The Fighter (AU/Punk)

Sage/Violets POV
"Do you need help with anything?" Harry asks, hovering at the entrance of the kitchen.
"Uh no I think I'm good," I say warily as the oven beeps.
"Are you sure? You can only use the one arm so..." He mumbles.
I cross the room to stand in front of him and place my uninjured arm around his neck.
"Harry I'm fine," I say softly and lift myself onto my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. He immediately snakes his arms around my waist and kisses me back gently. I try to deepen the kiss but he pulls away, rejecting me.
"What the hell?" I ask with raised eyebrows, my arm still looped around his neck.
"The oven beeped," he excuses.
"Your point?" I ask and pull him down closer to me.
"The food will burn," he points out.
"There isn't any food in the oven," I explain.
"Then why did it beep?" He asks slowly.
"Because it's preheated, may we continue?" I ask and try to press my lips to his again but he turns his face.
I groan in response and turn back towards the oven, throwing dinner in the oven quickly before setting a timer and huffing out of the room.
"Babe wait," Harry calls after me but I ignore him, taking the stairs two at a time. He follows me upstairs.
"No," I say angrily and continue down the hallway.
His large hands snake around my waist and he pulls me to him, his grip tight enough to keep me there but not so tight that it's uncomfortable.
"Wait," he whispers, his voice husky. He nudges my head to the side and kisses my neck slowly, eliciting a shiver and moan from me. The tingling sensation he's leaving in my body causing me to shudder. He blows on the wet spot he just kissed and I shiver.
"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers in my ear, releasing me from his grip.
"Why are you afraid of hurting me?" I ask and turn to face him. His eyes shift away from my face uncomfortably.
"You've been a little... Fragile, lately. And I don't want to do anything that could hurt you," he explains.
"You aren't going to hurt me," I sigh. "But I get where you're coming from." I've been practically comatose since I left the hospital. I still haven't decided if I'm going to continue this investigation or simply cut my losses and go into witness protection. Either way I've got to stay here until Michael and Liam's trial, which is in two weeks. Every day that passes makes me more and more nervous. What if I don't succeed in getting them put away? What if they go free? If I were to simply drop this gang investigation and leave town, Harry would be hurt and confused but he wouldn't hate me. Not unless he knew I was a cop.
"You know you mean the world to me," he says softly and grabs my hand that isn't restrained in a sling. He presses kisses to my knuckles and I'm filled with sadness.
He really cares about me and I'm trying to throw him in prison, well I was trying to throw him in prison. Now I'm living with him because he insisted I not live alone until the trial.
"I know," I whisper and he kisses my lips, this time he's the one who deepens the kiss, and I don't reject him. But my thoughts are elsewhere as he leads me into the bedroom.
How can i throw him in prison when he's being so sweet?
"Sage," he moans my name, breaking away from the passionate kiss as he shuts the door behind him. He pulls me close to him, and kisses my forehead.
"Thank you," I whisper back, one of the few things i can tell him thats actually true. I wonder what he would do if he found out that my name isn't Sage, that I'm a cop.
"Sage," he says tentatively.
"Yeah," I say softly and press my forehead into the smooth muscles of his chest while he holds me.
"When you were...out of it, you thought Liam was Jessie," he seems wary to broach the subject. "You kept saying that you were sorry over and over again, you were begging for his forgiveness."
I must have been hallucinating, I don't remember that at all.
"Okay," I respond.
"What were you apologizing for?" he asks gently.
I could easily just shrug off the question and tell him that I don't remember or that it was something simple, like the fact that i once stole his car or made him and his girlfriend break up. But I am unbelievably tired of lying about everything. About my name and my past, about my feelings and how this entire situation is leaving me physically and emotionally exhausted.
"I haven't been completely honest with you," I say finally and pull away from his arms, turning around and walking towards the bed.
Harry sits next to me, the mattress sinking under his weight.
"My parents didn't die in a car accident," I say softly and force myself to look into his concerned green eyes. "Well, my dad did. Not my mom." I look at my hand laying limply in my lap.
"What happened then?" he asks softly when it becomes clear that I'm not going to continue talking.
"My dad was hit by a drunk driver," I say, my voice hollow. "And my mom hung herself a few days later. It was just Jessie and I after that."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry's voice is gentle.
"Because I was the drunk driver who hit my dads car," finally saying the words out loud, it feels like a part of me dies with the admission. Before now I have never said those words. "I killed my dad," I whisper. I've known for a while now but somehow when the words were just in my mind it was easy to ignore. But now, I have finally said the words. I know I shouldn't have told Harry of all people but instead of looking at me like I'm a monster or freaking out and telling me I need to go to the police, his arms wrap around me. Maybe this is why I did tell him. He's been through so much in his life and I'm sure he's made worse mistakes than I did, killed more people. So instead of thinking I'm a bad person, he just accepts me for the person I am. We sit there like that for a while, his arms wrapped around me as though he can protect me from everything that's wrong in the world, if only he knew.
~
I hop into the dark SUV and Daniel looks over at me from behind the wheel, surveying my appearance through his sunglasses.
"You look better," he says coolly.
