Copy That

The redheaded man is staring at the vodka bottle that's still sitting in his fridge.

That morning at work he was sure: as soon as he reached his apartment he'd have thrown away all the alcohol he was able to find there. He was feeling guilty. For fuck's sake, if that bottle hadn't been in his fridge she wouldn't have gotten drunk.

But then he'd had that conversation with her.

"I thought things were going so well…"

"They were…that's when I screw up."

The bottle is staring back at him while the engine of the fridge starts humming in protest from his standing too long in front of it with the door open.

"I do copy that" he says to the bottle, echoing the reaction he had that morning.

This bottle. It has to go. But what if he throws it away and then Dani leaves him? Of course it's not for the vodka itself, but for what the gesture means for him: a choice. Something he likes versus someone he loves but who seemingly does not love him back; a sure thing versus the unknown; its life as it used to be versus his potential life with her. A thing that she seems not to want, he reminds himself.
He usually becomes an egoist at this point; fearing abandonment, he becomes the abandoner.

He grabs the vodka, closes the door, sits on his stool and puts his hand on the cork. The fridge sends a thankful murmur back at him.

Drinking it or throwing it in the sink? Starting to act like a free man again or keeping the faith in that complicated but still magnificent woman he's crazy about?

Tidwell clenches his teeth with resolution, breaths out and clutches the hand around the bottleneck.

As he removes the cork, he hears the telephone bell calling him from the pocket of his jacket. He stops his hand in the air and rests the open bottle on the counter, wondering if he was about to do the right thing.
He recognizes the motif his phone is playing: the station wants him back.
Damn, he loves his job, but it's really merciless sometimes! It doesn't leave you even the time to feel sorry for yourself!

"Tidwell." Is his resigned answer.

He lifts his head in surprise.

"Where?"

Muffled sounds come out his phone as he starts collecting the keys, the badge and his gun.

"Okay, I'm on my way. Thanks."

Crews was shot and now he is in hospital. That was all the operator said. He stares at his phone thoughtfully for a while, then he speed-dials Dani's number: she has to know that, and he must be the one who tells her.

The mobile is still calling her as he jumps in his car, but she doesn't answer. Maybe she knows it already and she's with him now, he thinks and gets onto the road feeling a weight in his stomach.

xxx xxx xxx

God, how he hates hospitals. It's their smell, it's the fact that the elevators seem to leave you waiting forever. Or most probably it's because he thinks that in hospitals doctors are not interested in healing the person but only the disease.
However, unlike most people, he never gets lost in the maze of identical corridors and rooms. He has the inborn faculty to get out of the labyrinth in the real world while he's totally unable to extricate himself from the twists and turns of his feelings.

So he exits the elevator at the right level, takes the right corridor and walks straight toward the room the nurse told him.

The door is open but Tidwell takes a look before enter.

He doesn't like what he sees.

Dani has turned her back to the door so the first person he actually spots in the room is a man on a wheelchair whose face he doesn't recognize immediately. Then suddenly he remembers him; he's Charles Crews Sr., Charlie's father.

The two of them are chatting in a low voice. But this is not the thing he doesn't like. Oh no, he's not thinking about the fact that Dani is meeting her partner's father instead of her lover's father.
He spots Crews lying in the bed between them, but it is neither the tangle of hoses that are exiting and entering the detective's body that bothers him.

No. The thing that hits him like a punch in his stomach is Dani, his Dani, holding Charlie's hand like that connection is the only thing that keeps Charlie alive.

Curling his hands into fists, Tidwell decides that it's not the right moment for him to enter the room. I'm not jealous, he thinks while turning on his heel, I'm discreet, and they're sharing this moment only as 'partners'.

But his thoughts come back to the bottle on his counter and to the decision he made.

"Captain!" a masculine voice calls him from inside the room.

He freezes.

A squeak of chair and he feels Dani's eyes on him. He doesn't know why, but it does hurt looking her back, so he enters the room keeping his gaze on Crews Sr..

