Tag: Garret and Calico

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

A month had passed since the day Calico finally opened her big green eyes and looked up at him from that hospital bed. Twelve days of sitting at her bedside not knowing if she’d ever wake up, not knowing if she’d still be the same person as she’d been before if she did.

Now after a month of rehab, of resting and slowly rebuilding strength, of speaking to a psychiatrist and working through some of what she’d endured, it was finally time.

“Excited?” he asked as he curled his fingers into fists to stop them reaching for Calico’s shoes and put them on himself. Part of what Garret had to learn over the last month was respecting Calico’s independence and not trying to step in. She was moving slowly, but she was regaining her strength, and shockingly capable for someone with a broken leg and arm, and who had spent almost two weeks in a coma.

“Very.” Calico beamed up at him as she managed to awkwardly slide her food foot into her sneaked. That triumphant smile every time she achieved even the most simple of tasks made him fall a little more in love with her.

“And you’re sure you’re good with staying at my place?” Although she’d accepted his offer to stay with him until she was fully healed and no longer needed help, Calico wasn’t the only one that needed closeness. He needed her by his side just as much as he knew she needed to be at his.

“Nowhere else in the world I’d rather be,” she said, pushing to her feet, wobbling precariously as he pushed over the wheelchair so she could sink down into it.

Dropping to his knees in front of her, he took her hands in his. This was crazy, they hadn’t known each other all that long, and most of that time they’d both been on edge from a serial killer being on the loose.

But it felt right.

Now he just had to hope Calico felt the same way.

“I know this is early, and I understand if you’re not ready,” he started, keeping her hands cradled in one of his while his other slipped into his pocket. “But I love you, Calico, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She gasped and her eyes filled with tears. Happy tears he assumed since she was also grinning at him.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes.”

Slipping the ring onto her finger felt like new beginnings. Curling a hand around the back of her neck, he guided her lips to meet his, careful not to cause her healing body any pain.

“H-hmm,” a voice cleared from the door, and he pulled back, to glance over his shoulder and find Tony and Natasha standing there, both of them smiling.

“Your chariot is here to take you home,” Natasha said, and he noticed something sparkling on her finger.

“Are you engaged?” Calico squealed.

“Tony proposed last night,” Natasha gushed. “Wait a minute? Is that a ring?”

“Garret proposed about ten seconds ago,” Calico answered, love shining in her eyes as she gifted him another smile.

Congratulations were exchanged and as Garret looked around at their little group, a the woman he loved, his partner, and his partner’s fiancee, he realised it was a new beginning for all of them.

Bedside vigil continues.

Pain.

That’s all she knew.

Darkness.

It was the only place she existed.

Calico had no knowledge of the passage of time. No understand of where she was or what had happened to her.

Just pain.

Just darkness.

Any time the darkness began to recede a little the raging pain tugged her right back under again.

Throughout it all she felt a presence. Something warm and strong that remained close. She had no idea what it was but it was nice, and she wanted to soak up as much of it as she could.

Whispers filtered through occasionally. Her name uttered with so much emotion that it would have her weeping if only she had enough energy to do anything more than exist.

Was she really existing thought?

She felt trapped, stuck somewhere dark, painful, cold.

Then all of a sudden warmth crept in. Something cradled her hand so gently, a puff of breath touched her forehead, and then she heard him whisper her name.

Garret.

Like a tap had been turned on all her memories came rushing back. The serial killer. Her ex-boyfriend. His father. The car crash. Being held captive. The fall off the roof. All of it was suddenly back and she cried out as she opened her eyes to see Garret hovering above her.

“Love you,” she croaked, her voice weak and strained, but she had to get the words out. Needed him to know for sure how she felt.

His eyes softened as he looked down at her and she knew what he was going to say before he said it because she could read his feelings in those beautiful eyes of his.

“Love you too, sweetheart, and don’t ever scare me like this again. It’s been twelve days since we found you.”

“Sorry,” she murmured, already getting tugged under again, but this time she wasn’t consumed by cold, pain, and darkness.

This time it was light and warmth, peace, that she drifted off into, because Garret was here and she loved him and he loved her back.

Rescued woman still hasn’t regained consciousness.

