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Chapter 41: My stoic friend

Danny woke up when he heard and felt a presence moving around in the room. When he moved his head towards the sound, the movement stilled and the mattress shifted as someone sat down next to him. Danny moved his hands towards his face and rubbed his eyes before opening them to found his partner already bringing a glass of water towards his mouth and reaching to him to help him lift his head to be able to drink. But Danny wasn´t thirsty and his head pounded with fierce. Movement and water in his stomach was not an even considerable option for him.

"No…" Danny moved slightly his head on the opposite direction trying to escape Steve´s hand and tried to block away the glass of water by lifting and placing his arms in front of his face. Maybe it was childish, but his pain was not.

"It´s time for your meds. Take them". The flat voice cut off his complaint. But Danny didn´t move. Instead, with probing fingers he started to trace the length of the bandage applied on his upper temple, and winced when the strength he applied was too much. Evidently, it was not only the cut on his temple that hurt, but also his forehead, his right cheekbone and his nose. He was apparently lucky that nothing was ended up broken, or worse.

An open and deep sigh, and then a strong hand squeezing and rubbing affectionately his right forearm. "Come on buddy. They will help with the pain. You´ll feel better". The voice left out its tense and dry edge. Danny lowered his arms, giving implicit permission and made his greater effort not to cry out in pain as his brother lifted carefully his head with a big hand, holding his neck and nape while with the other he gave Danny two sips of water before motioning him to open up his mouth to take the pills, and then intended to give Danny the rest of what was left on the glass, but after three sips that helped taking down the pills, his friend closed his mouth and denied wanting any more water inside him, practically begging to Steve to rest his aching head back down on the pillow. Giving up, the commander placed the glass on the light table and helped Danny to get more comfortable when his friend turned sideways and buried his good side of his face on the pillow. It was obvious that he was in pain.

"The pills won't take long to kick in, relax" Steve arranged the sheets and tucked him neatly, evaluating his friend carefully and making himself ready to react as Danny seemed to be fighting to keep the water inside him. He sat on guard until Danny´s stomach eventually settled and his face features relaxed as the pain seemed to start to recede.

Danny tested his sight opening his eyes to mere slits. His usual blue eyes were dark and shiny with pain and anguish while he made out the figure of his friend sitting at his side. Steve´s jaw was square and tense, very tense, and somehow it urged Danny to apologize, even though he was constantly told not to apologize. But this situation was different.

"I´m sorry" The words chocked on his mouth and for some unknown reason his heart started to pound louder. He was scared. He was scared of what he will find out about what had happened and what Charlie had been put through. He was scared because of Steve´s attitude, which somehow told him indirectly that what he had done was bad and had carried bad consequences with it.

Steve realized the impact his mood was having upon his friend and made himself conscious to ease up a little bit. He stopped cringing his teeth together and made an effort to let the events of the day at the side. When he heard Danny apologize, he broke eye contact and lowered his head, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I told you to stay put. It could have been much worse Danny. You could have broken some bone, and even worse you could have opened your skull on the sink!" Steve regretted his tone as soon as the words left his mouth. He couldn't let his fear and the tumultuous memories of the day to make him loose his temper on his too vulnerable and already battered partner. Steve searched his friend´s eyes again and, hesitating, he reached forward and took Danny´s hands inside of his, and squeezed. "I´m sorry, I´m sorry buddy" Steve tried to calm himself, he really shouldn´t put Danny through more stress and least of all immerse and affect him on his own personal debacle. The impotence he had felt when he found Danny face down and oozing blood from under his head had left him shivering and trembling for the last hours, and he had not yet recovered. He could still hear Charlie crying behind him and himself telling him almost shouting to go wait in his room while he tried to figure out what had happened, and even if his friend was still alive.

The mere thought of that moment, still too fresh in his pupils, keeps breaking Steve´s heart in pieces and frees a fierce battle in his interior between the effort to seem fine and strong for his friend and his true shaken soul which evidently was winning the battle of showing off because Danny´s eyes reflected uncertainty and anxiousness. Steve should prevent that, so he smiled, and kept smiling even when Danny resumed his previous questioning.

"What happened with Charlie? Is he ok?"

