Chapter 8
Flack pounded on the 3rd story apartment door. It was the last one on the left. Why was always the last one on the left……on the 3rd floor?
"NYPD, open up!"
There was no answer.
Flack looked at Danny who nodded as he drew his gun. A well placed kick broke in the flimsy door and Danny rounded the corner into Lorenzo's apartment. He was met by the butt-end of a fire extinguisher that crashed into the side of his head. Dazed and knocked to the ground, Danny tried to shake the ringing from his head as Lorenzo dashed for an open window and the fire escape. Swearing, Flack dodged a chair the suspect threw behind him as they crossed the apartment. Danny ducked as it skittered towards him. Blinking blood out of his eye, he looked back up in time to see Flack knock Lorenzo to the ground.
Holstering his gun, Flack dug his knee into Lorenzo's back as he wrenched the suspect's arms back towards him and fastened the cuffs, tightly.
"Linus Lorenzo, you're under arrest for the attempted murder and shooting of a New York police officer, assault of a police officer, robbery with a deadly weapon, and evading and resisting arrest." Flack bit out the words as he hauled the suspect to his feet and continued with the familiar recitation of the prisoner's rights.
Handing him off to two of the uniformed officers who were with them, Flack hurried over Danny who had gotten to his feet and was trying to stop the bleeding from a nasty cut above his eye.
"Danny, you ok?" Flack asked him, concern and worry stamped on his face.
Danny nodded, then closed his eyes as the movement caused a wave of dizziness to wash over him. "Yeah, yeah, just stunned me a bit." He took his hand away from the cut above his eye, and it started to trickle blood again. "Bastard broke my glasses." Giving a small laugh he pressed his hand back against the cut and winced, "Lindsey's been telling me I should get contacts. Says we wouldn't have to worry about them getting accidently smooshed when we……" he stopped short.
"Oh do go on Danny, please!" Flack said, his eyes dancing with amusement. "When we……?"
Danny felt his face heat. "Never mind," he said with a quick shake of his head. He swore as the sudden movement threw the room out of focus and made it spin uncontrollably. His knees buckled as he lost his balance.
Flack caught him as he fell, and lifted him back to his feet. "Whoa, easy there!" He threw Danny's arm around his shoulders and steadied him. "Come on, let's get you get to a hospital."
Danny squeezed his eyes closed in an effort to make the room stand still. He peeked them back open, but the damn room still persisted in its circular motion. "Yep, probably a good idea," he said.
Flack helped him down the stairs and out to their car, "Now, what were you saying again about Lindsey and contacts?"
Danny glared at him.
Flack grinned.
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Stella felt a wave of almost paralyzing fear as the elevator doors opened onto the Surgical ICU floor. She was no medical person, but had glossed over enough lines herself to recognize when someone else was doing so. The nurse who had called her had let her know what was going on and that Mac had taken a turn for the worse; but she had stopped short of telling the whole truth. None of them expected him to live.
Stella gently lowered the side rail on his bed as she sat down next to him. There was a difference in him that she couldn't put her finger on. It was as if an invisible energy had disappeared. She picked up his hand and kissed it gently. Stroking a single damp wave of hair off his forehead, she smiled. She had good-naturedly ribbed him a few weeks ago that he wasn't in the military anymore and didn't need a haircut every other day, and that she had liked it when it was longer. He had, in typical Mac fashion, gotten all squirmy and quickly changed the subject. But apparently, her comment hadn't been lost on him. "I'm here Mac. I'm back," she told him softly.
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"Are you still dizzy?" the Dr. asked him.
Danny spoke from underneath the blue, sterile cloths that covered his entire face minus his cut. Well, they had been sterile out of a package before the Dr. started stitching him up.
"A bit. Not bad." He could hear Lindsey fidget beside him. Flack had insisted on calling her.
"Well, your CAT scan came back negative, so you escaped with just a concussion. I am going to write in your discharge instructions not to go back to work for a few days though."
Danny bit his tongue. Right, like that was going to happen. Although he had a sneaky suspicion that between Flack and Lindsey he wasn't going to have much of a choice in the matter. He blinked at the sudden light as the Dr. removed the blue cloths from his face.
"Good as new. You'll want to make an appointment with your own doc to get those removed in about 10 days."
Danny slowly sat up. The dizziness was going away, but he was left with a residual sick feeling in his stomach. "So how many doc?"
"Seven. You might want to think about getting contacts for on the job."
Flack snorted, trying to hide the huge grin that had appeared on his face.
Lindsey turned, "What?"
Danny pointed at him, "Not a word Don. Not a word!"
"Sure, Danny, sure!"
"What?!" Lindsey asked, suspicion growing on her face. "What is he talking about?" She looked between Danny's furious eyes and red face and Flack's barely contained amusement. Suspicion changed to horror, "Daniel Ryan Messer, just what did you tell him?"
"I…"
Lindsey pointed at him, "You, are so dead!"
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Stella had called Don shortly after getting to the hospital to let the team know what was going on, and at one point or another they had all come up. Flack, with a still somewhat unsteady Danny who was being assisted by Lindsey, had filled her in on the case's progress. They had finally found Lorenzo's gun, ditched three blocks from where Mac had been shot, and ballistics had confirmed a match on the bullets from the convenience store's owner with the ones which Mac had been shot. The store owner's wife and the customer had been killed with a different gun: Lorenzo's teen accomplice.
With promises all around for calls on any updates, and a further promise from Danny not to go into work tomorrow, Stella found herself alone with Mac again. She sat with him. Never letting go of his hand and gently running her fingers through his hair, she talked to him.
"Remember our first shift together, Mac? You said hardly anything and kept giving me these funny looks because I was all nervous and talking too much. Then we had that girl that got stuck between her couch and the wall? Someone called it in as a domestic assault and we busted in all ready for a takedown, only to find that she had tried to rearrange her furniture while drunk and half-naked and was simply pounding on the wall and shouting for help when the couch had tipped over her. I'll never forget that initial split-second look on your face when we realized what was going on. You were all highly professional, of course, and even moved the stupid thing to where she had been trying put it in the first place. Then we cleared, and you couldn't stop laughing about it the rest of the day. Well, not 'laugh out loud', but you'd randomly start grinning for no apparent reason." Stella smiled through the tears that had collected in her eyes again.
She sat and held him as she talked quietly through the hours.
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Stella didn't budge from Mac's side the entire night. Every couple hours more labs were drawn, IV bags were re-hung, and med levels adjusted. There was a sense of anticipation, and not in a good way. It was as if everyone was waiting for a pending catastrophe that never seemed to come. His nurse was a quiet, attentive young man who explained that, for the moment they were being able to maintain Mac's blood pressure with 'pressors'. While not great, his kidney function had stabilized, but his left lung had partially collapsed, necessitating the placement of the second chest tube.
"He's actually stabilized quite a bit since you've been here," he told her as the wee hours of the morning wore on. And Stella dared to hope.
