6

2. Reflections

"Dammit, Elena! I don't need this right now! You stupid-"

Staring out the window at the pouring rain, he paid little attention to his parents' fighting. If it could be called that; his mother just sat there, crying, a hand over her mouth. His father's Spanish filled the car, hurting his ears, but he tried to tune him out. The sky was so pretty today, so many different blues…

"And you!"

That was when he turned his head to look at his father. Everyone always said how much he looked like the man, and yet he hoped he'd never look like he did now; face red, cheeks hot, eyes glaring holes through everything. Bored, he looked back out the window. A slap rang across his cheek, but strangely, he felt the pain all over.

"Look at me, Danny!" He didn't .Another few slaps resulted. His mother finally got up the courage to speak.

"No! Leave him alone-"

His father hit her. Just punched her, like it was nothing. He was paying attention now.

"Cut it out, Dad…"

"What's he saying?"

"I don't know. Sounds like Spanish."

The man turned on him as his mother curled into a ball on her seat. He'd always remembered that face, and what his father had said, remembered it like yesterday.

"You idiot boy! Doesn't even know how to pull his weight in this family. Doesn't care about his family- he let his brother get into trouble before him, and look where Alejandro is now! You'll never be a man, you little-"

"No, no… I didn't mean to…"

"Danny? Danny."

"I don't think he can hear you, Jack."

But what he remembered most clearly of all, even more so than his father's face, was the humongous shipping truck that had appeared in the windshield behind the face. The colors painted on the side were bright red and white, and showed a smiling cow leaning on a cardboard milk carton. They flashed wetly in the headlights before they smashed through the windshield, through his parents, and into him.

For what seemed like an eternity, he sat there, in the seat of that old car, all those years ago, waiting. Waiting for someone to come, waiting for his mother to wake up. All the while, his father's glazed, dead eyes gazed at him accusingly as they wept crimson. All of his mother he could see was her hand, sticking out from under the dash. Later he found out that that had not been connected to the rest of her, and was the biggest recognizable piece they could find.

But just as it had so many years ago, the night came, swift and terrible, to make their macabre faces (or what was left of them) so much more frightening. Just as he had then, he'd closed his eyes and willed someone to come. And just as they had then, someone did come.

It was the crunch of shoes on shattered glass that alerted him to their presence. His eyes drifting open, he made out the bur of color that was their face. That was not the woman who had come to him, all those years ago, the one will the golden curls and blue eyes and the Pampers clutched in her hand.

No, it wasn't even a woman, and he wore a uniform, and a bright light on his head that burned his eyes. Shutting them quickly, he lay still. Then someone was pulling him from the wrecked car, laying him down on something soft. Gradually, he began to pick up voices, shouting back and forth to one another. His sluggish brain worked feverishly to understand what they were saying; it was all so confusing… this hadn't happened before…

"Hispanic male, 35…"

"… for a pulse?"

"Unsteady… 25 to 30 BPM…"

"What do we got?"

"Multiple shrapnel wounds… hemorrhaging from the mouth and head… possible concussion…"

"Unconscious… breathing unstable…"

Someone was pumping up and down on his chest, trying to force air into his lungs. It wasn't working, he noted. There was a voice in his ear then, loud and echoing weirdly, unfamiliar.

"Sir, if you can hear me, you need to breathe, all right?"

He tried. A weak, pitiful coughing fit ensued, nonetheless wracking his body. The voices became even more urgent.

"…blood… possible case of hemoptysis…"

Something was pressed over his mouth, giving him strength: an oxygen mask. He was moving, but not on his own, being lifted, lifted into something. Doors slammed. An engine revved. A siren sounded. There was a buzz around him -- or was it in his head? -- two people talking, not to him, but about him. Then one spoke to him directly, closer than any of the others had been.

"Breathe. Danny, you have to breathe. Come on, Danny…"

Very carefully, very cautiously, he began to, his breaths short and shallow but nonetheless there. The light that met his eyes when he first opened them stung fiercely with its intensity, illuminating anxious faces that were peering at him through the darkness. Separating into individual blobs, it sharpened into the interior of an ambulance, as well as a pale, drawn face he recognized immediately. His voice was weak and pained, but still clear.

"Jack?"

The oxygen mask distorted his voice beyond recognition. On the third try, he managed to raise a leaden hand to grope at his face, to pull it off. He barely managed it before a hand caught his, much stronger and controlled.

"Jack? Jack, what the hell is going on? Where am I…?"

His boss's gaze, with relief, found his.

"I'm here. Just take it easy. You're… hurt."

Shifting weakly, he tried to make sense of what had happened. It came running back to him like a loyal dog. The drive, the hit men, Martin…

Martin.

He sat up, a remarkable feat, especially with Jack's hand on his shoulder, pushing him down. "They took him, Jack… I need to go find him, he needs help, they shot him-"

Healthy and whole as he was, Jack pushed him back down. "Jeez, I said take it-" He stopped, his brow wrinkling as he processed his agent's comment. "Who?"

"Martin. They've got Martin."

"What are you talking about? Martin called in sick just before they called me about you." Jack shook his head. "What the hell happened? There was at least five clips in your car, and I'm not talking about the stuff in the glove box."

"It was the Spanish guys. They had guns…" Danny trailed off, unsure of what to think. Something dawned on him.

"Was it Martin who called?"

"No. It was his father."

"What time is it?"

Puzzled, Jack glanced at his watch. "Ten of six."

"Dammit. Six hours already. That leaves… eighteen." His breathing quickened as dizziness floated through his head. Jack steadied him, his eyes like a mother's.

"Easy. You've lost a lot of blood." Jack stopped for a minute, scrutinizing his injured agent. "Look, I'll get Sam to take Martin some soup. In the meantime, I want you to get checked out; not a lot of people walk away from these kind of accidents. After that, come in when you feel up to it."

Danny hesitated for a moment, as if planning to disobey, to insist that he was fine and the blood he'd just coughed up was nothing, but he sighed and gave up, nodding and closing his eyes. "All right."

The ambulance howled on through the streets of Manhattan.