Sports Night fic for Sorkin_fest: The Gods Grown Old
Title: The Gods Grown Old
Author: A S Lawrence (phoebesmum)
Fandom: Sports Night
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen, slash undertones
Word count: 5,300 words
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dana Whitaker; Casey McCall/Dan Rydell; Dan Rydell/OFC
Warning: Inevitably, references to Thespis.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations in this original work of fan fiction are based on the TV series Sports Night (ABC, 1998-2000), created by Aaron Sorkin.
Summary: Thespis isn't real; and yet, his influence is far-reaching - and fatal.
Note: Written May/June 2008 for sorkin_fest; prompt: Thespis returns, and this time someone dies. Many thanks to all the people who told me that Cardinals are red.
It's November 23, 1999. Thespis's Special Day.
Dana fears not ghosts. Well, okay, after last year maybe she fears them a little, but this time round she's ready.
She's given it a lot of thought over the past twelve months, and she's taken every conceivable precaution. She's been in and out of Dan and Casey's office all day long, reading and rereading every line of script as it comes out of the printer - "Are you checking for nuance?" Dan demanded, dripping sarcasm, and from the corner of her eye she saw Casey make a shushing noise, and Dan scowl, but she let it pass; she had other things on her mind. There were graphics to be scrutinised, torn to shreds and resubmitted, chyrons to be checked, troops to be mobilised. Jeremy's researched and re-researched every reference, each and every individual fact, figure, statistic and bizarre spelling preference. Maintenance has been dragged up to look over all the equipment, hunting down whatever she can think of that might possibly fall within their remit: trailing wires, overloaded circuit boards, loose screws - "They missed one," Elliott murmurs, glancing Dana's way, but this, too, she disregards. She herself has personally inspected the Craft Services table for any suspect foodstuff, and for the past three days has laid down a blanket ban on the consumption of rare meat, sushi, shellfish of any kind, leftovers, especially heated-through leftovers, and mushrooms in any shape or form whatsoever. As an afterthought, she orders Kim to perform a last-minute hunt for any potential double-entendres that the script may contain - Dana reasons that Kim is the best person for this job - with firm instructions that, if she finds any, she is to report them, not leave them be because she thinks it's funny.
As for the more random and uncontrollable elements of the show … well, Dan and Casey are under strict orders to be on their best behaviour and, although they'd ignored her the first couple of times she'd told them and, thereafter, laughed at her long and loud, she thinks that her threat to sic Natalie on them if they misbehave has finally got their attention.
Watching the senior staff trickle out of the conference room after the 10.00 pm rundown, Dana sinks back and sends up a silent prayer, hoping with all her heart that Sam Donovan, wherever he is, won't be watching too closely. It's bad enough that the show is destined for disaster. The last thing she needs is for Sam to phone her up afterwards and snark about it.
She finds herself holding her breath as Dave counts down to the credits. She doesn't breathe easily again for the whole of the next hour.
And then, after all that, nothing happens - nothing untoward. The show runs perfectly: like clockwork, like a well-oiled machine, like a dream.
Perversely, Dana finds herself feeling a little disappointed.
*
In Anthony's that evening, she subjects Jeremy to a line of cross examination - who was Thespis again? Why, last year, had he picked the Sports Night team, out of all the people in the world, to torment? Why had he passed them by this year? Did it repeat in cycles, was there any pattern to it, is there any way they can safeguard themselves against his return? - until eventually Jeremy gives a discreet little cough, adjusts his spectacles, and admits that there is no such person as Thespis.
Dana feels her jaw drop. "No such - ?"
"That is," Jeremy corrects himself, "there was a Thespis, and, as I said, he was the first actor, in the sense that we understand it today - hence," he adds stuffily, "'thespian', of course. He appears as a character in one of Gilbert and Sullivan's earliest …" His voice tails away off Dana's look. "Um, okay. You don't care about that. But the whole thing about his ghost? I just kind of … made that up."
Dana wonders if her face is as blank as her mind at this moment. All she can do is repeat, flatly, "You. Made it. Up."
Jeremy wriggles his shoulders, evidently highly uncomfortable. As, Dana considers grimly, well he should be. "It was a little Gedankenexperiment I came up with."
Casey who, in spite of the din in the bar, is apparently able to overhear them from two tables away, leans across to say, or rather yell, "A Gedankenexperiment is purely theoretical, Jeremy. Like Schrödinger's cat."
"About that," Natalie pipes up, leaning across Dana to make her own voice be heard; Dana breathes in too deeply, and finds herself with a mouthful of Natalie's hair, which she tries to spit out discreetly. "I've never understood that. I mean, the cat would know if it was alive or dead, wouldn't it?"
"I'm sure Schrödinger didn't think the cat's opinion counted," Casey explains. "And, in any case, there never really was a cat. That's what makes it a Gedanken-"
Dana snaps. "Can we all shut up about Schrödinger?!"
