(Please Don't) Wake Me Up All Night
A Magnum P.I. Fan-Fiction by Emachinescat
Summary: "Why'd you tell Higgy that I had a concussion? She woke me up every hour." In which Thomas has a concussion, Higgins looks after him, and they get to know one another a little better in the process. Whumpier tag to 1x10 "Bad Day to Be a Hero." 7
A/N: So I'm starting of Febuwhump writing for a whole new fandom! I've recently fallen in love with this show and the characters, and I've been wanting to try my hand at writing for it. I love "Bad Day to Be a Hero" so much – the Magnum and Katsumoto bonding, the whump, the emotional depth – but I'm sorry, no one gets hit in the head with a shovel – especially as hard as Magnum does – and comes out of it basically fine. So I fixed that. Also, medically, you don't actually have to wake up a person with a concussion every hour, but I'm going by show logic and not real-world logic. I guess the last thing I'll say is that this fic was spawned out of the pure indignation of not getting to witness Higgy waking Magnum up every hour to check on him. So I fixed that, too (and added a healthy heaping of angst). Feel free to read this as pre-Miggy or Miggy friendship, whatever floats your boat.
Spoilers for 1x09 and 1x10.
Also, if you're interested about my take on Higgy, please see the end note. :)
I hope you enjoy, and especially as this is my first Magnum fic, I would adore your feedback!
(Please Don't) Wake Me Up All Night
9:00 PM
Juliet Higgins was enjoying a quiet evening at Robin's Nest, something she valued as a rarity, particularly as of late.
She nestled in her favorite chair, long legs tucked beneath her, her favorite opera lilting softly from the speakers, and a glass of wine on the end table within reach. She frowned at her crossword, fingers poised above the keyboard, and narrowed her eyes at 7 across – "strips in Geography class." The solution was six letters, and it was right at the edge of her mind, taunting her.
"Damn it," she muttered.
The problem wasn't that she didn't know the answer – of course she did; she was superb at crosswords. The problem was the house; it was, somehow, too quiet.
Ever since Thomas Sullivan Magnum had sauntered brazenly into her life, disrupting her peaceful existence as majordomo of Robin's estate, Juliet's world had turned squarely on its head. He was loud, irritating, and bold, wandering around the estate like he owned the place, coming and going through the main house as often and as loudly as he bloody well pleased, stealing her laptop, sneaking into the wine cellar, and somehow roping her into his cases.
She didn't know what it was about him that was able to so easily chip through her armor, push all of her buttons (including ones she didn't even know she had), and wheedle her into helping him with his cases, all at once. She would call him an enigma, but that would imply that he was complex enough to be one. And while she'd seen glimpses of a more complicated person beneath the Hawaiian shirts, cocky grin, and smile lines edging his dark, playful eyes, she couldn't bring herself to actually admit that there was more to him than the sum of all he did that irritated her.
To be fair, though, recently she'd been having a harder time than usual seeing her version of Magnum over the version she'd encountered during the Amanda Sako case. He had opened himself – and his past – up in a way that he never had before, revealed bits and pieces about his time as a POW, just enough to be relatable to Amanda. And after hearing Rick talk about how he was often singled out in the camp, dragged away, thrown into solitary confinement for long stretches of time… well, the juxtaposition of his easy grin as he looked back at her in the jungle with the image of him rotting away in some hole made her distinctly ill. For a short time, instead of Hawaiian shirts, she saw the scars that lay beneath them, and his smiles didn't seem to reach his eyes, which were black and haunted and fixed on the past.
But time passed, and he kept needling her and pushing her buttons, and he stole her laptop and made stupid jokes, and slowly the smiles lines returned and it was much easier to see the uncomplicated, cocky man-child that had so disrupted her life.
Damn it! She finally had a quiet, Magnum-free evening, and here she was, ruminating about Magnum! Juliet shook her head free of the Mangnum-sized cobwebs, and returned her focus to her crossword.
"Isthmi!" she said aloud, typing the answer and glancing at the next clue.
Magnum was actually working with Katsumoto on this case, and they had gone out earlier to chase a lead. She hadn't heard from either man since. Really, she found herself surprised that Magnum hadn't called her in the two and a half hours he and Katsumoto had been gone. Even though he was working with the police detective, she fully expected Magnum to call her with some inane question or a request to look up this person or that location. Not that she wanted him to call, of course.
