Title: Familiarities
Summary: This was not some nameless victim. This was his baby sister in that hospital bed, his Sammy. He'd been trying so hard to save her from herself he couldn't save her from someone else.
AN: This story will probably be about 4 or 5 chapters at the most. I've wanted to do it for a while and am finally taking the plunge. Will focus a lot on Flack family drama.
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me. I wish they did. Those couple song lyrics at the beginning there belong to Daphne Loves Derby from their song 'Cue the Sun', which inpart with watching Dead Inside a few times in a row helped to inspire this fic.
And if I don't come home tonight,
Just know I tried my best to fight.
Please don't think I plan to lose to the night.
Sam never cried, he can remember that much. Daddy's little spitfire, Donny's tough talking shadow of a sister; she'd always tried so hard to fit in with them, rebuffing their older sister's attempts at girly bonding to just be one of the boys. Her knees were always scraped, scabbed over messes from riding her bike too fast, from climbing the chain link fence into the neighbor's yard and missing a step. But she never cried, just gritted her teeth through the pain, wearing multi-colored bandages like badges of honor. When Don, mostly accidentally, tore a leg off the stuffed turtle she'd won tossing bottles on the boardwalk Sam didn't cry. She'd screamed alright, suckered him good in the stomach with a scrawny ten year old fist too, but she didn't cry. When her first boyfriend dumped her for a girl without a detective father and a loud, protective Irish clan watching his every move, Sam didn't shed a tear. There had been burnt photos and crushed flowers in the trash the next morning, but no tissues.
So there in the hospital room, with the dim fluorescent light reflecting off her purple, swollen skin Don wondered if she'd cried. He wondered if she'd cried in that alley, while some bastards fist connected with her face, while hands left finger shaped bruises across her throat. Her own hands were a mess of bloody knuckles, broken finger nails and palms split with defensive wounds. Defensive wounds; Don's hand found his mouth to muffle a choked sob. This was not some victim, not someone else's little sister. This was his Sammy with a tube down her throat, with her eyes swollen shut and head shaved crudely in one spot where staples angrily gleamed at him.
The phone call had come at 3:43 AM and in his groggy state he'd just assumed that Detective Delgado from Special Victims was calling him about a case. He'd been wrong of course and it taken ten minutes of sitting on the edge of the bed, his bare feet cold again the hardwood floors, to process what he'd just been told.
"Don?" the voice startled him and he jumped, looked towards the door to find Lindsay Monroe standing awkwardly inside the threshold, letting the door slip closed behind her. She was holding her field kit.
"You need to process her," he stated robotically, pushing his chair back a little as yet again the reality of the situation settled in his stomach.
"It could help us find whoever did this," she reminded gently, taking a few steps towards him to lay a hand on his shoulder, "I'm so sorry Don, I'm so sorry this happened."
"Do what you need to do," he gestured brokenly to his sister's body, "We need to find out who did this to her."
He needed to know.
"We will," Lindsay promised as she moved to place her kit down on a chair and click it open. He watched her snap on gloves; fiddle around with little cardboard boxes. He watched Lindsay's hesitant hands on his sister's and had to look away. The sound of the wooden stick under finger nails and the harsh hiss of the machine pumping breathe into her made his stomach churn. The anecdote came tumbling out from between his lips, an attempt to quiet the sickening noises.
"Every year dad would put in his off days and we'd spend a week on the Jersey shore. Once when we were pretty young we were in the water, me and Sam, jumping waves. She was supposed to hold my hand the whole time, that was dad's rule. But Sam could never really follow dad's rules you know?" he offered Lindsay a fragile smile and looked towards the window as he spoke, "so all the sudden I realize she's gone," he could remember the panic clearly, the frantic search for the purple bathing suit and long black locks of hair, "I was freaking out, then I see her, under the water. I dove down, pulled her up. Later at home I told my parents what happened. Dad lost it on her of course but then later, later my mom pulls Sam into her lap and says 'Oh Samantha you must have been so scared', You know what she said?" he had to swallow down the lump in his throat before continuing with a sardonic, broken laugh, "She says 'I wasn't scared mom, I knew Donny would get me, Donny always comes for me when I need him'."
"Flack," Lindsay had tears glistening in her eyes, "there wasn't any way you could have known she needed you. There wasn't anything you could have done."
"I could have done something, I'm her brother. It's my job to protect her," he insisted blankly, "Look at her, Jesus this is my baby sister, I can't even look at her."
"You don't have to stay," Lindsay offered, "I'll be gentle with her."
"I know," he did, he'd known right away that there were only a handful of people he could handle working this case, he could trust enough to work this case. "I don't want her to be alone though."
"Don," Lindsay started hesitantly, "The way they found her…we'll need to have a sexual assault kit done."
"She wasn't undressed," he practically snapped, desperately begging Lindsay with his eyes, "There wasn't any sign…"
"She was unconscious and she hadn't been robbed… it's better to just know what happened, to rule it out," Lindsay had taken on police officer voice and he knew it was only her own way of keeping her emotions from betraying her.
"I…" he trailed off searching his hands for answers, "I think one of my sister's will want…let me go talk to them first ok?"
"Of course."
The hallway was buzzing with unexpected life, nurses zipping by him and the lights too bright for his eyes to adjust to. The linoleum tile was a checkered mix of green and white that he drug himself down towards the swinging doors that would spill him into the waiting room. The waiting room where his entire family would be waiting: his parents, his brother Christopher and his sister's Melanie and Kerry. Waiting for him to tell them that it was all a big misunderstanding, that it wasn't their Sammy in that room. They'd be angry and upset and sick like he felt. As he pushed the door open and felt their eyes on him, mostly all identical blue like his own, Don knew this was real. His baby sister was hanging to life by a thread and for the first time in his entire life he felt completely helpless.
I know it's a short first chapter, let me know if you're interested in where it's going though.