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[fic] A Long Time Coming [PG13: Danny/Martin] 5/?
Title: A Long Time Coming
By: HF
Email: hfox @ ontheqt.org / aesc36 @ gmail.com
Rating/Warnings: PG13 for now. Minor swearing, heaping cupfuls of UST.
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and very likely many other people.
Previous parts: Chapter One; Chapter Two; Chapter Three; Chapter Four
Notes: At long last, I think I can stay in one place for a while. The management thanks you for your patience.
CHAPTER FIVE
The clock on Danny’s bedside table flashed an angry, insistent red; one-thirty already, and still Danny hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Instead, he vacillated between dreams and wakefulness, caught in the strange state where his mind incorporated sensations of the waking world into an increasingly disjointed, nonsensical string of fantasies.
He’s in his t-shirt and boxers because Judge Rancourt’s chambers are overheated, and he’s wondering vaguely why everyone else is dressed in suits and ties.
“How does your client plead, Mr. Taylor?”
Danny blinks, because he doesn’t know the answer. What case is this? A glance down at the desk tells him nothing, because there aren’t any papers there. No files, no notes, no motions, no anything, and Judge Rancourt is looking at him with the special impatience reserved for junior attorneys.
“I’ll ask you again, Mr. Taylor: How does your client plead?”
“I – ”
“Guilty, Your Honor.” Martin’s voice next to him, and Danny whirls.
Martin’s standing there, face almost unrecognizable beneath blood and bruises. He’s wearing the clothes he has on in that old photograph, only they’re torn and stained red with blood and black with dirt. Danny wants to say something, say he’s sorry but he doesn’t know what he did, wants to ask what it was but he can’t speak.
Danny kicked feebly at the covers twisted around his legs and turned over.
“Christ,” he muttered as he settled back into the mattress. One forty-five flashed redly at him, and the heat of his apartment seemed to rise, prickling uncomfortably on his skin. He shifted again and closed his eyes, exhaled an unsteady and resigned breath.
It’s that night when everything could have changed, when the hit on Adisa went down and caught them up in the crossfire. Danny can’t find his gun; he’s dropped it, it’s fallen somewhere, clattering away on the pavement into darkness.
He can hear Adisa dying, feel the wetness of rain and blood on his skin as he crawls across the concrete. Glass slashes at his knees and the palms of his hands.
It’s dark now and quiet, and Adisa has fallen silent, but all Danny can think of is Martin, and his voice is small and uncertain, desperate, sticking in his throat. He sees a shape ahead of him outlined in the cold light of the streetlamp, and it isn’t moving.
He opens his mouth to speak, to scream –
In the old days, with the pulse of the Bronx close around him and the white noise of human life pressing in he never would have heard it. But it was a sound he knew well – soft, distressed, the sound a person makes when pain becomes too great to be kept inside.
Not much to it, little more than a breath or a sigh, a catch at the end as it was stifled, but it jolted Danny from fitful half-dreams to wakefulness. His mind fumbled after the source, and it came to him in flashes – Martin, hurt and lost and found again, on his couch.
He kicked his way out of his covers and headed for his living room, navigating his way through the darkness, past the inconvenient and dangerous end table, the bar separating his kitchen from the small dining area, table, chairs, to Martin.
Martin was sitting up against the pillows, and the line of his back was tense, his shoulders hunched over as though bracing against a blow. Danny paused, uncertain suddenly because he’d never really seen Martin like this. He’d seen Martin angry and Martin hurt, and Martin trying like hell not to give anything away, and he’d seen Martin dying, that one night so long ago... But he’d never seen Martin look like he was on some knife-edge, the balancing point between being broken and whole.
Danny took a breath, stepped closer, careful to make enough noise to let Martin know that he was there, moved around to Martin’s side, close enough to make out his friend’s face in the uncertainty of shadows, the unexpected glitter of light across the slick surface of his eyes.
“Hey,” he said quietly as he leaned over and tried to catch Martin’s gaze. “Gonna turn on the light, okay?”
Martin nodded, a tight and jerky motion and Danny turned the table lamp on low. Even in the soft yellow glow of the bulb Martin’s face was pale, the shadows under his eyes still dark.
