Vigil
"James?"
The gentle pressure on his shoulder finally got his attention. Hathaway's gaze slid up the arm of the person standing beside him until it wearily focused on the face of its owner: Laura Hobson. She was looking down at him with an expectant expression, and Hathaway assumed she must have asked him something. He hadn't heard the question and didn't even attempt to guess at what the correct response might be.
"Sorry."
Laura's face softened. "Maybe you should go home. Get some proper rest."
Hathaway shook his head. "I'd rather stay," he stated simply.
"You know he wouldn't expect you to." Her voice was soft, kind.
"I know." Hathaway turned away again resolutely, and Laura clearly realized pursuing the point would be futile; she wasn't going to change his mind. Instead, she gave his shoulder a squeeze and left the room.
By the time the door clicked shut, Hathaway's attention had returned to the still, sheet-draped figure lying on the hospital bed before him. Wires snaked out from under the sheet and trailed to various sentinel machines, but despite their soft, reassuring beeps, Hathaway needed to watch the gentle rise and fall of the recumbent figure's chest to reassure himself his governor was still breathing, irrefutable proof that Robert Lewis was still alive.
He reached out a hand towards the unconscious man, his fingers stopping an inch above the back of Lewis's hand, hovering in the air as if the slightest touch might cause the man further pain.
"I'm sorry."
Hathaway's voice was barely above a whisper, but the regret in the tone was unmistakable. He drew his hand away and dropped his chin to his chest; the action could almost have been the beginning of prayer. Or repentance.
"No, sergeant, wait for backup."
"There's no time, sir!" Hathaway glanced back to Lewis as the Detective Inspector drew up beside him, panting for breath after the chase and the hurried ascent of the stairwell. Hathaway waved an arm toward the figure leaning out over the edge of the roof just a few yards away. "He's going to jump!"
"Having a bloody copper running over there isn't likely to persuade him not to, is it? He's unstable. He's just killed his son for god's sake!"
Hathaway didn't want to argue with Lewis, not when he knew the man was right, but he couldn't watch two people lose their lives in the same day, especially as he honestly believed the man standing precariously close to the edge of the roof hadn't intended to take his son's life. But there was no time to debate the point now; their quarry was leaning against the low ledge circling the roof and he was peering dangerously over the side.
"Sir, I have to try." Hathaway didn't give Lewis the chance to order him to stop; he was off and jogging towards the lone figure. He heard Lewis call his name behind him, but ignored it, focused only on the man he intended to talk out of any rash decisions.
"Mr. Clarke…Paul. You don't have to do this." Hathaway tried to keep his voice even, conciliatory.
The man's head whipped around and his eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the detective slowly approaching him. "Stay the fuck away from me."
"Come away from the edge," Hathaway continued, undeterred. "Let me help you."
Paul Clarke barked a harsh, humorless laugh. "You don't want to help me, you want to fuckin' arrest me!"
Hathaway couldn't deny that; there was no refuting what Clarke had done, but if he could just get the man to see that his fate wasn't necessarily written in stone, perhaps he could prevent a second death. "Talk to me. Explain what happened –"
"Talk!" Clarke spat. "You bastards have never listened to anything I have to say."
In one fluid movement, Clarke turned back to the roof's edge and stepped up onto the low wall.
"No!" Hathaway cried out and lunged forward in the same instant, reaching for the man. At the same moment, he heard Lewis shout his name – "James!" – and registered the alarm in his voice just as he saw Clarke twist toward him, sunlight glinting off something clutched in his hand, something metal. A blade.
A knife.
Although his mind recognized the threat, his body, in its shock, didn't react quickly enough. As the knife flashed toward him, he was thrown sideways by a weight barreling into his shoulder.
Losing his balance under the force of the impact, Hathaway stumbled and crashed to the ground, his jacket tearing on the grit of the roof's surface, his elbow jarring painfully.
Stunned, he could only lay there, looking up at slowly drifting pale grey clouds, until time caught up with itself and the last few moments organized themselves in his mind. Paul Clarke. The knife. The weight that had pushed him clear of the blade's path.
Lewis.
Hathaway scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protest form his elbow. A few feet away, a solitary figure lay in a heap. A horribly familiar figure, a red bloom spreading slowly but irrevocably across the white of his shirt.
"No." The word was barely audible this time, exhaled on a breath of shaky, fearful panic. All thoughts of continuing the pursuit of Paul Clarke – or even checking to see if he had jumped – vanished; Hathaway's sole concern now the stricken man. Nothing mattered except Lewis.
Dropping to his knees, beside Lewis, heedless of the rough surface digging into his flesh through his trousers, Hathaway pulled his jacket from his shoulders and bundled it into a compress, pressing it down over the centre of the spreading stain, trying to staunch the flow of blood. With his free hand, he fished his mobile from his pocket, jabbing the 9 three times with his thumb.
