Empathy [Ben Hargreeves]

Episode Four. Part III.

"Man on the Moon"

"Please stay alive," Eloise begged the detective who had selflessly saved her and Klaus. Elle didn't want their lives to be at the cost of her own.

Panicked with tears running down her face, Elle fumbled around Patch's belt for her knife. She used the blade to cut the end of her shirt to wrap her arm roughly, then gripped the ends of the material in her teeth and pulled to tighten a makeshift bandage on the bullet wound. She couldn't help Eudora if she passed out herself, so when she had slowed her own bleeding, Elle turned to the fallen detective.

Applying pressure firmly to the cloth against the bullet wound, Elle searched around with her eyes for her jacket that Hazel had taken to search. She spotted it draped over the dresser. "Eudora? Can you press down on your wound? I have to call 911."

Patch groaned and shifted to move her hands from the floor onto her chest. Elle pushed to her feet and rushed to her leather jacket. With shaky fingers, Elle called the police under a hidden number to bring them to the scene of a crime against an officer.

After hanging up on the emergency operator, the blonde kneeled down next to Patch. She pressed harder against the woman's chest wound, but she was losing so much blood. "Back up is on the way. You have to hold on."

Elle inhaled and exhaled while counting to calm herself down. She needed to send the woman strength to hold on. Through her hands making contact with Patch, Elle manipulated the emotion of pain to a numbing calm.

"I'm sorry..." Tears filled the woman's eyes, but she refused to let them fall. As an officer, it was Patch's sworn duty to protect and serve. She protected two citizens by stepping across dangerous lines.

Her heartbeat began to slow as her eyes drooped and didn't reopen. "Diego..." Eudora Patch murmured Elle's brother's name in her last breath before slipping under.

Like a candle blown out, she was gone.

"No!" Elle cried out. "Please, no. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, no."

☆☆☆

Diego Hargreeves showed up to the motel room, a half hour too late. Patch's body was bloody and cold on the floor.

"No, no, no. Eudora!" Diego cried out in anguish and heartbreak as he caught sight of the familiar beautiful woman on the ground.

Diego brushed strands of Patch's silky hair from her pale face before punching the ground. He let out a sob for his lost love. "I was on my way.. I was... Why didn't you wait?" Diego caressed her face with gentle fingers.

"I tried to save her," Elle whimpered. She was pressed against the wall by the vent where Klaus had escaped. She was bleeding and shivering but too weak and distraught to move.

"Elle?" her adoptive brother said in confusion.

"Diego." Elle burst into a fresh wave of tears. "I couldn't save her. I'm so sorry."