Steve had decided to stay the night, returning to the less than comfortable plastic chair that he was confined to by Danny's bedside. While the detective slept, Steve surveyed how the damage had been healing in his absence. The arm that had only been fractured, and had left the fingers mostly intact, was almost completely free from bandages. In addition to this improvement, Danny had reported that the pain in his chest from the broken ribs was decreasing by the day, and although it still hurt to breathe much more than shallow breaths, speaking was coming easier.
The most pleasing to Steve was the lack of machines in the room, for only one or two were beeping softly and subtly this night. Danny was out of the woods for his immediate risks, and would be moved to a much more general room within the next day or two. Although it meant that the privacy would be slightly fractured, Steve was thankful that the recovery was indeed moving along. He gave a soft smile through the darkness towards Danny, who was sleeping peacefully through the night now, the pain being treated more effectively.
Steve was jolted into alertness when his phone vibrated in his pocket, reverberating against the plastic that he sat on. Quickly he got to his feet, hustling out into the hallway to answer the call that was coming in. Upon picking up, he was greeted with a familiar voice, one that was full of concern.
"Steve, we might have a problem."
"What is it, Chin?" Steve asked, feeling unease roll through his gut at the amount of concern that Chin was expressing. And if he was indeed concerned enough to be calling at two in the morning, the matters must be of some severity.
"You shouldn't have done what you did earlier. After getting his broken nose patched up in the infirmary, he started complaining about the crazy cop that had done it to him. He's going to file for assault. And there's another problem- we didn't even have a warrant for his arrest. If he figures that out, we could be in serious trouble."
"The governor will cut us a break at least this once, won't he, Chin?" Steve hissed into the phone, not quite in the mood to be dealing with matters he thought he had well and buried earlier in the day. He might have acted impulsively, and he might have spent a fair bit of time washing the blood off of himself, but that didn't mean that he deserved to have his actions come back and bite him. Chin's sigh was audible through the phone, a breathy and crackly sound.
"I don't know, Steve. There have been a lot of 'one times' that man has granted us. And we don't have full immunity anymore. You have to remember that we're not outside the law. The way you acted today, I don't agree with it, and it was outside the law. We could be facing some serious consequences here" It was all Steve could do to bite back a scream of frustration. Biting down on the inside of his tongue, he shut his eyes, shaking his head in a display of the denial he was feeling biting inside.
"You don't think I don't know that? The point is, he confessed, you got it in a statement, and he's going away for his actions. At this point, we don't even need Cristina to stand in on trial for him, he's given a full confession from what you told me. What I did that was wrong, yes, but it got the job done. That's what we're paid to do. Get the bad guys. If it makes the governor feel any better, we'll have the completed search warrants for the suspected cartel members by the break of dawn. We don't have anything to worry about" and although he spoke it with confidence, Steve wasn't too sure about what he said. The governor wasn't always the most forgiving type.
"Whatever you say, Steve" Chin finished, and hung up the phone before Steve had a chance to reply another time. With the phone sitting in the palm of his hand, Steve looked up into the bright lights of the ceiling, trying to push away the combination of doubt and exhaustion. He had always pulled through any other incidents that came up in the line of work, and this one wouldn't be any different.
So without another moment of hesitation, Steve turned back into the hospital room where Danny slept, and settled himself in the chair once more. Although he hadn't told Danny exactly what he had done to the criminal, from the scene that he had presented, it was quite obvious that Danny had figured out what happened. But his partner hadn't expressed anything about that occurrence, positive or negative, so Steve knew he didn't have anything to worry about.
It wasn't half an hour later when Steve went to check his emails, sorting through a host of information that had come in while he was working. Although the initial few had to deal with caseloads, there was another one with the Governor's name that stood out to Steve.
With regret mounting instantly, Steve opened the email, and found nothing more than a simple request- a meeting with the Governor in the morning. Checking the time, Steve noted that the meeting in question was supposed to occur in just about five hours, which didn't leave him much time to freshen up, dress up, and get over to the Governor's office.
