Chapter 8

As Frank walked into the hospital corridor, everyone felt it. People stiffened up, stopped their conversations and quickly stood up to salute to him, it was almost as if they could sense that he was coming because his presence was one that demanded attentions from all parties. Frank, however, was seemingly oblivious to all of this and he walked straight past to the direction of his daughter. Erin, who had left when he went on his unsuccessful trip to Jamie's apartment, was slowly pacing with her phone pressed against her ear; she changed direction to face Frank and they made eye contact, with a knowing look she ended her call and walked towards him.

"Hey," Erin mumbled distractedly, while looking behind Frank.

"He's not here." Franks said bluntly. He wasn't going to try and make excuses for why Jamie hadn't shown up. He was still reeling from his encounter with Jamie and was confused to what the hell had just happened.

Erin, on the other hand, was not willing to just let that statement go. "What do you mean he's not here?" Frank opened his mouth to speak but Erin ignored him and continued on.

"This isn't any random officer we're talking about Dad, this is Eddie. The same Eddie Janko that we all know he has feelings for." Erin rambled, clearly confused about the whole situation. As soon as she had heard the news from her father earlier that night, she had rushed straight to the hospital, fully ready to console her worried brother, but now it seemed as if her assistances were not needed.

"I asked him if he was coming to the hospital with me and he said no. He said that he had an early tour and didn't want to be late." Frank explained, the words still sounding wrong and unfamiliar.

"That's bull and you know it as well as I do. He's avoiding her." She concluded, clearly stating the obvious. "Maybe you can ask Danny to convince him to go, or maybe drag him out of the house." She countered, but the last part was mumbled more as an afterthought.

"No, Danny needs his full concentration on the case right now." He paused for a moment and then continued, "We need to stay here and wait for news on her condition; Jamie said that she didn't really have any family, so right now we're all she's got."

"Danny said that Linda was working tonight so, I'll try and find her and see if she knows anything." Erin said whilst standing up. "It's going to be a long night." She whispered to herself and then walked away.

2:38am

Jamie opened his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that night and checked the time - it had only been two minutes since he had last checked. He sighed and turned over, hoping to pass out as quickly as possible, at this rate he would be falling asleep in the squad car tomorrow. He might just have to let Greene drive tomorrow, although the way Greene drove would probably put him to sleep anyway; Eddie would have jumped at the opportunity to drive the squad car.

Eddie.

His mind jumped to the person who he had been trying as hard as possible not to think about. Her name rolled about and lingered in his head and thinking about other things was counterproductive because everything led back to Eddie eventually. He replayed the conversation that he had with his father just a few hours ago, he couldn't believe that he'd had the nerve to use an early tour as an excuse not to go the hospital. At the moment, he really wouldn't disagree if anyone had called him a jackass. If Eddie had been there she would have kicked his ass and told him to fix things before it was too late, she would have been right of course. The thought of her made him smile in the dark before he could catch himself.

He genuinely did want to go to the hospital to see her and he felt horrible about abandoning her in her time of need, but he had a plan to try and catch the SOB that was doing this to her and unfortunately this was one of the sacrifices that he had to make. He thought of Eddie in the hospital all alone, probably in surgery and the panic began to settle in his chest. Losing her was unthinkable. He needed her and if she… if he did lose her it would be too much for him. He had handled losing his mother by immersing himself into law school, he handled losing Sydney by throwing himself into his work and trying to solve Joe's murder, he handled losing Vinny by training Eddie but if he lost Eddie, he didn't think there would be anything in this world that could help him move on from her. Since Eddie had been in his life, he hadn't been happier, it was as if she took all the sadness in the room and turned it into joy and it wasn't exactly hard for her as she was a buzzing ball of energy that Jamie never got tired of. They were complete opposites. He was calm, rational, a thinker and Eddie… well Eddie was impulsive and exciting, everything was bigger, better and brighter when she was around and he loved her for it.

His brain was still as active as ever so he turned around to a more comfortable position and closed his eyes, but opened them ten seconds later.

2:40am

This really was going to be one long damn night.

"Open the door Mack!" Eddie shouted furiously as she pounded on the locked door. If she wasn't careful, one of the neighbours could file a noise complaint against her, but she didn't care. She just wanted answers.

"Officer Janko," Mack answered as he opened the door with a concerned look on his face. He had waited few minutes to answer the door, just so he could see her grow angrier by the second and squirm right in front of him. "What are you doing here?"

"I want to know what the hell you did!" Eddie spat, her fists clenching.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The hell you don't." Eddie wasn't in the mood to be messed around with tonight, her earlier conversation with Jamie felt like a punch to the gut and she was still reeling from the after effects. "The calls, the flowers, the text messages you did all of this to send a message to me."

"Ok I'll admit the calls were a bit much and I'm sorry about that. I wasn't thinking straight when I did that. But everything else wasn't me."

"I don't believe you."

"Well believe it because if you're looking for the person that did this, you're looking in the wrong place and wasting your time. And mine." And with that he began to close the door, but Eddie's hand stopped him. Now he was getting annoyed. "Look I know calling you lots of times a day was wrong and creepy and a mistake, but that doesn't make me a bad person, it makes me human. I lost my brother and…"

Eddie let out a humourless laugh, "I hate to break it to you Mack but you're not the first person to go through a personal tragedy." She opened her mouth to finish what she was saying but no words came out. A lot of things seemed to have made her speechless these days.

"You okay?" Mack asked quietly.

"No." She paused and bit her lip. "Can I come in and get a glass of water?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Mack said hurriedly while he blocked the entrance.

Eddie eyed him suspiciously, his sudden change in character not sitting well with her. "Why not?"

"Just go home Eddie." Mack responded coldly and then shut the door in her face.

Eddie stared blankly at the door in front of her. She couldn't believe what had just happened in front of her, she slid her back down the wall and put her hands on the floor; she needed a moment to breathe. She wanted the world to just slow down and give her time to process, one thing at a time. She ran into her car and leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. She couldn't believe how she had screwed this up so badly; Eddie then opened her eyes and looked at her clenched fists. Slowly she opened them and stared at the crumpled yellow petal in her hands.

Jamie had been right.

A/N: Ok so don't kill me. My school is cruel and I've been busy under a mountain of summer holiday homework, still that is no excuse. I literally have so many drafts of this chapter because I wanted to get the chapter perfect, although tbh I'm still not completely happy with it but I thought it would be better to come with something rather than nothing. Thanks for all the reviews, I hope you guys haven't given up on me. If you haven't please review this chapter, I hope you don't think it's as bad as I think it is ;)