Thank you as always to Hollie! Hope you enjoy this one!
Jess opened the front door to her house after finishing her late shift, shutting it quietly behind her. She lent against the door, not believing that she had just shown her Sergeant what Dan had done to her. She shut her eyes, her fingers pushed against her temples, trying to stop the pulsating in her head.
"Jess? Are you ok?" Dan asked, walking out the living room, drink in hand.
She looked up into his eyes, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just got a headache, that's all."
Dan studied her carefully, "Have you eaten and drank enough today? Did something happen? Did someone find out?"
She never could hide anything from Dan, he always found out. She sighed, dropped her bag on the floor and nodded, "I was attacked by someone in the station. Then Sergeant Stone saw the bruises, and the injury on my head. I told him it was from the attack but he's not stupid. He knew."
Dan just stood there, looking at her. Jess thought he was going to hit her again, but he simply opened his arms, wrapping them around his shaking wife. He kissed the top of her hair, reassuring her, "Are you ok? I'm presuming the person who attacked you is in custody? Don't cry sweetheart. I knew it would come out at some point, I deserved it, didn't I?"
"You're not angry? What if he says something? I mean I would never ever say anything against you..." Jess started to say before being interrupted by Dan.
"Jess, stop. Of course I'm not angry. I did this to you, I can't deny it. And if he does say something, then he is a better person than us isn't he."
"I love you Dan, that's why I haven't said anything. And our son needs both parents, doesn't he." Jess said, kissing Dan, reassuring herself with her reasons.
The next morning, Dan got up ready to go to work. Jess was off until the night shift, so Luke was staying home with her. Before he left he bent and pressed a kiss to Jess' lips.
"See you later. I love you." he whispered in her ear, before leaving the house.
The day had passed and Dan was packing up his bag, ready to head home when there was a knock at the door. He looked up, wondering who it would be.
"Come in." he shouted, looking back down at his paperwork. He heard the door open then close, and looked up. Standing right in front of his desk was Callum.
"How can you show your face here?" Callum asked, his voice a growl.
Dan sighed, shut his paperwork and looked up at Callum. Callum's fists were clenched by his side, his eyes burning, his face a picture of hatred. "I thought I would be seeing you today."
"You didn't answer my question." Callum said.
"I can show my face here because I know that Jess forgives me, because I want to seek help, because I know that I need to be a better man and husband." Dan answered, standing up as well. He was shorter than Callum; he was glad there was a solid desk between them.
"She's your wife, and she is a police officer. She is also the mother of your child." Callum stated, taking a step forward.
"You think I don't know that?! I have never felt so guilty in my life! She nearly walked out on me that night, but I convinced her to stay because I'm too damn selfish. I hate myself, I wish I could turn back time but I can't! So I'm trying to make up for it." Dan said,his anger making him taller.
"You can never make up for it. You see the cases we have of domestic abuse, and yet you do it to your own wife. Now, the only reason I'm not telling the Super is because I promised Jess, but I swear if you touch her again, I will personally make sure you never walk again. I'd watch your back from now on." Callum warned. And with one last glare to Dan, he stormed out the office. Dan just stood there, trying to calm himself down. It would do no good to get angry and then hit a police officer...but then, he did that anyway, to his wife.
Jess and Dan traded off at 7pm that night. As Dan got in, Jess was all ready to leave. Before she went, she tucked Luke up into bed and gave him a kiss goodnight.
"See you in the morning, honey. Sleep well, I love you." she whispered to her son, smoothing the covers around him. His vibrant green eyes watched her as she left the room, and then she pulled his door to and shut the gate. Jess got down the stairs and was pulling her shoes on when Dan came out.
"Sergeant Stone spoke to me today." Dan said.
Jess froze, "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, he said that if I touched you again he would personally make sure I never walked again." Dan said in a hard voice.
"What?! He said that to you? Just wait until I get to work..." Jess began.
"No Jess, I deserved it. Everything he said was true." Dan said, his head hanging.