“What’s up?” Danny folded himself onto the futon, careful to keep some distance between himself and Martin. He wanted that closeness, knew Martin wouldn’t welcome it.
“Just shit.” Martin angrily scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, winced as the gesture pulled across sore muscles. “God.”
“You need your meds?” Danny nodded in the direction of the white paper bag, stuffed with pills and Sorensen’s recommendations.
“No.” Martin’s voice was firm underneath the exhaustion. “I’m fine.”
“Obviously.”
“Shut up, Danny.” It was not a suggestion, and apparently Danny’s sarcasm was not going to work at – Danny stole a glance at the clock on the wall – two in the morning.
“Look – ” Danny broke off and tried to reassess the situation. Martin was sitting next to him (God, Martin was sitting right next to him and Danny still couldn’t quite get over that fact), but staring off like he was the only person around for miles, like Danny was an unpleasant figment of his imagination. Hell, the entire day probably felt like a nightmare to Martin, from the moment he’d woken up to this very second, sitting on Danny’s futon, a nightmare like they’d seen their missing victims and families endure.
And that was probably it. Martin was never a victim. Even shot, bleeding, listening to his father dress him down, taking whatever got dumped on him, he wasn’t a victim. Martin Fitzgerald was better than that, stronger, and Danny knew that because for a long time he’d felt the same thing about himself.
“You’re going to have to tell someone, you know,” Danny told him, investing the words with his most patronizing, offensive tone, saw Martin react to it, “and it might as well be me. Or I could call your dad and this can turn into an official investigation right here.”
“Fuck you.” More spirit in that, and Danny had hit the mark. Martin was glaring at him, expression fearsome. “Fuck you anyhow, Taylor.”
“Hate to tell you this, Fitzgerald, but it’s wake-up time,” Danny said, low, intense, making Martin lean forward to catch the words. “You’re going to have to tell me what happened. If you want this thing solved, if you want these people stopped, you’re gonna need to get past it.”
“I told you – ”
“Don’t lie to me, Martin.” Too much like having a suspect on the hook, playing the line, but it hurt that Martin was actually considering lying to him.
Martin’s expression shifted, lost its heat, and emotions flickered across his face almost too fast for Danny to catch them – fear, anger again, surprise, regret. For a moment he thought Martin would slide back into silence again, leaving them both in the same place they’d been earlier that night, when Martin had shut him out.
Couldn’t let that happen.
“It’s tomorrow, man.” Danny tapped his watch, saw Martin catch the reference to their last conversation. “C’mon.”
“Yeah.” Martin squared his shoulders, but the resolve faded into a weary sigh. He shifted under the covers, a subdued rustling as he made himself comfortable. Danny watched and kept still, could see Martin searching through memories, thoughts, and impressions, searching for the words.
“It was Monday, like I said. I had a meeting with Peter Dempsey and Christopher Silverman – they’re both working out of the New York office, on the same case I am. We were supposed to meet later this week to review some information – it was about this anarchist group, the White Tigers – but Dempsey called last Thursday and asked if we could move the meeting up.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“Another case he and his team were working suddenly got hot. He didn’t want to leave me in the lurch, but wasn’t sure if we’d be able to meet after Tuesday.” Martin coughed. “Could I have a drink of water?”
“Yeah, I’ll get it.” Danny stood, but paused before turning to the kitchen. “But I want you to keep talking, Fitzgerald, and don’t stop.” He reinforced the command with a glare.
Martin obeyed. “So I moved my flight and we met Monday morning. There really wasn’t much new to go over, things have been at a standstill for a few months...”
“Keep talking,” Danny ordered over the sound of the faucet running as he rummaged in his cabinet for glasses.
“I left around one or so, I think. I was pretty hungry, so I thought I’d go for lunch. I had my cell, like I said, and I was going to open it or dial a number or do something but everything – everything went black. I don’t remember what happened.” With shaking hands he accepted the glass of water Danny held out. “When I came to I was tied down in this dark room. It was... God, Danny, it was so cold.”
Danny sat back down on the futon, a little nearer this time, close enough to feel the tense warmth of Martin beside him. Martin drank and set the glass aside, drew in on himself as though reliving the sensation.
