Okay, I realise I have already posted the beginning of the continuance to Ice but people have asked for a follow up to Danny in the hospital in the last chapter of Ice so I'm going to just do a quick follow up. Of course I say quick, or short, we all know this'll end up being about a million pages long!
Same disclaimers, I don't own any CSI NY products or characters.
Warnings for language, maybe violence though I doubt I'll include much. I have already written the next piece for Lily's story and I'll post it in a few days, so don't worry, I'm not giving up on that story! This is in a much lighter vein than Lily's story, and its basically all of the gang visiting Danny in their own time while he's in the hospital, and doing their part to make him feel better. I should have posted this first but read this right after Ice in My veins and it'll make sense.
R+R please!
Danny Messer was half dozing in the hospital bed, his head leaning on Tia Adewele's shoulder as she flicked through the channels on the tiny T.V in the private room. Danny was feverish, not seriously so but enough that he was groggy and occasionally delusional.
"Hush little baby don't say a word…" he murmured, his voice still hoarse from the frequent intubations he had endured two weeks previously.
Despite the fact that he was indoors, and in bed, Danny wore a soft woollen hat, a black beanie style hat that covered almost all of his blonde hair and the fresh stiches in his scalp. His icy blue eyes, framed by long black lashes and heavy, sleepy eyelids where shiny behind the frameless glasses he wore more out of habit than out of any burning desire to see well.
"Shhh little brother" Tia soothed as Danny stirred uncomfortably, muttering incoherently. "Shh Danny, relax" She slid her lanky frame down in the bed so that she lay back on the pillow, level with Danny.
Danny's face was screwed up in pain as his movements jarred his already injured ribs. He made small sounds of pain as his body naturally tried to find a more comfortable position, bringing only more pain.
He tried to raise his right hand but Tia stopped him, holding his arm down on the bed. His fingers had been taped together and his wrist was broken badly enough that his arm was in a cast from knuckle to elbow.
"Danny" Tia said firmly and Danny stopped writhing, sinking back into the pillows exhaustedly.
He opened his eyes which where suddenly clear and focused from the pain and rubbed his forehead with his left hand, biting his lip as he did so. "Tia I'm hot" Danny looked up at his Amazonian friend whose feet now reached a foot further in the beds than Danny's.
"No you're not" she told him, stopping him as ha tried to push off the heavy blankets that covered him. "Your body temperature was stupidly low Danny, the doctor says you have to keep warm, even with having a fever. So quit it" she slapped his hand gently.
"Aw come on Tia, that doctor hates me and you know it" Danny whispered.
" Well you keep calling him mean things" Tia pointed out.
"I called him a commie, once. And I was totally out of it!" Danny replied.
He had a point. Not long after he had awoken from the second coma he had been in, in less than a week Danny had acted very differently from normal Apparently this had been the result of the head injury Danny had suffered. Danny had, for three days straight, become the most violent foul mouthed human being Tia had ever known. He had needed to be restrained, tied down in his hospital bed to keep him from punching the Russian Doctor Gellar whenever the man walked into the room.
"Actually, you called him a fucking commie shit bag and told him that if he touched you at all, ever, you would personally cut out his commie heart and eat it. Then you called him a commie some more and spat at him" Tia corrected.
"One time!" Danny shot back.
"One time that hour. Danny you where so mean!" Tia looked at him. "Your language was so bad I couldn't even tell my mama what you said!"
"Oh it wasn't that bad and you know it" Danny grinned.
The door to his room opened and Aiden Burns stepped in, her dark hair swept up into a complicated bun. She wore a skirt suit with knee high boots and smiled as she saw Danny awake and lucid. "How you feelin?" she asked as she walked over to the bed.
"Tia's telling the most horrible lies about me Aiden, make her stop" Danny rolled his head on the pillow so that his head rested on Tia's shoulder once again. He gave Aiden wide eyes and pouted, milking the fact that he looked pale and drawn and was tiny next to Tia and had big blue eyes, for all it was worth.
