When his boss sends him off to check on Beatrice Donelly at her home he honestly expects it to be a simple assignment. It isn't supposed to be anything more than just turning up and ringing the doorbell but he can see the man through the side window and waiting for a patrol car just doesn't seem like an option.
'Beatrice are you alright?' he hammers on the glass but gets no response. He can hear upset mumbling behind the door but he can't make out what they are saying. Ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door has no effect. And his call of 'Police, open up.' Results in the two figures behind the door moving further into the house. He can't leave Beatrice alone with a killer, he just can't.
He steels himself, he knows it's going to hurt but there isn't really an option. He kicks the window and it doesn't even crack, He tries again with more force. It feels like someone is stabbing him in the back. On the fourth try a wide crack appears in the glass and on the fifth it actually breaks. He pushes his arm through the window and unlocks the door. His back is screaming at him but he pushes forward.
He stumbles into the living room to find Ashton and Beatrice standing at arms length just staring at each other. 'Police, please step away from the girl.' James hisses through gritted teeth.
He can hear the screech of a car pulling to a stop outside. He forces himself to take shallow breaths, steeling himself to stay on his feet. He doesn't think he'd be able to take Ashton in a fight, not when he can barely stand straight.
Then Keiran Donnely and his inspector burst through the door and it is not the suspect he had initially expected to have to restrain which he is latching onto. He can barely hear the angry ranting, all he is focused on is keeping a tight grip on the raging man's arm. It works until there is a viscous twisting of the man he is trying to hold back and something twinges painfully in his back sending him to the floor.
He is only half listening to Beatrice's desperate begging. A vague pleading of 'protect me, protect me now.' Seems to filter through and it feels thoroughly annoyed that this is all James has been trying to do and now it seems he can't move without spikes of agony shooting up his back. The room grows gradually more still and the panic seems to ebb away.
'Sir, sir please.' James pleads and Robbie Lewis finally looks down and for the first time notices that his sergeant is slumped against the doorframe a bright sheen of sweat on his forehead and his features distorted in pain.
'James, oh no. Is it your back, did you do it in?' He asks, placing a very careful palm on James' back over the brace that is still in place but hardly powerful enough for the kind of acrobatics James has just tried to produce.
'That's one word for it.' James groans.
'Ok lie down. I'm going to call an ambulance.' Robbie suggests.
'Nope, I'm not moving if I can help it.' James argues. His own hand has reached back to join his boss' on the small of his back.
Before the paramedics have time to arrive he finds himself pitching forward and being violently sick onto the Donnely's carpet and he silently curses his own stupid reaction to being in pain. Why can't he just cry and scream like a normal person. Robbie's hands are there carefully guiding him to lie down on his side holding him steady. There's something soft being placed under his head and his boss' gentle hand steadying the back of his neck.
James feels stupid. There had been no real need to break that window. If he finds himself chronically injured after this it won't be because he saved someone's life, it will be because he tried to play hero unnecessarily.
Lying still on his side calms the pain down to a dull throbbing and he's able to carefully turn his head and look up at his boss. 'I was only trying to help.' He offers weakly and Lewis, his brow wrinkled in worry gives him a wry grin.
'Aren't you always.' He responds 'silly lad.' But there's no bite to his comment and the hand that was supporting James' neck comes up to brush over James' short hair.
The ambulance isn't long arriving and he's soon strapped to a hard board and loaded into it. The last trip to A&E had seemed mildly amusing, painful, but all rather silly, this time it is a haze of pain and the faint awareness that people are talking about him in hushed tones outside his room rather than to his face and James knows it isn't a joke this time.
The medical staff's grave faces mean that diagnosis is rather faster this time. He's instantly whipped off for x rays and his DI hasn't even had time to arrive before a serious looking doctor informs him that he has been incredibly stupid, that what was a minor fracture is now a proper one and if he doesn't take it easy, rest and heal he could end up paralysed. They strap him into a more solid back brace than the one he had before and shoot him full of morphine.
It doesn't take long before they find that morphine doesn't agree with him when he starts throwing up violently, his head pounding and his whole body trembling slightly. They shoot him up with some sort of strong sedative and by the time Robbie walks into the cubicle a nurse is sat next to him holding a paper bowl in one hand and rubbing circles over James' shoulder with the other.
He looks terrible Robbie notes as he walks up and places his hand carefully on the blanket over James' legs. 'Will he be alright?' He asks the nurse hesitantly.
She smiles up at him indulgently. 'His back is broken and he's not responding well to the pain medication but as long as he rests and follows medical advice he should be fine. We just need to guard against nerve damage.' She promises and Robbie breathes a sigh of relief. For a moment there he had feared much, much worse.
He takes over from the nurse, sitting with James, holding his head when he throws up again, and patiently waits until James is taken up to a ward and tucked into a room next to an old man with a broken hip. James is pretty out of it. He wakes occasionally to mumble vague apologies about being stupid, tell Robbie his back really hurts and he's feeling sick and then fall asleep again. It's disconcerting but the doctors tell him that it's just a reaction to the medication James has been given. Robbie hopes it's the truth because when the nurses shoo him out and tell him he can come back again tomorrow he still hasn't been able to have a lucid conversation with his young partner.
Not managing morphine well turns out to be rather unfortunate as James comes back home with nothing stronger than paracetamol to handle the throbbing pain that is his lower back. After a week in hospital he's grouchy and bored and seriously arguing that surely he can come back to work at least part time. Robbie is dubious and in the end finds himself taking a week of holiday just so that he can stay home with his ailing sergeant.
James grumbles but in the end they have quite a nice week of take away and watching re-runs of old Agatha Christie mysteries. James doesn't complain about the constant pain but after a few days of sleeping on James' sofa Robbie does and they come to the mutual agreement that it will be better for all parties involved in Robbie in fact goes home to sleep.
They are both relieved when the doctor agrees that James is allowed to come back to work for part time desk duty. Sitting in the office for more than a few hours at a time is unmanageable, but James spends as much time as he can in the office, popping paracetamol like they were sweets and making swift work of Robbie's backlog of paperwork for which he is greatly thankful.
In the end it takes nearly five months before the brace comes off and James is once again back to his old self. Even then there is a slight hesitancy in the way he moves and Robbie is frightfully conscious of the fact that his sergeant is not by any means as invincible as he sometimes likes to let on.