A/N: so I know this has been a while, but there are two reasons for that. The first one, writer's block and I hate finishing a story, I feel like I am letting it die. Second, was just on a cruise for 9 days where I had no way to write anything or update anyways. so sorry, this one is for who is still reading this!

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

The steady high pitch sound was what Carlton woke up to. Glancing around, he saw a plain empty chair across the room, a small bathroom, a light blue curtain and an EKG machine. Clearly, he was in a hospital room.

He gazed over to the window and saw a badly drawn get well card next to a pineapple, he knew who it was from without even seeing the card's signature. Next to the pineapple were pink flowers brightening up the otherwise beige room.

"O'Hara," he grumbled, and forced himself to sit up. This caused a shooting pain in his side. His hand flopped for the help button, alerting the nurses he needed assistance, and then laid back waiting for relief.

Two sets of footsteps entered Carlton's hospital room, then he heard a familiar voice ask, "Is he awake? Does this mean he's awake?"

"Awake and in pain," he answered, opening his eyes and looking over at his partner and a nurse.

"Oh Carlton," Juliet cried and ran over to him to embrace him in a big hug.

He inhaled sharply from the pain her hug caused and the nurse asked, "Where does it hurt Detective?"

"Where I got shot," he grumbled miserably.

"Let me give you something for the pain," the nurse said sweetly, not fazed by his attitude. She injected a pain medication into his IV line and then stated, "You should be feeling better in no time. Just press the button if you need anything else."

As the nurse left Carlton asked, "What happened to the suspect?"

Juliet was shocked that this was his first question, but answered him anyhow. "He was shot and killed right after he-"

"Who shot him, was it Jones?" he questioned sinking into his bed.

"No, we don't know who shot him," Juliet clarified. "In all of the confusion no one saw the second shooter."

He nodded. "Good, any civilians hurt?"

"No, no civilians," she answered, staring at him strangely, wondering if he was ever going to ask.

"O'Hara, can I ask for a favor?"

She let out a sigh of relief, it was about time. She nodded and he requested, "Can you bring me the paperwork I have to fill out? It tends to pile up if I don't get to it right away."

"What?"

"The paperwork," he repeated.

"Sure, but isn't there something else you'd rather know?" she questioned desperately.

"If there's anything else I'll read it in the police report," he commented, dismissing her.

"Don't you want to know about-" she began, but he stopped her.

"I'll read it in the police report," he stated with all his force.

"Fine," she replied and got up to leave. She hesitated at the door, and said, "Just so you know, the hostage survived and is in intensive care, one floor up."

Then she left, and Carlton was glad, because then she could not see the tears he was hiding.

Later Carlton opened his eyes, glancing around a dark room there was a figure standing near his bed. He could not believe his eyes. "Delilah?"

"Hey Carlton," she greeted back, walking towards the bed. "How's the gut?"

She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him and smiling. He just stared back, blinking dumbly. "You're, you're fine?"

She laughed a little. "Define fine." She brought her hand to her gut and then pulled it away, showing him blood. "Does that fit into your definition of fine?"

He gazed at the vivid red blood in horror, it seemed to be the brightest thing in the room. She noticed his wide eyes and shook her head. "Relax, it went straight through, it barely even stings anymore."

"Delilah, you…" His voice trailed off, the words not coming to him.

The door to his room flew open, the hallway light flooding in. He finally got a good look at her, and lost his voice completely. She was pale, huge blood spot that kept growing at her gut, and now a trail of blooding coming from the corner of her mouth. She got up and went towards the door. He almost puked seeing the big red circle on her back. Her hand reached the doorknob, and she turned back to him.

His mouth went dry and quietly he said, "Tell me you are shutting the door."

"Aren't you even going to say goodbye?" she asked, her voice a whisper and then walked through the door, shutting it behind her.

"No!" he cried, bolting up in his bed and looking around, panicked.