“It was so cold,” Martin said again, voice vanishing to a whisper. “It was cold and I hurt all over. I think they had beaten me before they tossed me... wherever I was.”
And God, right now Danny wanted, needed to touch him, because with every word was taking Martin further away from him, into memory, into a place where Danny couldn’t follow. He kept his hands to himself, made himself watch as Martin gathered himself up and pushed on.
“I couldn’t move; I was tied to something. A post, maybe, or some kind of pipe. I was sitting on the floor. There was running water... I remember that. I can’t remember the faces of the people who took me, I can’t remember where the fuck I was, but I remember that there was running water somewhere. Crazy, huh?”
“Not crazy, Fitz,” Danny whispered.
Martin laughed brokenly. “I don’t know how long I was there. I was hungry and thirsty, but mostly I was so cold... And that wasn’t even the worst of it, y’know?”
“I know, Fitz.”
Martin was staring at him, the light in his eyes somewhere between manic and desperate, and Danny made himself meet that fevered, frantic look. Martin was about to break, was maybe cracking already, and he needed to hold himself together.
“You don’t need to tell me what happened right now, Martin,” he said, because he’d known what had been the worst part, knew it because he knew Martin. “We can wait for that.”
“No... I need to tell you.” And maybe it helped, that resolution, and Danny was warmed by Martin now wanting to tell him this.
“There was this light... like a flashlight, one of those high-powered ones. I couldn’t see – they were shining it right in my face.” The words were a caricature of calm; the memory had Martin in its grip, pulling him along as though on a current. “Footsteps, maybe three people, or four, but I couldn’t see anything except the light and shadows where the people were moving. No faces or anything.”
“But you could hear them.”
“Yeah. Two men, definitely. I don’t know about the other person, or people. One of them said that he wanted to have some fun, freak me out a little.” Martin reached for his glass and drank, shaky hand spilling water down his chin, not bothering to wipe away the wetness when he was done. “At first I thought they were... they were gonna rape me, y’know? Or beat me. And I thought to myself, ‘okay, I can deal with this,’ but then one of the guys was pushing back my sleeve, and he was – ” A weird, choky sort of laugh escaped. “Fuck, Danny, he was strong.
“I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t move, couldn’t get loose. I... I felt him wrap the tourniquet around my arm.” Martin’s left hand moved to encircle his arm, just below the curve of his bicep, pressing down on the skin above the gauze and tape still covering the puncture wound. He didn’t look at Danny, but stared off into memory, into God only knew what kind of darkness and terror had been in that room. “He tightened it and after a minute my whole arm went numb. I was so scared I didn’t really feel the needle until it was too late, and then it was done... and – and they all left. And it was dark again.”
Martin fell silent and drained his glass.
“I don’t know when that was, exactly,” he said after he was done and the glass set aside. “I don’t remember much after that, until I woke up in the hospital.”
Danny stayed quiet, trying to absorb the information. He had the sudden urge to write this all down, set it out, like seeing the words would help him make sense of them. He became aware that Martin was watching him closely, gaze appraising, like he was the one under questioning, or the one who’d been kidnapped and drugged.
“You okay, Danny?”
“I should be asking you that,” Danny told him. “Just trying to take it all in.” He sighed. “Seriously, Martin... Thanks.”
“Yeah.” The word was absent. “I hate this, Danny.”
“If you liked this, I’d be worried about you.” Had to grin at the soft, deprecating look Martin gave him. “But Fitz, we’ve got something here, I think. And I’m willing to bet that we’ll find even more when we work through what you’ve said.”
“You’re not going to make a timeline, are you?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” Though the question had been asked teasingly, Martin’s reply to Danny’s answer was filled with relief. “I don’t... I don’t want to be treated like a statistic, Danny. Or like a victim.”
“We’re going to do this together, Martin, I promise.” And maybe he said that more fervently than was wise, but he felt it, felt the rightness of saying that, and couldn’t regret the honesty. Couldn’t make himself close off when Martin glanced over at him, let Martin read him.
