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"Argh, fuck!" Silva gasps as a bullet rips through her blue long-sleeve shirt, grazing her right shoulder. She slams into a stack of weathered wooden crates, gripping the wound as blood pulses between her fingers.
Bruno whips around at the sound. “Silva!” His eyes flare, his grip tightening on his gun. He fires a shot at the fleeing suspect as the man darts around the corner of the warehouse, tossing wild rounds over his shoulder without even looking.
“You good?” Bruno calls out, rushing over to her, voice shaking.
“I’m good!” Silva snaps, pushing off the crates and shaking off the pain as she edges toward the corner where the perp vanished. Her now bloodied hand back on the barrel of her gun, as they continue to pursue their suspect.
They edge toward the corner but immediately jerk back as bullets shred the air in front of them. Both flatten against the warehouse wall. Silva leans out just enough to scan for an open window.
He looks over at her, worried. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks again.
She rolls her eyes and ducks as another shot screams past. “Bruno, I’m fine. Focus.”
Silva cuts around the corner and dives behind another stack of crates. Bruno slides in beside her. He finally gets a good look at her shoulder, and her sleeve is soaked through, blood spreading fast.
“Kate—”
“Don’t start,” she warns. “It’s a graze. I’ll survive.”
She fires a quick shot; the suspect answers with another, splintering the crate inches from her ear.
“Cover me,” she orders.
Bruno nods and pushes off the crates, laying suppressive fire. Silva darts to the next cluster of boxes, creeping closer to the suspect’s position. Bruno keeps behind her, shifting with her movements.
She darts behind another cluster of wooden boxes, and Bruno moves with her, both dropping low as bullets sail through the air.
Bruno risks a glance. A shot screams past his face, splintering the crate beside him. He jerks back, heart pounding. “Geez, how many bullets does this guy have?”
“Reyes! Put the gun down!” he shouts.
“I’m not going back to jail!” Reyes fires again. The round pierces the slats of the crate, bursting out through a gap between them and narrowly missing both detectives.
“Shit,” Bruno breathes out.
“We just want to talk!” Silva yells. She turns to Bruno. “We need a plan. He’s gonna keep us pinned here.”
Bruno nods, pivots out into the open concrete lane, and fires his gun. Reyes ducks behind a wall. Silva breaks from cover and moves with Bruno, keeping tight to his flank.
Bruno signals Silva to swing wide, and she quickly moves to his far left.
Silva sucks in a deep breath, grimacing a little. Bruno glanced over, noticing her change in facial expressions. "You good?" he rasps. "Yeah. Fine," she says, slightly annoyed by her partner's constant check-ins.
Reyes pops out and fires at Bruno. Bruno dodges and fires back, landing a shot in Reyes’ shoulder. The suspect collapses behind a row of boxes.
They sprint toward him, guns still drawn.
Reyes lies on his back, scrambling for his fallen gun as they round the corner. Both detectives level their weapons at him.
“Hands up!” Silva barks.
Bruno circles to the opposite side and kicks the gun away out of Reyes’ reach, before grabbing his arms and wrapping them behind his back, cuffing him, before yanking him up onto his feet. He turns to Silva, grinning, about to say something snarky, before he notices how pale she looks. He opens his mouth to say something before closing it again, knowing full well she would bite his head off for asking if she was okay for the tenth time, and as much as he was worried about her, he also valued his life.
The adrenaline from the chase fades, and the searing pain in Silva’s shoulder pulls her back to reality. Her sleeve is now thoroughly soaked in blood, starting to drip down between her fingers. Her mind was cloudy to the point where the only thing she could focus on was the thudding of her heartbeat in her ears.
Her vision starts to blur. She squints, shaking her head, trying to pull herself out of it. That doesn't work. She feels all of her limbs start to get heavy, she stumbles slightly, her vision goes in and out before finally dimming for good. Her body hits the hard pavement with a thud. The last thing she registers is Bruno’s voice, but she can’t make out what he’s saying.
“Silva! Hey, hey, Kate, stay with me, come on.” Bruno pleads as he radios for an ambulance for an officer down. He doesn’t pay any attention to the patrol officers who come in to take Reyes. His focus is entirely on his partner; he can’t lose her.
~~~~
All she hears is beeping, all she feels is a dulled sensation in her right shoulder. She opens her eyes, and it takes a minute for them to focus in the dimmed hospital lighting (which, with her post-collapse headache, she’s very grateful for). After her eyes adjust, of course, she sees Bruno, sitting by her bedside, looking very worried.
“Hey, look who’s awake,” He says softly.
“How long was I out?” she groans, rubbing her left hand over her face, before looking down at her right hand, which is confined in a sling meant to take the weight off of her injured shoulder.
“Eh, a couple of years. You missed a lot.” Bruno jokes. Silva rolls her eyes, looking up at the ceiling.
He smiles, nodding, looking down at the floor and back up at her. “Just a couple of hours,” she turns back to him, studying his face.
“Have you been here the entire time?”
“Uh…” he scratches his eyebrow, looking back down at the floor for a second before looking at her. “...yeah, Velasco and Finn had to question Reyes, and Benson had to handle some paperwork. They came down from the precinct a little while ago, though, if you want me to get them. They just didn’t want you to wake up to a swarm of people around you.” She gives him a tired smile.
“Thank you,”
He matches her tired smile, “You’d do the same for me.”
“Yeah, it would be annoying. Breaking in a new partner.”
“Let’s not make this a frequent occurrence. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Shut up, I’m fine,” she returns, teasing.
“Passing out at the scene and then getting six stitches doesn’t really scream ‘fine’ Kate.” She rolls her eyes at him.
