takecourage | (no subject)

Technically, he's not supposed to have his phone out when he's at the front desk, some edict handed down by the senior staff all in the name of enhancing the visitor experience, but in practice it's a policy that's roundly ignored by most. In a concession to the rule, if not an acquiescence, Darlington usually keeps his tucked just out of sight, ringer off, left on a pad of paper to muffle the vibration when a text comes through. This last week or so, of course, it's been largely unnecessary--no one in this city other Alex would text him, and with each day he's realizing that's less and less likely to happen again--but the habit's been formed and it's one that's difficult to break.

He doesn't yet know how grateful he'll be for that.

Catching the light of his phone screen out of the corner of his eye, he glances over, everything in him freezing when he sees the name and the picture. It's one he'd taken at Darrowfest, when he hadn't thought she was looking; Alex limned in the golden light of sunset, sitting on a blanket with her chin on her bent knees, serene and beautiful and utterly content. He reaches for it, grabs it, ignoring the whispered there's a group coming hiss of Andrea at the computer next to his with a regrettably dismissive flap of his hand. When he lifts the phone to his ear, it takes effort not to sound too hopeful.

"Alex?"

"I fucked up," she mumbles, clinging to the sound of his voice like a rope, like a lifeline. Suddenly, she's reminded of golden crocodiles with green, green eyes. "Danny, I fucked up. Come get me. I fucked up."

Her words slur together. Suddenly, it's hard to move anything at all.

Her voice doesn't sound like hers, the words running together, hazy and distant beneath the labored in and out of her breath. "It doesn't matter what you did," he says, gripping the phone tight enough that his hand shakes slightly with the effort, his fear like a sudden cold rush down his spine. "Okay? That doesn't matter. Just tell me where you are, Alex."

There's conversation next to him, Andrea giving their standard spiel to the visitors who'd just come in--map, special exhibits, what brings you in today? and the bathrooms are down the hall to the right--but right now it sounds like noise from a distant shore. "I'll come get you."

"M'at the apartment," she manages, fumbling her phone as it slips from her hand. Suddenly, nothing at all seems important. She curls up on her side like a seed and closes her eyes.

"Which one?" he says, but then there's the sound of a thump, a clatter, and then nothing at all. "Alex? Alex!" It doesn't matter. He'll go to both of them if he has to. None of it matters, aside from finding her.

Darlington stands, sliding his phone into the pocket of his blazer, running his other hand through his hair. "I have to go," he tells Andrea, bending again to pull his bag out from beneath the desk. "Priya will be here in an hour, and it's been quiet, and...I just have to go." Confusion crosses her face, her mouth opening as if to protest, but he ignores it all. "Family emergency."

At the last minute, following some horrible instinct, he opens the bottom drawer of the desk, taking out one of the overdose kits they'd only just started keeping there. It was some new initiative, kits distributed to the library, city hall, the museum; every public institution in the city. There'd been a training for all front-of-house staff, one of those things they were told probably wouldn't be needed but was happening anyway just in case.

He doesn't think about whether it'll be needed now, just puts it in his bag and goes, breaking into a run once he's out the door of the museum and down the wide front steps.

She drifts. In her head, she's talking to Hellie. She's down on her knees, begging for forgiveness. She looks up and it's Danny standing over her.

She's going. She can feel it.

He runs, dodging groups of kids just out of school, stroller-pushing parents, chalkboard easels propped up outside storefronts advertising one thing or another. His shoes aren't built for this, all stiff leather and hard soles; he's not even dressed for this, his blazer open and flapping as he turns corners and dashes across streets, his bag banging against the hip he'd bruised in his last, exhausted match at fight club. That ache is easy enough to ignore, no match for the one still keeping him moving.

Reaching Dimera, he's through the front door and into the lobby before he realizes it, taking the stairs two at a time because the elevator's never fast enough and his place--their place, just as safe and warded as the one at the Bramford--is only on the second floor. His hands shake as he fits his key in the lock, opening the door moments after the deadbolt thuds back. "Alex, are you here?"

There's no answer. He goes through the living room, looking down the hall, seeing the bathroom door open and the one to the bedroom standing closed. He turns the knob and pushes, meeting resistance from the other side. He pushes harder, gets the same result. The hallway is narrow, but he backs up as far as he can get before he runs at the door, slamming his shoulder into the flimsy wood. Pain radiates out from the impact; he breathes out hard, already moving back to charge at it again.

Dimly, so dimly, so far away, she can hear it - the pounding of something against the door. She doesn't remember locking it, but she must have. She should get up to open it. She can't.

The door rattles but doesn't give, the lock holding fast. Darlington reels back, breathing hard, unwilling to give up. Not when he knows she's just on the other side, that cold spike of fear returning at the thought of what, exactly, he might find when he gets to her.

Planting one foot, he kicks out with the other, aiming just above the doorknob. That earns him the sound of a crack, the wood starting to fracture. It's the best thing he's heard all day. He kicks again, below the lock, and then once more. At last, the door swings open, stopping when it hits something on the floor. All Darlington sees is a dark spill of hair, one pale hand and a slumped body; he's moving, squeezing past and into the room, going again to his knees for the sake of her.

He can hear himself talking, low murmured pleas of Alex and God, no and Come on come on come on, the movement of his body somehow divorced from the panicked wheel of his thoughts as he opens his bag, taking out the kit and opening it up. If it's not this, if it's something else, he'll meet that disappointment when it comes--but he knows enough of her history, hers and Hellie's, to be certain this instinct is the right one. The kit contains a nasal spray, easy to use and damn near idiot-proof, and Darlington moves Alex's head back, sliding the tip of the spray into one nostril and jamming the plunger down.

