Title: A very long day
Author: AnitaB
Rating: NC-17 eventually
Summary: We all know what happened when it was Davis she had to save. But what will Tru do when it's her own life on the line? And what will Davis do when he finds out? (Read and review). Tru/davis, hehehehehe
Disclaimer: If I owned these people or anything else related to this show... Well... there'd be a lot more tru/davis stuff on the screen.
on with the show
Chapter one: No Explanations
"Tru, no!"
So this was what it felt like to get shot. Tru started to crumple to the floor but something caught her before impact, cradling her against the scratchy cotton of a white lab coat. /Davis/ Gentle fingers touched her face as his other hand pressed hard over the hole in her chest. Some small rational part of Tru's brain figured out the bullet's path. Definitely a lung. Maybe her heart.
She was dying.
"Tru, please look at me." He sounded so worried and she didn't know why. It didn't hurt. Not really. The cold, tingling feeling in her fingertips hurt more. "Open your eyes, Tru. Look at me." Tru struggled to raise her eyelids for him, to let him see it wasn't so bad. Even if it was. Warm fingers grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse as Davis touched her palm to his cheek.
Weird. The soft brush of his beard against her skin was more real than the blood in the back of her throat. /Davis/ Finally Tru managed to open her eyes to find his only inches away. She'd never seen his eyes so close. They were really quite beautiful. "Davis,"
"I'm here, Tru," His voice caught in his throat, somewhere between relief and tears. "Can you move your toes for me?" So professional, her Davis was, even as she watched his eyes run over. He was crying for her. The least she could do was move her feet for him. She tried to move, closing her eyes with the effort of finding her legs. "No, Tru. Don't close your eyes. Look at me." Both his hands cradled her face and Tru could feel his breath on her skin. "Stay with me, Tru, hold on." His arms gathered her closer against his body in the second or two it took to get her eyes open again. "That's it, Tru, don't leave me." Davis pressed his lips to her cheek and Tru could feel wetness on her temple. Her tears or his?
"Davis," Tru coughed, tasting blood on the back of her tongue.
"What's happening, Tru? Why hasn't the day rewound?"
Tru clenched her hands in the fabric of his shirt, trying to figure that out herself. It wasn't like she understood the rules of this gift, or curse, or calling she had either. But maybe... "The bodies ask me..." another cough, harder this time. "for help. No body to ask."
"Tru," Davis made a sound between a gasp and a sob, burying her against his chest. "I need help, Tru. I can't lose you." Tru's arms moved on their own to curl around his neck, one hand weakly clenching in his hair. "I need her. Please, help her. Help me."
It was like Cinderella's fairy godmother had waved her wand. Time ran backwards, hours of it. Blood dripped upwards in perfect little spheres. A bullet flew back into the barrel of a gun. And Tru woke with a violent gasp in her own bed, sitting up with one hand pressed over her heart. "Davis!"
"Tru Davies, I can't believe you. Not recognizing your own brother. They working you too many hours at the house of cold, metal beds?"
"Harrison," She leaned forward, flinging her arms around his neck and fighting to catch her breath.
"Tru?" Harrison slowly hugged her back, the teasing in his voice fading into worry. "What it is? What happened?"
Everything that happened, but somehow hadn't happened yet flashed across her mind. Davis's arms had cradled her close. His tears had mixed with hers on her skin. His lips had warmed her forehead and his hands had cupped her face as he'd begged her not to leave him. Tru could still hear his voice whispering 'I need her' and 'help me' against her ear.
Time had gone backwards because Davis 'needed' her. And she might just 'need' him too. Tru leaned her chin on Harrison's shoulder, blinking away the salt water in her eyes. "Nothing's happened." /yet/
"Tru, you're about to break my ribs and you want me to believe nothing's wrong?" He pushed her back, peering into her eyes with a squint. "Is it one of those days? Can I help?"
