A/N: Hey guys! This is a bit of a pull-along chapter but I hope you enjoy anyways! I promise more action in the next chapter. Enjoy!
Rose was, essentially, the last thing he could really remember.
She was pushing on his chest with her hands and it was burning, aching, exploding with surge after surge of what could only be described as unadulterated agony.
Anything he'd experienced before didn't compare. Skinned knees, a cut from a kitchen knife, burning his hand on the stove, stubbing his toe – it all meant nothing compared to this.
This was basically hell.
The back of his skull had been pushing into the gravel beneath him as hard as possible in a lame attempt to divert some of the pain. He'd read somewhere once that that helped with pain. Get stabbed in the hand? Kick yourself in the shin. That was the theory.
The theory, though, wasn't exactly working too well for him. He still wanted to be run over by a stampede of horses. Or maybe get his hand caught in the garbage disposal of a sink. That'd be far more preferable to this horror.
Because that's what it was, really – a horror. It was a nightmare and even as he felt his head being lifted from the hard pavement and being placed in her lap instead, it didn't get better.
He could just barely register her tears falling on his skin. The last thing he heard was her talking to him, excruciatingly incomprehensible words that he wished he could make out. And that he wished he could reply to. More than anything.
John felt useless, in a way.
Surely he could lift a hand, move his mouth, just do something instead of just lying here. His eyes were shutting but it was as if he had no real control over his body, like a puppet.
One of Rose's hands moved from his chest to call the police. At least, that's what it sounded like she was doing.
His chest was tearing itself apart. Or maybe it was his stomach. Or maybe it was his limbs or his head. He couldn't really tell what hurt anymore – it was taking over his body like some sort of virus.
As much as he fought to keep his eyes open they remained closed, so he relied only on what he could feel to try and distract himself from the pain.
(The 'distracting himself from the pain' strategy – that was half something he'd read and half common sense, but it was proving to be impossible).
He'd always imagined blacking out as being an instantaneous sort of thing. Light, life, luminescence, and then black. But he was wrong. It was more of a slow process. First his body shut down, then his eyes shut down, and all that was left was his thoughts racing like a jet plane.
Panic.
He knew what that was. He knew panic on an intimate level.
He knew he shouldn't let it in but it was impossible because he was dying, he was certain he was dying. He was dying quickly and Rose was crying and Jimmy bloody Stone had shot him.
He was going to die. Of course he was going to die. He'd been shot. He didn't know where it had hit him, but he'd been shot.
They'd just started this thing. Him and Rose. This wonderful thing and it had to go and be ruined by this.
It would have been laughable, really, had it not hurt so much.
He could tell Rose about it later.
Maybe he could tell Rose about it later.
Hopefully.
Possibly.
No, he liked the 'maybe' better - it sounded more optimistic. Normally, John thought of himself as a realistic person, not necessarily leaning towards the pessimistic or the optimistic side unless it suited him.
But this could, most likely, be considered a special case.
John wished he could say he had been a hero. He wished that he could say he had pushed Rose out of the way knowing that he would get shot instead, or that he hadn't cared that he would die so long as she would live, or that he took the bullet out himself bare-handed like some sort of a hero in a movie.
Quite honestly, the only thing that he could think was how much it hurt. Whether or not he was a hero, he wasn't sure. He had registered Jimmy firing the gun and, yes, he had pushed Rose out of the way, but he had had no idea that he would get shot instead of her.
(He thinks he would have still pushed her, though, had he known that he'd get shot instead. Quite honestly he would do it again, and again, and again to save her without hesitation. Did that make him a hero? John wasn't really sure.)
Four months ago
"Jimmy?" Rose called as she knocked loudly on the door. She could hear music blaring and some of the neighbors in the lobby had told her that they were going to call the police unless it was turned off – immediately. "Jimmy, open the door."
The door swung open and Jimmy stood there, looking as though he'd been hit by both a tornado and a kamikaze in the last hour. "What?"
Rose stomped past him into the room and grabbed the stereo's remote before hitting the off button and slamming the remote back on the counter, the noise echoing around the room. "Neighbors are complaining. What the hell are you doing in here?"
She looked around at the wrecked flat. Crushed up red Solo cups lay across every surface and beer and wine and everything in-between was splattered across the carpet. "Were you having a party by yourself?"
Jimmy ran a hand over his face. "I don't need your interrogation right now, Rosie. I wanted a break - I was stressed out, alright?"