And that was more than a bit scary, being that open, but Martin knew him the same way he knew Martin, and Martin had been honest with him. That and friendship deserved something, and if that crossed the line that Danny had long ago drawn for himself, well... then it crossed the line.
Whatever Martin saw in him, it brought an answering openness, a loosening of the tension in Martin’s shoulders and back, a long, relieved sigh.
“Thanks, Danny.”
“Sleep for a bit, okay?” He kept his voice soft, lulling, as he turned off the light and watched Martin settle stiffly back into the pillows. “The doc’ll kill me if you wind up back in the hospital again.”
In the half-light and shadows he saw the smile ghost across Martin’s lips. “Don’t want that.”
“No, we don’t,” Danny agreed. “Now go to sleep... I’ll be right here.”
That was another promise he was going to keep. As Martin shifted a bit to get comfortable and then slid into unconsciousness, Danny collapsed into a nearby chair and snagged an afghan for himself. Not that he needed it, but he draped it over himself anyway, and in moments he was asleep.
* * *
When Danny woke again, his apartment was flooded with light and the buzzer on his intercom was ringing. Cursing to himself, he staggered to his feet and strode to the front door, glancing over his shoulder as he went.
Martin was still asleep, back to him, chest rising and falling in the steady, deep breaths of real sleep despite the squawking insistence of the intercom.
Irritated suddenly, not wanting the quiet – his and Martin’s quiet – to be interrupted, Danny stabbed the button on the intercom to silence it. “Who is it?” Static screeched in his ear in reply and Danny winced.
“Courier for Camelio, Barrett, and Brown,” said a voice, vaguely recognizable through the interference.
“Okay, I’ll be down.” Paranoia tickled at the back of his neck at the thought that Martin’s abductors had found out their victim wasn’t really dead and was currently in the custody of one Danny Taylor, Attorney at Law. Instead, he ran to his room, walked into a pair of jeans and sneakers, grabbed his coat on his way out the door and pulled it on as he walked down the hall.
He took the stairs instead of the elevator, needing a moment to compose himself and work out plans of action. He’d have to get Martin talking, and work out some theories for Victor to pursue. Time wasn’t going to be on their side forever, if it in fact still was, and on that thought, Danny swallowed the spike of suspicion, checked the sudden desire to go for the non-existent service weapon at his side, and opened the front door.
One of the office couriers was standing there, swathed in a scarf and hat and fidgeting uncomfortably in the cold. Danny peered out the door, trying to keep as much of himself in the warmth of the downstairs entry as he could.
“Hey, Mr. Taylor.” It was Brett Walker’s voice, muffled by the scarf, and Danny smothered a sigh of relief. Walker offered him a thick package and battered clipboard along with a raised eyebrow. “This came from the office, priority.”
“Thanks, man.”
Danny signed for it, already hearing Tarney’s comments about “discretion” and the need to apply himself to his work over the thundering of relief and adrenaline. He’d have to talk to Victor about that, or else find some way to juggle fighting out this thing with Martin and keeping up on his caseload. He absently thanked Walker, not even registering the other man’s half-inviting smile – visible more as a curve of his cheeks over the scarf – and the confusion when Danny nodded curtly and ducked back inside.
He tore open the envelope and then another thick manila envelope below it, had to blink when he finally pulled out the contents: ten file folders all sealed shut and a thin envelope, also sealed. Danny broke the envelope open with his thumb and unfolded the single piece of paper inside it.
“Huh.” He half-fell into a chair, glancing up once to make sure Martin was still asleep. “I’ll be damned, the bastard really did mean it.”
A typewritten note covered half the page, informing Danny that enclosed were the files he’d requested under the Freedom of Information Act, and that if he needed anything more he should feel free to inquire. Danny snorted at that – obviously this was Victor’s idea of a joke – and glanced through one of the files, unsurprised to note that it was well-organized to the point of pain, with Martin’s defiantly untidy signature appearing on several forms.
A soft, confused grunt came from the direction of the living room, followed by rustling sounds. Martin appeared a moment later, moving carefully and squinting in the brightness.
“What time is it?” he asked, peering at Danny through sleep-clouded eyes.
Danny held up the files for Martin’s inspection.
