Okay, this is my very first English fic. I've always just written in German, but now I think it's time to, well, expand, if you will. I translated this story, though the title is still the same. You can find the German version on my profile.

Okay, enough self advertising^^

The idea came to me while I was watching episode 2x20 "Do the right thing" and I was wondering what is going on in Dell's head… and if he had this inner fight going on, who would be the winner?

This is obviously a Dell fic, cause Dell was awesome, and he should NOT have been killed. But of course, when I wrote this story he was still alive and kicking. Or as kicking as Dell would be, cause he doesn't strike me as the kicking type.

Well, anyway. It is rated M because I'm paranoid and because this is serious stuff about suicide and stuff, so be warned.

If the grammar is off or something, don't kill me. I'm German. I try my best. If you find mistakes, send me PMs and I'll gladly correct them.

Disclaimer: Neither Private Practice nor Dell belong to me, and I am not making money with this story.

Have fun!

Hostage

It was two days ago when Sam told Dell to pull himself together and do his job, and since then Dell had not appeared to work. Naomi was getting nervous, because she knew how much losing Betsy was hurting him. Now, when evening came, and she still hadn't heard anything from him, and considering he wasn't even answering his phone, she decided to pay him a visit.

When finally she stood in front of his locked apartment door and rang the bell for what felt to be the hundredth time she knew that something was absolutely not right, but she had no idea what to do. She bent down to sneak a look through the keyhole like a little girl, and something dropped from her jacket pocket… it was a hair pin.

"No", she murmured. "No, Naomi, you can't do that."

… or could she? She had the feeling, no, she KNEW that Dell needed help to clear his head. Since Heather took off into nowhere and took Betsy with her, he was neglecting his job, his life and most of all, himself, and Naomi didn't want to, nor could she, watch this go on any longer.

All is fair in love and war, she thought as she picked up the pin, and this is a little bit of both. She had never done anything like this before, but she had seen videos on the internet – it couldn't be that hard.

She started picking around in the keyhole with the pin, carefully at first, then with more and more force, getting frustrated pretty quickly. What, it suddenly appeared to her, if right now somebody comes along and thinks I want to break in, and then they'll call the police? Before she could think of a good enough excuse, it clicked and a very surprised Naomi was able to push the door open.

Hesitating, she entered the eerily quiet flat, swallowing heavily. Shouldn't she in some way give notice that she was here?

"Dell?" she asked, if not very loud. She had never been to his apartment and didn't know where what was. She saw a trashed little kitchen and a living room that might once have been quite comfy, but was now littered with clothes and dirty dishes, while she steered towards a door that she thought might be the one to lead to the bedroom.

She put one hand on the handle, suddenly filled with fear of what she might find behind that door. She shook off these thoughts. Dell wouldn't just give up like that. He wasn't the type.

Naomi opened the door, and there he was, sitting on the bed. Dell. His blond locks chaotic, jeans and dark blue t-shirt wrinkled and stained… the same clothes he had been wearing two days ago. Then her eyes wandered to his right hand where he was holding a moderately sized knife, with something dark red and suspiciously glistening on its blade, and right away Naomi saw the blood running down his left forearm.

"Dell!" She practically shouted at him.

Only now did he look up and notice her standing there.

"Naomi" he murmured.

She hurried over to him. "What did you do?" She sat on the left side of his bed and lifted up his arm; luckily the cut there was superficial. She looked up to his face, his eyes were averted, gaze locked to the floor.

"Dell" she said softly, "what were you going to do?"

He didn't answer. If he was surprised about her being in his bedroom without him letting her in, he didn't show.

Naomi touched his cheek, and he flinched. Finally he looked at her.

"Naomi?" He was confused, she could see it in his reddened eyes. "What… what are you doing here?"

"I was worried." When he shot her a confused look she explained: "You didn't show up to work for two days, and we couldn't reach you… I was worried that … something happened to you…"

"What, that I did something to myself?" Sarcasm showed in his voice.

Her gaze wandered to the knife in his hand, and he looked at it as well, as if he saw it for the first time. "Dell…"

"Why should I not, Naomi? I lost the only person I love. Now I just don't see any sense in anything anymore."

"But, no, Dell! Betsy is not dead, she's just…" She didn't know how to continue. He took over for her.

"She's gone and she's not coming back. She's far away, and where she is she doesn't need her daddy…" He watched how the light of the lamp on the ceiling reflected in the silverfish metal of the blade, it was fascinating indeed.

"No, Dell, don't say that." Her hand inched closer to the knife to take it from him, but suddenly he jerked his arm up and slid away from her. "Go the hell away, Naomi! I really can't take someone to tell me that it's not so bad, that it's going to be okay, because NOTHING is going to be okay, and it couldn't be worse. It's not just Betsy. I mean, I don't know when it started, but… I hear my alarm clock in the morning and I turn it off, and… I search for reasons to get up and I – I can't find any."