A blanket of silence covers the room for a moment, then Bruno stands up, as if to leave. “You should get some rest, I’ll let the team know you’re awake.” He says, rising from his chair.
She grabs his hand with her uninjured arm. “If anyone needs rest I wouldn’t say it’s me, you look worse than I do and I’m the one who got shot.” She tries to joke.
He smiles, shaking his head. “Too soon, Kate, Too soon,”
“Let me go tell the team you’re ok and then I’ll be back.” he says. She nods, another tired smile appearing on her lips.
On his way there, he nearly runs into someone when he looks up to see who it is; he turns white as a ghost. It’s the Deputy Commissioner of the NYPD, aka Silva’s dad.
“Sir, good to see you again. I wish it was under better circumstances. I was about to speak to the team about detective Silva’s condition if you’d like to join?”
All he gets in response is a terse nod. ‘Guess he’s still mad about the lawsuit,’ Bruno thinks. He doesn’t blame the commissioner, but if push came to shove, he would definitely do it again to see justice served.
“She’s down the hall on the right, room 2606.” Bruno says, and again he gets a nod, but this one seems less angry and more appreciative. If it’s possible for nods to even have different meanings, then this one does.
“Good night detective Bruno.” Is all the commissioner says before walking towards the specified direction provided to him.
Bruno stays to talk with the team longer than he anticipated. When he returns to Silva's room, he notices that she’s fallen asleep (secretly, he thinks she looks adorable, but then again, he still values his life, so he keeps that thought to himself.) Bruno is also relieved to find that Silva’s dad is nowhere to be seen; he doesn’t think either of them needed a second awkward conversation that evening, one was enough.
A nurse comes in to check Silva’s stitches, and she miraculously sleeps through the entire interaction. Bruno wishes he had that ability. The nurse informs him that Silva’s injury is minor enough that the hospital is comfortable discharging her when she wakes up. She asks that he let her know, and they’ll bring the necessary paperwork once she’s awake.
When Silva opens her eyes again, it’s dark outside. She takes a moment to remember what happened and where she is. Of course, the first thing she does after getting her bearings is turning her head to see if Bruno is still there, and he is. Parked in the same plastic hospital chair as earlier, sitting in a position that should be unnatural or at least uncomfortable for a grown man, his head tipped back, snoring lightly, so she reaches out to nudge him and he startles awake.
“Hey,” he says, re-adjusting to his surroundings. “A nurse came in while you were out, she said, that they are ready to discharge you whenever you’re ready.
“Oh, perfect. I was starting to think I’d be stuck here overnight,” she grimaces at the thought.
Once Silva signs all the required boxes and listens to the explanation of what she can and can’t do while she heals. She's free to go, only after enduring a short wheelchair ride to the parking lot. Which she vehemently protests, saying, “I can walk y’know, the bullet hit my shoulder not my leg.” Bruno would have accepted that argument, but the nurses wouldn’t budge, insisting upon hospital policy. “They say doctors make the worst patients but really I think it’s stubborn partners,” He quips before helping Silva into the passenger seat of his car.
“What do you think?”
“Hm?”
“I’ll drive us back to your place, pick up takeout on the way?”
“Yeah, sounds good. One condition. I get to pick the place because I got shot.”
Bruno laughs. “how is that any different from a typical day? You always pick.”
A comfortable silence falls over the pair as Bruno drives and Silva watches out the window as the city flashes past them, occasionally glancing back at her partner when she thinks he isn’t looking. Before she knows it, they’re pulling up on the street across from her building. Bruno gets out of the car first to help her, then goes back for their takeout and the bag of Silva’s things the hospital collected.
The silence follows them into the elevator, and Silva notices Bruno throwing a couple of concerned glances her way. It only breaks when they get to her apartment, and the door closes behind them.
Bruno goes through the drawers in Silva’s kitchen for cutlery and glassware while she settles onto the couch, picking what they're going to watch. “You know, you could ask where things are instead of blindly searching for them.” She calls over her shoulder to him. “Yeah, I could,” he smirks, “but where’s the fun in that.” She shakes her head fondly, “suit yourself.”
Silva has no idea what kind of show she’s looking for; the only requirement is that it’s something they don’t have to pay much attention to. She flips through the channels a bit more before settling on old reruns of Gilligan's Island. Bruno has pretty good timing: he comes over with their food and two glasses of water just as she’s hovering over the play button.
“Hey, thanks for being there today,” she says quietly.
“Of course, he responds. “What are partners for?”
“Ouch, just partners? I thought we were friends Bruno,” She teases.
“Glad to see getting shot hasn’t dulled your sense of humour, Silva.” She laughs, he smiles.
Not long after, Bruno brings their empty dishes to the kitchen to deal with later. “What is taking you so long over there are you on a three-hour tour?” she teases.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he says, walking back over to her couch and sliding in next to her.
She presses play, and they sit in silence for a few minutes before Bruno turns to her with a question: “Why is Gilligan always pining after a girl way out of his league?” Bruno asks, glancing over at her.
“Same way you do it with every girl you date.” Silva says.
He smiles, “Is that jealousy I hear?”
She rolls her eyes before reaching over and whacking the back of his head with her good arm. “Just watch the show, Terrance.”
“Oh no, my government name,” he laughs.
“For real though, I’m glad you’re here, Terry.” Silva says sincerely.
“I’m glad you’re here too Kate.” He says. Silva doesn’t miss the implied meaning, here being that she’s still alive; she’s grateful for that, too. She truly doesn’t know what they’d do without each other, and she knows without even having to ask that the feeling is mutual.
The End