Charlie left his dinosaur toy on his bed when he sharpened his ear after he thought he heard a noise coming from other angle inside the house. Maybe his dad had finished with the bathroom, so he chose to go check. The rest was admirable, for a kid of his age, although crying and beyond scared, the kid had managed to reach for his dad´s cellphone from the bedroom and coming back running to his unconscious father´s side, after slipping on the humid floor, he looked for his Uncle Steve´s speed dial with slicker bloodied little fingers and managed to make himself understandable among his broken voice as his father´s friend immediately took the call after the first tone.

Steve checked his watch for the tenth time during the meeting and sustained himself from doing so many other times, to avoid another questioning and exasperated look from the governor. But as soon as all was finished, he avoided any extra talk and excused himself, leaving the building in a jog towards his truck. It had taken much more time that he had expected and desired, and something inside him told him he should hurry.

Just as he climbed in, his phone started to buzz, and he picked it up immediately as he saw the ID caller.

"Hey buddy, what´s up? I´m on my w…."

"Uncle Steve!" The child was crying and desperate, his voice faltering as he continued at an almost unintelligible. "Someth…g´s wrong with dady he won´t wake up!"

"Hey hey Charlie Charlie Charlie calm down, I´m on my way, ok? where´re you?" Steve´s heart was outside his chest while he turned on the sirens and entered the street at considerable increasing speed. Expecting to hear his partner´s voice, the unexpected scared child put him on guard and in action at a fierce speed.

"..n the bathroom" The kid´s answer couldn't contain any additional quote of dismay. "There´s blood…"

Steve´s foot reached the floor of the truck with the gas pedal, the hairs of all his body standing at once at the new piece of information Charlie gave him with an almost inaudible thin voice.

"Ok, Charlie? Stay on the line ok?, I´ll call an ambulance and will be there in five minutes. I want you to go to the living room and wait for me there, you got it? Go to the living room."

"I don´t know…" Charlie hesitated, not wanting to leave his dad alone.

"Go to the living room Charlie and wait for me there". Steve repeated with authority, hoping the child will do as he commanded, and then immediately called an ambulance.

Blood. Why would there be blood? Danny wouldn´t do something stupid. At least not with Charlie there. It must have been an accident. He died to ask Charlie for more details, but he didn´t want to put the child through examining his hurt daddy. On the contrary, he wanted him to see no more, so he sent him to the living room. Steve could already hear the sirens of the ambulance above his own sirens as he turned the corner of Danny´s block at full speed and hit the brakes, making a spectacular parking and leaving the rubber of his tires drawn on the pavement.

Charlie heard two pairs of sirens coming closer, making them louder as they approached his house. His small bloodied hands gripping fiercely the cellphone while he looked through the window from the living room. He did as his Uncle has told him, and was right in front of Steve with big scared eyes when the Commander entered the house with his own share of scare emanating from his own eyes.

"Stay here buddy" Steve said, as he run to the bathroom. Halting abruptly at the half open door, he slowly opened it completely and stepped inside, going to his knees at the side of his partner´s prone body. Making a quick assessment, he discovered the blood was coming from beneath his head and also oozing freely from his nose. Placing a hand in front of Danny´s open mouth, it was easy to tell that he was breathing, so Steve allowed himself to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly to take control of his hammering heart.

"What happened, Danno?" He tenderly asked to his unconscious friend as he leaned down and with care titled his partner´s head a bit up, finding the deep gash from where the majority of the blood was coming from and the dark bruise already forming and kind of swelling around it. Definitely, Danny had fell and hit his head. Breathing a bit easier now because other dark theories he had mustered during his ride were now narrowed down, Steve straightened himself from examining his partner when he heard the paramedics entering the house and asking for directions.

"Right here!" Looking at the door, Steve saw Charlie standing there. He had followed him and Steve´s heart, now a little less scared, filled with love and pity for the child. Getting up, he gave the two paramedics room. "Apparently he fell and hit his head. You could take him to his bed. I´ll call his doctor…" Steve didn´t want to leave, but if he didn´t Charlie certainly wouldn't, so he picked him up in his arms and headed to the kitchen while the medics worked and evaluated his friend.

After calling Dr. Kalama to inform him and ask him if they could not hospitalize Danny, the Doctor was on his way over to see for himself. Sitting Charlie on the kitchen counter beside the sink, he took the phone that was held with force from the child´s hands and put it away.

"Ok Charlie" He smiled, achieving a calm and cheerful tone. "Let´s wash those hands, shall we?" Turning on the tap, he guided his nephew´s hands under the water and rubbed them until well after no sign of blood was left.

