Cause and Effect

by Brooke Edwards

  “What the fuck happened?” she says, butting the side of his face with her forehead. Her fingernails dig into his side, just above his hip.

  “He got pissed at me and slipped his escort, straight into a trap.” Daniel buries his face in the tangled hair matted against her shoulder, hoping that the stinging in his eyes doesn’t amount to anything more than the threat of tears. “Desperate times, desperate measures. Idiot threw himself out of a moving cab. Went about as well as you’d expect.”

  The laugh that bursts out of her is strangled and on the wet side, but Daniel’s ready to take whatever he can get. Laughter’s a hell of a lot better than her tearing into him.

  “He’s not leaving my sight,” James says from Lara’s other side. His eyes are fixed on the closed door but his hand is still curled around the back of Lara’s neck. “Not again, not until this is over.”

  “He’s going to love that.” Lara sighs. She hugs James, and then Daniel, before untangling herself and taking a couple of steps back. It takes her a moment to straighten her sweater and sweep her hair back over her shoulders, swiping at her eyes too. There are smudges underneath, smeared eyeliner and mascara, and shame curls deep in Daniel’s gut.

  Lara punches him in the shoulder. “I can smell the angst wafting off you.” She sniffs. “Get your shit together, because we’re gonna figure this out, and if you cry, we’re gonna lose time while I beat the brains back into you.”

  The doctor comes out a few minutes after they’ve all fallen into silence, Lara taking over the seat between Daniel and James and holding their hands in a crushing grip. She yanks them both to their feet as soon as the door creaks open.

  “Mr. Moore is going to be fine,” the doctor says before he even reaches them.

  Daniel hadn’t realized how much tension was still keeping him rigid until most of it seeped away at those words. Lara’s hand tightens around his as she breathes out a gusty sigh.

  “Can we see him?” she blurts out.

  The doctor nods. “In a few minutes,” he assures them. “I’m Dr. Hughes. First, I wanted to make sure that someone would either be taking or accompanying Derek home later tonight. He shouldn’t be alone for at least the next couple of days.”

  “Yes,” James says. “Yes, I’ll—he’ll be with me. Is the head injury serious?”

  “Only moderately,” Dr. Hughes says. His eyes are a warm dark brown, crinkling in the corners as he smiles reassuringly. “All concussions from impacts like this are concerning, but he regained consciousness quickly and was responsive to all of the tests the EMTs conducted at the scene and in the ambulance. Those are excellent signs. The combination of the concussion and the other injuries is why I’d like someone with him for the next couple of days. He’s going to be very sore and feeling sorry for himself for a while. The X-rays showed several hairline fractures in his ribs, and his shoulder was dislocated when he made impact with the road. The bruising is quite spectacular.”

  “He bruises like a peach,” Lara says, her fingers still clutching at Daniel’s. “But he’s okay?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Hughes says with another smile. “He’ll need to take it slow for a while, and I’d like to see him working harder at staying hydrated and eating better, but I believe he’ll be just fine.”

  “He’s been under a lot of stress lately,” James says. There’s a hoarse edge to his voice. “I noticed he dropped a few pounds, but there have been some—some extenuating circumstances.”

  “I recommend doing whatever necessary to reduce or remove those stresses,” Dr. Hughes says, the smile dropping at the corners. “I very strongly recommend that he concentrates on his recovery and health for the next few weeks. Physical and mental health are intrinsically linked, as I’m sure you’re aware. His recovery will go much quicker if stress is kept to a bare minimum.”

  “Of course,” James says. Daniel can see his knuckles go white as he squeezes Lara’s hand before releasing it and stepping toward Dr. Hughes. “Can we see him now?”

  Derek is considering the merits of begging the next nurse to just knock him out completely, when the door squeaks open and a blur of bodies squeeze through. It separates into three distinct forms after a second, and one of them stops halfway between the door and the bed. A second hesitates but continues coming toward him, and the third barrels straight at him.

  “Don’t!” he pants out right before Lara catches herself on the edge of the bed. “If you actually break my ribs, I swear I’ll call Mom.”

  “Mature,” she retorts, but her voice wavers dangerously. “Also, what the hell were you thinking?”

