Breathless, pt. III
Author's Note: I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but I loved Blue Bloods so much tonight (SO MUCH) that I feel the need to celebrate. Somebody needs to write me Jamie and Renzulli painting hijinks. Oh my gosh, that episode. Top to bottom. Anyway! Here's chapter three! Thanks for joining me for this series. I really do appreciate all the wonderful support. Lilynette, this one's (still) for you. Hope you enjoy!
Last time:
"Frank?" Garrett said, his voice heavy with concern.
He turned his head a little. Everything felt half a step slow, and his heart was a stone, barely thumping in his chest. "I..." He swallowed. "I need to call Danny."
"I can do that for you."
"No." He had to do this. "I need to do it."
"Frank." Garrett's voice was desperate, and Frank was grateful that he couldn't see his deputy commissioner's eyes. "He's going to be okay."
Frank closed his own.
I can't lose another son. God, I can't lose another son.
Now:
Across town, Danny was sitting at his desk with his tie loose and his jacket discarded, his hand in his hands.
Christmas. How could it be Christmas already? He had bought approximately two presents for Linda, and the leather gloves didn't count because she had picked those out herself and shoved them into his hands, saying, "Here, wrap these up and hope I forget all about this conversation." Unless she really, really wanted that juicer he'd picked up the weekend before, it was going to be a blue Christmas in the Reagan household.
He knew what she wanted; that wasn't the problem. He knew what his baby liked, and there was a gorgeous diamond pendant necklace at Zales that he had on hold. The problem was, it was after eleven, he was still at work, and Christmas Eve wasn't exactly his ideal schedule for finishing his holiday shopping. Maybe God would be merciful and let the place have free gift-wrapping.
"Hey, Reagan."
He stirred, turning his head to see a grande Starbucks coffee being placed gently by his elbow. "What's this?"
"Figured you could use a recharge." Jackie dropped into the seat at the desk across from him, setting down her own cup and pulling off her scarf.
He frowned. "I'm not the only one pulling an all-nighter here."
"Yeah, but my Christmas shopping's done." She winked at him over her lid.
Danny leaned back in his chair, cracking his back with a sigh. "We'd both be home now if the lab would hurry up with that DNA confirmation. Or, I guess, you'd be home. I'd be shopping with all the other procrastinating nutcases."
"I know. The lab was supposed to be done with that at least an hour ago, but you know there can't be more than one guy down there." She glanced up at the clock on the wall beside them. 12:02 a.m. "Merry Christmas Eve, partner."
"Yes, very merry."
She grinned, taking a deep drink. "Y'know," she added thoughtfully, smacking her lips. "Queen's Center is open twenty-four hours right now. Assuming we hear back from the lab soon, you can swing by the mall on your way home."
"Yes, I can think of nothing else I'd like to do. Especially on Christmas Eve." He grabbed his own cup. The Starbucks brew went down hot and smooth, easing his mood a little.
"You'd better like it, if you're as far behind on your shopping for Linda as you said. Thank God she shops for the kids, huh?"
"Yeah, no kidding."
Picking up a random pen from her desk, Jackie tapped it idly against her phone receiver, which sat smug and silent in its cradle. "Why do you wait until the last minute, anyway?"
"Why do I wait? I have a rather demanding job, as you might recall. You do, too."
"I mean guys. Guys in general. I've never understood why you procrastinate."
"Not all guys do that." He propped his elbows on his desk and leaned forward, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Just the stupid ones."
"Hey, Reagan?" Sergeant Gormley was leaning out of his office, frowning into the bullpen. "You got your ears on?"
"Does it look like it?" he replied caustically.
Jackie made a face at him before glancing over her own shoulder. "Police scanners are offline out here, Sarge. What's up?"
"Ten-thirteen with an officer down in lower Manhattan," he replied, and though there were only a few third-shift detectives in the squad room, they all fell into stunned silence at his words.
Jackie turned to face him, her attention suddenly commanded and her voice sharpening by rote. "What happened?"
"No idea yet."
One of the other detectives stood halfway into his overcoat, gloves dangling from his free hand. "Are tours being extended, boss?"
"No word on that yet either."
"Any idea who it is?"
"Somebody out of the 12th."
