Chapter 9

Rebound (Part I)

This one is for JamieandEddieLuv who asked for a Snapshot from Danny's point of view for the time that Jamie was trapped under the beam in the basement. That turned into a two-shot as I've always wanted to write a little something about one of their purported weekly basketball games, so I thought I would start there and have it trigger some flashbacks for his overprotective big brother when Jamie tries to get his game on a little too soon after the accident.


"Kid, are you sure this is a good idea?" Daniel Reagan fretted as he stalked behind his little brother after he spotted Jamie carrying his gym bag into the locker room at the Flatbush YMCA in Brooklyn before one of their regularly scheduled, loosely organized Thursday night NYPD-league three on three half court basketball games. "I mean it's only been a month since the accident. Did your doctor even clear you for this? More importantly, does Eddie know you are here?"

"Geez, worry much, Ma?" Jamie griped as he took off his coat and sat down at a locker to switch out his loafers and warm sweatpants for a pair of shorts and court shoes. "And the answer is yes, yes and yes. I'm fine. Dr. Abrams gave me the go ahead to start exercising again in moderation and I'm scheduled for my last checkup with him tomorrow morning before I'm cleared for full duty. I promised Eddie I'd take it easy tonight and just practice some outside shooting, okay? I need to start getting my legs back."

Danny's glance at those aforementioned legs did nothing to ease his mind as any number of fading bruises were still evident from that night a sabotaged propane explosion at the Bridgewater construction site had left his brother trapped under a large support beam in the basement of a building and immersed in freezing cold water for nearly an hour. The resultant hypothermia and trauma had left him in cardiac arrest and subject to CPR and multiple rounds of defibrillation for nearly forty minutes once he had been pulled out from under the rubble before the doctors at St. Victor's Hospital had been able to warm him sufficiently for his heart to restart in a regular rhythm. Jamie had spent more than a week in the hospital recovering from severe bruising as a result and his cardiologist had been loath to release him before that as the markers in his daily blood tests had continued to be slightly off.

"Just practice, then," the older man growled. "You're not getting in the game tonight."

"Hand to God," Jamie promised as he offered a three-finger boy scout salute over his shoulder before he resumed tying his shoelaces. Danny was still frowning and tagged along close behind as his younger brother tossed a towel over his shoulder and grabbed the ball from his bag before closing the locker with a bang and making his way out to the court.

"Hey, Jamie!" Matt Bowman, another detective out of Danny's precinct at the 5-4 greeted them with a big smile as he came over to grasp his hand. "Good to see you, man!" he exclaimed. "Mike!" he called over to their other teammate who was a technician at the NYPD forensics lab and another longtime friend. "Look! We've got our best point guard back!"

"Oh yeah! 'Bout time!" Michael Becker grinned as he looked up and joined them from the bench. "We've been getting plastered every week since you've been out. Detective Reagan here's no good on point. Can't pass the ball to save his life. All he does is foul."

"Figures," Jamie smirked as he took the ball to his chest and faked a throw towards his big brother.

"Watch it," Danny replied, shaking his head. "Besides it's 3 on 3… there are no foul counts. And Dr. J here's on modified duty until he gets the all clear from the doc tomorrow so you boys are stuck with me again, like it or not," he insisted while pointing towards the sideline. "He rides the bench all night."

"Great," Matt sighed. "Another week with no sub. Those guys from the bomb squad are gonna kill us again. My legs are still sore from getting whooped by the girls from the 2-7 last week."

"Kid's rusty… no way he sinks more than a few shots anyway. We won't miss him," Danny asserted as the four began to loosen up with about twenty minutes of warmup. For his part, Jamie was just happy to be back on the court and eager to rid himself of the cobwebs from the past month. By the time the game was set to start though his legs were feeling a little shaky, and he was content to sit down on the bench and watch while things went along as Matt had feared with the 1-8's Bombers winning the first game 21-12 and comfortably ahead 14-8 in the second of the best-of-three straight to 21 series. Danny started the play out of the back with a quick bounce pass to Mike who managed to dribble past his defender and chest one to Matt directly under the basket where a flagrant foul sent him hard to the floor clutching his right ankle.

"Damn it!" he grimaced as he glared up at his repentant but smug opponent who stepped off before Danny and Mike were able to get to their teammate's side as Jamie hurried over from the bench.

"Crap, how bad?" Mike asked as he looked down while leaning over and sucking air with his hands on his knees. Having no useable subs meant the three of them were bordering on flat out fatigue by this point and there would be no point trying to finish things off down a man when they were already in a hole with the scores as it were.

"Just rolled it over," Matt replied as he pulled his knee up and cradled the ankle. "Stupid sprain. I'm done for the night though, go ahead and call it," he advised. "We'll get them next time."

