Chapter 25: Concussions and police statements don't mix
It wasn't long before Kyle found himself seated in front of the sergeant's desk, going through the details. He'd been ushered into a quiet office, tiny but functional. From the utilitarian blue-grey carpet to the beige walls, it portrayed comfortingly normal surrounds. It gave him something entirely ordinary to stare blindly at when he needed a break from the flashes of memory of his accident. It hadn't helped that the police had asked Tom to wait for him outside while Kyle gave his statement. Kyle would have liked to have someone's hand to hold and he was fast discovering that Tom's offered more comfort than anyone else's. Still, the officer had been great; calming and reassuring as he told Kyle to take his time and not worry if he couldn't remember all the details or identify the suspect. Kyle had been grateful for that since his grasp on the details was decidedly shaky and with the headlights practically blinding him, he couldn't even be certain if the driver had been male or female. The officer had explained it wasn't uncommon for victims with head injuries to have difficulty remembering anything at all about their accidents, so he shouldn't worry or strain himself trying to focus on something he might never recall. If he remembered something, great. If not, they'd sort out what happened via the physical evidence from the car. It would take a little longer but they'd still be able to give him definitive answers. All he had to do was let them take a gentle scraping from the inside of his cheek and run DNA tests. Kyle had no problem with that. It hadn't even hurt.
Tom glanced up as the door between the police station and the waiting room clicked open again. He'd been watching the clock tick by, second after second. Time seemed to be running infernally slowly! There had been a few people in and out, but no Kyle as yet. Oh, wait, that was definitely Kyle's voice he could hear, getting a touch louder with each word as he moved toward Tom.
"Of course. I have your card and I'll call if I remember anything else." But he doubted he would. It had been a tough hour, going through all the details of the case, what the police knew, what they didn't and then trying to identify the man in the car from the photo. No matter how much he wracked his brain, he just couldn't remember. Apart from how he'd felt in that second. That he remembered all too clearly.
"Excellent. Otherwise I'll be in touch when the DNA results come back, or if we receive any other new information."
"Thank you." Kyle forced himself to send the policeman a polite smile before stepping through the threshold. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't make the smile reach his eyes.
Tom took that moment to interject. "Wait please, Sergeant." He moved to Kyle's side, lacing their fingers together for support. He didn't like the pallor of his boyfriend's cheeks or quietness of his voice. They'd get out of here in a minute but first, Tom wanted to hear what the police had to say.
"What can I do for you, Mr Levitt?" Sergeant Wellington stepped fully into the waiting room, removing his shoulder from where he'd held the door open for the young automobile accident victim. It was clear Kyle's boyfriend wanted an update on the case and he shouldn't leave the door propped open. You never knew when a criminal might attempt to dash toward freedom.
"Call me Tom, please." Not that he really cared about names right now. He wanted to know if they'd caught the man that nearly killed the most wonderful person he'd ever known. "Is it the guy?"
He sympathised with the man but couldn't answer that without Kyle's permission. The officer turned to Kyle, asking swiftly "May I discuss your case with him?" At Kyle's nod, he quickly filled Tom in. "Well, Tom, we don't know. We probably won't know until the DNA results come back in a couple of weeks."
"A couple of weeks? It takes that long?" It never took that long on TV. He'd thought they'd have the answers before Hit List even opened. He sighed, why were things never easy for Kyle? Hadn't he been through enough? It took Kyle giving his hand a gentle squeeze to lift Tom's mood a little.