Danny straightened up with a frown, his Christmas shopping momentarily forgotten. "Really," he muttered, his eyes going automatically to the silent cell phone on his desk. "Who?"
"No idea, Reagan. Not even sure what happened. Dispatch called out all the units, though." Gormley ducked back into his office.
Danny continued staring at his phone, a hundred unpleasant thoughts colliding in his head. His fingers itched to just grab the thing and call his father's cell phone, just to know, just to have his mind put at ease, but he knew better. Jackie apparently noticed his indecision, because her voice broke suddenly through his thoughts. "Go ahead and call him," she said. "Why not?"
Why not? A thousand reasons why not, when you're a Reagan.
He shrugged, making a face. "Nah. I'm not gonna bother him. God knows he'll have his hands full with this. His office will call me if he needs something."
"Not your dad. Call Jamie. If you're worried."
He scowled at that. "I'm not worried. And he's working tonight anyway."
"All the more reason, right?"
He waved her off in annoyance. There was no reason to worry, and that was the end of it. If a reason came along, then he would worry. Otherwise, he would never hear the end of it.
Mick Johnson, a detective Danny had worked with on the night shift for a few years, came jogging into the room suddenly. He gave a quick nod of his head in greeting to Danny and Jackie but made a beeline towards the flat-screen mounted on the wall on the opposite side of the room. "New York One just went live," he explained, voice pitched high with adrenaline, and he clicked the screen over from the computer display of crime statistics in Queens to the 24-hour news channel for the city.
Danny turned, peering through the glass panels of the bullpen to stare at the screen. A cameraman was already on the scene, and the image was pitch black, all background detail washed out by the police lights. There were so many flashing beams of red and blue it was impossible to see anything else. "OFFICER SHOT IN FLATIRON DISTRICT" screamed along the bottom of the screen next to the NY1 logo.
"Maybe you better call Linda," Jackie observed, resting her elbows on her desk and her chin in her hands. "In case she sees this, you know?"
He hesitated. It wasn't bad advice, but chances were she wasn't up anyway. "I don't know. A call at this hour would probably freak her out even more." He turned away from the screen, resolved. "If she's awake and sees it, she'll call me. If not, she's better off."
Jackie's desk phone rang suddenly, and she glanced at the caller ID. "The lab, thank God," she sighed, and snatched it up.
Danny smiled a little and swiveled back around in his chair, but the expression faded when he caught sight of the screen again, and its ghostly image of lower Manhattan. Concern welled up unbidden within him, and he tried to recall the words from a prayer his father had taught him long ago.
My Lord and Savior, in your arms I am safe. Keep me and I have nothing to fear; give me up and I have nothing to hope for...
He heard a buzzing sound behind him, but it didn't register in his mind as he stared at the mosaic of color on the screen. It was almost mesmerizing.
Be present, O Lord, and at the hour of death, be our hope and our refuge...
Jackie snapped her fingers. "Reagan!" she called. He turned and saw her holding her hand over the mouthpiece of her own telephone receiver, pointing at his desk.
He followed her gesture to his cell phone, its screen lit. "DAD" was printed in white letters.
Well. That was a little unexpected. He grabbed it without thought, accepting the call. "I see it," he said, without prelude. "I'm watching New York One coverage right now."
"Son," his father said. His voice was strained and weak. He could hear sirens and commotion in the background.
Danny hesitated. "Dad? What's going on?"
"It's bad, son."
Danny blinked. He normally prided himself on being a pretty damn good detective, but he had no idea what his father was talking about. "What are you talking about? Where are you?" He could tell his voice was growing louder by the word in the small bullpen, but it was the last thing he cared about at the moment.
"Danny. It's your brother."
He sat still for a moment, blinking, not understanding. For one endless, delirious moment, he thought his father was talking about Joe.
He wasn't. Of course he wasn't.
The world shrieked to a lurching stop around him.
Then Danny stood up so fast his chair toppled over, but he never heard it; never noticed. He had no idea where he was going. "What?" he managed.
"Can you meet us at Bellevue?"
He whipped around to the television, which had switched to a Google maps image of the neighborhood. An intersection in Lower Manhattan was pinpointed. "Jamie?" Danny whispered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jackie, standing at his elbow and staring with concern etched deeply into her face. Gormley was behind her, his expression not much different. When had that happened?