“Wake-up time,” he said again. “Time to get to work.”
tbc.
By: HF
Email: hfox @ ontheqt.org / aesc36 @ gmail.com
Rating/Warnings: PG13 for now. Minor swearing, heaping cupfuls of UST.
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and very likely many other people.
Previous parts: Chapter One; Chapter Two; Chapter Three; Chapter Four
Notes: At long last, I think I can stay in one place for a while. The management thanks you for your patience.
CHAPTER FIVE
The clock on Danny’s bedside table flashed an angry, insistent red; one-thirty already, and still Danny hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Instead, he vacillated between dreams and wakefulness, caught in the strange state where his mind incorporated sensations of the waking world into an increasingly disjointed, nonsensical string of fantasies.
He’s in his t-shirt and boxers because Judge Rancourt’s chambers are overheated, and he’s wondering vaguely why everyone else is dressed in suits and ties.
“How does your client plead, Mr. Taylor?”
Danny blinks, because he doesn’t know the answer. What case is this? A glance down at the desk tells him nothing, because there aren’t any papers there. No files, no notes, no motions, no anything, and Judge Rancourt is looking at him with the special impatience reserved for junior attorneys.
“I’ll ask you again, Mr. Taylor: How does your client plead?”
“I – ”
“Guilty, Your Honor.” Martin’s voice next to him, and Danny whirls.
Martin’s standing there, face almost unrecognizable beneath blood and bruises. He’s wearing the clothes he has on in that old photograph, only they’re torn and stained red with blood and black with dirt. Danny wants to say something, say he’s sorry but he doesn’t know what he did, wants to ask what it was but he can’t speak.
Danny kicked feebly at the covers twisted around his legs and turned over.
“Christ,” he muttered as he settled back into the mattress. One forty-five flashed redly at him, and the heat of his apartment seemed to rise, prickling uncomfortably on his skin. He shifted again and closed his eyes, exhaled an unsteady and resigned breath.
It’s that night when everything could have changed, when the hit on Adisa went down and caught them up in the crossfire. Danny can’t find his gun; he’s dropped it, it’s fallen somewhere, clattering away on the pavement into darkness.
He can hear Adisa dying, feel the wetness of rain and blood on his skin as he crawls across the concrete. Glass slashes at his knees and the palms of his hands.
It’s dark now and quiet, and Adisa has fallen silent, but all Danny can think of is Martin, and his voice is small and uncertain, desperate, sticking in his throat. He sees a shape ahead of him outlined in the cold light of the streetlamp, and it isn’t moving.
He opens his mouth to speak, to scream –
In the old days, with the pulse of the Bronx close around him and the white noise of human life pressing in he never would have heard it. But it was a sound he knew well – soft, distressed, the sound a person makes when pain becomes too great to be kept inside.
Not much to it, little more than a breath or a sigh, a catch at the end as it was stifled, but it jolted Danny from fitful half-dreams to wakefulness. His mind fumbled after the source, and it came to him in flashes – Martin, hurt and lost and found again, on his couch.
He kicked his way out of his covers and headed for his living room, navigating his way through the darkness, past the inconvenient and dangerous end table, the bar separating his kitchen from the small dining area, table, chairs, to Martin.
Martin was sitting up against the pillows, and the line of his back was tense, his shoulders hunched over as though bracing against a blow. Danny paused, uncertain suddenly because he’d never really seen Martin like this. He’d seen Martin angry and Martin hurt, and Martin trying like hell not to give anything away, and he’d seen Martin dying, that one night so long ago... But he’d never seen Martin look like he was on some knife-edge, the balancing point between being broken and whole.
Danny took a breath, stepped closer, careful to make enough noise to let Martin know that he was there, moved around to Martin’s side, close enough to make out his friend’s face in the uncertainty of shadows, the unexpected glitter of light across the slick surface of his eyes.
“Hey,” he said quietly as he leaned over and tried to catch Martin’s gaze. “Gonna turn on the light, okay?”
Martin nodded, a tight and jerky motion and Danny turned the table lamp on low. Even in the soft yellow glow of the bulb Martin’s face was pale, the shadows under his eyes still dark.
