Dr. Dawson was eating a slice of pizza when Danny walked in. "Hey, Danny, sorry about this. I didn't have time to grab lunch earlier. Want a piece?"
"Not hungry, Doc."
"Awww, come on, Danny, it's from Zingoni's, you know how great their pizza is."
"If this is some plot to make sure I eat, I see right through you, doc."
"No plot, Danny; I just don't wanna eat alone."
He sat down and threw his tie over his shoulder. "O, all right then."
He managed a slice and a half, then wiped his fingers. "Happy now, Doc? Go ahead, start with the million questions."
"Did you get any sleep?"
He shrugged.
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah. The usual, with an added twist of John Russell falling to his death over and over again."
"I'm sorry." Doc paused for a beat. "What's your 'usual' nightmare?"
He shook his hand. "I can't…" He couldn't talk about those nightmares—not now, not this soon.
"Let me make a guess, then, and you tell me if I'm right or not. Your time in Fallujah?"
He pressed his back into the chair, gripping the arms with an intensity that hurt his fingers. "I can't…I can't talk about that."
Doc held his hands up—a non-threatening gesture. "Okay, okay, take a breath, Danny, we don't have to talk about that."
He took a shaky breath and loosened his grip on the chair. "I apologized to Jack this morning."
"And did he forgive you?"
"He didn't say anything, but he gave me a bear hug, held on tight for a long time."
"How did that make you feel?"
"Ticked-off. Ashamed of myself. Ashamed that my thirteen-year-old son is more forgiving than his old man."
"He hasn't seen even half of the evil you have, Danny; it's understandable." He paused for a beat. "Rewind a bit for me…what made you snap at Jack?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "He was doing a family history project for school. He asked me about Pop's and Dad's and my time in the Marines. He rattled off the countries where each of us served, asked if I thought it was cool. I told him no, I definitely did not think it was cool. I also corrected him that the family legacy is service, not combat."
"How did Jack's question make you feel?"
Damn, he hated that question. "Angry. That he was curious. That he thought combat was something to be proud of."
"Are you telling me you're not proud of your service?"
"I didn't say that, Doc. I'm proud that I served my country. I'm not proud that I had to fight and kill for my country."
"I'd be worried if you were, Danny."
He sighed, scrubbed at his face. "Right after that, Linda got on my case for jumping down Jack's throat. I told her I was correcting his assumption. She said he was just curious; I told her I don't want him to be curious about the military service in this family. Then she asked me if I was really gonna tell her that my getting mad at Jack had nothing to do with the memories this case is bringing up. I told her yes, it had nothing to do with it. She told me not to take my anger out on our son."
"And do you think she was right—that the case is bringing up memories you'd rather not face?"
"Maybe." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "But damn, if I ever hurt one of my boys the way John hurt Tommy…"
"You didn't, Danny. Yelling at Jack once doesn't make you a bad father, doesn't make you the kind of guy who would kidnap his own son and nearly kill him." He stood up, walked over to the coffee machine. "Want a cup?"
"Yeah, sure."
Doc poured two mugs of coffee, then handed one to him. "What are some of the memories the case brought up?"
Danny's grip on the coffee mug was white-knuckled. "I can't…"
"Yes, you can, Danny. You're safe here, and nothing you tell me will ever leave this room. Tell me about your nightmare."
He set the coffee down, stood up, and stalked over to the window. With his back safely to the doc he let the memories wash over him, pinching his arm so the pain would keep him grounded in the present. Then he opened his mouth to tell the bare details to the patient doc sitting behind him.
He's on the roof and there's nowhere to hide from the bullets and bombs. John Russell is on the ledge, feigning a fall. "Thought you could save me, Marine?"
He hears the thuds of bullets hitting soft flesh, the whines of the missiles. Screams fill the air.
John Russell salutes him and then falls.
As suddenly as he had fallen, John reappears on the ledge, salutes him, and then falls again…over and over and over again.
In the distance, he sees the desert towns and destroyed buildings of Fallujah. Bullets whistle past him, and he darts behind the makeshift shelter.
