Chapter Forty Three: Shouldn't Have Been Alone

Maggie could still feel the blood on her hands as she stared at the interior of her open locker. No matter how much she scrubbed she couldn't seem to wash it from her flesh. The skin from her wrists down was red raw and vibrant from the boiling hot water and repeated use of soap. She was now sitting on the wooden bench in the locker room, her hands pressed between her knees as if in prayer as the events played through her head like a movie, forcing her to relive them over and over again.

There was anger burning down deep inside her, she could feel it coiling in the pit of her stomach as sat there in her black sports bra trying to grit her teeth and stop her hands from trembling. The shakes had started not long after she'd torn the bloody shirt from her body and tossed it at the trash. The adrenaline that had with her through her time at the scene and then the hospital had ebbed leaving nothing more than a hollowed out husk. Kim's life was out of her hands now, Doctor Rhodes had promised to call her as soon as he'd finished up with Kim in surgery but it would be hours before that happened so instead she simply sat here trying to ride through the shock that was vibrating in her system.

The door to the locker room opened and Maggie pressed her knees together even tighter in a bid to hide the quiver of her hands as Kevin Atwater entered the room. His hazel eyes came to rest on her before she tilted up her head and jutted out her chin as if prepared for a fight. He had been Kim's partner before her and before Roman, there was a bond between him and Kim that could not be broken despite his transfer to Intelligence. Ruzek blamed her for what happened, he had made that clear when he had told her to leave the hospital. So why wouldn't Kevin? She admitted she had been distracted in the time before Kim was shot. Jenn and her squabbling over Roman which seemed even more insane now when she thought about it.

"I just wanted to check in, see how you were doing." Kevin murmured, that deep voice of his full of compassion as he reviewed the dainty patrol officer in front of him.

In circumspect he hadn't known Maggie long but she was good police, he had seen her work during the Asher Rosalyn investigation and it had been inspiring to say the least. The way she had become a completely different person astounded him, he almost hadn't recognized her when she'd stepped in wearing that lace dress with shorter hair. Everything from her appearance to her mannerisms was different and he knew that that ability wasn't something you learned. It was a gift.

He had heard things about her past, the rumor mill was always rife around the station house especially when a new cop transferred knew about her father and his reputation as a lady's man despite the fact he was married. In the beginning a few of the patrolmen had assumed she would follow in his footsteps but Kevin himself had seen that wasn't true. Maggie was fiercely loyal to the people close to her, he'd seen it in the way she'd defended Antonio when someone had dared to suggest he had taken Rosalyn's diamonds. The way her and Kim put up a unified front in front of Platt when she was in one of her hideous moods and now he saw it in the way she mourned their friend. Kim wasn't gone but her life was in danger and he could sense the fear of that knowledge raising up inside of him like a cobra ready to strike. He knew if he wavered then he would be useless to Kim when it came to tracking down the perpetrator so he tried to remain clear headed and focused.

He wanted Maggie to know he didn't blame her for what had happened, he knew that any other day it could have been any of them in that spot. He'd been to the scene and cataloged the events as he stood there on the stoop, there wasn't anything that he would have done differently but he understood that when you were in that position you couldn't necessarily see the wood from the trees.

"It's like a nightmare you know?" Maggie said raising to her feet as she plunged her hand into her locker and pulled out a slate grey shirt and pulled it on over her head. "I keep seeing it over and over again in my head. Gunshot, fall, blood."

"Yea I know what you mean." Atwater said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned his shoulders against the heavy blue lockers. "The house looks like it was set up to hurt cops or at least that's what Al says."

Maggie nodded her agreement, her cobalt blue eyes becoming distant as she relived those moments inside the house. The violent death metal music pounding in her ears as her boot caught on that tiny sliver of trip wire. There was a moment where she thought that was it, she was going to die at the hands of some psycho's booby-trap but the cop in her had won out over the panic and before she knew it she was following her instincts. She'd gotten low before allowing the trap to trigger, her left ear was still ringing like a bastard from the sheer force of the gun shot that had blasted over her head.

"What Al says is usually right." Maggie said before closing her locker and sighing loudly. "Kevin... Just say what you came here to say."

Atwater took in her demeanor with interest, her feet were apart in a defensive stance, her arms crossed over her chest and her pale features grimacing as she tore her gaze away from him so that she could study the floor beneath her boots. It took him a moment to realise that she expected a rebuke but that couldn't have been further from the truth. She had saved Kim's life today and then she had gone after the shooter, he couldn't fault that, he would have done the same thing, any of them would but he could see that Adam's words back at the hospital still pricked her like barbs under the skin. What Adam had said was cruel but he was grieving and afraid, the other man lived in the present. He was a hot head when it came to the people he cared about and he had vented all that rage and fear on Maggie before he had had all of the information. That didn't mean she should be carrying that guilt upon her shoulders, nobody should.

"I came to say thank you." Kevin said, searching for the words to make Maggie understand what he was trying to say. "What happened to Kim could have happened to any one of us out there and I'm glad she had you watching her back."

"Kevin..." Maggie began helplessly before he held up a hand to cut her off.

"You were a step behind her." he said forcefully, keeping his hazel eyes trained on her so she could read the seriousness in his face. "Literally a step. I could see your shoe print in the blood and I know that you did everything you could in that situation. I don't see anything that I would have done differently."

Maggie shook her own head at his words before she bit her pert lower lip, her brain running over the series of events over and over again. No matter how long she thought about it, she couldn't change what had happened today. There had been no other options for her to take, she had responded according to her training and Kim was a live right now because of it. She swallowed hard past the ache in her throat as she choked out the truth as she saw it.

"Neither do I."