He's worked himself into a tizzy by the time he gets to Doc's.
He gets there just before 8, and finds Doc unlocking his office door. "Danny, what's wrong?"
"Lt. Gee wants to talk to you. Doesn't sound like it's professional courtesy, either; sounds like he wants a look inside my head."
"And that is a look I cannot give him," Doc says, motioning him inside.
"Not unless I'm a threat to myself or to others," he says, walking to the familiar window, back to the door, to "his" chair, and back again.
"Are you?"
He shrugs as he paces.
"Danny, please sit down and look at me."
He shakes his head and goes to stare out the window.
"I'm going to touch you," Doc says from behind him, and he lets out a shuddering breath at the hand on his shoulder. He's not a physical touch guy, but sometimes he does need a friendly hand to keep him from spiraling into some black hole of…black hole-ness…and Doc always seems to know when those times are.
"What happened to set you off?"
"Gee wants to talk to you—I told you! He just wants to get all the dirt he can on me so he can fire me and put some hip detective who doesn't know a homicide from a suicide in my place!"
"Danny, take a breath and come sit down."
He follows Doc back to the chairs, sits down, stares at the bookcase—one of several in the room—while Doc bustles around by the coffee machine.
Soon a cup is being pressed into his hand. He takes a sip and nearly chokes. "What the hell, Doc?"
"Added a shot of espresso to the cocoa—thought we both needed the pick-me-up."
He nods, takes a slower sip, and sets the cup down. After the three cups of coffee he's already had since 3 a.m., he doesn't need any more—unless he wants to walk home to Staten Island.
"Are you planning to eat your gun, Danny?"
His head pops up. "No…not right this instant; I mean…"
"That's a yes or no answer, Danny; no qualifiers."
He scrubs his face. "Freaking half of New York thinks I should."
"I'm going to re-phrase the question, Danny, because you're having trouble answering it. Do you want to kill yourself?"
"No," he says, and counts to 35 in his head—figures that's long enough for his next words to not count as "qualifiers"—"but I'm afraid…"
He reaches into his pocket, hands Doc a piece of paper. On it he's scrawled the nine other death threats/suicide threats he's gotten in the last month. "Don't worry; I gave the originals to the crime lab."
"The dates here…you've gotten all these in the last month?"
He nods.
"That's an average of two a week, Danny. Why didn't you mention them to me before now?"
He sighs, suddenly aware that he's running on two hours of sleep. "Because I guarantee you I'm not the only cop to have gotten that many notes. Not in this freaking climate."
"And you thought it was a good idea to keep all that bottled up—knowing your own history, knowing the suicide attempts you made after you lost Corporal Russell—not prompted by ten anti-cop lunatics telling you to kill yourself?"
He shrugs, and just then his phone rings.
He answers it with a quick apology to Doc.
"Reagan, need you back at the precinct forthwith. There's a situation. Forget being on modified duty—come get your weapon and back us up!" Gee shouts, and he races to his car.