The Sergeant bit back his mild exasperation, keeping his face pleasantly calm. Ever since CSI on TV, everyone thought they'd have DNA back in a jiffy! He couldn't even remember how many times he'd had to explain to a victim or their family that they'd have to wait for answers. He always hated seeing the disappointment on their faces. At least in this case, the young man was recovering well. That always made it a thousand times easier for the family to wait patiently. He deliberately used his calm, reassuring tone, the one he'd used earlier when gathering as many details from Kyle Bishop as possible. It usually helped families and victims to feel heard and safe, that he was genuinely listening to their concerns. Which he was. He just couldn't do anything about how long the tests would take. "I'm afraid so. The lab does excellent work but it does take time. It will be a couple weeks." Which was one of the reasons why they'd been hoping Kyle Bishop might have recognised something. It had been a long shot, though. Victims with head injuries rarely made great witnesses. Sometimes it even blocked out their memories of the hours before their injury. The few details the writer had been able to remember had at least told them it was possible this was the guy; that his car was roughly the right size and shape. Unfortunately, so were a lot of other models of car. They'd still have to wait. "Unfortunately the suspect was high at the time and while he turned himself in and is prepared to plead guilty, he can't recall much about that night, including exactly where the accident occurred. So we aren't sure whether he hit Kyle or someone or something else." In his addled state, he could even have thought an animal was a human victim, though the lab would be able to rule that out very quickly if the blood was human. It was working out which human the driver had hit that would take a couple of weeks.
"Oh. So you won't know anything until the lab is done testing?" It sounded like the driver could have hit the other man who died that night, some other victim who escaped with minor injuries or poor Fluffy the labrador. Who, Tom was sure, would have been rushed to the vet and given the best care. With Kyle unable to recall much, it looked like they'd have to wait for the science to tell them what happened.
"Unless more information comes to light, that's correct. But like I said, we have the suspect's car with blood on it, we have Kyle's DNA to match it to, so we will find out if it's him. He's confessed to driving under the influence of a controlled substance so we've temporarily suspended his licence pending trial on that charge. We'd expect his license to be revoked for quite some time on that charge alone, and of course we're hoping to add additional criminal charges depending on the DNA results."
"Okay." It was a relief that if this was the guy he wasn't going to be driving any time soon, no matter what. At least Kyle would have that comfort. "Thank you, Sergeant." The police were obviously doing everything they could, as irritating as the delay was.
"Anytime. For now, go home, rest, live your lives." He focused solely on Kyle. "Enjoy opening your show. We'll be in touch." With a quick handshake to each man in front of him, Sergeant Wellington slipped quietly back through the door of the precinct waiting room. He had work to do.
Tom turned back to Kyle, his eyes roaming across his lover's face. His colour had improved slightly but he still looked exhausted and upset. "All done, then?"
"Yeah. Let's go, please." His voice sputtered out, weariness coating each syllable.
"Of course." Tom slipped his arm around Kyle's back to rub in warm comfort as they stepped out into the dappled sunlight. "So, how'd it go in there?"
In response to Tom's movement, Kyle nestled in close, sliding his arm around Tom's waist in return. Tom was the perfect height for that, his shoulder just high enough above Kyle's that their shoulder's fit perfectly against one another. "Pretty well."
His tone was corded with tension. "Really? Because you seem upset." And he was still paler than Tom liked to see. "It is because you couldn't ID the guy?"
"No, I hate that I was completely useless, but no. It was just going through everything, trying to focus on every little detail of my memory of that night so I could give a full statement." He'd given one at the hospital, but with the drugs he'd been on and his head injury, the police had asked him to come in once he was feeling better. He guessed victim statements read better in court when they were signed by someone that wasn't high on prescription pain meds with a traumatic brain injury. Even if his concussion was comparatively mild, as far as brain injuries went. "It felt like I was back there, in that split second when I knew that car was going to slam into me and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it." In that moment over and over again, as he'd run the image through his mind, trying in vain to remember more. He pressed closer to Tom with a shudder, shattering pain and icy fear roiling and crashing over him as they weakened his knees. Tom's solid warmth and familiar scent seeped into him and helped calm the tempest in his mind.
As they reached the car, Tom turned them so he could envelop his lover in a proper hug, cradling Kyle's injured body with his own. He buried his face in Kyle's hair, needing the comfort being close gave him as much as Kyle did. Hearing Kyle's words brought everything back for him too. "Oh Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. Glad that's over." His words were muffled against Tom's neck.
