In the Moonlight
Author's Note: Well, I'm back again, and once again come to you joyfully inspired after watching the most recent episode of Blue Bloods. This story is a collection of missing and re-imagined scenes from episode 2x09, "Moonlighting." I have quite a few of these in mind, and I intend to parcel them out to you over December and early January as we all enjoy the holidays and count down to the next new Blue Bloods episode on January 13. Hopefully these updates will put a smile on your face and bring some joy to your holiday season!
Although, now that I think about it, this particular story may be a little bit of a downer. It's hard to put a happy spin on Frank's nightmares, after all. I do hope you'll read and review anyway, though, and enjoy the scene for what it is. Lilynette, this one's for you!
Scene #1 - What could possibly cause a man like Frank Reagan to wake up in a cold sweat at 4 a.m.?
Windows had beckoned Frank Reagan ever since he was a child.
He loved a room awash in light, certainly, but there was something about the view windows afforded that had always called to him. There was something about being able to look. He had always needed to see what was happening around him with his own eyes, and the tight cinderblock rooms of the precincts early in his career had held no charms for him. He needed to be out on the street, in cold air and under open sky. Once rank and privilege had pulled him up into the higher stories of police work, sweeping views of his city had become the necessity. It was the reason he was drawn to the bold floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, even when there was nothing to see but the concrete and glass skyscrapers that held constant vigil as the backbone of New York City. He could see, and there was just something about seeing that had always settled the tension in his gut, bringing him a measure of comfort and confidence that he could find no other way.
And just as they brought him peace of mind and evenness of thought during the day, so did windows soothe him in the darkness, when the nightmares would come.
Silent, stoic, Frank stood barefoot on the cold hardwood floors of his bedroom, arms folded, standing at the window seat and staring out into the quiet darkness. Mary had always loved the window seat in their bedroom, and he could remember a hundred separate times she had curled up on the pillows there to nap, or stretched out to read to the kids when they were small, or had settled back and reached out a hand for him to join her, bathing him with that ready smile of hers. Her ghost was strong in the room; in the house.
He hadn't sat on that seat since he'd lost her.
Instead, he stood, and he looked.
The house was dark, as were all the houses along his street. There was nothing outside to catch his attention but the even, steady glow of the streetlamps.
But this time, he wasn't so much looking out as in.
If he was truly honest with himself, he couldn't remember a time in his life when he hadn't been haunted by nightmares. They were always with him, taunting him with the horrors that could come if he made even one misstep. He had always chalked it up to the ever-increasing levels of responsibility he held. But as life had taken its toll over the years, the nightmares had taken a more personal turn, and he would sit bolt upright in their aftermath, sweating and gasping for breath. Generally, by the time reality sank in and he understood where he was, the dreams had faded to nothing but vague echoes of terror, the last bits slithering off him and leaving only unease in their wake. Sometimes, he could remember voices... Mary, his parents, the kids... but more often than not, it was his own uncertainties that shook him the most, teasing him with the terrible things that could land at his feet, if only he made one mistake.
Frank took a deep, deep breath. The floorboards under his feet were real. The air in his lungs was real. The nightmares were not.
But two nights ago, he had dreamed of Joe.
His second boy. His jokester. The family peacemaker. Loving, vivacious, gentle. Frank had always joked that he could set his compass by the boy's generous heart.
His son.
And this time, he remembered every detail... because this time, they were real.
Their last family dinner together, when Joe had thrown peas at his older sister from across the table despite being a 32-year-old NYPD police officer, and had accused Danny of being a vampire for preferring his meat cooked medium rare.
The phone call that woke Frank from a deep sleep at 2:36 a.m.
Stumbling out the front door, his own father on his heels, to a waiting detail of black SUVs and bodyguards who looked as stunned as he felt.
The tense ride to the hospital, which he spent with his head bowed, cell phone clutched in his hand, his heart bleeding with fear and a silent prayer to St. Michael on his lips.
New York Presbyterian in the dark hours before dawn, uniformed and plainclothes officers spilling out of the doors and service entrances, their eyes shadowed and faces pale.
His deputy and lieutenant meeting him in the ER waiting room, the doctors just behind them.
His father's knees had given out; he remembered one of the sergeants from the 64th dashing forward to catch his arm and ease him down into a chair. The doctor's words had washed over him in a buzz of indecipherable noise and with and a cold confusion that Frank would later recognize as his own shock. Lips moving with no sound. Emotions swelling with no outlet.
