Thicker than Water
So, the idea for this story started percolating the minute I first read the upcoming summary for the S9:12 BB episode "My Brother's Keeper" – and who doesn't love a good, angsty Reagan brotherly storyline? It was such an integral part of the show for the first few seasons, but they moved away from it for the most part since then. Glad to see it return, starting with the episode titled the same as this piece. Of course, my muse was sparked and went on a run all on its own before that even aired, so I decided to start writing and co-mingle that with whatever the writers actually produced. Be advised there are some spoilers for the 9:12 episode contained within, some tweaked scenes, as well as a few borrowed from elsewhere. Needless to say, this piece goes off in a completely different direction almost from the start. Special thanks to lawslave for giving me the green light to explore another side of the premise she tackled in "The Family You Know, The Devil You Don't" – one of my all-time FF favorites. If you haven't read that one yet, please do and leave it some love!
As always, I own nothing, CBS has all the rights to Blue Bloods, I just take their characters out on a mental spin for fun!
Since we are once again on a new episode break, with more to come with March Madness, we'll go with a once-a-week Friday posting schedule for this installment. I'm pretty far ahead but do have a few chapters to finish, so may up the frequency once the writing is complete.
Chapter 1
The scene on the street in front of a row of lower-end retail shops was already chaotic even before Detective Daniel Reagan's silver Dodge Charger slid to a halt behind a line of RMP's that were blocking off the area. He quickly exited the vehicle to get a better vantage point while on the hunt for the incident commander. Even though he was well out of his usual territory around the 5-4, whenever a call for a 10-30 robbery in progress with shots fired came across the radio, it was all-hands-on-deck. The fact that this location was smack-dab in the middle of the 2-9 precinct's borders, and therefore likely under the direct purview of another Reagan was not lost on him as he hurried over from behind the car.
"Any bosses on the scene?" he questioned the first uniform he came across above the wail of numerous sirens and radio chatter before being pointed in the direction of a group of officers standing behind cover near the entrance a small jewelry store by an immediate "Yes, sir, right there."
"Who's in charge here?" he demanded twice more before running up to the spot where his younger brother was doling out orders in sergeant's stripes.
"You lost?" Jamie frowned at the unexpected interruption before refocusing as he continued to set his officers in position.
"No, I was working a case a couple blocks away. Job came over the air," Danny explained impatiently. "What do we got?"
"Smash and grab in the jewelry store," his brother informed as they looked up and caught sight of the suspect nervously crossing inside of the front door where a stricken victim lay still. "Guard stepped up, took a bullet for his trouble."
"The call said hostages," Danny impatiently pressed for more.
"Yeah, three," Jamie confirmed as he glanced over. "Perp says he'll shoot 'em one by one if we don't back off," he continued somewhat dismissively while busily checking the building's floorplan on a tablet and running through a hundred different guidelines and scenarios in his head simultaneously.
"Well, how's the guard doing?" his older brother continued to interrupt and demand information that was not immediately forthcoming.
"I don't know," Jamie answered back with some irritation evident now. "But hostage negotiators are on their way. Got to give 'em a chance to talk him out," he reminded matter-of-factly since that was the well-known rule number one in most situations like this after establishing a perimeter.
"We wait for them, the guard bleeds out, there's a good chance this guy's gonna take out another hostage," Danny insisted and called for immediate action per his norm instead.
"Right now, we contain the perp and wait for HNT, okay? I've got a team situated around the back, ready to go in on my order. Back them up," Jamie returned with more authority in his voice this time as he pointed to the rear of the store, growing steadily more annoyed with his brother's constant questioning over the current approach, only to have it continue.
"No, this guy bleeds out, it's on us."
"Back them up! Wait for my order!" Jamie reiterated and barked at volume as Danny finally left with a hurried and muffled "okay" over his shoulder while running toward the corner of the building. The younger Reagan barely had five more seconds to contend with the issues at hand before a steely-haired and experienced HNT Lieutenant, Jack Cumbria, arrived at his side, poised to take over the scene himself.
"Hey, Lieutenant," Jamie greeted him and prepared to immediately follow the chain of command and hand over the reins as he reported on the status.
"What do we know about the hostage taker?" Cumbria asked as he began to assess the situation.
"He's early to mid-20s, behavior's really erratic. Could be drugs on board," the young sergeant relayed and was quick to convey the fact that all exits were covered, front and back before the sound of two shots fired from within the store had everyone ducking for cover.