  “No interrogating,” James says, and Derek’s head jerks up almost involuntarily, finally recognizing him. He hasn’t told the doctor or nurses that the haze over his eyes he’d noticed when he’d regained consciousness hasn’t entirely gone away. He passed their tests so he doesn’t see the point in telling them something that might make them keep him there any longer. He’s kind of grateful, anyway, because it means that he can’t see the inevitable anger in James’s face that clearly. Anything that puts the impending confrontation off is a good thing in Derek’s book.

  “When can I get out of here?” Derek asks, letting Lara take the hand that doesn’t have the irritating monitor capping his fingertip. He squeezes, as close to reassurance as he can get with the adrenaline still surging at every unexpected sound.

  “Later,” James says. He circles around to the far side of the bed, away from Lara, and Derek’s vision clears slightly. Enough to focus on Daniel, still closer to the door than the bed and staring at Derek with glassy eyes.

  Derek’s focus snaps away from Daniel and lands on James when the older man takes his other hand. James’s grip is gentle, his fingertips brushing along the side of Derek’s palm before closing lightly around his fingers. “I’m okay,” he says, twisting his hand so his palm rests against James’s. Curling his fingers around James’s hurts, pulls the scraped skin over his knuckles tight, but he squeezes around the awkward bump of the oximeter. This close, he can see that there’s no anger in James’s eyes at all.

  “You will be,” James says, squeezing back.

  Daniel half turns back toward the door, the movement drawing everyone’s attention. He nods toward the hallway. “Bailey’s out there and he’s supposed to be on Saracen, I’m going to make sure everything’s okay.” His eyes meet Derek’s, but his mouth is still a stubborn line. He won’t take it back, Derek knows, and the thought of telling him that he was right flits across his mind, but he hasn’t managed to open his mouth before Daniel disappears through the door.

  “Danny said you were pissed at him,” Lara says, carefully moving the IV line to lean against his thigh. “What did he do?”

  “Suggested leaving the city as a safety precaution,” James cuts in. His eyes are focused on the tangle of their fingers. “He’s right. As soon as you’re cleared, we’re getting the hell out until this is over.”

  “I can’t just—” Derek’s vision blurs again as his heart rate picks up, and he drops his head, sucking in a deep breath. Lara’s other hand immediately goes to his shoulder.

  “You can,” James says, and his grip tightens. “Your life is in danger and I’m not letting this happen again. We’ll stay long enough for you to hand over your cases, but then we’re out of here, Derek. Your job will be here when it’s safe to come back.”

  “You’re not the only one who can tattle to Mom,” Lara says but her voice wobbles a bit at the end. “I could send her a picture of your face right now and she’d have you on your way to Alaska or something. You know she’s been calling me every night, right? You’re not a good liar.”

  “I’m a fantas—” The cough comes out of nowhere, Derek’s lungs seizing and his ribcage exploding with liquid fire. James and Lara’s panicked voices are distant and dim behind the pain.

  It lasts forever, or feels like it does, but eventually his eyes clear enough that he can see a blurry figure in front of his face and feel cool hands on
his cheeks. “—shallow breaths, Derek, that’s it. Just little ones.”

  Then something cold trickles in from the IV and the blurry figure disappears in a haze of dark scrubs and white coats.

  A nurse who barely stands as tall as Daniel’s chest somehow manages to force all of them out of the room within seconds of his hurried return, Peter in tow. Derek’s coughing and gasping, audible from even outside the room, are still echoing in Daniel’s ears. The last thing he sees before they’re back in the corridor is a doctor fussing with the IV and one of the other nurses piling pillows underneath Derek to keep him upright. The tiny nurse with the grip on Daniel’s elbow and Lara’s wrist tuts at them before sweeping back into the room. If he weren’t already feeling like someone had punched him in the gut, he probably would have protested that he and Lara were the ones treated like children. Cohen stands head and shoulders over Lara, and at least a head over he and James, and positively dwarfs Peter. Surely he was a bigger threat. It only takes a handful of seconds for her to tow Cohen and Peter out of the room too, James dragging his feet behind them.

