Chapter 6:

Jack arrived back at the bureau about an hour after he had left the hospital into that direction. He deliberately had taken some time to get back to the department. Time to think about the right words he had to say to tell the team about the current situation. And he had difficulties in even finding a single word to say. But he had to, there was no other way. If he wanted to take over authority in the investigation, everyone around him needed to know about the facts. Just that telling the facts wasn't easy when it involved talking about the horrific experience and the critical condition of someone they all knew and cared about. How was he supposed to do that? He had no answer to this question.

He took the elevator up to the floor of their unit's department and silently hoped for it to go slower. But – obviously as a strange sensation from him – time seemed to proceed somehow faster than normal. He was upstairs in no time and – as a matter of fact – the first face he looked at when the elevator doors opened was the one of Vivian, who gave him a slightly surprised look – probably for him being that late – and greeted him good morning.

He knew it was of no use to keep the information he had received private any longer. He better would tell them right now, otherwise he would hardly ever find the courage to do so. So he directly addressed Vivian without even having the politeness to say good morning. He wanted to get this done.

"Viv, I want you all to meet me in my private office right now. There's something I need to tell you about."

His face's expression didn't allow another response to this than a yes´. No insistance, no question – and that's what Vivian did.

"We will be there in a minute."

He nodded silently, turned his back on her and made his way to his office where he had the chance to sit down in the silence of the room for a moment. The words to say still hadn't found their way to his mind. A dark feeling inside him – a feeling of doubt and weakness – told him that he couldn't do this, that he wasn't able to. But he wouldn't listen to that. He was a responsible, grown up person and he had years of experience which should allow him to stay objective even in a situation like this. Maybe it was hard to deal with, but it wasn't impossible.

The silence was disturbed by a knock, followed by the opening of the door, when the rest of his team entered the room. He could see the look on their faces – shifting between concern and surprise. He asked them to sit down in a low voice and afterwards – as he was still deeply in thought about the right words to say – silence fell between them. He didn't even realize how long the moment of absolute quietness proceeded. Martin finally took the chance to interrupt the awkward silence.

"Jack?"

He looked up into the speaker's direction as he was ripped out of his thoughts. He saw the expectant faces of his co-workers and suddenly realized that he possibly had them already waiting for some time. There was another moment of hesitation before he finally found his voice.

"I was called by Dr. Collins from Mercy hospital this morning. She asked me to come over and identify one of her patients."

Sam interrupted Jack in a realization of what this probably would be about. It was a simple praticle thought and it completely interfered with Jack's desire to keep the final reveal about what had been happening at distance for some more time.

"If this is about a case I would propose we're going to wait until we're complete – so you don't have to tell it a second time."

Vivian joined the direction this conversation was going to, when she asked Jack the question he had wished to avoid for some more time.

"Where's Danny anyway?"

Right now it didn't seem so difficult to articulate some words. Although he really had no idea if it were the right ones. He didn't care actually. He was happy he had found a way to say anything after all.

"He won't join us."

Surprised looks all over once again. He knew he really gave them a hard time in understanding what he wanted to tell, but they would find out soon enough and he was pretty sure they would've been more happy if they hadn't found out. But it was too late for this now.

"And why's that?"

"Because he's the reason Dr. Collins called me. He's her patient."

The silence that followed for the next few seconds was overwhelming. Everybody was trying to make sense of his words and to understand the full graveness and consequences of his earlier words. And then – with the first, slightly audible, whispered word from Samantha – the silence was over, broken by an outburst of desperate question all at once.

"I...Identify...?"

"How is he?

"What happened?"

"What did Dr. Collins tell you?"

Jack defensively rose both hands, which – without a single word said by him – made the rest of the team stop immediately. Asking all this questions was of no use if Jack wouldn't have a chance to answer them.

He looked from one to the other and stopped when he saw the disbelief and slight horror on Samantha's face. He remembered her first whispered question. He had to tell them either way – so therefor he decided to start with the worst part first. All his explanations could only be better and more hopeful from there.

"Danny was brought to hospital yesterday night. Dr. Collins told me his injuries are very severe and that he's in a coma right now. She transfered him to ICU. She also told me his condition is extremely critical and that she can't give any prognoses about his chances of survival."

It was Vivian who first found her speech again. Her voice was soaked in disbelief and worry.

"Chances of survival? So, you mean he may die?"

"That's what Dr. Collins warned me about as the worst outcome of his current condition."

Vivian didn't know what to say about this. Although she had sounded like she couldn't at all believe what she had heard, she had seemed like she still had a trace of hope. But hope was something that seemed definitely out of place at the moment. Jack's words caused another few moments of silence and Sam – whose face's expression still was the one of complete shock – whispered her question once again.

"What did she mean by identify´?"

Jack had wished to avoid this part of the conversation at best completely, but at least for some more time.

"He had no documents with him, when he was brought in..."

He tried to keep the truth from her, tried to keep the real bad and awkward part of the information he had received from Dr. Collins from them. He didn't want the shock they all were already feeling to get any deeper, but Sam took every chance to do so from him.

"Dr. Collins is working with us for more than six years now – she knows Danny!"

Jack didn't have the courage to look her right in the face when he answered her question now, still not focusing on the complete truth.

"Well – as I already told you,..., his injuries are pretty severe..."

Sam was only able to react with some whispered words, but Martin was more forcefully with his reaction – asking the decisive question hanging above the whole situation.

"Good lord..."

"What the hell has happened to him!"

Jack was lucky to have the question finally announced. This was something he could inform them about without feeling like somebody was strangling him or punching him in the stomach. It almost physically hurt to be confronted with Danny's critical – physical and emotional – condition once again. But right now he was also forced to tell him what Dr. Collins had told him, what she assumed due to the injuries Danny was suffering from.

"It's pretty hard to take – I know that – but Dr. Collins told me that the injuries and their state in the process of healing indicates that they didn't occur accidentally..."

"So somebody intentionally did that to him? Why for heaven's sake? Who would do that?"

Jack swallowed hard before he went on spilling out the details Dr. Collins had given to him.

"That's not it. Dr. Collins also told me that the state of healing indicates a timeframe of at least two and a half days in which the injuries were inflicted,..., she believes Danny was tortured..."

No sound, no word, no movement – just for a second it seemed like time had frozen in this room as everyone just stood still – unable to move, unable to speak, unable to react to this new information in any way. Vivian's tone of shock and disbelief had turned to absolute horror right now and all hope had vanished from it.

"Several days of torment? ... That's not true, that's just not true. She must be wrong, Jack – she definitely is."

"She's the Dr. Viv, she knows how to do her job and she does it damn good. It's true, it happened..."

"But, why? What has he done that he ended up in a situation like this."

"I don't know, but that's what I want to find out. I want to find out why and I even more want to find out who did it!"