"I can finish it out," Jamie insisted as he joined them. "What?" he questioned as Danny stood up straight frowning with his sweaty hands on his hips. "You said yourself I'm rusty. They'll end this quick with a few more baskets. Just set me up on the outside and I'll shoot some rainbows and stay out of the key. C'mon, let's not give these guys a forfeit score. Make them earn it at least."

"He's right, Dan," Mike added. "Maybe Jamie can get a few points on them that way… we'll look more respectable in the final grid at the end of the season if nothing else. Let's get you up, gimp," he advised as he reached down and pulled Matt to his feet so that he could hobble over to the bench.

"You sure, kid?" his brother sighed as he picked the ball up off the ground and tossed it to Jamie. "Eddie's gonna have my hide if she hears about this, but… I hate to lose to those blockheads without a fight. Take the free throws then, I guess."

Two successive swishes narrowed the score to 14-10 as play restarted. On the following break, Danny managed to steal the ball off an errant pass and flick it to Jamie on the outside where a high arching shot resulted in another satisfying basket. Mike then soon snagged a rebound, and he banked another two off the glass from outside the paint as suddenly the score was tied 14-14 before the Bombers called a timeout to halt their unanswered run.

"Man we sure missed those shots from the perimeter," Mike panted as he grabbed a quick drink. "You think you've got a few more of those in you?" he asked Jamie who was already starting to feel a little more heaviness in his legs than he had anticipated, although there was no way he was about to let on to that fact in front of his brother, not after such a short time back on the court.

"Yeah," he huffed. "Just try to keep Rehrig off of me… guy's like a bull out there. I got nothing for him physically."

"Switch it up with Danny then," Mike advised. "You bring the ball out of the back and take some shots from the top if you can. Danny can run inside on point to draw that guy off of you."

Several more minutes of intense back and forth saw the score tied once again at 19-19 with a single two pointer ready to take the game. Jamie lofted a sweet shot from the corner but rimmed it as he started to tire and Mike missed the rebound attempt putting them on the defensive as the Bombers played it back out. Danny fouled outside after attempting to box a player out, but the resulting free throw was missed and the ball came back out to Jamie for the restart. Instead of looking for a quick bounce pass, he dribbled in and spun to the right, faking a move towards Danny's advancing run before attempting a blind hook shot over his man resulting in a brick that hit the rim again and bounced off. Mike's effort at the rebound also missed and a few quick moves and a backdoor cut by one of their opponents sealed their fate and finished things out at 21-19 as the Bombers triumphed once more, resulting in some good natured ribbing as Danny and Mike sank to the floor in exhaustion next to each other following two hard-fought games.

Jamie stayed on his feet bent over with his hands on his knees and struggled to catch his breath after the impetuous decision to over-exert himself before standing up straight with the intention of walking over to shake hands with the members of the other team. The sudden vertical movement was too much, too soon though, and he was alarmed when his vision swam with black spots and the gym tilted precariously before gravity claimed him and his weak knees gave out as he descended in a graceless heap to the floor with a solid thud. Danny heard the gasps from the other players and looked over in horror to see his little brother sprawled out flat on his back on the hardwood with his eyes closed behind a stark white face and two members of the Bombers kneeling over him and shaking his chest. "Danny!" John Rehrig shouted to get his attention. "It's your brother!"

"Oh, Christ! NO!" he swore as he scrambled over in fear as his mind flashed back to the events of that awful night on scene at the Bridgewater construction site.

Those words.

"Danny, you need to come down here, son. It's your brother."

Those terrible words and all the frightening possibilities they invoked had been enough to stop his own heart from beating that night as he sat in his desk chair in the squad room at the 5-4 precinct, waiting for a call from Jamie himself to arrange a meeting at Mr. Gillespie's jewelry store to pick up Eddie's engagement ring before Lieutenant Carver had run back in and switched on the coverage of the explosion.

"Danny," Frank's voice had projected a calm measure with that one word, but he could hear the chaos of an active scene in the background. His eyes had glanced up at the television once more as a chill knifed through his chest. Suddenly he had no doubt as to where his father was at that precise moment, and if he was there and calling him after the threats that had been made against those precincts... no, it couldn't be… please God, no... not again…

Two NYPD Officers Reported Trapped Under Debris scrolled across the screen in a sickening bold italic fashion, effectively ending his denial.

It was cold… so very cold out.