Rose picked up a bag off of the nightstand. "So you got weed? To what, de-stress you? Well I sure hope that worked."
"I didn't put that there," he argued. "Someone else brought it."
Rose rolled her eyes. "It's still in your flat. Do you think the police will care that someone else brought it? And the neighbors were going to call the cops on you, Jimmy. They probably still could. They might have already."
He didn't say anything.
She took another step closer to him. "What are you thinking? Do you want to go to prison or are you just a stupid-"
He slapped her. Rose winced and her hand flew to her cheek, staring at him in shock.
"I said I was stressed, Rose. I wasn't thinking. So stop nagging me, alright?"
She let out a sharp breath and rubbed at her cheek. She felt tears beginning to pool in the bottoms of her eyes so she stepped further into the flat to turn away from him. Rose didn't know what he would do if he saw her starting to cry, and she didn't particularly want to find out.
"Right. Stressed," she breathed when she trusted herself enough to talk without having a break down.
"Now help me clean up?" Jimmy asked, though she knew it was more along the lines of a command.
Rose picked up the bag of weed and nodded. "'Course I will."
Present
"I need you to describe in detail exactly what happened," the police officer said.
He was wearing a black cap on top of his head and there was a pen clutched in his meaty fist. A clipboard rested in his lap with a few forms attached to it – each bare. His features were set in a sympathetic sort of look, and Rose wished she could wipe that look off of his face, preferably with her fist. She knew it wasn't the officer's fault, but she wanted someone in the proximity to blame, and he just happened to be sitting here.
Rose sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "It's sort of blurry."
The officer clicked his pen. "Can you give me a brief description? Anything?"
Everything was blurry, she hadn't lied. She'd seen John taken away in an ambulance while she was screaming and crying, and then they'd drive her to this hospital and had told her that she just needed to wait when she'd asked to see John frequently.
"I want to see him," Rose said quietly. "Even if he's..." She swallowed and stared down at the floor.
How the hell had this happened to her? Everything felt as if it wasn't real. As if she'd wake up at any time away from this nightmare. Even the ground beneath her feet felt as though it was made of Jell-O. Her head was pounding.
She took in a sharp breath and shook her head, trying to compose herself so she wouldn't cry more. She was fairly certain she was out of tears, anyways. "I just want to see him. Do you understand?"
The officer clicked his pen again, offering a short nod. "I understand, miss, but he's in the emergency room right now."
"I don't care," Rose stated obstinately. "I need to see him."
"Ma'am do you know what happened out there?" Another click.
Rose shook her head. "Listen, I know what happened, but-"
"With all due respect, can you please tell me, ma'am?" The officer said with one eyebrow perked up.
She groaned and shoved several strands of hair out of her face. "Jimmy shot him. Jimmy Stone. The lady told me he's going to go to prison for a long time."
Another click. "What lady?"
"I don't know. Does it matter? Some lady who was talking to me while John... While he… John…" Rose felt nausea swirling around in her stomach and she slumped back into the uncomfortable chair she was sitting in, trying to settle it.
She could feel her breathing growing heavy again and white spots were starting to blur her vision. The world was spinning while she was standing still, as if it was trying to topple her.
The officer grabbed a trash bin and brought it over to her. Rose leaned over and vomited, feeling tears stinging her eyes as she did so. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she looked at the officer again blurrily.
When she was done, the officer set down the bin and ran a hand through his short, cropped black hair. "I'll let you wait here until he's stabilized. Then someone should come out and give you the okay to see him. That's the normal procedure for this sort of things. I'll need to talk to you later, though. Alright, miss?"
She nodded and he left his clipboard and pen on the seat where he had been. Rose picked up the pen, made her fist into a ball, and chucked it across the room as hard as she could. The satisfaction that she got from the sound of it hitting the wall was minimal at best, but at least it was something.
It felt like ages before someone finally entered the room. It was a woman with short brown hair and glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She was wearing a white coat and Rose assumed she must be a nurse. Rose stood up immediately and walked up to her, heart pounding hard in her chest. She felt faint but managed to keep herself on her feet. "Is he okay? How is he?"
"He's okay so far," the nurse said, her voice quiet. "He's not quite stabilized yet..."
"Should he be? Is he going to be?"
The nurse licked her lips and pushed her glasses up on her nose. Rose had seen John do that before whenever he read. She felt a little more nausea rising up in her stomach. "It's up to him in the end, I'm afraid. If he stabilizes, there's a very good chance he's going to live. If not..."