Aiden raised an un-amused eyebrow, but she smiled as Danny rolled his eyes and made a sound like a puppy whining.
"Ugh, quit it you'll make me puke" Aiden gently smacked Danny's leg so that he moved it and gave her room to sit down.
"You know"said Danny as Aiden pulled herself across the bottom of the bed, stopping only when she reached Tia's long legs "The chairs they put in here, they're for you guys to sit on. The bed is supposed to be just for me."
"Shut up" the women said in unison.
Danny sighed and muttered something under his breath that neither of them could make out.
"So how'd it go today?" Tia asked picking up a pen and Danny's right arm.
"Good. Sylvester, when he gets out of hospital, is going away for a looooong time. And he turned over on the other guy from the boat house, at last, they found him hiding out in some shithole apartment in tanglewood." She explained as Tia began doodling on Danny's cast.
"What about my best buddy Chuck?" Danny asked.
"Ah, Chuck, the stupidest man alive, was only too happy to confess to everything." Aiden smiled.
"How come?" Danny frowned.
"Well when he woke up, we might have hinted that we would leave him alone in a room with you Flack and a baseball bat" Aiden shrugged "He fell over himself to make an official statement to us."
Danny grinned.
"So it's all good?" he asked.
" Yup. The shootings where all clean too. They buried Vince" She added.
Danny nodded, his grin fading just a little.
"What's the matter?" Aiden asked "You don't miss him do you?"
"No, course not, I just wish I had known why he hated me so much. He said it was cos he didn't like my face but that was bullshittin'. It just bugs me that he's dead now and I'll never know, why all this?" he used his left hand to motion to his injured self.
"He was sick Danny, in the head and in the body…Doc Hawkes thinks he might have been some kinda nuts, he said their was a shadow on one of the scans he did of the assholes brain…he didn't get a chance to crack his nut open but he's been talking about brain tumours" Aiden shrugged.
"I mean when we where kids. He put me in hospital more times than I can count, he just hated me, pure and simple hated my ass. Fuckin asshole" he growled.
"Well hey, he's gone now, you don't gotta worry about it any more"Aiden squeezed Danny's leg comfortingly.
"I guess" Danny half shrugged. He looked at Tia who was still drawing on his cast.
"You alright there?" he asked her sarcastically.
"Peachy keen jelly bean" she told him.
"So…how's work?" Danny tuned back to Aiden, who smiled and settled into her position.
"Well everybody misses you" she started.
Don Flack was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped up on Danny's bed. Danny was padding around the room a pair of thick woollen socks his only foot wear. He wore black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt with a too worn to be readable logo on the front. He was still feverish, his skin hot to the touch and he wasn't supposed to be out of bed, let alone walking around, but Danny had decided that another minute lying in the hospital bed would actually kill him, so enlisted Flack on his little mission.
Flack wasn't just making himself comfortable in the chair, the angle his chair was tilted at gave him the perfect view out of the window of the room, of the corridor beyond. He was keeping watch for the nurses and doctors who Danny was convinced where out to get him.
"You're good" Flack told the blonde haired CSI as he walked from one end of the room to the other, very slowly. "Well by good I mean, your mortal enemies aren't coming to torture you with needles" Flack raised an eyebrow at Danny's slow, pained movements.
"You don't know what that doctor is like Don, I'm telling you he's gonna get me!" Danny turned around and began to head back the other way.
There was a line of stitches running along his hairline and into his hair, part of which had been shaved away. There was already a light blond fuzz growing back and Danny planned to wait until it got longer, then have all of his hair cut the same length. Flack hated the stitches. He knew the scar would look cool, and that Danny would use it to score with women but Flack despised the fact that it even existed. He wanted very badly to go to the heavily guarded room where Sly lay recovering before he was shipped off to prison hospital and smother the guy with a pillow. He hated that anyone had done that to his friend.
"Get you?" Flack asked incredulously.
