Ten Percent of the Five Percent
Author's Note: Major spoilers for episode 3x11, "Front Page News." This was written quickly, in the rush of inspiration that followed this excellent episode, so I take full responsibility for any errors. Please let me know what you think - I love hearing from you and I look forward to answering every review. I'm considering a sequel to this that explores Jamie's reactions a little more, but I'll see what you think. Enjoy!
Jamie's ears are full of static. His skin is cold, even inside the thick fleece of his NYPD jacket. Someone is gripping his shoulder. The hand has been there for a while.
A garble of sound belches from the radio on his shoulder. The hand is pressing him back down onto the bumper of the NYPD SUV before he even realizes that he jumped. "Calm down," a voice warns from above him. "Just relax."
He ignores it. His heart is racing, thundering against his ribs, and he fumbles instinctively for the gun on his hip. The holster is empty.
"I said cool it, Jamie."
"I don't know where my gun is." His own voice sounds distant and hollow.
The grip on his shoulder tightens. "I've got it. Relax, man. You've got nothing to do but sit here and chill out with me."
Jamie only half-listens, his gaze wandering instead across wide stone pavers and a neat black fence made of iron and chain, bold against manicured green grass and bushes. A man is lying face-up on the pathway, dressed in a suit that is tangled beneath him and wrinkled under his sprawled body. His shirt is marred with wide stains of red, his tie trailing off across his chest in a bold sash of blue. The face is slack and going gray. Officers and paramedics flit around him. Someone with a solemn face is bringing forward a yellow sheet.
Voiceless words form in the empty air that hisses on in Jamie's ears.
Somebody's son. Somebody's brother.
"Jamie, don't look at that, okay?"
Somebody's husband. Somebody's father.
Pulling the trigger had been the easiest thing in the world. Conscious thought filtered out and training kicked in, and he had pulled that trigger - one, two, three - easy and steady and aimed at center mass. Training, just like at the academy. Just like putting bullets through the paper targets at the shooting range. No harder, no different.
One of the bullet casings had flipped up and slid, red-hot, against the back of his hand, licking a stripe of fire into the skin.
One, two, three, and a man was dead.
Dead. One, two, three, from the bullets he had fired.
Someone sits down heavily next to him, and he jumps again before an arm is slung over his shoulders. "You can't even listen to a guy, can you, Reagan? I say don't look, you look anyway. I say don't get up, and here you go trying to run off. Where you going?"
"I'm not going anywhere." He tries, unsuccessfully, to twist out from beneath his partner's arm. "What are you doing?"
"You don't quit moving around, you and I are going to hang out just like this." Vinny turns away from him, calling to someone across the path. "Renzulli," he says. "Sarge, c'mere."
Jamie tunes him out. It's easy to let Vinny's voice fade away and the static kick back in. He thinks again of the bullet casing, and looks down at his hands. The skin is clean and unmarred, but they tremble.
"Sarge, you got this? He ain't talking to me."
"Yeah, well, maybe he knows there ain't no point talking to a goofball like you."
Jamie looks up at the familiar voice, and something in his chest loosens when he sees his sergeant peering down at him. The corner of Renzulli's mouth quirks up in the faintest of smiles, and the world lurches back into gear.
"I mean it, Sarge." Vinny's voice is earnest, and Jamie is suddenly aware of Vinny's arm around him, squeezing uncomfortably tight. "He wouldn't tell me if he was okay. He wouldn't tell me what happened. It's like he couldn't even hear me-"
"He is right here," Jamie says with poorly concealed annoyance. "Get off me, Vinny."
Renzulli nods, and Vinny's grip slides away. "You all right, man?"
"I'm fine." The words are bitter on his tongue. "I know how this goes."
"You know how this goes?" Vinny repeats. "Ten seconds ago you couldn't tell me your name, and all of a sudden you're John Wayne?"
"Hit the road, Cruz," Renzulli sighs. "I got this."
