A/N: I was watching something the other day (I think it was JAG) where the lead characters were getting beaten up and again it occurred to me that the Taggart team really do get off pretty easy. So this is a sort of companion piece to "In The End." It can be either Michael or Robbie's perspective, naturally I would see Michael but it's up to you :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
In A Heartbeat
He sat by her hospital bed with his head in his hands just hoping – praying – that she would make it through the night.
He had felt his heart stop when he heard the gun go off and known that she had been in there.
He hadn't been completely surprised to find her lying on the floor a pool of her own blood, but it had still torn out his heart to see her like that.
It had been one of the few moments in his life where he had been absolutely petrified. He had rushed to her side, crushing her to him as he tried desperately to stop the bleeding. Somehow he had managed to call for backup and an ambulance.
He had been dimly aware that somewhere was the man responsible for shooting her, but he didn't even spare him a thought. Not even when the promised backup arrived and told him that the shooter had been captured.
His attention, his whole being, had been concentrated on the woman in his arms.
The woman who now lay so still on the bed beside him, who hadn't opened her eyes – not even once – since he had found her; he worried that she might never do so again.
Beep
She was lying so still and looked so pale that the only way he knew that she was still alive was by the soft beep of the heart monitor.
Beep
The gap between each heartbeat felt like an eternity as he feared that each one might be her last. He remembered how he had frozen in horror when she had crashed during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
He remembered, too, that she had almost died on the operating table as they tried to locate the bullet and remove it, which they had managed to do but it had been touch and go at times.
Beep
Another heartbeat, another reminder that she had survived the shooting, survived the surgery. She was a fighter, she was strong; she would pull through this. He had to believe that, anything less would be unacceptable.
Beep
He had never thought he would grow dependent on something as mundane as a heartbeat, for when all was said and done a heartbeat was mundane. Everyone had one, in many ways it was one of the few things in life that you could count on.
Now it was the only thing that he could count on to tell him that she was still alive.
A heartbeat didn't seem so mundane any more, not when its continuance was the only thing keeping him from going out of his mind.
Beep
As long as her heart continued to beat he would have hope.
Hope that she would pull through this; that she would live and soon be back at work. Back with her teasing grin and sharp wit, back with that particular twinkle in her eye.
Beep
In the dimness of the hospital room he admitted to himself that he loved her; admitted that he would do anything to keep her safe; anything to see her smile again. Anything to keep her with him.
Beep
Anything.
In a heartbeat.