Tom pulled back to connect his eyes with Kyle's, laying out his emotions for Kyle to read as an open book. The depth of his love, the whirl of jagged pain, protective anger, and blinding relief that Kyle was going to be okay. "Me too. Uh, will you have to go through it again?" He really hoped not.
"I might. It depends. He turned himself and confessed so if it is him, I won't have to go through a trial. But I don't know." Hope crept into his tone. "It could be him." He couldn't remember anything about the driver, nor much about the car. The rough shape of the car and headlights were hardly definitive or unique.
"Mmm. I hope it's him." Then Kyle wouldn't have to go through the lengthy, potentially debilitating process of a trial and he could just move on with his life.
"Me too. We just to wait and see. Until then..." There wasn't any point in worrying about it until they knew for sure. So he may as well do as the sergeant suggested and keep living his life.
"We wait. And focus on you getting better." He was glad there was something tangible he could do to help until then. Doing everyday things like cooking and cleaning would only aggravate Kyle's injuries and Kyle needed rest to recover. It wasn't that Tom enjoyed doing household chores. He disliked them as much as the next person and once Kyle was better, he'd expect them to split things equitably. Given that Kyle was apparently used to doing almost everything for he and Jimmy, Tom doubted his boyfriend would have any objections to doing half of everything. But right now, Tom liked that there was something he could do to help his lover recover as quickly and painlessly as possible. It made him feel less useless in the face of Kyle's injuries. He couldn't make them better or take away the physical pain or the trauma of the memory, no matter how much he wanted to. He couldn't catch the bastard responsible and stick him in jail. But he could still help. And that mattered.
"Yep. And think about other things." Decision made, he forced his mind away from the memory of that night, trying to pull forward something he'd been intensely curious about even since Tom had muttered something about deleting a message when he was still in the hospital. His phone was practically burning a hole in his pocket. It had survived the crash well, just a few cracks in the screen he'd need to fix but it was still perfectly useable. The seeds of an impish grin twitched over his lips before he muffled it. Despite his reassurances, Tom was obviously worried about that message. Smiling anticipation would only make Tom feel worse. At least until they had been together long enough for Tom to understand he wasn't going anywhere. Not over something as stupid as an embarrassing voicemail. Kyle trailed his hand down his boyfriend's back, curling around his waist before dropping it into his own pocket and beginning to lift out his phone. "I have my cell back."
His heart pounding as restless anticipation and icy dread began warring with his remembered grief over the slot of primary emotion, Tom reached out his hand. Gently, he curled it over Kyle's hand, halting his motion. "Wait until we're somewhere more private, please?" Standing in the middle of a parking garage, they could be interrupted at any moment. He wasn't sure how Kyle would take his message. He'd rather find out somewhere comfortable where they were assured of being alone awhile.
"Of course, Tom." Kyle took his finger off the on button and popped his cell back into his pocket. "Let's go back to my apartment. I'll listen to it there when we're alone and you're not about to operate heavy machinery." He brought his now empty hand up to caress over Tom's cheekbone, each sweep of his thumb across the delicate skin a silent promise that he wasn't going to run at the slightest hint of imperfection. "You have nothing to worry about, okay?" He brushed a sweet kiss over Tom's lips to seal his promise.
"Okay." Tom's smiled faintly as his boyfriend tried to lighten the mood a little and reassure him. He'd be calmer once Kyle had heard the message and not run away screaming. Seriously, what had he been thinking? Oh, right, he hadn't. His brain had been so scrambled by Kyle that coherency had seemed an impossibility. Mentally calling himself an idiot, Tom tucked them both securely into his car and started the ignition. Kyle's apartment it was. Just as soon as Kyle gave him directions.
Author's note: Hello my lovely readers, I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! It was a shortish chapter today - I meant to have a second scene with Kyle's response to Tom's message, but I'm just not happy with the flow of that scene yet. Since I'm trying to post roughly weekly chapters, I thought it'd be better to just post a shorter one instead of ruining that plan. Short for me, of course. It's still 2500 words ;-) Brevity and I are not good friends. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and as always, I love hearing from all of you! Cheers, Rose