AN: the stories tend to bounce around a lot in their relationship, because, as i said their drabbles. this one is post-"Charge of this Post"

"Hospitals"

Eva sat in the far corner of the room, and was just staring at him. Waiting for him to open his eyes, give her a smile, make some kind of snarky remark, do something. But he didn’t. He just lay there, eyes closed, body still, save for the shallow rise and fall of his chest that reminded her he was still breathing.

Thank God for that.

She didn’t move, either. She had always been nervous around hospital equipment. She was always afraid that if she moved, if she even flinched, something would go wrong, and the equipment would stop working, and the person lying in the bed across from her would slip right through her fingers. And she couldn’t let that happen. Absolutely not. He had to pull through on this one, and she wasn’t going to screw it up for once.

She heard the door slide next to her, and she looked and met his friend’s steady gaze. She then turned back to playing with her fingers. There wasn’t really anything to say to him. He knew she was shit in a crisis, and the fact that it was someone she was so close to was making it even worse.

“Flack’s gonna pull through, Eva,” Danny whispered, pulling up a chair next to hers, “He’s too stubborn to go out like this.”

“Being stubborn doesn’t necessarily do anything, Danny,” she sighed softly, “Sometimes it just makes you look like an ass.”

She could see the soft smirk playing at the corner of the other man’s lips, and she smiled a little. “I wonder if he can hear us.”

“Dunno,” he sighed shrugging his shoulders, “I never put much stock in that kind of thing.”

Eva knew that he was lying. She knew him well enough for that. And he knew her well enough to know why she was huddled in the corner, instead of standing by Flack’s side, where she should be.

“You’re not going to break anything if you hold his hand, Ave,” he murmured.

“Easy for you to say,” she replied, “You don’t have my track record.”

“You won’t hurt him,” he restated, giving her a soft push with one hand. She hesitated briefly, before slowly getting up and moving towards the man lying in the bed. She tentatively reached forward, running her fingers along the scratchy wool of the bedspread before reaching the soft span of his fingers that lay in front of her. She brushed his fingertips with hers, before she felt the tears start to come to her eyes.

“Don’t leave me, K?” she whispered, to the man who she wasn’t sure could hear her or not, but if he could, he sure as hell better be listening. “Not yet.”

There was suddenly a flurry of panic from down the hall, and she heard a booming male voice coming in their direction.

“Hold on, Rosie, I think he’s this way.”

“Shit,” she whispered, pulling herself away from Don’s side as the older couple came into the room. She had her back to them, brushing away the tears so they couldn’t see her cry. It was very obvious who the couple was. Flack had always been the spitting image of his father, but it was very clear that he had gotten his smile from his mother.

And Eva had always gotten the distinct impression that Flack’s parents never liked her.

Eva finally turned around, gave the couple a brief smile, before heading for the door. She mumbled something that resembled “I was just going” and slipped away from them before anyone could say anything to stop her.

“Make sure she gets home OK, Danny?” Rosa Flack whispered to the young man standing next to her, “We don’t need another tragedy tonight.”