"Oh, Mr. Crews!" He greets him feigning surprise and relief "I've found out the right room, finally!" he adds a smile "These damned corridors…all exactly alike! I've run the risk to go backwards and forwards forever!"

Reaching the edge of the bed, he puts his hands on his hips and shifts his eyes from Crews Sr. to Crews Jr..
"Detective Reese." he greets her casually without even looking in her direction, then directs a nod towards Charlie "How is he?"

"They don't know for sure" Dani starts to explain, caressing her partner's hand "The bullet hasn't touched any vital organs, but he has lost a large amount of blood" her voice breaks a little "they are waiting that...you know…" an audible lump in her throat prevents her from ending the sentence.

Tidwell has to make a big effort not to look at her and a bigger one not to take her in his arms.

Charlie's father is giving him a piercing glance. He was studying Tidwell since he saw him hesitate in front of the door while looking at Dani. Not finding the right room. Yeah. He had thought.

"I need the bathroom" he establishes.

While he is driving the wheelchair towards the door, Tidwell and Dani hear him grumble "Better go look for a nurse to help me with this thing."

xxx xxx xxx

Staring at Crews turns stupid the moment they become the only two persons in the room with their eyes open. So Tidwell closes his, and tells her the only thing he knows she wants to hear.

"He's strong. He's not going to die. He survived Pelican Bay; a bullet in the chest is nothing compared with that."

Dani is surprised. For the first time he is using her partner's past in a positive way.

Then she stares at the Captain for a while.

"You're not looking at me on purpose."

He makes a grimace. "I'm not 'not looking' at you" he says in a resentful tone of voice, but he doesn't open up his eyes.

"Look at me." Dani stands up, leaving Charlie's hand. "Now".

He obeys.

And he sees the blood on her jacket, the blood on her hands, the blood in her hair and the blood on her face.

Charlie's blood. All over her.

It's very simple for Tidwell to imagine her while pressing her little hands on her partner's chest to stop the bleeding, or picturing her lips near Charlie's to feel his breath, searching for a glimpse of life. He can also imagine her calling his name, caressing him, warming him. And the pain roused by these thoughts runs through his heart like a sword.

But then he meets her eyes and all these thoughts don't matter any longer, he looks through her eyes and he's not able to restrain himself anymore: he launches himself at her and since she's doing the same, they meet halfway.

His arms encompass her body, almost engulfing her, trying to explain wordlessly how much he wants to relieve her suffering.
Tidwell's lips are so near to kissing hers when they hear Charlie letting out a soft moan. Dani struggles free from Tidwell's embrace and kneels down before her partner's bed.

"Crews?...Crews? You here?" she asks hopefully.

Charlie blinks and turns his head in her direction. The light of the lamp brightens his face.

"I think I am..." he murmurs.

While Tidwell's arms are still hugging the air in which there was Dani's body, his eyes are fixed on her face as the most beautiful smile he's ever seen is appearing on it.

I'll never be able to gain a smile like this from her, he considers, and his thoughts come back again to the bottle that's waiting for him on his kitchen table and to the decision he made. He puts his hands back on his hips.

"Well, try to be sure because I'm not going to ask him-" she nods toward Tidwell "-for another partner."

This sentence makes Charlie smile faintly, and Tidwell guesses that it must be some kind of code or joke between the two of them.

I'm not jealous. They're just partners. He's seriously wounded. I'm not jealous.

He's feeling like an idiot once again; she has told him between the lines that she doesn't want things going that fast. Maybe it's a good idea to follow his instinct of self-preservation and show her he got the message.
He has to let her go if he doesn't want to lose her.

And he knows only one way to show her he's not taking their story too seriously.

xxx xxx xxx

Tidwell is still watching Dani smiling at Charlie and caressing him with her warm glance.
He tries to say something good, but "Dude, I'm so happy to see you walking among the living" is the only thing that comes out of his mouth.