"Yeah!" Danny told him "he's got plans for me Don, I'm telling you, I'm gonna end up as somebody's bad hospital food" Danny replied, his voice devoid of any kind of joke.
"Okay, you have to get out if this room Messer, you got like, cabin fever or something" Flack chuckled.
"I don't have cabin fever I have an insane Russian doctor with a vendetta against me" he paused "And for no good reason, ignore anything Tia says about what I may or may not have said about this guys political leanings" Danny said, shuffling his feet forward.
Flack laughed out loud as Danny turned again and paused, fixing Flack with a glare. "While you laugh a my dilemma, that evil loony could be creeping up on the room. You know he said he'd sedate me if I got out of bed at all!" he said, his eyes wide. He broke into his usual grin "come on man, I'm dyin here, help me out!"
"Danny, I'm serious, we're leaving" Flack stood.
"Now your talking" Danny grinned "Where we going? Can we go outside?"
"No we can't go out side you bizarrely energetic little freak, we're gonna go to a nurses station on another floor…one that isn't populated by gargoyles if possible, and you are gonna get me a date with a pretty nurse" Flack held his hands out as if he was presenting Danny with a prize.
"But that doesn't work see, cos the nurses cant go out with patients, so what am I supposed to do?" Danny asked, frowning.
Flack ducked out of the room and came back a second later with a wheel chair.
As Danny sat down in it, he repeated his question "Flack, what am I supposed to do!" Flack fitted theI.V bag that was attached to danny's arm onto the little hook device on the chair.
"Danny, shut up and use that little blonde bit you do to get me a date" Don peered out into the corridor
"Little blonde bit? Flack I'm gonna smack you if you don't explain exactly what that means" Danny looked up at Flack as the tall detective pushed the chair out and ran for the elevator.
"Oh you know, you play up the injured thing, stand next to me so they can see what a shortie you are, act all weak…they love it, I've been watching you do it since you got stuck in here" Flack told him as Danny pushed the button for the elevator with a knuckle. "You're such a whore" he chuckled.
" I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that" Danny admitted as the doors pinged open.
"Mr Messer!" A harsh, nasal voice screeched down the corridor.
Flack and Danny looked up to see Nurse Kinyo, the bane of Danny's existence standing near the nurses' station ,glaring at them.
"Mr Messer, where exactly are you going!" the nurse began walking toward them.
"Oh shit" Flack giggled.
"Go man" Danny breathed.
"But we're so busted" Flack said, not taking his eyes off the advancing nurse. She seemed to sense Danny's desire to run and broke into a jog, thundering toward them with a horrible inevitability.
"Go just Go!" Danny laughed and Flack pushed the chair into the elevator, spinning and mashing his hand against the key pad as Nurse Kinyo reached the doors. They slid closed before she could get to them and the elevator lurched, the numbers on lighting up in sequence as the elevator rose.
"You think you're in trouble?" Flack asked as Danny fought not to laugh.
"She's gonna take my jello" Danny told him "It's what she does when I piss her off because she knows it's the only nice part of the hospital meals"
"That's really unfair!" Flack frowned.
"Well, it would be…except that Tia's been sneakin me food in since they said I could eat solids again" Danny said.
"Like what?" Flack leant on the chair.
"Ice cream, Hot Dogs, Subs, big fat pretzels" the blonde detective said " good New York food" he grinned again.
"Do you ask Tia for this stuff?" Flack stood up as the doors pinged open again, pulling the wheel chair out backwards.
"Yeah, I told her that Nurse Hitler down their was stealing my jello so she asked me what she should bring" Danny grinned as they neared the nurses station for the new floor. It appeared to be attended exclusively by bikini models disguised as nurses.
"See, you're a little hospital whore" Flack whispered as the gorgeous nurses spotted them approaching and immediately 'awwed' at the sight of Danny who had turned the 'poor weak Danny' levels up to full.
"If I wasn't a hospital whore" Danny murmured just loud enough for Flack to hear "You would never get laid"
"Hey, what happened to you?" one of the buxom nurses crouched next to Danny's chair.