"That´s right" Seeing Charlie´s t-shirt was dyed with red too, he motioned the child to take it off, and helped him getting his head out. "Now let's go find a fresh one, come on" When reaching to lift the kid from the counter, Charlie cling and hugged him with force from the neck. Steve hugged him back, stroking the blonde head while he headed to the kid´s bedroom in search for a new t-shirt. Struggling to open one drawer with one hand and picking up a t-shirt, he headed to the bed with Charlie still hugging him with strength. Sitting the kid down and kneeling in front of him, he grabbed his slim arms and unclogged them from behind his neck, and helped Charlie to put the soft cotton shirt. Steve then grabbed his hands in his, squeezed them with love and rubbed the tiny knuckles with his thumbs. The child´s eyes were looking straight at his.

"Listen to me Charlie, your Daddy is going to be fine. He just fell and hit his head but the doctors are going to make him good again, so don´t you worry" The soothing words were accompanied by a confident smile that supported them.

"I told him he should wait for you…but he wanted to take a shower" There it was, without pushing it Steve got the reason why Danny moved even though he has been asked to wait. His heart constricted, because there was nothing wrong with wanting to refresh on a very hot day. Besides, he should have returned sooner, and Danny would have had his help. The kid in front of him knew he was pissed with his dad for ´disobeying´, so he tried to ease up the proportions of the mistake. It actually worked, for a minute, but the worry that gripped Steve´s heart won and resurfaced again in the form of annoyance. But now he couldn't let the child feel any remorse or feel guilty for it, so he remained calm and in control of his emotions.

"You did great Charlie, and nothing of this is your fault. You know your dad, he´s stubborn as they come. So he´ll be just fine as soon as the doctor patches his cut up."

Charlie nodded, taking confidence on the security his Uncle was speaking with.

"Tell you what, why don´t we call your mom so she can come to pick you up, then I will make sure your dad is ok for you to visit him again tomorrow. How does that sound uh?"

Charlie nodded again, and, although he desired to stay and be with his dad, he didn´t complain while Steve called his mom nor when she arrived and he was hugged, kissed and made to wait a moment in the car while she stayed in the house for a few minutes. He smiled to Steve´s goofy face and waved to him as the car started moving and took off towards his other home.

As soon as the car turned around the corner and his friend´s kid in which he had laid his entire attention and care was out of sight, Steve was free to enter the house. With a long and fast strode, he reached Danny´s bedroom where he expected to see Dr. Kalama, whom he had heard arrived when he was in Charlie´s bedroom. The paramedics were gone, but they lent to Danny´s doctor an IV set, which was already pumping fluids inside his partner´s system while the physician was meticulously and carefully stitching Danny´s temple.

"Doc. Thanks for coming"

"Commander" The doctor kept focused on his task. Danny was not moving or registering what was being done to him. "He came around disoriented. After checking there was no risk we gave him a sedative and local anesthesia on the area to allow me start working on his gash. Rest would do him good. I will allow him to stay here, there´s not evidently risk that requires him to be moved to the hospital, so after I´m done with this I will wait for him to wake up and after being sure he´s fine I´ll return to my consults and leave you in charge. I´ll come back tomorrow morning to check on him and clean the wound".

Steve had thanked him, and seated to watch the medic finish suturing and covering the wound with clean sterile gauze. About an hour later Danny woke and because of his anxiety Dr. Kalama chose to calm him down chemically again, but making sure his concussion was not a problem in itself, he left Steve alone with instructions and medicine.

Now, Steve was having a strange case of déjà vu as he was holding his partner's hands on his own and receiving a look coming from scared eyes, just like he had done a few hours ago with Charlie. Both looks shared the same fear for the other: the kid from his father and the father for his kid. Both shared a quote of guilt and fear for the other´s wellbeing. Steve, leaving out details like the blood issue or the super scared look on Charlie´s eyes, put his partner´s up to date of his son´s actions and assured that now he was ok with Rachel and that tomorrow he would visit. Danny´s heart eased with the modified version of the events his partner has colored for him. He allowed himself to rest his throbbing head and closed his eyes. He felt Steve getting up and releasing his hands.

"Don't go to sleep, I´ll bring you something to eat"

Danny wasn´t hungry, but just as Charlie did before, he let Steve decide what was best for him.