His gaze tore right through her. "I just can't find a reason to get up in the morning. At some point I just do get up of course, but it doesn't make any sense. Nothing makes any sense any more." She opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her harshly.

"And don't you tell me that I still have my job! Because it doesn't make any more sense than anything else. I mean, how am I supposed to know if it is my… my destiny to become a midwife? What does it give to me?"

"Nobody knows their destiny", Naomi explained softly.

"I know that, I do, just… the only thing that made my life worth living for the last few months was me being a father, that I had to take care of this little girl, and now even that is over…"

Naomi watched him, filled with worries, but she didn't dare say something, for the risk of agitating him any further.

Dell regarded his bleeding wrist. "I used to do that, back in the days", he murmured, lost in thought. "As a teenager. I don't know who my father was, and my mother didn't give a damn about me, and I would just be pushed into a corner and ignored… and in order to not feel this pain that you feel when your own mother doesn't love you, when NOBODY loves you, I cut myself… it helps. You only feel the physical pain and everything else is just gone… but it doesn't last long."

She couldn't hold back any longer. "I can help you, Dell. We can all help you." Her shaking voice betrayed her, reflecting the tears that filled her eyes.

"No", he said loudly, swallowing hard. "Don't tell me you can HELP me. I don't need help, I don't WANT help. Betsy isn't just the only person in the world that I love with all my heart, she's also the only person that loves ME, and now… now a simple cut isn't enough. I want it to stop."

Naomi couldn't hold her tears in any longer, and to her relief she saw a lone tear falling down his face. Perhaps she would be able to get through to him. She was sure Dell did not have it in him to make the final move. She could help him. But first she needed backup.

"Dell", she asked carefully. "When was the last time you ate something?"

"I don't know… yesterday 'round noon or something…" "And…" She was sure she detected signs of dehydration on him, "how long since you last drank anything?"

"Don't know… I'm not thirsty."

She stood up and looked at him, trying for a calming smile. "You know what, I think you're a little dehydrated, so I'm gonna get you a glass of water, okay? I'll be right back." He looked at her, strangely expressionless, and she left the room and closed the door, without waiting for his consent.

Then, standing in the middle of the trashed living room, she took out her cell phone. Who should she call… Addison? No, she was too busy flirting with that married surgeon. Cooper? No, he had to take care of Violet. What wouldn't she give to be able to call Violet… but the psychiatrist was advanced in pregnancy. She sighed before she dialed Sam's number and held the cell to her ear. Lost in thought she didn't notice Dell open the bedroom door.

A seeming eternity later Sam picked up his phone.

"Bennet?"

"Sam!" She was so relieved. "I thought you weren't gonna pick up.ˮ

"Naomi? Where are you?ˮ

"I'm at Dell's." She lowered her voice. "Sam, listen, you have to come here, he's not well, I think he was trying to k-ˮ

She didn't get any further. Dell ripped the cell phone from her grasp and threw it to the floor, stomping on it until it was in pieces. "You should not have done that, Naomi", he said, threateningly calm, and for the first time ever since Naomi knew the blonde young man, when she looked into his baby blue eyes she felt nothing but fear. She wanted to turn away, make a run for the door or somewhere, just AWAY from him, but he was faster: His arms closed around her midsection, dragging and hauling her to his bathroom. Pushing her in, he locked the door behind her.

"I'm sorry", he whispered against the wooden door before he turned back to his bedroom, to his place on the bed, with the knife and the longing to just end it all.

"No! No, Dell! DELL!" Naomi pounded her fists on the other side of the door until she didn't have any strength or voice left. After five minutes of pausing she started again; somebody had to hear her! At some point Sam had to come! He had to have noticed that something was wrong! Did she tell him where she was? She wasn't sure. The conversation with him hadn't even lasted twenty seconds. What if Sam hadn't understood her? She had no clue what Dell was doing in the meantime. At the most logical idea of what he might be doing her stomach turned and she started to cry.

About forty-five minutes after he'd received Naomi's mysterious call, Sam stood in front of Dell's apartment. He wasn't even sure if he'd heard right and she really was at Dell's place. Maybe the whole thing was just a huge misunderstanding; everything had been going out of hand with Dell lately. He seemed to seriously suffer from being separated from his daughter, and Sam almost felt sorry for saying these harsh words to him. As he stood in front of the door considering whether he should ring the bell or not, he suddenly noticed said door was open. An uneasy feeling crept up on him, and he pushed the door open.

"Hello?" he said loud and clear. "Hello, somebody there? Dell? Naomi? Anyone?"

When he received no answer he cautiously entered the flat… and immediately heard knocking and banging. Trying to localize it, he found himself in front of a whitewashed wooden door. The key had been left in the lock. He turned it and opened the door.

