Disc: D & L borrowed from CBS. The narrator, Valerie the nurse, is my creation. Similarities are coincidences. I did medical research before writing, but inaccuracies will likely still exist.
Summary: Lindsay is shot by a suspect, but Danny is the one in critical condition. Told via OC's POV.
A/N: This story has been in the works for several months now. It was on the back burner as I finished Miles to Go, then I nearly trashed it after RSRD aired… Danny's hospital scenes in that episode were eerily like what I had written, and I didn't want to come across as a copycat. However, since I did put so much effort into this, I decided to publish it anyway.
Big huge thanks to Elainhe for being my Beta! It is truly a privilege to have your Beta be someone who's work you admire so much. ;)

Emergency of the Heart

It's 9:30 on a chilly New York City morning. Most people are just getting to work, on their second cup of coffee, ready to begin the day. Two crime scene investigators, however, have been at work for three hours now...

"This is great," grunts Danny. "Just great. We have a partial print, we have a witness who saw Murdoch at the crime scene, but we don't have anything concrete that puts him there. There's no blood, no weapon, nothing."

Frustrated, he thumps his fist against a table. They are searching the suspect's home, and have turned up nothing.

"The coveralls have got to be here," Lindsay speaks up from a closet. "Eury saw him wearing a pair, and we found denim fibers at the crime scene."

"Yeah, well, they must be magic coveralls, because they sure disappeared," Danny huffs.

"Maybe we should check the dumpster out back," Lindsay suggests, hiding a smile. She knows how her partner gets when things aren't going his way.

"C'mon," argues Danny. "That's way too obvious. Murdoch is crazy, but he's not an idiot."

Lindsay shrugs. "Maybe you're right, but I'm going down to check. We have nothing to lose at this point."

"Fine, but take a cop along with you," Danny says, gesturing to one of the officers milling around.

Her only response is a grin, mindful of the fact that he must not think her capable. She wasn't going to ask an officer to baby-sit her; she would go alone. Like they so often do to each other, she taunts him:

"If I find them, you buy me dinner. I get to pick the place."

He laughs for the first time all morning, and wags his finger at her.

"Alright, Montana. And if they're not there, you're taking me to dinner AND a movie."

"Deal!" she calls over her shoulder, trotting towards the staircase. The way Lindsay looks at it, it's a win-win situation. They have been playing this game of lighthearted banter, flirting, and close moments for months. She doesn't know where it is going, but savors the exhilaration of it.

Behind the building now, Lindsay flips open the dumpster lid. She rifles through the trash, tossing aside empty milk cartons and chicken bones. Everything is sour and moldy. The smell would repel most people, but her nose has long grown accustomed to such scents. She likes to think of herself as a Bloodhound on a trail – focused on her quarry. Today her quarry is any item that could put Larry Murdoch behind bars for the murder of his landlord's daughter.

There are numerous credit card bills, one of which has a listing for 'R&J's Sporting Goods'. The perfect place to buy a hunting knife, Lindsay thinks, tucking it into a baggie. If Murdoch had been in the store, one of the employees would surely remember him. She spots something dark and textured, and gives it a tug. It keeps coming: denim, blotted with maroon stains. She grabs her kit, and a few seconds later, beams victoriously at the swab which tells her that it is, in fact, human blood.

She hears a noise, footsteps and a rustling behind her, and assumes it's Danny. Grinning, she calls over her shoulder,

"So, I'm thinking Italian sounds nice. Though, I've never had Thai before. What do you think? Oh wait, it's up to me!"

The voice which responds is not familiar, and makes her blood run cold.

"You think you're so smart, do ya, little woman?"

Lindsay swerves, her heart pounding. A huge ogre of a man is staring menacingly at her, and at the coveralls in her hand. The football-shaped birthmark on his cheek makes his identity known.

"Larry Murdoch," she breathes. In his hand is a pistol.

"Drop it, and put your hands up, my pretty," he commands, the pistol pointed directly at her. Lindsay grips the pants tighter and shakes her head.

"Give it up, Murdoch," she shouts, hoping to attract attention. "Your apartment is full of cops! You're not getting away this time!"

She hopes her voice sounds stronger than she feels. Her stomach flops when she hears the safety of the gun click.

The rear door of the building swings open, and she sees Danny step out; a look of terror on his face. Murdoch is startled by the noise, and reacts instinctively. His finger on the trigger moves in slow, slow motion. There is an ear-splitting crack, a flash, and Lindsay is knocked to the ground.

The world stops.

Silence.

Peace.