Watching Calico fall off the roof took decades off his life.

Garret was screaming her name and running towards the house as she seemed to float through the air in slow motion.

She was halfway down when she suddenly jerked to a stop.

it didn’t take him long to figure out why.

Dr. Daniels was leaning out the window, his hands gripping Calico’s wrists.

“You come any closer and I let her go,” Dr. Daniels called out.

“Shoot him, Garret,” Calico screeched at the same time.

“You’ll fall,” he yelled back. There was no way he was doing anything it put her in more danger than she was already in.

“Better than whatever he’ll do to me. Please. I just want to be free of him.”

The desperation in her plea hit him deep. This woman had blown into his life like a breath of fresh air, she’d tangled herself up in his hear almost immediately, and he wanted a future with her.

But she’d suffered horribly at the hands of this man, and he didn’t want her to suffer anything else. Still, he couldn’t willingly send her plummeting to what could at worst be her death, and at best would leave her with serious injuries.

“He’s never going to do it,” Dr. Daniels taunted, seemingly unperturbed by the number of weapons aimed at him. “He doesn’t love you as much as I do.”

With a roar that belied her small size, Calico yanked her body hard to the side. The movement was enough to cause Dr. Daniels to lose his balance, and then both of them were falling.

There was no way Garret was letting that man live. Not after everything he’d done. Firing off a shot at the man, he started running, wanting to catch Calico before she hit the ground, use his body to break her fall.

But he was too far away.

Forced to watch in horror as her body hit the hard ground and bounced before lying still.

As he dropped to his knees beside her no more than a couple of seconds later, his fingers went straight to her neck, pleading with the universe to let him find a pulse.

Missing woman rescued from rooftop.

It was cold out. Or maybe it was just that she was cold. Either way Calico couldn’t stop shivering.

Inside the bedroom below her she could hear Dr. Daniels raging in a fury, cursing her, his son, and life in general.

Her perch on the roof was precarious at best, the tiles were slippery because it had been raining recently. One wrong move and she’d go tumbling down to the ground below. If the fall didn’t kill her then Dr. Daniels would.

There were lights shining from the houses around her, and help felt so close but so far away. If she could just reach one then this would all be over. She could call Garret and he’d come to her and she’d finally be safe.

“Please leave,” she murmured under her breath. If Dr. Daniels would just leave the house then she’d be able to figure out a way down.

Or just scream until someone came or called the cops.

Then like a miracle the sound of sirens filled the air.

Help was coming. Someone must have seen her up here on the roof and called in the cops.

Relief had tears brimming in her eyes, tumbling free as she pushed up onto her feet, waving her arms as the flashing lights came into view.

She was saved. She was going to live.

Then she heard a sound below. Looking down she saw Dr. Daniels head sticking out the open window she’d just escape through.

He looked up.

She looked down.

He grinned.

She screamed.

Then lost her balance and fell.

Friends and family of missing nurse desperately cling to hope.

Garret stood over the discarded body, fear and hope warring inside him. The body wasn’t Calico’s, not this time anyway, but it was her ex. Derek Daniels had been almost decapitated when someone slit his neck.

Derek’s father.

DNA had proved that he was the killer, but it didn’t tell them where he was hiding out.

If the man could kill his own son with such apparent ease then killing Calico wouldn’t be at all difficult for him.

How much time left did she have?

Hours? Days? Weeks? Months?

While he would never stop hoping she was alive, Garret also knew that being alive meant she was suffering. He had no idea what her relationship with the man had been like when she’d been dating Derek, there had been no reason at the time to ask about it, the man hadn’t abducted her for no reason.

Staring down at the body, Garret knew this was Calico’s fate if he couldn’t find her in time. Maybe Dr Daniels wouldn’t slice through her neck but he’d kill her just the same.

“We got a call,” Tony rushed up beside him. His partner was a good friend, bringing him to the site despite him not even officially being released from the hospital much less back at work.

“Who? What?” Fear churned in his get. Had her body been found? Was it already too late to save her?

“Someone just called in seeing a woman climb out a second story window of a house and up onto the roof.”

“And?” There had to be more than that if the message had been passed on to Tony.

“Description matches Calico.”