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Danny hung up his cellphone, running to the corner, eyes scanning the area looking for his young charge. "Ruben!"
"Over here."
Danny turned to see the boy pulled up on his bike, tucked into a small gap between two supporting pillars of the building they'd passed the other side of on the corner.
"Oh, real funny."
"You did say just to the corner Messer." Ruben smiled cutely.
"Yeah, I did," he responded, returning the smile and patting his young companion's back. "Now let's get you..."
A shot rang out through the air, interrupting Danny midsentence. His attention turned to the events transpiring down the street, his feet carrying him on impulse to the front of the bodega, Ruben riding quickly at his heels. Danny rambled off the details on his cell to a dispatcher as he watched the perp disappear down into the subway, keeping Ruben close in case there was more to come.
%%%
It's afternoon when Danny wakes to the sound of repeated dull thuds, he knows this by the light streaming into his apartment through the slatted blinds he was too tired to bother closing when he got home from work in the early hours.
He shoves back the covers and crawls out of bed, makes his way to the window. He stands there squinting, letting his eyes adjust to the light, looking out and down to the basketball court where Ruben is mixing it up with a couple of the older boys who also live in the building. He smiles as one of them lets their smaller companion take a shot, it bouncing against the backboard but not quite making its target.
He stands, just content to watch for a while, his little buddy playing a bit then sitting down leaning against the fence. He gets tired quicker these days. Rikki told him the doctors said that was to expected for some time to come; it doesn't stop the pang of guilt from almost suffocating him – the knowledge that she had trusted him to protect her child, that this should not have happened to someone so young.
Protocol dictated he should have stayed at the bodega, secured the scene. But every time he sees Ruben out playing, or hears him crying through the thin walls of the building about not wanting to go to bed, he's glad he went with his gut and followed him.
%%%
Time seems to almost stand still, and he feels himself falling. Falling and not knowing why. He's vaguely aware of a single voice, almost inaudible in the sea of screaming, repeating his name over and over. That, and a deep burning pain in his side.
"Danny!"
A small face appears in his field of vision, lips forming words he can't quite process. A hand presses into his cheek, grounding him in the present and giving him focus. Much too young to be witnessing this sort of thing.
"Somebody help!"
"Ruben," he rasps, trying to get up, suddenly recalling that they had been walking past the bodega a couple of blocks from their building. "Home. Go home."
"Easy there buddy," comes a voice and a pair of hands gently holding him in place that he doesn't have the energy to fight off. Then there are two people, one either side laying him back down and looking him over. There is talk, with a few words he can pick out from one, and hands pawing over him from the other. A third person leads the kid away with soothing tones and he guesses words of reassurance. A light breeze makes him shudder when the second someone lifts his shirt, chilling the blood that has seeped from what he knows now is a gunshot wound. He remembers this from days gone by – a time before there was an expensive degree he was still paying for, and the relative safety of the forensics laboratory.
"Stay with us buddy. I got your first name, how about you give me a last one to go with that."
"I have I.D. Fuck, this guy's a cop."
He knows he's out of it when he missed his pockets being turned out by some random stranger. A dressing, or something posing as one, is pressed down on the wound, making his insides coil into a knot of fiery pain. His caretakers were obviously expecting more of a reaction to that; he can hear them talking at him, but they're fading, becoming more and more distant.
The last thing he's aware of is the wailing of sirens...
%%%
Mac Taylor sits quietly, keeping vigil. A lot of thoughts run through his mind, but one occupies him more than most – trust.
His inner voice asks a lot of pertinent questions, but the one that bothers him the most is the one where it asks him why Danny should trust him. It's been over two years since the Minhas shooting and Danny has repeatedly proven himself capable, has sought to do everything to redeem himself. He's always known that the younger investigator is a somewhat independent spirit whilst still needing the validation that he's doing the right thing, that he's better than his family and past. That he has people's respect and that people have his back.
Only Mac remembers now that after all this time, he's never told Danny that they were good. And he's fast realising that the rote reply of 'good work' that once let his protégé know he'd done him proud was probably wearing a little thin on meaning. He's not really been good with feelings, not since Claire died. He's good at internalising – so is Danny, but in a way that is devastatingly dangerous and usually leads to trouble.
Blindly, he thought that Danny knew where they stood now, like the younger man was some kind of mind-reader. So when he'd found out on the grapevine that Danny had been involved in yet more mess with Ruben Sandoval's mother stealing his firearm to go after Ollie Barnes, he was furious. Getting Danny back on the promotion grid had been a trial, and he'd put his own ass on the line to do it. He'd deliberately kept quiet in case it didn't happen, but when he'd been told it was on his head, he'd been more than happy to accept the responsibility.
"What were you thinking? You know better than that. Why didn't you say something?"
Mac had expected an angry reply of how it wasn't any of his business, and how it was taken care of now. He had his guard up for a serious backlash. Danny's response was so understated; it was an even bigger punch in the gut than any of his mouthy upbraids.
"Why would I?" he'd whispered, turning away and walking out of the office, leaving Mac feeling like every molecule of oxygen had been sucked out of his immediate vicinity. He'd thought to follow him, watched as he'd passed Stella without word and shrugged Lindsay off. Then there had been a phone call and another case – and Danny had left for the day.
It wasn't until the younger investigator didn't show for work that he remembered his intent to go round to Danny's place and have a talk – as a friend rather than as a boss. Only he'd arrived at the apartment building to find paramedics and police, a hysterical Rikki Sandoval being comforted by two uniformed officers, and Danny being stretchered out of the building, a medic struggling to keep him breathing.
So he sits now, doing the same thing he did for Don at a time that seems much further in history than it actually is. He talks, holds a hand in his, and prays for more time. Danny, who is full of life in a way he could only wish for should not be in this place - where instead of feisty retort there is nothing but the whooshing sounds of a ventilator and the beeping of a heart monitor to let him know that one of his team, someone he cares about, is alive.
And while part of him is furious at Danny for the pills and alcohol, he's starting to understand the agony of guilt.
%%%
Time to think isn't something Danny is short of.
One decision was all it took to make a lifetime of having to choose disappear in an instant; life now nothing more than a number, a jumpsuit in orange and a tiny room with nothing more to do for twenty-three hours of the day than sit alone staring at a wall, pondering that one mistake. To be consumed and slowly driven insane by grief and guilt.
Sometimes he wonders where Rikki is, if she knows he's doing twenty-five to life for her crime. Mostly he thinks of Ruben, life cut short before it even started, and how he's guilty enough to be where he belongs.
%%%
He cuts carefully and with respect, making the same incision he's made a thousand times on the customers gracing his table. Methodically, he takes note of the injuries, dictating as he always does, but not quite managing the same level of detachment he usually reserves for his work.
A single bullet, straight through the chest, penetrating the heart.
Evidence retrieved, Sid closes the wounds he's inflicted, before turning to call someone from the lab to collect the evidence against Rikki Sandoval; finding the rest of the crime scene team staring bereft through the dividing glass at the body of the missing member of their family.