“What’s up?” Danny folded himself onto the futon, careful to keep some distance between himself and Martin. He wanted that closeness, knew Martin wouldn’t welcome it.
“Just shit.” Martin angrily scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, winced as the gesture pulled across sore muscles. “God.”
“You need your meds?” Danny nodded in the direction of the white paper bag, stuffed with pills and Sorensen’s recommendations.
“No.” Martin’s voice was firm underneath the exhaustion. “I’m fine.”
“Obviously.”
“Shut up, Danny.” It was not a suggestion, and apparently Danny’s sarcasm was not going to work at – Danny stole a glance at the clock on the wall – two in the morning.
“Look – ” Danny broke off and tried to reassess the situation. Martin was sitting next to him (God, Martin was sitting right next to him and Danny still couldn’t quite get over that fact), but staring off like he was the only person around for miles, like Danny was an unpleasant figment of his imagination. Hell, the entire day probably felt like a nightmare to Martin, from the moment he’d woken up to this very second, sitting on Danny’s futon, a nightmare like they’d seen their missing victims and families endure.
And that was probably it. Martin was never a victim. Even shot, bleeding, listening to his father dress him down, taking whatever got dumped on him, he wasn’t a victim. Martin Fitzgerald was better than that, stronger, and Danny knew that because for a long time he’d felt the same thing about himself.
“You’re going to have to tell someone, you know,” Danny told him, investing the words with his most patronizing, offensive tone, saw Martin react to it, “and it might as well be me. Or I could call your dad and this can turn into an official investigation right here.”
“Fuck you.” More spirit in that, and Danny had hit the mark. Martin was glaring at him, expression fearsome. “Fuck you anyhow, Taylor.”
“Hate to tell you this, Fitzgerald, but it’s wake-up time,” Danny said, low, intense, making Martin lean forward to catch the words. “You’re going to have to tell me what happened. If you want this thing solved, if you want these people stopped, you’re gonna need to get past it.”
“I told you – ”
“Don’t lie to me, Martin.” Too much like having a suspect on the hook, playing the line, but it hurt that Martin was actually considering lying to him.
Martin’s expression shifted, lost its heat, and emotions flickered across his face almost too fast for Danny to catch them – fear, anger again, surprise, regret. For a moment he thought Martin would slide back into silence again, leaving them both in the same place they’d been earlier that night, when Martin had shut him out.
Couldn’t let that happen.
“It’s tomorrow, man.” Danny tapped his watch, saw Martin catch the reference to their last conversation. “C’mon.”
“Yeah.” Martin squared his shoulders, but the resolve faded into a weary sigh. He shifted under the covers, a subdued rustling as he made himself comfortable. Danny watched and kept still, could see Martin searching through memories, thoughts, and impressions, searching for the words.
“It was Monday, like I said. I had a meeting with Peter Dempsey and Christopher Silverman – they’re both working out of the New York office, on the same case I am. We were supposed to meet later this week to review some information – it was about this anarchist group, the White Tigers – but Dempsey called last Thursday and asked if we could move the meeting up.”
“Did he give a reason?”
“Another case he and his team were working suddenly got hot. He didn’t want to leave me in the lurch, but wasn’t sure if we’d be able to meet after Tuesday.” Martin coughed. “Could I have a drink of water?”
“Yeah, I’ll get it.” Danny stood, but paused before turning to the kitchen. “But I want you to keep talking, Fitzgerald, and don’t stop.” He reinforced the command with a glare.
Martin obeyed. “So I moved my flight and we met Monday morning. There really wasn’t much new to go over, things have been at a standstill for a few months...”
“Keep talking,” Danny ordered over the sound of the faucet running as he rummaged in his cabinet for glasses.
“I left around one or so, I think. I was pretty hungry, so I thought I’d go for lunch. I had my cell, like I said, and I was going to open it or dial a number or do something but everything – everything went black. I don’t remember what happened.” With shaking hands he accepted the glass of water Danny held out. “When I came to I was tied down in this dark room. It was... God, Danny, it was so cold.”
Danny sat back down on the futon, a little nearer this time, close enough to feel the tense warmth of Martin beside him. Martin drank and set the glass aside, drew in on himself as though reliving the sensation.
