Chapter 35 #3
He looked to the empty chair on the other side of the bed. “D—did you say my father was here?”
“Oh, yeah. He… um… left. I might have held your hand in front of him. Very deliberately.”
Elliot exhaled and closed his eyes. “I’m sure he loved that.”
“I’m sorry, Elliot. I didn’t actually mean to. But he was telling me to leave and I—”
“No,” Elliot stopped him, swallowing hard. “It’s okay. You being here… is the only thing that matters.”
Hudson stood and stepped closer, staring down into Elliot’s amber green eyes. “I love you. You have no idea how—” His voice broke on the last word. “Please don’t ever do that to me again.”
Elliot lifted his hand and put it on Hudson’s arm. Weak, but there. “I—I love you too,” he mumbled. “Thanks for being here.”
Hudson bent and pressed his lips to Elliot's forehead, carefully, and stayed there for a moment. “Okay,” he said finally, straightening. “I need to go get the doctors.”
Dr. Bauer, two nurses and three other people Hudson didn’t recognize hovered over Elliot. Checking and prodding.
Hudson pressed himself into the corner of the room and watched them work, arms crossed over his chest, holding his breath.
Elliot was responsive. Tracking. Answering questions correctly—his name, the year, the last thing he remembered. His grip strength was good. Pupils were equal and reactive. Dr. Bauer spoke to him in careful English and Elliot responded in full sentences.
Hudson remained in the corner and tried not to fall apart a second time.
“We’ll take him up for a scan,” Bauer said, turning to Hudson. “We’ll have results within the hour and come back to discuss. Everything's promising.”
Hudson nodded.
They would come back in twenty minutes, but for now it was just him and Elliot. He pulled the chair close and sat down.
Elliot turned his head to look at him. “Reed?”
“Reed is fine. They found him six hours after—” Hudson stopped. “Six hours later. His team had pulled north, toward the ridge. Exactly where you kept saying they’d be.”
Relief washed over Elliot’s face. Relief that Reed was found. That someone had finally listened to what he had been saying.
“You were right.” Hudson leaned forward.
“He’s home, Elliot. Sarah and Mae picked him up at the airport a few days ago.
He said to tell you—” He pulled out his phone, scrolled, found the message.
“He said, and I quote, ‘tell Shaw he needs to get his ass back home. I need his gay decor expertise for—”
“Shut up,” Elliot half-laughed.
“I swear to God. It says so right here—” Hudson tipped the phone to show Elliot the text that definitely didn’t exist, but Elliot lifted his hand and shoved it away.
“Stop being an idiot.”
“Fine. He told me to tell you that he loves you and that we all need you to stop being a drama queen.”
Elliot closed his eyes. “That sounds more like it.”
“God, you have no idea how great it is to hear you call me an idiot.” Hudson grinned.
“Idiot,” Elliot repeated, opening his eyes. They raked over Hudson’s face, his clothes, the dark circles that he didn’t need a mirror to know were there.
“You look like shit,” Elliot said.
“Thank you.”
“When did you last sleep?”
“I sleep. In the chair. Sometimes.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Three days. Two days fighting to get here.” He still felt horrible about that. Thinking about Elliot alone in this room for two days made his chest hurt. “I came as soon as I could. Okafor made about forty phone calls to get me here.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“Of course I did. Don’t argue with me about this. You’ve been unconscious for six days and I’ve had no one to argue with. I have a lot saved up and you do not want to test me.”
“Fine. Okay. But now you need to leave.”
“What? I’m not leaving.”
“Hudson, you need to sleep. And shower—please. You smell horrible.” His eyes were fixed on Hudson. “Go. Sleep. Come back to me.”
He knew arguing with Elliot was pointless. He’d cave eventually anyway.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go. But only for one night.”
“One night,” Elliot agreed.
He bent down and gave him a tender kiss. Then he collected his jacket from the back of the chair and glanced around the room he had memorized over the last three days. When his eyes landed on the bed it was no longer the same heart-wrenching feeling.
So he went. Walked to the door.
“Hey Hudson,” Elliot’s raw voice said behind him.
Hudson turned around. “Yeah?”
“I think I might actually like you.”
Hudson stilled in the doorway and felt six years of everything move through him at once—Selection, Washington, Reed’s wedding.
The storage rooms, the text that went unanswered.
A helicopter going down, a roadside bomb, seventy hours in a chair that was extremely uncomfortable. Almost losing the man he loved.
He laughed. Properly, fully, feeling the tension of these six years, of the last week, leave his body. “You’re an absolute asshole.”
The corner of Elliot’s mouth pulled up into the half smile Hudson had thought he would never see again. “Yeah,” he said. “But you love me anyway.”
Hudson shook his head, still laughing, and stepped out into the corridor.