Antiheroes 25

George stood, and watched, and waited. On the other side of the glass, Vic lay on an operating table, surrounding by a veritable pack of surgeons. They had been working for hours, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
If she was honest, she was almost shocked by their professionalism. This man had threatened their workplace, their colleagues, their patients — human life, in general, the thing that they devoted their lives to protecting — and they were working as hard to save his life as they would anyone else’s. In their position, George wasn’t sure what she would have done, but she suspected she would not have been as good as them.
The cops had spoken to her earlier, and she had told them what she knew — well, some of what she knew. Vic had come in with a gun, had come after her, and then… Then, she told them, there had been that other girl, then there had been an explosion, flames, then there had been Vic on the ground and chaos and confusion and all she had been able to do was wait for help to arrive.
She would never forgive herself if he died, she knew that already. She hadn’t done anything consciously, purposely, but it was still definitely her fault that he was now lying on that table. Hot tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to cry.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie’s disbelief, when she said she had to stay with him, had to stay with the man who had hurt her, who had been ready to kill her. But he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have done it, she was sure, and anyway, it was more complicated than that. Maggie looked so young, she couldn’t possibly know what this was like, couldn’t have ever been in a situation like this one.
And it didn’t matter now, did it? Whatever he had done to her, she had done so much worse, the proof of that was on the operating table.
A hand fell on her shoulder, dragging her back to reality. She looked over to see Glenn, the head surgeon, who had been in charge of Vic’s operation. But that wasn’t right, he should still have been in the theater, he shouldn’t have been out there with her, unless, unless….

“No,” she whispered.

“We tried, George. We really tried…”

Someone had obviously told him that she and Vic had been together, and she was so relieved, so relieved that she didn’t have to explain why she broke down right then and there, fell into Glenn’s arms, racked with sobs. He didn’t push her away, bless him for that. He just held her, didn’t say anything — what could he have said, anyway, it was a ridiculous situation, and probably he wanted to tell her to stop crying, this is for the best, you’re free now — and she cried and cried, and didn’t say anything either, because she wanted to say that she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to do it, and she couldn’t say that, couldn’t say a word about what had really happened out in that room.
So they just stood, and she cried until she felt emptied out, and so tired she hoped she might just sleep forever.