Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were. Could use the money.
Six Hours
By
Rogue Amazon Boo
Six hours. Danny Messer growled low in his throat and punched the black heavy bag as hard as he could, again, and again, and again. Six hours. She was stuck in that house for six hours with that kid and his gun.
Six hours of worrying, gut wrenching terror, and uncertainty. Six little hours and he had been powerless to help.
Danny grunted and punched the bag again. His gray cotton sweats and his white wife beater were soaked through. He wasn't wearing his glasses and his hair was plastered to his forehead. His muscles throbbed but still he pounded away at the bag and his legs tensed as he threw his body into the punch.
Six hours, all because he went back to the SUV and left her alone. Danny felt something run down his cheek and he only half realized that it wasn't sweat.
He pounded harder and grunted and then he started yelling and cursing.
"God damn, sonovabitch, should have been, stupid, idiotic, left her…"
He screamed and punched and screamed and punched until his legs gave out and he finally collapsed on the mat below. He leaned against the bag and panted, his muscles screaming.
That was how Stella found him fifteen minutes later. She crossed the gym; her heals sinking into the carpet and came to stand right next to her. She folded her arms and regarded him. He couldn't look at her.
"You look like hell."
Danny smirked and pushed himself painfully to his feet.
"Feel like hell."
Silence descended. Danny stared at the heavy bag; Stella stared at Danny.
"It wasn't your fault." He grunted but didn't respond. Stella took a half step toward him and reached out her hand.
"Danny…"
"Don't," he yelled, flinched, and then calmer, "Just don't."
Stella pursed her lips, stepped back, and crossed her arms.
"All right."
He nodded and pushed the heavy bag gently, setting it swinging. Danny took a deep breath.
"How is she?"
Stella sighed and a shuttered expression masked her emotions.
"As well as to be expected, better than most. She's a lot tougher than we give her credit for, maybe even tougher than me."
Danny smirked.
"Naw, no one is as tough as you, Stel."
Stella smiled and took an experimental step closer to him. He didn't back away.
He sobered and fiddled with the bag some more.
"She say anything?"
Stella nodded. "Wondered where you disappeared to. I think she might have been disappointed. Hard to tell."
Danny nodded, pushed the bag, and shuffled his feet.
"I wasn't sure…my fault after all." Stella frowned.
"No Danny, it wasn't your fault. You had no way of knowing that kid was in the house, and that he…" she faltered.
Danny felt the pressure building in his chest and punched the heavy bag again, hard, and steadied it with his hands.
"She shouldn'a have been alone Stel. I shouldn'a left her in there alone. Then she wouldn'a have to of seen…"
Danny ran his hands through his damp hair, causing it to stick up on end.
He screamed suddenly and punched the bag hard. Stella stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. He enveloped her and sobbed into her shoulder.
"My fault, all my fault."
Stella let him cry; the same way she had let Lindsay cry a few hours earlier.
Lindsay Monroe sipped her glass of Pinot Gringo and hugged one of her throw pillows against her chest. She had been sitting up, on her couch, since she got home around midnight, because every time she tried to close her eyes she saw him.
Dennis Nielson, sixteen, brown hair, green eyes, despondent, depressed…suicidal. Lindsay closed her eyes and shuddered as the scene came into sharp focus.
Her and Danny had got the call around four in the afternoon and met the officers who responded to the call in front of the brick front townhouse.
The first body they had found, was pointed out to them right when the entered the hallway. He was a Caucasian male, early forties, with thick dark hair that was matted with blood. He would have been a handsome man when he was alive. As far as they could tell he had been shot multiple times taking a fatal bullet in the back the head. They had deduced that he had been running away from someone due to the angle of the entry wound and the position of the body.
The officers at the scene identified him as Brett Tomlinson, but the dead man lying in the polished marble foyer was not the worst of it. The two officers had motioned them on and she and Danny had followed them upstairs.
That was where they found the little girl.
She had been identified as Angie Nielson. She was only nine years old, blond, pretty. Lindsay had processed her room. Angie had really liked owls. Her room was filled with them, stuffed ones, ceramic ones, glass ones, crystal ones, owls as of every shape and conceivable size as far as the eye could see.
The bodies had been discovered by the Nielson's housekeeper.
Lindsay closed her eyes, took a sip of her wine, and her grip on the pillow tightened.
Angie had been wearing a pink dress that someone had hiked up her waist. They had left her matching pink, ripped, Barbie panties next to her.
The thought that had reverberated over and over in Lindsay's head like a repetitive nightmare, was that this innocent little girl had been raped and murdered.
It had been the kind of scene that a CSI dreaded processing, the kind that didn't get left at the office at the end of the day.
She and Danny had looked at each other and wordlessly started to process the scene, taking their time so they didn't miss anything. They didn't need to speak, because really what was there to say? She knew that the minute they walked on the scene that they had both felt the same way.
They wanted the bastard that had done this and they wanted him bad.
