One more smile
August 13 th , 2022
The scene in front of Nate happened in slow motion. One second he watched as Lynn stitched the wound on the man’s shoulder and the next the terrorist leaned forward and stabbed Lynn’s body several times. The man had grabbed a knife out of the pocket of his pants, although they had checked him for any weapons. Nate had no idea how the hell he was able to hide it.
He was forced to watch the love of his life stumble back a little before her hands touched her stomach to check for injuries. She was obviously in shock, and so were Nate, Oliver and Marta.
A loud tinnitus filled his ears, pushing away every other sound. The moment Lynn raised her hands from her stomach to reveal them stained in blood, Nate could only feel one emotion: fear.
“Oh God.” Marta was the first one to react.
“Call an ambulance,” Oliver whispered in a shockingly low voice before he started to run out of the observation room and into the interrogation cell.
Nate wasn’t able to move.
Nate wasn’t able to speak .
All he could do was watch Lynn’s eyes widen in shock while she turned her face around and directly into the mirror. Although she didn’t know where Nate was exactly standing, her eyes met his in an instant and he could see the confusion in them, paired with pure fear.
It was like the world around them was frozen while their gazes were locked and they communicated without even saying a word.
“Butch.”
Marta’s voice sounded like she was standing miles away. She needed to shake his shoulder for him to break his gaze from Lynn’s.
Nate was dizzy, his body heavy like it was made of solid rock and he would never be able to move his legs again. His heart dropped so much that he expected it to fall out of his chest and onto the floor beneath him. At the same time his chest was burning. The pain was almost unbearable until he realized that it was his body screaming for oxygen. He hadn’t even noticed that he was holding his breath. He allowed his lungs to fill with fresh air again and the pain in his breast subsided almost immediately.
While taking another breath he saw Oliver storm into the room and point his gun towards the terrorist, who was smiling widely while still sitting on the metal chair.
“Butch,” Marta repeated and slowly Nate turned his head to look at the woman standing next to him.
His lips were parted but no sound escaped his mouth. He just looked at her while his veins were filled with ice.
“She needs you now. Keep it together. ”
Marta placed one of her palms on Nate’s shaking shoulder. He was oblivious to the fact that his whole body was trembling.
Marta stood next to him with her phone in her hand. The call was still active and an emergency operator was giving some instructions but Nate didn’t listen to the man on the phone. All he had heard were Marta’s words.
She needs you now.
They kicked his senses back to life again and he managed to take a deep breath and move his legs. Out of the room, around the corner and into the interrogation cell. A second later he found himself next to Lynn, carefully placing his palm on her upper arm.
She turned her head to look at him and he could see her eyes still wide, her eyebrows slightly furrowed in shock and confusion, and her mouth parted. She held her blood-stained hands palms up in his direction, as if she wanted to show them to him.
Wanted to show him that something wasn’t as it supposed to be, but she didn’t understand what exactly it was.
“Nate,” she whispered.
Tears gathered in her eyes, making the chestnut color shine stronger than ever before.
“I know, darling. I’m here,” he answered and carefully placed his other hand on her hip.
Nate could feel her starting to shake when shock flooded her body and he strengthened his grip .
The color on her face changed almost in an instant from slightly tanned to almost ash-gray and Nate knew that she was about to collapse in his arms.
“Darling, you need to lay down, okay?” he carefully said, guiding her body towards the floor.
“But I’m fine,” Lynn responded.
She was sitting now, Nate kneeling by her side and never removing his hands from her body.
Their eyes locked with each other, glimmering, and full of love.
He tried to push her upper body down so that she was lying completely flat, but she protested.
“I’m fine.”
“Darling. You were stabbed,” he carefully whispered and could see her open her mouth but without saying anything she closed it again, broke the gaze with Nate and let her eyes wander down her body.
With shaking hands she touched her stomach once more and inhaled sharply. Then she raised her gaze again and with tears now streaming down her face she looked at Nate.
“I was stabbed.”
“Yes, darling, but it’s going to be okay. The ambulance is on its way and Tia and Birdie are as well. It’s all going to be okay.”
He tried to assure her but also himself. He really needed to tell himself that everything was going to be okay because if not he knew he would die.
“I was stabbed,” Lynn repeated over and over again, obviously still in shock .
Nate managed to finally push her upper body down into a lying position while she continued her mumbling.
“Lynn.”
She was looking everywhere and nowhere, her gaze wandering around the room while she still mumbled the word “stabbed” over and over again.
“Lynn,” he now said with a louder voice, making her quickly turn her head to look at him.
