First off, thanks so much for the reviews, nice to hear someone who isn't a direct relative and therefore obliged to compliment my writing : D . Um, not really sure how I'm supposed to do the disclaimer bit so I'll just say, I don't own the csi NY gang (yet….) but anyone else in the story is an original creation. Probably more swearing so be warned. I'm not sure if Danny talking to himself is something I've read in another fiction or something I've actually seen on the show, if I've stolen it off some one PLEASE don't hate me! Apologies, this is really very short but I don't like the thought of taking ages to write a second chapter and leaving people hanging, I promise the next one will be longer and more exciting, this is just something for you guys until I've\figured out where I want the story to go. Read it slowly, make it last Enjoy.xxxxxxxxxx
Mac glared at the aged Doctor, knowing that the man wasn't doing anything wrong. That didn't change Macs glare though, and he could feel his face pulling into a grimace as he asked the question "Can I see him?"
The doctor sighed, running a hand through his whiter than white hair and shrugged wearily. "Look, his condition is such that only immediate family can see him. Or perhaps, a CSI…" He trailed off. His voice was baritone deep and he had an accent, Russian maybe.
Mac smiled grimly, "Oh, I see. Well let me get your statement as a doctor then, how is he?"
"Mr Messer suffered numerous injuries, his right arm is broken, he has severely broken ribs and there was some internal bleeding that we stabilised. He has numerous cuts and bruises but our main concerns are with his body temperature and his head injury"
"How do you mean?" Mac looked up at the taller man.
"We know he went in the water so we're treating him for hypothermic shock as well as pumping him full of anti biotics, but we cant seem to warm him up. He's at an acceptable temperature now but that's with thermal blankets and a warm saline drip. And someone must have kicked him or hit his head with a brick because he has a fractured skull and swelling on the brain. And…he stopped breathing more than once on the way over here, we had to shock him…he's got a tube in his throat helping him breath." The doctor explained.
Mac stepped back as if the doctor had taken a swing at him.
"He's in a coma" The doctor finished.
Mac blinked and looked at his feet, nodding slowly as he took it in. "Will he wake up, will he come off the ventilator?"
" It's hard to say, with this type of injury…he could wake up in the next five minutes and be fine, or be brain damaged. The same thing applies, I don't know, three months or more, he could wake up and just be himself or he could wake up and need to be re taught how to speak and swallow. Or he may just not wake up at all."
"I want to see him," Mac stated, his voice empty and the doctor nodded and led him to Danny's quiet, private room.
Danny lay in the bed, covered in thick blankets. His face was covered in cuts and scratches, a few centred around his eyes where his glasses had smashed and bruises coloured his face unnaturally. The tube in his mouth was attached to a machine. Danny 's chest rose and fell as the machine hissed and pumped air into his lungs.
"Aw, Danny" Mac said softly. He held his kit in one hand and looked questioningly at the doctor. " Can I, process him, get samples form under his nails and…I'll need his clothes too" Mac asked.
"Of course, the nurses have his clothes for you, I'll tell them to bring them in to you" The Doctor said quietly.
"Thank you" Mac said, and the doctor slipped out.
Mac stepped forward, taking a deep breath and sighing out in an attempt to clear his head. "Okay" he said, " What do we have, what did you get for me Danny" he started, pausing as e realised that he was talking to himself, a habit Danny was notorious for. A sudden visual memory of Danny pacing around the lab talking out a case with no one but himself made Danny smile. He remembered once seriously wondering if Danny had a split personality after seeing him actually argue quite heatedly with himself over whether or not an unusually placed print was crucial evidence or not.
"You'd better wake up Danny, Stella'll be pissed if you don't" He told the unconscious CSI as some one knocked gently on the door.
It clicked open and a uniformed head poked in. Mac recognised Officer Murphy, possibly the most Irish looking guy on the force; His hair was a shocking read and his pale skin was basically one big freckle. He looked like a choirboy. A six feet six inch 45 year old choirboy, but still, a choirboy. Mac wondered where Tia, Murphy's six fee eight Amazonian partner was "Hey Mac, Don sent us to sit guard, there's another couple of guys comin over in half an hour so we're gonna stagger the shifts so nobody's getting tired and uh, a bunch of people said that they can come in once there shifts are over if you want extra hands…How's he doin?" he asked, his voice gravely from years of smoking.
