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‘Steve?!’
Kate whipped around at the sound of the Gaffer shouting her best friend’s name. No. Not Steve. She looked around, desperately trying to find the man in question, before her eyes landed on a familiar face. He was lying on the floor, facing upwards, staring at the sky and choking, desperately trying to breathe. She dove forward, determined to reach him, to go to him and make everything better. Steve couldn’t die. She wouldn’t let him… she had just gotten him back.
Upon reaching Steve’s body, Kate collapsed onto her knees and assessed the situation; blood was pouring from a collection of bullet wounds, the most serious of which was located on his thigh. ‘Steve!’ she cried out in a desperate attempt to keep him awake. She applied as much pressure to the wounds as she could until an AFO came forward and replaced her shaking hands with theirs. Steve looked at her with glassy eyes, and his hand fell into hers. She gripped it and held it tightly as though if she let go, he would slip away from her forever… maybe he still would.
‘You’re alright, mate,’ she soothed with an attempt at a smile, though her eyes were stinging with unshed tears, and something told her that she was lying. ‘K…Kate,’ he managed to stammer out, and the ghost of a smile crossed his features. ‘You’re going to be okay, Steve. You’ve got to be okay.’ Kate leaned in closer and was stroking his face gently, tears now feely pouring down her cheeks. She could feel him slipping away from her, but she remained determined. Steve Arnott was not going to die today. ‘I never got to tell you…’ he trailed off as his breathing became more laboured. ‘I’ve gotta tell you…’ She shook her head, not wanting this to be how he told her.
‘You can tell me, mate. Tell me when you’re well again, yeah?’ She pleaded with him, but was met with a slight shake of the head. ‘I have to tell you,’ he cut her off again with a look of determination in his eyes despite the life slowly fading from them. ‘I love you, mate…’ he coughed and wheezed. ‘I have for a long time.’ A sniffle left Kate as she broke out into a tearful smile. She pressed a kiss against his forehead. ‘I love you too, you idiot,’ she responded, trying to talk normally as she cried. ‘You’re gonna be okay, and then we’re going to go on the best date, yeah?’ Steve smiled, though his eyes were beginning to feel heavy, and he was beginning to slip into a blissful state of numbness. ‘Yeah, I’d… like that.’ There was a pause, and his eyes began to droop close. ‘We could… go bowling.’ A laugh left Kate, and she nodded, pressing a kiss against his cheek. ‘We can do whatever you want, Steve,’ she replied. ‘As long as you live.’
The paramedics were five minutes away at this point, but Kate knew that Steve was slipping away from her, despite her determination to keep him awake. ‘I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, when I got the courage to ask you…’ the fact that he was still talking to her was a relief, but she wasn’t sure how long it was going to last for. ‘You can, mate,’ she said. ‘I’d love nothing more, just please stay awake, Steve,’ she was begging, and clinging onto him at this point, like he was the only thing grounding her to the floor. ‘You’re so beautiful…’ he reached up to her cheek and wiped away some of her tears, but it was heavy and fell into her lap as the urge to close his eyes and fall asleep got stronger.
‘No,’ Kate rasped out as Steve slipped away from her. ‘Please, no…’ an AFO reached over her and carefully took his pulse before looking up at Hastings and shaking his head. The man had stood to one side and watched on in horror as his best team fell to pieces before his very eyes. He was broken out of his thoughts by a harrowing sob coming from Kate as she threw herself at Steve, clinging onto him for dear life. ‘Come back,’ she begged, and Ted took this as his signal to step forward. ‘Please, come back.’ The superintendent crouched down to where Kate was sprawled and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on, Kate, love,’ he soothed as he noticed the paramedics approaching on foot. ‘We need to step to one side now.’
Weirdly, prising Kate off of her partner was easier than Ted had expected; she stood, a trembling and sobbing mess, refusing to meet the eyes of any officer near her. She didn’t care that she was in a state, or that she was covered in Steve’s blood. She took a shaky step forward before her knees gave out and she dropped down again. Chloe Bishop, who had been quietly crying at the scene, rushed forward to help the Gaffer hoist the DI to her feet and they lead her away, the sound of sirens and paramedics calling for one another fading into the distance.
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A week had passed. Informing Steve’s parents had been the most difficult task of Ted’s career, and had resulted in him crying right alongside them; arrangements had been made for the funeral, and the family had asked that people wear blue. Steve had always liked blue, Kate remembered him complimenting her on a blue dress that she’d worn to a their commendation event a couple of years ago. He’d been flustered as he’d told her that she looked nice, and she’d taken the piss out of him for it. If only she’d told him sooner how she’d felt. Maybe that way they would’ve had more time together.