Knowing what's good for them, they do, and she turns back to Jeremy, their self-appointed Lord of Misrule (for Dana, too, knows a little of historical customs). "So, Jeremy, you’re saying that everything that happened last year - all the screw-ups, me falling on my face, the power grid going down, Isaac's daughter nearly dying, might I remind you - all the rest of it - "
"The turkey," Elliott puts in. Elliott has been brooding on that turkey for a whole year now. He'd had to send a maintenance crew up into the lighting grid after that particular show, and the clean-up job had lasted way past golden time and a good long distance into platinum. There had been giblets up there that had gone boldly where no giblet had ever gone before, or, if Elliott has his way, ever will again.
"All the rest of it," Dana repeats. She's sick and tired of forever getting the blame for the turkey. It had seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea at the time, is she to be given no credit for innovative thinking? "All of that was just coincidence?"
"It always was." Jeremy sounds apologetic although, in Dana's opinion, not nearly apologetic enough, not by a long way. "Even if there had really been a ghost, it would still have been no more than a coincidence. It was a classic example of mass hysteria. You started to panic, and everything spiralled from there."
"And you thought this would be funny because - ?" Dana demands. Nowhere near apologetic enough, she thinks, and way, way too pedantic.
He starts squirming again. "I just wondered how far you'd let it go. I thought it might be interesting. Psychologically."
Dana stares at him. "Psychotically, maybe," she eventually says, ice dripping. She's remembering now that she'd never really liked Jeremy. He's far too smart for his own good, and he wears nerdy glasses. "Were you ever going to tell us about this?"
Jeremy is now squirming so hard that he's almost corkscrewed through the bottom of his chair. Maybe that's the idea, maybe he's trying to make a quick getaway. "Not really," he mumbles, grabs his glass, which is still half-full (or, perhaps, half-empty, if they're going to get into pointless philosophical speculation), and stands up. "Um, can I get anybody a drink?"
Dana squints at the cocktail menu hanging behind the bar, checking out the prices. "Margarita Paradiso," she decides, and adds, "Double." These days she doesn't generally drink more than a couple of beers when they go out - alcohol's started to make her feel nauseous for some reason she's choosing not to examine too closely - but tonight, for Jeremy, she'll make an exception.
When she stumbles to the bathroom at 5.00 the next morning and spends the next twenty minutes bidding a not-so-fond farewell to her stomach contents, Dana knows she can't really blame it on Thespis - imaginary or otherwise.
She still kind of does, though.
*
In fact, the only thing of any real note that happens that November 23 is that Casey arranges for a dozen red roses to be delivered to Dan while he's in Wardrobe. Nobody can tell whether it's a genuine gesture or just a gag, and no-one quite dares to ask. Dan is tight-lipped and silent as he accepts them, and doesn't say much to anyone all night. After the show he gives the flowers to Monica - "You deserve better than second-hand roses, but I'd be honoured if you'd accept these?" he says, his lopsided smile making it into a question, making it seem as though she's doing him an enormous favour - who leaves the building clutching the bouquet with a stunned expression on her face, while Dan goes straight home without stopping to change back into street clothes first, and without a word to anyone else.
Casey doesn't seem to care. Dana knows she ought to, but then … Dan's been in a weird mood so often lately, snappish, impatient, sometimes even downright rude. He's not so far gone, it's true, that he doesn't catch himself up when he acts that way, and he always apologises with his usual grace and charm, but still. It's not like him, and if Dana didn't have quite so much on her own shoulders, what with her broken engagement, and the multiple threats to her show, and the Dating Plan and, oh, yes, what with Casey being an enormous ass, not that there's anything new about that; if not for all those things and more, then Dana would be worried. But as things are, she tells herself that Dan's an adult, he can take care of himself. He's just going through a rough patch, he'll get over it. The way they all do. Get over things. Over everything. Eventually.
When the following March rolls around, bringing the nightmare of Draft Day with it, Dana realises just how badly she'd misjudged the Danny situation - for 'situation' was what it turned out to be. But, by then, the damage is done, and all she can do is stand back and wait for the fallout to settle.
Maybe, she thinks miserably as she sits in Isaac's office and lets the full force of his righteous wrath sweep over her - maybe she isn't as good with people as she'd always led herself to believe.
And maybe, too, Thespis gets around more than anybody had ever suspected.
*
2000 is a bad year. The next one … doesn't bear thinking about, for many, many reasons. By the following November, Thespis is only a dim and distant memory, one that fades more and more as each year passes. Fast-forward a few additional Novembers and he - it - is forgotten as though he had never been. Which, if you think about it, actually he hadn't.