  “What was that?” Lara is demanding of the nurse, eyes wet with tears.

  “Coughing is not good for hurt ribs,” Peter says from behind her. “Lungs inflate and press against them, it’s painful as hell.”

  “Precisely,” the nurse agrees before turning on her heel and heading back into Derek’s room. Daniel stares after her, rubbing at his elbow, and almost jumps through the ceiling when Peter appears at his side.

  Only the fact that Peter grabs at his arms keeps both his feet on the ground. “Let’s take that down a notch,” Peter says, his fingers wrapping most of the way around Daniel’s wrists. “Hey.” His voice lowers, smoothing out and softening. “I only know a bit, but even just that makes me think you’ve had a hell of a day. Want to come down to the cafeteria with me for a bit while they sort Derek out?”

  Daniel blinks at him, the words slowly filtering through the fog in his ears, and then Peter’s fingers are sliding from his wrists down to his hands, squeezing. He lets go with his left and keeps a tight hold of his right. “Come on, there will be some of that awful coffee and you’ll feel right at home,” he says, and Daniel follows him.

  Daniel lets himself be led right to a table in the corner of the cafeteria, easily three tables between him and anyone else in the room. Peter makes sure he actually sits, and then squeezes his hand again before heading up toward the service area. With nothing else to focus on except the cold plastic tabletop underneath his hands, Daniel closes his eyes, but it doesn’t stop the snatches of memory flitting across them. His heart is thumping, sweat starting to drip from the edge of his hairline, and he almost falls off the edge of the bench seat, when warm ceramic is suddenly pressed between his palms.

  “Okay,” Peter says, and he leaves his hands cupped around Daniel’s as he sits across from him. “Do you want to talk, or do you just need me to talk about something that’s going to keep you from falling down that black hole I can see under you?”

  Daniel blinks, eyes slowly moving from the dark coffee in the mug between his hands to Peter’s face and back again. “You,” he croaks after a long minute.

  Peter smiles and takes his hands away. Daniel doesn’t notice the loss as much, mitigated by the heat seeping from the coffee cup, and then Peter starts talking and it takes all of Daniel’s concentration to wrestle himself out of the fog and tune in to Peter’s words.

  “So, I was thinking while I was up in line for that sludge,” he says. “We’ve never really gotten a chance to sit down and actually just talk. It seems weird, considering everything that’s happened. I guess it made more sense back when you were worried I was some kind of psycho and I was worried you were going to either arrest me or make me disappear without a trace. I was going through some shit, you know?” His fingers are moving, shredding apart one of the pile of napkins at his side. “Lost a boyfriend and then a job, and next thing you know, two cops are beating my door down about some creepy dead animals. I—I know it shouldn’t have been, but it was easy to get obsessed when a distraction like that landed in my lap. I wanted to apologize for how annoying I must have been, too, but you were always so angry that I sort of doubled down on the fact that I knew I could help.”

  The coffee isn’t quite hot when Daniel takes a sip, but it’s enough to do the job and bring his body and his brain another step closer together.

  “I realized how out of my depth I was when I ended up in that basement and James was tied up a few yards away, too,” Peter continues. “Let me tell you, that was the worst kind of reality check.” He laughs, quiet and with a self-deprecating edge. “I never had the guts to ask if James told you what I said when he first woke up.”

  “I read his statement,” Daniel says. The words come out hoarse, like he’s been chewing tobacco his entire life. “We’ve never talked about it again.”

  It barely takes a second for Peter’s cheeks to flush pink. “I’m only telling you this because I think you need to laugh more than I need some last scrap of dignity,” he says, eyes dropping to his hands before flicking back up to Daniel’s. “I literally sat up and blurted out that you were going to be so mad at me. I don’t even remember what James said, but even half in the dark he had this look on his face like I was a puppy who took a piss in his shoe.”

  The laugh that bursts out of Daniel hurts a little, immediately turning into a cough when the coffee he’s halfway through swallowing ends up somewhere in his nose. Peter lunges across the table with a handful of napkins that Daniel snatches gratefully, burying his face in them.

