Title: Visionary
By: Kara
Sorry I haven't updated in a bit! I have spent the last two weeks packing up and heading back to school. Now that the first week is over I'm starting to settle back in a bit!
Begun: November 22, 2004
Finished: Almost finished!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After a businessman dies suddenly and unexpectedly, supposedly from committing suicide, not long after contacting Gabriel about taking an artifact, the case is handed to Sara. While Sara probes the victim's death, Jake and Danny suspect Gabriel's involvement in the crime. When Gabriel begins to exhibit some of the same symptoms the victim experienced before his death, Sara investigates, hoping to save her young friend's life before he meets the same end as his predecessor, but Nottingham's unsuspected offered aid causes her to wonder whether Irons is involved in the situation.
Chapter Seven - Reliance
Contrary to what he led on concerning Sara Pezzini's ambiguous affairs, Danny Woo still looked for her when he got into work that morning. It didn't matter that it was earlier than Sara was used to coming in, or that he was still angry with her for continuously hiding the truth from him, he still wanted desperately to reconcile… he just wasn't about to make the first move.
When the usual morning briefing had ended at 9 and Sara still hadn't arrived, according to McCarty, Danny started to get worried.
"She should be in soon," McCarty shrugged. "She called me this morning, said she was going to stop somewhere before work, but she thought she'd be here on time. Maybe she's just checking on Gabriel. Supposedly he hasn't been… up to par, lately."
"No kidding," Danny quipped. "There's a LOT that's not 'up to par' with Gabriel Bowman."
"Do you think he has any relation to the crimes that have been going on lately? All the ones Sara's been stopping?" McCarty put out tentatively, testing the waters.
Danny scrunched his forehead in consternation. "No…" he began sketchily. "Those I don't know about. But he's got to be in some kind of trouble that he keeps dragging Sara into… I'm just baffled as to what it could be."
"I think he knows something about Torpe," McCarty said. "Something he's not telling us."
"You may be right," Danny told him. "But if something's there, Sara'll figure it out."
"You sure about that?" McCarty raised his eyes to meet Danny's gaze, voicing all of Danny's doubts with those four words.
Danny shrugged, laughing desperately. "I have no idea anymore." He left McCarty to his own work then as Mark Rowlands, a good-natured detective in his forties, clamped a hand on Danny's shoulder.
"You ready to go?"
"Yeah, let's go." Danny followed Rowlands to the front of the precinct where Danny's car was. "So, how was dinner with Cathy the other night?" Danny asked. "Did it go over well?"
"As well as can be expected," Rowlands answered. "…In that I've been bumped up from the couch to an air mattress in our bedroom."
Danny chuckled. "I know how that is." He may not have liked the conditions under which his temporary partnership with Rowlands had come about, but he found himself enjoying his work with the older detective. The two married men had a lot in common, he'd found.
Rowlands pushed the front door open and Danny followed him out into the morning sunlight, still talking about his wife. Danny looked up instinctively to where his car was parked, but his own car wasn't what caught his attention. Instead what he saw when he looked up was none other than Gabriel himself… pushing an old woman out from in front of a speeding taxi, only to be struck by the vehicle himself.
His voice catching in his throat, Danny could only watch as the younger man's body was flung over the hood of the car violently, and landed with a sickening crack on the pavement that Danny and Rowlands could hear even from where they were standing. It wasn't until it was all over that Danny snapped back to reality, yanking himself out of his trancelike state.
"Christ, Gabriel," he muttered, breaking into a run.
A confused Rowlands followed, but not before he yanked open the door to the precinct and shouted, "Call an ambulance! There was an accident out front!"
Danny was the first to reach the scene of the accident. He stopped briefly to touch the shoulder of the woman who Gabriel pushed out of the way, but she only waved him off to tend to her rescuer. Danny continued on, walking around the hood of the parked car slowly, grimacing at the sight of the younger man's state. Ignoring the traffic that was trying to inch past without disturbing the scene, Danny knelt next to Gabriel's prone form and warily reached out a hand to feel for a pulse. He was relieved to discover one—thready but definitely present.
"Oh my God… Oh my God, he just ran out in front of me—I didn't see him! He just ran out there!" The cab driver had gotten out of his vehicle and was surveying the accident frantically.
Danny looked up to see the driver exit and told him, "It's okay, sir. No one's blaming you."
Rowlands helped the elderly woman into a sitting position on the curb. She was scraped and bruised, and still coughing violently but seemed otherwise unharmed. She looked past Rowlands to Danny and Gabriel, and called out, "Is he okay?" When Danny didn't answer, she asked again.
