Beholden

This has chased me around for a while. Written in short bits that I have now cobbled together. Set somewhere in season 6. Cannon characters no O/C's. One shot.

…...

Cliff Angell nervously looked around the bull pen at the 1-2. He hadn't been in a precinct since... well since Jess was alive. He spotted who he searched for, seeing the tired face, haunted eyes. He knew the pain still haunted his daughters partner, Cliff wasn't sure of he could face that pain right now, but he had to. The one person he knew would move heaven and earth to find something so precious to him owned those eyes, and he needed it back. It was all he had left.

"Don" he said, trying to muster up the Detective Sergeant voice he'd used many a year on Detectives in his squad. He feared that it came out as a strangled squeak.

"Cliff?!" Don leaped to his feet, a thousand emotions clouding his mind. Deference for a superior officer, no matter how long retired. Pain at seeing Jess's father unexpectedly. Guilt that he'd been the one to rip this man's world apart. He held his hand out, Cliff shaking it slowly.

"How are you Don?" the older man asked.

How was he? Don thought. To be honest, he didn't know. He didn't think about it for fear he'd realise that the pain, fear and self loathing was just as acute as it was the day after it all happened.

"I'm doin' OK" he replied "You?" Stupid question.

"Getting there" Cliff replied "Wherever 'there' is"

Don stood awkwardly, not sure what to say, to do, what was wanted from him.

"I need your help" Cliff said, all but collapsing into a chair. Don sat, concern on his face.

"Anything..." he offered sincerely.

"I've been mugged" Cliff said "They took me by surprise, took my wallet"

"OK" Don said slowly, there had to be more to it than that, Cliff knew the deal, even if Don took the report, he wouldn't investigate a mugging, it'd be passed onto a uniform for a report and to gather dust in a box. No matter how much Don may want to investigate himself, he'd be overruled.

Cliff watched the thoughts chase themselves across Don's face, recalling a comment that Jess had once made that her partner, Flack, about him being as transparent as water when it came to hiding what he was feeling and thinking. She'd been right.

"They also took Jess's badge" Cliff said quietly. Watching again as anger and pain became evident.

Don didn't answer, he didn't trust himself to. Fearing that what was exploding in his head, would come out of his mouth, unguarded and raw.

"I...I kept it with me, everywhere" Cliff told him "They may be trying to use it"

That broke the dam in Don, the thought that someone would trade on any dead officers badge was a kick in the teeth, but Jess? No, it wasn't going to happen.

"Right" Don managed, tapping keys on his keyboard for the appropriate reports to fill in "Do you have a description?"

"I might have better than that" Cliff said, holding his hands up. Don hadn't noticed that he wore latex gloves until that point, and immediately understood "I got as much of their DNA as I could"

…...

Danny Messer watched as Flack paced around the lab like an enraged animal.

He'd held himself in check on the way to the lab, whilst Danny had scraped Cliff's fingernails, taken swabs of his hands, and trace from the neatly packaged clothes he'd brought.

But now, with Cliff gone, Flack let it slide a little. The anger showed through, face set he turned back to Danny.

"How you doin'?" he asked gruffly, thrown by the height difference of Danny being confined to a chair.

"It'll take some time Don" Danny warned carefully "The machines don't adhere to a schedule"

"I meant you" Don snapped, guilt fuelling him. Guilt that he'd been so wrapped up in his own pain that he'd almost forgotten Danny.

"Oh" Danny looked surprised and Flack felt more guilt heap onto his shoulders. Had he really been so damned selfish that Danny was shocked to be asked about his health by one of his closest friends?

"I got some feeling back" Danny pushed his glasses up his nose "Work and the girls keep me busy"

Danny bit his lip, he could have kicked himself for the last words, rubbing salt in the wound. If he'd been able to kick himself that was. How could they have been so close, yet now so distant? Danny wondered, struggling with their own brand of pain and suffering. At least he had Lindsay and Lucy, who did Don have?

Me Danny decided and Mac.

"Got you, you bastard" Danny grinned at the screen, where 'Match Found' flashed.

…...

"NYPD get your hands where I can see them!" Don yelled, leading the way into the quiet house on a sedate street. An elderly woman screamed, throwing herself on the floor.

"Where is he?!" Don demanded "Where's your son?!"

"He's out!" the woman protested "I swear"

"Where?!" he growled "He's not gonna just go off without tellin' his momma now is he?!"