"Oh, I got hurt working a case, I'm a cop" Danny told her, grinning that Cheshire cat grin.
"Who's your friend?" another nurse smiled at Flack who resisted the urge to rub Danny's head and smiled back.
"Oh, this is Don. He saved my life" Danny nodded as the nurses 'oooh'd' and 'aaah'd' "Yeah, if he hadn't of been there, I don't know what would have happened"
"Who would want to hurt a cutie like you?" One of the nurses pouted and Danny heard Flack whisper ' God bless you Messer you little hospital whore'
The young nurse looked through the half drawn blinds of Danny Messer's hospital room, half smiling at what she saw. Danny was asleep, exhausted after a day of blood tests and physical exams so the doctors could see how he was recovering. He was curled up in the bed, surrounded by the dozens of bouquets of flowers and other gifts that had arrived for him almost daily since he was admitted to the hospital. The tall black woman, Tia, had left shortly after he dozed off, having tucked what looked like a tiny handmaid pouch under his pillow.
Fifteen minutes before the end of visiting hours, Mac Taylor had arrived, apparently fresh out of work. He had entered Danny's room and sat in the chair, despite the fact that the young CSI was asleep, and had been thee ever since.
The young nurse hadn't worked at the hospital for very long, but even she knew that terms like 'visiting hours' didn't apply when it came to cops.
She opened the door quietly, smiling as Mac looked around at her. "Would you like anything?" she asked "I'm going on my break and if you want I can, pick you something up?"
"No, thank you, I'm fine" Mac smiled back at her.
Nodding, she ducked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Mac sat back in the chair, watching Danny as the younger man stirred in his sleep. Danny blinked awake, nodding groggily to Mac.
"Hey boss" he said, his voice rough from sleep.
"Hey. They told me you had a rough day?" Mac asked conversationally, knowing Danny wasn't the sort of person for sympathy.
"Its that commie doctor and his evil nurse " Danny explained "They just enjoy causing me more pain" he smiled sleepily at his own running joke "what time is it?"
"Late. I just got out of work and figured I'd come see how you are " Mac told him.
He watched Danny nod slowly as he started to drift back to sleep, his eyelids drooping even as he fell back into dream world. "my dad used to do that" Danny murmured as he nodded off.
Mac grimaced slightly, thinking of the stories Danny had told him about being hospitalised as a child by thugs and kids from his neighbourhood. He sighed, standing and leaving the room as quietly as he could.
A nurse he recognised from his previous visits smiled warmly at him as he walked by the desk. "Hey cheer up" she called to him " no offence, but you act like a dad who's kid had his first really bad fall!"
Mac looked back at the room then at the nurse. He shrugged, smiling sadly as he said "Sometimes, that's exactly how I feel"
"Gimme the gun Danny" Stella Bonasera held her hand out for the gun, keeping her voice low and calm.
Danny shook his head, grinning wickedly as he levelled the weapon, aiming it directly at her.
"Danny this isn't a game, give me that gun" She snapped as the Cheshire cat grin lit up his face. "If you shoot me with that thing I'm gonna be pissed" she told him.
"And I'm supposed to care?" Danny raised an eyebrow as he aimed the barrel directly at the centre of her forehead. Stella looked past his shoulder and grinned. "Got you" she said smugly as Don Flack toughed the tip of his gun to the back of Danny's neck.
Danny's grin didn't even flicker as Don told him to lower his weapon.
"Or what Flack, huh? You wont shoot me" He never took his eyes off Stella "Besides, I think you'll find that I have you" .
"What?" Flack asked.
"Hey little brother" came Tia's familiar high pitched voice as she dug the barrel of her gun into Flack's back, reaching over to pluck his from his hands.
Danny stepped back as Tia stepped forward so that the mismatched pair stood side by side. Stella and Flack moved back, hands raised as Danny and Tia aimed their guns.
"You wanna waste em now, or wait for Mac and Aiden" Tia asked him.
"Oh you just wait until they get here, you two are gonna be so dead!" Stella exclaimed.