Danny didn't know how to respond. Gabriel was alive, but for how much longer, he couldn't be sure. "Rowlands, where is that damn ambulance!" Danny shouted to his partner.
Rowlands shook his head. "I don't know, Danny. I told them inside to call." As if on cue, the wailing of a siren flared up, not too far from their position, and simultaneously a group of detectives joined them at the scene, cordoning off the street so that cars couldn't get by.
Danny looked back down to Gabriel. The kid was in rough shape. He'd definitely broken a few bones on his right side, and there was a vicious looking gash running down the length of his temple that worried Danny more than anything. He wondered if it was alright to roll Gabriel onto his back, to relieve him of the awkward position he now lay in on his side, but decided it would be better to wait until the ambulance arrived. It can't be very far off now, he thought.
Danny knew it seemed selfish to think something like it at the time, but the cop part of him really wished Gabriel was conscious so he could ask all the questions that were plaguing him—like what he was doing in front of the precinct, where was Sara at, what correlation this incident had to all the others from the past two days, most of all: what on earth had made him jump in front of a moving vehicle like that?
Well, besides the obvious, Danny thought. "Dammit," he muttered aloud to himself. Why did the kid have to be such a damn hero? Just look where it got him…
Danny pulled off his jacket and bunched it up into a ball, carefully raising Gabriel's head and slipping it beneath to give him some padding, if he could offer him nothing else. He used his sleeve to try to stop the bleeding on his forehead, but his efforts were wasted when, less than thirty seconds later, the ambulance pulled up and a team of paramedics took over for the detective.
Danny was shoved to the back of the crowd and could only watch, helpless once more, as the medics went to work. Rowlands joined him, breathing heavily. "Man, some thing to happen right here in front of the precinct, huh? Do you know him?"
Danny sighed. "Yeah, his name's Gabriel Bowman. He's a friend of Sara's."
Rowlands cocked his head to see past the mess of paramedics. "Oh yeah, he's that artifacts kid that helps her out a lot, isn't he? I've seen him around…" Rowlands shook his head sympathetically as the paramedics lowered the stretcher and carefully transferred Gabriel onto it from the pavement. "Damn shame, I hope he makes it."
"Me too," Danny cringed realizing for the first time that he would have to call Sara and tell her the news.
Jake joined them then and looked at the stretcher then to Danny. "What's going on, Danny?"
It was the woman who answered, resisting the ministrations of an eager paramedic who was trying to give her an oxygen mask, insisting that she didn't need one. "I'm fine," she told the woman, then walked up to Jake, Danny and Rowlands, hand on her chest. "He pushed me out of the way just before that cab was about to hit me. I didn't see it coming. I've had the flu for a week now, but I thought I could manage a walk to the store." She shook her head, wiping away a tear with her other hand. "That cab would have killed me if he hadn't jumped in."
"Is he gonna make it?" Jake asked worriedly, his troubled visage betraying the conflict he felt at witnessing Gabriel's bravery when only minutes earlier he'd been ready to name him lead suspect in his latest case.
"I don't know." Danny answered truthfully then took a step forward. "But I'm going with him to the hospital."
Rowlands called out to him, "Wait, wait—Danny! What about the case?"
Danny turned around, shrugged. "I—I don't know what to tell you. But I can't let him go alone."
"What am I supposed to tell the Lieutenant?" Rowlands shouted after him.
"Tell him… Tell him I'm sorry but I have to do this. I'll be back here as soon as I figure out what's going on."
"Danny—He's not gonna… Woo!" Rowlands' protests went in vain.
"I'll call as soon as I can, OK!" Danny got the attention of the nearest paramedic as they loaded Gabriel's stretcher into the back of the ambulance. "Hey, is it alright if I ride along?"
The paramedic glanced briefly at Gabriel. "Is this guy a criminal or something?"
"No," Danny answered. "He's a friend of a friend."
The paramedic thought for a moment then said, "Yeah, you can come. Hurry up and get in though." Danny climbed in the back and watched as the doors swung shut. The siren wailed back into life as the ambulance sped away toward the hospital.
o-o-o-o
Sara Pezzini stepped back from the front door to the apartment complex where Talismaniac was located, face scrunched in concern. She'd been buzzing Gabriel for almost ten minutes, without any response. She was beginning to get worried. Glancing up into the window to his apartment, Sara couldn't see enough to determine if anything suspicious had occurred. Cursing to herself she stepped back up to the door and buzzed once more for good measure.