Looking back at Danny with regret, Steve sighed, and put the phone back into his pocket.
"I'll see you as soon as I can, partner. I know I'll get things to work out" he said softly through the dark, and turned to leave the hospital, grabbing a coffee on the way out.
The coffee was nursed carefully over the next hour, which led Steve back to his house, through the shower, and through his usual rituals of morning preparation. As he peered in the mirror, observing the growing black beneath his eyes, he longed for a moment that he was a female and could hide his growing sleep deprivation with nothing more than a tube of paint. Yet it wasn't quite that simple, as proven by the fact he had to shear off the growing mess of stubble that had overcome his chin and neck, and slicking back the tousled hair on his head, which had a few noticeable grey strands emerging from the sides.
The drive to the governor's office took a considerable amount of time, and it had almost been a full five hours of preparation, sitting in traffic, and waiting before Steve was welcomed into the waiting area for the Governor's office. As he sat there, the collar of his shirt rubbing up against his neck uncomfortably, Steve went over his planned responses in his head. He had formulated a series of answers to many questions that the Governor might give him, and as he repeated them over once again, his confidence that he would be without consequence mounted.
"Good morning, Steve" he was greeted suddenly by a deep voice. Steve looked up from his lap, and saw that the door on the other side of the room had opened, and the Governor was standing in the threshold. Nodding his head and getting to his feet, Steve walked hurriedly over to the entrance, and followed the Governor into the lavishly furnished office. The two men sat without another word, the Governor staring at Steve from behind a large desk.
The harsh glare made Steve want to flinch back, but he internalized the emotions that were running through him and focused forward, looking at the man that could decide either his success or termination. After a deep breath, the Governor spoke.
"I was alerted immediately of your actions yesterday. I assume that you know already that they were wrong, so I am going to give you a chance, and this one chance to explain yourself. Choose your words wisely, Commander" he spoke sternly, and Steve cleared his throat, pulling fragments from the responses that he had prepared in his mind.
"Sir, this case has affected our team quite closely, even costing us one field officer, almost causing him to lose his life. This man had been raping a teenage girl, and it caused her distress to the point where she attempted to take her own life. I found that it would be in the best interests of many people if this man was arrested immediately, and taken into police custody. As for my actions that followed, I do not have an excuse for them, sir" he finished curtly, and was left in silence, uncomfortable. A few more moments passed, and the Governor sighed, placing his elbows on the desk and folding his hands together.
"Believe me, Commander, I want men like that to be arrested just as much as you do. But you no longer have full immunity. You, and your team, went outside of the law in apprehending this man. And for yourself, you assaulted a man in custody. I know that you hunger for justice, and trust me, I do as well. But this is not the way that the law says that we must go about these things. I appreciate your apprehension of this man, and I myself hope that he pays for his heinous crimes. What you did, however, cannot go unaddressed. I made the decision myself that, as to avoid the loss of yet another valuable asset to your team, that you will not be charged or dismissed. However, I will have it mandated that you must attend twice weekly sessions with the law enforcement psychologist. Do you understand?"
Resisting the urge to smile in relief, Steve nodded as respectfully as possible. Relief was flooding his veins, and although the prospect of wasting valuable time in the office of some shrink was quite uncomfortable to him, he was glad that he wasn't facing any more punishment for his unacceptable actions.
"Thank you, sir" he said politely, and the governor gave a short nod.
"Very well, then. I expect to never hear of an incident like this again, for if I do, I will be forced to take stronger action against you and your team. For the sake of the record, I will state that you thought this man was an immediate flight risk and did not have the time to obtain a warrant. Have a good day, Commander, and I hope that Mr. Williams recovers swiftly."
Steve nodded at his dismissal, and left the room swiftly and silently, still thanking fate in his mind for the fact that he was so lucky as to have dodged the bullet again.
Thank you all so much for the continued support on this story! You guys are crazy amazing with all of your reviews! I love reading each and every one of them. The support I'm getting is tremendous, thank you all so much! I appreciate every review, alert, and favorite I get on this story!