Love
His heart stops when he sees, hears, feels her hit the landing.
What happens next is pure adrenaline-fueled instinct as he slides on his knees to reach her. "You hit? Where're you hit? Where're you hit?" he demands, but her only answer is to gasp for air that refuses to fill her lungs. He tears open her uniform shirt and digs under her vest, desperately searching for blood that he doesn't find.
"It didn't go through. It didn't go through."
The relief surges through his entire body in an overwhelming wave but it's short-lived as he notices the other officer lifeless half a flight above them.
That could've been Eddie.
Telling Eddie to sit tight, he scrambles up the stairs to confirm what he already knows - Officer Dunleevy is dead.
Jamie screams in his face anyway. Shakes him. Tries to wake him up to no avail. Dunleevy's partner Lester has chased the shooter out the window onto the fire escape and by the time Jamie glances after them, the perp is facedown on the wrought-iron grate with cuffs on his wrists and a knee in his back. They're all good and other units are already arriving to help.
He goes back to Eddie, nearly falling down the stairs in his hurry to reach her.
"The window. He went out the window," she rasps, lifting one hand to point.
"It's okay, it's okay," he assures her, his hand closing around hers. "You're good. You're alright."
"The shooter-"
"Hey, just relax, try to breathe." Jamie's talking to himself as much as to Eddie. He shifts to lean back against the wall and brings her with him, supporting her weight against his shoulder with an arm around her back.
He doesn't let go of her hand.
The ambulances arrive within minutes but it feels like years. Eddie tries not to make any noise while they wait but she's clearly in pain, keeping pressure on her bruised abdomen with one hand while her knees bend up towards her chest. She still isn't breathing normally, managing only shaky, shallow gulps of air.
Jamie can't look at her like this for longer than a passing moment without wanting to throw up.
The queasiness only gets worse when the paramedics push him away, and again when he hears Eddie's weak protest - "No, I can walk, I'm good." There's a weariness, a pain in her voice instead of the fight he's used to, and she lets them help her onto the ambulance stretcher without more arguments.
It scares the fuck out of him.
"Reagan!"
He's trailing the paramedics transporting Eddie down the stairs, and the way the lieutenant waits at the next landing for them to pass before he swoops up towards Jamie makes it impossible for him to duck out.
"Need your initial statement and then I'll have you stick with Lester, get our perp processed," Lieutenant Hyde says grimly. "I don't think I need to tell you this one'll be high priority."
Eddie disappears around the corner a level below. His mouth is so dry, he can't even ask to follow her.
He's on edge. He's so fucking close to the edge that if one more person talks to him and holds him up in this damn precinct for more than one literal second he'll tumble headfirst into the abyss that's trying so hard to swallow him.
He hasn't felt this close to a full-on panic attack in years.
He's not sure why he can't calm himself down. Eddie was wearing her vest. Her vest did its job. The department will offer her time off - as much as she needs - but she'll be back within a week, as soon as the soreness no longer affects her ability to move. Everything will go back to normal. Everything is fine.
But everything is not fine.
Eddie could have died today.
Of course, she could die every day. They never know when they'll walk into that kind of danger. It's something Jamie has forced himself to live with since that day at the Bitterman Houses five years ago shattered any last remnants of his youthful invincibility-
Vinny.
Is that what this is? Some kind of PTSD-related reaction to his last partner's line-of-duty death? Nothing more than his brain and his body clinging, hours later, to the familiar fear that gripped his soul as his hand sought blood from another partner's bullet wound?
No.
This is different.
He got through Vinny's death.
He knows that he wouldn't survive Eddie's.
She could have died today. Another officer did die today. And it's nothing but pure stupid luck that the funeral he'll attend in three days isn't hers.
Does that make him a bad person - thinking it's lucky that someone else died? He's not sure. But he does know that he'd rather be having this mental debate than the alternative - preparing for Eddie's funeral, wishing it was someone else and wondering what that line of thought would say about his character.
Actually, he wouldn't care. In a world without Eddie, he'd be too lost to give one third of a fuck about his character or the camaraderie of the Blue or anyone else's pain. He's not sure he'd even be Jamie Reagan anymore - because no matter how he looks at his life, what angle he takes, he sees his favorite short blonde fireball at his side.
He needs her.
He has for as long as he cares to remember.
He will for as long as he can begin to imagine.