Rose nodded slowly and sunk down into the chair again, eyes pleading the nurse not to elaborate. She couldn't hear them say die. Wouldn't. He wouldn't die. John wouldn't die.
"Is there anyone we should call?" the nurse asked.
"His... John's phone was in his pocket. When he... Um, can you give me his phone? I can call his family from there."
"We have on record that John Smith has no immediate living family," the nurse explained as gently as possible.
"Family friends," Rose clarified. "Practically his family."
The nurse smiled understandingly. "Names?"
"Wilfred Mott and Donna Noble."
She scribbled something down on her clipboard. "We'll bring you his phone, that is, if you'd like to make the call. If not, we can have-"
"I'll make the call," Rose assured her. "I'll... It'd be best for me to do it."
She got John's phone and clicked on Donna's contact, before pressing it close to her ear and taking in a breath.
Donna picked up on the third ring. "John? Listen, if you need more relationship advice, I'm going to have to take a rain check, because..."
Rose closed her eyes and winced. "Donna, it's me."
Donna laughed. "Oh, that's embarrassing. For him, I guess. Where's John?"
"Are you...?" Rose had no idea how to do this. No idea. "Are you sitting down?"
"I'm in the living room," Donna said slowly. "Wilf is upstairs."
"Right," Rose breathed. "Listen, Donna. John is... He's in the emergency room. I'm here, too. He got..."
Before she could finish, she heard Donna yelling up the stairs for Wilfred to come down. Donna spoke back into the phone, her voice anxious. "What do you mean he's in the emergency room? Is this some kind of prank?"
Rose sniffed and ducked her head. "He got shot. They... They think he's going to be all right but they're not sure yet. Oh god, Donna, it's all my fault."
"Rose, slow down. Who shot him?" Donna demanded. "How did he even get shot?"
"Jimmy. Jimmy Stone," Rose gasped, wiping madly at her cheeks to get rid of tears. "I'm so sorry, Donna. I'm so sorry."
"Oh, sweetheart," Donna said after a moment. "He'll be all right." Rose could tell Donna was trying to comfort her, but she could also tell that Donna was crying on the other end. Her words were slurring together and her voice quieter than the blunt woman that Rose had come to know. "He's stubborn, that one. He wouldn't… You know."
Rose nodded, sniffing. "They won't let me see him and I just... Can you? Could you both come?"
"We'll leave right away," Donna promised. "What hospital is it?"
"What blood type is he again? Nurse!"
"He's O negative," a nurse called over her shoulder. She put a cold pad on the man's forehead and patted it gently. His hair was long and drooping over his forehead so she pushed it back with her other hand. "He needs more blood."
"I'll grab some more," another nurse offered.
"The girl who came with him wants to see him," a third nurse said, bursting into the room.
The doctor shook his head. "Not until he's stabilized. What's her affiliation?"
The nurse pursed her lips. "Girlfriend."
"Not family, then. Tell her she'll have limited access, but nobody can see him until he's steady anyways," the doctor instructed.
"He has no living family," the nurse reminded him.
"Marie, I'm trying to save his life. I don't care if his girlfriend wants to see him - she can wait if she wants him to live."
Marie nodded obediently and rushed out of the room.
The nurse with the cool washcloth in her hand heard a quiet whimper and saw the patient moving his lips slowly, smacking them together. "He needs more anesthesia, he's coming to. Hey, John, you're going to be all right. We got the bullet out of you. Stay calm, okay?"
The nurse entered the room again and Rose stared at her impatiently. "Can I..."
"The doctor said that you're going to have limited access to him," the nurse said quietly – almost regretfully. "Since you're not family. But either way, he's still not..."
"Don't tell me I have limited access to him," Rose snapped. "He has no other family, and I am going to be there when he wakes up. I don't care what you or any doctor says - I will be there. Do you know why?" she asked, her firm voice only holding a barely-there quiver.
The nurse shook her head, looking puzzled and a little bit scared.
"Because he would be there for me," Rose wept, burying her face in both of her hands. "If it was me in there, he'd be helping somehow. I'm useless. I don't know what to do for him."
She heard the nurse sitting down beside her and felt an arm wrapping around her side. "Between you and me, I think he's going to be fine."