Her irises contracted a little when she tried to focus on him.
“There you are. I need to put pressure on the wound. This will hurt, okay?”
Lynn nodded in response while her eyes were still pointed towards him but Nate needed to break their gaze. He knew that he needed to hurt her while trying to save her life and he couldn’t look into her face. He couldn’t see her face the moment he hurt her. He just couldn’t.
Lynn’s t-shirt was completely soaked with her blood by now and he couldn’t see where the stab wounds were. He grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it towards her breasts.
There was so much blood.
He couldn’t see where it was all coming from, so with a swift movement of his hand he tried to wipe the blood away.
Lynn hissed in response.
It was the first time after being stabbed that she actually seemed to feel the pain, that her body was able to react properly. Nate was relieved as with her solely being in shock it was hard to see if her condition was changing, although he didn’t like that she would feel the pain full force now.
He looked at her stomach and a chill ran down his spine. He could see three stab wounds on her right side. All of them bloody and deep.
The first one was right underneath her rib cage, the second one slightly underneath the first one and the third much lower. Right above her pelvis. They were too far apart for him to be able to put pressure on them simultaneously with one hand, so he placed the palm of his left hand on the two wounds on top and the right palm on the one above her pelvic bone.
“Ahhh, that hurts,” Lynn cried out and hearing her high-pitched voice followed by a loud sob broke Nate’s heart.
“I know, darling. I have to apply pressure to stop the bleeding,” Nate responded with his gaze fixed on his hands.
He couldn’t look at her.
“Honey, you hurt me. Please stop. Don’t hurt me. Please,” Lynn whimpered, but Nate tried to focus on the only thing he needed to do now; applying pressure to her wounds, trying to save her life until the EMTs arrived. He leaned in even more when he saw blood still seeping through his fingers.
Lynn let out something between a cry and a scream and Nate’s heart crumbled again. He felt Lynn stiffen underneath his hands, but that didn’t stop him from pressing down.
“Stop. Please. It hurts,” she groaned.
Her voice broke and he knew that she was crying but he still couldn’t look at her. His own tears made his vision blurry. He could see them dripping from his chin onto Lynn’s stomach, where they split into tinier drops that spread in different directions.
For moments it was only Lynn’s pleas of him to stop, her whimpers of pain, and the constant sound of his tears dripping onto her stomach while his hands never left her wounds. Where were Tia and Birdie? He really needed professional support here.
Suddenly they heard noises from outside of the room, growing louder with every passing moment.
It was the first time that Nate had raised his head and looked around him. All that time he’d been solely focused on Lynn and hadn’t even noticed what was happening around them.
The terrorist was gone, so were the others. He turned his head in confusion but couldn’t see Oliver or Marta inside the interrogation cell.
“Almost there!” Nate swore it was Oliver’s voice, but his still-shocked brain wouldn’t allow him to understand what was going on.
Only when Oliver and Marta wheeled a gurney into the interrogation cell did Nate allow himself to breath and feel relief.
The ambulance had arrived and finally someone was really capable of helping the love of his life.
But something felt off.
There were no EMTs following Marta and Oliver.
“Get her on the gurney, Butch!” Oliver practically screamed at his best friend .
“The ambulance?” Nate asked, confused but Marta shook her head.
“No time for explanations. We need to get her into the OR as soon as possible,” Marta responded and Nate nodded.
For a second he pulled back his hands and grabbed Lynn’s shoulders instead. Oliver sprinted to her feet and grabbed her ankles.
In a swift movement they lifted Lynn’s small body and placed it on the gurney next to them. She left a huge puddle of blood on the floor and Nate almost slipped on it, while he rounded the gurney to apply pressure again.
“Where are we going?” Lynn was semi-conscious by now. The blood loss had taken a toll on her and she wasn’t able to understand what was going on around her.
“To the med-bay, sweetie. You gotta get patched up.” Marta smiled at the woman lying on the moving gurney.
Lynn weakly smiled back at her, her eyes half closed and her mind fuzzy.
“Stop!” Nate suddenly exclaimed and Oliver stopped the gurney immediately.
“What’s going on, Butch?” Marta asked, confused.
“I can’t put enough pressure on it while we’re moving. Give me a second,” the man with the ocean-blue eyes responded before hopping on the gurney.
Oliver raised his eyebrow at his best friend. Nate placed himself on Lynn’s lap and leaned forward to apply pressure again. It was much easier when he was on the gurney as well and with the amount of blood Lynn had already lost, he needed to prevent her losing more .