Never in her life had Naomi been so glad to hear her ex-husband's voice. She picked up her drumming on the door and her screaming, although she barely had any strength left, and when he pulled the door open and she tumbled into his arms she hung onto him as if she was drowning. He was here, someone was here to help her, now everything would be okay, and now they would save Dell…

"DELL!" she shouted, shocked.

"Naomi!" Sam gripped her arms and forced her to look at him. "Naomi, look at me! What happened?"

"I – I wanted to see how he was doing, and then he was sitting there… with a knife, and he – how long has it been since I called you?"

"Don't know, about forty-five minutes. I was in the middle of a meeting, wha-"

"Oh no, Dell!" She ran up to Dell's bedroom door, pulling Sam with her on his sleeve. She opened the door.

And the world stopped turning.

The white sheets were drenched with blood. EVERYTHING was drenched with blood. Everywhere there was blood, just blood, and in the center of it there lay Dell, eyes half closed, the knife had slipped from his hand to the floor.

Naomi's hands flew to her mouth. She began to shake and whimper without even noticing it. With Sam completely frozen at the sight of him, she hurried over to Dell, kneeling in a puddle of blood that turned her light blue jeans a crimson shade of red. She wanted to take his hand, but she saw the deep gashes on both of his wrists and hence had to whimper even more.

"D-D-Dell" she finally breathed. "D-Dell, please, you have to wake up, you h-have to… hang in there… please…" Her voice broke.

"Naomi…" His voice was too quiet, and it took him seemingly forever to turn glassy eyes on her. "… it doesn't… even… hurt any… more…" His lids fluttered closed.

"No, no, Dell!" Now her tears were flowing freely, and right in this moment she seemed to have forgotten everything she had ever learned about medicine. She just kneeled there next to Dell on his blood-drenched bed and wept, and wept.

It appeared to her like hours that she sat there and cried, but it actually took Sam no more than ten seconds to come out of his numbness and start moving. On the inside he was still petrified with horror as he pushed Naomi out of the way to check Dell's vital signs.

"Naomi!" He shook his weeping ex-wife. "Naomi, come around! Naye! He's got a pulse, okay? He's got a pulse! He's NOT dead!" He almost added 'yet', but he didn't want to take her hope, and in a sense, he didn't want to take his own hope away either. Since Naomi was in a too severe state of shock, he did everything himself, called an ambulance, searched the bathroom that Naomi had been locked into for anything to stop the bleeding, tried to wake Dell out of his unconsciousness and keep him alive with everything he had.

The five minutes it took the ambulance to get to Dell's place were the longest five minutes of Sam's life. He got into the ambulance with the paramedics, planning to get his car when the whole ordeal was over (although there was a quiet voice in his head that wondered if this ordeal WOULD ever be over and done with), and Naomi was loaded in as well because the paramedics saw her as another patient, which, seeing as she had spent the last seven minutes with whimpering and shaking, Sam couldn't deny.

It was a miracle that Dell didn't die on his way to the hospital. It was an even bigger miracle when he not only survived the night, but reached a semi-stable state in the wee hours of the next morning. Sam and Naomi spent the whole night at his side. She received a mild sedative and the instruction to seek out a psychiatrist, and she rushed to reassure that she had already planned on doing that anyway.

Yes, Violet. And Addison and Cooper and Pete… how could she explain to them what had happened? Dell had tried to kill himself, and she was right next door and couldn't stop him from almost succeeding.

Thinking that, the tears came back. Sam put his arm around her. For the first time in a long time, she was really, seriously glad to have him with her.

"Sam" she said, suppressing a sob, "what do we tell the others?"

"I don't know" he said. "You are the only one who knows exactly what happened. Only you can tell them, and myself."

But when they left the hospital at 8:30 in the morning and took a cab to the practice she had no idea how to ever put what she had experienced that night into words.

Okay, that would be it so far. Man, I'm proud of myself! Nobody told me about how much goddamn work it is to translate, maaaaaaaaaan! Tired now. Although there's still time to post this. And to say that:

"Hostage" is the first of three stories that I had written for Dell. The second is called "Staub" (or "Dust", translated into English), and the third is "Winter". Now, originally, after "Staub" I was finished, thinking, okay, Dell's story has been told. But then I watched the third season's finale and got so PISSED OFF that they just killed him that I thought: No. I can do better than that. I can write a decent end for Dell. So I did. (And, by the way, with END I don't mean that he's dying in my story. No Sir.) And that is how "Winter" came to be.

But part 2 and 3 of my Dell-saga are MUCH longer than this, and it will take MUCH time to translate them. If this story has a decent run, I might consider it, though. If there is anyone who does NOT speak German and still want to know what I have in store for poor Dell, just review and it shall be done.

Thanks, guys

Yours truly

SGreenD