"Oh, bloody hell," Juliet growled, setting her tablet aside and practically flinging herself up from her chair. How was it that she was thinking about Magnum again? At her feet, the lads perked their heads up. Zeus tilted his head to the side and whined.
"I know," Juliet agreed, giving the Doberman a quick scratch behind the ears. "Even when he's not here, he finds a way to annoy us."
She pulled her phone out of her pocket, double-checked that the volume was on and that she hadn't missed a call. It was, and she hadn't. "This is ridiculous," she muttered. Why her mind kept wandering in Thomas's direction this evening was beyond her. It wasn't like she missed his obnoxious intrusions. And she certainly wasn't worried about him. He was with a cop, for God's sake, and he was an ex-Navy SEAL who could more than handle himself in a fight. And beyond that, she simply didn't care.
No, really – she didn't.
10:00 PM
By the time Thomas finally made it home, Juliet had had to admit that her preoccupation with the private investigator had indeed been linked to worry. The sense of relief she felt upon watching him pull up in the Ferrari confirmed that much. This realization only irritated her further, because she knew there was no reason that she should have been worried about Thomas. He'd been gone for far longer, far later, and all by himself more times than she could count. Perhaps she was still more shaken from what she'd learned during the Amanda Sako case than she'd realized.
Or perhaps she'd sensed, somehow, that something wasn't right.
Juliet certainly didn't believe in superstition or a magical 'sixth sense,' but as a former MI6 agent, she understood very well what Magnum meant when he talked about following his gut. Sometimes one's instincts could be scarily accurate. Of course, instincts themselves were built of subtle, often subconscious observations and deductions combined with a human's fight-or-flight response. In this case, it seemed, her instincts had picked up on something not right with Magnum's long silence.
Sometimes – though not often – she really hated it when she was right.
The relief she felt at seeing Magnum back, in one piece, was short lived, as the pit that had formed in her stomach reared its ugly head, instincts still stubbornly insisting that something was wrong. She squinted at the screen, watched the clumsy way Thomas moved toward the gate, watched him pause, fingers hesitating over the keypad as if unsure of the passcode that she knew he knew by now.
Is he… drunk? As ridiculous as the idea seemed, she couldn't help but consider it as she watched his slow, careful punching of the numbers. Rolling her eyes, pushing back any residual concern and focusing on how severely she was going to murder him if he had been driving Robin Masters's car whilst completely pissed, she flicked on the intercom.
"Magnum, are you quite all right?"
At the sound of her voice, Magnum flinched like he was being shot at and swung his head around as if trying to figure out who was speaking. Zooming in on the video feed, she noticed how he squinted away from the security lights.
"Oh my – you are drunk!" Any lingering worry for him vanished, replaced immediately by the righteous fury of an entire pantheon of disabused gods. "Of all theirresponsible , dangerous, reckless–"
Her phone dinged, and she paused in her tirade, glancing down at the notification. A new text message from Katsumoto. Odd.
"Hold that thought, Magnum," she ordered. She opened the message.
Heads up – Magnum has a concussion. Keep an eye on him?
Oh, thought Juliet wryly, this is what instant regret feels like.
Her thumbs flew across the keyboard as she responded. What the hell happened? ER?
She didn't wait for a response. She turned back to the tablet, only to see that the security feed was watching an empty drive once again.
"Damn it all, Magnum," Juliet griped, irritation, guilt, and concern bubbling up inside of her.
Ding!
She checked the return message: Ask Magnum.
Oh, she most certainly intended to.
11:00 PM
All of the lights in the guest house were off when Juliet arrived, the front door unlocked – no surprise there. For head of security, Magnum didn't seem to give his own personal security much thought.
"Thomas?" Juliet announced her presence as soon as she crested the threshold. She didn't know how bad his concussion was, but if he was confused or disoriented, she didn't want to take him by surprise. That could be dangerous to both of them. "Thomas?"
A low groan rose from the direction of the couch. "Higgy? What are you doin' in m'house?"
As much as she didn't like the slur of his words, she couldn't help herself from responding tartly, her hand fumbling for the light switch. "Your house? If my memory serves me well, this is Mr. Masters's house."