As he relayed details to the calm female voice – some small part of his mind thankfully retaining its capacity for rational thought – he felt fingers grasp the wrist of the hand keeping pressure on the wound.
Hathaway met Lewis's gaze. The man's grip tightened; Lewis seemed to be trying to anchor himself physically while he mentally fought the fog that was creeping over him.
"Sir…" Words, for once, failed him in his desperation, unable to even utter the usual reassurances offered in these situations about how he would be fine; they both knew Hathaway could promise no such thing. All he could do was meet Lewis's gaze and feel the tremble in his hand as his lips parted as if to speak.
No sound came out. Instead, to Hathaway's horror, the fingers around his wrist went limp and Lewis's eyelids fluttered shut.
A high-pitched wail and clamour of alarms jolted Hathaway awake. He was momentarily dazed, confused by the sudden racket, until he remembered where he was and what those alarms signified.
He leapt to his feet, a sickening panic descending on him, twisting his stomach, stopping his heart. For seconds that stretched to eternity he could do nothing, frozen in fear.
"Help!"
The cry may never have left his lips; his throat was tight, dry, and all he could hear was the shriek of the alarms. Grasping Lewis's hand, he squeezed, trying to will him through whatever crisis this was; a gesture he knew was futile but it was all he could offer.
Please. No.
An elbow roughly shoved him aside and suddenly he was surrounded by a gaggle of medical personnel, being pulled out of the way. Lewis's hand fell from his grip as he stumbled backwards on shaky legs.
Steadying hands took hold of his arms and drew him further away. He resisted until the owner of those hands spoke with a gentle, rational voice.
"Give them space to work, James."
Doctor Hobson. She looked worried herself, but her medical training allowed her to remain practical, to retain a pragmatic outlook. In a way, he envied her. She guided him out of the room, but he would retreat no farther than the doorway where he could look in through the glass partition at the activity within. The swarm of busy doctors and nurses obscured his view and he couldn't tell what was going on, too afraid to ask Laura.
"He's stubborn." Hathaway wished he could take more comfort from Laura's words. "If anyone can pull through this, it'll be Robbie."
Placing his forehead to the cool glass, Hathaway closed his eyes and found himself doing something he rarely, if ever, did any more; praying.
Laura Hobson found Hathaway slumped in one of the hard plastic chairs in the corridor outside the operating theatres, elbows propped on his knees, staring unfocused at his hands. The sleeves of his shirt were stained with blood – Lewis's blood – drying to a rusty smear, and his hands were shaking.
Laying a hand on his arm, Laura sat down beside him. "Have you heard anything yet?"
"No." Hathaway's voice was detached, drained of all emotion. They had been in the theatre for what felt like hours – and probably was – but no one had yet emerged to give him any news. His leg began to jiggle up and down and he finally looked up at Laura. "Will you…?"
"As soon as there's any news, they'll let us know."
Hathaway nodded absently; he knew the surgery might take a while, he just couldn't stand the waiting. The not knowing.
"Why don't you get cleaned up? I'll find you something to change into."
Laura took his silence as an agreement and she disappeared briefly, returning with a scrub top borrowed from the hospital stores and two plastic cups of watery vending machine tea.
"I've phoned Lyn. She's going to come down as soon as she can."
Of course, Lewis's daughter. He should have thought of that; she needed to know what had happened.
Am I going to have to explain to her that I'm the reason her father –
No, that wasn't going to happen. Lewis was going to make it. He had to believe that or he'd be lost.
Laura directed him to the gents' toilet and he made the mistake of meeting his own gaze in the mirror above the sinks. It was haunted, scared, and his face was paler than usual, an almost ghostly pallor that made him look away again.
His head bowed, he held onto the edge of the sink with a white-knuckled grip, unable to do anything other than use the solidity of the porcelain as support. Eventually, he peeled his fingers away, and turned on the tap, thrusting his hands under the flow, watching as the water ran red, then pink, then clear again.
Lewis's blood swirled in the bottom of the sink, then drained away.
Fighting a queasiness in the pit of his stomach, Hathaway wrenched the tap closed, turned away, tore off his stained shirt and pulled on the scrub top.
Not going to happen.
When he returned to the chairs, Laura pressed the rapidly cooling tea into his hands. Hathaway stared at the milky surface, the remaining heat barely warming him, not daring to take a sip, not trusting his stomach.
The tea had gone cold by the time Hathaway stirred again, this time in response to the appearance of a doctor. He pushed to his feet, fought the dizziness that assailed him, and looked a desperate question at the man, his mouth too dry to speak.
A comforting smile settled on the doctor's face and Hathaway released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, a weight lifted from his chest.
"He's stable," the doctor informed them, looking between Hathaway and Laura before his gaze returned to Hathaway, apparently judging him to be the one most in need of his reassurance. "The next few hours will be critical, but the early signs are positive that he'll make a full recovery."
"Thank you." It was Laura who spoke; Hathaway was too overwhelmed by relief to offer any response beyond a small nod.