"SHOTS FIRED, SHOTS FIRED!"
"What's going on in there?" Jamie shouted into his radio just as the front door to the jewelry store banged open and a twenty-something, disheveled young man dressed in grey sweatpants and a loose flannel shirt emerged and began running at full speed across the street with his arms flailing in the air straight in front of him.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Jamie ordered as he instinctively rushed forward to tackle the fleeing suspect at speed, an effort that saw both of them come down hard on the ground together in a sprawling heap with his unprotected lower back and left side slamming up against the corner of the concrete and pipe railing of the next-door stairwell. The impact was hard enough to force all of his breath out of his body in one single whoosh that wouldn't immediately return.
"Coming out! Coming out! Hold your fire! It's all clear," he heard a familiar voice shout and managed to roll his head to the side just far enough to spot his older brother emerging from the front door with his hands raised.
"Perp's down," Danny reported as an officer relayed the same over the radio with an added twist.
"You mean… two perps down," Jamie corrected with the slightest huffing rasp as the detective and HNT Lieutenant both made their way over to where he was still lying on the ground on top of the second suspect while trying to reacquaint his lungs with the concept of how vital oxygen was to the rest of his body.
"For your information, he's not a perp… that's a hostage, Harvard," Danny corrected as he helped the other man with a case of mistaken identity get to his feet. "He just panicked and bolted when the shots went off. Great tackle though, way to take yourself out of the action. If the sergeant thing doesn't work out, maybe Jets could use you on the D-line next season… you'd fit right in. C'mon," he snickered a little too gleefully at his youngest sibling's expense and moved the former-perp, now potential victim of police brutality, who thankfully seemed no worse for wear, away and toward the arriving ambulances. "You're lucky he asks questions… LOTS of questions first before shooting, or that stunt might have gone bad. Next time someone yells 'NYPD!' just stay put," he advised the other man as they walked away.
"That's your brother, right?" Cumbria commiserated as he likewise assisted Jamie to his feet and stood there in support for a moment as his counterpart doubled over and leaned on his knees a bit before finally standing upright.
"You sure you're okay? Need the EMTs?"
"No, I'm good," Jamie insisted with a huff although that was a mighty stretch of the truth considering how he really felt. Given the fact that the elder Reagan had just managed to disobey a direct order, disrespect his command in front of half the 2-9, and come out of the incident smelling like a rose with a hero's reception that could be heard from this vantage point, there was no way in hell he was going to give Danny the satisfaction of watching while his little brother's ass was hauled away from the scene in a bus too.
"How about the stones on him, huh?" Cumbria chuckled in admiration as the two of them made their way back to the command center to clean up while Danny was being regaled by a series of attaboys and back slaps. Jamie did his best to ignore that for the better part of fifteen minutes before his older sibling decided maybe it was time to stop basking and best to try and make some amends between the two of them before he left.
"Hey. He's gonna make it, the guard," Danny reported as he approached.
"Yeah," Jamie barely acknowledged his presence as he tried to take a deep breath to keep his mouth in check and steady his emotions, but once again failed miserably. "Lucky he's the only one that came out on a stretcher," he added sarcastically, trying not to favor his sore ribs too noticeably and hoping that railing had not left much of a mark. Eddie was going to have a fit otherwise when he returned home in a piss-poor mood looking like he'd been run over by a truck.
"Meaning what?" his older brother refused to let it go, and Jamie was quickly growing tired of a head-banging-worthy conversation that felt like it was going nowhere, anyway.
"You were supposed to wait for my order before going in!" he finally snapped.
"Well, I know, but, uh, the yahoo turned his back, I had a clear path. What do you want me to do?"
"That wasn't the game plan, Danny," Jamie sighed, wondering why he was even wasting his breath on this argument.
"I know it wasn't the game plan, but it worked."
"The shot that perp threw when you went in could've hit one of the hostages!"
"No, it couldn't have hit anyone. Look, I had him completely under control. Everything was fine," Danny replied, never one to question his own decisions once they were made and the outcome was favorable.
"That's easy to say now."
"What do you want me to do? Look, I had a chance to end this thing. For all of us. So, I ended it!"
"You could've checked with me before you went in!"
"There wasn't time!"
"That's protocol!"