"It's a guest house," Thomas argued sullenly.
"Yes, Thomas," Juliet agreed, adopting her most patronizing tone. "And you are the guest."
Her fingers found the light switch, and she flicked it on.
"Gaaah!"
Thomas lay face-down on the couch, his face half-buried in a throw pillow that was probably worth more than his entire P.I. business. She really hoped he didn't drool when he slept. But then she saw the rest of him and her gaze softened. He looked like hell.
Thankfully, he'd had the courtesy to kick off his mud-encrusted sneakers before he'd thrown himself on the couch. His clothes were rumpled and mud-flecked, and what she could see of his face was about two shades paler than usual, his eyes squinted tightly shut against the light. What really drew her attention, however, was the large, bloody welt on the back of his head.
"Thomas!" she snapped, her worry, as it often did, translating into irritation. "What the hell happened to you?"
Magnum shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly. "Shovel."
Juliet blinked. "Pardon?"
Thomas lifted his face marginally from the pillow and enunciated: "Sho-vel."
Juliet's eyes did another circuit in their sockets. "I heard you the first time. What do you mean, shovel? Did someone hit you with a shovel?"
"Mmmm."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Juliet couldn't help but quirk a slight smile. "Was it Katsumoto?"
Thomas lifted his head up once more and squinted at her. "What?"
Seeing that her joke was wasted on the concussed, she shook her head and made her way closer to her charge. "Never mind. Where's your first aid kit?"
"'m fine."
"Ah, no, you decidedly are not fine. You're bleeding all over Robin's couch!" It was an over-exaggeration, but it did his job and got his attention.
"'m bleeding?"
"Yes, Magnum. Did Katsumoto not check you out when he found you?"
A weak chuckle. "Don't think I'm his type."
"Oh, ha ha. Why aren't you at the hospital right now?"
"Told you, told Gordy – I'm fine. Nothin' a night of sleep won't fix."
"Hmph." Juliet crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the obstinate lump on the couch. "I suppose we'll see, shall we? In the meantime, if you refuse to seek medical care, then at the very least, I'm going to take a look at your head. Where is your first aid kit?"
"Bathroom cabinet."
Grateful that Thomas was finally cooperating, she fetched the supplies and began the laborious task of getting a very disoriented, very stubborn man twice her size off the couch. "Where are we going?" Magnum asked as she looped his arm around her shoulder, steadying him as they walked.
"You're going to bed."
"But the couch's comfy."
"Yes, but–" she grunted as he stumbled, knocking her slightly off course, "–I will be sleeping on the couch tonight."
They made it into the bedroom, and he lowered himself onto the mattress. Wincing as he rubbed the back of his head, he asked, "We havin' a sleepover?"
Whatever acerbic retort on its way out of her mouth died in her throat as she took another look at her friend's face and realized that he was genuinely confused. Despite herself, her heart twisted in pity. The poor chap was in worse shape than she'd thought.
"No, Thomas, we are not having a sleepover, though I am going to be staying in the guest house tonight."
"Why?"
Heaving a long-suffering sigh, she explained as patiently as she could, "Because you have a concussion and you refuse to go to a hospital, and despite how much simpler my life would be without you, I don't fancy the paperwork if you were to die in your sleep."
At the hurt look on Magnum's face, she quickly flashed him a gentle smile. "I'm only joshing, Thomas. Here." She passed him a couple of Tylenol from the first aid kit, and he'd dry swallowed them before she could go for a glass of water. "Okay then. Let me take a look at your head, now, okay, and then you can get some rest."
Thankfully, the cut wasn't deep – it seemed that he'd been knocked out with the blunt of the shovel, and he'd only been grazed by the edge. Still, the swelling on his head was concerning; not for the first time, she considered calling an ambulance, but ultimately held off. All they would do at the hospital would be to monitor him, and she could do that just as well at home. Besides, she didn't think his bank account could take another hospital visit anytime soon.
It didn't take her long to clean the cut, her fingers delicately parting the black hair around the injury as Thomas squirmed uncomfortably beneath her touch. She didn't dress it, as it was so shallow. The worst of his wound was definitely where he'd been hit head-on with the blunt metal. Still, he was lucky. If the blade had caught him, he'd be dead instead of concussed.