She'd already called and left a rather urgent message on his machine asking him to pick up four minutes ago, but that too went unheeded. She hoped the Witchblade would warn her if Gabriel had done anything harmful to himself. The bracelet had been viciously dry as far as visions were concerned, ever since the first one two days earlier. You can start helping me out again any time now, Sara thought, inadvertently stealing a glance at the Witchblade on her wrist.
She was halfway in between heading back to her bike to go confront Paul Reynolds and breaking down the door to Gabriel's apartment to find out if he was okay when her concentration was interrupted by the abrupt ringing of her cell phone.
Sara pulled out her cell and flipped it open. It was an unknown number.
"Sara." Danny addressed simply before Sara could utter anything to express her surprise. Being the generally laid-back person he was, Sara didn't often witness Danny Woo's serious voice, but when he did use it, she always recognized it immediately, and just like those other select times, the same icy dread spread through her veins as she prompted him to continue.
"Danny… what's wrong?" She couldn't think. She had blocked out her mind to any possibilities that what she feared the most at this moment had indeed come true.
"There was an accident in front of the precinct today… You've got to meet me at the hospital right away."
"Who—"
"It's Gabriel," Danny interrupted before she could finish. "He's—he's hurt pretty bad."
Sara's face flushed with relief at the word 'hurt,' which at least answered her first question of whether her friend still lived. Sara closed her eyes for a moment then opened them. "I'll be there in ten minutes." Without saying goodbye she ended the call and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. She hurried back to her bike and was off in record time, all the while trying to stop the pervasive thought that kept running through her head.
I let him out of my sight… I never should have left him alone…
o-o-o-o
Much to Sara's dismay the hospital ER fit the cliché of being crowded, noisy and chaotic, but Sara still managed to locate Danny right away.
"Where is he?" Sara asked immediately upon their meeting, feeling bad that she had no other greeting for him, but she could sense that Danny understood. Sara had always had a tendency to be fiercely protective of those closest to her—those she perceived to be her family, and in the short time she'd known him, Gabriel had managed to fit the bill.
"He's in surgery right now. They took him up from trauma about ten minutes ago. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner… I didn't want to tell you until I knew something about his condition. I only know what they told me before he went up," Danny said in a comforting voice. "He suffered some considerable damage to his right side… a few broken bones, some internal damage they're trying to fix… The doctor said his chances were good though."
"Good." Sara bit her lip, dropping her head to her hands and massaging her temple. "How the hell did this happen?"
"I was hoping you could tell me. All I know is what I saw—I was coming out of the precinct getting ready to head to a crime scene with Rowlands when I see this old woman about to be hit by a taxi cab. Gabriel rushed in at the last moment and pushed her out of the way… ended up taking the brunt of the accident himself. I have no idea what he was doing there. Do you think he was coming to see you?"
"Could be…" Sara mused. "But I've been stopping in to his apartment to check on him all morning. Why wouldn't he just talk to me then? Or call?" Danny refrained from asking why she was checking in on Gabriel and simply shrugged in response. Sara took a seat in the waiting room, per Danny's request, and the latter removed himself to make a phone call.
Danny returned a few minutes later and took a seat to Sara's left wearing a grim expression. "I just called the precinct. The Chief's pretty upset I left so abruptly. They didn't have enough detectives to cover the crime scene so the cops had to clean up..."
Sara looked mournful and apologized to her partner. "You don't have to stay here," she told him. "I mean, thank you so much for being there with Gabriel, but you can go back to the precinct if they need you there—"
"No, it's okay. They've got things under control… Besides, I'd rather be here right now."
Sara smiled. "Thanks, Danny."
"Chief also said something else that I thought was really weird…"
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"He said that Gabriel called this morning before I got into work… and asked for me." Danny squinted, perplexed.
"For you?" Sara matched his confusion.
"Yeah, any idea why he would want to talk to me before asking for you?" Danny asked his partner.
"Not a damn clue," Sara answered truthfully. "That doesn't make any sense…"
"Well, I guess we can add that to our list of questions when he wakes up," Danny said.
The two slipped into a period of silence then, letting the bustle of the ER flood past them while they mused to themselves. Half an hour later, they were confronted by a surgeon, still dressed in scrubs, fresh from the operating room.
"Detective Woo?" He addressed Danny then turned to Sara. "And I take it you're Detective Pezzini?" Sara nodded. "I'm Dr. Wolford. I was the head surgeon working on Mr. Bowman upstairs… Are either of you family?"
Sara shook her head. "No. I don't know of any family. He never talks about them. What is his condition?"
"Gabriel suffered several fractures to his right arm, and a solid break in his leg that should heal properly given adequate attention. He also has a major concussion, and two broken ribs. There were no other internal injuries however, and he should be expected to recover within a few months, with proper physical therapy. We'll have to keep him here for a few weeks."
