Chapter 10 #4
“I know,” he says again, and the quiet certainty of it does something to my chest I refuse to name. “And right now the best thing you can do for him is let them check you properly, so when they tell you where they’re taking him, you’re ready.”
She shakes her head, tears slipping down her face. “I can’t sit in there. I can’t. Not where I can’t see.”
“Then we’ll stand here for a minute,” he says. “Just a minute. But you have to keep the blanket on, all right? I made a promise with my eyes to that paramedic over there, and she looks like someone who would win any argument with me.”
Despite everything, Margaret follows his glance to the ambulance.
The paramedic, who is indeed watching them with the expression of a woman deciding how much patience she has left, raises her eyebrows.
Margaret gives a tiny, watery nod.
AJ nods back. “See? Terrifying. We should cooperate.”
I stand a few feet away, invisible for once.
Not because no one can see me.
Because no one is looking.
Because Margaret is looking at AJ, and AJ is looking at Margaret as if she is not a side note to the emergency, not the easier casualty, not the person who has already been freed and therefore dealt with.
As if her fear is still part of the job.
Kev appears beside me, breathing hard, helmet tucked under one arm. “He all right?”
It takes me half a second to realise he means AJ.
“Yes,” I say.
Kev follows my gaze.
AJ is still holding Margaret’s hand.
“Useful, that one,” Kev says, sounding grudgingly annoyed by the discovery.
“He is,” I say.
It comes out softer than I mean it to.
Kev looks at me.
I ignore him.
Across the road, the ambulance doors close on Brian. One of the paramedics moves quickly towards Margaret.
“All right, love,” she says gently. “We’re going to take you in now. Your husband’s going to hospital. We’ll tell you where as soon as we know, but I need to look at you properly first.”
Margaret’s face crumples.
AJ bends his head slightly, still holding her hand. “You heard her. Time to cooperate with the terrifying professional.”
Margaret looks up at him. “Will he be all right?”
The question is awful because no one can promise her that.
AJ does not.
Good man.
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “But he’s out of the car. He’s with them. And you’re going to let them look after you too.”
Her mouth trembles.
Then she nods.
The paramedic gives AJ a quick look. Not gratitude exactly. Professional acknowledgement. He understands it, I think, because he lets go just when Margaret does, stepping back as they help her into the ambulance.
Only then does he seem to realise I am there.
His face changes.
The colour that drained earlier tries to return and fails.
“Pippa,” he says.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
“No.”
“Did you move because someone told you to?”
“Yes. Ambulance crew asked if I could keep her talking while they checked space and equipment. Then she wouldn’t let go.”
He looks down at his hand as if surprised to find it empty.
“She was scared,” he says.
“I saw.”
“I stayed out of the way.”
“I saw that too.”
He nods, but the movement is not quite steady.
The adrenaline is leaving him now. I recognise it. The delayed hit. The body catching up with what the mind has been holding back.
I step closer, lowering my voice. “AJ.”
His eyes come back to mine.
“Breathe.”
“I am.”
“You’re doing that thing where you say you are and aren’t.”
A faint, broken smile touches his mouth. “I thought I’d improved.”
“You have. Breathe anyway.”
He does.
Once.
Then again.
The second one goes deeper.
Behind us, the scene is already shifting into aftermath. Equipment to check. Debris to manage. Police talking to a witness. Kev and Dan moving around the car. Mish coiling something with sharp, efficient movements. Ambulance engines rumbling.
Brian’s ambulance pulls away first.
Margaret’s follows a minute later.
AJ watches until both vehicles disappear around the bend.
“She kept asking if he was out,” he says.
“I know.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“You said enough.”
He looks at me then, and there is something raw in his face that he would probably hate to know is visible.
“That was…” He stops.
“Yes.”
“I write about things after they happen.”
“You’re used to arriving after the worst of it.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
His gaze moves to the car on its side, the broken glass, the place where Brian had been trapped.
He swallows, then gives a small nod, as if taking instruction from a voice inside his own head.
I should move.
There is work to do. There are checks, reports, conversations, all the practical pieces that come after. I cannot stand at the edge of a road looking at a journalist like he has just shown me a part of himself neither of us knows how to handle.
But for one moment, I let myself see him.
Pale, shaken, careful. Standing exactly where he was needed, holding the hand of a frightened woman because someone had to, because he could, because he understood that words mattered most when there was nothing useful left to do with them.
Kev was right.
Useful, that one.
I hate that my heart has heard it too.