My thanks to Heidi Black 14 for the reviews. :) I appreciate everyone who has favorited or followed this story - it's motivated me to finish it. This chapter should wrap things up, although I may return to this crossover universe sometime. It's been fun.
Not mine, don't own. Any errors are mine. I'm not a medical professional, but I've tried to take good care of Mr. Wolfe.
Ryan lay on the hospital bed, counting ceiling tiles. Thankfully, visiting hours had finally ended, and Mac had taken Horatio with him. As much as Ryan craved approval from his boss, so much attention from H at once was overwhelming.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Wolfe?"
"Can I get you anything, Mr. Wolfe?"
"Ryan, your job at the lab is secure."
That last statement had led to Mac politely excusing himself to get coffee. Real communication had flowed between the two men from Miami after he had left, and, for that, Ryan was grateful. H had apologized for making Ryan feel as though he had to "man up" and not show any weakness from his Russian ordeal; Ryan told H he was sorry that his boss had to fly to another state to clean up his mess.
"Mr. Wolfe, I've been thinking," H had started, pausing in the middle of a thought as he often did. "You need time off to recover."
Ryan, still attached to a nasal cannula with an IV in his arm, had nodded.
"I think ... it would be an unwise course of action for you to file a Workers' Compensation claim. You would be entitled, of course, since you were still on the clock when you were abducted. But we do not want IAB looking into this. The facts are not in your favor ... and Rick, as you know, is an asshole."
The deadpan way in which H had delivered the line had brought a smile to Ryan's face. The redhead had given him a small smile in return before he tipped his head and looked at his underling with sad eyes. "Mr. Wol - Ryan, I don't want you to worry about this. I'll take care of your medical bills."
"H -" Ryan had begun to protest, but Horatio had held up his hand.
"Mr. Wolfe, I have inadvertently created a work environment in which you don't feel safe asking for help -"
"H, that is not your fault," Ryan had insisted.
Horatio had pursed his lips together and shook his head. "I should have followed up when we couldn't reach you the other night. I thought ... someone else had confirmed you were all right."
Ryan had swallowed hard. "Someone else" would have been Eric or Calleigh. Probably Eric, since they were always butting heads. Which meant that the secret couple had put their newfound relationship ahead of the job. Ahead of his life. The battered CSI could feel tears threatening again, and he had silently cursed himself for being so weak.
H, ever vigilant, had noticed Ryan's reaction and gave the younger man's hand a small squeeze. "When you are well enough to return to work, we need to sit down as a team and talk about this, Mr. Wolfe." Horatio had pulled away to stare at the floor, sighing deeply. "Mistakes were made by all of us, and that nearly cost you your life."
Ryan couldn't disagree with that. He had shifted on the bed to put less pressure on his sore ribs.
"I'm placing you on special assignment, all right? That will hold Rick off for awhile. I'll have the forms faxed up here."
Ryan, recalling all of this now, was on his 348th ceiling tile when he heard a slight creak at the door. His senses immediately went on high alert. The nurses were certainly never this quiet.
"Hello?" he called out, surprised at how creaky his voice sounded. He tried to peer around the curtain drape surrounding most of the bed.
A blond man in tennis shoes and a Yankees cap poked his head into Ryan's space, a finger to his lips. "Shh! I had to bribe a nurse to let me in."
"Danny! What're you doing here?" Ryan struggled to raise himself into a sitting position.
Danny dropped a duffel on the window sill. "Hawkes told me they admitted you. I thought you might want your stuff." He twisted his lips and stared out the window, which, unfortunately, faced a cement wall. "And, I, uh ... I wanted to apologize." Danny shoved his hands into the pockets of jeans and studied the floor as Ryan stared at him, dumbfounded.
"You don't have to do that," Ryan replied, his voice gravelly. "You were just looking out for me. I should be apologizing to you for dragging you in the middle of this." He cleared his throat, awkwardly, and Danny handed him the cup of water that was just out of reach. Ryan took a few sips from the straw before handing it back with a slight cough.
"You doin' all right?" Danny fixed his eyes on Ryan, pinning him with his gaze so that the younger man couldn't squirm out of the question.
Ryan shifted uncomfortably on the bed. He nodded.
"Docs figure anything out yet?" Danny sat on Ryan's bedside chair.
In a quiet voice, Ryan answered, "I bruised my right lung." As Danny's eyes went wide, he added, "It's not bad or anything."
Danny shook his head and grunted. "Not bad, huh? That's why they admitted you to the hospital? On account of you being so healthy and all?"
Ryan swallowed painfully and Danny helped him to get another sip of water. Once he was done drinking, Ryan replied, "I can breathe easier with the oxygen. I didn't realize how bad it was until ... you know."
"You had a panic attack," Danny supplied. He lifted his blue eyes to meet Ryan's glassy hazel ones. The younger man's pupils were blown, a side effect of the pain medication.
Ryan sighed. "Yeah. I wish you hadn't seen that," he admitted.
Danny shrugged. "What? You think nobody's ever flipped out on me before? You ever met my family?" He grinned at Ryan.
The pale young man in the hospital bed smiled. "Thanks for coming by, Danny."
"When they springing you, anyway?" The New Yorker leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the edge of Ryan's bed. Ryan tried not to focus on the potential for dirt to transfer onto his sheets. Given his luck of late, he clearly didn't need to be exposed to anything else.
"Next couple of days, if I'm lucky." As the older man nodded, Ryan said, "You need to recommend a hotel for me."
"You stayin' up here?" Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "Thought you said you an' your boss worked things out."
"We did." Ryan rubbed his left eye and pointed at the duffel. "Hand me the little blue bag in the duffel, would you?" In a flash, Ryan had popped both contact lenses out, squirted saline on them, and placed them in a small, plastic case. Adding a drop to his left eye, he smiled. "That's better." He tucked the contact case and saline back into the blue bag and tried to place it on the nearby table. Danny reached out to help Ryan before the bag dropped to the floor. "Thanks, my eyes were killing me." He blinked at the blurred image of the blond man and thought he saw a smile in return.
"How long you stayin' then?"
Ryan shrugged, a gesture that was surely painful for he winced before he could stop himself. "A week at least. H said he'd cover the hotel."
Danny lifted both eyebrows this time. "You sure? 'Cause my couch is still available."
Ryan shook his head. "Danny, I appreciate it, I really do, but I need some time alone."
"So, what then? You gonna sit in the hotel and watch soaps all day?"
The dark-haired man smiled. "Actually, H talked Mac into letting me work up here for awhile. We've got a subset of cold cases with ties to New York and this is a good time for me to research them."
Danny gawped at him. "How'd you pull that?"
Ryan shrugged. "Horatio feels bad he wasn't there for me -"
"So, he's buying you off with a research trip to New York?" Danny rolled his eyes. "Sounds more like a guilty father than a boss to me."
"Well, if H is the father, then I'm the black sheep of the family. Trouble always follows me." Ryan picked at the bedsheets, but he looked up in surprise when he heard a chuckle.
"Mac says that about me, too. He thinks I got my own personal raincloud." Danny made a face, followed by a wry grin.
Ryan returned the smile. "I guess that's why we're friends."
The blond's voice turned sober. "Good friends, huh?"
Ryan nodded. "Good friends," he repeated, yawning.
Danny stood up. "And that's my cue to leave. You take care of yourself, all right?" He looked down at Ryan. "You got my number. Call me if you need anything."
"I will, Danny," Ryan's voice was slightly slurred. "Thanks for being there for me." His eyes began to slide shut.
"No problem," Danny whispered. "G'night, Ryan. See you at work."