Rose sniffled and looked at her through puffy red eyes. "I'm sorry - I was being mean. None of this is your fault; I shouldn't be taking it out on you. It's not fair of me."
"It's already forgotten," the nurse promised. "Do you want to know something?"
Rose frowned. "What?"
"A lot people in the emergency room - do you know why they die?"
Rose opened her mouth to say something along the lines of, perhaps this isn't the most optimistic conversation that we could be having, but closed it when she realized she did want to know what the nurse was going to say.
The nurse gave a small smile. "It's because they have nobody to live for."
She didn't quite know what to say to that. "So you think…?"
"I'm not supposed to make promises," the nurse explained. "But if I had to make a bet, I'd say he's going to live."
"Does he have any allergies or medical conditions?" a woman asked, stepping into the room and looking from Rose to Marie and then back again.
Rose sniffled. "Aspirin. He can't have aspirin - did you give him any?"
The nurse frowned and shook her head. "No, we didn't. Anything else?"
Rose licked her lips. "He's just healthy. Really healthy." She let out a short laugh and wiped at her eyes, "Like a bull."
The woman smiled. "Good. That'll help him out, I bet."
The nurse named Marie hugged Rose again while the other one left the room. "See? Sounds like he's going to be fine."
Rose laughed. "Donna - his friend - she told me he's too stubborn. Donna, is, uh, on her way. With her grandfather. Practically his grandfather."
"Good," the nurse said, rubbing her shoulder. "I'm going to get back into the emergency room, there's always something to do in there. Will you be okay in here by yourself? I can always send someone else in."
Rose sniffed again and shook her head. "No, I'll be fine. Um, if he..." She swallowed. "Tell him I love him, would you? Even if he's, I don't know, not awake... Just tell him for me?"
Marie nodded. "Of course I will."
"Oh, Rose," Donna said as she rushed into the room, pulling Rose in for a tight hug.
Rose wasn't sure what seeing Donna and Wilfred stirred in her, but she almost immediately began crying into Donna's shoulder. She clutched at the fabric of Donna's purple jacket and hugged her tight.
Pain filled her entire body and she wanted to collapse and never get back up. Or she wanted to shrink until she was practically invisible and get stepped on again and again just to put herself out of this misery.
She couldn't breathe and her heart wasn't working properly and her throat was getting that horrible lumpy feeling that she got whenever she was upset except it was worse than it had ever been before. Rose was certain that getting stabbed would be less painful than this. She felt like she hadn't slept in centuries, which wasn't helping, either.
And god, John.
She missed him. She missed him like you'd miss an arm or a leg or any piece of yourself.
That stupid smile that he got whenever he was excited. His stupid eyes that practically sparkled when he was happy. His stupid hair that she liked to ruffle and run her fingers through and that she knew he loved to shampoo and condition with expensive products even if he'd never admit it. His dumb jokes.
Everything. All of him.
She remembered just two days ago when she'd held him at his parents' grave while he sobbed into her shoulder. Remembered the way he felt in her arms and how she knew he didn't want her to see him cry but he couldn't quite stop himself anyways.
Rose looked at Donna again. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. He… John pushed me… and then Jimmy… And then the ambulance came and then... And..." Her words were coming out more like random, short syllables than actual comprehendible sentences but she couldn't bother to make sense of them.
Donna made little shushing noises as her hands moved up and down her back. "It's all right. Nobody's blaming you, Rose. It's that absolute prat Jimmy's fault, yeah?"
Rose nodded. "I want to see him, Donna. I need to see him so bad."
"They won't let you still?" Donna asked.
"Not until he's stabilized," Rose cried as she pulled Wilfred in for a hug next.
Wilfred smiled sadly as he sat down in a chair. "Let me tell you a story, Rose."
She stared at him and pursed her lips. "A story?"
"When John was five years old, he was at the top of the staircase in our house. You know the one. With the wood."
Rose did. She nodded slowly and sunk down into a chair, not sure at all where this was going.
"Well, I was sitting in the kitchen, when all of a sudden I heard this bonking noise."
Rose let out a breathy laugh and wiped at her eyes again.
"He had fallen down the stairs. All the way down the stairs - even around the corner. Don't even ask me how he managed that, he was a special one."
"A very special one," Donna added with a good-natured eye roll.
"Anyways, I was scared out of my wits," Wilfred continued. "I ran over to him and picked him up but he wouldn't open his eyes, so I called the police and told them I needed an ambulance," Wilfred explained.
