It was well after noon the next day when Olivia pulled the SUV into her driveway, having only stopped at fast food joints, getting water and forcing Wrench to drink - even then he was pale and shaky, quickly dehydrating. He needed an IV of fluids, which she of course didn't have lying around her house. And so she gave up the thought of stopping to sleep, not willing to take even a few hours when it was a very real possibility she might have to deal with a dead fugitive when she woke. So she drove as long as it took for him to drink all of the water, and then she got him more, and she continued on until she finally pulled into her neighborhood. "Wait here," she told him before jumping out and unlocking her door, looking around to make sure none of her neighbors had noticed her return before going back to collect him.
He was barely conscious as she dragged him inside, doing her best to keep him on his feet cause she was too small and weak to carry him inside. He barely even noticed the softness of a bed beneath him when she laid him down in the guest room, and he only turned his head away in displeasure at the feel of another syringe in his arm before he drifted along back into a sea of dark dreams.
"Goddammit," she muttered before covering him up and rushing back to the car. She was lucky she didn't get herself pulled over as she drove to the hospital, running red lights, swerving in and out of lanes - Lorne would've dumped his phone by then so she'd be stuck with a dead body if she didn't manage to steal the IVs Wrench needed. And she stood beside the car in the parking lot thinking of why she would be in the hospital when she still had six days of paid vacation.
"Olivia," her chief said when he saw her, turning from the hall he was about to go down to walk to where she was.
She gave him a strained smile. "Hey chief, I was dropping these off," she said holding out the books under her arm for him to see. "Guess I was looking for something to do that didn't involve sitting at home."
He nodded understanding, seeing in her eyes she was still upset. "If you feel up to it I can let you back a few days early, but I'd like you to take a couple more days off," he told her kindly.
"Thanks, it might do me a bit of a good to get a vacation; I'm probably just over tired," she said wishing she wasn't lying to him - she rather liked him, he was a good man. "Well, I'm gonna run these up to the library, maybe find another one before heading back home. Thank you, for everything sir," she told him before walking away. She dropped the books off before heading up a floor, peering down a long empty hall before heading to one of their supply rooms. She looked over her shoulder before grabbing three IVs, not knowing how many he would need without his vitals - he'd lost a lot of blood and hadn't been in the hospital for two days, she only hoped he wouldn't need more because she couldn't risk taking anymore than what she stuffed in her coat. Fate had apparently decided to give her this one because she was soon sitting in her car driving back home with no one the wiser on what she'd done.
Through the night and into the next day he remained half conscious or fully asleep, and half the time she kept him sedated to keep his heart rate low - reducing his fluid intake to nearly half of what he should've been receiving because she couldn't give him everything in three hours and then leave him to get better. Which left her forcing water down his throat whether he wanted to drink or not; and once, only once, he'd woken enough to shove her hard into the wall beside the bed - she'd looked at where he lay with her head ringing from how hard it'd struck to the wall, to see him signing something frantically. It was an apology, he'd been dreaming of Malvo and mistook her for him - but the moment she cried out he turned to her shocked to find her on her knees staring at him almost afraid. But she brushed his hands aside, seeing in his eyes he hadn't meant to hurt her, before grabbing the last sedative she had and administering it to him - she couldn't have him worked up and tearing his stitches, she just needed him to get better.
He woke early in the morning before the sun even considered rising, feeling better than he had in Minnesota - save the ache in his side. It took him a moment of staring around him before he remembered what had happened after he got in the car – it was blurry and fumbled together but he remembered her forcing him to drink, helping him into the house, the sting of a needle in his arm, a cool cloth on his face. She sat half curled in a chair beside the bed, her legs under her and the rest of her body laying on the bed by his legs – he didn't think it could possibly be comfortable, but she was fast asleep.
He reached for her, clenching his teeth at the movement, his fingers just barely brushing against her hair but it was enough. She sat up startled and barely awake, her mind still lost in a dream, and she smoothed back her hair blinking slowly as her bleary eyes looked up at him. It took a full minute of staring confused at Wrench's face before she realized why he didn't look like Lorne – she'd been dreaming of the time he'd come back half dead, it'd taken her four days to get him back to health. It'd scared the shit out of her to see how much blood he'd lost, at the length she'd gone to keep him alive; she'd stolen a bag of blood and several IVs, and even then she hadn't thought he'd make it – that's when they both realized she loved him.
"Hey," she said softly before rubbing her eyes and going to the living room; he waited for her to come back, not sure what she was gonna do, before she came back and sat beside him on the bed with a notebook and a pen. "How are you feeling?" she asked him, wishing she had his vitals and his heart rate and blood pressure – all the things she needed in order to know how to help him. All she had to go on was his word, or at least his writing.
'Better,' he wrote showing her the page before looking at her to see what she'd say.
She reached a hand up to his forehead. "You don't have a fever anymore, which is good. We might actually be in the clear," she said softly, her hand straying from his forehead down his cheek. She still couldn't comprehend that Lorne had left her, that she wouldn't get to touch him like this again, that he wouldn't touch her again. And she couldn't imagine anyone else's hands on her; she couldn't even go in her room to unpack because she could still smell him – could still remember the many nights she'd woken to him showing up out of the blue after weeks and wrapping himself around her, breathing in the smell of her hair, holding her. She hadn't even been able to step through the doorway, she stood in the hall with her chest heaving before she'd rushed to the guest room to find Wrench still sleeping – and she wondered if this would ever get better, if these wounds would ever heal.
Wrench sat completely stilled at the feel of her fingertips tracing his face, at the complete lack of all feeling in her morose eyes – if her broken heart wasn't so visible he might've been able to get up and leave, to at least have considered leaving her as an option. But he didn't, at least not then, instead he sat and waited until she sighed and pulled away from him. "Here," she said handing him a remote. "I'll make you some oatmeal it's easy on the stomach and you're probably starving. This button will pull up the captions if you wanna watch anything."