"All right, there we are, all done." Without meaning to, she realized she'd adopted the tone she'd used with the young children she'd nannied as a teenager. Thomas sat back and regarded her sleepily, and she took the opportunity to snag the small torch from the first aid kit and shine it into each eye in turn.
Thomas's reaction was immediate. He grimaced in pain, swatting the light away from his face. Juliet frowned in concern. She'd already noticed his pupils were uneven, and their response to the light was sluggish.
"All right," she said again, patting Thomas's shoulder lightly. "No more light. You can lie down now, get some sleep."
Thomas peered up at her suspiciously. "I can sleep?"
Juliet almost laughed. In that moment, he looked every bit a five-year-old child up far past his bedtime. "Yes, Thomas. You can sleep." For now. She flicked off the light as he settled himself beneath the covers.
And so began the longest night of Juliet Higgins's life.
12:00 AM
"Thomas? Thomas, wake up."
Thomas groaned as Juliet gently shook his shoulder.
"Thomas."
"What?"
"Okay, tone," Juliet warned at the venom lacing her friend's voice.
"Huh?"
Juliet rolled her eyes for the umpteeth time. Well, that settled it. He was alive. No need to drag this on.
"Nothing. Never mind. Go back to sleep."
He was snoring lightly before she made it halfway across his room.
1:00 AM
"Hey, Thomas."
"Hmmmm?"
"Thomas. How are you feeling?"
In the soft light of the bedside lamp, dark eyes blinked open. "Higgy? What's goin' on?"
Juliet crouched beside the bed, her back aching from the couch – comfortable and expensive though it was – and her own eyes burning with exhaustion. "Do you remember what happened?" she asked in a whisper. She knew full well how even the slightest of sounds could irritate a concussion.
"Mmmm… case. With Gordy. Got hit with somethin'... shovel?"
Thankful that his short-term memory hadn't seemed to be affected, Juliet nodded encouragingly. "Yes, that's right. How's your head?"
Squinting against even the soft light, Thomas regarded her warily. "Thought you said I could sleep."
"I did, and you have been. Trust me, I can hear you snoring from the living room." That wasn't strictly true, but he didn't have to know that. "Now, how is your head?"
"Hurts."
She snorted. "You don't say." She reached over to the bedside table, where she'd placed a glass of water. "Before you go back to sleep, you need to drink this, all right? Hydration is especially important when you're healing."
Thomas blinked at the proffered beverage like he'd never seen anything like it before. Then he blinked again, slowly. Then a third time. The fourth time, his eyes remained shut.
Fear lanced through Juliet's chest, and water sloshed over the rim as she quickly returned the glass to the table. "Thomas?"
A small snore escaped, and if he hadn't been such a pitiful sight, injured as he was, she could have killed him then and there for giving her such a fright.
"Fine," she said, watching his chest rise and fall steadily. "Water can wait, I suppose."
This time, she left the door open instead of closing it behind her.
2:00 AM
"Thomas, wake up."
"Don't wanna."
"Honestly, I didn't think you could get more difficult than you are on a daily basis, but you just love proving me wrong, don't you?"
Fully expecting a confused or nonsensical response, Juliet found herself caught off-guard by his sarcastic retort: "One of m'favorite pastimes."
She couldn't help it. She chuckled as she sat down at the foot of the bed.
"Higgy?" Real concern manifested on Magnum's face. "Am I dying?"
"What? No. Not on my watch, at least. Why do you ask?"
"'Cuz you laughed at one of my jokes."
"Don't get used to it." She grinned as she watched the corner of his mouth twitch upwards the slightest bit. "Hey, since you're more awake than last time, how about you sit up and drink some water?"
It took some doing, but between the two of them, a very woozy Magnum made it mostly upright. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and steadied himself. "Dizzy," he grunted.
"Yes, well, you have quite the concussion. Here, drink this." Juliet didn't like the way his hand shook slightly as he took the glass from her, and she wasn't crazy about how pale he was, either. The moment the glass was drained, his face took on a sickly ashen hue, and she lunged for the trash can in the corner just in time. She could only wince in sympathy and pat her friend's back as he lost everything he'd eaten that day. When he was done, coughing and gasping, she supplied, "Honestly, I've been waiting for that to happen. With a concussion as severe as yours, nausea is an expected side effect."
