A/N: Big thanks to MariaLisa for her beta, support and encouragement. Big thanks to Peanut2lb for her honest reaction. Thanks, y'all are the best.
Rated M for the language again. sigh
DISCLAIMERS: The CSI:NY characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and the wonderful writers for CSI: NY. However everything else is mine.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Sometimes in hours of pain and grief,
We wish for things that can never be.
-Sally Jetson
Why was her skin tingling as if a thousand needles were pricking her from head to toe? And her head… pounding… her throat so dry…. thirsty… so thirsty. She fought to drag open eyelids only to have them to snap shut again when her pupils encountered the bright light.
"Ow," she moaned softly.
A hand stroking her hair; another gently squeezing her hand; a foul smell infiltrating her senses.
"Danny?" her voice barely registering in her own ears.
"Hey Montana, feeling rested after that little cat nap?" His words were playful but underneath… underneath… she could hear it… tension, worry and… undeniable relief.
"Hurts… the light..."
The chair scraped across the floor and then comforting, enveloping darkness. With gratefulness she forced open leaden eyelids.
He switched on a small lamp as he sat on the bed beside her, reaching for her hand, clasping it with both of his, placing a gentle kiss on each finger.
He looked horrible; eyes red-rimmed and weary, hair spiking every which way, clothes dank and reeking of… of… fishy seawater.
"Oh my God… Danny…"
It came rushing back… like a blow… or a thrown bag that she hadn't been quick enough to duck.
"I remember…I was so…" her voice breaking before she could finish.
"Linds, it's all over… let's not talk about it now. You came out okay. I came out okay…"
His voice trailed off and he bowed his head pressing it against their intertwined hands, seemingly lost in thought… or prayer.
"Danny, what is it? What's happened?" Her voice cracked in panic at the thought of the worst possible scenario.
A shaft of light cut across her face forcing her to turn her head to avoid the pain it caused in her eyes.
"Danny, are you and Lindsay okay?" Caitlin's near frantic voice reached her ears.
"Ma, yeah we're… we're okay."
Lindsay's heart ached when she heard his tattered and teetering emotions finally emerging in his voice.
She turned and opened her eyes again after the door was gently closed, extinguishing the offending light. The weight on the bed shifted as Caitlin wrapped Danny into a fierce mama bear hug. She looked, but couldn't see beyond Caitlin and Danny to see who had shut the door.
"Ma…I couldn't…" His voice finally broke as she soothed a hand along the back of his head, his arms tightening around her slender waist, his words muffled against her neck. "Maybe I reacted too rashly but it was the only way out I could see."
"Danny," she lifted his face from her shoulder, hands flanking it as she stared into his eyes, her own soft and misty. "He has a fighting chance. That's what the surgeon said. We'll have to wait until they finish the procedure but…we'll pray for the best."
He pressed the back of his arm to his eyes, nodding mutely.
"Now you must get out of these clothes before you come down with something."
"Ma, I can't leave Lindsay. She just came to."
"Danny, you reek, go change." Caitlin's firm voice was bridging no argument. "I'll sit with Lindsay until you return."
"C'mon Danny. I agree with your ma, you smell like someone whose been working on the fish docks and that isn't a compliment."
"Uncle Sal!" Danny's voice brightened slightly in relief as the older man embraced him firmly in spite of his ripe state.
"Thanks for being here with Ma."
"Think nothing of it." Uncle Sal reassured in his thick but melodic accent.
"The attending physician said he had an extra change of clothes in his locker that you could wear." Caitlin encouraged.
"Linds?" He looked at her questioningly
Waving her hand to urge him on, she replied in a scratchy voice, "Go… and grab a shower if you can."
He swept a gentle kiss across her forehead and gave her hand a quick squeeze. "I'll be back ASAP."
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Fresh from a shower and in clean clothes, Danny sat down on the bench next to Uncle Sal mimicking his pose, legs spread, forearms resting on thighs, bending forward in contemplation.
"Got you a cup of coffee."
"Thanks." Danny took a grateful gulp folding his fingers around the warmth of the cup. He wasn't sure how many hours he'd been awake now. He only knew it was sometime in the wee hours of the morning, creeping up on dawn.
"Danny, Joe is tough. He'll weather this."
"I hope so Uncle Sal, but… I should have handled it better, that gun shouldn't have gone off…Dad shouldn't have…"
"Danny that's three shoulds too many… I trust that you did the best you could under the circumstances."
Danny shook his head in vehement disagreement, gripping the Styrofoam cup as tightly as he could without crushing it.
"Nah… if I had just held on to it a little longer…"
"Danny, if you had held onto it a little longer, one of you, if not all of you, could have been killed."
"You know the irony of it all?" He focused weary, blue eyes on comforting, dark ones. "I went into this praying to God that I wouldn't lose Lindsay and I came out realizing I didn't want to lose him as well."
He set the coffee cup down on the bench beside him and leaned back. He agitatedly thrust his palms up over his face and around to the back of his neck interlacing his fingers.
"All those years… not understanding him… not connecting with him… in fact, wishing most of the time… wishing you were my dad."
