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The EMT is nice.
She reminds him of his mom, quick and efficient in a way that looks at odds with her wrinkled face and heavyset frame. She’s clearly been doing this job for a long, long time, and she knows what she’s doing. She stands on the asphalt and works with only an occasional word or two, for which Oliver is incredibly grateful, while he sits on the back of the ambulance with a shock blanket draped over his shoulders. The shock blanket is the first thing she gave him, and now she gently moves it out of her way for a moment to apply a butterfly bandage to a gash on his upper arm.
He already forgets her name, but he doesn’t really have the energy to feel bad about it.
As she works, he looks down at his hands in his lap and gulps. Dark flecks mark his forearms and the back of his palms, and there’s more of it on his shirt. He can see it better now with the fluorescent lighting from the ambulance interior shining from behind him.
Again, it hits him with a jolt that those marks are blood.
Not mine, he reminds himself, not mine. I’m still here. I’m still alive.
His fingers are still shaking. He tries to take in a slow breath—deliberately and steadily filling up his lungs despite the fact that his jaw is shaking, too—and pushes it out all at once. It doesn’t really help. He tries clenching his hands into fists. That doesn’t much help, either.
The EMT pauses and glances down at his hands, and then her eyes are on his face.
“Mr. Hampton?”
He hasn’t been able to stop staring at the blood on the back of his palms, but he can see her concerned expression in his peripheral. Without another word she reaches for a pack of antibacterial wipes and gently places the entire pack in his hands. Only then does he manage to make eye contact with her, and she offers a small encouraging smile.
“Clean off your hands, alright, Mr. Hampton?”
He chews on his bottom lip for a second, gulps, and then nods. His voice is still too small and shaky for his own liking when he says, “Thank you.”
Having something to do helps, better than the shock blanket or the nice words or the bandages have. She must have known that, he thinks. She returns to applying some sort of antibiotic to another cut on his upper arm while he goes about scrubbing the back of his hands, his wrists, his forearms, even his shirt, methodically and maybe a little too forcefully. But he doesn’t care. Blood isn’t meant to be on him, much less someone else’s blood.
By the time he is content with the state of his skin and marginally okay with the state of his shirt, there is a pile of pinkish crumpled wipes lying beside where he sits on the ambulance floor. The EMT finishes applying another bandage, and she gathers up the pile of wipes to throw away.
And it’s then that he hears it.
“Oliver!”
It’s the first time anyone has said his first name since the police arrived, and it’s the first time he has heard that voice in over three days.
Oliver can’t move. He watches with wide eyes as Connor sprints toward him, shoving his way through the crowd of news crews and police officers. One police officer tries to get in his way to stop him, but Connor hastily shouts something at her that Oliver doesn’t catch. Frank is behind him, and he says something to the officer that is enough, evidently, to convince her to move and let Connor pass.
For about half a second, Oliver’s heart sinks, and he worries that Connor is going to be pissed. After all, Oliver has had three days to beat himself up over how stupid he was and how he should have listened to Connor and stayed out of this and how he would have been so, so angry if Connor ever did this to him—
But then Connor is close enough that he is no longer illuminated solely by red-and-blue police lights, and in the light of the ambulance Oliver can see that there are already tears on Connor’s cheeks.
The EMT opens her mouth like she’s about to protest, like she is ready to order Connor to give him some space, but she seems to change her mind and decide against it.
And in any case, she wouldn’t have had time to stop him. Before Oliver can even register it, Connor has already hurdled the EMT’s bag on the ground and run straight into him and wrapped his arms over his shoulders, pinning the shock blanket to his back.
“Holy shit, Jesus Christ, Ollie—you’re—you’re okay,” he stammers into Oliver’s neck, and then he pulls away to cup Oliver’s face in both of his hands. “Are you okay?” he asks, glancing to the EMT and then back at Oliver, his wide eyes all filled with tears and rimmed with dark circles. He hasn’t been sleeping. “Are—are you, I mean, shit, you’re not hurt or—or anything, are you?”
The EMT speaks up then, and Connor looks at her again with his hands still holding Oliver’s face. Everyone looks at her, Frank and Laurel and Annalise and Wes and Michaela; Oliver hadn’t even noticed how many of them were here until now. “He’s gonna be just fine. Only a few scrapes and bruises. Apparently he did a damn good job talking down that kidnapper. So physically, yeah, he’s okay.”
Connor looks back at Oliver, then, and he seems to have calmed down a bit.
Emphasis on a bit.
“… Ollie?” he asks, his thumb moving across Oliver’s cheek.
God, he’s missed that. Oliver gulps, his hands resting gently on Connor’s wrists, and he glances at Michaela and then at Frank and then back to Connor. He doesn’t think he can speak without his voice catching right now, so he just gives a quick nod.
He hopes that gets the message across. He’s not okay, not by a long shot, but he will be, maybe, he thinks. And he is definitely a lot closer to okay than he was a few minutes ago.
Connor seems to understand. He smiles, and a little tear-filled laugh escapes him before he presses a kiss to Oliver’s forehead, staying there for a few long seconds.
Then he wraps his arms around Oliver’s shoulders again, and this time Oliver finds it in himself to move, too. His arms find their place around Connor’s waist and he drops his face down onto Connor’s shoulder, and he feels his breath hitch—which he automatically tries to stop before it can start, gulping down the lump in his throat and tightening his hold on Connor’s middle.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Connor murmurs, one hand on the back of Oliver’s head and the other running up and down his back. “It’s okay, it’s just me. It’s just me, Ollie.”
It’s not just him, though. It’s Frank and Laurel and Michaela and Wes and Annalise, too, plus the EMT and all those police officers, and Oliver can’t help not wanting to cry in front of so many people—
But then the first sob bubbles up out of his throat, and he knows there isn’t any point in trying to stop it now. The last three days of trying to be calm and collected and rational all while trying not to show how completely terrified he was—it all comes boiling to the surface. He really thought he was going to die. He thought he was never going to call his mom again, never going to go to work again and see his friends again, never going to come home to see Connor again. Now he tightens his arms around Connor’s waist and buries his face into Connor’s shoulder and feels Connor slowly rock them back and forth, feels Connor’s gentle hand on his shaking shoulders and his fingers in Oliver’s hair.
He feels another hand on his arm, gentle and reassuring. He thinks it might be Michaela, but it could be Laurel. Either way he doesn’t check; he’s too busy hiccupping and sobbing into the dip between Connor’s shoulder and his neck to even try.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Connor says, his own voice all choked up, too. He kisses the side of Oliver’s head. “I’m sorry I was such a dick, too,” he adds, and Oliver can’t help the tearful laugh that breaks between his sobs. “You were just trying to help, Ollie, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, it’s not—it’s no one’s fault, okay? I didn’t—didn’t get that, it took me a while, but—Christ, I was so scared I was never gonna see you again, and I would’ve spent my last day with you freaking out like—like a total dick. I’m so sorry, Ollie, I love you, I love you so much.”
And now they’re both crying, and Oliver manages to get out a barely audible, “I love you, too,” that may or may not be completely muffled by Connor’s shoulder.
But that’s okay. He’s alive, and Connor is, too. He’ll have plenty of time to say it again and again for a very, very long time.
He still isn’t really okay. Not by a long shot.
But at least now he feels pretty confident that he’s going to be.