Danny waved his gun to silence her. "I got a plan" he told Tia.
Five minutes later Flack and Stella sat tied to the chairs that Tia had dragged in, gagged to keep them from giving the plan away.
Tia and Danny hid in the bathroom, leaving the door half open so that they could use it as a shield.
They didn't have to wait long before the door clicked and moved inwards slowly.
Danny was aiming low, knowing that as an ex marine, Mac would try and make himself the smallest target possible.
The door squeaked as it was pushed open until it halted prematurely, stopped b someone on the other side.
Danny waited. He held his breath. A gloved hand appeared around the door but Danny and Tia held from firing at it. They knew it was a decoy designed to make them reveal their position.
They waited again. The top of a head appeared. Once again they held. When nothing happened, the head moved further into the room. It was Mac, moving as slowly, as cautiously as he could. Once again Danny held. Mac's neck and shoulders appeared and Danny squeezed the trigger, whooping as he hit Mac dead in the neck.
The older man fell to the ground grabbing at his neck as Danny and Tia emerged from the bathroom and shot Stella and Flack, all but emptying their weapons on the struggling pair. Tia squealed as she was hit from behind and turned, squeezing off a shot that hit Aiden full in the face. Danny pointed and laughed out loud at the sight.
Mac staggered to his feet, raising his gun. He caught Danny unprepared and as he raised his gun to shoot, Nurse Kinyo stepped into the room and turned on the light, her eyes wide with shock.
In perfect unison, the cops all thrust their hands behind their backs, hiding the water guns from sight.
"What is going on in here?" Kinyo asked.
Stella and Flack who where still tied up and where now soaked, tried to speak through their gags. Kinyo glared at Danny who smiled back innocently. "Clean up in here. Dr Gellar will be down in a moment to discharge you and not a minute to soon" she sneered.
Mac was standing just behind her, his face bright pink with the effort not to laugh. Aiden who was crouching on the floor, her hands covering her soaking wet face was visibly shaking and Tia had turned her back on the nurse, physically biting her own hand.
Aiden made a noise that could only be described as a pig snort and Danny's grin grew ever wider as Mac's eyes went wide and he clapped a hand over his mouth, pinching his nose.
Tia was making a high pitched noise in her throat as Kinyo stared at Danny, her very gaze daring him to laugh. His smile grew painfully wide as he saw Mac's face reach and interesting shade of purple.
Stella was shaking her head from side to side, her eyes streaming with tears of mirth, and Flack was chewing at his gag as if his life depended on it.
Aiden was now almost lying on the floor and Tia had grabbed Danny's arm as he grinned insanely. "Do you have anything to say, Mr Messer?" Kinyo asked.
Danny just shook his head, nit trusting himself to try and speak.
Kinyo looked around at the cops as they fought to get themselves under control.
She shook her head in disgust and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. As Tia went to laugh Danny clapped his good hand over her mouth. They all listened in silence…and a half a miute later they heard the squeak of Kinyo's shoes on the floor as she moved away from the room. Danny let go of Tia who shrieked with laughter and fell to the floor beside Aiden who was gasping between laughs. Mac was bent double with his hands on his knee's as Danny, went to untie Stella and Flack.
Later that day, the whole CSI team along with Tia and Murphy sat in Danny's apartment sipping drinks. Danny sat in between Tia and Flack, while Aiden and Stella scanned his shelves for a movie to watch. Mac and Murphy where examining Danny's baseball memorabilia.
As Flack took his jacket off, Murphy noticed his still dam shirt and asked what had happened. Sometime later they calmed down enough to explain to Murphy the rules of hospital water fights.
Okay, I know the end was somewhat un characteristic but I just had so much fun writing it, I wanted this to end on a high note, especially since the next thing I post will be the next part of Lily's story. I realise it was much lighter that Ice in my veins, but that was always my plan before I got the idea for Lily's story. Hope you enjoy this, I did, love and hugs.xxxxxxxxxx