Danny dropped his head in self-disgust at his admission, ashamed of himself for having those thoughts.
Uncle Sal sighed heavily, shifting his weight upright, and laid a hand on Danny's shoulder.
"Danny I know you and Joe haven't always seen eye to eye but he's…," Danny dropped his hands and stared at Uncle Sal as he uncharacteristically struggled with his words.
"He's always loved you… even if he didn't always show it. He did right by you. He's a good man."
Uncle Sal suddenly looked away and took another swallow of coffee while Danny continued to stare at him. A flicker of pained recollection crossed his face.
"Christ! Siete un buon uomo, il mio figlio." Danny murmured.
"What?"
"That is what he said to me when I insisted that he wear my coat right before we boarded the cruiser."
"It's true, Danny." Uncle Sal's eyes were full of pain and something else he couldn't quite put a finger on.
"I don't feel like a good man." Danny forced out a shaky breath full of self-loathing, his voice rising in frustration, "I feel like a fuckin' failure that nearly got two people killed… and for what… just because Nicky Roselli got to me again?"
Uncle Sal palmed the back of Danny's neck giving him a sobering shake.
"Danny, don't do this to yourself… don't go down that road again. You'll be no good to Joe, your ma or Lindsay if you do."
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"Caitlin, I'm so sorry about Joe. Danny really did the best he could under the circumstances." Lindsay croaked as Caitlin settled in the chair beside the bed, grasping Lindsay's hand.
"It's…" Caitlin took a deep breath, tears pooling in her eyes. "it's not Danny's fault… never has been. He's just been the misfortunate pawn in the midst of all this. Nicky Roselli has been a thorn in Joe's side even before I met Joe."
Lindsay sensed that Caitlin needed to unburden herself.
"Nicky mentioned something about his sister Sophia and Joe," she gently prodded.
"Aye, Nicky's mother died when he was very young and Sophia was much older, so she, on all counts, raised him. He adored her and when… when… Joe broke up with her I think she was devastated but that was right before Joe and I met so…" She ran a hand through her hair as she continued. "I'm very fuzzy on the details. Joe's never really discussed it with me."
"And?" Lindsay's sixth sense discerned more to the story.
The tears began to spill one by one onto Caitlin's cheeks as she stared at a point somewhere beyond Lindsay's head.
"She committed suicide on the day that we were married."
"How tragic, I'm so sorry." Lindsay caught Caitlin's pained eyes with her own sending a silent message of empathy as the shock momentarily blocked any comforting words.
"It's all in the past; I just wished Nicky could see it that way. He really did a number on Danny all those years ago and now I'm..."
Lindsay squeezed Caitlin's hand conveying her shared support for the man that they both held dear to their hearts.
"I'm hoping that Salvatore can help Danny keep his wits about him… not blame himself for what happened to Joe." Caitlin's voice turned inexplicably wistful. "Salvatore has always had a way with Danny… he's always been there for him… he's…" Caitlin pressed her hand across her eyes and took a deep, tremulous breath.
"What is it, Caitlin? Is there anything that I can help you with?" Lindsay offered in soothing support.
Caitlin looked up suddenly, her face stricken with grief and pain.
"Promise me Lindsay, that whatever happens that you'll be there for Danny… please… I can't bear to lose another son."
Her head spun and her breath quickened as she sat up in bed and embraced Caitlin.
"Don't worry… I will… I love him as much as you do. Nothing will ever keep me away from him," she promised, as she tightened her arms around Caitlin's trembling shoulders.
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"I must say Montana, green suits you," Danny teased softly as they walked towards the surgery waiting area.
The attending physician had cleared Lindsay to be released and they had received word that Joe had come through the surgery and was in recovery.
"You're just saying that 'cause I'm not wearing anything underneath." She fully appreciated his need to lighten the mood now they knew that Joe was out of the woods.
"Now you're just teasin' me Montana, and that ain't fair."
He slid his arm around her and let it ride low on her waist. Her smile deepened.
"No, I'll tell you what's not fair, Cowboy. It's that you get to wear regular clothes while I have to walk around the hospital totally naked underneath these paper-thin hospital scrubs."
"Can I help it if there was an attending physician my size with extra clothes in his locker?" Danny mocked innocently, his grin splitting his face from ear to ear as he gazed down at her.
The pink bloom had finally returned to her cheeks and her hair curled wildly about her face as it dried from the cleansing shower she had emerged from just moments ago.
It had been agonizing sitting on that same bench that he and Uncle Sal had shared earlier waiting for her to emerge from the shower, feeling guilty as hell that he was imagining the water cascading over her sensuous curves instead of how his dad was faring in recovery.
Messer sometimes you're just a guy and sometimes not a very good one at that, he had taunted himself.
His thoughts had sharply returned to Nicky Roselli and the events of the past several hours. His fists had involuntarily clenched, and his heart raced, as the heat of hatred swept through his body. He had to force himself to take deep, calming breaths.
Uncle Sal was right. He couldn't let this business with Nicky do a number on his head. They'd all come through it okay.