What they hadn't realized was that sometimes, things are not as simple as just catching the bad guy.
Lindsay opened her eyes and got to her feet. She padded into the kitchen and poured her wine down the sink, it was making her sick to her stomach.
She leaned against her counter, the empty glass dangling precariously from the tips of her fingers, and stared at her refrigerator, unseeing, while her mind flashed back to the scene.
They had only been there for fifteen minutes or so when Danny realized he had forgotten something from the truck. She had acknowledged him with a nod and he had gone down to get what it was he needed.
The closet door had burst open the moment he had left the room and Lindsay had found herself flat on her back staring down the barrel of a 9mm Glock.
It was black, and shiny, and much too large for the gangly boy holding it in his shaking hands.
The boy's name was Dennis Nielsen and he was Angie's sixteen year old brother. He had ordered her away from his sister and had her kneel with her hands behind her head.
When Danny had come back he had walked in on the boy holding the cold metal against her temple.
Danny pulled his gun and the boy immediately started screaming that he would kill her if anyone came near this room.
He had tried to talk Dennis down but the boy had responded by shoving the gun hard enough against her skin to leave a mark.
So her partner had made the only decision he could, he had locked those storm swept blue eyes on hers and lowered his weapon.
She had seen so many things in that moment, longing, fear, regret, and determination. Danny seemed to be telling her telepathically that he would get her out of this; all she had to do was hold on. She had watched helplessly as Danny was forced to back out of the room and had felt her hope fade as Dennis ordered her to close the door.
Danny never took her eyes from hers, not for a second, until she shut the door. His last expression was that of a man being torn away from everything he loved.
Lindsay had spent the next six hours locked in a little room, with a corpse, surrounded by owls, and listening to one of the most horrific tales she had ever heard.
According to Dennis it had all started six months ago when his and Angie's mother had met bank manager Brett Tomlinson when she had gone to retrieve the contents of her recently deceased great aunt Gretchen's safe deposit box.
They had started dating and everything seemed to be going fine, but then Dennis started to notice that his sister seemed to flinch every time Brett came near her. She had also started acting out and had once tried to grab his crotch because she wanted to know if it made him feel good.
He had just thought at the time that she was going through something weird, until he had walked in on Brett raping and strangling his little sister.
Lindsay had listened to this heartbroken teenager describe how he had run to the den and got the only thing his father had left behind when he had walked out on them. His 9mm Glock.
Brett had come in trying to explain but Dennis had turned the gun on him. They had started screaming at each other and Brett had said that Dennis should just give him the gun because he didn't have the guts to take care of him like a real man.
The first shot had gone into the wall by Brett's head and the older man had broke for the door.
The next three shots caught him in the arm, the back, and finally the back of his head.
Lindsay listened and had tried everything she knew to get that poor kid to give her the gun and give himself up. She had promised that she would make sure that he never spent a minute in jail, had promised that she would take care of him. All they had to do was walk out that door together.
Then S.W.A.T. had shown up and nothing she said could get through the fear and betrayal he felt.
Still she tried, for six hours she tried, her whole existence narrowed to one purpose. She wanted to save this boy.
Six hours they talked and she learned everything there was to know about him.
She found out that when he was five he had a nightmare about being attacked by rabid dogs and had never like the animals since. He had been deathly afraid of the dark until he turned nine. He confessed that he had promised that he would take care of his family and be the man of the house when his father had walked out on them. He had only been eleven years old.
He had really liked Brett and had never seen his mom so happy.
He never would have guessed…
Lindsay hadn't moved fast enough. One minute Dennis was pointing the gun at her and the next he had the barrel in his mouth.
He pulled the trigger before she could take the three steps it would have taken to reach him.
The last thing he had said to her was that he didn't deserve to live because he didn't protect her and to tell his mom that he loved her.
Lindsay had cradled his body in her arms until S.W.A.T. breached the door, led by Mac. Her boss had pulled her away from the body but she had fought him, she had fought him hard before finally leaving the boy to rest.
Lindsay shuddered and the wine glass she had been holding slipped and shattered on the tile floor. She watched the glass shards scatter and felt numb.
She had spent the last couple of hours after Dennis killed himself talking to Mac and Stella and giving a statement to IAB about what had happened. She normally would have been worried about her career but all she could think about was that shiny, black 9mm exploding in Dennis' hands and blowing the back of his head away from his skull.
Through all of this there was only one person she had wanted to see, and he hadn't made an appearance since it all happened.
The ring of her doorbell broke through her grief and she glanced at the digital clock display on her microwave. It flashed 2:37 A.M. in green numbers. Lindsay frowned and padded over to the door, avoiding the glass, and checked the security hole.
Danny was standing on the other side of her door with hair still wet from his shower, wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt.
She sighed and rested her forehead against the wood.
He knocked again. "Com' on Montana, I know you're there. Open up will ya."
