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Dakota was a man who was all too often prone to giving in to his own indulgences. He knew this about himself, of course, and had made peace with it. After all, Cavendish, for all of his flaws, was excellent at keeping Dakota’s vices in check.
The problem was that Dakota was so prone to indulgence that he occasionally allowed himself to break his One Unbreakable Rule. The One Unbreakable Rule that he could never tell anyone about the Island, especially not Cavendish.
To combat his problem of breaking his One Unbreakable Rule, Dakota had developed a subset of rules about how he could break his Rule. In specific circumstances, he had decided, it was acceptable to break the Rule.
Like when Cavendish was going to die anyways.
This was one such circumstance, he thought to himself. Cavendish had been hit by a car (again), but unlike last time he hadn’t died on impact. The collision had been far less brutal, but he was losing blood fast and had a nasty looking head wound.
The time car was just down the block, but Dakota had decided fairly early on that he would never leave until he was certain that Cavendish was dead. It was times like these that Dakota allowed himself to break his One Unbreakable Rule.
“Cav, can ya hear me, buddy?” Dakota muttered to the form that laid below him. He knew that you were never supposed to move the body in case of further injury, so he made do with holding his hand, which appeared undamaged.
“Dakota?” Cavendish’s voice was weak and raspy. Dakota hated when it got like that.
“Shh, it’s okay Cav. I’m here.” Dakota had mastered the art of appearing calm and comforting in these situations, but his insides were churning. “Don’t say anything else. I’m here, everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to fix this. I’ll go back, and it’ll be like it never happened. You’ll be fine; I’ve done this before.”
He shouldn’t have been telling him this much, but Dakota had always been prone to indulgence. This was as much for his own sake as it was for Cavendish’s.
He talked to him for a while longer (it could have been minutes or hours, he was unable to tell). He kept talking for as long as he saw life in Cavendish’s eyes. He had gotten very good at being able to tell the moment life had left them. The problem was that the life still hadn’t left them yet, even when the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics had to pull him away from Cavendish’s still-living body.
The problem was that his One Unbreakable Rule was supposed to exist for a reason.
Dakota stayed in the hospital for as long as Cavendish did. He had at least had the sense to contact their boss about the incident (they weren’t in their own time period, but the agency had ways of smoothing over the logistical issues of lacking things like insurance or a social security number) but not much else. He couldn’t even properly enjoy the hospital food, though he certainly ate enough of it.
It was an agonizing position to be in, because as horrible as it made him feel to admit it, even to himself, he hoped that Cavendish would still die. A quick trip through time and another Dakota on the Island would be so much easier than trying to take back the things he had said.
When you watched your partner die over and over again, it was easy to begin to think of them as fragile. However, Cavendish seemed determined to cling to life, and though Dakota (secretly, guiltily) resented him for it, he had to respect his stubbornness. It was like he was staying alive to personally spite him, which was the most quintessentially Cavendish thing he possibly could have done.
For an entire day Cavendish laid in his hospital bed, asleep, as Dakota sat beside him. It was torture, it was certainly ruining the mission, but Dakota would not leave his partner until he was certain that he was dead. Or, perhaps in this case, alive.
The next day he awoke, and despite everything, Dakota couldn’t help but feel relieved. And at least now there was a certainty, and he would have to face the consequences of whatever happened next.
As it turned out, he had gotten lucky, an incredible stroke of luck that he would never receive again.
Cavendish couldn’t remember what had happened.
Somewhere between the concussion and the bloodloss, the incident had been erased from his mind, and with it, any consequences of Dakota’s indiscretion. Just this once, Dakota was able to have his cake and eat it, too.
Cavendish spent several more days in the hospital (less time than he should have, but they would be able to fix him up much better once they got back to the future anyways), and Dakota continued to remain by his side.
“I was really hit by a car?” Cavendish asked him again, in a mixture of incredulousness and embarrassment.
“Yeah, man, it was pretty nasty. I thought you were a goner.” Dakota replied lightheartedly. He tried to be honest with Cavendish whenever possible.
“Goodness, I suppose I’ll have to be more careful.”
“Yeah,” Dakota agreed, “you and me both, Cav.”