Thomas just looked at her with watery eyes.
"Maybe next time, not so fast, eh?"
"Yeah, maybe."
She helped him lie down, his whole body taut and trembling beneath her hands. "Thomas, are you sure–?"
Even concussed and ill, he was cognizant enough to know where she was going, and he wasn't having it. "No. No hospital. Just sleep."
"Fine," she huffed. "Sleep it is, then."
3:00 AM
Thomas was sleeping fitfully when Juliet tiptoed her way into his room this time. She would recognize the signs of a nightmare anywhere; she'd had enough of her own. His head, which had to be aching terribly, tossed back and forth on his pillow, sweat beaded his forehead and collarbone and soaked into his shirt, and his limbs tangled in the sheets. He muttered under his breath, frantic, terrified, pleading, something in a language she didn't immediately recognize, one that she didn't know he spoke. Not English. Not Spanish, either.
She stood in the doorway, hesitant. She knew that waking someone in the midst of a nightmare was tricky business. With someone who had as much trauma and as much training as Thomas, it could be downright dangerous.
But still, he was concussed, and beyond that, he was trapped in a nightmare. Trapped in hell. She couldn't just leave him there.
"Thomas?"
The muttering, twisting, and thrashing only worsened. She clenched her fists at her sides, weighing the risks. Then Thomas let out a low, pitiful whimper. "Please," he said. "No more." His whole body shuddered. " No mas."
That was it. Risks be damned. She ventured forward, bare feet padding softly on the rug. "Thomas," she said loudly. "It's me – it's Juliet. You know, Higgy?" The nickname she'd once hated, then tolerated, and finally, somehow, grown fond of sounded strange coming from her own lips.
The muttering continued, a string of words, languages changing faster than the fluttering of his eyelashes. "Thomas?" She reached out a hand, crouching beside the bed. She could see the tear tracks on his face. She was well aware that this could end very poorly, but this wasn't good for him, especially in his state. He needed to wake up. Very gently, she touched his arm.
The effect was immediate. One second, he was twisting and turning in bed; the next, he was halfway off the mattress, his hands closing around Juliet's throat. "Thomas!" Juliet yelled, struggling as his grip tightened. "It's–" she gasped as his unrelenting fingers dug into her neck, "–it's me!"
His eyes were open, but they held none of the warmth she was used to. Instead, they were pools of inky black, fixed firmly on the past. He looked at her, but he didn't see her. He wasn't in his bedroom. He was back in that damn camp. She wasn't Juliet. She was the enemy. His torturer.
And he was going to kill her.
At this thought, self-preservation took over, and Juliet sprang into action. Even as her vision flickered black around the edges, she slammed the heel of her foot onto Magnum's bare toes and buried her knee in his gut. The air wooshed out of him, and his grip lessened ever so slightly. Taking advantage of the respite, Juliet brought her hands up and knocked his arms away from her neck. Before he could react further, she grabbed his right wrist and circled, twisting his arm up behind him.
Her escape seemed to stun him into submission, and he stood, like he'd been petrified, stiller than she'd ever seen him. "Shhhhh," she soothed, unsure of what else to do, not willing to let him free just yet. "It's all right, Thomas. You're safe. You're okay. I'm here."
When the trembling began, she thought he was shaking from the toll their altercation had had on his body, but then she heard the sobs. Slowly, she released his arm, bringing her hands up to rub at her sore neck. It hurt, but she didn't think it would bruise.
And then, in one swift motion, Thomas lunged. Juliet didn't have time to react, to defend herself, he was on her, arms reaching —
He crushed her into a hug, burying his face in her shoulder, his own shoulders heaving, tears pooling on her sleeve. "God, Higgy – I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Sh, sh, sh. You have nothing to apologize for, Thomas. It was a bad dream. We all have those."