Charlie makes a muffled affirmative sound, closes his eyes and comes back to sleep.

Dani sits back on the chair and explains "I'm going to stay here since Mr. Crews will return. You don't have to wait for me." Then she turns her eyes toward him, knowing he's going to stay too, because this is the way the things between them work; she says something she doesn't really think and he reads her mind and does exactly the right thing.

But even Dani Reese should know that it's dangerous to overdo things sometimes.

God. He does like Charlie and he's really happy Crews is getting well…but he can't help but wonder if Dani would have acted like that if he would have been in Charlie's shoes.

I'm pathetic, he thinks, and muttering something about having to go back to station to do some paperwork he exits the room.

Dani raises her eyebrows and gives his back a look of surprise.

xxx xxx xxx

There is only his father dozed off in his wheelchair near his bed when Charlie wakes up later on.

The redheaded man looks around and tries to remember what has happened. He was in his house with his father; then Reese showed up at his door, acting strangely, and he doesn't recollect what she said to him or what he told her, but he does remember that he thought his partner had never looked so beautiful as she was in that exact moment.
Then the doorbell rang again and then…Pelican Bay? Was that possible?

The only thing he knows for sure is that now he's in the hospital. He can breathe without any medical device, he has a large amount of hoses entering his veins and…wait, what's that?

"I've got blood on my left hand…" he says weakly

His murmur wakes up his father. "Charlie, son, you're awake…"

"There's blood on my hand" he repeats, scared.

"Oh, it's Dani-"

"Reese is here? Her blood? Is she wounded? Where is she?"

The monitor starts beeping faster.

"No, no Charlie, keep your hair on, she's not wounded and she's not here now" the older man says softly, putting a hand on his son's arm, and when Charlie calms down he continues "She was here, and she has never stopped holding your hand since you got into the ambulance. The blood is yours; she tried to stop the bleeding by pushing on the bullet entrance on your chest, so she got her hands dirty."
And her hair as she rested her cheek on your chest to feel your heartbeat, and her body and her face as she brought her lips near yours to feel you breathing, but he doesn't add this; he suspects that there're some unsolved things between his son, Dani and their Captain and this is not the right time nor the right place to raise this subject.

Charlie seems to have difficulty in processing all the informations his father has given him.

He was shot. How come he doesn't remember a thing like that?

Reese with him all the time. Holding his hand.

"Where is she?"

"She went away an hour ago. I don't know where she is now." Charles Sr. looks straightly at his son. "Your Captain" he pauses to choose the words carefully "He seems strange when she's around you…"

"Was he here too?"

"Yes. But he left as soon as he saw you were getting well."

"And Reese left with him…"

"No, she stayed here with you, waiting for me"

Charlie turns his head away and closes his eyes.

"He's jealous." he coughs feebly "Tidwell, I mean."

His voice becomes lower and tired as he adds "They're lovers, and he was afraid of me since he found out about Reese and me sleeping accidentally in the same hotel room…"

The older man frowns and his thought goes to an Italian car with bullet holes in its body.

xxx xxx xxx

Tidwell stops in front of the bar and sighs heavily.

The Lucky Seven, reads the sign. He knows he can find there what he wants. What he needs.

What they need.

Very funny. He would have never imagine himself doing a thing like the one he was about to do to save a relationship. A thing like that usually ends up in ruining a relationship.

Dani, I'm doing it for us. He thinks while entering the bar.

TBC

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I have to thank Cigarettes And Moonlight very much for her wonderful work as betareader. This is her first work, and to me it's magnificent!

A/N: Nor the characters, nor the title of this fic belongs to me.
Dani, Charlie and Tidwell belongs to NBC and "I want to love you but Im getting blown away" it's a part of the beautiful Neil Young's song "Like a Hurricane". You'll discover that I'm going to use this song a lot in this fic.

Thanks for reading and commenting (if you want!)