"Why are you here, Doc?" he asks tiredly, realizing he's shaking again. He's going into shock.
"Because you were upset on the phone, then I heard something break, and then you weren't answering my calls or texts. I was worried about your safety. Can I see your hand?"
He holds his left hand out to Doc., who propels him toward the couch. He snags his coat and the blanket the EMTs had given him, as they walk into the living room.
He sits down. He'd tried his best, but bandaging his non-dominant hand had not been an easy task.
He winces as Doc pokes to make sure he's gotten all the glass out. A few questions, a quick trip upstairs, and Doc has cleaned the gash—which he hadn't done—pulled out a sliver of glass he'd missed, and bandaged it so it looks halfway decent.
"You can't fire a weapon with your hand like this; you're gonna have to take a few days."
"I'll call in the morning. I'm surprised they didn't take my weapon from me at the scene."
Doc looks at him. "They didn't?"
He shakes his head and puts his coat back on, tenses his body so Doc doesn't see him shaking.
He goes into the kitchen and tries to fill the kettle but he's shaking too hard, and Doc turns him towards the couch again. "Tell me where everything is; I've got it."
A few minutes later, he's sipping on a cup of hot cocoa with a generous slug of whiskey in it. "Sorry," he whispers.
"For what?"
"Dragging you out here after midnight, making you do all...this." He gestures to his hand, the mug.
"You didn't make me do anything," Doc says firmly, and he glances at the younger man. "I came because I care about you, because I was concerned about you."
He looks away at that. He isn't worth worrying… Where the hell did that thought come from? He hadn't thought like that, not since…
"You shouldn't have come, Doc. I'm fine."
"The fact that you called me at 11:50 p.m.…tells me you're not fine. How are you feeling?"
He takes a sip of his cocoa. "You know you'd be a wealthy guy if you let me pay you $1 every time you ask that question. Then you'd be rich, and I wouldn't have to answer it," he half-jokes.
"Why do you hate that question so much, Danny?"
He shrugs. "Because…I don't like psycho-analyzing my every feeling. Life was so much…simpler when I just got mad at things and didn't have you always pushing me to figure out what's underneath the anger. Used to be, no one asked me that. They just knew I was angry, and to stay away."
That isn't entirely true…Linda had been able to get him to open up sometimes.
"So, how are you feeling?"
He sighs. "Overwhelmed. Confused. I killed a kid. He couldn't have been more than 20."
"Why did you fire your weapon, Danny?"
"Because he was coming at me with a screwdriver."
"And you feared for your life?"
He nods.
Doc doesn't say anything, which means he wants more, wants him to dig deeper. "All the times I've f-g wished I was dead since Linda died…and I couldn't let the kid kill me."
"Because you don't really wanna die, Danny."
He doesn't really know what to say that.
He sighs, plays with his ring. "It wasn't even a minute between him coming at me and me shooting him; don't expect me to have thought out a damn dissertation."
"Okay, we'll come back to that. Right before our call was disconnected, I heard you yelling at Erin. What did she say to set you off?"
"She implied that I was messed up, said that the boys…they already lost one parent…"
He takes a sip of cocoa to hide the fact that he's on the verge of tears, splutters when the whiskey burns his throat, chokes it down.
"How did that make you feel?"
"Angry that…she thinks I'm not being a good enough parent to them, that…"
Doc's hand on his arm makes him jump. He hadn't even noticed Doc get up from the armchair and sit next to him on the couch. "Stop. This isn't about what Erin thinks—or what you think she thinks. This is about what you were thinking deep down inside."
He pulls away from Doc, scoots to the other end of the couch. "It did flash before my mind in that split second…the boys growing up without either of us. I couldn't let that happen, so I…fired my weapon. Dammit, Doc, I'm not suicidal!"
"That's not what I was implying, Danny. We've had this discussion before; you and Erin have had it before, too, a few years ago…after Linda."
He sets his cocoa down on the end table, leans his head in his hands.
Doc is great, but he wishes the younger man would leave him alone so he could sleep.
Except…he's not going to sleep until he gets all this off his chest. And even then he's probably going to have nightmares of tonight's close call.
"You mean…when Erin asked if I was afraid of getting hurt?" he asks quietly.
"Yes."
He rubs the back of his neck. Doc is giving him a headache. "Of course I'm afraid of getting hurt, leaving the boys orphans, and…"
He shakes his head. "What are we talking about, Doc? Are you questioning what I did at the gas station, or why I yelled at Erin, or…?"
"We're talking about whatever you want to talk about, Danny; you're the one who called me."
"We talked, okay? I'm fine, my gun's locked up"—at least, he thinks he put it in the lockbox—"and I appreciate you coming, but you shouldn't have. I'm fine. Goodnight, Doc," he says, and goes upstairs to try to sleep.