The oldest Reagan sibling remembered precious little else about the drive over to the scene other than the fact that his heart had remained lodged in his throat and he had arrived in one piece before sprinting towards the collapsed structure bathed in flashing blue and red lights after abandoning his car somewhere down the block. Once there he had frantically searched for his father, finding him curiously small and insignificant as he was kneeling next to some god-forsaken hole in the ground that the firemen were trying to chip out of the side of the building's foundation wall. Ignoring hands that tried to block him, Danny had pushed his way in and landed hard on his knees on the frozen earth next to his dad, remaining uncharacteristically silent as the shock of the situation overwhelmed him. He had been just in time to hear Rick Fellows utter his own stinging words.

"He's still with us, sir, but likely I'm afraid," Rick was saying grimly as he paused to let the word sink in while Frank and Danny's hearts collapsed with utter disbelief.

Likely...

Likely to die that is, not likely to live… no not ever the optimistic viewpoint. Whoever had come up with that stupid NYPD phrasing would have been likely to be shot in that instant if someone had dared to point him out. Danny heard words blur together about blood pressure and temperature dropping, airbags and something about Jamie being trapped under a beam but it didn't really matter beyond that one word Rick had already used. His little brother was likely to die in that basement at any moment now even if they managed to lift the debris off of him and there wasn't a single damn thing that Daniel Reagan could do about it at that point. Somehow Eddie had managed to worm her way in there through one of those tiny openings, at least he wasn't alone… not like Joe at the end. "He's slipping away… call her phone now if you want to speak with him," Rick had advised before disappearing into the darkness again, taking their hopes with him.

"Dad," Danny had choked out. "I need to be in there with him!"

"You can't, there's no way to get you down there," Frank said numbly as he stood up on shaky, stiff knees and pulled his oldest with him, those big hands gripping him firmly with a strength that Danny could not comprehend. They needed to let the firefighters get back to work opening up the hole so Jamie had a chance… "Get me on the line to Janko's cell!" his father ordered as they returned to the command post. "I need to speak to my son!"

What followed next was one of the most heartbreaking experiences Danny had ever been a part of. He remembered listening to his father pleas for his youngest to answer him in that deep voice that had been imprinted on all of his children's hearts from the moment they had entered the world, and when a weak reply of "Dad!" was heard Frank had implored his son to be strong… to hold out just a little while longer to give them a chance to get him out while Jamie had turned the tables and begged not for himself, but for a promise from them that Kaylin and Eddie would be taken care of when he was gone.

He was giving up… that damn optimistic glass-half-full-forever kid was quitting on him.

"Harvard!" Danny had yelled in frustration as he sensed from the tone that his little brother might have lost most of his fight. "Don't you dare give up now or I will personally dig my way in there and kick your ass all the way back out! Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Jamie had answered. "Love you… t-too, Dan," he added before fading off into a talk with Eddie about Christmas presents and warm beaches… of wanting to surf and watch fireworks even while the rescue crew was pulling out all the stops to give him some sort of chance.

Danny later regretted the fact that he had not told his brother that he loved him back right then and there. Why had those words remained frozen in his throat? Was it because he feared the instant they left his lips there would be nothing left to say? That it would truly be over then?

Everyone listening knew they had run out of time though as the talk had shifted to Jamie not being afraid as he said his goodbyes and begged for Eddie to take their little girl to the beach alone even as she desperately tried to assure him that they would go together. No one had really expected that would come true at the time, especially not his older brother who stood helplessly outside and waited for the inevitable to happen.

"P'ease t-take her to… beach, Ed... It's w-warm there..." Jamie had managed once more before growing suddenly quiet again as those were the last words anyone from above could distinguish over Rick's sudden shouting and Eddie's cries to Jamie to keep fighting before she was unceremoniously carried over to the open hole by George and dragged through by the waiting firefighters to join them on the outside.

Was that it? Was it over now?

Danny had watched numbly as his father stepped forward to grab Eddie as she cried out and struggled to go back before he himself had pressed as close as anyone would permit to the opening to wait while the airbags were being inflated… while his brother's heart would almost surely stop beating... as it did in fact.

He held his breath as a few loose bricks cascaded down from the broken facade of the building and shouting could be heard from inside. Within a minute, the yellow backboard was seen at the window as Rick and George pushed it through to the medics and firemen who quickly placed it on the waiting stretcher while he tried to run forward to be near… to let his little brother know he was there, but the body laying there was so still and ghostly pale...

It couldn't possibly be him, could it?

Jamie was always in perpetual motion, even in his sleep as if he didn't have enough time to get everything done during his waking hours...

Sounds were fading away. Danny barely heard Rick shouting to charge the paddles or the medic's confirmation of "Asystole!" as she started chest compressions while the second bagged him and hit a button on the waiting equipment. "Charging to 200!"

