Title: No Right
Summary: One-shot inspired by (not based on) season 5 finale spoilers that Jess is the one who will die.
AN: I was going to change the tense but decided against it. Also, I'm kind of angst whore.
When it happens, he is not the first to know. There is no special phone call to him, his name can't be found on any official paperwork. He is sleeping through a Thursday afternoon after working two doubles. So when it happens they don't reserve a spot for him at her bedside.
Danny wears the face of the grim reaper, shaking him out of sleep and only saying get dressed, something happened. He never once considers it being her. He pulls on yesterday's jeans and the closest t-shirt hanging off a chair and he thinks Lindsay or God forbid the baby. He thinks Danny needs him and he follows loyally. He is prepared to hold anyone up who needs holding, prepared to slay any dragons into the submission of his handcuffs.
Finally though, stumbling into sneakers, he asks. Danny turns at the door and swallows but his best friend has never lied to him, has always told it like it is. So he says Jess and it doesn't look good.
Danny drives expertly with his lights and sirens flashing and mostly everyone gets out of their way. Don can't speak or feel or think. Danny has never lied to him but he holds the cell phone to his ear anyway and every time the voicemail message begins to play 'You've reached Detective Angell, NYPD homicide, leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as humanely possible', he hangs up and hits redial. For the five long rings it takes the machine to pickup he prays maybe, just maybe, she will answer and this will all just be a misunderstanding.
The emergency parking lot is a sea of blue uniforms, keeping already predatory press away from the sliding glass doors.
"Park this," Danny shouts to a uniform, tossing him his keys as they both climb from the truck and jog towards the mechanical doors that clank open the second Don's feet hit the large sensory pad.
The emergency lobby is thick with cops, mostly white shirted Brass, big wigs that stare into cups of coffee and hang in limbo until they know the official steps they need to take.
"Yo," Danny jogs over to the first nurse he sees, "This is Detective Angell's boyfriend, we need to get him in there."
"There's an approved list," the nurse is young and sounds nervous and unsure as she looks to Flack, "what's your name?"
His tongue feels too big for his mouth.
"Detective Don Flack," Danny answers for him, "look please just tell her family, I'm sure they'll let him in okay?"
She looks unsure and apologetic already but turns and jogs away.
"Sinclair!" Danny hollers and any other time Flack would have laughed at his friend's audacity to address the police chief like a thug on the street, "Can you help us out here? This is Detective Angell's boyfriend Detective Flack and they're not letting him in cause he's not on a list or some BS."
The police chief blinks for a second at Danny before glancing at Flack and turning away.
"I'll see what I can do."
"Bout time he does something," Danny simply grunts. Flack let his eyes scan the waiting room and fall upon a young uniformed officer practically collapsed into a chair. He's visibly shaken, his uniform shirt thoroughly saturated with what Don instinctively knows to be blood.
"Don't," Danny sighs, "just… maybe she'll make it."
The comfort is futile though because everyone in the room obviously knows what is happening. Don knows how things work when a cop is killed in the line of duty. And part of him knows, just knows that she isn't going to be okay. Without that part settled too comfortably in his chest he would be fighting his way past anyone that tried to stop him. But he is no rush for the official, undeniably declaration. He lowers himself to the nearest chair, finds the ticking clock on the wall.
"What happened?" he finally manages.
"She was shot," Danny explains quietly, "I don't know any details really yet, I'm not sure anyone does. Mac and Stella are at the scene trying to process as fast as they can."
"The perp?" he croaks.
"DOA," Danny assures.
Dead on arrival, the words sink in his stomach like a rock. She was dead or dying somewhere in the maze on the other side of two doors and he wasn't there. He had no right to her last, fragile breathes.
Those were guaranteed to four hulking brothers, two NYPD, one state trooper and a Green Barrett. To the retired sergeant that only ever had one little girl and a million and one dreams for her.
Don isn't family. He is just what could have been crushed into a waiting room chair. He is a fledgling romance not yet even brought home for Sunday dinner; the face from wedding photos that will never be taken, the father of children that will never be born.
"Detective Flack?" the young nurse is back, "You can come with me and I'll take you to Detective Angell's room."
He follows but his stomach clenches and he has to blink back tears the second they pass through the doors that empty into a long corridor. At trauma room 234 she stops and tries to offer him some kind of condolence in the form of a hand on his arm before she leaves him on his own.
He's too late for any goodbyes. She isn't even there, not really. Her eyes are closed, the tube down her throat hissing artificial life into her body until they are ready to let go.
"Say hi to mommy for us," one brother manages through a husky onslaught of tears. Sergeant Angell is bent over his daughter's bed, her hand clasped in his. In the threshold of the room Don feels his knees wobble and brings a hand to his mouth to cover the sob that he can't fight away.
They turn and watch him for a long second before one brother, Flack doesn't know which one, reaches out and pulls him into the room with a grasp on the shoulder.
"She wanted us to meet you so bad," he almost laughs, tight and sardonic, "she was scared we'd try and scare you off though."
"You don't look like you scare too easy," another brother with red eyes and trembling hands says. Flack tries to muster some kind of response but she is there in the bed, unmoving and pale and already gone.
"Jess," he simply breathes and Sergeant Angell seems to notice him for the first time, crosses the room and places a hand on either side of his face and says,
"My little girl loved you."
It isn't a question or an accusation and all Flack can do is nod.
"I loved her too."
They don't move to stop him when he presses his lips to her forehead, lets his fingers ghost through her long hair just once more.
And when he breaks they embrace him like the family he'll never have the chance to be. They cling to him for what he is, forever the possibility of what could have been.