"Thanks," I mutter and fumble with the end of my shirt with my free hand. This is the first time Daniel and I have been alone since I was discharged from the hospital.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" He asks and pulls out of Harry's driveway. I wave lightly at Harry as he stands in the doorway, watching Daniel and I with crossed arms and a hostile expression. It took a lot of convincing for Harry to let me go with Daniel instead of him, but somehow I managed.
"As ready as I'll ever be," I sigh and sink back into the seat. Despite the tension between Daniel and I, I still find it easy to be relaxed around him, he makes me feel safe.
"You don't have to do this you know," he says once more, still trying to talk me out of my decision
"Danny I know what I'm doing," I insist. "I've been a cop for a while."
"You aren't anymore," he points out.
"Doesn't mean I've forgotten how to talk to criminals," I respond bluntly and stare out the window.
It's a sunny day here in London, the summer heat slowly giving away to the briskness of fall. The green leaves sway slowly in the wind with the cool breeze.
We sit in tense silence for the entirety of the drive, Daniel only making a few comments about what I need to say before we pull up to the modern hospital.
"I know what I'm doing," I interrupt him with exasperation as he once again tries to coach me on what kind of questions to ask.
"I'll be with you the whole time," he ignores my annoyance and helps me out of the car, leading me up to the hospital.
"Has he spoken to anyone else yet?" I ask curiously.
"Not formally," Daniel shrugs as we walk briskly through the sterile halls.
"Really?" I figured they would have already interrogated him and gotten a statement.
"We wanted to wait for you," Daniel comes to a stop in front of a closed door with two officers mingling outside.
"Hey Dan," one of them nods in his direction before both of them focus on me.
"Good to see you Violet," the other one offers me a warm smile and I can't help but smile back. I recognize the man as Joe, one of Daniels good friends. We weren't exactly close, but I always liked him.
"You too Joe," I say. Both men part away from the door and I quickly push through without a second thought, if I think about it too much I might talk myself out of it.
Daniel follows close behind me and shuts the door as I stand in shock at the foot of the plush hospital bed.
"You look awful," the words leave my mouth before I can stop them and a grim smile graces Liam's pale face. His face brings back all the memories that I've been suppressing from the cabin, I can't help but see him as he lashed out at me in the dark basement, his hand collecting with my cheek. I shake off the thought as I observe him.
Tubes and wires are stuck in his arms and a heart monitor beats steadily next to the bed. Clear tubes wrap around his ears, resting in his nose. Heavy dark circles rest under his eyes even though he's been asleep for days.
"Lovely to see you as always," he says sarcastically and I pull a chair over to his bedside. Daniel stands next to the door, watching the encounter like a hawk.
"I heard you were shot," I comment, my eyes traveling to the silver handcuffs trapping Liam's wrists against the bed rails.
"I heard you weren't," is his only response.
"Glad to see you're alive," I say and stare at his gaunt face.
"I wish I could say the same for you," his eyes narrow.
"Anyways I think it's understandable that I have a few questions for you," I sigh and lean back casually. I would cross my arms but that's kind of impossible with the sling.
"Yes it's understandable," he hums in agreement.
I look to Daniel and he hands me the notebook with the questions I had. I gave it to him to add anything before we came up here. Flipping open to the first page I stare at the inky black words. The professional looking questions glare up at me. They're all so formal, something I would have welcomed back before Jessie died. This is the right way to do this, ask the questions on the paper and be done with it.
Instead, I shut the notebook and set it on my lap. Maybe my own questioning would be a better substitution for this.
"How did he convince you to do it?" I ask solemnly. I fight the urge to look at Daniel who's surely looking at me with a horrified expression at the fact that the question is not on the list.
Liam surveys me, his usually warm brown eyes now cold and calculating.
"He told me the truth about you," Liam says finally.
"What was the truth?" I ask, tilting my head to the side.
"That you're a cop," he spits bitterly at me. I force myself not to cringe away from his harsh glare, instead sitting up straighter.
"Why did you believe him?" I ask solemnly.
"He made a very convincing case," Liam says vaguely.
"Oh did he?" I mutter. I glance over at Michael and his gaze flicks between me and the notebook, gesturing for me to get back on track.
I ignore him.
"What was his case? His evidence?" I ask, leaning forward to be closer to Liam.
Liam squeezes his lips shut and stares at me.
"Oh the silent treatment?" I ask. Strange, i didn't think that was such a difficult question.
"I want my lawyer," Liam says, turning to Daniel.
"You know why I think you did it," I muse. Daniel stays in his place by the door. Liam looks at me warily as I continue.
"I think you did it because you were jealous. You were mad that I rejected you and decided you weren't worth my time. I doubt he even had any hard proof against me proving that I was a cop, you believed him because you wanted an excuse to hate me. You couldn't very well extract revenge on me simply because I rejected you and chose Harry, now could you?" I ask rhetorically. "But me being a cop? That's good motive. Made you look a little less obsessed with your friends girlfriend."
"I'm not obsessed with you!" Liam erupts angrily, shouting.
I stare at him calmly. "I think were done here," I direct the words to Daniel but focus on Liam. Clearly he doesn't have any intention to tell me anything that I want to know. In fact, I don't even know what I want to know.
There's only one person who can tell me why this happened. Liam was just a pawn in the grand scheme of things. I need to talk to Michael.

Notes

How do you feel about Liam still being alive?
Why do you think Michael did it?
Do you think Sage will drop the case or continue?
What will happen next?