Chapter Text
Oliveras hears the steady beeping of hospital monitors, and feels the parched dryness at the back of her throat. She also feels a warm roughness encasing her left hand, and there's a full ache in her leg... She shifts her head, blinks her eyes open, and as a gentle rubbing across her skin, that roughness encases her hand in practically its entirety, she sees a pair of green eyes crinkle under a swoop of dark brown hair. "Well, well. Look who's finally up an' at 'em again. Rise and shine," the quirk of lips under a beard has her rolling her eyes instantly. At least she can do that without pain.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm awake. What did I miss?"
Smacking his lips and lifting shoulders in a shrug, "Ah, nothing much," Meachum says. "We took out Todd, but Fitz was the real MVP, takin' care of Blythe. Neither POTUS nor the governor got a scratch."
"...Good," Amber closes her eyes in brief, letting her breath out slowly and silently. And then her forehead wrinkles, her eyes opening again. "What was that about Blythe? What happened? Meachum," her voice is a warning, and she's moving, gripping the bars on the sides of her bed to get up.
"Whoa, hey, he's still among the living, Amber. I promise," Mark leans closer to her, and she sees pain, or something like it, flicker across his face. She sees it in his eyes. She's gotten pretty good at reading him.
"But?" She demands. She doesn't yell it, but her tone does snap. He closes his eyes, now, sighing. She jerks her hand away from his, as she registers the fact that he had been holding it. She ignores the way her chest flutters traitorously at the thought. Jabs her fingers against his arm instead. "Tell me, Mark Meachum, what the hell is going on or so help me I-"
"He was shot in the back," Mark speaks, his voice gravelly and quiet. He doesn't move, other than his eyes coming open to find hers. "He dove in front of POTUS, Fitz said. Bullet got him in the spine." His breath is louder, now; harsher. His hand clenches into a fist. "I got there too late to do anything but help stop the bleeding..."
"The way you did for me," Amber says to him as gently as she can. His jaw jumps as he clenches his teeth. She can see it. The anger in his eyes. Frustration at himself.
"Yeah, but you can still use your leg," he points out, swallowing hard. "Blythe, he's -" his lips work as his throat does, Adams apple bobbing up and down. And a wash of cold makes Amber freeze as she registers what a bullet to the spine will do. What it can do, unless you're very lucky.
"... he's paralyzed," her voice is close to a whisper now as she forces the words past a lump that fills her throat. "Isn't he?"
Mark looks at her, tears in his eyes mirror the burning in her own. He shrugs, this halfhearted movement of one shoulder. "Who knows, I mean, that's what the doctors say, but hell, what do they know?"
"...A lot," Amber says gently. "They're professionals, Mark."
"I know that, damn it!" His voice rises and he's exploding from his seat, but she just looks at him, raising an eyebrow rather than flinching back, and he softens. Slowly sits back down again. "I just - it's bullshit, y'know? He's laying in here, and so's Shepherd's sister, and you...." His voice catches and a spasm crosses his face. He closes his eyes as if to change the reality, but he cannot stop a single tear that drips down his right cheek. The closest one to her.
Amber sees it, and she reaches out, gesture automatic as she wipes his skin with her thumb. She cups his face, then, and feels him subtly shaking. "We're gonna help him, be here for him," her voice is quiet but she puts as much strength in the tone as she possibly can. "We're getting through this, you got me?"
Mark looks at her, and listens. Listens and breathes. "... Okay," he says back, finally.
"Okay what, Mark?"
"Okay, I get you. Amber." He pauses, and it's the smallest twitch of his lips that precedes "I told you I'd be back."
"You what?" She tilts her head at him, hair falling away from one side of her face.
"I told you, I'd be here once you woke back up."
"Uh-huh." She raises her eyebrows and bites her lower lip. "Sure, after you were done playing the hero..."
"Hey, I'm serious!" He tells her, even as he can't stop himself from smiling.
"Oh yeah? Prove it then."
"Prove - what, that I told you while you were passed out getting blood that I'd be back?"
"Well you tell me, mister hotshot LA cop, don't you guys record everything?"
He shakes his head, looks away, laughs. Some of the tension leaves him, and she sees. "Unbelievable. You know, I haven't heard something from you, a couple of words-"
"What kind of words?" She leans back against her pillows, only not crossing her arms because the I.V. line pulls.
"Oh I don't know...," there is a genuine softening of Mark's features, a gentleness in his voice as much as face that Amber likes to see. And maybe it makes her heart beat a little faster too, but she'll deny that he has anything to do with it. "Some gratitude, maybe?"
"Oh yeah, you gave me back my phone," Amber makes a show of thinking and then remembering that had been him. "Thank you sO much." He rolls his eyes and laughs, genuine and loud. She's grinning back at him, and then reaches out and pulls him close. "I do mean it, though," she says softly, eyes locked on his, hand curled to hold his face. She tilts hers and brushes her lips to his in manner light. Sweet, but with eyes fluttering back open and chin tipped down, Amber Oliveras adds "You came for me. You didn't have to do that."
Mark looks right back at her. "'Course I did," his voice is rough and just as quiet. He carefully lifts one hand and pushes fingers through her hair. Her lashes flutter as he cups the back of her neck in manner gentle. He moves back close, and says against her lips "I always have to come for you. And I will." There's a twinkle in his eyes, the slightest smirk; but she can tell- she's learned how to catch him being serious, so she looks.
She looks into his face and then catches his lips with hers once more. There is a promise in this, for them, and a promise to take care of their team; an understanding of one another and of being here.
Because that is what they are both going to do.