Chapter Text
The elevator doors closed so agonizingly slowly on Hannah that she could have sworn time had moved backwards.
If only…
Her tears were coming far too fast for her to try to stop them, blinding, hot, stinging. So as soon as the elevator doors closed in on her private dwelling, she gave in, sobbing- choking for air that wouldn’t come, lost in the hell that only a physician knew:
I couldn’t save her.
She was so wrapped up in disenfranchised grief that she hadn’t even noticed she had succumbed to the weakness in her knees and sunk to the floor in defeat until she heard the painfully familiar ding of the elevator’s stop on the second floor and the soft mechanical whooshing of its doors parting. She hazily chanced lifting her eyes, staring through the blurry mess of tear-streaked eyelashes, barely discerning a vaguely familiar shape that changed from standing to crouching as it approached her. She only knew who it was when she heard the trademark breathiness of his voice.
“Hannah?”
She collapsed, unquestioningly, against strong outstretched arms, as though her entire body making a concession before her brain had the chance to catch up.
“Okay,” Dean whispered, his voice laced with trepidation, as he grabbed onto her forearms and lifted her back to her feet at a standing position. He took his left arm away momentarily to hit the Stop button just as the ding of the elevator signified its halt on the main floor to the ER, and Hannah realized how terribly she had missed his embrace in the mere seconds it was taken away. Her unintentional ride with Dean Archer skidded to a stop with a soft clunk, locking them in the moment that seemed too monumental for the more tangible four-by six-foot space they were occupying.
“Okay,” he whispered again, his voice filled with resolve this time, knowing she wasn’t injured. His left arm returned to finish hugging her properly, and she sunk fully into him, moving in tandem when he motioned with his neck and lifted his head so he could tuck her under his chin.
For a time, they stood silently, Dean bearing the full weight of Hannah’s body, holding her as she relaxed fully into him, shielded by his open lab coat. The fingers on her right hand closed into a tight fist, gathering the fabric of the back of his scrub top.
Dean let out a deep breath he hadn’t known he was holding and, taking his cue, Hannah uttered one line so quietly that her tone alone almost broke his heart.
“I promised her.”