At the Hospital
John walked toward Gwen's room, his tired mind awhirl with thoughts. After six years in Special Victims he'd seen many rape victims, but none had been close to him, and no one was as close to him as Gwen had once been. He was worried about how he might react. He knew that rape victims could be traumatized again by the reactions of their loved ones, of course he wasn't sure he qualified in that category as far as Gwen was concerned. In fact, he wasn't sure Gwen would even want him there. Maybe his presence would make things worse. Well, he'd just have to cross that bridge, if and when he got there.
When he arrived at Gwen's room, John was relieved to see that the young uniformed officer posted outside looked alert despite the hour. Just as he was about to pull out his badge and ID, the young officer asked, "Are you Detective Munch?"
"Yes," John answered, too startled and weary to come up with a glib retort.
"Detective Benson said to expect you. Sorry about what happened to your ex. Don't worry, I won't let anything else bad happen to her on my watch," the young officer promised.
"Thanks Officer … Rodriquez," John said, reading the officer's name off the nameplate on his uniform, just before he entered the hospital room.
"Please Ms. Munch, you'll really feel better if you take them," a middle-aged nurse in blue scrubs said, as she held a small paper cup out toward Gwen.
"I don't want anything," Gwen said petulantly.
"If you don't want them, can I have them?" John asked, trying for his normal wit.
"Johnny!" Gwen said happily.
"And just who are you? There are no visitors allowed at this hour!" the nurse scolded.
"Oh please, let him stay. He's my husband," Gwen pleaded. John couldn't help smiling, when he heard her use the same white lie he'd used earlier.
"Well, that's different, of course he can stay. Someone should have said your husband was coming in." The nurse's tone totally changed.
"See if you can get her to take her meds. It's just a mild sedative and an analgesic. She really needs to sleep," she said just before she left.
John crossed to the bedside table and poured some water from the pitcher. He tried not to flinch when he looked at the bruises that marred the otherwise creamy skin on the right side of Gwen's face and on her arms. The cop in him wondered if the perp backhanded her with his right hand or if the guy was a lefty. The man in him wanted to find the repulsive bastard and beat him to death. He picked up the small cup holding the pills and held it out to Gwen, giving her one of his trademark over the glasses looks. In return, she gave him a look not unlike a pouting child, and then begrudgingly took the pills and the glass of water. She chugged the pills down like a pro.
"Satisfied?" she asked.
"No, no in order for me to be satisfied, I'd need to have a bunch of supernatural powers, like the ability to turn back time and go back to before you were attacked," John said, his voice was getting agitated and he began pacing in the small space between Gwen's hospital bed and the window.
"I'd also need to be clairvoyant, so I'd know you were going to be attacked and could show up to protect you, so this wouldn't have ever happened to you," he said passing his hand over her to indicate her injuries. She reached out and grabbed his hand, forcing him to come to a standstill next to her bed.
"Oh Johnny, it hasn't been your responsibility to protect me in a long, long time," she said gently.
"It never should have stopped being my responsibility," he said in low voice, as he looked down to where their hands were now twined.
"John Munch, no one could have expected you to stay married to me, not after the way I acted, the way I treated you. It was just wrong," she said, gently contradicting him.
"Look, I didn't come here to dig up the past. I just came because I thought, well maybe you might need someone."
"And you were right, I did, I do, but how did you know to come?" she asked truly puzzled.
"Captain Cragen came by my apartment and told me that Elliot and Olivia had caught a case in Hell's Kitchen. I knew right away you had to be the victim. He wouldn't have come in person, if he just wanted me to help out on the investigation," John explained, he rubbed his thumb back and forth absentmindedly on her hand as he held on to it.
"Olivia, that's Detective Benson?" she asked, and John nodded. "You work together in the Special Victims Unit?"
"Yeah, when I moved up here after I retired from Baltimore PD, they didn't have a position for a detective in Homicide, so I took the position in Special Victims."
"Do you like it?" she asked skeptically.
"No, no one likes Special Victims, but," he hesitated for a moment, "someone has to handle these cases."
"But why you? You already put in twenty years in Baltimore, most of that in Homicide. Why should you have to see the depravity of sex crimes day in and day out?"