"Dan, would you stop saying that! It's over, you've promised that you'll never touch me again. I forgave you! I'll talk to him. Right, I've got to go otherwise I'll be late. Luke's all tucked up, so I'll see you in the morning. Love you!" Jess reached up and kissed Dan, then walked out the house. Dan stood there for a while, before retreating into the living room, heading towards the drink cabinet.
Jess got in just as Smithy was finishing the briefing. She spotted Callum at the front, and immediately glared at him. He just raised one eyebrow, infuriating Jess even further.
"Ah PC Waite, nice of you to join us. You're partnered with me tonight seeing as you were the last one here. Alright everyone, off you go!" Smithy said, dismissing them all.
Jess fought through the crowd of her colleagues to where Callum had been standing, but he wasn't there anymore.
"Sarge, do you know where Sergeant Stone went?" Jess asked Smithy, craning her head around the room.
"Yeah he's gone to the office. Can I help you?" Smithy asked, watching her as she looked around.
"Uh no, it's ok. I'll be back in a minute, I just need to talk to him about the case yesterday." Jess said, walking off before Smithy could say another word.
Jess didn't even bother knocking. She slammed the door behind her, pleased that Callum looked slightly concerned seeing her there.
"Come on in PC Waite." Callum said sarcastically.
"How dare you threaten Dan! I told you to stay out of my life, and then the next day you tell Dan that you'll personally make sure he doesn't walk again! I can report you for that!" Jess said, keeping her voice low enough so that she wouldn't attract attention.
"You wouldn't do that though, would you PC Waite," Callum said pointedly, "Because if you do that I'd have to tell them why I was threatening your perfect husband. And you don't want that."
Jess scowled at him, "Look, just leave me alone, leave Dan alone, leave my family alone."
"Jess..." Callum said, trying to apologise, or at least reason with her.
"I don't want to hear it, Sarge." she said, shaking her head and walking out. As she shut the door behind her, she knew that she had overstepped the line, but so had he. She took a deep breath and walked off, trying to find Smithy.
Jess and Smithy had been driving around the estate for over an hour, and Jess had barely said anything. Smithy glanced at her quickly before facing the road again. Her arms were crossed, her hands clenched, and she was just staring out the window.
"What's going on?" Smithy asked, turning into a side street.
"Nothing." Jess replied, too quickly.
"Look, I can see there is something wrong, and I won't push you to tell me, but if it's affecting your work..." Smithy let the sentence trail off.
"Sorry Sarge. But really, it's nothing, everything's fine." Jess said, turning to look at Smithy, who had raised his eyebrows. Jess just shook her head, and turned to look out the passenger window. She did a double take, and then squinted, "Sarge look!"
Smithy slowed the car down and followed Jess' gaze. It landed on a youth who seemed to be absolutely hammered, and was stumbling down the road with his trousers around his ankles.
"Brilliant. Just what I wanted to deal with tonight." Smithy said sarcastically, turning the car to drive towards the man. Smithy stopped the car a short distance from the man, and he grabbed his hat and got out of the car. Jess and Smithy walked up to the guy, who didn't seem to realise that he was exposing everything.
"You alright there sir?" Jess asked, coming to a stop by him.
"Alright darlin'? I'm bloody marvellous! My girlfriend has just told me we're having a baby!" the man crowed, nearly tripping on the pavement. Smithy caught him before he fell and steadied him.
"Congratulations. But do you realise that you're exposing yourself to everyone?" Smithy asked.
The man peered up at him through bloodshot eyes, "What?"
"Your trousers are around your ankles." Jess stated, keeping her eyes on the man's face.
The man looked down, realised what they meant and went bright red. He bent down, fumbling, trying to pull his trousers up.
"Give us a hand mate?" he asked Smithy, who rolled his eyes while Jess tried to stifle her laughter.
"Listen, we're not going to do you for indecent exposure, but I suggest that you tell us where you live and we'll take you home." Smithy said, wiping his hands.