There is no pain. She feels very, very distant. Her stomach burns as if it's on fire, but the rest of her is freezing cold. A heaviness invades her body. A second shot rings out, there is yelling and a scuffle, but Lindsay doesn't notice. Everything is murky. The only person who can break through to her is Danny.

He is at her side, cradling her gently, but shouting at her. She's never heard him sound hysterical, and it scares her. What's wrong?

"Stay with me, Lindsay!"

She feels him pushing on her stomach, and now there is pain. Please stop, Danny, oh for the love of God that hurts. She thinks maybe she'll just sleep for a few minutes... hide from the pain and the cold.

"Lindsay? Can you hear me?"

Shut up Danny, she thinks. I'm trying to sleep.

"Dammit, Lindsay, you listen to me! You stay with me! Don't you go to sleep on me, you understand?"

Why are you being so mean to me, Danny? She isn't sure if she is saying these thoughts aloud. She feels like she is swimming, and it reminds her of Montana summers at the lake. Only, this water that surrounds her now is much thicker, much darker. She opens her mouth and tries to push the words out:

"I think I'm dying."

"Don't you dare say that, you got it? You are not gonna die Lindsay, you are gonna be just fine. Just stay with me."

He isn't yelling anymore, in fact his voice is infinitely softer. "Please, please, Lindsay. Please."

Lindsay sees a curtain, a scarlet red curtain, just like at the opera. Only this one hangs over her eyes. A shaky thumb is stroking her forehead. Everything gets foggier, and she can no longer hear, or see, or feel.

The curtain falls.
------------

It's only 10am, and what a day it's been. This is my second week in the ER day shift. My husband and I have only been married six months, and me working third shift was tough on us. We hardly saw each other, so last month I applied for a shift transfer. Now I work normal hours – but encounter some abnormal situations. Today I've dealt with a homeless man with a rusted nail in his foot, a toddler who super-glued his finger in his nose (yes, in his nose), and an elderly man who popped two "aspirin", only to realize it was his wife's hormone replacement medication.

"Here you go, Val," says Sandra, a fellow nurse who just did a coffee run. She's wielding a tray full of white Styrofoam cups.

"Caffeine! You're my savior!" I snatch a cup and begin to gulp gratefully, but then wrinkle up my nose.

"Ugh!" I cough. What was this? "I think I got somebody's skim latte."

Before I can track down who has my straight black coffee with hazelnut creamer, I hear a call over the crackly police radio.

"We've got a trauma on the way!" Evelyn shouts from behind the front desk.

We start throwing on our gowns, gloves and masks.

"What's the story?" I ask Evelyn, slipping on my shoe covers and gloving up

"Some crime scene investigator," she explains. "The suspect showed up while they were searching the place and went ballistic."

I hear the very faint sound of an approaching siren, getting closer and closer. My adrenalin is pumping. I love all aspects of being a nurse, but these are the times when I truly feel I've found my calling. The siren gets louder, and I see the flashing lights outside. Within seconds, the paramedics push a gurney through the automatic doors.

"28 year old female, GSW to the abdomen," yells one of the EMT's.

He starts rattling off her stats: pulse, respirations, blood pressure. From the numbers given, it sounds like a serious injury. The woman is a petite brunette, very pretty. She waves in and out of consciousness, and is making little sobbing noise in her throat.

"What's her name?" I ask to no one in particular as we wheel her towards the trauma room. I attempt to pacify her. "It's okay, honey."

"Lindsay," says one of the paramedics, reading off the chart. "Lindsay Monroe. Since she's a cop, we have her history on file. No medication allergies, no medical conditions."

"You mean other than the bullet lodged in her stomach?" grunts Gretchen, the head trauma nurse. She's been here forever – probably since the hospital itself opened – and she lacks a gentle bedside manner. She holds open the door to the trauma room, and we push the young woman inside. Dr. Van is one of our best trauma surgeons, so I am relieved to see that it is he who is waiting for us. Nurses and interns are rushing every which way to grab needles, tubes, clamps; yet the mayhem is so routine that it appears choreographed. I've always found it to be like a frantic, bloody ballet.

"Ten of Ativan!" Dr. Van calls, and I rush to prepare it. "Someone call Dr. Hess in radiology, get him down here!"

Marcy, one of my closest friends here at work, is inserting the IV line into the woman's arm.

"Saline, wide open!" she shouts.

There is a lot of blood – if the bullet damaged the woman's spleen or liver, this could be bad. I call for a lab technician to take some blood; we may have to do a transfusion here.

I check the girl's pulse again.

