Partners in Crime

Chapter thirty-two

It's been a few hours since Theo first went into surgery and unfortunately, we still have no updates.

"Does anyone want anything out of the vending machine?" Layla stands from her seat, rubbing her hands on her jeans.

I shake my head, while the others mutter their responses. Jake stands up. "I'll come with you." As they leave, the room goes back into the silence that it's been in for the past few hours.

"Are you guys here for Theodore Williams?" A nurse wearing scrubs enters the room, causing Layla and Jake to turn back.

"That's us." My voice comes out raspy as I stand up.

"Theo has just been taken out of surgery. Unfortunately we can't tell you if or when he'll wake up, but we did manage to remove all the fragments of glass."

"Does he have any other injuries?" Charlie voices all of our questions.

"He has cracked and broken a few ribs, he also had some deep cuts that needed stitching and he'll have some sore as hell bruises." Her eyes return to sympathetic ones, before she continues. "He was stuck under the beam for a huge amount of time before anyone got to him, meaning he lost a lot of oxygen. I can't guarantee that your friend will ever wake up, and if he does, it'll only be then that we can observe if he has any brain damage." She gives us one more small smile before leaving the room.

"This isn't good." Tammy mutters, sounding like what's happening is only registering with her now.

"What about his family?" My voices breaks, as I will myself not to cry again. "They should know."

Charlie shakes his head. "Theo hasn't spoken to them in years, he won't want them to know."

I nod, in any other situation I'd question what he meant, but right now it's the least of my worries. A phone rings knocking us out of the trance.

"Hello." Jake puts the phone up to his ear. "already?.... ok I understand, I'll let everyone know." After hanging up the phone, he lets out a frustrated sigh.

"What's up?" Gracie asks.

"Clare wants us back at work."

"Seriously? Our friends life is hanging in the balance and she wants us back at work!" Tammy exclaims angrily.

"She said she understands how we're going to react, but Theo would want us to finish the case." Jake explains, but his face shows the last thing he wants to do is stick up for Clare.

"Maybe she's right." I mutter. "That's exactly what Theo would want."

Doesn't mean I'm going to leave him though.

"Someone's gotta stay here." Charlie adds. "He could wake up."

Tammy rubs his arm soothingly. "Olivia will stay, won't you?"

I nod when everyone looks towards me. "I don't plan on leaving, if Clare has anything to say about it, I'll remind her I'm still on office duty."

Everyone reluctantly leaves while I stay sitting in the waiting room, worrying about Theo. I look up when there's a knock at the door. "Agent Bennett right?" The same nurse from earlier asks.

I nod. "That's me. Is everything ok?"

The nurse gives me a small smile and walks further into the room. "Theo's in a private room, I can bring you to him if you'd like?"

I nod. "That'd be good, thank you."

We take the elevator up to the third floor, and after walking down a few corridors she stops outside a room. "This is his room, but prepare yourself, he doesn't look great."

"Thank you." I smile politely, before walking into the room. The nurse was right, this person in front of me doesn't look like Theo. He has a ventilator connected to his mouth, black and blue bruises and deep cuts over the parts of his body that I can see. I take the seat beside his bed, resting my hand on top of his.

"You gonna wake up now or leave me hanging?" I whisper and squeeze his hand in an attempt to 'wake' him up.

A girl can dream.

"You should have told me Theo, I treated you like shit for no reason." I wipe the single tear that slides down my cheek. "I'm so sorry."

My phone ringing snaps me out of my daze. I pick it up to see that it's Isabella.

"Hello?" I sniff.

"Livvy, I'm so sorry I'm just after seeing the news, I was in class." Izzy shrieks, from the other end of the phone. "How is he?"

"He... um, he still hasn't woken up." I tell her, my voice giving away the fact that I'm a blubbering mess. "They don't know if he ever will."

"I'm so sorry Olivia, I wish I was there," Her voice is soft. "but we both know Theo, he's a fighter. There's no way he'd go down without a fight."

I nod, even though she can't see me. "I hate myself Izzy, he was undercover, he didn't really have a girlfriend."

"Isn't that a good thing sweetie?"

"But I treated him so bad." I tell her. "What if I never get to speak to him again?"

"Don't be silly Liv. I'm sure Theo had already predicted how you would've reacted." She tells me. "He knew you'd find out eventually."

I look back towards the near lifeless body in front of me. "He better wake up Izzy."

________________________________

"It's me again." I smile as I put my bag down on the table and take my usual seat beside the bed. It's been a few weeks since the bomb and unfortunately Theo still hasn't woke up. Everyone allowed me to wallow and play the blame game for the first few days, before they forced me to go back out into the real world because 'it's what Theo would want me to do.'

I glance over at the boy in front of me, some of his bruises have eased up but for the most part he still looks like he's in a hell of a lot of pain. 

"Clare sent me back to field work today." I tell him, today wasn't my first day back at work, but it was my first day back on the field. I've made a habit of coming to visit Theo everyday in the hope he might wake up, but it still hasn't worked. "I've got a stand in partner, his names Mike."

I take a sip of the water I bought in the vending machine. "He's cool, but he reminds me a lot of my dad," I laugh, Mikes around the same age as dad, and even after one day I've taken a lot from the tips he's given me from his experiences. "and this uniform," I pull at the army green T-shirt. "I really didn't miss it, it makes me look stupid."

"I don't know, I've always thought the uniform suited you, but maybe that's just me." My head snaps up at the sound of his strangled voice, the voice I haven't heard in weeks.