Work Text:
Getting a call from David in the middle of the workday was a rare occurrence as you both were incredibly busy people, so when your phone came alive in the middle of a meeting, and you saw his name on the screen you got a little worried. You quickly excused yourself from the others and went to your office to answer the call.
“Hey baby, everything o-” You stopped mid-sentence as you heard the ragged breathing on the other side of the line. “David?” There were a couple seconds of silence.
“I’m… okay love. I just… just needed to hear your voice.” You knew he wasn’t fine; you could feel it in your heart and in your soul, he had had closed calls before but this one seemed different, worse.
“What’s going on? Are you hurt?” You tried to keep your voice calm, you didn’t need him to worry about you, you needed him to focus on himself.
“Just a scratch.” But just a scratch doesn’t fill your voice with pain, just a scratch doesn’t make your breaths uneven, just a scratch doesn’t make you call the person you love just to hear their voice.
“Where are you?” You asked, your voice coming out weaker than you had intended.
“Ambulance is on its way.”
“Tell me where you are David, I’ll go there.”
“I don’t want you to come in case-” In case he doesn’t make it you realized, he doesn’t want the last image you have of him be the one of a corpse lying on a pool of blood, but you already had that image, it was too late.
“Just please tell me where you are.”
“I just… just need to hear your voice.” You gave up on asking his location, if this was really the end you didn’t want his last memory to be one of fighting. There was coughing on his side of the line, and if you had learned something from watching so many movies was that coughing when injured was never a good sign.
“David, baby, please just stay with me, please stay awake.” You were on the verge of tears.
“Remember… first time we… met?” He asked each word quieter than the previous one.
“Yes.”
“You told…me every- everything you wanted to do.” More coughing that made you want to scream at him to stop talking, to keep his energy but you knew it was important for him to tell you this. “Promise me you’ll… go and do it… even if I’m gone.”
“David, you have to hang on please. Please. The ambulance will be there soon and… and there are so many things we haven’t done. We’re always talking about backpacking through South America or adopting a pet that doesn’t make you sneeze all the time. Baby there are so many things you have to live for.”
“I… I love you.”
“Please, please stay alive for us, for me. I need you.” There was no answer this time, your tears were now flowing freely, you thought you could still hear his breathing but had no way of being sure. “I need you.” You kept whispering into the phone as if somehow that sentence was the only thing keeping him alive. You didn’t know how much time had passed but you heard sirens, sirens that seemed to be getting closer with each second that went through.
About a minute later you could hear voices and footsteps, even though they seemed kind of muffled you could make out some of the words they were saying. “Bullet.” “Lost a lot of blood.” “Hurry.” And then the call died.
When there is complete silence, you notice things that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, like the ticking of a clock, the dripping of the IV or the quiet buzz of the machine that kept the man you loved breathing. You had been in a dreamlike state for over two weeks now, the edges of your mind fuzzy. You were in the hospital next to him almost all day, only going away when Amy or Jake managed to convince you to go home and take a break for a little bit, promising to call you at the first sign of something changing.
Today you had been sitting next to David’s bed for a long time, and apparently you fell asleep holding his hand and resting your forehead on top of them. So, when he gave your hand a little squeeze it was natural for you to think that you were dreaming or maybe it was your imagination trying to find something to hold onto. It had to be in your head, right? The doctors said he had lost a lot of blood and may not recover. You knew it would destroy you if you looked up and found that nothing had changed, it would destroy what little sanity you had left, but then you felt another squeeze and you slowly lifted your head. To your surprise and great relief David had his eyes half opened.
“Hey baby, hey.” You closed your hand around his and planted a million kisses on his forehead. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” You told him as the tears streamed down your face. Once you managed to stop kissing him and settled down on your seat you noticed his hand going to his breathing tube.
“That’s helping you breathe. Wait I’ll go get a doctor or a nurse or someone. I’ll be right back.” He wouldn’t let go of your hand, and you were surprised with how strong he still was for a man who just woke up from a coma. “Hey, I’ll be right back, I promise.” He gave you a slight nod but there was panic in his eyes, yet he let your hand go. You kissed his forehead one last time and went out to get the doctor.
“You’re one lucky man Lieutenant Santiago, everything is healing well, you’ll have to stay here a couple more days just to make sure there aren’t any complications. Call me or one of the nurses if you need anything.” The doctor said checking his chart with a smile.
“Thank you doctor.” You told her feeling great about the news.
“Anything for the man who saved my dog from that fire.” She casually mentioned and left. You looked at David a bit confused about the last comment, but he just smiled, and you made a mental note to ask him about that later.
“Come here.” David patted the space next to him in the bed, his voice was hoarse from both the disuse and for just having had the breathing tube removed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You could never.” He started coughing and you took a glass of water helping him take a few sips from it. “Please. I need you close.” He said once the coughing was under control. He looked at you with those beautiful big brown eyes and you knew there was no way for you to deny his petition.
“Okay.” You climbed into the hospital bed being extremely careful, his wound was on the other side of his body, but you weren’t taking any chances. You slowly put your head on his chest and took his hand on yours. You stayed like that for such a long time that you thought he had fallen asleep.
“Sorry for scaring you.” He said breaking the silence “I thought I wouldn’t make it.” You looked at him and could see the pain in his eyes.
“But you did, you’re alive and you’re here and that’s enough.” After a while he dozed off into sleep and for the first time since that phone call two weeks ago you were able to fully relax.