"Yeah, yeah." Vinny pulls himself to his feet, but doesn't step away until his hand has found Jamie's shoulder again; squeezed it in silent solidarity. It takes most of Jamie's fragile control not to pull away.
Renzulli's eyes are sharp upon him. "You back with us now, Reagan? I think shock had you zoning out there for a minute."
"Shock? No. I'm fine, Sarge." His eyes drift back down to his hands.
They shake on.
)()()()()()()()(
On a typical day, the phone calls coming in to DCPI Garrett Moore's office could range anywhere from truancy complaints and rats in the Midtown Tunnel to jumpers on the Brooklyn Bridge. His staff was the best in law enforcement when it came to weeding through the various news items fed in from the precincts and chiefs across the five boroughs and serving up the good, the bad and the ugly with minimal delay and maximum spin.
But certain calls come straight to him.
Garrett hadn't gotten to his position without knowing what numbers to be on the watch for, and on this sun-splashed afternoon in January, he drops his redlined copy of the Commissioner's speech to the Sons of the American Revolution and nearly tips over his coffee to snatch the receiver of his ringing office phone. "Garrett Moore, and this better be good, Mitchell. I swear if you're calling about the parking ticket mess again, I'll-"
The words die in his throat.
Forty-five seconds later, Garrett feels only minimally bad about neatly side-stepping the severe expression and wicked high heels of Detective Baker in the hallway and bursting into Commissioner Reagan's office without so much as a knock. Like any good PR professional, he takes in the scene at a glance - Frank Reagan looking askance at him from behind his impressive mahogany desk, and ADA Erin Reagan firing him daggers for his impressive entrance. He allows himself a half-second to wonder just what it was about the women in this office, then files the thought away for future pondering.
"Commissioner," he says cordially. "Counselor."
"Garrett," Frank replies with equal aplomb. "Nothing gives me greater joy than when you join me neither announced nor invited."
"Sir..." His eyes move to Erin. She is wrapped in a wool coat the color of caramel and is watching him warily.
Frank has picked up on the formal address; his eyes sharpen, and his voice turns firm. "Erin, may we have the room?"
"Actually..." Garrett doesn't finish. Twenty-six years of experience in PR and he doesn't know how the hell to say what has to come next.
Frank's right eyebrow arches. "Garrett, you look like you've seen a ghost."
Perhaps a cut to the chase. His boss has always appreciated that. "There's been an officer-involved shooting in Washington Square Park," he blurts. "One casualty, a gunman who was threatening bystanders."
Erin blinks.
Frank looks annoyed. "Unless this involves my daughter, Garrett, I would appreciate-"
"Jamie was the shooter," he adds in a rush.
It's Frank's turn to blink, and Erin grips the arms of her chair. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine. They're taking him to St. Victor's-"
"Oh, my God." Erin's head snaps around to face her father, and Garrett can visibly see the color draining from her face. "Dad-"
"-But it's standard procedure in these cases."
Erin stands so quickly her chair scoots back a foot. "Dad?"
Frank stands as well, steepling his hands on the smooth desk below him. "Sweetheart, if Garrett says he's fine, he's fine. Wait outside for me, would you?"
She hesitates, then nods, stepping back. Garrett can feel her anxious eyes on him as she passes by, but he doesn't look away from his boss and she doesn't stop. When the door has closed behind her, Garrett opens his mouth to speak again but Frank beats him there. "He's all right?" His voice is gravelly, and he doesn't look up.
"He's fine, Frank."
"You'll fill me in on the way to the hospital."
Garrett blinks this time. "He wasn't hurt."
Frank's smile is flat. "Humor me."
)()()()()()()()(
The hospital is a thick smell of antiseptic and infection, mixed with harsh fluorescent lighting and a cacophony of sound - electronic pages, beeping machines, arguing patients, busy nurses.
It's driving him insane.
