The morning had brought on an unwelcome slew of mixed emotions he couldn't categorize quite yet. With his head a throbbing mess and the rest of his body feeling as though he'd been worked over by a football team, Steve hadn't dared do much of anything.
Each movement seemed to wake the monster inside, sending random streams of pain into one part of his body, then the next, causing his nerves to burn and muscles to cramp, effectively draining his resources.
But he did know it was morning.
The voices surrounding him had changed as the new shift came aboard to take over the burdens of a busy night. Their appearance coincided with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and sweets brought in to drive out the demons from the previous evening, bring a smile to somebody's face and find a measure of peace in one of the most difficult occupations.
His nausea had decreased rapidly as the night went on, allowing him some clear thought here and there. Along with it, some of his other senses had kicked back into gear, making him take in his surroundings even when opening his eyes wasn't an option quite yet.
Not too long ago, somebody had come in to change his IV and put an ice pack by his knee, the injury credit to an assailant's baseball swinging skills.
How much damage had been done would be for him to find out shortly.
Much worse than the pain from his leg had been the notion about Mike's wellbeing hanging heavily in the air since he could first conjure up some cohesive thought.
Roy had been there at one point, telling him that the lieutenant was in rough shape but expected to survive.
What exactly that meant was another question lingering on his dry tongue.
All he knew was that his best friend wasn't here, his painful absence starting a cacophony of scary thoughts to race through his weary mind, all of them enveloped by the patchy memories of the attack.
He'd seen Mike go down, three guys standing over him, continuing their deadly attack even though they were being shot at. As if witnessing a feeding frenzy of a pack of hyenas, Steve had stood there for a fleeting moment, utterly aghast at the sheer hatred he was witnessing.
Just why did they despise Mike so much and yet spared him from most of the beating? Had they not considered him a threat? Certainly, he had killed two of them, then alerted any unis nearby with a well-placed shot into a neighboring business to set off the alarm.
What exactly was it that Mike represented that had warranted the heinous attack?
The same morose thoughts seemed to have befallen Roy who'd been sitting by his bedside for quite some time, shifting frequently which made the uncomfortable plastic chair groan and squeak in protest.
The lieutenant hadn't said anything in a long time, just leaving occasionally to make a phone call, talk to somebody in the aisle or smoke a cigarette. Though his character was vastly different from Mike's, it was easy to see the same leadership qualities in either one of the old partners when it came to taking care of the department.
When he finally felt rested enough, Steve slowly opened his eyes, having to blink for several moments to get rid of the blurriness that enveloped everything.
His room was darkened, the ajar door open enough that he could see the outline of Roy's sagging shoulders, the lieutenant somewhere in the twilight zone of snoozing and brooding.
The curtain to the next bed over was partially drawn but what little he could see told him that it was unoccupied.
With a gentle exhale, he tried to call Roy's name but only managed a faint grunt.
Thankfully, it was enough to alert the lieutenant whose head snapped up in alarm, before he rose out of the chair to approach his bed.
"From what little I can see you are starting to look better finally."
"M'k?"
"They're still working on him.", Roy repeated cryptically and shoved his hands in his pant pockets, "Sounds like they are going to transfer him to ICU here in a bit so that the nurses can keep a close eye on him. And you get to have a private room on the regular floor for a day or so for observation. We're going to post a couple guards at both rooms because I don't trust these clowns that attacked you. Last thing I need is for them to come in and go after you again."
The news about Mike felt like a kick to the pit of his stomach and Steve forced himself to focus, seeing if there was anything in the lieutenant's body language that would tell him more about his best friend's condition.
Unfortunately, the light coming in behind from behind obscured most of the other man's features.
"The kid…the one that got shot…he died a few minutes ago.", Roy continued quietly, "They tried everything they could, but the damage was too great. I am having a lab tech stop by momentarily to take fingerprints. Hopefully we'll get an ID shortly."
At the ever-growing mountain of bad news, Steve huffed in frustration, then reached for the side of the bed to pull himself into a sitting position. The sooner he'd return to the world of functioning human beings, the sooner they'd get a chance to go after these kids once more.
"The hell you are doing?!", came Roy's stern reprimand, followed by a hand on his chest that unceremoniously pushed him back into bed.
"Gotta…get on my feet…", Steve gasped, immediately feeling the nausea rear its ugly head again.
"A lot of good you're going to do anyone out there…", Dewitt scoffed dismissively in return, that hand on his chest never leaving, "We've got our hands full as it is. The best thing you can do is to sit tight and heal, then we'll pick up the pieces. But in the meantime, you need to hang low. God knows everyone's too busy out there to worry about you playing it tough."
"Then why are you here?"
It was a question that his mind had formed naturally, without any second thought. And it was a valid one. Why was Roy still here when there were monsters to catch out there?
He could sense the other man hesitate for a moment, then straighten back out, using the quietness of the private room to gather his thoughts before he spoke up again.
"Because right here is where I am needed the most."