He had had to take one of the narcotics to get him through the excruciatingly painful process of getting into and out of the car, so he's a little loopy during the follow-up appointment—loopy enough to smile goofily at the nurse who helps him with the crutches and declares he can go home with them.
"I like you," he smiles. "She"—he points to Linda—"is cute and hot and all that, but she's mean. She wouldn't let me have crutches. But you are. You're nice—but she's still cuter," he gushes.
He's sweating and wishing for another pain pill after twenty minutes of practice crutching around the room, going up and down a set of practice stairs.
When they get home, he takes a nap—upstairs! in his own bed! with Linda next to him!—for the first time since breaking his foot.
After dinner, Linda helps him with a shower. She's almost monosyllabic—either it's that time of the month and she's mad, or she's mad for what he said under the influence of a pain pill that morning.
"Babe, I didn't mean it. You know that. Narcotics make me loopy, which is why I never take them."
"Shut up, Danny," she says.
He's limited himself to two pain pills a day—his decision, not the doctor's, not Linda's—and he's got two more hours to go before the next one.
"Who thought this was a good design, no back on the bench?" he grumbles as he attempts the transfer from his wheelchair onto the shower-bench. "Where's my leg supposed to go once I'm in the tub?"
"On the edge of the tub, Daniel! If you hate everything about this set-up, then give yourself your own damn shower! I'm going out!" Linda snaps, giving him a shove onto the bench.
His leg hits the side of the tub, and he bites his lip to keep from screaming in agony.
Through the roaring in his head, he hears the front door slam, then the car door, and then Linda starting the car and driving away.
He grips the handle of the shower bench and tries not to pass out.
Linda seriously left him here, his first shower since breaking his ankle, in the shower, alone, naked as a jaybird? Thankfully the crutches are nearby, but…
His ankle feels like someone is running a chainsaw through it. Actually, his whole damn leg is being chain-sawed. As big as the cast is, he might as well have broken his whole leg.
His back is hurting from the wheelchair.
He stares longingly at the shower-head, then shakes his head. Water plus shower-bench plus limited mobility, equals fall. And with his luck, he'd probably break something else.
There's nothing to do but take a sponge-bath and go to bed.
Once he handles the teeny-tiny matter of getting out of the shower, back into the wheelchair, and into bed.
He lifts his leg back onto the edge of the tub, saying a few words he hasn't said since Fallujah. And then a few others.
Then he scoots himself back across the shower bench, closer to the wheelchair.
They'd made him practice this every day in the hospital, but doing it alone…in the bathroom, with no clothes on…is a little intimidating.
He grits his teeth and pulls himself onto the chair, gets his leg stretched out on the leg-rest.
Thirty minutes and two hundred curse words later, he's bathed, dressed, and lying in bed.
He tries to call Linda but she doesn't pick up.
He doesn't want to call any of his family—no sense making them drive to Staten Island.
He doesn't know the protocol for reaching out to your therapist after you threw hot cocoa at him, but he sends a tentative text: "Do you have a minute, Dr. Dawson?"
Two minutes later his phone rings. "I'm not mad at you, Detective Reagan. Drop this 'Dawson' business and call me 'Doc.' What's wrong?"
"Only if you stop the 'Detective Reagan' business. Ummm…" He sighs. "I made Linda mad and she stormed out, left me in the shower, well, half in the shower. It took me thirty minutes to get back in my wheelchair, dressed, and in bed—I skipped the shower."
"Why do you think you made Linda mad?"
He tells Doc about the day, sighing. It sounds foolish now, and he's feeling stupid for calling Doc.
His ankle is throbbing, and now his leg is stabbing, and his back hates him.
He breathes through a sudden stab of pain, and he can't hear Doc anymore.
"Detective Reagan!" Doc says firmly, and he blinks.
"Yeah?"
"You zoned out on me. If your bottle of pain meds is there, read the instructions to me."
He sighs. "1 or 2 pills every 4 to 6 hours as needed for pain."
"And when's the last time you had one?"
"8 a.m., before we left for PT."
"It's 8 p.m., Danny. I want you to take one now—with water. The point of taking them on a schedule, is to stay ahead of the pain, not wait till you're on the verge of passing out from pain."
He takes one with a sip of water. "I don't like how they make me feel, and I'm not gonna pass out."
"But your breathing is fast and shallow, which means you're hurting. I want you to text Linda now, and tell her you took two—so that if they knock you out, she doesn't freak out when she comes home."
"You're assuming she'll care—and she'll come home."
"Danny, you've been my patient for three years now. I've learned a lot about Linda in our sessions—she'll come home, probably feeling guilty and beating herself up. You're not…concerned for her safety, are you?"
"No. I'll text her," he sighs, and types a quick text.
His phone pings a minute later: "Thanks for letting me know. I'm sorry I snapped. I'll be home in an hour. Did you manage to get out of the shower?"
"Yes. Apology accepted. I'm sorry, too. I forgive you—well, except for leaving my helpless, naked $$ in the shower."
"Not so helpless, Danny," she replies, with a kissy face, and he relaxes just a bit. She just needed space. She's not leaving him.
He tells Doc the G-rated version of their texts.
"What's your pain level, Danny?"
He hates that question.
But he has a new handy-dandy scale on his phone…it's the pain scale, but for military veterans, and it actually makes sense.
He pulls it up, looks at it.
Getting shot is definitely a 10. A broken ankle…it was like a 9 the day it happened. When they had him on pain meds in the hospital, it was a 3.
Right now, after having to transfer himself from the chair to the wheelchair, get dressed, stand up to pull his pants on, then use the crutches to go into the bedroom because his wheelchair is too low to easily transfer into bed, then get his leg up on the bed…
"I guess it's a 7. And you know I hate that question almost as much as I hate the 'How did that make you feel?' question," he gripes, mimicking the tone Doc always uses when he asks that question.
"I know. So how do you feel about Linda leaving?"
"Dammit, Doc!"
"Sorry. You're the one who said Linda will be home in an hour—which means we have time for a nice session until you conk out from your meds."
He sighs, calls Doc a few nice names, and hopes he'll fall asleep before they get around to the topic of Fallujah.
Or maybe Linda will come home early and get him an ice pack.