Juliet drifted in and out, allowing herself the luxury of sorrow for what felt an eternity.
Enough, she finally declared. This isn't over yet. Pull it together. She rallied then, stubbornly pushing into a seated position and forcing aside her fear and exhaustion. She decided to care for Thomas what little she could: by tracking his weakening heart rate, monitoring each deteriorating breath, and stroking his hair gently while whispering words of reassurance.
She kept it up, fighting sleep as if she could keep her partner alive by sheer force of will. Between pulse checks she distracted her worried mind by attempting to tease information out of her memory. "Where were we?" she muttered softly, shivering in the cold room. "What the hell happened? How did we end up here?"
Unfortunately she didn't come up with any useful answers, and Thomas was far beyond hearing the questions.
Spending indeterminate hours in what amounted to a sensory deprivation chamber skewed Juliet's sense of time. Eventually the tiny remaining shred of hope in her heart slipped away, lost somewhere in the darkness alongside her partner's labored breaths. She bounced between crushing despair and a bizarre feeling of calm acceptance, cycling wildly through the range of emotions over and over again.
It provided a distraction of sorts, and she was entirely unprepared to be rescued.
So when she heard urgent voices coming from somewhere beyond the garage door, she didn't believe that it was real. And when the door suddenly rolled up and lights shone into her tiny prison, it was startling - and incredibly disorienting.
"Higgy? Thomas!"
Juliet recognized the voices instantly even as her eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden light. She shook off the surprise and relief long enough to cough out a warning. "No, d-don't! Don't m-move him."
Rick and TC stopped short, and Higgins was vaguely aware of Katsumoto's voice as well. It sounded like the detective was giving orders to some uniformed officers milling about in the semi-darkness, and Juliet hoped that meant there was an ambulance nearby.
"H-he has…b-badly broken ribs and a p-possible spinal injury," Juliet managed to explain through chattering teeth as Rick knelt beside her. TC was already at Magnum's side, gently checking for a pulse.
"Paramedics are already here," Katsumoto said from somewhere behind her. "They're coming in now."
"Thomas," Juliet whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from her partner. "I couldn't…there was nothing I could do to help him."
"I know. It's okay. We've got him, Higgy." Rick wrapped a blanket around her shoulders as he helped her stand, and suddenly it registered how cold she was. She shuddered in the blond man's arms.
"Our boy's alive," TC reassured, his voice tense. "He'll be okay." He didn't sound sure.
Paramedics appeared, and the three friends backed away in order to give them room. Katsumoto finished giving orders and joined them to watch the medics work. Thomas was swiftly outfitted with a cervical collar and oxygen mask, then carefully rolled and strapped to a backboard.
Rick kept his arm around Juliet's waist as she shakily followed her partner's gurney outside to the waiting ambulance. "Everything's okay now. He's going to be fine, Higgy." Rick told her firmly.
Juliet wanted so desperately to believe it, to accept those words as unequivocal truth, but all she could do was nod.