"Dad," he said, desperately. He thought he might have been yelling, but he wasn't sure. It was hard to hear anything over the roar in his ears, like water, like rushing air. "What happened?"
His father didn't answer. Danny clutched the cell phone tighter in his hand, palms suddenly sweaty. "Dad?"
There was a rustling on the other end of the phone, then a new voice filled his ear. "Danny? It's Garrett."
Danny turned his desperate gaze back to the television again. It had returned to the same flat image of patrol cars and lights. It was the same crawl, in all caps: "OFFICER SHOT IN FLATIRON DISTRICT." He stared, not noticing the eyes of the room upon him. Nothing mattered in that moment but the image on the screen, the voice in his ear.
Garrett spoke. "They're taking Jamie to Bellevue. You need to meet us there, Danny."
And the impulse to go, to be there, broke over him suddenly, like plunging into unexpected darkness. It was sudden and overwhelming, sucking away the sound and leaving him with nothing but the desperate urge to do exactly as Garrett said.
Danny dropped the phone and bolted for the door.
He didn't remember getting out of the bullpen, tearing down the hallway or putting his shoulder into the main doors of the precinct. It wasn't until he hit the unexpected blast of cold December air that he remembered where he was - no coat, no keys, no phone, and for a second he tried to turn back, disoriented.
Jackie's hand closed upon his arm. He hadn't realized she was behind him. "Squad, backseat," she ordered, yanking him with a strength that belied her small frame.
Gormley was already down the steps, climbing behind the wheel. They followed, and Jackie shoved Danny in the back, choosing shotgun for herself. She had barely closed the door before the Sarge was peeling out, gravel flying, the siren and lights on full.
Jackie spun to stare at him through the car's Plexiglass divider. "Where did he say?"
"Bellevue," Danny managed. His father's words were ringing through his head. It's your brother... it's bad, son. How bad was bad? He'd been shot? He had a vest, right? A vest didn't matter if you got shot in the head. Had Jamie been shot in the head? Had he been shot at all? Maybe this was a dream. He'd dreamed like this, when Joe became a cop. The nightmares started when he died and had never stopped. This was a nightmare, that was all. Had his father even really called? The voice had been tortured, small. That wasn't his father's voice. His father had a voice like hot chocolate when he was pleased and like a thunderclap when he was angry. He didn't do small, or frightened.
My God, Jamie had been shot?
It's your brother... it's bad, son.
His brother. His brother.
"Reagan!" Jackie snapped, with the sort of tone that indicated it wasn't the first time she'd called his name.
He looked up at her blankly.
"Hold it together," she warned. "Hang in there, huh? Your family's going to need you."
His family. He patted his chest, his pockets.
"What are you doing?"
"I need to call Linda," he replied absently.
"I'll call Linda. We're almost there. Hey," she added, and put her hand flat against the clear plastic that divided them. "Breathe, Danny. I mean it. We're almost there. Take deep breaths."
He didn't remember how to breathe. He concentrated on Jackie's voice instead.
"Linda? Linda? I'm sorry, I know it's late... it's Jackie. Jackie, and hey, Danny's right here. No, he's fine. It's okay. He's right here, he's fine. Linda? Linda, we just got a call, okay? We just got a call that Jamie's been shot."
Danny flinched, violently, as though the bullet had suddenly found him.
"I don't know. I don't know. Frank called. We're heading to Bellevue... maybe, I don't know. He can't really talk right now, Linda. He's all right, we're just... yeah. Can you come? Yeah, Bellevue. Okay."
He needed to talk to her. "Jackie, give me the phone."
She turned back to him, ending the call. "I can't," she replied, rapping her knuckles hard against the divider. "Linda's on her way, okay? She's getting the neighbors to watch the kids. Hang in there for me, would you?"
His hands were shaking. He didn't know when that had started. Every breath was shallow, barely filling his lungs, and panic was stalking him in the shadows of the car, creeping up around his ankles and pooling in the latch of his throat.
He pulled in a breath that sounded almost like a sob.