She left him to fiddle with the tv she'd had put in for her mother, who stopped by occasionally when she was having a blue spell – sometimes Olivia thought she'd been born to take care of her mother, give her someone to hold on to someone to love her. Taking care of another person was second nature to her, it's why being a doctor had really been the only choice for her – besides of course she was a surgical junky, there was no other high than saving a person's life. And in the way the earth balanced things; there was no other low than watching them die knowing you weren't good enough to save them.
She sighed before rifling through the pantry for her box of oatmeal, not finding herself even remotely hungry – she hadn't eaten since he'd left. It was cliché, a pitiful display and she loathed every second she cried; but she couldn't stop crying, she couldn't make herself eat, she didn't even want to be awake. She was almost afraid of when Wrench was better, her mind no longer occupied with thoughts of his health. And even more she was afraid when he'd leave, she didn't know what she'd do without anyone at all who understood what was wrong – who understood the devastation that wrecked her completely, all in the name of Lorne Malvo.
Wrench sat in the bed reading the news for several minutes when he smelled something burning, and he grit his teeth as he pulled himself out of the bed to creep down the hall and into the main room – wary of something being wrong, of Malvo having come back to see she was alright and her completely forgetting about the oatmeal. But the sight he was met with was of her on her knees in front of the oven with her shoulders shaking, he didn't need the ability to hear her to know her terrible gut-wrenching sobs echoed beneath the sound of the smoke detector's shrill screams.
She recoiled at his hand on her shoulder, hearing then the smoke detector and smelling the oatmeal burning not knowing how she'd ignored either one. "I'm good," she said brushing his hand aside.
He hadn't seen her mouth to know she'd said anything, but her body language spoke volumes and he took a step back as she forced herself on her feet and dragged a hand beneath her eyes. "Go sit down," she told him, this time turning to him as she dumped the pot in the sink. "I'll make another batch."
He did as he was told, nearly falling onto the sofa in relief at being off his feet but he continuously kept looking back to the kitchen to see her – to see she was still on her feet, to see she hadn't fallen apart again. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, that he knew she couldn't answer – that weren't fair to even suggest asking because she was so broken – but he itched with the need to know why she mourned him. He knew she'd loved him, he could see that very clearly in every breath she took, what he didn't know was why or for how long; if he had to guess he'd say it'd been years, which mean Malvo had fallen for whether he admitted it or not – why else would he have continuously come back, and why else would he have left.
He took the bowl she offered him and looked after her as she walked back to the room she'd put him in, taking a large bite of the oatmeal and realizing he hadn't eaten in two days. She came back with the pad of paper and he waited for what she'd say.
"I'm gonna go to the store and get you some clothes, write down your shirt size, pants, underwear, socks, shoes, and anything else," she told him handing him the notebook and pen.
'I have money in an account, I can wire it to yours to pay for it,' he wrote not knowing how much money she had, only that he didn't want her going out of her way for him. But she shook her head shrugging off his concern, and he could tell from the way she opened her mouth to speak without actually being able to release the words that it was something to do with Malvo. So he handed her the notebook relieving her of the need to verbalize what she couldn't say.
'He transferred money to my account yesterday, I'm set for life,' she wrote, and even in her writing her words portrayed her bitterness. Finding how much he'd given her had solidified the fact that he wasn't coming back, he was satisfying himself in knowing that she would be fine financially without ever having to think about her again. That's what hurt the most, that she knew he was wiping his hands clean of her. "Don't tear your stitches again," she told him when he handed her the list of what she needed. "Don't even move, pee on yourself for all I care just don't tear your damn stitches." She went back to the kitchen and grabbed the pot before setting it on the coffee table so he could get more, knowing he was starving.
He gladly helped himself to more before taking the remote she'd set beside him and turning on the television, searching through the menu for the captions before settling back and eating. It was a few minutes, several minutes in fact, before he realized he could still feel her behind him and he turned to see her over his shoulder fiddling with her fingers unhappily. Tapping her hand with his own he got her attention and waited as she tried to speak.
She stood opening her mouth planning to just force the question to leave her, knowing it sounded pathetic and hating herself for how weak she felt. But she couldn't make her feet unglue themselves from the floor without knowing. And so after going to speak a number of times without actually saying anything she finally sighed and her shoulders slumped. "Are you gonna be here when I get back?"
He stared up at her realizing then just how broken she was, watching her eyes looking everywhere but at him as she waited for him to write something – to assure her she wouldn't come back to empty home. It was then he saw she was afraid of being alone, that she'd taken in the man who'd kidnapped her and planned to take her back to his boss who'd tell him to kill her, all for the sake of having another beating heart near enough that she could keep breathing. What did it matter he was murderer, that he'd known he'd have to kill her – she was in love with a murderer who she knew very well had honestly considered killing her before deciding to just leave her; it was something she was so used to, something she'd convinced herself was normal, it was just another ordinary day.
She'd saved his life, had committed a felony for him – for the selfish reason of not being alone. How could he possibly ever consider leaving her. He reached for the notepad and scrawled his answer before holding it up, showing her his promise that he wouldn't leave.
So next chapter will be little snippets of her time with Wrench, just further solidifying that they become very close before I reach the end of the year and bring her back into the show. And I know she's quite broken and a bit mopey, which will continue a bit into next chapter - but she will gradually stand on her own feet again and be the woman she was before Lorne Malvo train wrecked into her life; and then I might throw him at her again. Also, Wrench will probably be a completely different person than he was in the show because he's having to find himself as well. I hope everyone's still enjoying the story, thank you all for reading.