"Hi Lindsay, we're going to take care of you," I soothe as someone else hooks her up to an EKG.

Suddenly, I hear yelling outside the doors of the trauma room, and see Sandra trying to hold back some guy with glasses and brown hair. He is pointing towards us and waving a badge around.

"I said I need to be in there!" he yells.

Sandra shakes her head firmly, trying to block him with her arms.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you have to wait outside. We'll let you know when we have news.

He waves his badge again, proclaiming, "I'm a cop, I can go in there, alright?"

"Who's that guy?" I ask, watching a security guard attempt to coax him away.

"Her partner," sighs Gretchen. "But I reckon there's more to it than a working relationship. Have you ever seen a cop that upset about his partner getting shot?" She winks at me conspiratorially. "Twenty bucks says they're partners in more ways than one."

I roll my eyes. That's Gretchen – always the gossip. But, when I turn and see his face pressed against the window, I am haunted by the agony that I see. I shudder and turn away, refocusing on our gunshot victim. She keeps trying to say something, but I can't make it out, so I lift off her oxygen mask for a moment.

"Danny," she says, clearly this time.

"I'll find him for you, I promise," I tell her. "It's okay, sweetie. We'll get you all fixed up."

Her eyes fill up with tears, and she speaks one more time before I replace the mask.

"Danny."
------------------------------

We get the young female detective stabilized, and she is taken upstairs to the OR for a laparotomy. There they will remove the bullet, and be able to see what kind of damage has been done. As we tear off our gowns and deposit them in the trash, Sandra speaks up.

"Someone should go talk to her partner… let him know what's going on."

"I'm not dealing with him," Gloria huffs. "He was like a raging bull."

Sandra and Marcy each shake their heads, and I feel all eyes on me.

"Uh-uh," I protest. "No way."

Sandra shrugs. "Okay, it's either that or take the 'anal cavity foreign object' in bed C."

"Fine," I groan. "I'll go. What's his name?"

"Detective Messer. "
------------

He's in the family room. Ironic name for it, considering that it's the place where families fall apart. It's painted a melancholy blue, as if to prepare them for the bad news that is too often relayed here.

He is seated on a chair, head in his hands, a pair of glasses on the empty chair next to him. When he hears me enter, he sits up straight. The anguish on his face is so palpable, it's hard to look him straight on.

"Detective Messer?" I smile and nod. "I'm Valerie, one of the nurses working on your partner."

"How is she?" he asks, breathless. His eyes are searching mine for a glint of hope, anything.

"Detective Monroe was stabilized. She's now undergoing a laparotomy - surgery to have the bullet removed from her abdomen," I explained. "She was lucky – no organs were seriously damaged as far as we can tell right now, but she had a lot of internal bleeding. After the surgery, we'll know a little more about her prognosis."

He rubs his forehead. "Jesus."

"Detective Messer," I say gently, sitting down on the sofa opposite him. "I need to ask you some questions about your partner. Does she have any family in the city? We'll need to contact them."

He props his chin in his hands, and shakes his head. "They're all in Montana. She just moved here in October."

"Well, is there a boyfriend, maybe?" I prompt. "She keeps asking for a 'Danny'."

He stands up abruptly, and walks to the window. He stares out, his head tilted downward. On a hunch, I glance at the admission form, and the statement taken from him. It was signed: Det. Daniel Messer.

It hits me. Danny.

I approach him, pretending not to notice the dampness on his cheeks. Instead, I fill a cup of water from the cooler and hand it to him. He accepts it, sips, and then I continue to press as I stand behind him.

"You're her boyfriend?"

"No." This seems to pain him.

I'm feeling bold. Being a nurse, you learn to read people. Even if they can't talk, you'd be surprised at what body language and facial expressions can tell you.

"But you love her?" It's actually a statement on my part, not a question.

He drums his fingers on the windowsill, and his eyes meet mine in the reflection of the glass. I see tears.

"I'm not sure I know what love is," he finally replies, wiping at his eyes.

Why are men so ashamed of crying? If only he knew how many men I see break down in this very same room.

"I saw the way you looked at her," I tell him, handing him a tissue. "That's the way my husband looked at me… still looks at me". I smile wistfully, really missing David right now.

"So why haven't you told her yet?" I ask curiously.

He looks at me, a bit exasperated, and returns to the sofa. I worry for a moment that I have pushed too far. I hear him sigh from across the room.

"She's too good for me," he mutters.