"Alright mate, nice one. I live...in the...well I live..." the man racked his brains, trying to remember where he lived.
"Have you got your wallet on you?" Jess asked him, leading him to the patrol car.
"Sure, why?" he asked, slumping on the seat.
"Because we can call the station and get them to find your address for us, does that sound ok?" Jess asked, crouching in front of him.
"Yeah, brilliant. Here." The man thrust his wallet at Jess, who took it and pulled out his driving licence.
"There we go, it's on here." Jess passed the driving licence to Smithy, who read the address, nodded and got into the driver's seat. "Right, swing your legs round, put your belt on and don't be sick." Jess said, handing the man back his wallet.
"Course." he mumbled, before his head dropped onto his chest and he started to snore.
Smithy and Jess arrived back at the station at just after one in the morning, after stopping at the man's house and being given a cup of tea from his grateful girlfriend. They walked into the station, laughing at the events.
"The thing I can't believe is that he didn't notice! I mean surely he would be cold..." Jess let her sentence trail off, laughing.
"You'd be surprised! I mean he was hammered! It amazes me that he got that far without falling over." Smithy added, walking through to his office and dumping his hat on his desk. They were just about to write a report on what happened when Sally ran at them, nearly knocking them back into the office.
"Jess! We've been trying to get hold of you for ages." Sally said, out of breath.
Jess' heart immediately started pumping faster, "Why? What happened?"
Sally's eyes flicked from Smithy's quizzical face to Jess' scared one, "Dan rang about an hour ago, he said it was urgent. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong, but you need to ring him."
"Sarge..."Jess indicated to the phone in the office.
"Yeah go ahead." Smithy said with a nod, and watched as Jess frantically ran back into the office, nearly pulling the phone off the desk in her haste to get to it.
Jess sunk into Smithy's seat, waiting for Dan to answer. She had rung the house phone five times but there was no reply. It was coming up to half one in the morning, why wasn't he answering? Jess hung up, dialling Dan's mobile instead. Finally he answered.
"Dan? What's going on?" Jess asked quickly. Jess could hear a strange noise, and after a few minutes realised that it was Dan crying. "Dan?!"
"Oh God, Jess, you need to get to the hospital now." Dan spluttered.
Jess' heart stopped, "Why? Is it Luke?" From the pause, Jess knew it was her son. A cry clawed up her throat, an almost inhuman noise.
"Please, get here now! He needs you! I need to go, we're at the hospital, the doctors here." Dan cried, and then the line was dead. Jess bit her lip hard.
"Dan? Dan! Answer me!" Jess screamed into the phone.
Smithy was stood outside the door when he heard her screaming into the phone. He opened the door, seeing the state Jess was in. Her face was ashen, her eyes wet. "Jess? What's happened?"
"No, I have to go. I need to get to him." Jess muttered, grabbing the keys to the patrol car off the desk. She ran out the front of the station, pressing the button on the keys to unlock the car. As soon as she saw the flashing lights to show that one of the cars had been opened, Jess ran over, yanked the door open and climbed in. By the time Smithy had worked out what car she was in, the lights and sirens were on and she'd pulled away from the station with a screeching of tyres.
Tears were streaming down Jess' face, obscuring her vision. Smithy's voice kept coming over the radio, but she couldn't answer him. She flicked the radio off, concentrating on the roads, which thankfully were clear thanks to the time of night. What the hell had happened to her son? And why hadn't Dan called her directly? Jess could feel her heart tightening when images of her son flashed through her head, and then the last image was of Luke, his skin tinged with the blue associated with death.
"No, he won't die. Not my son." Jess said out loud, shutting her eyes briefly to clear the image.
She finally arrived at the hospital, parking the car haphazardly across two parking spaces. She turned the lights and siren off, pulled the keys out and jumped out, running across the car park. She locked the car behind her just as she entered AE, running to the desk.
