Hold My Hand (Danny’s POV)

a Tale from the Sandford P.D.

by Setcheti

 

 

Rating:  FRT: MP

 

Disclaimer:  I do not own Hot Fuzz.  I am simply borrowing Hot Fuzz because I enjoyed the movie and wanted more.  A lot more.  But there was no more to be had unless I wrote it myself, so I did. J

 

Danny had gotten caught up in his own thoughts, sitting there beside the hospital bed holding his partner’s hand; his own hand almost seemed to be swallowing the smaller hand up.  It was easy to think of his partner, Nick, as being smaller than he was.  He wasn’t, though; they were nearly the same height, with Nick even being a bit taller.  Nick was just more compactly put together than Danny, with finer bones and not an ounce of fat on him anywhere.  And he was so quick and precise when he moved, it gave the impression that he was smaller because larger people – like Danny – just didn’t move that way. In fact, most normal people didn’t move that way.  Spiderman moved that way.

 

The thought of Nick dressed up as Spiderman was an intriguing one, and Danny toyed with it for a moment.  There was always some kind of costume party going on in the fall, or at New Year’s.  And wouldn’t all the old biddies in town just shriek if they saw his partner’s perfect ass showcased in Spandex…

 

Of course, several of the ass-admiring old biddies were dead now.  That was a sobering thought.  One had died in hospital – not the same hospital – just the day before, of complications caused by being hit by Danny’s dad and Mr. Skinner in the police car after being non-fatally shot by Nick in the street four days ago.  Nick had, of course, not been shooting to kill that day.  And he’d only permanently damaged one person, and as Roy Porter had already shot him once and had been holding a gun on him and Danny at the time, the investigators had written that off as self-defense.

 

Danny imagined that Sandford was still absolutely crawling with investigators, even after four days.  There were so many crime scenes to be looked at, so much paperwork to complete…

 

He sniffed in spite of himself, stroking the back of Nick’s limp hand with his thumb.  They’d been doing paperwork when that damned Tom Weaver had come in and tried to kill Nick – and Danny’s doctor had confirmed that the shot would  indeed have probably killed him if Danny hadn’t jumped in front of him.  Luckily for Danny, the gun had been old, not in very good firing order, and the hand-loaded shot in it had been poorly packed; the extra layer of fat that Nick didn’t have had actually stopped some of it from reaching Danny’s vital organs, so although he was still fairly seriously injured he wasn’t dead or permanently damaged.

 

He was in fact, surprisingly, actually a bit better off than Nick was at the moment.  For starters, he was actually awake, something Nick hadn’t been since being brought to the hospital.  Danny stroked the hand he held again.  He vaguely remembered hearing Nick scream in rage after he’d been shot, seeing him leap into the air after Weaver…and then of hearing the explosion and feeling things fall on him.  He only knew the rest of the story from the Andys and Doris, all of whom had been in to see them, and luckily none of whom had been as badly hurt as he and Nick had been.  The steel and concrete reinforced walls of the evidence room had channeled the old sea mine’s blast up and out – out the room’s open door, unfortunately, which Nick had still been in front of; the force of the blast had literally thrown him across the building.  And yet Nick had somehow dragged himself out of the wreckage and glued himself to Danny’s side, spewing out panicky reassuring nonsense that Danny did vaguely remember hearing right up until the ambulance had come.

 

The ambulance that had left Nick behind, according to the story the Andys had told.  Because he’d been somewhat on his feet if a bit banged around and singed, while Bob Walker was in the middle of a heart attack, Doris had gotten a broken arm, and Danny himself had been bleeding from multiple holes.  So the ambulance had taken the three of them off as a full load, leaving Nick, the Andys, Tony, and James Turner behind – although James had already been dead, so he really didn’t count.  He’d been impaled by a piece of metal and had died almost instantly.  

 

It was his brother, John Turner, who had first noticed that Nick was sneezing up blood and starting to look rather blue around the lips.  He’d collapsed shortly thereafter, and been rushed to hospital by someone from the fire brigade when it had been determined that they didn’t dare wait for the ambulance to return..

 

That had been four days ago.  Danny had woken up after his surgery and found Doris there with him; he’d woken again and found Andy Cartwright had taken her place, and then Andy Wainright had been there reading a magazine.  By that point it was the next day and Danny had actually been with it enough to understand what was said to him, and so it was that Andy who’d told him about Nick.  Danny had started agitating to get out of his room that very minute, and eventually the doctor had decided that if he truly felt up to getting out of bed a trip down the hall – in a wheelchair, of course –probably wouldn’t do him any harm.  And today they’d let him walk partway down the hall to the room instead of being pushed, which had been nice and rather worrisome at the same time because it meant he was getting better and what if they sent him home before Nick woke up?  He’d have to leave his partner all alone in hospital, and there was no way he wanted to do that.  He squeezed Nick’s limp, unresponsive hand.  There was no way he was going to do that.  Nick was his partner, his best friend.

 

And Nick was all alone.  Danny squeezed tighter.  Nick had no listed next of kin, and no concerned family members or worried friends had come to the hospital.  The only person from Nick’s London life who had been coming ‘round was the Metropolitan Police Inspector, and considering he was the man who had forced Nick out of London in the first place and then come smiling around just over a month later trying to get him to come back…well, Danny didn’t trust the bastard as far as he could throw him.  Which unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to try for a while, as he wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than a glass of water.

 

Nick’s fingers shifted in his, a little squirm protesting the tightness of his grip, and Danny let up at once.  “Sorry,” he said automatically.  And then he stopped, eyes widening in realization.  Nick’s eyes were still closed.  Experimentally, Danny squeezed those slender fingers again a bit more gently…and received a slight squeeze in return.  “Nick?” he almost whispered.  “Nick, mate, you back with us?”

 

Another squeeze, and Nick’s eyelids twitched but didn’t open.  Danny smiled anyway and patted his partner’s gold-stubbled cheek.  “S’okay, Nick, go back to sleep.  I’ll be here when you wake up.  We ain’t leavin’ you alone, I promise.”

 

Nick sighed – a sound of mingled contentment and relief – and squeezed Danny’s hand one more time before his fingers went limp again.  Danny punched the call button and waited for the nurse to come.  When she appeared in the doorway, he grinned at her.  “He woke up, just for a second,” he said.  “And I want us moved into the same room.  I promised him I’d be here when he woke up again, and I don’t lie to my partner.”  He sniffed and swiped at one eye that had sprung an unmanly little leak.  “I’ll be right here, holdin’ his hand.”