At 9:50 a.m. Saturday, Alex Dawson rang the doorbell of the Reagan house.
Linda opened the door. "Doc, I'm glad to see you," she said quietly. "Danny had a rough night. He's been awake for hours, but he's not talking to any of us. He didn't eat anything, either. He's totally shut down." She jerked her head toward the kitchen table, where Alex could see Danny slumped. "The boys are out with Henry and Frank; I'll be upstairs if you need me."
Alex followed her inside. She squeezed Danny's shoulder as she went by, whispered something in his ear, and went upstairs; and Alex closed the door behind him.
Danny looked up at him.
"Morning, Danny. How you holding up?"
He shrugged, not making eye contact.
"Did you sleep?"
Another shrug.
"Where'd your arm go?" Alex asked, trying to get the older man to open up.
He winced when Danny pulled his right hand from under the table and looked at it as if he'd never seen it before. It was wrapped in a neat gauze bandage—definitely not what they'd sent him home from the hospital with. "What happened?"
He shook his head.
"Danny, you can keep giving me the silent treatment, but you're stuck with me for the next hour. It'll go by quicker for both of us if I don't have to do all the talking." He sat down.
"I just wanted to stop hurting!" Danny said, and slammed his hand down on the table.
"Are you talking about the roof, or about whatever you did to your hand last night?" Danny shrugged, and Alex said, "Causing yourself physical pain will not take away the emotional pain, Danny."
Maybe if he told Doc about last night, Doc wouldn't press him about the roof, the flashback…
"I had a hell of a nightmare last night," he muttered.
"I'm listening."
Two words. The drugs from the hospital must still be in his system, because those two words…meant more than they should have. Doc cared. He didn't know why the hell Doc cared…he certainly didn't deserve Doc's concern…but he did. And maybe…maybe it was safe to let Doc hear his pain.
He let out a shaky breath. "I'm on the roof, and you try to talk me down, but I jump anyway. Somehow, I survive; broken bones and horrible physical pain. But the physical pain is nothing compared to…" He shook his head. He didn't know the words for what he was trying to say.
"The emotional pain…the pain inside?" Doc asked quietly.
He nodded.
"What did you do to your hand?"
"Slammed it into the wall when I woke up from the nightmare." He didn't tell Doc that he'd removed the hospital bandage first.
"So…you were still feeling the emotional pain when you woke up. Was it the same pain that made you bolt to the roof Thursday night?"
He shrugged.
"Tell me about the pain—was it your memories from Fallujah?"
He pushed his chair back, stood up so quickly the room spun.
Fallujah. Why the hell did it always come back to Fallujah? Why wouldn't everyone just let him forget? Hell, why couldn't he forget? He'd done a pretty damned good job forgetting for 9 years—so why couldn't he just stuff it back down inside now? Why did it keep haunting him?
His stomach was clenching painfully—and it had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn't eaten breakfast.
He was stranded in the middle of a blustering ocean. If he moved, he wouldn't stop until he'd drowned himself. If he stayed, Doc might throw him a lifeline…or he might push him under the waves.
So he stood there as the pain crashed and then receded, only to crash again harder.
"You're safe, Danny. You can tell me."
He tried to swallow but he couldn't. Something was moving—was that his mouth?—but there was no sound.
He couldn't breathe.
He headed blindly for the door, but his hands were shaking, and he couldn't get a good grip on the doorknob.
He whirled, ready to lash out at Doc, to tell Doc to just leave him the hell alone and let him drown; but the choking pain in his lungs was back, and he couldn't breathe.
Doc was moving toward him in slow motion.
Why hadn't Doc just left him to drown?
Doc was saying something.
Then a hand was gripping his shoulder. "Breathe, Danny."
He tried to throw the hand off, but his back was to the door and he only banged his elbow into the door. He cursed, and Doc let go of him.
"Where did you go just now, Danny?"
He shook his head. "I don't…"
"You panicked, Danny. Where did you go?"
"I don't…I…can't…!"
"I think you can."
He slammed his right hand into the door. "You don't f-g get it, Doc! You never served! You don't know what it's like!"
Doc grabbed his arm. "Danny, I know you're hurting, but you cannot hurt yourself. That was strike one. Two more strikes—I will have you involuntarily admitted."
He couldn't…he wouldn't last in the psych ward. His shoulders slumped and he didn't struggle as Doc led him to the table.
The younger man locked eyes with him. "Danny, you're right that I don't know what it's like. But I do know that whatever happened in Fallujah that you're still blaming yourself for…wasn't your fault."