"My son...my son was brought in not long ago. Luke Waite, please, where is he?" Jess asked frantically, leaning right over the desk.
"Alright love, calm down. Let me have a look." the man on the desk said, tapping some things into the computer. Jess watched his face go blank, "Luke Waite? He's in resus at the minute, I'm afraid you can't..." his words fell on deaf ears as Jess ran again, heading for resus.
She slowed down when she saw Dan crumpled against the wall, sitting next to the double doors that led to resus. She walked slowly to the doors, looking through the glass. There was only one occupied bed in there, and it was surrounded by a bevy of doctors and nurses. One of them moved and she could see the small body of her son, completely swamped by the size of the bed. Before she knew what she was doing she had pushed the door open and walked cautiously to the bed. She stood at the end of his bed, no-one noticing her as they were so wrapped around Luke.
"We need to get him to surgery right now otherwise he will die within the hour!" one of the doctors said hotly.
"Die?" Jess whimpered, and that's when everyone saw her.
"Sorry you can't be in here. The father is in no state to talk to you yet." one of the nurses said, trying to push her out. But Jess held her ground.
"No, he's my son!" Jess cried, moving out of the nurses reach and around to her son's head. "Lukie?" She stroked her son's hair, pulling away when she felt something sticky on her hand. She brought her hand back, staring transfixed at the blood there.
"Mrs Waite?" the doctor questioned.
"Yes. What happened?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her son's pale face, her chest feeling like it was going to explode.
"We don't know, your husband won't say. But Luke has suffered a massive trauma to the head and chest, we think something fell on him. He's lost a lot of blood, and there's pressure on his brain. We need to get him to surgery as soon as possible." the other doctor explained, coming to stand next to Jess.
"Well why isn't he in surgery then?" Jess snapped, turning to face the doctor.
"Mrs Waite..."
"No! Get him to surgery right now!" Jess screamed.
"I'm sorry, you can't stay here." the nurse said firmly, escorting Jess out of resus.
"BUT HE'S MY SON!" she screamed after the nurse had walked back into resus.
Jess sank to the floor next to Dan.
"What happened?" she asked, looking at his swollen eyes, swollen from crying.
Dan turned to her, his face ready to collapse again, "I was in bed and I heard a massive crash. I got up and ran to his room and turned the light on. He was just on the floor, the bookcase on him. I think he'd tried climbing it to get his bear that's on the shelf."
Jess' breath came out in a quick gust, thinking of how big and heavy the bookcase was, of how she had asked Dan over and over to secure it to the wall, "Why didn't you tell the doctors that?"
"I...I don't know. I couldn't think! I panicked Jess, he was laying there not moving, there was blood everywhere…" Dan said, his eyes burning into hers. "You don't think I hurt him do you?"
Jess was taken aback, she hadn't even considered it "No I don't think you did. But you didn't...you wouldn't...did you do this to him?!"
Dan's eyes widened, and he started breathing quickly. Jess could smell the alcohol on his breath, and her eyes narrowed into slits. "No, of course I didn't hurt him! I wouldn't touch him!"
Jess sprang to her feet so that she was towering over Dan, "You've been drinking again! You're supposed to be a responsible father Dan!"
Dan looked left and right guiltily, "No, it's not what you think. I swear. I just had one, before I went to bed!" Dan scrambled to his feet so he could look Jess in the eye, "I promised you I wouldn't hurt either of you, didn't I. Believe me, please Jess."
Jess looked into his eyes, almost believing him, but then she snapped, "I trusted you with him! And look what happened! You can't look after yourself, let alone a wife and a son! Get away from me." Jess hissed as he made to take a step toward her. But she wasn't quick enough. His arms wrapped around her, holding her, crying into her shoulder. Jess was fuming with anger and hurt. She held herself rigid, staring over Dan's shoulder into resus where the doctors and nurses were still working on her son. But then she couldn't do it anymore, and she collapsed into him, crying deeply, cries which come from the very essence of a mothers soul.