Kate had spent the first couple of days after… after what happened on Hastings’ sofa. She didn’t want to go back to her flat, and Ted didn’t think that it was best for her to be alone when she was clearly distraught. It was clear to him that she wasn’t sleeping, and she stared blankly at any food that he tried to place in front of her. ‘Come on, lass,’ he’d tried pleading with her. ‘You’ve got to keep up your strength, yeah?’ He had even tried getting Josh on the phone in order to remind her of what she had to live for, but it seemed as though Kate was somewhat lost. Ted could hear her crying into the dead of night, calling out for her partner and begging him to come back before falling into a fitful two hour sleep. Upon waking, she would be met with the bleak reality all over again, and thus the cycle would continue.
Now, back in her flat, Kate had no one she had to try and seem somewhat stable in front of. She spent her days wearing various items of clothing Steve had left in her flat, sat in front of the TV as she stared into space. Chloe was coming round on a daily basis to cook her something to eat, and although the smells coming from the kitchen were incredible, Kate still wasn’t eating. The food went into tubs and then into the fridge of freezer, so that she could eat them ‘when she felt hungry,’ but she wasn’t. The members of AC-12 who had seen her since the incident could see that their friend a colleague was wasting away, and it would seem that there was nothing they could do about it; the only person who could snap her out of this sort of thing was gone.
A knock at the door one afternoon startled her out of her state, and she pulled one of Steve’s jumpers over her head as she headed over to answer it. Stood in front of her were Steve’s mum and dad, both looking tired and sad as they greeted the DI. ‘How are you, love?’ his mum asked once cups of tea had been made; the older woman had noticed the lack of food in the flat, and was cornered for the girl that her son had spoken of so fondly. ‘I…’ Kate trailed off as a lump formed in her throat. She tried to form words, but they failed her, and instead she ended up staring at the floor, tears streaking down her cheeks. Before she knew it, she was being swept into the arms of someone she hardly knew and being held as she sobbed, heart broken, ugly sobs. She was held in the arms of Mrs Arnott for what felt like hours until her sobs eventually subsided, and Kate suddenly felt extremely tired. It was as though all of the sleep she had been missing out on had caught up on her, and she found herself out cold on her sofa, minutely aware of the fact that she still had guests in her flat. ‘You get some sleep, love,’ a soft voice said, and it was the last thing she was aware of before she fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.
Upon waking up, Kate felt as though she’d been hit by a train. She was vaguely aware of two voices chattering quietly in the background before she remembered who her guests were and sat bolt upright. ‘I’m so sorry…’ she started to say before trailing off when she saw Steve’s parents smiling at her. ‘You don’t need to be, dear,’ Steve’s dad said with a sad twinkle in his eyes as he went to sit down in the armchair opposite the sofa that Kate was sprawled on. ‘Ted said that you were having rough time of it, and that he was concerned and, well…’ he trailed off as he regained his composure. ‘We couldn’t bear the thought of someone Steve loved so dearly wasting away in the way that you were.’ Nodding and sitting up, the DI noticed a few plastic tubs sat on the side in the kitchen. ‘You didn’t have to cook,’ she said, feeling guilty for making Steve’s parents feel as though they had to cook for her when they were grieving for their son.
‘Oh we didn’t!’ Steve’s mum said with a small smile. We found these in our freezer… we don’t like curry that much so we thought that they would be better off here, where you can eat them.’ There was a subtle emphasis on the word eat, and Kate nodded bashfully. The next thing she noticed was a box sat on her coffee table that hadn’t been there before. She recognised a neatly folded pair of pyjama bottoms that was sat on top, and swallows the lump in her throat as she realised that the items in the box had been taken from Steve’s apartment. ‘We’ve been slowly making our way through his things,’ Steve’s dad explained as he saw her eyeing up the box. ‘This is what we’ve found of yours so far, and there are a few things we thought you might like to have of his as well.’ Kate nodded, and thanked them, but didn’t go near the box. She didn’t want to have another sobbing fit in front of Steve’s parents.
The couple stayed for a little while longer, talking about mundane things like the weather, and what Josh was up to at school before they eventually decided that it was time for them to head on. Both of them wrapped Kate in tight hugs and told her that if she needed anything, or wanted to go to Steve’s flat she was more than welcome to. She nodded, trying to blink back tears as she said goodbye and thanked them once more for coming over, and for giving her food. Once the door was shut, she slumped against it, exhausted from the interaction. The box of items was still sat on the coffee table, taunting her and daring her to look through it. Sighing and pulling herself into a standing position, she went to the fridge and pulled out one of the tubs of food that Chloe had made her before putting it in the microwave. She was going to need wine in order to open this box, and she knew fully well that her drinking on an empty stomach whilst depressed wasn’t a good idea.