Lindsay sighed, pulled away from the door and started to undo her locks slowly. She pulled the dead bolt back and gently opened her door.
"Danny," she whispered. He had raised his hand to knock again and slowly lowered it, looking at her.
"Jezus, Montana," he croaked. She didn't say anything, she just walked back into apartment and sat down on her sofa, leaving him to follow or not.
He decided to follow.
Unsure, he rounded the sofa and sat down next to her. She wasn't looking at him; instead she was staring at the wall on the other side of the room.
"What are you doing here?" She asked. Danny took off his glasses and rubbed a weary hand over his face.
"Whaddya think I'm doin' here, Montana. I wanted…needed to see if you were all right."
Lindsay gave a mirthless little laugh and shrugged her shoulders.
"Me, I'm fine. Dennis Nielson on the other hand…" She trialed off and Danny cringed and ran a hand through his hair. He put his glasses back on.
"Montana…" She stood up abruptly and walked into the back hall. He watched her go, frustration mounting. She returned carrying a broom and a dust pan and went into the kitchen. Danny followed her and leaned on the door jamb while she cleaned up the broken wine glass.
She threw it away and turned towards him.
"Danny, it's late and I'm tired. Can we not do this right now?" He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"You weren't sleepin' and I'm willin' to bet ya won't be sleepin' if I go." She turned away from him and wrapped her arms around herself.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore, besides it wasn't like you cared earlier." Danny frowned, pushed off the door, and went over to her. He was standing so close at her back that she could feel his warm breath on her neck. She shivered.
"I tried, Montana, believe me, but IAB was crawlin' all over us and Mac told me to wait. I wanna'ed to tear the place apart lookin' for ya after they took you away. Afterward, hell, I had to let off some steam and I figured ya probably didn't want to see me."
She whirled, surprised etched on her features.
"Why wouldn't I have wanted to see you?"
"Cause ya wouldn'a been in there if it weren't for me."
Lindsay frowned and pushed her way around him.
"Don't. Don't make this about you. It's not even about me it's about that kid, Danny. It's about that kid that I couldn't save and believe me; you being there probably wouldn't have changed anything. He just would have waited until we were both gone and we would have found his body a few days later."
"Lindsay…" She shrugged him off when he tried to touch her and walked a few feet away.
He threw his head back as if in prayer and then looked at her.
"You're right, Monroe, you're right. This ain't about you or me, and I'm sorry. I should'a been there for ya after it happened but I was scared. I didn't know what was goin' on in there for six hours, none of us did. For all I knew he could'a been the one that raped and killed that little girl and you were stuck in there with him. I have never been that scared in my entire life and afterwards…I didn't know what to say to ya, or how to deal with what ya saw. I'm sorry."
Lindsay's posture relaxed a bit and Danny took a chance and pulled her into his arms. She came willingly and after a few minutes he felt her shoulders shaking with her sobs. Danny ran a hand up and down her back in soothing circles while she cried.
When she had quieted down a bit he led her to the couch and sat down with her in his lap. She was curled against him like she wanted to be part of his skin.
"I couldn't save him."
Danny tightened his hold on her.
"I know and it hurts, Montana and it's gonna hurt."
She nodded but didn't say much else. He held her tight and tried to show her without words that he was there for her.
He let her cry herself out and when she was done he let her remain in his arms and wished that he could chase away her demons like he had her tears, but demons are not exorcised so easily.
Today, Lindsay Monroe had faced something that no one should be asked to face. She had faced her responsibility as an officer of the law to protect life and it had backfired. Seeing that kind of thing sticks with a person because ultimately they did what they did to help people. Sometimes, though, people are beyond help, beyond the ability of mere mortals to save.
"You did everythin' ya could, Montana. Don't ever doubt that," he muttered into her hair. She stilled and looked up at him.
"Did I Danny? How can you sound so sure of something that I'm not even sure of myself?"
He brushed a kiss over her temple, the same temple that Dennis Nielson had a gun pressed to earlier, and bushed her hair behind her ear.
"Because Monroe, that's who ya are. You're a fighter. You fight for things; answers or people, makes no difference. You would'a done everything ya could because there wouldn'a been any other choice as far as ya were concerned. That's why it hurts so bad."
Lindsay didn't know that she had anymore tears left in her but, she felt a scant few trickle down her cheeks. She buried her head in Danny's chest and let him hold her.
Six hours, such a short amount of time, just a quarter of a day. It didn't seem like enough time to change a person's life but as she snuggled closer to Danny, Lindsay realized that something had shifted, something inalterable, and she knew that she was never going to be the same.
FIN
Author's note: I wanted to include a quick note as to the genesis of this story. I recently have taken employment as a 911 operator and during training it was brought to my attention that sometimes suicides will call up and kill themselves before the authorities can get to them. Usually while on the phone with the call taker. So in order to exorcise my own fears I asked myself how Lindsay might react in a similar, albeit more intense, situation and this was the result.