This couldn't be happening. Lightning didn't strike twice. One horror movie had already come true for him; there couldn't be another. One frantic phone call, one emergency room in the middle of the night, one brother had to be enough. It couldn't happen again. And if it did happen again, it needed to be him, because he had known before and knew now that he would never, ever, survive a second time. Even now, some days the grief pressed down and his heart tore open, and the thought of anything happening to Jamie was too much to bear. No, he couldn't even think it. He'd already put one little brother in the ground. Wasn't that enough? And God knew he had sworn that day, and every day after, that he himself would be cold and dead in the earth before Jamie would ever be.
And now, look what had happened.
Not again. Please, God, not again.
"Reagan..."
Don't take him from us. Don't take him from me.
"Reagan!"
He lifted his head and saw the ambulance bay of Bellevue. There were police cars everywhere, everywhere, and Gormley had barely slowed the car near the entrance before Danny was out the back door like a shot, flying toward the sliding doors to the emergency room. Inside, like outside, cops were all over the place, mostly holding up the walls and corridors. Some were detectives he knew but mostly it was the rank-and-file guys, guys from the 12th, and their heads snapped around as he shot past them into the ER.
"Reagan! Hey, somebody grab him!"
But he was already hanging a tight left, racing past the admittance desk decked in tinsel, running at full tilt toward the restricted area doors. He ignored the nurses in their pale blue scrubs and the hospital security guards and the two lieutenants out of the ninth who tried to grab him, stop him. Nobody was stopping him. His brother was here, somewhere, and only God Himself was going to stop him.
"Danny!" Jackie shouted. Her voice seemed very close to his ear. "This way, Danny. Down here."
He followed, but she led him not into a treatment room but a small, private waiting room, a large photo of New York at night on one wall, its skyscrapers alive with light. A small Christmas tree was in the corner, beaming with cheerful blue and white lights. Garrett was in another corner, back on his cell phone, his face pale and expression tense. Several of his father's chiefs were there as well, their quiet conversation stopping abruptly when he entered.
His father was on the far side of the room, seated at the core of the chiefs' cluster. He stood, eyes on Danny and his face set, and Danny recoiled at the sight of his father's rumpled dress blues. It was the sort of thing his father would wear to a funeral. This wasn't a funeral.
"Danny," Frank said quietly. His voice was still rough but layered with an eerie calm that made the hackles rise on the back of Danny's neck.
He stared, and waited for the words that would end his life.
"Danny," Frank said again. "It's all right. Come sit down."
"Where is he?" His voice cracked, raw and painful as if he'd been screaming. Had he been screaming?
"They're taking care of him. Danny, he's-"
But he had already spun around, heading for the hallway again. The need to find his brother was overwhelming, like a need for air.
It was Gormley who stopped him this time, the sergeant's large presence filling the doorway. Before he could attempt to force his way past, his father's hand was on his arm, solid and firm, pulling him back and turning him until he was being held still by both shoulders. "Danny. He's going to be all right."
Something in his mind grabbed at those words, scrabbling for them, but they still didn't quite make sense. "Where is he?"
"Sit down." There was no room for argument in the words, and he found himself deposited into a plush armchair a moment later. Gormely was hovering close by, watching with a tight, concerned expression, and Jackie was holding onto his arm again, her fingers digging into the muscle. Garrett was standing within arm's reach, and his father was kneeling down in front of him. Faces, so many faces. None of them were the one he cared about.
"Danny. The chief of staff was just here. He said that Jamie's going to be all right. You understand?"
Jamie was going to be all right. But he still didn't understand. "Where was he shot?" Was it in the chest, like Joe? How many times?
Frank drew back, stunned. "He- he didn't get shot."
That, finally, captured Danny's attention. "What do you mean? The TV... they said..."
Garrett muttered a string of obscenities under his breath and turned to talk to a pale, buttoned up female commander standing at attention in the corner. Frank's expression wavered a moment, too, warring with grief, but he caught it and rallied before it could collapse. "They got it wrong, son. He wasn't shot, he was strangled."
Danny stared. He tried to repeat the word, but his mouth wasn't cooperating. It did, however, allow him to splutter out, "The hell are you talking about?"
"It was a vagrant. High on drugs," he added. "He surprised Jamie and Renzulli while they were clearing a building. The man tried to strangle your brother, but Renzulli was able to stop him."
"It's bad?" Those words, still, knocking about in his head.
