Jamie walked through the Critical Care Unit and in to the room where Eddie was being treated. She was lying in a bed with several tubes from her arms connecting her to two IVs and various monitoring machines with green and blue lights that occasionally flickered. Her chest was bound with heavy white bandaging which moved up and down with the cadence of her breaths.
He carefully reached down and traced a finger tip over the soft skin of her hand and gingerly slipped several fingers around hers until he was holding her hand in his. They were alone in the silence of the room and when he found his voice it was a whisper. "Eddie, it's me." He paused awkwardly waiting—hoping—as though something might happen. It didn't. Her eyes remained closed and she lay motionless. He noticed her hand felt cold so he clasped both hands around it wanting to keep her warm and whispered her name again. He wanted to find the right words—to say the right thing—but stood beside her silently cursing himself and his Harvard education. "Eddie…it's Jamie. There's so much…." The sound of someone entering the room startled him and he turned to look over his shoulder, Eddie's hand still firmly clasped in his. He slightly recognized the female doctor in the white coat.
Jennifer Bennett smiled warmly. Her voice and eyes were filled with empathy and friendship. "Hey, Jamie." Her voice was soft and supportive. "I'm so sorry we're running in to each other under such terrible circumstances and everything these officers have been through, especially your partner. I know what she means to you."
He nodded and greeted Jenn as an old friend, which is all their brief handful of dates two years earlier had been about anyway. "I didn't' realize you were one of her doctors."
"When I saw Officer Janko's name on the report as one of the two officers who were brought in yesterday I knew it was your Eddie, so I wanted to help."
His Eddie. He liked hearing it put that way and wanted her to be his, but wasn't as sure as the doctor Eddie would agree. "Thanks for being here. How long have you worked in critical care?"
"I don't," she said walking over to the monitors on the other side of the bed. "But during my residency I specialized in trauma care and working with coma patients. I thought I might be able to help." She glanced at the monitor screens. "Huh, that's odd."
"What?" Fear was keeping a tight grasp on what remained of his composure. "What's wrong?" He held Eddie's hand closer against him.
"Her vitals are up." She tapped a fingernail against the monitor. "I just checked them a while ago and they were still below normal. But now the counts are up." She looked over her shoulder with a tentative smile. "You're good for her."
He took a deep breath. He hated hospitals and his head was fuzzy from lack of sleep and he felt confused. "I don't understand"
"It means even though Eddie's asleep she knows you're here. She can feel you touch her and hear the sound of your voice. It's reassuring to her so her vitals are doing better." She pulled a stethoscope from around her neck and leaned over Eddie and directed her attention to her. "Hi, Officer Janko, my name is Jennifer Bennett. I was here earlier." She spoke softly and as though Eddie was awake. "I'm one of the doctors helping you and I'm going to take a listen to your heart." Putting the ear pieces in she gently placed the scope against Eddie's chest and listened. "Sounds good, Very good," she murmured with medical satisfaction. She looked back at Jamie. "Like I said, you're good for her."
He huffed out a laugh. "I'm not sure she'd agree if she were awake."
Jenn walked back around the bed. "All that matters is that you're here with her. And speaking as a doctor I'd like to also remind you that you can't take care of Eddie if you don't take care of yourself. How long since you've slept?"
Jamie held a hand up. "You can skip the speech about going home to get some sleep because I'm not leaving my partner."
"I wasn't going to suggest you leave. I think it's good you're here with her. I was going to suggest having one of the reclining chairs from the doctor's lounge brought in the room so you can get a little decent rest. We do that for spouses and significant others of patients."
He nodded in appreciation. Running in to Jenn reminded him to be grateful for small favors. "Thanks."
"And I'll bet you haven't had any real food either so I'll have one of the nurses order a food tray. Is chicken still your favorite?" Her eyes smiled at him.
Food sounded good and his stomach answered before he did reminding him the last thing he'd eaten was a bowl of cold cereal around nine on the morning. "Yeah, sounds great. Thank you."
