![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
.ficlet: Walking, Wounded - D/M 1.1
Written in about 10 minutes to get this out of my system long enough to concentrate on translation. Hate Friday seminars, because they mess up my weekly night off. *grumble*
Title: Walking, Wounded
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG. Angst.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Companion for 4.02 "Safe."
Notes:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lillyjk wrote some marvelous Danny introspection. And this is my crack at Martin.
WALKING, WOUNDED
When the doctor gives him the cane, Martin’s first promise to himself is to stuff the thing into his closet and never look at it again. Because he doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it, this reminder of how he tires so easily, how his heart pounds and his breath comes short and tight in his chest.
By the time he gets home, he’s relieved that his building has an elevator that works and his next-door neighbor has volunteered to go to the store for him.
By the end of the first week he wonders how he ever managed to walk around the corner to the convenience store for Snickers bars whenever he’d felt like it, much less run for miles.
He gives the cane a reprieve. Three weeks, he tells it, and then you’re history.
Sometime between the third and fourth week he realizes that his fingers have made impressions in the foam rubber.
Four days into week five he manages to walk to the store without it.
He does not manage to walk back. Rob, his neighbor, has to come and get him.
At the end of week five, he gets the all-clear from Jack. He can start on desk duty in a week. Desk being the operative word, but Martin’s so relieved that he can be out of his apartment that he doesn’t care if Jack chains him in the file room.
On the ride up to the twelfth floor he has to lean against the elevator wall, and he’s suddenly terrified, because he has his cane and he still has to lean on it, and he moves so slowly, and he has no idea what people will see when they watch him make his slow, painful way down the hall.
Everything’s changed, he realizes. Someone’s messed with his desk and he’ll have to put everything back to The Way It Was, even though he knows that’s impossible.
Viv and Sam are still here, and Jack’s concern still confuses him, and that’s comforting, sort of.
But Danny… Oh, God, Danny.
He wonders if it’s the wound in his chest acting up, or if it’s something else – heart failure, maybe, standing here with Danny, both of them trying to tell the other it’s okay, it’s all okay, when it’s clearly so very not. Because the cut on Danny’s head is gone, but the look on his face is like he’s bleeding – bleeding out fear, desperation, guilt, more that Martin can’t begin to understand and can’t articulate even though he senses the same things in himself, close beneath the surface, a wound ready to break open, and he wishes he could say them but he can't.
Wordless after one last reassurance that goes unheard, he watches Danny go and is grateful for the cane and the wall, the two last things in the world to hold him up.
Title: Walking, Wounded
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG. Angst.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Companion for 4.02 "Safe."
Notes:
lillyjk wrote some marvelous Danny introspection. And this is my crack at Martin.WALKING, WOUNDED
When the doctor gives him the cane, Martin’s first promise to himself is to stuff the thing into his closet and never look at it again. Because he doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it, this reminder of how he tires so easily, how his heart pounds and his breath comes short and tight in his chest.
By the time he gets home, he’s relieved that his building has an elevator that works and his next-door neighbor has volunteered to go to the store for him.
By the end of the first week he wonders how he ever managed to walk around the corner to the convenience store for Snickers bars whenever he’d felt like it, much less run for miles.
He gives the cane a reprieve. Three weeks, he tells it, and then you’re history.
Sometime between the third and fourth week he realizes that his fingers have made impressions in the foam rubber.
Four days into week five he manages to walk to the store without it.
He does not manage to walk back. Rob, his neighbor, has to come and get him.
At the end of week five, he gets the all-clear from Jack. He can start on desk duty in a week. Desk being the operative word, but Martin’s so relieved that he can be out of his apartment that he doesn’t care if Jack chains him in the file room.
On the ride up to the twelfth floor he has to lean against the elevator wall, and he’s suddenly terrified, because he has his cane and he still has to lean on it, and he moves so slowly, and he has no idea what people will see when they watch him make his slow, painful way down the hall.
Everything’s changed, he realizes. Someone’s messed with his desk and he’ll have to put everything back to The Way It Was, even though he knows that’s impossible.
Viv and Sam are still here, and Jack’s concern still confuses him, and that’s comforting, sort of.
But Danny… Oh, God, Danny.
He wonders if it’s the wound in his chest acting up, or if it’s something else – heart failure, maybe, standing here with Danny, both of them trying to tell the other it’s okay, it’s all okay, when it’s clearly so very not. Because the cut on Danny’s head is gone, but the look on his face is like he’s bleeding – bleeding out fear, desperation, guilt, more that Martin can’t begin to understand and can’t articulate even though he senses the same things in himself, close beneath the surface, a wound ready to break open, and he wishes he could say them but he can't.
Wordless after one last reassurance that goes unheard, he watches Danny go and is grateful for the cane and the wall, the two last things in the world to hold him up.
no subject
It's happened to me to come back after a long absence to find that things have changed, and I know how it is to feel left aside, as if you need to work hard to catch up. Even if he is not the reason Jack is calling the new agent (I think Danny is the reason) he will hate her (politely of course, because he is Martin after all) for she will represent all the changes he fears he can't cope with or accept.
You know? This writers are going to kill me this season.
no subject
This is going to be Martin's albatross for the rest of the season, I think (and Danny's as well, in probably a much more explosive way... but you know, I love the thought of Martin finally losing his control and freaking out. Hm... *considers*). He obviously doesn't want Jack catching on to how badly off he is, and he hates that he keeps getting thrown by the changes in the office.
And this is kind of an aside, but the expression on his face when Viv hugs him... I can't tell if he's about to cry out of relief to be back or pain because she's probably pressing on one or both of his wounds. Poor boy! *hugs him*
(I think Danny is the reason)
You're probably right. Danny is certainly making a lot of mistakes--totally understandable, but also very dangerous.
I think a lot of it has to do with Jack as well. He's willing to put Sam out there because he knows she can take care of herself (as she's the only person who hasn't had something horrific happen to her in the past few months), but he doesn't want to jeopardize Viv's heart, Martin's not able to go into the field yet, and Danny's falling apart as he watches (and does nothing, I might add). He does love his team, in a way that he expresses by trying to smother them, and I'm pretty sure it's going to blow up in his face--my money's on Viv and Danny. *nod*
no subject
I really hope Martin would explode again, but it seems wishful thinking considered the way they are setting things up. I agree there will probably an explosion from Danny (Viv? I don't know, she looks so calm even when she gets on Jack's face *g*).
And I agree about Jack as well, I liked him more in this episode than in the last one, he maybe understands he can't cope with all the things that are happening around him and *in* him. The first time I read that it was Martin that would be wounded, I remember thinking that it was interesting seeing how Jack would react, because those two have an interesting relationship *and damn love triangle for messing that aspect of the show* I must say I'm kind of surprised by the looks Jack is sending Martin, a mix of tenderness and ... pity?
I feel so much for Danny, he looks as much as scared and lost as Martin. I don't know what I'm expecting from the future just that they don't drop things as in A Tree Falls/Legacy storyline.
I think it's probably pain, he sort of grimaces, but I liked that he only does that with Vivian, because it means she hugged him hard enough to hurt and this just warms my heart. Oh Vivian, how I love thee.
*join you and Martin in a group hug*
p.s. I found your reply only by chance because I was in the mood of reading your story again
no subject
I really hope they don't do this, because the character development in A Tree Falls/Legacy showed so much promise.
I guess it must be difficult to develop both the case and the characters at the same time, and cram everything into 42 minutes. Still, it seems like there could be some balance between the two, so characters (and the viewers, CBS *cough*) don't get left in the lurch.