His words came out garbled, his breath hitching, panic coating every syllable. "I could have… I was there, again, and they were… I could have killed you…"
"But you didn't. And honestly, I knew better than to wake a man in the throes of a nightmare, so the fault's on me, really." Juliet wasn't one to take the blame for anything, particularly when Thomas was involved, but she had never seen him so vulnerable, so afraid, so… broken. Part of her prayed that he wouldn't remember this in the morning. Perhaps short-term memory loss would be better than having to relive the memory of trying to kill his friend. Of breaking down in her arms. She squared her shoulders, and gently pulled away.
"Okay, Thomas, you need to get back in bed – careful – there you are. Here – drink this–" She handed an abnormally compliant Thomas the refilled glass of water. "Small sips. Slowly. Very good." She placed the glass back on the table and helped her friend lie down. "Okay, that's it. Go back to sleep."
She rose to leave, but felt a tug and realized his hand had meshed in her sleeve. "Oh, all right," Juliet muttered, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from his forehead. "I'll stay until you fall asleep."
4:00 AM
Juliet's alarm woke her up to the soothing sound of a royalty-free ringtone track about a half hour later. Eyes bleary from sleep, throat burning and neck stiff, she glanced around briefly before bolting upright, unsure of where she was. Last she remembered, she was sleeping on the couch at the guest house because Magnum had gotten himself brained with a shovel and needed to be woken up every hour.
Oh. Oh.
Everything else fell into place. She remembered the nightmare, her incredibly idiotic decision to wake him from it, his breakdown … and the way that he'd grasped her sleeve, unwilling to let her go as he fell asleep. He'd let go of her now; his back was turned to her, his shoulders rising and falling in time with his breathing. Thank God, he was sleeping soundly again.
She shook her head, carefully levering herself up from where she'd fallen asleep sitting on the floor beside the bed. Despite all the yoga and strict physical regimen she held herself to, her body was not going to thank her for this. She looked down at Thomas, hesitant to wake him, partially because of what happened last time, but mostly because she didn't want to disturb him when he was finally at peace. Still, glancing at her watch, she realized it was time for more Tylenol.
Gently, she poked his shoulder. "Thomas?"
"Hmmm?"
He rolled over onto his back, blinking at her with a childlike curiosity. "Higgy? What're you doin' here?"
"We're having a sleepover, remember?" Juliet teased. "Come on, sit up. It's time for more medication."
"What for?"
Alarm bells went off in Juliet's head. "You don't remember?"
Magnum's face crinkled in intense thought. "Oh," he said. "Concussion. Shovel."
"Yes, that," Juliet agreed, thankful that, for now, at least, he didn't remember his nightmare. She didn't think she could handle his misplaced guilt on top of everything else. "Here." She reached to the side table and tossed him the bottle of Tylenol, then, as he struggled to sit, reached for the glass. "Take this."
"'Kay."
"Wow, Thomas," Juliet teased gently as he took the pills and lay back down, "I have to say, I like this obedient version of you."
Thinking he was already falling back to sleep, she made her way slowly to the door. She grinned as his voice, heavy with sleep, sounded from the bed. "Yeah, well, don' get used to it."
Shaking her head, Juliet muttered, "I don't think I could if I tried, Thomas."
5:00 AM
Thomas was already awake when she next visited. He lay on his side, facing the door, his expression grave and eyes glittering in the light filtering in from the hallway. Juliet didn't even have to ask. She knew immediately that he remembered.
"Thomas?"
"Juliet, I am so, so sorry."
"Thomas, you have nothing to apologize for. It was a nightmare; you didn't know where you were or who I was, and I know better than to wake someone, especially someone with trauma, from a nightmare."
Thomas shook his head, wincing at the motion. "That doesn't change anything. If the situation had been different – if you hadn't had training, if it had been Kumu or…" He trailed off, and Juliet did not like the way his eyes stared right through her.
"Well," she said briskly, "the situation wasn't different. And, for what it's worth, I do not believe you would have killed anyone. You would have come to yourself before it came to that." As she said the words, she realized that she did indeed believe them. Yes, Thomas had not been himself, and he had been trapped in the past, but he was also, at his core, Thomas Magnum. He certainly wasn't perfect – as she so often reminded him – but he was a good man. He genuinely cared about people, and he didn't go halfway on anything that truly mattered, no matter how much she loved to tease him about being a layabout and a mooch.