"Don't mention it." She patted his arm. "Now, I'll leave you too alone to talk." Jenn pulled the door to the room closed behind her as she left.
His hand still clasped with Eddie's, Jamie pulled the uncomfortable green hospital chair as close to the bed as he could and sat down. He reached a hand up to her head and used several fingers to carefully brush her hair away from her face. "I don't know if you can really hear me or not, Eddie, but I'm sitting right here beside you." While holding her hand he also tenderly caressed her arm, his fingers tracing over the delicate bones of her wrist. "Funny running in to Jenn Bennett, huh? Small world. Remember that time a couple of years ago when we had that disagreement about her and I tracked you down in that bar to apologize?" The memory made him smile. "I said something about you and me having something between us and that I felt like I was flying in the dark?" He could still envision Eddie with her hair down around her shoulders telling him she had been jealous. "The truth was instead of talking about what was really going on I avoided it." His hand continued to move tenderly up and down her arm. "Somehow I thought ignoring my feelings would help, but it only made things worse. The first of a lot of mistakes that I've made, Eddie. So I think it's my turn to clear the air."
Despite his words she lay silently asleep. Her stillness in the bed was almost disarmingly peaceful. His own sleeping beauty who he desperately wanted to reawaken with a confession. "When I told you I had feelings for you that wasn't exactly the whole story." He leaned forward in the chair wanting to make sure she could hear him. "Eddie, the truth is you've been the most important person in my life for a long time. And in all that time the reason I haven't gotten serious with anyone else is because no matter who I'm with I can't stop thinking about you." His mind remembered all of the moments between them, a blur of memories that filled his heart. "Somewhere along the line our work partnership became a personal one. And its' the only one that matters in my life." His fingers gently slid through hers, lacing them together. With his free hand he adjusted the bed covers around her to make sure she was warm. "You've been the only woman in my life and I'm a little clumsy with all of this because I've never fallen in love with one of my partners before." He looked at their intertwined fingers. "I mean let's face it, Vinnie wasn't exactly my type and Renzulli is a terrible dancer." The levity made him smile at himself and he ached to hear the sound of her laughter again. "I'm sorry you weren't awake to hear me say that."
Her chest moved up and down, breathing rhythmically as he spoke. He was grateful she was alive but his heart broke that she was locked away in a dream. He ached to find her, to break a door down and rescue her, desperately hoping she could hear him. He bent his elbows against the bed and raised her hand to his lips and pressed quiet kisses against the cool skin of her fingers. "My life," he whispered, "is only half full without you, Eddie. You make me a better person and I'm so sorry I haven't been brave enough—or honest enough—to tell you that. To be there for you the way I should have been." His eyes watered and he blinked back hot stinging tears. "What I'm doing such a poor job of saying is that I love you." He pressed another kiss to her hand. "I have for a long time and even though you deserve a better man than me I want you to wake up so I can tell you all of this the way I should have and help you get well again." Only the sound of the monitors was the reply he heard.
Eddie lay silently in the presence of his words and tears. She was everything to him and was now his altar for a prayer he finally felt in his heart. "Dear merciful God in heaven." He breathed the words out as a desperate watery plea in to their clasped hands. "If you're out there, if you can hear me, please bring her back." He pressed his forehead against their hands the way he had pressed it against her after a kiss. "If it's a life you need than let her live and take me instead. Please spare Eddie and take me. I've never begged you for anything but I'm begging you now for this!" He meant every word as he spoke around the lump in his throat. "Please God hear my prayer…"
Jamie quietly prayed and spoke with Eddie through the night. Unable to leave her side he rested his head on the bed, his cheek against the cold mattress, still holding her hand, talking until his eyes slipped closed, fighting to stay awake but unable to avoid the sleep he had deprived himself of.
Falling in to the depth of his sleep beside her, he wasn't awake to feel Eddie's hand move in his.
A/N THANK YOU for reading my story and for your kind words! :)