(no subject)

[takecourage]

She's already takenn it by the time she knows she's fucked up. It isn't the first time that she's injectedd -- she tried a lost everything when she was a teenger didn't she? -- but this drug, dreamed into being, is stronger than she expects and she's taken too much, more than she took when she got fucked up with Rue, and, suddenly, it feels like the whole world is at the end of a long tunnel, and she's falling away.

Her phone is in her hand. She doesn't know how it got there. There's one number than she knows how to dial.

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[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

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.

[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

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."

[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

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."

[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

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?"

[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

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."

[more_magic]

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.

[takecourage]

"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."

[more_magic]

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."

[takecourage]

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?"

[more_magic]

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.