"Can we go see him?" Sara asked urgently.
Dr. Wolford paused, and Sara sensed there was more to the problem. "There was something else about his condition that I think you should know… He seemed non-responsive to stimuli, so I ordered a CT scan, and it revealed some erratic brain-wave patterns… Was Gabriel taking anything? Drugs, perhaps?"
"No," Sara blinked. "No, not that I'm aware of. He's never done anything like that before." Nonetheless, despite her declaration, Sara wondered if maybe Gabriel had taken anything in an attempt to harm himself… She knew he'd insisted that the Box would have no effect on him, but she'd seen the pain in his eyes yesterday evening, when he'd been unable to save those five victims… He was completely defeated. Perhaps by this time it was in Gabriel's nature to simply… give up.
"Well, I guess that's something else we'll have to keep an eye on then over the next 24 hours." Dr. Wolford directed them to the elevator. "He's in 229, on the second floor. The nurses will help you out if you need anything."
"Thank you." Sara threw a glance at Danny before heading for the elevator. Though she knew it would be much more difficult to question Gabriel about the Box with Danny around, an emotional part of her was extremely thankful that he was there to support her, especially after everything she'd put him through lately.
Gabriel's room was small and bland looking. There was nothing particularly cheery about it. When Sara saw all the machinery around the bed, her friend's lithe form framed with white sheets her heart leapt. "Oh Gabriel," she sighed heavily, pulling a chair alongside the bed. "What did you do to yourself, kiddo?"
Gabriel's right arm was wrapped in a cast, and his leg in a temporary brace. The cut on the side of his face had been covered with a white bandage, but it was already beginning to soak through. He looked paler than ever, Sara noted, and she ran her hand through his dark, matted hair, tousled and untidy.
Danny stood behind her silently, holding himself back from asking Sara where she'd been that morning. He felt he probably wouldn't get a truthful response even if it had been an appropriate time to ask the question.
The grave silence didn't prevail for much longer however, as Gabriel's body jerked involuntarily, and his eyes shot open as he started to come to. Shocking his two visitors, Gabriel greedily sucked in several mouthfuls of air and attempted to sit up as if in a rush, shouting "NO! Stop it!" but Sara and Danny jumped in, holding him down before he could hurt himself.
"Whoa, whoa!" Sara shouted, placing a hand on his head to calm him. "Settle down, Bowman. Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Gabriel continued to breathe in deeply, pulling his fractured wrist in closer to his chest, shielding it with his other hand. Bewildered, he looked at the two detectives then moved his attention around to take in his surroundings.
"Why am I in a hospital?" he asked.
"You don't remember?" Danny asked him.
Gabriel paused for a moment and tried to grasp for clarity. Slowly it came back to him. "I ran in front of a taxi, didn't I?" He said after a brief pause.
"You saved a woman's life," Danny put in.
Gabriel looked at him solemnly then slowly turned his head to face away from them. "Right…" he muttered.
Sara looked at him with sympathy. "Gabriel… what happened today… You didn't—you weren't trying to hurt yourself, were you?"
Gabriel turned quickly to meet Sara's gaze. "No, why would I—You thought I was trying to kill myself, didn't you?" he asked, with a hint of offense.
Before Sara could respond, she turned to regard her partner. "Danny, could you—I kinda need to talk to Gabriel, please?"
Danny nodded. "Sure thing, Sar'. I'll be right outside, OK?"
"Thank you." Sara waited until he left, then turned back to Gabriel.
"Sara, I swear to you, I was not trying to kill myself. I had a vision of that woman about to get hit and I tried to stop it. I think I got another vision just after I did it, because I just blacked out and stood there. I don't remember what happened after th—" He was cut short by some unseen barrier as he squeezed his eyes shut and Sara knew he was biting back another vision.
"I believe you," Sara told him when he opened his eyes again, heaving breaths. "I just didn't know how else I'd get Danny to leave us alone for a few minutes. What the hell happened, Gabriel? What's with the freak out when you woke up?"
A pained expression flashed briefly on Gabriel's face as he recalled whatever it was that caused him to react that way. After a heavy silence he told her, "I was having a vision of a guy being murdered… He was lying in an alley all alone and someone was stabbing him repeatedly with a knife. It was like I could feel every thrust of the knife in my own stomach… Sara, I've been having nonstop premonitions since last night. That's why I haven't been getting any sleep. Every time I close my eyes… all I can see are people dying—and this time I couldn't do a damn thing about it."
