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I moved as soon as the grenade detonated, making my way to the surface where sweet, fresh air awaited.
I guess Danno... didn't.
I know he sucks at taking orders but seriously?
Maybe he was in such pain he just... couldn't? Godfuckchrist I should have picked up on that. I should have noticed he was totally done, no fight left in him.
He looked so dea... unconscious when they pulled him out. Cold and grey as the rubble falling from his body.
I was pulled back. It took me a minute to realise that I was. While every atom of me was straining towards Danno, my feet remained rooted to the ground because of the strong hands firm around my arms.
Cath stepped forward and spoke, clearly trying to be very soft, soothing, but damn if I could hear a word with my ears filled with the chorus of thumping blood. I lip-read the word "paramedic" as a crew of them shoved past us breathing folks.
So we stepped back, making room for the stretcher-bearers, and we watched as Danno was born away from me on a stretcher, instead of on his own two legs, bitching at me for being reckless (he means brilliant) and searching for Grace. Maybe we'd have hugged then, too, after Gracie saw that he was okay. Hugs with Danno always make the world feel a little brighter, as if his passionate sniping could be incandescent. Even if the cuddles come too seldom for my liking. Even if sometimes I'm scared to proffer one because he might get the wrong idea, or the right one.
Maybe that's why everything's so grey now.
No light, no light, in your bright blue eyes.
No colour in anything at all if there's no colour in your eyes, Danno... No brightness except the crimson blood still oozing lazily from the gashes on your leg, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to the waiting ambulance, waiting to take you even further from me when all I really need is to burrow myself into your warm, alive skin and not surface from its musky smell.
The ambulance doors slam shut, the sirens blare into existence, and the noise shoots past the cotton wool in my ears, jolting my senses to awareness.
I feel slim arms wrap around my waist, squeezing tightly, promising wordlessly that everything is going to be okay. I smell Cath's hair, her flowery perfume, so intense that I can almost taste it past the bile in my mouth that rises when I realise that --
this is all my fault