That was Harrison in a nutshell. He would gamble away a loan without a thought or drop everything to help her at a moment's notice. "Harry, I..." /...no body to ask.../ her own voice echoed in her ear. Tru didn't even know where to start without someone to save... /except myself... and Davis./ "I'll let you know, but I've got to go check something out first." Climbing slowly out of bed, Tru almost expected to find blood on her clothes, but there wasn't any. She could still feel it though, like she could feel the desperate warmth of Davis's arms around her, his lips on her skin. She had to see him. She had to know... "I gotta go, Harrison, I'll call you later."
A short eternity later, the front door of the morgue swung shut behind her as she hurried through it, resisting the urge to call out for him. Her feet knew the way to his office door without any actual connection to her brain. Something between her ribs relaxed at the sight of a familiar lab coat covering the even more familiar lines of his arms and shoulders. /Davis/
"Tru," He turned and the smile that crossed his face and just as quickly faded sent a jolt down Tru's nerves. "You're early," Davis glanced down at his watch and another smile quirked his lips. "Very early, a new record in fact." Sitting back on the edge of his desk, he looked up at her expectantly. "So who needs our help today?"
Tru stood in his office door, watching the trust in his eyes and the desire to help written on his face. /We do./ But she couldn't tell him. Tru couldn't look into those confident, eager eyes and tell him how he'd held her while she bled out on the floor. She couldn't tell him and watch those beautiful eyes fill with fear and worry... and the desperation she'd felt in his tears and the grip of his arms. Tru looked down, one hand tracing a random pattern over the door jam. "She was shot, with a handgun." Her hand rose without thought, two fingers touching the spot where his hand had tried to hold her blood inside. "In the chest. We ... we didn't get the caliber of the bullet but..." Tru stopped a second, trying to force the words out. "She bled to death pretty quickly."
"She would, without a well stocked ER, a wound like you've described would be fatal in under five minutes." He'd known. Davis had to have know that she was dying and that there was nothing he could do about it. He'd known she was dying and had held her and cried. "Do we know anything about the shooter?"
She tried to remember the man with the gun, the man who'd left her to die, but the only face burned into her mind's eye ... was Davis'. And with no dead body to connect the shooter to, Tru had no idea how to even start finding a motive. "No, nothing,"
He acknowledged her answer with a quick nod of his head. "It's best to track down the victim first anyway." Standing Davis moved around the desk to his computer, confidence written in his shoulders. "What was the woman's name?"
/Mine./ "She didn't tell me her name, and the day rewound before we finished standards." Well, it was true as far as it went. /I didn't tell me my name and I never got to standards./ Tru couldn't tell him the full truth, but something inside her cringed at lying to Davis. She couldn't do it.
"No name on the victim, nothing on the killer," The shoulders under their lab coat slumped. The same shoulders that Tru had clung to on the floor of the crypt. "We don't have much to go on, Tru. Where do we start?"
Davis looked... defeated and Tru hated it, hated the hesitation in his face. He was her support, her shoulder to lean on. And now, today of all days, Tru needed him. She needed him not to give up. And right now, he needed something. "She was shot at work. Her... her boss found her." Tru's hands trembled then fisted at calling Davis 'her boss' like that was all her was to her.
"Okay, where does she work? If we're lucky we can get her name. Maybe even a few possible suspects." He perked right up, hands going to the keyboard and eyes shining up at her.
/She works here... but I can't tell you that./ "Look, Davis. I can find her when we need me to, but I already told you what I know."
Davis turned in his chair, looking up at her with a puzzled expression. "This isn't making sense, Tru. What aren't you telling me?"
If she stayed in this room one more minute... she'd tell him everything. She'd crumble into little pieces and fall into his arms. Probably giving him the shock of his life. /...bad ideas all around. Time to leave.../ "I told you everything, it's not like this rewinding day thing came with an explanation attached, you know." Looking at her watch like the numbers there had any meaning at all, Tru went on. "I gotta go, I'll call you later when I get anything, okay?" Retreating out the door of his office, she turned and fled down the hall at a half run, hearing his voice saying her name behind her. /I can't... if I go back now...sorry, Davis, I gotta go./