If I can't have you

Chapter 2

Levi didn't know how long he sat in the locker room, knees curled to his chest so he could hide his face in them like when he had been five and hide from a thunderstorm in his wardrobe. His mum had found him two hours later at the back of the confined space muttering to himself that it would all be over soon. Here he was, twenty years later doing the exact same thing.

While this little mantra had been going around Levi's head, Taryn had slipped quietly into the room and sat down next to him. For once, she didn't try and fill the silence, seeming to know that Levi would simply prefer her mere presence rather than her usual noise. Instead, she pulled a wad of tissues out of the pocket of her scrubs and handed them to Levi, who took them and began to dab at his streaming eyes.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, just that they were interrupted by the arrival of the other interns who spilled in through the door but stopped short when they saw Levi and Taryn on the floor.

'Oh God. What's happened?' Dahlia said, the confusion clear in her voice. It was obvious that the news of Nico had yet to get around the hospital.

'He's probably gone and one upped himself by dropping something worse than his glasses in a patient and is about to have his ass handed to him.' One of the other interns managed to snigger out.

'Oh shut up Fred. Like you're having a good day. I saw you with the laceration girl in the ER. You couldn't even stitch that up. At least Levi can actually do his job.' Casey snapped.

Levi gave a watery smile to Casey as he and Dahlia ushered the other interns out despite the protest that this was just as much their space. Dahlia then pulled a blanket out of the storage cupboard and wrapped it around the still crying Levi while Casey unlocked his locker and started to pull crisps and chocolate out.

Taking the food that Casey held out, Levi could feel Dahlia glancing over at him, clearly wondering what had got him so upset that he had been reduced to a weeping mess on the floor of the locker room.

'It's Nico,' was so that he managed before bursting into fresh tears. A soft gasp was heard, whether it was from Dahlia or Casey Levi was not sure but the one thing he was sure of was the three sets of arms that surrounded him. That made him feel safe and cared for.

'You want me to tell them everything?' Taryn asked knowing that Levi would struggle. He nodded silently and listened as she explained how Nico had gotten caught up in the pile up. How broken he had been when he had been brought in by the ambulance.

'Has anyone told you anything since he was brought in Levi?'

He shook his head. 'I haven't come out since Bailey told me to come up here and get changed,' he shocked out. He hadn't even managed some basic instructions. 'Oh god, she told me to go to the family room after changing, what if someone went there looking for me and I wasn't there. They'll think that I abandoned him. That I ran at the first sign of trouble. Oh god , oh god, oh god.' Levi could feel himself panicking, on the verge of hyperventilating. His friends voices were faint in the background, their voices just white noise. And then there was a new voice, several voices in fact. There was a female telling everyone to back off and give him space. That had to be Dr Bailey. Great, he was making a fool of himself in front of the Chief of Surgery. There was another voice that sounded like Link and he could vaguely make out a blond haired figure crouching in front of him. Oh god, there was red on the front of Links scrubs.His training told him that it must have been bad. Orthopaedic surgeons having that much blood on their scrubs was bad and Levi knew that he to be Nicos blood as Link was the only other orthopaedic surgeon on shift. That knowledge sent him spiralling deeper and deeper into what seemed to be a never ending tunnel of darkness. He felt arms pick him up in an attempt to move him. Why were they trying to move him? He remembered being told that it was a bad idea, yet he was being moved whilst in the middle of a panic attack.

His surroundings changed from the bright and harsh lighting of the interns locker room to a dimmer room with what seemed to be the rhythmic sounds of machines that he usually associated with patients rooms in ICU while doing a night shift.

Eventually, his breaths began to slow after what felt like an age and when his vision came into focus, his eyes took in the scene in front of him. Jo was staring down at a chart, glancing at the monitors every few seconds to double check what she was writing in the charts. Link was curled up like a cat next to him, cheek squashed into his hand as he slept. Why was he here? Why had he been brought here of all places in the large hospital? Then his brain caught up with the rest of his body and he saw who was lying in that bed. It was Nico and the rhythmic and reassuring noise he could hear was the sound of Nico's heartbeat