He wasn't looking at her the whole time he told her this, focusing instead on the vacant screen of the TV above his bed. "It was a constant nightmare that you know you're having, but you can't wake up from no matter how hard you try."
Sara reached out to his uninjured hand, which was still placed protectively on his right arm and grasped it in her own, squeezing his fingers comfortingly. His confession at least explained the unusual brain wave patterns his doctor detected—the visions were like a narcotic on Gabriel's system. "I'm doing everything I can to stop it, Gabriel. Trust me."
"I know," Gabriel answered, but he didn't seem very comforted.
"Why did you call the precinct asking for Danny this morning?" Sara asked, remembering what her partner had told her.
Gabriel opened his mouth to speak and realization hit him as he remembered everything that had happened earlier that morning. "Oh my God, Sara. You've got to tell Danny not to go anywhere today!"
Sara wrinkled her brow. "What?"
"That was the first vision—the reason I was even there this morning. I had a vision of Danny being shot. He and a bunch of other police officers were at a crime scene; the suspects had guns and they started shooting and he went down… I don't know whether he lived or not. You can't let him go anywhere today, Pez."
"I'll do my best—Woo's not exactly on my side as of late. I've been kind of withholding information from him, if you know what I mean…"
"Do whatever you have to do to keep him here, but you can't let him go to the streets today."
Sara looked her injured friend in the eye. "I promise I'll do whatever it takes to protect him."
"I know you will," the young man forced a small grin.
"Gabriel, you didn't happen to find out anything about where Torpe got the Box from, did you?" Sara asked, changing the subject.
"No, I wasn't even looking," he admitted. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's alright. I actually talked to Torpe today—" Gabriel raised his eyebrows at this. Sara fingered the bracelet around her wrist, "with the help of the one and only… and he said that he got it from an internet supplier named 'Raleigh's Gift.' Have you ever heard of it?"
"No, I would have remembered it." Gabriel said. "It isn't any major dealer I've ever heard of. Either they're new, or they don't deal much."
"Or they only created the name to get the Box into Torpe's possession. I went to see Irons yesterday. He wouldn't tell me much, but he did mention that the dealer lives here in NYC, and he hinted that it might have been transferred for the specific purpose of encouraging Torpe to kill himself."
Gabriel clenched his jaw as another premonition hit him, but he didn't say anything about it, letting his visage numb over, knowing he could do nothing about it now. "Probably the best murder weapon on this earth… A Box that gets people to kill themselves through depression… it can't possibly be traced to the would-be murderer."
"Not unless I track them down first." Sara said heatedly. She stood up and walked over to the door, beckoning to Danny to come back in. Danny entered the doorway and asked what was up. "I'm going to go talk to Paul Reynolds again," Sara told him. "Do you think you can stay here with Gabriel?"
"I can't, Sara. I'm on another case now, with Rowlands. We're supposed to be doing a drug bust this afternoon. I've already been here too long, I should really get back to the precinct—"
"NO!" Sara and Gabriel shouted simultaneously, causing Danny to jump.
"What?" Danny asked, startled.
"No, you—you can't go on that bust today, Danny, and neither can the other officers."
Danny eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"
Sara fetched for an explanation but found her well had long since run dry. "You just can't, not until you get more intel or backup… It's too dangerous."
"Sara, we've done extensive research on this bust. We can't afford to bring any more guys in. We have plenty as it is—"
"No, you don't," Sara said firmly. "I don't want to see you get hurt, Danny… Look, can you just stay here with Gabriel? I'm really worried about him, and I think he really needs someone to be here right now—"
"Sara, the doctors and nurses can—"
"Please, Danny… I don't want to have to worry about losing you too," Sara pleaded. "Please just do this for me and I promise you—I promise—you will get a full explanation when all this is over." That was it, Sara thought, floored by her own words. You just condemned yourself to give up your secret… You'd better hope that both of you are ready to confront the truth when it's all over. Still, there was nothing else she could do about it now. She'd already said it and there was no taking it back. If she did, she'd have to risk losing Danny's trust forever and Sara couldn't handle that.
Finally Danny nodded consent. "Fine, but I'm holding you to that. You have to tell me what's going on before the day is over."
"You have my word." Sara turned heel and headed for the door. "Thank you, Danny. Hang in there, Gabriel."
"Listen, just don't get killed before you can tell me, OK? 'Cause you owe me now!" Danny shouted after her, but Sara was already too far away to reply. Danny sighed heavily and turned around to face Gabriel, who looked to be suffering from a migraine. "Do you need me to get a nurse or something?" Danny asked him.
Gabriel gazed at him somberly. "No," he answered. "I'm fine."