"It looked bad. But they said he's going to be all right, Danny. Do you understand?"
Jackie squeezed his arm, almost painfully. "Breathe, Reagan."
And he did, sucking in a sudden and deep breath that peeled open every pocket of his lungs that had sealed in fear, and terror. He breathed, and then he coughed raggedly, and Jackie's hand came down gently against his back, between his shoulder blades, as his father gripped his upper arms. "I'm so sorry, Danny."
Why was he sorry? Was this even real? He would know when he saw Jamie. "I want to see him, Dad."
"We'll be able to in a minute. Can you hang in there until then?"
How could be be so calm, so composed? Confused, Danny looked up at his father.
That's when he saw it.
The Commissioner Reagan mask was on, tucked neatly into place. This was his father, unflappable commander, unshakable in his decisions and stalwart in his leadership. But in his eyes, Danny saw the father he knew, the father who had not gotten out of bed for two days after they buried Joe, the father who had trembled like a leaf when Jack was born and had to be in the NICU for three days. He saw his dad, humbled and shaken, in those eyes.
"How could this happen?" Danny whispered. "Where the hell was his backup? Where was Renzulli?"
"Renzulli was the one who got him out. He's on his way." Frank turned to say something to one of the chiefs behind him, yet another in a sea of faces to Danny, then turned back to him, laying a hand on Danny's knee. "Son, I need to know that you're all right."
"I'm all right," he replied, distracted. He saw his father speak to Jackie, who nodded quickly, before he stood.
Danny's hand was clutching the bottom of his father's jacket before he even realized it had moved. "Dad."
Frank crouched back down. "Son?"
"Where's Erin? And gramps? They should be here."
"They're on the way."
"Are you okay?"
"I'll be better when I see your brother," he admitted, trying a smile that failed to reach his eyes. "Like you."
"What did the doctor say?"
"They were concerned about swelling... fractures in his neck, but they think it's okay. He was pretty out of it on the scene, but I think he woke up more once he got here." Someone else was talking to Frank, and he turned a little. "Son, I'll be right back, okay?"
Danny nodded as his father stood and moved to a waiting cluster of officers. Jackie was still next to him, rubbing circles into his back. "Hey, Reagan," she murmured.
"What?"
"You doing okay?"
He wasn't sure how to answer that. Spent adrenaline was still flushing out his veins, taking with it the residual terror that had locked his muscles and stilled his heart. "Are we just supposed to wait now?"
"I think the doctor's coming. Just relax a minute, huh?"
His gaze found the Christmas tree in the corner and he had the sudden, murderous inclination to topple it over, if only he could trust his knees to take him there. Sure, relax. That was easy to do, sitting in a hospital with police everywhere, and knowing the last brother you had in the world was in there half-strangled to death because some crackhead went after him.
At least he hadn't been shot, though. Thank God, he hadn't been shot.
Danny put his face in his hands.
Jamie was a rookie. A rookie, for God's sake. He had a brain for dusty old legal books and courtroom jargon, not the streets. What did he know about the streets? What was he even doing out there, carrying a gun, walking into every pocket of decay and trouble? And how could Danny have let his little brother, the only damn brother he had left, be out there in that? There were bad people out there. Wasn't he supposed to be looking out for his brother?
Danny still had his face in his hands when he felt a stir of air as someone knelt down in front of him. Cold hands, chilled from the night air but familiar in their touch, closed over his own, and a forehead pressed against his. He breathed in, and he smelled the delicate warmth of perfume.
Linda.
He opened his eyes and saw her there, her own eyes still closed and face etched in grief, lifting in the breaths he exhaled.
He reached up to close his hands over hers, and pulled them down to kiss them.
"God, Danny," she whispered, and she had her arms around him a moment later, wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck. "It's all right," she added into his ear. Her voice trembled a little, but it was strong. "It's all gonna be all right, huh?"
He didn't speak, but sank into her embrace instead.
Author's Note: Stay tuned for our finale in part four, in which we'll finally get a chance to see Jamie - and the damage done. Also, Renzulli needs the Reagan family to forgive him, but the real question is, can he forgive himself? And the burning question you're all dying to know the answer to - will Danny pull a Kiefer Sutherland on that Christmas tree? :) Answers are coming soon!