The silence extended so long this time that Juliet found herself growing restless. She shifted her weight, uncrossed her arms, and then crossed them again. Finally, Thomas spoke. "I thought they were over."
"The nightmares?"
Thomas slid her an almost pitying glance from where he lay. "No, not the nightmares. I don't think that those will ever go away. But… these nightmares."
Juliet inclined her head in understanding. "The ones that follow you into waking."
"Yeah," he muttered. "Those."
Juliet opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat. The memories flitting through her mind's eye ripped at her heart with a pain she'd kept buried for far too long, and she couldn't bring herself to speak them into existence. Instead, she ventured, "Head injuries are strange things. They can affect the memory in many ways, and especially after everything that came to the surface after the Amanda Sako case…" She trailed off, not missing the subtle flinch at the mention of the case that had rocked him back into his past.
His voice hoarse, he acknowledged weakly, "Yeah."
Despite everything else she wanted to say, she found herself bogged down by a flood of emotions that she didn't understand. Some she barely recognized. Slowly, she moved forward and perched on the foot of the bed. "I know you don't like to talk about it, and I don't blame you," she finally managed. "What you went through… what you all went through… I just, I never said – and it sounds paltry, to be honest, but… I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it. And if… if you ever need to talk…"
Still looking ahead, across the room, where she had been, Thomas let out a deep, weary sigh. "Thank you." A beat. The mattress shifted as he struggled to sit up, his arms clumsily reaching up to cradle his head. Once he sat unsteadily beside her, Thomas nudged Juliet lightly with his elbow. "So, uh, I wanted to say… despite what led you to the situation in the first place, you did a surprisingly good job of de-escalating and bringing me back to myself. How, uh, how'd you know what to do?"
It was Juliet's turn to stare pensively ahead. She chewed on her bottom lip, both frustrated and unsurprised that Thomas had unintentionally breached the subject that she had decided too painful to revisit. She thought briefly of closing the subject, but when she glanced over to meet his dark gaze, the intense flood of emotions she saw there – mostly guilt, but also gratitude, uncertainty, fear – she knew she had to answer the question.
"Richard," she said slowly, his name bittersweet on her tongue. "He, too, had a bit of a past, and sometimes it revisited him in his sleep. There were many times that I had to talk him down after a particularly bad episode." In spite of her matter-of-fact tone, her soul wailed inside of her at the reminder of all she had loved and lost.
Thomas didn't respond for a long time. When he did, it was simply to squeeze her shoulder lightly. "I'm sorry," he said, and Juliet was glad he left it at that.
She wasn't sure how long they sat there, side by side, like two kids at the beach letting the waves of their past roll closer and closer to their toes, just waiting for the swell of surf and crash of everything rushing upon them all at once. Eventually, though, she came back to herself, as Thomas's weight suddenly shifted. He swayed slightly where he sat, and Juliet could have kicked herself for getting so lost in the emotion of the moment that she'd forgotten about his concussion.
It took some doing, because at this point, Thomas was so wrung out from the emotional toll the night had wrought upon him, but she finally managed to settle him back onto his side. She flipped the overhead light on long enough to check his head – still swollen, but it hadn't gotten any worse – and then covered him up with his blanket and padded her way out of the room.
She knew that Thomas hadn't come to terms with what had happened, what he'd almost done. She also knew that it was likely he'd never mention it again, that he would do with it what he'd done with all those other memories, the ones of hell, and he'd bury it deep inside and only take it out of its hiding place when he was in the midst of his darkest moments. For that reason, Juliet resolved to tell Rick and T.C. what had happened, so they could keep an eye on him.
She didn't fall back asleep after that, and began the long, arduous trek toward daylight lost in her own thoughts, fears, and regrets.
6:00 AM
Juliet let Thomas sleep the next time her alarm went off. Their conversation had lasted longer than she'd initially realized – over half an hour – and he'd drifted back to sleep not too long ago. Besides, she reasoned, he'd made it through the bulk of the night okay – relatively speaking – and the first vestiges of dawn were now peeking over the horizon.
She did check on him, though, peeking into the room and watching him sleep, eyeing the steady rise and fall of his chest.
"Rest well, Thomas," she whispered.
7:00 AM
Thomas slept.
