“Indy, why?” he whispered as he ripped off his shirt, needing something to press to the wound to try to stem the flow of blood.
“You know why, brother,” Steel reminded him, voice soft and gentle, so un-Steel like. “Because the thought of anything happening to you meant she was willing to go to any lengths, put anything on the line, so long as you walked away alive.”
“I'd rather she walked away alive,” he muttered. If only one of them was leaving this forest still breathing, then it should be her. Sacrificing his life for hers would be easy, Indigo deserved a chance to live a happy life, to have people in her corner, to be anything she wanted to be.
Now that chance was slipping through his fingers.
Literally.
Already, his fingers, holding his balled-up shirt to her abdomen, were stained red with her blood. It was soaking through the shirt. Coming too quickly.
Fear that he wouldn't be able to save her thrummed through his system.
“What about him? Is he still alive?” Voodoo asked, not bothering to look away from Indigo’s still form as he asked about the fate of the man who had held a gun to her head, threatening to hurt her as well as kill her.
“Your girl is a warrior at heart,” Lion replied. “He’s dead.”
“Good,” he muttered. While he wouldn't have wasted any of his energy trying to save the man’s life, the only life he was interested in saving was Indy’s, he liked knowing that his girl had fought for herself as well as for him, even as he would ream her out for it as soon as she opened her eyes.
“What do you need us to do?” Blade asked, and part of him hated that everyone else was managing to keep their cool while he felt like his world was spinning faster out of control with each beat of his heart.
“I … don’t know,” he said, pressing the shirt harder against Indigo’s wound, wishing for the first time since he’d met her that she could feel pain. Pain was often a great stimulus in rousing an unconscious patient, but Indigo wouldn't feel the agony caused by touching anything to a gaping hole in her stomach, let alone pressing it firmly in a desperate attempt to keep some of her blood inside her system.
“Yeah you do, man,” Thunder assured him. “You know what to do. You’ve always known what to do. Saving people is what you do. Has nothing to do with what Dr. Gardner did to us. Whitney even told you that what you can do, who you can save, shouldn’t even be possible. But you do it. Because you're a healer.”
“Not with her, I can't seem to make it work with her,” he whispered. Yes, he’d been able to pull her back from the brink after infection almost stole her from him. He’d also been able to pull her back from the brink after hypothermia almost dragged her too far away for him to reach.
But in the end, he was pretty sure he hadn't been the deciding factor in either of those instances.
She had been.
Almost losing her had been because Indigo was giving in to the voices inside her head whispering that she was better off dead. That voice was loud because she’d already spent a lifetime thinking she was unworthy, unloved, that no one would miss her if she was gone.
Saving her had also been because she realized, instinctually, since they hadn't had a chance to properly discuss his growing feelings for her, that he would miss her, that he saw her worth, that he valued her as a human being. So she’d decided to fight.
It terrified him to think that the only thing that might save her now was herself.
What if she didn't realize that he needed her?
What if she thought now that she’d met people who wanted her, she could let go?
What if she didn't have enough cognizance left to know she had to fight?
“All she needs is you,” Lion said with such confidence that he refocused his gaze on Indigo’s face.
It was so pale in the harsh light of the torch, her skin almost translucent. Her eyes were closed, lashes fanned out on her bony cheeks. She needed some more meat on her bones, and he knew from personal experience that the food Dr. Gardner provided while they were kept in his lab was nutritionally balanced, but it wasn't enough to sustain them long term. Plus, Indigo had been living on the streets before that, so he doubted she’d been eating enough.
Now she looked too thin. All he wanted was to take her home, shower her with love and affection, and try to make up for all she’d never had.
Dirt and blood covered her face, her arms and chest, her legs. Voodoo didn't even need to look at her bare feet to know they’d be shredded from running through the forest as she escaped the wrecked car.
It was hard to look at her and look past the injuries, to see her dispassionately as he would look at any patient laid out before him.
Indigo wasn't just anyone.
She was his.
And he wasn't sure he could save her.