It hits her system hard, but it still takes her a few minutes to surface. When she opens her eyes, her head is dully throbbing and she's looking up at Danny. Immediately, she bursts into tears.

"Oh, fuck."

There's nothing for a minute, then another, each one feeling like it's warped into a century. She's there on the floor, pale and clammy and he can see the goddamn syringe just lying there on the rug they'd bought together when he finally made an effort at furnishing this place, and for a single, lurching moment he thinks that this is how it all ends. She made it out of that house on Cedros--and the method of it shouldn't have mattered to him, not as much as she did--but only for a time.

The weight of all of his regrets towers over him, threatening to fall, and Darlington knows he deserves the deluge.

Alex takes one long, shuddering breath then, her eyes opening, and the flood recedes just an inch or two. "Hey," he gets out, and then her eyes are filling and his own vision goes shamefully watery. Whether it's better to leave her prone or not, he must have learned during the training, but he doesn't care. He moves to her side, pulling her up and holding her close.

She's still swimming, in shame and the pull of what she's just come back from, the taste of the Narcan in the back of her throat, and she curls close to his chest, her fingers curling in his shirt.

"M'sorry."

Her color's still not good, her grip a little weak as she clings to him, but she's breathing and responsive and that's what he focuses on. When she keeps herself small, mumbling out that apology even as it seems she can't--won't--look at him again just yet, Darlington has to swallow hard past the lump in his throat. "I know, Alex. I know." Tentatively, he runs a hand over her hair, not minding the tangles, the grease, everything that spoke to how she must have been the last few days. "It's okay."

Fumbling his phone out of his pocket, he dials 911, giving the operator his address, telling them to hurry, please. He stays on the floor, holding her, until he hears the front door open and the EMTs coming down the hall.

She's dimly aware of what's happening around her, of the EMTs and the stretcher and, through it all, Darlington's soft, deep voice. At some point, after she's hooked up to drips and monitors, someone tells her to sleep, so she does. Deep and dead, for a what feels like a long time.

When she wakes up, her mouth is dry and her eyes feel gritty. The hospital gown she's wearing feels familiar in a really shitty way.

"Danny?"

Darlington answers what questions he can when the EMTs ask, hanging back to let them check Alex over. One of them claps him on the shoulder, tells him he did the right thing using the Narcan when he did, and all he does is nod, still watching Alex as she's moved onto the stretcher. He'd have carried her all the way down to the ambulance if they'd let him, but he settles for holding her hand once she's inside and strapped in.

The ride only takes a few minutes; he doesn't let go of her until he has to once again, when she's wheeled away and he's urged into a waiting room by a nurse. "Once she's stabilized, we'll get you," she says, something kind but firm in her eyes that Darlington chooses to trust. He thanks her, folding himself into an uncomfortable chair and flipping distractedly through one magazine after another.

She's already asleep by the time he's directed to her room, and he pauses in the doorway, reminded of the sight of her just like this in Sandow's video. Even with the low quality, he'd noticed how thin she was, a fragility he'd mistaken for something more untamed. Her tattoos stand out all the sharper against the faded blue of her hospital gown and the white of the blanket covering her. He takes off his blazer and rolls it up, wedging it behind his head as he slouches in yet another uncomfortable chair at the side of her bed and closes his eyes. When he wakes, it's to the hoarse sound of his own name.

"I'm here," he says, straightening up as he yawns. Automatically, he moves to take her hand, managing at the last minute to transform the action into letting his fingers rest along the low railing of her hospital bed.

She sees him and immediately her eyes sting, fat years overspilling the aching rims of her eyes.

"Oh shit," she mumbles, lifting one hand, bulky with the monitor clipped to her finger, to swipe away years. "Fuck."

She starts crying again, and again just at the sight of him; this time, at least, Darlington manages not to follow close behind. "Hey, no," he says softly, reaching for a nearby box of tissues. "They want to keep you for a day or two, but...you're okay now."

It sounds too much like a wish, like some desperate hope, and that's a thought he does his best to ignore.

"I fucked everything up," she says, curling up onto her side, as much as she can. "What we...I should have known I'd fuck it all up."

It's not what he expected her to say, words that manage to surprise and cause a twist in his heart all at the same time. To tell her No would be as much of a lie as saying Yes, and for a moment he's unable to say anything at all. Absurdly, he thinks of the chaotic end to Darrowfest, of being on that flimsy beam of plywood over a chasm, Alex's dark eyes the only anchor he had to the safety that waited on the other side.

"We don't have to talk about this now," he says. "We should. We need to. Eventually. But we don't have to now."

Alex bites back the urge to argue with him and nods, turning her face into the pillow.

"Will you...can you...just come and lie with me for a while?"

In turning her face away, she looks somehow smaller, younger, lost and alone. Darlington knows the sharp edges that still lie between them, the things both of them had said and done and the way all the peace they'd found here had been demolished in one night. But when she curls up like that, her voice the same broken woodwind he'd first heard on Sandow's video, he knows there's only one thing he can do.

"Of course." He stops only long enough to take off his shoes, the linoleum tiles cold beneath his socked feet as he goes to the other side of the bed. Her IV and pulse monitor and everything else are tucked enough out of the way, but he's still careful as he gets into the narrow bed behind her, bending his long body to fit around hers.

I love you is on his lips, another automatic response from an earlier, easier time than this. He can't manage to give it voice quite yet.