8:00 AM
Juliet answered the door when Katsumoto knocked. If the detective was surprised to see her in Magnum's house early in the morning, he didn't show it.
"Good morning, Gordon," Juliet greeted, stepping aside to let him in.
"How's Magnum?" Katsumoto grunted, nodding appreciatively at the freshly brewed mug of coffee Juliet placed in his hands.
"Well, he made it through the night."
"How bad was it, anyway?"
Juliet pursed her lips. "Let's just say that next time he claims to be fine and denies a trip to hospital, it might behoove you to cuff him and take him anyway."
Katsumoto's eyebrows raised the tiniest bit. "That bad, huh?"
"It… wasn't good."
The sound of a door opening and closing ended their conversation. A few moments later, Magnum stumbled sleepily into the room, rubbing at the welt on his head. "Well, good morning, sleepyhead," Juliet said in her favorite, Magnum-goading, far-too-cheery tone.
"Morning," Magnum groaned. He wandered over to the pot of coffee and poured himself some. Juliet had her reservations about his drinking coffee with a concussion, but she held her tongue, knowing that he would need the energy boost after the night he'd had, and knowing that there was no force in heaven or hell that would keep him from continuing to work Katsumoto's case, concussion or not. It was just the kind of man he was – when his friends were on the line, he did whatever it took to keep them afloat. This case was more than a case for Katsumoto; Thomas would see it through to the end. And despite her own concerns – and frustrations – she did have to (begrudgingly) admit that she respected him for it.
After a couple of sips, he seemed to perk up a bit, and he turned to Katsumoto, a gleam in his eyes. Something else lay there, behind the good humor and the residual pain and exhaustion, and Juliet knew immediately that he hadn't forgotten what had happened that night. "So, Gordy," Magnum said wryly, eyeing the detective like he'd done him some great offense. "Why'd you tell Higgy that I had a concussion? She woke me up every hour."
"Because you do have a concussion, and she didn't want you to die in your sleep."
Thomas caught Juliet's eyes for the briefest of moments, and she realized that he was asking her for an olive branch. A return to normalcy. So she extended the most effective olive branch she had – their usual banter. "I told you, Magnum, the paperwork involved should you have died in Mr. Masters's guest house would be entirely inconvenient for me."
"Right, and you weren't the least bit worried about me at all."
Juliet grinned coyly, her curls bouncing as she shook her head. "Not in the slightest."
And despite everything that had happened the night before, despite the guilt and the fear and the pain, despite the fact that Magnum was about to dive headfirst into this case with a concussion, despite all the memories that had resurfaced and the uncertainties that lay ahead, somehow, when Thomas grinned back at her – exhausted, pained, reserved, but genuine – she knew that everything was going to be okay.
A/N: Regarding my depiction of Higgins, I realize that she might seem a bit... soft at times, but I absolutely believe she has this in her. I'm thinking of the Higgins who covers Thomas up when he's sleeping on the couch, who cradles him on in middle of the road as they wait for an ambulance. The one who would move heaven and hell to get him back. And yes, this is early in their relationship, but we can see Juliet's perspective on Thomas shifting as early as 1x09.
I've seen some varying discourse on Higgins. Some people love her, some hate her. As I watch the show for the first time, there are definitely some times when I feel she takes it too far with Magnum (like training the dogs to attack at his scent), but overall, the more I watch, the more I find that their relationship seems to be built upon a basic understanding. Particularly after 1x15, I can see that there's an agreement between them that they'll act like they hate each other, he'll heckle her and she'll accuse him of being a lazy mooch, but ultimately, they'll do anything for each other. I do not enjoy Juliet at all at the beginning of season 3 because of how she treats Thomas (and really because of the whole immigration situation as a whole), but overall, I do see their relationship as a kind of push and pull. He expects, even enjoys her taunting most times, and though she acts like he irritates her just by existing, she's far happier when he's around, pushing her buttons.
Anyway, all this to say that this is partially an attempt to humanize early-season 1 Higgy, but also to tap into the version of her that I sometimes see and that I love most. The potential in this relationship is honestly amazing, but both characters, Higgy especially, need to do some growing before anything solid can develop, IMO. And this is my attempt to kickstart it. Hope you enjoyed; I'd love to hear your thoughts!
~Emachinescat ^..^