But John is still there, taunting him. He cries out, again, "John, look at me! It's time to come home, man! Don't do this! Dammit!"
His voice broke, and he stomped angrily on his own right foot.
"Don't do that, Danny."
"Don't do what, Doc? Try to keep myself from having a full-blown flashback?"
"Don't hurt yourself."
Damn, the doc had seen that. Damn observant man. "High pain tolerance."
"Come sit down, Danny, please."
"I'm good over here, Doc."
The doc sighed. "That's a pretty intense nightmare. John Russel's death was not your fault."
"You said that yesterday."
"And it bears repeating." He paused. "I'm sorry you had to live through that nightmare—the ones in Fallujah, John Russell's suicide, and your nightmare last night. We don't have to unpack it all right now. Tell me about the case—anything that struck you, or walk me through it from the beginning."
He sighed, stalked back to the chair, picked up his coffee cup, and drained it. Then he sat down cautiously, on the edge of the chair.
He shrugged. "Not much else to tell."
"What about Detective Baez? She's your partner, so I take it there are things you share with her that, perhaps, you don't tell other people. How was it, working the case with her?"
He sighed again. He really, really, really did not want to open this can of worms, but the conversation had been playing on an endless background loop to all the other crap. "When we visited John's best friend…they were in the same unit on their first tour…he gave us the run-around. I told Baez if we waited long enough, he'd lead us to John—that because they served together, they're like brothers."
He swallowed hard, let out a shaky breath. "She asked me if I still keep in touch with any of the men from my unit. I told her no. She pushed it, and threw my own words back in my face: she thought we'd be like brothers. I told her I don't, and she still pushed, dammit!" He swallowed again, ran his tongue over his dry lips. "So then I had to tell her: I don't keep in touch with them because I'm the only one who made it home."
"I'm sorry, Danny."
"Linda knows…Pop and my dad know, and I think Jamie and Erin, but…that's all they know: that I'm the only one that made it home. I couldn't…I can't…talk about any of the rest of it."
"How does that make you feel, Danny…being the only survivor?"
"Dammit, Doc, how do you think I feel? I feel angry, I feel guilty—there was this kid, we called him 'Chuckles,' he was 19 freakin' years old, and he died because he took my turn on patrol because I'd twisted my ankle! If I'd gone out on patrol that night, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, because a sniper would have put a bullet in my neck!" He took a shaky breath, feeling his heart pound in his chest. "Why him and not me? Why them and not me? Why the hell am I the only one who made it home?"
"I don't know, Danny. I'm sorry. It's not your fault that you're the only one who made it home."
He glared at the doc. "You did that on purpose, dammit…you asked an open-ended question so I'd open my mouth and spill my guts. Dammittall, doc."
-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]
Alex Dawson shrugged. "Hazards of the job."
He pondered the angry, broken man before him. Then, slowly, weighing each word, he spoke. "You know, Danny, oftentimes anger is a convenient emotion to fall back on: a person might just explode at everything because that way he doesn't have to admit to himself or to others that he's sad or depressed. The fact that your sergeant ordered you to attend my anger management classes last year told me that you have a lot of anger. And that anger is probably masking some really painful emotions. So I'm going to ask again: Are you depressed?"
Danny Reagan sighed, just as he had the other day, then nodded quietly.
-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]-[H]
His phone rang. "Sorry." He pulled it out of his pocket, it was his dad. He stood, walked to the window. "Hey, dad."
"We're waiting for you, Danny, or did you forget about the Reagan Manly Men Camping Trip?"
"Damn. Sorry, dad. Yeah, I forgot. I'll…be there in…30 minutes."
"Sorry, doc. I forgot we're leaving tonight for our annual camping trip. I'm gonna have to go; they're waiting for me."
The doc rose. "You did good today, Danny. Have a good time with your family. Call me when you get back, and we'll schedule your next appointment."
He nodded. "Yeah, okay," he whispered. "Thanks, Doc."