"Flack!" a uniform warned, they'd all seen him go after a suspect with determination, but this lady wasn't a suspect and he was terrifying her.

Reading the warning, Don holstered his gun. Gritted his teeth and pushed it all aside.

"Search this place" he ordered, helping the elderly woman to stand "I apologise Ma'am"

"What's he done this time?" she asked shakily.

"Mugging" Don replied, sitting next to her "We need to find him, we think he may be using a police officers badge. That's a lot more than just burglary"

"He'll be at Lacey's" she sighed "Drinking"

"Detective?" a uniform handed him an object.

He looked at it, he didn't need confirmation, he had found what he came for. The uniforms could chase the scumbag.

…...

Don looked at the badge, swinging his chair slightly. He hadn't seen it for a while, something he'd taken for granted. The badge that had sat beside his on a nightstand most nights. The badge that Jess had worn and lived up to. She'd fought off more demons than him to do that badge justice. Both knowing the pressure of having a parent in the job, a parent that anyone would struggle to live up to. At least he was a guy, no matter what anyone said, Jess had had to work twice as hard to prove herself, because she was a woman. He stood in front of his desk for better light, holding the badge before him, turning it around to see the inscription on the back that Cliff had had put there.

Don looked up as the doors to the bull pen swung open, officers struggled with a suspect, a huge man that was using size and weight to over power them. No one was sure what happened next. The IAB investigation would conclude that it was an accident, that a police officer wasn't at fault. That the holster had come undone in the struggle and the suspect had taken advantage and the element of surprise and seized the gun.

Don felt something slam into him, he reeled back, his back hitting the desk, sending it skittering backwards. He'd heard the shot, and instinctively felt for his gun. But breathing was an issue, the pain radiated around his back, ribs and sternum. He lay, staring at the ceiling, closing his eyes. He'd been shot, he knew that. Luck had to run out one day right? He lay still, guess they'd all been wrong, no bright light, no faces of loved ones long gone to greet you. He gasped for breath instinctively, but there was nothing. He felt light headed and sick, but he could hear everything around him with clarity. The suspect being shot, confirmation of death. People running, shouting his name, shouting for an ambulance. He didn't care, he just waited. If the pain was anything to go by, he'd been shot in the chest. Sittin' at his desk damnit! All the stupid shit he'd done and he'd been taken down by a random act at his desk.

"Where's he hit?!" he heard Hawkes desperate voice, Hawkes? Really?!

"I don't know" came another worried voice "I can't see"

"Don?!" Hawkes shouted "I can't see any blood, turn him over!"

Flack opened his eyes slowly, the pain had receded in the time he'd been contemplating death. Breathing was easier. No blood? He mused, that wasn't right. When they got shot, people bled.

"Where?" Hawkes face lined into his vision "Where are you hit?"

Flack coughed, feeling a sharp pain in his chest, he looked down, his shirt was burned slightly, but no blood. He was certain that he'd been shot, but right now, it felt more like he'd taken one through protection. Odd, as he wasn't wearing a vest.

He felt Hawkes hands scouring his chest, his back. Suddenly his left hand started to burn, a hot and stinging burn with a throbbing ache under. He looked down, opening his hand to reveal the mangled object he still clutched.

His hand folded tight around it again.

…...

"Cliff I'm sorry" Don said, offering him the mangled and burned badge from the hospital bed.

Cliff Angell smiled "Do you believe in God?" he replied, taking the badge. The front was damaged beyond repair, but the numbers could still be made out.

"Sometimes" Don confessed "Sometimes life makes that hard"

"I do" Cliff told him "They tell me the bullet was deflected, and that you haven't let go of the badge since"

"I know you need it" Don said quietly.

"Thank you" Cliff said, rising from his seat "If you can't believe in God Don, believe in fate"

Don watched him leave, confused, unsettled. It wasn't a new feeling. The colleagues that had been to see him had been quiet with whispers. The ones that had known Jess anyway, the ones that had recognised what he held in his hand. He didn't believe in ghosts, or fate, and his faith in God was being tested to it's limits. He was grateful for being alive, grateful for whatever had conspired that morning to make what happened happen. He couldn't look any deeper than that. Not yet.

…...

…...

The story of the bullet hitting the badge is inspired by a WW2 story of a bullet entering a bible and stopping the bullet, thus saving the soldiers life. Green Day's 'American Idiot' album has a live version called 'Bullet in a bible' and that's where the idea came from, they named the album after it. God bless all soldiers past and present for their sacrifices.