"Protocol, fine. But I saved lives. We saved lives!" Danny insisted, touting his success as a means to justify the end.
"You could've cost someone their life!" Jamie bit back.
"Yeah, and you, while waiting to play Dog Day Afternoon with that clown, could've let the guard bleed out and cost him his life! Coulda, shoulda, woulda…" Danny mocked as their dispute finally descended into a personal attack on his brother's style of policing as he sensed the end to any civil discussion was near.
"I was the incident commander! It was my call, not yours!"
"You're welcome." Danny finally snarked in that same annoying "I'm right, you're wrong," holier-than-thou voice that had haunted his childhood as Jamie walked away, incensed enough to write up a Command Discipline report filed the moment he returned to the precinct. That action, of course, had only instigated another confrontation between the two at the 2-9 this time with another tense round of accusations about going rogue and ignoring procedure being bantered back and forth at volume.
It was the yin and yang of their relationship, the conflict between the free spirit and the by-the-book guy in a nutshell, and the essence of everything that had brought them to the place they were in right now…
"Hey, ten-minute warning on dinner," Eddie announced as she rounded the corner with some place settings only to find Jamie lost in thought on the couch in the sunroom, no doubt reliving the previous day's incident while hiding out in a familiar corner of the Reagan house seeking solitude to lick his wounds and sulk alone.
"Thanks," he replied while gingerly sitting up and rubbing his aching arm, the pain behind his left shoulder blade and ribs increasing in intensity since he woke up this morning. That sensation had started off as a mild twinge but was seemingly sharpening with every inhaled breath now in spite of the near fistful of aspirin he had downed earlier from Henry's kitchen stash when the older man had observed his discomfort and offered some in relief.
"Are you okay?" she pressed with a frown, reading his mood and noticing the physical and mental distress he was suffering, with more to arrive shortly. Eddie might be new to these Reagan family dinners, but even she could see the massive category 5 storm on the horizon and was doing her best in a concerted effort with Erin to diffuse it before either of the brothers did something regrettable to further the trouble. "Danny's gonna be here soon."
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe you guys should talk before we sit down to dinner."
"She said, hopefully," he noted with dripping emphasis and a half-glance in her direction, well-aware of what she was trying to do and appreciative of the effort even if it was all for naught.
"Jamie, you guys love and respect each other," she continued, anyway, not willing to concede without a fight even with the distinct feeling of being on a sinking ship. "Don't you think it's time you make up?"
"It's not like he stole my baseball glove, Eddie," he replied evenly, shaking his head. "He screwed up at a crime scene, my crime scene."
"Yeah, he followed his gut. That's what makes him a great cop."
"You're taking his side?" he frowned back, although this notion was nothing new as the two had many discussions over recent months and often held opposite opinions regarding his exacting style of command which usually emphasized order and protocol over off the cuff actions.
"Of course not," Eddie insisted, although in this particular instance she was, in fact, leaning more toward Danny's point of view as something of a shared fault, often finding herself in trouble for the very same thing. It was a trait that had already garnered a RIP or two from her prospective husband and current CO as a result. "He's your brother," she added, anyway, feeling the need to emphasize that, even though Jamie was an equal opportunity disciplinarian when it came to the job as illustrated by his next statement.
"Exactly. I let him disobey a direct order because we've got the same last name? What kind of credibility will I have with the next guy?" Jamie wondered out loud and then cut himself short as the pain flared up after shaking his head, and he became increasingly lightheaded when an initial failed attempt to stand went wonky again.
"God, Reagans are nothing but pure stubborn!" Eddie griped after rushing over to steady him. "You and Danny are two sides of the exact same coin… it must be in the genes. And you know you look awful, right? Your side is all black and blue and you can hardly lift your arm. We should have stayed home."
"I'm fine," he insisted after catching his balance with her help. "I told you, I'm just a little sore from taking the second guy down… must have banged my shoulder on the ground. I promise to try and behave, alright? C'mon, let's just get this over with," he sighed and followed her toward the dining room arm-in-arm as they heard the front door open and knew there was no point in trying to put this off any longer even as Erin strategically moved into position to try and intercept her older brother.
So, we're headed for that fiery Sunday Dinner Showdown now, but that's when things start to take a real turn in this story as our favorite brothers, the rest of the family, and in particular their father, are about to discover there might be a great deal more behind their differences than anyone could imagine.