smallredboy

Author notes: For the fffc 100th special with the prompt "cry", hc_bingo with the square "major illness or injury" and genprompt_bingo with the square "character study".

Among the panic, all Jack can think of is that I have to call Bella. I need to call Bella.

He keeps the sharp glass against his throat, because if he doesn't he'll bleed out — he knows these things. He shakes and keeps it there as he grabs his phone, looks through his contacts, until he gets to his wife's. He wants to cry. He doesn't want to die before her, he doesn't, he wants to at least die by her side.

The phone rings, and rings, and rings.

He doesn't know what's happening on the other side of the door. He can hear voices, can faintly make out Hannibal's accent. But he doesn't understand what he's saying, to who he's saying it. It all feels dreadful, like a nightmare he can't get out of. He just wants to wake up.

"Jack?"

He's shaken awake by Bella's voice, calling for him.

He can't find it in him to respond. Every word in his tongue dies before it leaves it, as he considers what on Earth he's supposed to say.

"I love you," he says. "I love you, Bella. I love you. I love you."

That's all he says.

"Jack, talk to me. What's happening? Are you alright? Jack. Jack!"

The phone slides off his bloodied hand.

When he wakes up, he's hooked to IVs and machines, and Bella's hospital bed is right next to his own.

He blinks, looks at her. "Am I dead?" he asks.

She opens her eyes, looks up at him. "I thought you were dead," she replies.

"I was worried I was." He lets out a quiet cough. "For a second I thought that this was Heaven, and that we had both died."

"We're both alive, Jack," she says. "We're here. We're together."

"Yeah." He reaches his hand out, but she's too far away — all he manages to do is touch the little rail of her hospital bed. But she reaches as well, and she squeezes his hand. Her hand is cold. "We're between deaths, aren't we?"

"I guess we are." She swallows. "I'm glad… I'm glad you're here, Jack. That phone call terrified me."

He tears up at that. He still hasn't heard what's happened — if Hannibal has been apprehended, if Hannibal has managed to run free. He almost doesn't want to know, to pretend that he's in the hospital for a reason completely unrelated to the Chesapeake Ripper. But he can still feel the sharp pain on his neck, throbbing, calling to his attention. He'd love to pretend, but it's difficult to.

"I can imagine," he replies. "I wanted to explain and… and apologize, just in case, but the words wouldn't come out of me. I was afraid that you'd…" He sighs. "You'd freak out too much. I didn't want to freak you out, even though I knew it was impossible you wouldn't find out and freak out by yourself."

"I get it," she replies. She squeezes his hand hard. "I get it, Jack. You don't need to explain yourself to me. I love you."

"I love you too. So much. More than words can say."

After a while, a nurse comes with Zeller in tow, ready to explain what happened. He doesn't want to hear it, but he has to hear it.

He straightens up on his hospital bed a little, as much as his neck protests at the sudden movement. He's going to have a scar there, he reckons; a gash.

"Tell me about it, Z," he says.

He's drained and exhausted the following days. His recovery goes by, and he goes see Will, and he goes see Alana. It all tastes rotten in his mouth, but matter of fact is that he has to do something. He has to find out where Hannibal went off to. Somewhere in Europe, probably. That seemed in character for him.

"I'll have to go soon," he tells Bella at night, as he takes care of her. The machines beep softly. "I have to go catch Hannibal."

She smiles, wheezes a little. "Of course," he says. "I love you, Jack."

"I love you too."

She's in so much pain. He can't have her be in even more pain, in the uncertainty of if he will come back from Europe alive or not. She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to suffer like this, for so long, for too much. It's too heavy on his heart — he truly can't deal with it without going crazy.

He thinks of her trying to rid herself of life what feels like thousand of years ago. The way Hannibal saved her life. He wonders why, but it's not like he can ask him.

"I'm tired," she says.

He swallows, leans in to grab her hand. He squeezes. She's still cold; she's always cold.

"I want to… to take you to your second death," he says, in a whisper, almost hoping she doesn't hear.

She does hear, of course. She smiles. "Euthanasia is frowned upon, Jack." She coughs softly, wheezes. "But I don't particularly mind."

"Okay," he says. "After you fall asleep, I'lll… I'll up it. I'll… I'll do it." Tears fill his eyes, and he leans down to kiss her hands. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replies. "So much."

When she falls asleep, he looks at the machine, and slowly presses the button that ups her morphine.

It feels like a part of his soul goes with her, as rigor mortis sets in.