She slipped her warm, comforting hand into his, tugging, and he dropped into a chair beside her. He glanced around as he heard murmuring voices but didn't see any other people in the waiting room. It had been strategically planned; well placed dividers topped with fresh greenery gave privacy to worried and anxious people as they waited for news on the outcome of the surgery on their loved ones.
He leaned his head back, content to let the white haze of murmurings lull him. With Lindsay resting her head on his shoulder, her reassuring scent surrounding him and her breath beginning to deepen; he began to slip into a peaceful slumber himself… until…
distinct murmurings filtered over the greenery…
"I'm so worried…." A soft, lilting voice began.
testing his consciousness.
"He came through it okay." a deeper more exotic voice reassured.
The voices were so full of anxiety and pain…
"I don't know if I can do this again. It was hard enough last time."
and so familiar.
"I'll make you the same promise now that I made you years ago when that gypsy cab driver almost took out him and Danny. I'll take care of you if anything happens to him. I swear."
Why were they discussing him as if…
"I can't ask you to do that. With Louie's medical bills we are strapped. I can't ask you to take on the responsibility."
he wasn't there?
"But you agreed to it last time, why not now?"
He knew the voices but…
"You know why Salvatore..."
they didn't realize he was there.
"Why? Because Louie is not mine, but Danny is? You know that doesn't matter to me, I've always cared about you."
The cold water of comprehension hit his mind as the fury burned in his gut, twisting the knife of deception deep in his heart. Jumping to his feet, he jolted Lindsay from her deep sleep, oblivious to her shock and surprise.
"Danny, what's going on?"
"You bastard" he snarled though clenched teeth as he barreled around the divider, fist raised ready to deliver a blow to angled jaw.
Uncle Sal, though surprised, leapt to his feet gripping Danny's wrist securely, before it had a chance to make impact.
"Danny, calm down!"
"You fuckin' bastard, you have no right to tell me what to do."
"Danny, I know it's a shock but Salvatore's right" Caitlin was on her feet reaching a trembling hand toward Danny.
Danny wrenched his wrist from Uncle Sal's grip and stepped back quickly out of her reach.
"You, why didn't you tell me? Why did you just let me believe… all those fuckin' awful years with… Dad," Danny choked on the last word.
"Danny, I'm sorry," Caitlin pleaded softly, her eyes begging for understanding, "But this wasn't just about you. There was your Aunt Teresa and your cousin, Michael to consider."
"Aunt Teresa, Dad's sister." Danny's eyes narrowed. "How could you do that to her, Ma? And Michael….," his voice fractured in anguish as he gritted out each word. "He wasn't my cousin, Ma. He- was- my- brother! All those years…wishing."
"Danny, I had to do what was best for everyone at the time."
"Oh, that's rich Ma! Is that what you were thinking when you spread your legs for him?
He shot Uncle Sal a withering glance. Uncle Sal's dark eyes flickered in pain but he met Danny's gaze unflinchingly as he stated quietly but firmly, "It wasn't like that, Danny."
Danny ignored him as his face twisted in disgust towards Caitlin.
"How many times Ma? I bet it was my whole fuckin' life wasn't it, Ma? You never loved Dad. He's just a paycheck to you isn't he? No wonder he works all the fuckin' time."
Danny's head jerked to the right as Caitlin's hand made a resounding strike against his cheek.
"Don't- you- ever- say- that- I- don't- love- your- father!" Caitlin spat out, her chest heaving, the blue of her eyes deepened by the storm raging inside her.
Danny trained his eyes on the floor, his jaw working furiously.
Her voice softened. "Danny, have you ever reacted in the heat of the moment and made a mistake?"
Caitlin stepped closer to him and placed a hand on his upper arm. "Has it messed up your life so badly you thought you weren't going to be able to piece it all together again? But then you had someone there to help you pick up the pieces, make sense of it and go on?"
"I know you remember that, Danny."
He nodded slightly then looked up at her, his eyes red and rimmed with tears, his face contorted in pain and loathing.
Sucking in a deep breath he replied evenly, "I remember…"
A quivering smile began to spread along Caitlin's face.
But his voice contained the calm before the storm as he spoke, "But that person isn't who I thought she was, in fact, I don't think she ever existed."
He shrugged off her hand and glared at her until she took a step back.
"Danny, don't do this." Her face began to crumple. Salvatore placed steadying hands on her shoulders.
"You've already done it, Ma."
He stared at Uncle Sal in disgust, before turning and striding down the hall, ferociously pushing both hospital doors open as he disappeared into the pre-dawn light.
Lindsay stood rooted in shock.
It only took a moment for Caitlin to spring into action. Wiping tears from her eyes, she approached Lindsay and firmly clasped her hands.
"Lindsay, remember what I said about being there for Danny?" Caitlin's voice came out in an agonizing whisper, raw and pained.
Lindsay forced dry air down her scratchy throat as she nodded at Caitlin.
"Please, take care of him. Until he calms down and works through this you're all he has to turn to."
Lindsay mentally shook off her shock but it was more than a few seconds before she could manipulate her mouth to move. Finally she squeezed Caitlin's hands. "Don't worry. I promise I'll be there for him."
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A/N: I know I promised D/L hot and it is coming in the next chapter, I swear. It is already written and out for beta'ing. SJ