Recovering a little, the world beginning to level again, Hathaway eventually found his voice. "Can I see him?"
Hathaway had returned to Lewis's side as soon as the doctor had declared him stable once more. If it hadn't been for the tubes and wires, he could almost have believed Lewis was sleeping now the room had regained some semblance of calm.
Unfortunately, the façade of serenity did nothing to erase Hathaway's memory.
"Please don't scare me like that again." His voice was soft but clear in the still room.
I don't think I could bare it.
Lewis didn't stir. Hathaway returned to his chair beside the bed, his gaze never leaving the face of the unconscious man, willing Lewis to attend his plea. He sat like that, in silent petition, until exhaustion finally claimed him.
A touch to his knee drew Hathaway from sleep, a gentler awakening than he had received last time.
Eyes widening in elated surprise, Hathaway leapt to his feet and met the slightly hazy gaze of a conscious Lewis. "You're awake."
"Brilliant…observation, detective."
Hathaway felt his cheeks heat with a faint embarrassment at having made such a redundant exclamation, but he didn't care; Lewis was awake and clearly feeling well enough to take the piss.
Lewis smiled to take the sting from his mocking and Hathaway suddenly didn't know what to say, overcome by such a surge of emotion that he was afraid he would say something equally as foolish as his last statement.
"Not…leaving me to join the…medical profession, are you?"
A bemused frown formed between Hathaway's brows until Lewis enlightened him by plucking at the scrub top he was wearing.
"Oh. No, sir. I needed a fresh shirt and Doctor Hobson kindly found me this." He didn't need to explain the reason he had required the change of shirt, the memories were still painfully fresh for them both.
Lewis looked thoughtful for a moment then lifted his left arm. Upon finding his watch had been removed, his gaze swept up and over the walls in search of the clock. "How long have I been out?"
Following Lewis's gaze, Hathaway checked the time and swiftly did the calculation. "Forty-five hours, twenty-six minutes."
"Not that you've been counting."
Hathaway shook his head. "It felt longer." An eternity.
Both men fell silent at that. There was so much Hathaway wanted to say, but he didn't know where to start – there were too many thoughts crowding his mind, fighting for dominance. He had known for a long time that he had a deep-seated affection for Robbie Lewis, but he hadn't been expecting the strength of the emotions that had threatened to overwhelm him when it had seemed possible he might lose him. He had told Lewis in the past that, when the inspector finally left the Force, he would go too, but Hathaway now realized that sentiment ran deeper than just his commitment to policing; he honestly couldn't imagine not having Lewis in his life, by his side.
But there was something more pertinent he needed to say before even attempting to organize the rest of his thoughts.
"I'm sorry."
Lewis frowned at that. "Oh, lad, don't go blaming yourself."
"I should have listened to you. Instead, I put you in harm's way."
"It wasn't your fault. You didn't put the knife in his hands – you didn't even know he had a weapon."
"I shouldn't have been so reckless."
Lewis was shaking his head; Hathaway's inspector knew him too well, knew he was going to take the full weight of the blame on his shoulders. "Your intentions were in the right place. We have to do what we can to save lives."
"Not if it means you have to endanger your own life to save mine." And not for the first time. James bowed his head, that weight pressing down.
"James. Don't."
Hathaway felt fingers brush against the back of his hand and looked up in surprise. Lewis's eyes were fixed on him with a meaningful intensity and all those other feelings rushed back into Hathaway's mind. He turned his hand into the touch, wanting – needing – the contact, to feel the warmth and vitality beneath the skin, the irrefutable proof that Lewis was alive.
Lewis seemed to sense what he was seeking; he squeezed Hathaway's fingers and Hathaway took comfort from the strength of his grip. He gave a squeeze back in response, a silent promise that he would try to do as Lewis asked.
"Thank you." Lewis was the one to break the silence.
"For what?" I've done nothing to warrant your gratitude.
"For staying with me."
Where else would I be?
Hathaway knew his unvoiced response was written in his eyes; his impassive mask had been torn away back on that rooftop and Lewis could surely see straight into his soul. The inspector was clearly shrewd enough to guess correctly that Hathaway hadn't yet been home, or left the hospital, even had it not been for the evidence of the borrowed scrubs.
The remained like that, the silence that settled between them once more filled with words that didn't need to be spoken, for several moments more until Lewis let his hand drop back to the mattress and sank back against his pillow with a weary sigh. "You should get yourself home, find a proper change of clothes."
"Okay. I'll bring you back some necessities."
If he had been about to argue that Hathaway shouldn't hurry back, Lewis stopped himself. Perhaps he knew Hathaway had no intention of adhering to that particular suggestion. "Thanks, lad."
Hathaway turned to head for the door, but paused when Lewis spoke again.
"Don't forget me Yorkie."
For the first time since before they had begun their pursuit of Paul Clarke, a smile ghosted across Hathaway's face.
"I wouldn't dream of it, sir."