Jamie shifts on the thick mattress of the stretcher in exam room #4. The smells are intense, the sounds oversharp. His skin itches, crawls, and the static in his ears rings on. He can't catch in a deep breath and he doesn't know why.
Shake it off, Jamie. Shake it off. This is no big deal. Be a man.
He looks up at his sister-in-law. Her blue scrubs swim in his gaze for a moment before he blinks his vision clear. "Linda. Why can't I go? I'm not hurt. The guy never fired a shot."
"You don't need me to quote department policy to you, Jamie." She slides her intrusive penlight back into her pocket; makes a note on the chart before her. Her eyes wander back to him.
He shifts again, uncomfortably. "What?"
"Nothing. It's just... I've worried about this since I started working again, you know? Seeing you or Danny brought into the ER because of the job." She shakes her head and flashes a quick, embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry. I'm just glad you're all right."
"Yes, I'm fine." He struggles to hold still. He can still feel the grip of her blood pressure cuff against his arm, and the skin feels cold. He shivers despite himself.
Linda doesn't miss it. "You sure?"
"I'm fine!" he snaps. His voice is too loud but he doesn't bother to lower it. "Why does no one seem to believe that?"
"Maybe because you're yelling loud enough for me to hear you halfway down the hall."
Jamie closes his eyes. That isn't enough, so he puts his hand over them.
You're fine, Jamie. Shake it off. Straighten up.
He hears Linda pulling the privacy curtain; the noise around him softens. He dares to open his eyes but because his gaze is down, he sees only his father's polished black leather shoes, popping like onyx against the scratched linoleum of the ER floor tiles. He doesn't need to look up to know that all-knowing gaze his upon him; he can feel it, like a concrete block on his shoulders, and he knows that this is the moment to lift his chin and meet his father's critical eyes head-on. I'm fine, Dad. I'm tough, Dad. I'm a real cop. Can't you see? I did my job. I don't need a hospital. I did the right thing.
This is the moment. To prove to this man, whose entire life was service, whose moral fabric was woven tighter than strands of burlap, whose feet never strayed from the right path. To this man, whose very presence was a gravitational pull. To this man, whose good opinion had always mattered to Jamie more than life and breath itself.
Jamie takes a breath, but the words stick in his throat.
Frank's large hand comes down with impossible gentleness to cradle his cheek. "Stand down, son," he whispers.
Jamie looks up. His father's eyes shine with gratitude, gentleness, and pride.
And Jamie breathes.
)()()()()()()()(
Six days later, Jamie still can't stop shaking.
Six days, and his hands still tremble when he picks up a glass of water or a tumbler of scotch. Six days, and his thoughts still flash in bursts of sound and color, yanking him with alarming speed back to Washington Square Park. Six days, and his nights are broken; his sleep haunted.
He had thought, perhaps, that the moment of adrenaline when he pounced upon Tyler at the job fair, grabbing his arms and wrestling him to the ground, would be enough. The bookend, perhaps, to the violence of the week. When the paramedics arrived and pulled him away to treat Tyler's self-inflicted stab wound, Danny had gripped his arm and Jamie had looked down to see his hands smeared with Tyler's blood.
And they shook on.
The psychologist had helped, her calm and measured eyes anchoring him to the moment. Vinny and Sergeant Renzulli had helped, treating him to drinks and a welcome evening of normalcy. The truth had helped, knowing that despair over a child's decades-old murder had driven the horror of the week. Danny and their father had helped, sharing their statistics and camaraderie over drinks and the familiarity of the Reagan family kitchen.
Jamie tastes the adrenaline on the back of his tongue. He closes his eyes against the darkness of his apartment; reminds himself to breathe.
It will pass.
You know what 'justifiable homicide' means, don't you? Justified.
Jamie wanted to know how many cops who fire their weapons in the line of duty have a fatal result. Ten percent.
You gotta quit with this, kid. That guy made his own grave. He just had you dig it for him.
Jamie's hands tremble lightly, but he breathes on.
It will pass.