John looked at her in amazement, here she was, a rape victim, and she was worried about him.
He let out a sigh. "Special Vics tears up your heart and soul, but mine were already so tattered, I figured it didn't matter as much. So my staying in the unit means somebody else isn't getting torn up," he answered simply.
"I guess I'm the one that did most of the damage to your heart, huh?" she asked and a tear ran down her un-bruised cheek.
"No, Gwen don't think that," he said and he released her hand long enough to gently wipe away the tear. "When I think about us now, I remember the good times. I think about all the smiles and the laughter. I don't remember the hurtful stuff anymore."
"I miss you. I miss your clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor and your books and magazines left open on every horizontal surface in the apartment. I miss your snoring in my ear, and complaining about my 'things' being on the shower rod. I even miss missing you when you worked late. I'd go to bed in one of your shirts just to feel closer to you."
"I miss you too Gwen. I have for so long now."
Suddenly Gwen hit John, her small fist not really making much of an impression on his chest, but the blow startled him.
"Then why the hell haven't you come to see me?" she yelled at him.
"Well, isn't that obvious? I'm a coward where you're concerned, always have been, or we'd still be married," he answered angrily.
"What do you mean?" she asked, thinking his answer seemed out of place.
"When you started acting so strangely after we lost the baby, I should have made you go to counseling, but I didn't. When you started running around on me, I should have insisted we go to marriage counseling, but I didn't. Hell, I didn't even beat the crap out of the other guys, which would have at least made me feel better, but no, I just sat back and took it all like some idiotic milksop." He turned his back to her for a moment. "Damn it! I said I didn't want to do this. I don't want to fight with you." He turned back to face her. "I came here to try to comfort you, not to drag up bitter memories."
"I'm sorry. I'm really glad you came, and you are a comfort to me. I'm sorry I lashed out at you, I just wish you'd come to me years ago, before,"- she broke off and started crying.
John sat next to her on the bed and put his arms around her and began rocking her. "Please baby, don't cry, don't cry."
The heart he'd mentioned, that he thought had been so severely battered before, broke a little more, as he realized what she was trying to say. She was having a typical rape victim response. She felt the rape made her unworthy of being with him. To him that was crazy thinking, nothing that creep had done to her was going to change how he felt about her.
"Johnny, I'm getting kind of sleepy, but I'm sort of afraid to sleep. Afraid I'll have nightmares about that man. Would you hold me while I sleep? Like you used to, when we'd take naps together on the couch," she asked, in a small voice broken by her attempts to stop crying. "I always felt so safe in your arms," she added.
"Sure, No problem," John answered. He toed off his shoes and took off his jacket, throwing it at the one chair in the room. He removed his holster and gun and put them in the drawer of the bedside table. He found it wasn't quite as easy as he had made it sound, to get in the hospital bed with her, but eventually he slid himself in beside her and pulled her to him. She cried out in pain as he lifted her up a bit to place her upper body against his chest.
"Gwen, did I hurt you?" he asked, very concerned.
"It's not your fault, the doctor says I have a few cracked ribs," she answered.
"That son of a bitch, I'll kill him," he said in a low, menacing near-whisper.
"No Johnny, he's not worth you getting in trouble," she said in a sleepy voice, and then she rubbed the unbruised side of her face against his shoulder and threaded her fingers though his, pulling his arms around her like a shawl, as she drifted off to sleep.
John looked down at the woman in his arms. It amazed him, she'd always fit right there on his shoulder, his arm never fell asleep when she slept there, but every other wife or girlfriend who tried that left him cussing the pins and needles later. He kissed the top of her head and allowed himself to relax, and soon he too was sleeping soundly.
The nurse checked in on Gwen later, she smiled at the sight of her patient sleeping so peacefully in her husband's arms. Even his snoring didn't seem to bother the sleeping woman. The nurse decided not to take Gwen's vitals, as she didn't want to risk waking her or her husband. Sleep would help them both. As she turned to leave she found herself wishing, not for the first time in her career, that she were a fairy godmother, and could simply wave a wand and make the bad things that had happen to her patient magically disappear, but she was simply a nurse and unfortunately, not even time was going to make the rape go away.