With his heart racing, the EKG machine matching his crazed rhythm, he glanced around his empty room. It was too dark to make out minor details, but he could tell no one else was with him. Taking deep elongated breaths, he tried to slow down his body, it failed. A nurse rushed in, and took a look at his EKG readout. She side glanced at him and asked, "Are you all right? There are some irregularities here."

"Fine, fine," he mumbled, and closed his eyes.

"Are you sure?" she questioned, all attention now focused on her patient.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, taking a moment to decide. "Actually, can you get me a wheelchair?"

The nurse tried to start a conversation, but Carlton was in no mood to talk once he said where he wanted to go. The nurse stopped at the door, it looked like any other hospital door, but Carlton knew better, she was in there. Room five sixteen, the woman who brought so much into his life was now in there, in intensive care.

"Here we are, five sixteen," the nurse told him. "Are you sure you don't want to hear anything about her condition?"

He shook his head and kept staring at the numbers, his eyes tracing the curves of the five and the six.

"All right then," the nurse muttered and went to open the door.

As her hand reached the door, Carlton's eyes tore away from the numbers, and his heart raced again.

"Stop, stop, I want to go back to my room," he demanded and tried to get out of the wheelchair to walk away.

"Alright, alright," the nurse replied and quickly made her way back to him, making sure he stayed put in the chair.

He closed his eyes, and put his face in his hands, silently hating himself. He made sure that he asked for drugs to help sleep that night.

"I'm glad to see you up and feeling better," Karen told Carlton the next day in his hospital room.

"Thank you chief," he responded, rubbing his face to refresh himself.

"I'm not going to sugar coat it Detective," she began, "the higher ups heard what happened and want to know if any of the things that were said were true."

"What, that I had a relationship with a murderer? I went behind police protocol to carry out an affair on my wife with a murder suspect in several cases that was wanted for questioning in eight different states at the time I met her? That I knew after almost two years what she was and still continued to see her for five years after that? Is that what they want to know is true?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What if I said we broke what ever it is we were up, so technically we were not together at the time of the incident, would that help?" he asked, not truly caring.

Karen smiled to herself and shrugged. "Maybe. I told them you and I had talked about our hostage strategies before hand, and you were just going to agree and play along with what ever he said since the suspect was not responsive to the normal protocol."

Carlton turned and looked at his boss. "They bought that?"

"Of course, such a good cop like yourself, you're just following orders," she answered, grinning at him. He managed a small smile back.

"Thanks Chief," he replied.

"So… it ended between you and Delilah?" she ventured dangerously.

He glanced back towards the window and answered, "Yes."

"What happened?" she questioned.

"I can't even remember," he told her. "We fought and I called her a name. It's all a blur really."

She nodded and suggested, "You know, I bet you're probably well enough to get out of bed and take a walk around the hospital if you wanted to."

He knew what she was hinting at, and guilt panged his heart. "Yeah, I might do that after I rest," he lied.

"Good, rest is a good idea," she agreed, and then went to leave. Turning back to her valued employee, she said with a smile, "Take your time with getting better, I understand."

He nodded and closed his eyes wishing he was out of this hospital. He was getting his wish; he was to be discharged later that day.

Juliet O'Hara came to pick up her partner from the hospital, but she was not wearing her usual smile. Instead, she was frowning, almost scowling as she pushed Carlton's wheelchair. Trying to hide her anger, she clarified, "So, you haven't left your room at all?"

"No."

"How nice," she spat, anger bubbling inside her.

"Are you mad at me for something?" Carlton asked as she pushed him into an elevator. He had a theory of what would make his partner act like this, but he was willing to play dumb.

She did not answer, instead she pushed the button five, instead of the capital "G" with a star next to it.

"What are you doing?" he demanded to know.

As the elevator began to rise, she answered, "She told me once she felt like she would die without you, and now that might be a very good possibility and you haven't even seen her yet!"

"O'Hara, I do not need you telling me what to do!" he yelled.

"Then stop acting like a child and do the right thing," she shouted back.