Oliver continued to push the gurney and they soon found themselves in the elevator. Thankfully it was only a short ride from the first to the second floor.
During their elevator ride Lynn slipped in and out of consciousness and Marta slapped her cheek a few times. Lynn needed to stay awake to help her blood pressure remain elevated. It was also easier to examine her breathing when she was still awake, something Marta needed to know as she knew she would panic if she saw one of her close friends stop breathing right in front of her.
Was it selfish? Sure, but they all tried their best to keep Lynn alive until she was in the OR and in professional hands.
With a loud “ding” the door opened again and Oliver pushed the gurney towards the med-bay. Nate pressed his upper body down while they were walking through the door, his hands never leaving Lynn’s wounds.
Tia was already waiting for their arrival. The nurse was standing next to the counter and screamed,
“Get her into OR1!”
Oliver didn’t know where that was but he pushed the gurney into the hallway that led towards the ORs.
“On the right!” He heard Tia scream behind him and he maneuvered the gurney into the room on their right.
It was a small, square room with a gurney in the middle and a lot of medical equipment surrounding them. On the wall opposite the entrance was a huge sliding door. Through a small window Oliver could see two people rushing around in the OR, preparing everything for Lynn’s arrival .
Nate, who was still on top of Lynn, let his gaze wander around until he saw Tia storm into the room. He was confused.
Confused why the hell they weren’t on the way to the hospital.
Confused who was supposed to operate on Lynn.
“Agent Sheppard, you need to get off the gurney. I need to prepare Lynn for the surgery,” Tia said, friendly but demanding.
“But I have to apply pressure,” Nate responded.
He fixed his gaze with Tia. He had a fearful frown on his face and tears never stopped running down his cheeks.
“I know but now it’s more important that I prepare her for surgery and we get her into the OR,” Tia argued, sounding more desperate than before.
“Butch, come on,” Oliver said, trying to help Tia get Nate off the gurney.
“Thirty seconds. Can I have thirty more seconds?” Nate sobbed.
“Agent Sheppard…”
“Please. Only thirty seconds.”
Tia saw the desperation in his face, the trembling lower lip and the little waterfalls of tears.
“Okay. Thirty seconds,” Tia sighed while shooing Oliver and Marta out of the room.
Then she went to a cabinet on the side of the room and prepared a few syringes. Nate jumped off the gurney and walked towards Lynn’s head.
“Lynn. Darling,” Nate started .
He raised one of his blood-stained hands to her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open a little and she looked at him the best she could. Nate started to draw small circles with his thumb and felt her leaning her head into his touch.
He didn’t even know if she was able to process what he was about to tell her, but he needed to do it anyway. In case she wouldn’t make it…
“I love you, okay? Everything’s gonna be okay. You’ll push through this and then I’ll bring you breakfast to bed every damn day. I promise. I just need you to know that I need to see your smile again. I need to see just one more smile of yours, okay? Please stay with me. Don’t leave me alone. I can’t do this alone. I need you. I love you. Ever since we shared that first orange juice. I love you and nothing in this world can change that.”
Nate struggled to keep his emotions at bay. Just a few more seconds then he would allow himself to fall apart.
“I. Love. You.”
He placed a kiss on her forehead with every word and a last one on her nose.
“I love you too, Nate,” Lynn whispered barely audible but it was all Nate needed to hear at that moment. No matter what happened over the next few hours she loved him and she knew that he loved her, too.
“Agent Sheppard, I really need to prepare her now,” Tia said harshly and Nate looked at her before he nodded.
“I’ll be by your side when you wake up, darling,” he whispered towards Lynn before stepping out of the room.
Tia closed the door behind him .
Nate stared at the closed door in front of him when he suddenly felt a large hand on his shoulder.
“She’s gonna be okay. She’s a fighter,” Oliver’s voice sounded behind him.
In that moment Nate allowed himself to be vulnerable for the first time, allowed himself to realize that there was the chance that Lynn wouldn’t make it and that he’d said “I love you” to her for the last time.
Nate’s stomach turned and his legs gave up. He crumpled to the floor and let out a loud and desperate whine while pressing his hands onto his face.
They were still full of blood. Lynn’s blood.
Oliver was shocked to see his best friend collapse right in front of his eyes, so he quickly went down on his knees and placed his hand on Nate’s back.
“I can’t lose her. Oh God, I can’t lose her.” Nate sobbed, his body shaking heavily with every wave of panic, fear and sadness.
“You won’t, Butch.”
“I just need to see her smile again. I need her smile to survive. It’s the fuel for my heart.”