Chloe was an annoyingly good cook, and the food she had prepared for Kate would’ve probably been incredible whilst it was fresh given how good it was defrosted in a microwave. Once she had forced herself to eat the chilli that had been prepared for her, she poured herself a large glass of wine and stared at the box in front of her. After staring at it for a few minutes, she gingerly picked up her pyjama trousers and put them on the sofa. She was going to tackle this box one item at a time… sh could do this, right?
As it turned out, she had kept more clothes at Steve’s than she had thought, though his parents had also put the jumpers and t-shirts of his that she wore in bed in the box. Under the pile of clothes were some toiletries, placed neatly in a wash bag that wasn’t hers. After she had cleared the items of her out, she found a small pile of items that had belonged to her best friend. The first item to come out of the box was a photo frame, containing a photo of her and Steve at their commendation; the one where she had worn the blue dress that he liked. They both looked so happy in that picture, it was no wonder that he had kept ahold of it. Kate carefully placed the picture on her coffee table before moving on to the other items in there. There were some ornaments that had been scattered around Steve’s living room, as wells as a few more photos of the pair of them, and one of them and the Gaffer at the pub one night. The items made her laugh, as she remembered the memories attached to them, and cry as she realised once more that she was never going to have more moments like these.
Before too long, after pulling out a blanket from Steve’s place that they had often curled up under, she realised that there were only two more items in the bottom of the box. One was a small box, that looked suspiciously like a ring box, and the other was an envelope with her name written on it in Steve’s scrawl. She picked up the small box and gasped when she opened it; inside was a ring that she recognised all too well. It had belonged to Steve’s grandmother before she died, and his parents had given it to him when he and Sam had been together for a year. This must be a mistake, she mused to herself before she noticed a tiny scrap of paper in it, reading ‘for Kate, when I eventually build up the courage.’ The tears were falling again before she knew it, and she carefully pulled the ring out of its box before slipping it onto one of her fingers. It fit like a glove, she noticed and smiled sadly through the tears. She then turned her attention to the envelope, and opened it with shaking hands.
Dear Kate,
You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to write this, just in case anything should happen to me. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry for leaving you behind, but hopefully by now you know just how much you mean to me. Kate, for the longest time you were the reason I got out of bed in the morning. You’ve been my best mate since day one, and for that I’ll always be grateful.
It’s no secret that I think the world of you, mate. You’re kind, smart, beautiful, and that’s just the start of it all. Please be happy if you’ve found this and I am gone. You deserve to be happy more than anyone else in the world and I don’t want a silly sod like me doing something stupid to stop you from being happy.
I’m sorry this isn’t any longer. You know I’m not great with words, and it’s probably best if I keep things short and sweet. I love you, and I hope that you can be happy. I’m just about to go round yours for a curry actually, and I can’t wait to see your gorgeous smile.
All my love,
Steve xx
Kate finished reading the letter, and her hands were trembling; tears streamed down her face as she set it to one side. She picked up the blanket that had been in the box and wrapped it around her, relishing the comforting smell of Steve that it still carried. She would continue to grieve today, grieving was healthy. Tomorrow was a new day, and she would try to face it with as much strength as she could, knowing that she had a support network behind her that would hold her up when she needed help.
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The funeral took place three weeks after Steve’s death. It had been a relatively large event, with all of AC-12 turning up, as well as people Steve had worked with before he had joined their unit. He also had a fairly large family, far larger than Kate’s at any rate, and they all took up one side of the crematorium. Steve’s parents had offered her a seat near the front of the place, but she had politely declined, instead offering it up to one of Steve’s cousins instead. She took her seat beside Ted and Chloe a little further back, and prepared for what was to come.
She’d expected to cry, and cry she did, but it was different this time. Unlike in the week after Steve’s death where she had felt like the ground was about to swallow her whole, she cried today alongside her friends as she bid goodbye to someone she loved, but it didn’t feel as though the world was ending any more. Kate chose to walk to the pub where the wake was been held despite the light drizzle; as she made her way through the park, she paused at the side of the lake as the sun came out, and the rain stopped. Kate took a deep breath and smiled properly for the first time in three weeks. She would always mourn the loss of the man she loved, her best mate, but no matter how dark her darkest days were, she knew that brighter days were on the horizon. She was going to be okay.