Mac shrugged " The doctor said…he pretty much said its borderline. He could wake up right now or…"He trailed off, staring down at Danny. "How'd the chase go, I'm gonna guess they couldn't get em?" he asked, changing the subject.
Murphy stepped fully into the room walking over to the bed. "Eddie told me that they lost the jeep in the city, the bastards ran a light and caused an accident, got away while our guys where stuck behind the civilians. No body was seriously hurt" he added.
Mac nodded. " Hey can you help me out?" He asked "I need an extra pair of hands when I photograph the bruises you know?"
Murphy nodded "Sure, I'll just get Tia" he replied, "You want anything while I'm gone, I'm passin the coffee machines?"
"Um, black coffee I guess" Mac told him, and Murphy left.
Mac pulled up a chair and sat down, pulling his kit into his lap and clicking it open. He slipped a pair of latex gloves over his hands and set to work.
He started with Danny's hands, carefully scraping what he could from under his nails. There wasn't much left, the majority having been washed away by the river, but there was enough, something that could have been skin, something darker that seemed like "Leather!" Mac frowned, squinting at the tiny shred of material. It had been under Danny's thumbnail. Danny's hand had been curled into a fist, his thumb curled into his palm. "Well done Danny" Mac grinned, realising that Danny must have done it on purpose to preserve what he could.
Mac worked slowly, moving in sections for the collection. He didn't get much more trace evidence but he hadn't expected too. At some pint Murphy had come back in and now sat in one of the other chairs in the room, holding both his own coffee and Mac's. Tia stood near the bed, watching Mac work.. She was chewing her lip, her head bobbing to some inner rhythm , but her face was sad. "You and Danny are pretty good friends aren't you ?"Mac asked her as he put the last glass vial into his kit and pulled out his camera.
"Yeah" Tia replied " We live real close, so we run together, go to the gym, some nights we have movie nights as his place or mine" she told him, her voice unexpectedly high pitched considering her height.
Mac actually paused as he tried to picture the pair side by side. He found himself smiling "He's an entire foot shorter than you "He said to her.
"Yeah and he's not just white he's fair white, and lets face it, I'm about as black as I can get" Tia grinned back raising an eyebrow. "He and I discussed it once, how we must look when we're jogging" She chuckled, "It was one of those times when we where kinda buzzed on Buds and it seemed a lot funnier than it was…I'm gonna stomp the shit eater that did this into the ground. Hell, my moms'll help too, she thinks Danny's as cute as a button" She stated, her voice growing hard and angry.
"Good to know. I need to photograph him now" Mac replied as gently as he could. Tia was, to put it simply, a scary motherfucker. She didn't look like much despite her height, she was slim, not quite lanky but close, and her open pretty face added a sense of naivety to her character, but she had a certain glint in her eyes, a certain stare she could switch on if she thought someone was messing with her that Mac had seen subdue a crowd of angry drunken neo nazi bikers on a call out 4 months previously.
She nodded and reached out to gently brush a stray hair off Danny's forehead. It seemed a familiar gesture but the look in her eyes as she did it was sad. She rolled the blankets down to reveal the hospital gown that Danny had been dressed in. She reached very carefully behind his neck and undid the tie, pulling the gown forward. Murphy had moved to help and hissed, cursing out loud as Tia revealed Danny's chest. Bruises decorated his body. They ran across his ribs, up his chest on his right side so that even his shoulder was black-purple. "God damn mother fucking sons of bitches" Tia actually growled as Mac raised his camera and snapped of a series of shots. "You cant even see his tattoo's" she continued.
"Here, Mac, this looks like a…shit, like a damn shoe print" Murphy pointed at Danny's chest.
"Good eye Murph" Mac complimented the Irishman as he set up a perfect shot and pushed the button. He took a few more shots, telling himself as he zoomed in on one bruise or moved the lights around to improve the quality of a photograph, that it was just another case. But that didn't work because no case was just another case, each one was as important as the next, each victim as worthy of his full attention. But he had to pretend that he didn't get so deeply into each case because this was Danny, and what he really wanted to do now, instead of taking the time to take photographs and scrape samples from under his nails, was go out and find someone, anyone doing some thing wrong and beat them with a stick.
But he didn't, because it wouldn't help him feel better and it really wouldn't help Danny. Murphy and Tia turned Danny onto his side so Mac could photograph his back. It was worse than his front, meaning, Mac told the officers, that Danny had been curled into the fetal position for the majority of the attack.