He sat down as Doc walked to the bottom of the stairs. "Linda, can you bring the first-aid kit?" he hollered.
Danny looked down at his hand. There was blood dripping from the bandage. He cursed.
Doc came back, sat down. "Whatever happened in Fallujah was not your fault, Danny," he said again.
"You don't know that, Doc!"
"Yes, I do. I might not know all the details, but there was enough information in your file—and the fact that you got the Bronze Star proves me right—to tell me that you did your duty."
Linda walked down then. "What happened, Doc?" Then she caught sight of Danny's hand. "Danny!"
She quickly cleaned and re-bandaged his hand. Then she bent down, looked him in the eyes. "I know you're hurting, Danny—but injuring yourself won't help." She kissed his hand tenderly. "Do you want me to stay?"
He shook his head. He couldn't tell Doc…not today, not in front of her.
Linda kissed him again. "Okay. I'll be upstairs if you need me. I love you," she said, and left.
He stared at his hands on the table. His knuckles hurt like hell.
He let out a shaky breath. "It was my fault our unit got captured."
"How was it your fault? Did you knowingly lead them into an ambush?"
He shook his head.
"What evidence do you have for thinking that it's your fault you're the only one who made it home?"
He froze. "What do you mean?"
"A claim needs evidence to back it up. You claim that it's your fault you're the only one who made it home. What evidence do you have to back up that claim?"
"Dammit, Doc, what sort of games are you playing with me?"
"Not a game, Danny. It's a technique to help you determine whether or not this thought lines up with reality—similar to how I questioned you to help you see that John Russell's death was not your fault."
John. He flinched at the memory of another rooftop, another soldier, a terrified little boy.
He didn't need evidence; he knew it was his fault.
"Did you shoot the bullets that killed your buddies? Did you push your buddies in front of you so they'd be killed first?"
"Dammit, Doc, of course not!"
"If you don't have hard evidence to prove your claim, then it's based on feelings."
He kicked one of the other chairs at the table, sending it flying across the room to crash into the fridge. "Go to hell, Doc! You think this is based on feelings? I was f-g there, I know what happened!"
"Then tell me what happened," Doc said, too calmly.
He let the words flow…words he hadn't uttered out loud since his debriefing when he left the Marines.
Doc looked at him. "I still don't see how any of that was your fault, Danny. The evidence doesn't add up. Have you ever thought that maybe you're mis-interpreting the evidence?"
"Go to hell, Doc!"
"Okay, we'll come back to that another time." Doc rose, found two glasses, and filled them at the kitchen sink. He sat down, slid a glass over to Danny.
"Forgive my cynicism, but…I don't think you panicked—either Thursday night or just now—because you were thinking about the day your unit got captured. What was going on in your flashback?"
He took a long sip of water.
He had thought that the three days he was captured had been the worst days, but with those out in the open, other memories were returning. He'd told Doc about those days; he'd given him a summary of his tours; but breaking it down, telling Doc what had pushed him to the roof, what had made him panic just now—he didn't know if he could do that.
And he didn't think it was just one memory. Every Marine he had seen killed in front of him, next to him; every insurgent kid he had had to kill; every f-g dog he had to shoot. The day he watched seven Marines get killed by a grenade—a grenade that would have killed him, too, if not for dumb luck.
"What does it matter, Doc? I panicked, but I'm over it."
"Tell me about your flashback, Danny."
Doc wasn't messing around. He stood, shakily, walked over to the kitchen sink and leaned on it.
"I…can't."
The pain was drowning him again. If he tried to tell Doc, he wouldn't be able to keep his head above water, and there were no life-jackets left.
"I think you can," Doc said quietly.
The lump in his throat was choking him. His eyes were stinging, and he couldn't swallow, and he was going to drown if the pain didn't go away. "I…dammit, Doc!" His voice broke, and he cursed, kicked the cabinet hard enough to knock over a cup in the sink.
It shattered.
A chair scraped on the floor, and then Doc was standing next to him. "I won't make you talk anymore. You did good, Danny."
"I didn't…I…I can't…"
"It's okay, Danny. We'll do this at your pace. I thought it would help you to tell me about the flashback; but you're not ready yet, and that's okay. Do you want me to call Linda?"
He nodded, flinched when Doc hollered, and then Doc had left with a few whispered words to Linda, and her hand was on his shoulder. "Come sit down, Danny. You're okay."
He wasn't okay. He was pathetic. He couldn't even get through a therapy session without losing it. How much longer was Doc…or his family…going to put up with him?