He watched, stunned as Jamie's chance at life was quickly disappearing while his limp body jumped again with another surge of electricity... Eddie had now collapsed to the ground in spite of all his father's efforts…

Danny could hear those words already, the ones that would be waiting for them at the hospital to be delivered by some nice, concerned-looking doctor with gray hair… "We're very sorry, but despite our best efforts…"

Nothing changed as Rick took over and frantically continued CPR while they tried again… and again… and again... as everyone looked on in disbelief. Danny had wanted nothing more at that moment than to see his brother wake up and his anger at the situation soon spilled out and became apparent.

"Open them, goddamnit!" he had shouted as Wilson and Renzulli had gripped his arms and tried stop him from following the stretcher towards the waiting ambulance. "OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES! C'mon kid, please just one more time!" he pleaded. "Don't do this to me!"

"Hey, guys stop, please! Don't do that to me!" Jamie begged as he came to almost immediately from where he had fallen on the basketball court floor and his eyes opened once more and focused on the faces above before he propped himself up slightly on one elbow. "Jesus, remind me never to take another nosedive in front of a room full of first responders," he griped as firm hands pushed him back down and the former adversarial bull in a china shop, Bomb Squad Commander John Rehrig, had his fingers pressed on the side of Jamie's neck taking his pulse with one eye on his watch.

"Weak and thready," he reported as Danny reached their side. "He's diaphoretic. I think we should get a bus. Matt! Call it in!" he thundered as Jamie's teammate was frantically fumbling for his phone at the bench. "Did anyone see if he hit his head?"

"No, no, and NO!" Jamie asserted with renewed resistance as he pushed the hands away before managing to sit up further while he bent his knees and wrapped his hands around them to steady himself. "NO BUS! I'm fine! C'mon, guys I just got a little light headed there for a second is all and of course I'm sweating, John… you just chased me up and down the court for the last ten minutes! Give me a second to get some air, will ya?! The last thing I freaking need right now is another trip into the ER. Please!"

"Your call, Danny," Rehrig advised as he took the decision away from Jamie and placed it in the older Reagan brother's hands. "If it were me, I'd send him," he added.

"Kid… he's right. Maybe we should..." Danny started before Jamie read between the lines and started to scramble back up to his feet, pausing for a second as three pairs of hands steadied him as he swayed slightly.

"I'M FINE! See! I just overdid it a little," he insisted once more as he regained his balance and walked over to the bench to grab a more comfortable seat and his water bottle as his brother hovered closely behind and the pair were soon surrounded by a tight half circle of six other concerned faces.

"Hey, guys, give us a second," Danny demanded as he knew he was more likely to be able to talk some sense into his little brother without an audience. He waited until the area cleared before starting back in. "Jay, seriously... I get that you don't want another ride in a rig, but at least let me drive you down to St. Vic's to get checked out, okay? After everything you went through last month we can't be too careful."

"Aw, c'mon Dan," Jamie begged as he squinted up against the lights at his big brother's worried face. "Eddie will have an absolute fit if she hears about this. I barely got her to let me out of the apartment alone to come here tonight as it was, and I've already got an appointment with my cardiologist, Dr. Abrams, for a stress test tomorrow morning, okay? If there's anything wrong he'll pick up on it then. I go in tonight and there's no shot in hell that I get cleared for full duty tomorrow."

"Well maybe that's a good thing, Harvard," Danny frowned. "You shouldn't be out there yet if something like this could happen. All it takes is one phone call to Dad…" he threatened.

"And I'll be sure to return that favor at a later date if you do that," Jamie growled right back. "Look, I'm alright now. I just stood up too fast and things spun for a second. I'm not having a heart attack for God's sake, Danny."

"Another one, you mean," his brother reminded him as he recalled once again those forty terrifying minutes after Jamie had been pulled from under the beam where the hypothermia and shock had sent him into a cardiac arrhythmia before stopping his heart altogether as Rick and the paramedics on scene, and later the doctors at the hospital had struggled to restart it. Danny noted the stubborn-set jawline of his little brother and weighed that against the kerfuffle a call for an ambulance or worse… to his father or Eddie herself… would cause and he backed down as a normal coloring had already returned to Jamie's face and he was not showing any further signs of distress at the moment. Still, the kid had just bought himself an escort home for the night and a ride to that appointment tomorrow as Danny had the day off and no trust whatsoever that Jamie would bring up any of this to his doctor in an effort to get himself reinstated for duty.


And so Jamie has picked up an "overbearing and irritating watchdog" to use his later words that will accompany him to the cardiac appointment and see to it that the doctor is fully advised of the previous night's episode. What follows gives Danny pause to reflect on the rest of the events from the night of the explosion as well as maybe an opportunity to pilfer a bit of information out of his younger brother while his guard is down regarding that little trip up to Rochester to meet Eva Janko.