“It was so cold,” Martin said again, voice vanishing to a whisper. “It was cold and I hurt all over. I think they had beaten me before they tossed me... wherever I was.”
And God, right now Danny wanted, needed to touch him, because with every word was taking Martin further away from him, into memory, into a place where Danny couldn’t follow. He kept his hands to himself, made himself watch as Martin gathered himself up and pushed on.
“I couldn’t move; I was tied to something. A post, maybe, or some kind of pipe. I was sitting on the floor. There was running water... I remember that. I can’t remember the faces of the people who took me, I can’t remember where the fuck I was, but I remember that there was running water somewhere. Crazy, huh?”
“Not crazy, Fitz,” Danny whispered.
Martin laughed brokenly. “I don’t know how long I was there. I was hungry and thirsty, but mostly I was so cold... And that wasn’t even the worst of it, y’know?”
“I know, Fitz.”
Martin was staring at him, the light in his eyes somewhere between manic and desperate, and Danny made himself meet that fevered, frantic look. Martin was about to break, was maybe cracking already, and he needed to hold himself together.
“You don’t need to tell me what happened right now, Martin,” he said, because he’d known what had been the worst part, knew it because he knew Martin. “We can wait for that.”
“No... I need to tell you.” And maybe it helped, that resolution, and Danny was warmed by Martin now wanting to tell him this.
“There was this light... like a flashlight, one of those high-powered ones. I couldn’t see – they were shining it right in my face.” The words were a caricature of calm; the memory had Martin in its grip, pulling him along as though on a current. “Footsteps, maybe three people, or four, but I couldn’t see anything except the light and shadows where the people were moving. No faces or anything.”
“But you could hear them.”
“Yeah. Two men, definitely. I don’t know about the other person, or people. One of them said that he wanted to have some fun, freak me out a little.” Martin reached for his glass and drank, shaky hand spilling water down his chin, not bothering to wipe away the wetness when he was done. “At first I thought they were... they were gonna rape me, y’know? Or beat me. And I thought to myself, ‘okay, I can deal with this,’ but then one of the guys was pushing back my sleeve, and he was – ” A weird, choky sort of laugh escaped. “Fuck, Danny, he was strong.
“I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t move, couldn’t get loose. I... I felt him wrap the tourniquet around my arm.” Martin’s left hand moved to encircle his arm, just below the curve of his bicep, pressing down on the skin above the gauze and tape still covering the puncture wound. He didn’t look at Danny, but stared off into memory, into God only knew what kind of darkness and terror had been in that room. “He tightened it and after a minute my whole arm went numb. I was so scared I didn’t really feel the needle until it was too late, and then it was done... and – and they all left. And it was dark again.”
Martin fell silent and drained his glass.
“I don’t know when that was, exactly,” he said after he was done and the glass set aside. “I don’t remember much after that, until I woke up in the hospital.”
Danny stayed quiet, trying to absorb the information. He had the sudden urge to write this all down, set it out, like seeing the words would help him make sense of them. He became aware that Martin was watching him closely, gaze appraising, like he was the one under questioning, or the one who’d been kidnapped and drugged.
“You okay, Danny?”
“I should be asking you that,” Danny told him. “Just trying to take it all in.” He sighed. “Seriously, Martin... Thanks.”
“Yeah.” The word was absent. “I hate this, Danny.”
“If you liked this, I’d be worried about you.” Had to grin at the soft, deprecating look Martin gave him. “But Fitz, we’ve got something here, I think. And I’m willing to bet that we’ll find even more when we work through what you’ve said.”
“You’re not going to make a timeline, are you?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” Though the question had been asked teasingly, Martin’s reply to Danny’s answer was filled with relief. “I don’t... I don’t want to be treated like a statistic, Danny. Or like a victim.”
“We’re going to do this together, Martin, I promise.” And maybe he said that more fervently than was wise, but he felt it, felt the rightness of saying that, and couldn’t regret the honesty. Couldn’t make himself close off when Martin glanced over at him, let Martin read him.
