QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm finishing my Danny story as an homage to tonight's potentially heartbreaking episode "Love Run Cold".
-0-0-0-0-0-
Danny lied on his side, his back to the door. He stared at a single spot on the hospital wall, his eyes not flinching.
The last time he opened his eyes, he was lying in his tub in a fetal position, as he felt the morphine traveling in his veins, putting him to sleep, and the water in the tub slowly engulfing him, wrapping him like in a cocoon.
Voices in his head were the last thing he heard.
"I told you I'd get to you, Messer"
"To Lindsay and Sheldon and many more sleepless nights"
"There's are things I can't tell you right now"
Now his eyes are open again. He didn't know if he should feel happy or sad that he was still alive.
He hears a knock on the door. He turns around.
"Hey"
Mac Taylor walks in. Danny sits up from his bed.
"I guess you know by now" Danny said, his voice hoarse.
"What the hell were you thinking, Danny?" Mac asked.
Danny avoided Mac's eyes. Mac just looked at him, both concern and anger in his face.
"Is it the promotion?" Mac asked, his tone serious. "Getting Lindsay and Hawkes promoted over you? It's just a title and an extra twenty-four hundred dollars a year, Danny. It's not my respect"
Danny started to tear up.
"Is it Sonny Sassone making parole? Beating you up the first chance he got?" Mac said
"I have him on my radar. If the law allowed me to stand on his doorstep with a gun in my hand, waiting for him to make the slightest mistake, I will do it. I will catch him, Danny."
Danny turned to his boss. "Mac…"
"Is it Lindsay?" Mac said. The veins on Danny's forehead looked like it was about to burst.
"That woman got off a 16-hour shift to rush to your apartment to know how you are, she broke down your door, pulled you out of that tub, gave you back your breath." Mac said.
Danny looked at him, surprised. "What?" Danny said.
"She hardly left your side, waiting for your eyes to open." Mac continued "She hasn't slept in over two days, worried sick about you. And that's just everything she's done for you in the past 48 hours" Mac said.
Danny looked confused. "Just because she said 'no' now doesn't mean it's no forever" Mac said. "No isn't never".
"You don't know what it's like" Danny said "having all of that pile up".
"Because you never told me" Mac said. "That's what angers me the most, Danny. I thought you trusted me. Why couldn't' you come to me?"
Danny shook his head. Tears were now falling down on his sheets.
"You know what happens now?" Mac continued. "IAB is going to be all over you --- psych eval, meetings with shrinks, the works. They will be in your house, in your school records, in your bank records, in your life. You have no idea the strings I had to pull so you wouldn't lose your job."
Mac starts to head for the door. "You are on mandatory leave of absence for two weeks."
Danny looked up, hurt by what Mac had said.
Mac turned back to Danny. "A plane crashed into a building and suddenly I was alone"
Danny looked at him, nodded his head.
"You're not the only one with a load on his shoulder, Danny" Mac continued. "I've been carrying mine for five years"