I shake my head. "Apparently she doesn't agree. She was in excruciating pain and barely conscious, and she asked for you," I remind him. "Don't deny yourself –or her –because of your insecurities." I'm trying to help him open up, without being overly patronizing.

"You must be really hurt right now," I continue. "It must have been a scary thing to see."

He replaces his glasses, stands up and starts pacing.

"When I saw her go down," he tells me, clenching his fists. "When I saw the blood…"

His voice, strangled and tortured, trails off. Right now, his pain and fear is manifesting itself as anger. I wait, but he is unable to finish. He sinks back into the sofa cushions once again, and reaches for the box of tissues. It then occurs to me that he is probably feeling even more pain than his partner is right now.

"You know," I say softly. "In this job, I see countless situations where people don't get to tell loved ones how they feel. They take each other for granted, get caught up in everyday life. Then tragedy happens, and all the things they wish they had said are lost.

He raises his head and studies me.

"Lindsay is going to make it. You have this chance to tell her how you feel," I urge him. "Don't waste another day of your life without her."
I can tell his mind is spinning, and I smile. "Will you at least think about it?

He nods. "Yeah, I'll think about it." The poor guy looks exhausted.

As I leave, I say "Let me know if you need anything. I'll come get you when she is in recovery."
----------------

The rest of the morning has been a return to the normal routine. Coughing fits, a cat bite, splinter removal, broken wrist. As my hands go about their usual duties, my mind stays with those two detectives. Even through lunch, I can't concentrate. Sitting in the break room, I toss my wrappers in the trash and glance at the clock. I have ten minutes before my shift resumes; just enough time to check on the gunshot victim. I reach for the telephone and call up to the fourth floor, the ICU ward. I'm thankful that it's Alan, a nurse I went to school with, who answers. And when I hang up two minutes later with good news, I'm even more thankful.

I enter the family room and see that Detective Messer is still seated where I left him two hours ago. I can tell he has been lost in deep thought.

"She's going to be okay," I reach over to touch his shoulder. "They stopped the bleeding. She's a fighter, and she's going to be back on her feet in no time."

"That's my girl," he says proudly. He is beaming, and it's as if I can see the relief washing over him.

"I think you should go see her," I suggest, hoping he doesn't find me to be a nag.

He nods his head. "Yeah, yeah, I think I'll do that."

"She'll be a bit groggy from the anesthesia and pain medicine," I warn him.

We're both quiet for a minute, standing there, and then he clears his throat.

"I wish it was me…" he says, "…that got shot. I'd give anything to trade places with her, take away her pain."

"Well," I say, opening the door to leave. "I guess you do know what love is, after all. "
---------------

The room is dark; the only sound is the steady beeping of the monitors.
Danny enters, scared. The emotions of the day have left him too weak to stand, so he kneels next to the bed. Lindsay appears to be asleep. He takes her hand, mindful of the IV line, and is surprised to feel her squeeze his in return .

"Danny," she murmurs, almost inaudibly. Her throat is raw from the breathing tube that was once in, and her voice is scratchy.

"Hey," he says. "Hey there."

He sits on the chair next to her, leans over to stroke her cheek. He has never touched her like this before, and it feels so good to him. She feels cold and a little clammy. Seeing all the tubes, bandages, and bruises kills him. It hurts him more than he ever thought it possible to hurt.

"Murdoch?" she asks simply. Danny laughs softly, because he was expecting this from her. Really, he was the same way – the quest for justice is not stopped with a bullet.

"We got him," he tells her. "He's sitting in Riker's right now, and those coveralls you found are back at the lab." He grins sheepishly. "I guess that means I owe you some dinner, eh?"

Lindsay smiles, albeit weakly. She can sense something different about Danny; something in the way he looks at her, something in the tone of his voice. It makes her a little nervous, a little hopeful, and very curious .

"What is it, Danny?"

Danny takes her hand again, trying to gather the courage to put his feelings into words. He takes a deep breath.

"Lindsay," is all he can say, however. He is overcome with emotion. All the words that have built up in the past few months are now choking him.

"I just want to be with you." There. It's out.

"Okay," she whispers.

He chuckles, and for the second time today he feels the rush of relief and joy. "Okay? That's it?"

She tries again. "Very okay."
---------------

It's been a long day, and I am anxious to get home to a hot shower and nice dinner. After grabbing my coat and purse from the locker, I make a special detour on the way to the hospital exit. I find the room I am looking for, and peer inside.

They're both asleep – she's in her bed, he's slumped to the side in a chair. Both of their arms are dangling down, and their fingers are interlaced. I smile.

All in a day's work.

FIN.