And that was more than a bit scary, being that open, but Martin knew him the same way he knew Martin, and Martin had been honest with him. That and friendship deserved something, and if that crossed the line that Danny had long ago drawn for himself, well... then it crossed the line.
Whatever Martin saw in him, it brought an answering openness, a loosening of the tension in Martin’s shoulders and back, a long, relieved sigh.
“Thanks, Danny.”
“Sleep for a bit, okay?” He kept his voice soft, lulling, as he turned off the light and watched Martin settle stiffly back into the pillows. “The doc’ll kill me if you wind up back in the hospital again.”
In the half-light and shadows he saw the smile ghost across Martin’s lips. “Don’t want that.”
“No, we don’t,” Danny agreed. “Now go to sleep... I’ll be right here.”
That was another promise he was going to keep. As Martin shifted a bit to get comfortable and then slid into unconsciousness, Danny collapsed into a nearby chair and snagged an afghan for himself. Not that he needed it, but he draped it over himself anyway, and in moments he was asleep.
When Danny woke again, his apartment was flooded with light and the buzzer on his intercom was ringing. Cursing to himself, he staggered to his feet and strode to the front door, glancing over his shoulder as he went.
Martin was still asleep, back to him, chest rising and falling in the steady, deep breaths of real sleep despite the squawking insistence of the intercom.
Irritated suddenly, not wanting the quiet – his and Martin’s quiet – to be interrupted, Danny stabbed the button on the intercom to silence it. “Who is it?” Static screeched in his ear in reply and Danny winced.
“Courier for Camelio, Barrett, and Brown,” said a voice, vaguely recognizable through the interference.
“Okay, I’ll be down.” Paranoia tickled at the back of his neck at the thought that Martin’s abductors had found out their victim wasn’t really dead and was currently in the custody of one Danny Taylor, Attorney at Law. Instead, he ran to his room, walked into a pair of jeans and sneakers, grabbed his coat on his way out the door and pulled it on as he walked down the hall.
He took the stairs instead of the elevator, needing a moment to compose himself and work out plans of action. He’d have to get Martin talking, and work out some theories for Victor to pursue. Time wasn’t going to be on their side forever, if it in fact still was, and on that thought, Danny swallowed the spike of suspicion, checked the sudden desire to go for the non-existent service weapon at his side, and opened the front door.
One of the office couriers was standing there, swathed in a scarf and hat and fidgeting uncomfortably in the cold. Danny peered out the door, trying to keep as much of himself in the warmth of the downstairs entry as he could.
“Hey, Mr. Taylor.” It was Brett Walker’s voice, muffled by the scarf, and Danny smothered a sigh of relief. Walker offered him a thick package and battered clipboard along with a raised eyebrow. “This came from the office, priority.”
“Thanks, man.”
Danny signed for it, already hearing Tarney’s comments about “discretion” and the need to apply himself to his work over the thundering of relief and adrenaline. He’d have to talk to Victor about that, or else find some way to juggle fighting out this thing with Martin and keeping up on his caseload. He absently thanked Walker, not even registering the other man’s half-inviting smile – visible more as a curve of his cheeks over the scarf – and the confusion when Danny nodded curtly and ducked back inside.
He tore open the envelope and then another thick manila envelope below it, had to blink when he finally pulled out the contents: ten file folders all sealed shut and a thin envelope, also sealed. Danny broke the envelope open with his thumb and unfolded the single piece of paper inside it.
“Huh.” He half-fell into a chair, glancing up once to make sure Martin was still asleep. “I’ll be damned, the bastard really did mean it.”
A typewritten note covered half the page, informing Danny that enclosed were the files he’d requested under the Freedom of Information Act, and that if he needed anything more he should feel free to inquire. Danny snorted at that – obviously this was Victor’s idea of a joke – and glanced through one of the files, unsurprised to note that it was well-organized to the point of pain, with Martin’s defiantly untidy signature appearing on several forms.
A soft, confused grunt came from the direction of the living room, followed by rustling sounds. Martin appeared a moment later, moving carefully and squinting in the brightness.
“What time is it?” he asked, peering at Danny through sleep-clouded eyes.
Danny held up the files for Martin’s inspection.
“Wake-up time,” he said again. “Time to get to work.”
tbc.