All Lindsay could do was to stare at him, as he laid there in the hospital bed. Danny's handsome face was severely scarred --- small yet deep cuts near his eye area, a fat lip, a big black bruise on his forehead. It had been five hours since she found him, seconds away from death. The memory still haunted her.
Silently, Mac walks in and sits beside her. He looked at Danny for a while, not knowing what to say to Lindsay.
"Go home and sleep, Lindsay" Mac finally says.
"I'll close my eyes when I can" Lindsay answers.
"Tell me about his injuries" Mac replies.
Lindsay takes a deep breath.
"He broke three ribs. His glasses were shattered in his face with a quick blow. Bruise on his forehead might mean that his head was banged against a wall. Bruises on his wrist and knuckles mean he fought back."
Lindsay stands up, Mac follows her. She gently removes the blanket from Danny to show his shoulder.
"Puncture wound on his shoulder" Lindsay continues. "He was sedated."
"Beat him then sedate him then leave him to drown?" Mac answers. "Why go through all that trouble?"
"I don't know" Lindsay says as she tucks Danny back in, running her fingers through his hair. "But his body was badly beaten as it is. Inject drugs into his system and…."
Her voice started to break. "There he is" she continued.
"How are you holding up" Mac asks.
"On my first day at the tiger pit, Danny played a trick on me." Lindsay smiled as she recalled her first encounter with him "Told me to call you sir".
Mac smiled.
"On that day, I swore that I would get back at him" Lindsay continues. "I swore that he would never be my friend. That he would never be important".
Lindsay turned to Mac. She was crying.
"Yet here you are" Mac answers.
They both paused to look at Danny. He was breathing but he wasn't alive --- not the way they knew him.
"Sometimes you think you have all the time in the world" Mac says "To feel what you want to feel, to say what you want to say. And then someone, something just cuts it short".
Lindsay touched Danny's face.
"So this is how it feels" she says.
"What?" Mac says.
"When someone you love is dying." Lindsay pauses. "You hate him so much for trying to leave, yet you love him so much for struggling to stay".