And finally, Danny, standing alone in the hallway, a knot of detectives nearby watching him in deep concern but not coming close. Danny's eyes had been blown wide with fear, and he had stood there, alone and shaking and almost incoherent, staring rigidly at the doors to trauma room one.
Frank swallowed, hard, against the memories and walked back to bed, sitting down on the edge. He had no desire whatsoever to lay back, but he was bone tired - too tired for liquor, too tired to stand, too tired for anything but to sit and look at his hands.
For a while, after Erin had been attacked by Dick Reed, he had dreamed of that moment and wondered what might have happened had he not reached her in time. But there, at least, he could take satisfaction from the gun in his hand, the solid weight of it, and the kick when he pulled the trigger and saw the hole pop through the middle of the murderer's forehead. There was justice in that.
He ran a hand over his face and relished the feeling of his fingers pressing hard into his eyes. They were real, and it felt good.
He dreamed of Danny often, too, because there was nothing his son wouldn't do to protect those who needed it most... victims, children, people on hard times and hard luck. He put himself into the line of fire more often than Frank cared to consider, and certainly, he was sure, more often than he knew. Though it wore deeply on him, he knew Danny was who he was, and Frank had to let him be that protector, that guardian he was born to be. But God, the nightmares he had... the what ifs.
And then there was tonight.
Frank stood abruptly, moving with sure stride through the familiar darkness of the bedroom, hallway and stairs. The liquor cabinet really wasn't that far away.
And he needed a stiff drink for this one.
He remembered this nightmare, too, and in it he had been trapped in darkness, tangled in the sticky fog of an alley he didn't recognize. The grime had been thick, and a wan yellow light cast the entire scene of chipped brick and loose gravel in a sick light. He heard laughter, mocking voices, and managed to twist in the swirling blackness to see...
...his youngest son. Jamie, his face blood-soaked like it had been after the encounter at Disciples of Isaiah. His Jamie, on his knees and bent low in pain, fingers laced behind his head. Two shadowy figures lurked behind him, holding him still.
And from the darkness next to Frank, right next to him, Noble Sanfino separated from the black, stalking forward in a pressed Armani suit. A gun was held with easy confidence in his right hand.
Frank strained to reach him. He tried to make a sound.
Jamie's eyes were frightened, and they flicked from Noble's face to Frank's. "Dad, help me," he whispered.
Noble strode forward; dropped into a crouch in front of Jamie. He smiled. "Most people like to shoot traitors in the back of the head," he said, as casually as though they were sharing stories over a few beers. His face was inches from Jamie's own. "I like to make the fun last a little longer."
A sudden gunshot. It knocked Jamie clean off his knees, sprawling him onto his back in the puddles of the alley.
The darkness curled around Frank's shoulders, slipping into his mouth to choke off his scream.
His son was writhing in pain, twisting in the gravel. Noble stood, and stretched casually. Approached. The muzzle of the gun was smoking.
He aimed again.
A gunshot. Another. Frank flinched as violently as if the bullets were tearing through his own flesh and bone.
Then, like a sigh on the breeze, Noble disappeared, wisping away like smoke. Frank was suddenly able to move. He lurched forward, but his movements were slow-motion, as though underwater. He skidded to his knees and grabbed his son.
Jamie. He pulled him into his arms, there in the darkness. Three gunshots to the chest, center mass. His own vision was dimming, going gray at the edges. He could hear Jamie choking on blood.
Frank hauled Jamie back against his chest, curling his left hand over his clammy forehead and pressing his right against the wounds. He tried not to feel the warm blood leaking out between his fingers.
His son, dying.
And the darkness closed in.
So by the time Frank's fumbling fingers closed around the bottle he was looking for, they were shaking with fine tremors, and he didn't bother with a glass. Instead, he took the fifth with him to the front window of the living room, and looked out once more.
There was nothing he could do that he wasn't already doing. He knew that. He had surrounded himself with the best people, the most talented officers, the sharpest minds. And he had raised his children well, the same way his own mom and pop had raised him.
But so much was out of his hands. So much always would be.
So Frank Reagan did the only thing a father could do at 4 a.m.
He took a drink, standing vigil in the night, and he watched the eastern sky for the first hint of dawn.
Coming up later this week...
Scene #2 - Uncertain about Bianca's intentions and unnerved by the violent outbursts of Telsa and Noble, Jamie turns to his brothers for guidance. Both of them.
Thanks for reading!