  Peter is watching him with bright-eyed concern when he wipes at his nose one final time, balling the napkins up. “S’okay.” Daniel sniffs, patting around his chin for any straggling droplets. Despite the burning in his sinuses and nose, there’s a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “James looks at everyone like that most of the time, don’t take it personally.”

  “Was he in the military or something?” Peter asks, leaning forward and offering an empty paper cup for Daniel to shove the balled-up napkins in.

  Daniel shakes his head. “Nah, just had to raise a teenager on his own. Old-timers say he’s always been like that.”

  Peter’s mouth turns down. “That must have been tough. How old is his son?”

  “Earlyish twenties,” Daniel says. His brain is still too foggy to pull out the number of the last birthday they’d celebrated for Sam. “He’s five or six years younger than me.”

  “Than Derek too,” Peter points out. His face stays even but part of Daniel bristles at the reminder. It must show on his face, because Peter’s eyes widen a little. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I don’t think so, anyway? I mean—hell, I don’t know. I think it’s great they found each other!”

  Daniel’s hackles start to lower slowly at the outright horror on Peter’s face by the end of the sentence. He reaches for the coffee again, still a little left in the bottom of the cup, and tips it back. “Yeah,” he says, setting it down with a thud. “Great.”

  He isn’t watching Peter, eyes on the cup, but he sees when Peter reaches out for it. “Let me get you a refill,” he says, and Daniel releases the cup without a fight. His insides are twisted up and wrung out, pockets of adrenaline surging and fading between breaths, and he just doesn’t have the energy to think anymore.

  Peter isn’t sure how long they’ve been sitting in the cafeteria, only that Daniel’s gone through five cups of coffee and two sandwiches and is looking slightly less like he’s going to keel over. He notices Cohen hovering just inside the doors first, Daniel still focused on sandwich number three, and waves him over. Peter isn’t letting Daniel go anywhere until that sandwich is gone.

  Daniel looks up from the sandwich when Cohen’s steps get close enough to hear, and almost drops the crust that’s left. Peter bites his tongue to stop the “fuck” just hovering there. “Hi!” he says instead, smiling. “How are things going out there?”


  Cohen blinks at him. “Uh.” He shakes his head. “Boss and Lara are checking Derek out now. I’m still on duty through tonight so I was going to take you home.”

  “Excellent.” Peter watches as Daniel eats the last bite, and then pushes himself up. “We can take Daniel too, right? He came with the ambulance.”

  “Sure.” Cohen nods. He looks at Daniel. “That’s no problem. You okay, Callahan?”

  The grunting noise Daniel makes is definitely supposed to be a yes. Peter supposes it isn’t even a lie—he’s miles closer to okay than he was when Peter had bolted into the hospital room to Derek coughing hard enough to bust already broken ribs and somehow managing to still look in better shape than Daniel.

  “How’s Derek?” Peter asks, carefully not thinking about how familiarly his hand fits under Daniel’s elbow. He urges him to his feet too, steering him around the table and toward Cohen. Peter can feel the flex and strain in the muscles underneath his fingers and squeezes, hoping it comforts Daniel.

  “Better once they calmed him down and that nurse yelled at Boss and Lara a bit,” Cohen says. He puts his hands in his pockets, and Daniel relaxes in increments the longer Cohen’s back is to them and the closer they get to the doors. “The guys on the radio made it seem worse than it was, I think.”

  “We heard about it on the radio,” Peter tells Daniel, turning sideways to make sure they can both pass through the door without breaking physical contact. “Traffic was actual insanity, as per usual. I don’t know how I’m ever going to go back to trying to get anywhere without those sirens.”

  Daniel’s arm tenses under Peter’s hand again, but relaxes just as quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter sees Daniel’s eyes drooping and then straining to stay open. He flicks at the underside of Daniel’s elbow with a fingernail. Daniel jerks, eyes opening wide before his eyebrows draw down. “Gotta stay conscious ‘til we make it to the car at least,” Peter says, glancing up to make sure they’re still following Cohen. There are more people in the open waiting room they pass through, enough that they have to dodge clusters of them to keep Cohen’s broad back in sight. “Cohen could probably carry you, but I don’t like my chances.”