A/N: I don't know if this is any good or not, but I can't do anything more with it.

Why is Danny not put on modified in this episode? Granted, Baez tells him when she meets him at the scene that "The investigator already said it looks justified"—but why was it cleared up so quickly? And did he have to see the department shrink?

Per the previous chapter—Danny is on modified duty because he cut his hand.

"You had no right to call Doc!" he snaps the minute his younger sister has answered the phone.

"What makes you think it was me?"

"Well, let's see! You showed up at my house unannounced; you spent the night on my couch—it had to have been you!"

"Excuse me for being worried!"

"What did you tell Doc? That I was falling apart?"

"I told him I was worried about you. He didn't…say anything, other than to tell me to call you myself, and to say that he couldn't discuss his patients with me."

"It's called confidentiality, Erin, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't call him again."

"You're losing your grip, Danny! If you hadn't killed the kid, you'd be dead, so—maybe you should re-think the NYPD!" Erin snaps, and hangs up.

"Reagan, are you okay?" is the first thing Baez says when she answers her phone.

"I'm fine," he lies. "Why did you call Doc?"

"How did you…?"

"Because Doc said there were two people. Erin admitted she was one of them, but there's no one else in my family who's that worried that they'd actually call my shrink—so it had to be you."

"I'm worried about you, Danny! Your notes were horrible; you couldn't remember Reginald's girlfriend's name…you haven't seen the department shrink yet."

"Well, tell the PC that, then! No one made me surrender my gun and shield, so maybe they can do that while they're at it!" he snaps.

In the morning, he hands over his gun and shield.

"You're willingly putting yourself on modified?" Baez asks when he comes back to his desk.

"Yeah. Can't shoot with…my hand like this anyway."

"What happened?"

"Broke a glass, got clumsy picking it up."

Baez gives him a look that says she doesn't believe him for a second.

Mrs. Williams leaves, and he takes a few shuddering breaths.

He'd seen grief, and anger, and…hatred…in her eyes.

Her kid had been going to stab him, and all she can see is…a murderer.

That "gift" she'd said she wanted to give him…had just made him feel worse.

He scrubs his face, curses when he feels it's wet.

Great.

He must be more than "a little sideways" if he's crying now because a victim's mother yelled at him.

Except…it's his victim.

A kid he killed, while off-duty, to save his own worthless life.

He makes a mental note to not tell Doc that.

Usually, the victims, the cases…aren't this personal.

He fiddles with his ring, grateful Doc's bandage isn't covering it. For a shrink, he hadn't done a bad job bandaging Danny's hand.

He…wishes Linda were here.

She'd help him feel better.

"It is no easy thing to take another life. I know it. It is something you will never, ever get over. Whether it's the guilt coursing through your veins like poison or the sleepless nights stacking up on your chest like a pile of bricks. The nights you do sleep are ruined when you awaken to realize that it wasn't a nightmare."

He does know it.

Apart from the whiskey-induced sleep after his grandfather's visit, he hasn't slept since the incident at the gas station.

He wonders how he'd feel if he hadn't shot the kid.

If he'd be dead.

How he'd feel if he were alive.

How the boys would handle it if he had died.

He makes even more of a mess of his paperwork than he normally does (hard to write with a bulky bandage on his dominant hand), then goes to lie his way through his meeting with the department shrink. Anything to get back on full duty…and maybe he'll lose the bandage on his way there.