He hadn't and Jerry had walked into his final moments alive on his own. Sam would never forgive himself.
Andy had watched her best friend's fiancé die. Well, he hadn't technically been declared dead until he arrived at the hospital, but she'd watched the blood pooling around him on the floor of that house. She'd handed Sam the only towel she could find, a small dish towel that could never soak up or stop all the blood coming out of Jerry's wound. She felt useless just standing there, as Sam did what little he could until the paramedics arrived. She couldn't get over how much blood there'd been. And then she looked over at Sam when he stood next to her, hands covered in Jerry's blood. She rummaged through the glove compartment of their cruiser, finding a few napkins and handing them over to Sam so he could wipe his best friend's blood off his hands.
Now, she sat holding Traci's hand, unsure of what to do next. How did she help her friend through this? Did she help her find someone to blame. She thought back on the day and realized she was to blame. She argued with Jerry about talking to cab driver, thinking it wouldn't lead to anything. She insisted on checking out the bartender instead. But what if she had just listened? She and Sam would have gone to the cab driver's house and there would have been two of them. They would've been able to overpower him if he attacked them. Jerry would be interrogating him right now at the station instead of lying in the hospital. They would have rescued Gail and arrested the cabbie, and everything would be alright. If only.
How could she tell her best friend she was to blame? One decision. One life ended.
Gail was lying on her hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling. She'd finally shooed Chris and Nick out of the room with the mission of finding her something to eat that "wasn't disgusting hospital food." She wasn't hungry – in fact she was nauseous thinking about everything – but she needed them to stop hovering. And she couldn't take the silent battle between them. So, she sent them on a mission, which left her alone and staring at the ceiling. All she could see in her mind was the image of Jerry lying on the floor bleeding out. Because of her. He'd come to rescue her and all she could do was collapse in a pile on the floor because whatever drug she was injected with left her feeling like her legs were mush. She couldn't move. She could only watch as her abductor threw Jerry around the room, obviously causing more pain. She remembered the tears clouding her vision and streaming down her face as her captor pulled her from the ground and pushed her out the door, allowing her only one last glance at Jerry.
Lying in the hospital bed, tears rolled down her face as she kept blaming herself. "Jerry died because of you" was on silent repeat in her mind. Chris had told her they found her because of Jerry, something about the cell phone he still hadn't learned how to use. She didn't fully understand what had happened, but what she did know was that even as he was dying, Jerry had saved her. He would always be her hero. Nothing she could say or do for his friends and family would ever be enough. She wasn't sure how she would ever look Traci in the eye again.
If she hadn't convinced everyone she could do the undercover opp. If she hadn't opened the door. If she'd done something differently maybe Jerry would still be alive.
Traci didn't know how to move forward. She sat next to Andy, her hand gripping her friend's for dear life. She didn't know how to move, how to get up and go home. How to tell Leo. How to keep going. Tears silently streamed down her cheeks. She'd never wake up next to him again. She wouldn't be walking down the aisle with the man she loved. She wouldn't be creating a future with him. They would never be debating the need for a fourth bedroom, her wall already worn down after seeing Noelle's baby girl.
She'd spoken to him only moments before he walked into the cab driver's house. It hadn't been an important conversation at the time, but Traci struggled to remember every single word. She wanted to remember his voice, remember the last things they said to each other, however mundane they were. And it gave her something to focus on. Something other than imagining the pain Jerry went through. Something other than picturing his lifeless body lying on a cold metal table somewhere in the hospital.
Maybe if she'd gone with Jerry, if she hadn't taken Andy to the hospital, hadn't stayed with Noelle. Maybe then she would have been by his side and been able to prevent his death from happening. She knew the "what ifs" were going to tear at her heart, but she couldn't push them from her thoughts. Grief was causing her to blame herself for the fact Jerry would never be coming home to her again.
As the officers of 15 Division gathered around Jerry Barber's gravesite, grief caused many of them to blame themselves. Only once they began to recover from the horrible loss of a colleague, a friend, a lover, would they be able to realize the only guilty party was the one individual who killed the detective. And only then could they find happiness in their own lives again.
The End.