"Standard New York self defence when you're out numbered, if you can't run, you make yourself the smallest target you can" Tia spoke Macs thought aloud.
"He'd be pretty small" Murphy half smiled "didn't stop em from whaling on him"
"I'm done here, I'm gonna take his clothes back to the lab and process them there, but I don't know if I'll get anything though" he told them.
"Well we're not going any where and I got a guy by the elevators and one at reception downstairs, plus about a dozen other guys who are gonna come sit in reception when there shifts are over. Anyone we don't like the look of asks after our boy he's gonna have a lot cops asking a lot of questions" Murphy told him.
Mac nodded, gathering up his kit. "Thanks Murphy, Tia, I appreciate this, I know Danny would-does too"
He stepped toward the door as Tia re tied Danny's gown and pulled the covers up. As Mac pulled the door open Tia called out "Mac, I think he's waking up!"
Mac called out of the door for a doctor and moved back beside the bed as Danny stirred, frowning as he began to come around. His breath caught as he struggled to breathe against the tube.
Tia leant down, taking Danny's hand and putting her mouth close to his ear and whispering rapidly to him. She told him to be calm, that he was in the hospital that there was a tube helping him to breath. As Mac watched Danny began to calm and blink as he opened his eyes.
A small team of doctors and nurses entered the room, gently but firmly pushing the cops out of the way. The doctor, the from outside the Russian, Dr Geller, began talking to Danny, explaining the situation and before very long Danny was coughing as the tube was removed. He sipped at the water handed to him by a nurse and looked around the room, squinting.
"Mac!" he whispered
"I'm here Danny" Mac told him, stepping back to the bed.
"I screwed up, I shoulda called for back up but I didn't know there was a fourth guy" Danny began, but Mac cut him off.
"No, Danny, the scene wasn't secure, this isn't on you" he told the younger CSI "you where just in the wrong place at the wrong time. How you feeling?"
"Um…numb..and a little cold. And totally high" Danny told him, actually smiling grimly. Do…do I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong, do I remember going in the water?" he asked "Cos my memory's kinda hazy and I really hope that one of these tubes is pumpin, I don't know, acid into my veins to kill the nasty ass bugs that are, as we speak, liquefying my organs" he snapped suddenly, his voice rising to a shout as he half sat up in the bed.
The movement was too much and he winced, falling back onto the bed and coughing painfully.
"Don't worry, we've got acid, we've got bleach we've even got regular anti biotics" Dr Geller joked pulling a thermometer from his pocket. It was one of those digital ear ones and Danny shifted as the doctor put the probe into his ear.
"Mac I knew one of the guys" Danny told Mac as the nurses began to push Murphy and Tia out of the door, telling them that the room was too crowded.
"Who was he?" Mac asked, pulling a note book and pen from his pocket.
"His name is Vince Pencamo, he's a Tanglewood, me an him where in school together, he hated my ass like you wouldn't believe" Danny told him "This was a Tanglewood hit, something about, the shooters where tryna make their bones, Vince needed our vic dead, he figured he could kill two birds with one stone-Will you get off!" He pulled away from the doctor as the man tried to look into his eyes with a pen light.
"Well the good news is, you're warming up, and since you're awake and clearly aware, you're doing pretty well. Considering you died twice" the doctor added the last with a touch of spite in his voice.
Danny stared at him then at Mac. "What?" he whispered.
"Danny you stopped breathing a couple times and they had to shock you to re start your heart" Mac stepped closer to the bed.
"Don't worry, you where only gone for a few minutes" The doctor said and Mac turned to glare at him.
"Doctor, do you mind!" He snapped as Danny pressed a hand to his own chest. "Danny, you're fine, but you need to stay here for a while. We got uniforms hanging out outside, just in case these guys try to take another swipe at you" Mac told Danny.
"I don't wanna stay in a hospital Mac, I friggin hate hospitals" Danny looked up at his boss.
"Its just a couple of days Danny I promise" Mac reassured him, " Besides, Tia's outside, I know you two are just the best of friends."
"Tia's here?"
"Yeah, she's right outside, you didn't see her when you woke up?" Mac frowned.
"Um…no. Send her in here!" he stated.
Mac grinned and picked up his kit. "your wish is my command" he said as he stepped out the door.
As he pulled the door shut behind him Mac heard Danny say "You better believe it is"