"You're the one acting like a child with this stupid notion that we cared for each other. We were just means to an end for each other, we didn't care about each other and we did not love each other. So there is no need for me to see her," he hissed at his overly concerned partner. The elevator doors opened and he got out of his wheelchair and walked out. Turn back around to face Juliet he commended. "Now, if you know what's good for you, you should take this elevator back down and get out of the hospital and away from me."

He stormed off in the opposite direction of the room, while Juliet angrily hit the ground floor button. She did not come back up.

516. Five sixteen or was five hundred and sixteen, Carlton wondered as he stared at the door. He had contemplated it long enough, sitting across the door for over an hour. He was sick of seeing the blue plaque with the bright white numbers and that yellow tan fake wood door with its silver handle just taunting him. He needed to go in or leave the hospital and never willingly come back.

A crack and a pop panged his body as he got up from the floor. The feeling of being old and tired overwhelmed him, and he thought about the prescription for the pain medicine the doctors gave him. He decided he was going to get that filled as soon as possible.

Taking a deep sigh, his feet started moving and he hoped he would eventually forgive himself for his decision.

(It's sounding like he's not going to go in, isn't it?)

"Delilah?" he asked in the still room.

Beep was all he got as an answer. The room's only light was coming in little lines made by the blinds. It was enough to see everything clearly though. Her room appeared exactly like his only a few more machines were hooked up to her, she had a bigger pineapple and two badly drawn cards from Shawn and Juliet had gave her some yellow flowers. Pulling up the uncomfortable chair to the bed, he sat and just stared for a while. Finally he needed to speak, to say anything.

"You cause so much paperwork," he blurted out, and then quickly silenced himself, as if waiting for a response from someone in a coma. He looked at her again, and wished he had walked away.

She was so uneasily pale, the color was gone from her body, and her lips that normally took all of his attention were this pale pink that he barely noticed. She looked so unnatural lying on her back, the covers perfect with no rumples in them. She tossed and turned in her sleep, but here she just stayed still. Carlton had to remind himself that she was not sleeping, she was not going to wake up.

"You just prance around without a care in the world," he said, when he could stand the silence no longer. "We have to fill out five different forms when you work with the police department, and all you have to do is leave and go about your merry way. And now this… this whole mess is going to be an endless amount of paperwork no matter what happens. You die, we have three forms for that. You wake up and live, then we need statements and medical records and it will take us at least a week to finish."

His voice began to falter, and he glanced over to the rhythmic beeping heart monitor. It seemed to be going much slower then it should, like her body was just easing into death.

"But if you just stay in a coma that's the easiest. One form and we're done," he explained to her. Tears sprang in his eyes as he remembered out loud, "But you don't want that. You never had. You want it to happen fast, not waiting in a long drawn out coma for death. You want to donate your organs and do some good now. You… you want to leave me. You want to leave me alone."

He could not hold back crying any longer. The tears came quickly and plentiful. There were no emotions left to hid, everything was exposed. He touched her body for the first time, thrilled to know she was still warm. Grabbing her hand and bring it up to his face, he mumbled, "You can't leave me alone, I'm not strong enough. I'm not strong; I need you to be here. You have to wake up because I can't kill you, and I can't function without you. You've been in my life for seven years, I need you to be in it seventeen, seventy more years at least. Please, I love you."

He grew silent, maybe because he was praying she heard him and would wake up, or maybe because he was too overwhelmed with fear of losing the woman he loved to say anything else. Not matter the reason she could not answer him.

He shook his head when she did not respond and began pleading, "I love you. I love you. I love you. Please, I loved you since the first time you smiled, don't leave me alone."

His head collapsed on the bed, his hand continued holding hers to his face as he kept muttering the same phrase, "I love you," over and over again. He only stopped when he ran out of tears. By then he was too invested to leave, even when a nurse tapped him on a shoulder and told him visiting hours were over.

His police badge let him get all the time in the world he wanted with her, but it would not bring her back. No matter, he could wait it out holding her hand.

So I really have no clue if Delilah is going to live or not... right now I could write it either way. I'm gonna have to sleep on it and decide, but your feed back would be great!