Alex is putting a file back in the filing cabinet when his phone rings. "Dawson," he says quietly.
"Hey, Doc, it's Nate," says the voice on the other end. "I wanted to let you know that…I did not fire Danny Reagan as a patient."
"But you told him to take a break?" he guesses. This isn't the first time one of his patients has been "kicked out" of PT because he's not putting the work in.
"Yes. He was whining about the amount of time healing is taking, and I told him if he kept doing his exercises and if he were honest with you…"
"He didn't like that?" Alex knows Danny well enough to know that.
"No…if Linda hadn't come back in the room right then, I'm pretty sure Danny would have tried to walk home. He's…pissed at me. I may have hinted at the need for…more sessions with you."
"Thanks a lot, Nate. Now he's gonna be pissed at me, too."
"Did you just cuss?" Nate jokes.
"I did. Have to put that in my little book. Look, thanks for the heads-up; hopefully Danny or Linda will reach out sooner rather than later. Take care," Alex says, and hangs up.
"What am I going to do with you, Detective Reagan?" he mutters, and pulls out the file for his next patient.
"If you're gonna yell at me, can you get it over with?" Danny asks as he crutches toward the car.
"I'm not going to yell at you, Danny. But I'd like to know what happened—considering one week ago, you were doing well, had moved on to 50% weight-bearing, etc."
He yanks the door open, gets himself in the car as quickly as possible, not caring whether he causes himself more pain or jostles the ankle at all.
His ankle's killing him.
He deserves the pain.
"I don't *** know, Linda! That's why I wanted you in the room when he was spouting off all those numbers and percentages and dates! Maybe I'll just throw away the damn boot and crutches and will my ankle to be unbroken!"
"Danny…"
"Forget it, Linda," he mutters tiredly.
"Does this have anything to do with…whatever you talked to Doc about last night?"
Every muscle in his body stiffens. The Reagan temper wants to snap at her.
He's so sick and tired of everyone constantly trying to pry into the f**-up mess that is his brain these days—but he's yelled at her too many times lately.
He doesn't want to drive her away.
He doesn't want to lose her, too…
"Yes," he whispers reluctantly. "Doc *** wants me to *** 'process' that, 'accept' that it 'wasn't' my fault … I couldn't even get five minutes into his blasted EMDR session without having a flashback. And Nate *** pushing me this morning, saying all that $#!+ about how I needed to do my exercises and not sprain it again and be honest with Doc…"
"It was too much?" she asks softly, putting her hand on his.
He nods. "'m sorry."
"Are you going to talk to Doc, like Nate suggested?"
"I have to. If I want to get better, get back to PT, get back to full duty before next the Fourth of July."
"Now, that's a stretch, babe," she smiles.
"I know," he sighs, and buckles his seatbelt for the drive home.
He throws the crutches on the floor and hobbles up the stairs as quickly as he can (which isn't very quickly).
He goes straight to their closet, throwing clothes around 'till he finds his lockbox, enters the code.
"Danny, what are you doing?" Linda gasps.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Getting your gun out…" Her voice is filled with fear.
"I haven't cleaned it in…months. I have to clean it."
He tries to open it, but it won't open—the code had been wrong.
Hands cover his…when did Linda come into their walk-in closet with him?
"Danny, stop. Please, babe. Stop. Calm down, talk to me."
"Nothing to talk about. I'm going to clean my weapon."
"No, that's not why you're getting it out."
"O, then why am I getting it out, if you're so smart?"
"You…you're gonna make it 'accidentally' go off and try to kill yourself," she says, and now she's crying, and he…
He punches in the code again, she grabs the box; and then there's a crash, and blinding pain, and everything goes black…
He still hasn't said a word when they get home from the hospital.
By some miracle, nothing's broken, though his foot is grossly bruised and swollen. He has to be off it for at least a week, possibly two.
The pain is a 10 out of 10, but he's refused every pain med the hospital, and now Linda, has offered.
Linda none-too-gently deposits him on the couch, shoves three pillows under his foot and ankle, and slaps two bags of frozen peas on top of him.
"Don't you dare try to tell me you weren't thinking about…"
"I wanted to clean it."
"Yeah, because you clean it so often on a Tuesday afternoon. Saturday is the day you clean your weapon, Danny—twenty years of marriage, remember?"
Twenty years…o ***. Their anniversary is in less than a month…and he's a cripple…
He flinches, remembering what he'd said to Nate earlier…
"Maybe…part of me…also hoped…"
"You hoped what, Danny? That you'd 'accidentally' shoot yourself in the leg, or the head…and leave me with your bleeding, or dead body? How *** selfish can you be?"
"I…I'm sorry," he whispers.
"'Sorry' isn't enough this time, Danny. I'm going to walk into the kitchen and start dinner, before I say something I regret. Okay?"
He nods, his mouth to dry to speak. She's going into the kitchen—she's not leaving.
He picks up the thermos that's been sitting on the table for…who knows how long?...takes a sip. "Yeah, okay. What about the boys?"
"Mrs. Keenan invited the boys over after football practice. After you eat—actually put food in your mouth and swallow it, and eat more than enough for a baby bird—we are going to talk. And then Dawson is coming over to talk to you."
"You called Doc?" he asks, too tired to be exasperated.
"Yes, I did, while you were getting your ankle x-rayed again. You're self-sabotaging again—going up the stairs without the crutches, getting the lockbox down yourself when you could have asked me, thinking about killing yourself…I should have let them keep you overnight, even though they said you weren't concussed. I can't help you, Danny. I want to—but I can't. You need to talk to Doc—and Nate was right: you need to be *** honest with him."
Before she can storm off—but no, she's not angry, she's just sad, he recognizes the look in her eyes and the tone in her voice and the set of her shoulders—he grabs her wrist gently. "Please…don't go. I'll…I'll talk now," he whispers, and relaxes when she pulls a chair over.
"I'm listening," she says, and moves one of the bags of frozen peas to his head.