The smile was wiped from Rose's face as she stared at him, sniffling.
"But the moment the ambulance came, he opened his eyes and stared right up at me. And you know what he did?" Wilfred asked, grabbing Rose's hand in his own.
Rose shook her head. "What?"
"He started giggling. Uncontrollably giggling as we heard the ambulance pull up to our building," Wilf laughed, shaking his head.
Rose let out another shaky laugh and squeezed Wilf's hand. "Really?"
"I don't know if he was faking being hurt, or if he just found it funny," he said.
"Explains why his head is funny now, though," Donna sighed affectionately, shutting her eyes.
Wilfred sighed and hugged Rose again. "He'll be fine. Probably more worried about you than himself, I'll bet."
Marie entered the waiting room again, shutting the door behind her.
Rose looked up. "Is he?..."
Marie nodded, a huge grin breaking out across her features. "He's in a steady condition, now. The doctor said he thinks he's going to be just fine."
Rose hugged her tight, turning around slowly. "Thank you," she mumbled into Marie's shoulder. "Thank you thank you thank you. A thousand times, thank you."
She turned around to where Donna and Wilfred had fallen asleep in their chairs.
"Better to let them sleep," the nurse said. "You can tell them right when they wake up, but it's completely up to you, of course."
Rose nodded. "You're right, they need sleep." She started walking towards the door but Marie shook her head.
"You still can't go in there. I'm sorry," she said.
Rose's face fell. "Why not?"
"He's stabilized," Marie explained, "but not awake. And the doctor doesn't want him having visitors yet, while he's still caring for him."
"How long?" Rose asked.
"I can't say," the nurse said apologetically.
Rose bit her lower lip. "Tell me as soon as I can come in?"
Another sympathetic smile. "I will."
"He's trying to say something," a nurse with a nametag reading 'Polly' said from the patient's bedside while the doctor worked on giving him more blood. "But he's still asleep."
The doctor raised an eyebrow, not paying too much attention to the nurse. "Nonsense or actual words?"
"Mostly nonsense, a few words maybe. I can't really make most of it out," the nurse explained, brushing his hair out of his forehead again. "Must talk in his sleep."
She made quiet soothing sounds as he started muttering aimlessly again, his head pressing into the pillow. Polly brushed her fingers through his hair repeatedly and he started to calm down a bit. Giving him an affectionate smile, she continued her ministrations.
"Developing a crush on the patient, Polly?" the doctor asked with a coy smile.
Polly just rolled her eyes at that and continued what she was doing. "John, you're going to be all right," she said quietly. "Just hold on, okay?"
Four months ago
"Get up," Jimmy said, nudging Rose's arm. "We've got to go."
"Go where?" Rose groaned. "I don't want to get up."
He laughed. "Too bad. We're heading to that party I told you about a few days ago."
Rose sighed and buried her head in the soft, white pillow. "The one at, um..." She snapped her fingers, trying to remember.
"Yankovich's place," he reminded her. "Go put on makeup, we're leaving in twenty."
She sat up, keeping the blankets clutched to her chest. "Alright."
Rose got out of bed and got dressed in some of the clothes she had stored in his closet - a simple red dress with flats that matched. She put on white stockings to go with it and did her hair up in a simple bun - she wasn't feeling fancy today, and she'd been to a Yankovich party before - they were basically just an excuse to drink and, for some, to have sex with strangers. Nobody cared about the formalities.
"Makeup," Jimmy reminded her when he entered the living room. He let out a short laugh as his eyes raked her form, eyebrows shooting up when he caught sight of her red dress with the white stockings. "You look like a candy cane. That's okay, though, the dress is sexy."
"I was thinking I'd just go like this," she said quietly, gesturing towards her face. A pounding headache was distracting her from whatever else it was he was saying.
Jimmy made a face, as if she had just said the thickest thing in the world. "Rose, you need makeup. It's a party, obviously. Come on, hurry; we don't have a lot of time unless we want to be late. And I am not going to be later than five minutes."
She nodded and walked into the bathroom, smoothing down her dress as she did so.
He was right, after all. It was a party, and nobody showed up to a party without makeup – even if it was a Yankovich party. Rose looked at her reflection in the mirror. Yeah, she'd need a lot of concealer for those bags under her eyes.
Maybe she should change the dress, too. And do her hair a little nicer.
A/N: Be sure to leave a review to tell me what you think! I always appreciate it! :D