It's Sunday night, and he's thinking about sleeping on the couch. After the trek to Mass and family dinner, he's way too tired for all the steps and planning involved in crutching his way up the stairs. And Linda isn't gonna be much help, because Erin came over—ostensibly to give her a break from him, but Linda hasn't left the house, and the way the words are flowing out of her mouth, she's on at least her third glass of wine.
He checks his emails on his phone, sighing when he counts in his head and realizes it's been seven weeks since his injury.
He hears his name, and turns the TV volume down a few notches.
"…Danny? How are you doing with all this?" Erin asks.
Linda laughs—the humorless laugh she laughs after too much wine. "Me? I'm totally fed up!"
His heart breaks.
He doesn't hear Erin's reply, but then Linda explodes, her words ever-so-slightly-slurred, "That's not what I meant, Erin! Why the hell is divorce your magic solution for everything? Yeah, Danny's the absolute WORST patient, and he doesn't want to get better, and he seems perfectly freakin' happy wallowin' in physical and psychological pain—but, that doesn't mean I want a divorce! I just want Danny! I want him to be…happy and healthy and not in pain and not in that dark place where he's self-sabo…self-harming an' sayin' $#!+ that makes his shrink change the code to the lockbox! I'm fed up with the freaking PTSD that's trying to take the love of my life away from me! I just want Danny to...stop bein' miserable an' torturing himself! How is that too much to ask?!"
He really did not need his sister knowing about the lockbox change. He prays she doesn't press Linda for details.
"It isn't, Linda. Knowing Danny, it really isn't. I have to get going—no, I only had the one glass, hon, you drank the rest of the bottle—so I'll see you Wednesday?"
He closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep when Erin leaves.
He'd somehow convinced Linda to sleep downstairs with him—the boys had gone to bed hours ago—but it's a lot harder managing his tipsy wife and his throbbing ankle on the couch, than he thought it would be.
It's 4 a.m., and he's trying to get his breathing back to normal after she'd accidentally poked him in the ankle with her foot. He kisses her hair and prays she's too asleep to hear him. "I don't know, babe. I…I'm so mad at myself for letting things get this bad over a stupid broken ankle. I'll do my PT and I'll talk to Doc and I'll…I'll do whatever it takes to...turn off the self-hatred. I just…you can't leave again."
He stops talking when she sits up, kisses him fiercely, and staggers to the kitchen. He winces when he hears her throw up in the sink, then a few doors slam, then she's back on the couch drunkenly slapping an ice-pack on his ankle. "I want you around to deal with, no matter how fr-fus—frustrating I get," she says and lies down on top of him and starts snoring again.
The next morning, he's sitting gingerly on a bench at PT, swinging his good ankle back and forth, and staring at his still-discolored left ankle.
"Line-of-duty injury?" Nate asks, looking at his chart.
"Yeah," Danny says, tensing up at the memory of the flashback that had happened in the instant he broke his ankle.
It's been ten minutes since he met the guy, and he likes him already. He's wearing a USMC t-shirt, and shorts that make no effort to hide his prosthetic leg. Danny has to force himself not to look, but Nate apparently notices, for he shrugs and says matter-of-factly, "2006, Iraq. You?"
He shrugs. "You read my file, so you already know."
"I like learnin' about my patients straight from the horse's mouth," Nate says, his southern accent an almost-exact replica of Bobby LaRue's.
He sighs, curses under his breath when Nate flexes his ankle back and forth
"This is how this is gonna work, Detective…"
"Danny," he says quickly. "If you're gonna be working me to death, call me 'Danny.'"
"All right, Danny. You work hard, we'll get along real well. You give me any attitude, me 'n you are gonna mix, and it ain't gonna be pretty. You copy?"
He's not quite sure what the precise meaning of "me 'n you are gonna mix," is, but the tone says enough—Nate'll kick his $$ if he throws a hissy fit like the one he had Wednesday.
He nods. "Loud and clear. Fallujah, '03 and '04."
He wants to add—"And that has nothing to do with why I'm here now"—but he's never really sure what to expect when someone says "I read your file."
"Why are you here, Danny?"
"Are you seriously asking me that? To get my ankle back to 100% so I can go back to work."
"Not what I asked. Why are you here? In my office?"
"'Cause I got kicked out of regular PT on Wednesday."
"You realize about 60% of my patients are referrals from Doc Dawson—vets or cops who've failed regular PT for one reason or another. What's your problem with PT?"
"Well, Melissa was a sadist and seemed to enjoy inflicting pain on me; and then…"
He sighs. This is gonna sound really stupid. "I had a flashback. Said some uncalled-for stuff to her, got kicked out of their office."
Nate makes eye contact, and there's no pity in his brown eyes—just understanding. "So, somethin' about this injury is related to your time in Fallujah."
He pulls his ankle back from Nate, cursing as the sudden movement—of the unprotected joint, with no brace on—sends a stab of pain through it. "Are you a head-shrinker or a PT? Or did Doc violate confidentiality?"
"He did not. I just told you: I read your file. You broke this ankle in Fallujah and it was never treated. So there's some sorta mental block that you're gonna have to work through with Doc, keepin' you from doin' what you need to for this ankle. And before you explode at me again—all of that information is gonna help me explain what PT is, why you need it, how it's going to work, and how you and I have to work together if you want to get back to full duty."
Nate hasn't raised his voice once during this diatribe, but there's a tone in his voice—an I mean business tone—that has Danny feeling about five years old. "Sorry," he mutters. "I'll cooperate."
"Because you want to, or because I chewed your $$ out?"
"Because I'd like to throw these crutches away."
"So you want to get better?"
If he could reach his crutch, he'd throw it at the older man's head. "What the hell sort of question is that?"
"An honest-to-goodness question for a guy who's been puttin' weight on his ankle before he was s'posed to. You overdo it again, you're gonna need surgery again, an' another six weeks of no weight-bearin'."
He's going to go crazy if that happens, so he nods, his mouth dry..
"'No pain, no gain' is not my motto. My goal is to get you back to full duty, not to inflict pain for the sake of pain. You copy?"
He nods, and gestures to the "Why PT?" poster on the wall.
Since Linda isn't in the room to interpret the medical-ese Nate speaks, he asks questions during the older man's explanation; and by the time they're done with the initial meeting and a few exercises, he's made up his mind that he's actually going to do the exercises Nate's given him.
Heck, he might even take the pain meds he was prescribed…
Because Linda needs him to want to get better, and he does want to get back to full duty before his birthday.