By this time, those who'd been around for the Thespis show are in the minority. Things change. Time doesn't stand still, and nor do people. Natalie is long gone - that was one of the many Bad Things of the year 2001 although, in retrospect, not so major a one as it had seemed when she'd made the announcement. Late that spring she'd finally succumbed to one of the many lures that were forever being cast in her direction, and now she's working across town for twice the salary but, although she'll never admit it, at the cost of much of her personal happiness. Kim had taken Natalie's place for a short while, but she, too, had been snapped up almost before she'd had time to change her password. Jeremy's moved up a chair, and next to him now are Donna and Anna, names which, in the noise and confusion of an average show, are just similar enough to one another and, indeed, to 'Dana' that they don't need to go looking for any more trouble. Dave and Chris have both moved on, while Elliott's a marketing manager now, spiffy and businesslike in sharp black suits and a variety of witty neckties, doing them a great deal more good from behind the scenes than he ever had from the frontlines.
Even Dana's starting to get itchy feet. Sure, she still loves Sports Night - it's her baby, she made it what it is, nursed it from a sickly beginning to its current state of wellbeing - but there's no challenge any more, it's all too easy. Maybe she's ready for something else, something different, something new. And the clock's ticking, she knows. If she's going to make a move, she needs to do it soon, while there's still a market for her, before she reaches her use-by date.
Then again, maybe she just thinks she should move on because it's what Casey's forever threatening to do. But he only ever talks about it; never actually puts his money where his mouth is. She has a lurking feeling that, no matter what he claims, Casey's going to be with the show for a good long while yet, maybe even to the bitter end. And maybe she will be, too. Who can tell?
They all miss Dan. Even the ones who'd come after his time miss Danny. They don't know that's what's absent, but they're aware of something lacking, some vibrancy, some spark. The show's comfortable, it's safe, it's successful, but there's no magic any more. That's what Danny brought to the table: magic. Magic, and a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear, a sympathetic voice, a helping hand in time of need. Now that he's gone, they realise too late that he'd been more, much more than only that. He'd been the heart of Sports Night, the heart and, quite possibly, the soul too, and without him they're nothing more than an empty vessel that makes only meaningless noise.
*
Dana hasn't really registered the date. She's faintly aware, somewhere at the back of her mind, that there's some significance to November 23, but damned if she can put her finger on it. She's checked her calendar, searched the internet, and phoned her mother - she can barely keep count of all her nieces and nephews these days, let alone remember their birthdays - but nothing's come to light, so she's put the feeling to the back of her mind, settled down to her job, and is single-mindedly fixed on the show.
Ten seconds in and Casey chokes. Literally: chokes. His face turns beet-red, tomato-red, red as the reddest of Cardinals, and his eyes begin to bug out. Beside him, Scott's eyes are almost as wide from sheer panic, but as Camera One pulls him into close-up he straightens his back and plasters on a smile to fool the world, if not the control room. "This is Scott Kramer," he announces, suave and professional, "Currently alongside Casey McCall, and, if anyone out there knows the Heimlich Manoeuvre, we should both be back after this break."
Allyson, as it turns out, does in fact know the Heimlich, and is trying to apply it at that very moment, much against Casey's will. "I just need some water!" he gasps, finally managing to throw her off - Allyson is surprisingly strong for such a small woman. He grabs his water bottle, takes a deep swig, and then hiccups. Loudly.
The entire studio holds its breath, but that seems to be an end to it. Allyson, used to being an unsung hero, only shrugs, straightens Casey's tie, dusts off his shoulders and moves along.
Dana leans forward, sighing gustily into her mic. "Casey, there are 23 hours in the day when you can eat non-stop if you want to. Do you have to wait for dinner until you're on air?"
It's an old argument. Dan used to be every bit as bad - but then, Dan was horribly prone to stammers and stutters and verbal blunders even on his best day. Back then, they'd thought it was kind of sweet. And, actually … it kind of was. Funny how he's got over it, now that he's a serious political pundit. It's probably significant somehow, but damned if Dana can see how. Not her problem, anyhow.
Casey's making a spluttery and still slightly hoarse half-protest, but Dana's heard it all before. She cuts him off and sits back, reaching up a hand to rub her forehead where the slightest hint of a migraine is starting to blossom behind one eye. Sports Night hasn't been good for her health. She recently found she'd been nursing a stomach ulcer for years, blissfully unawares; her skin still breaks out with a regularity that is, frankly, insulting in a woman nearing (no matter how slowly) her 40th birthday, while only the most charitable would still attribute the lines on her face to laughter. And she's still single. Not that she cares. She's just saying.
She leans a little further back, rolling her neck to stretch the muscles, whereupon the back of her chair gives way and tips her unceremoniously to the floor.
She says, "Shit!" with some feeling, and glares around, just daring anyone to laugh. Nobody does, although she'd take bets some of them are having to choke it down pretty hard.
"Looks like it's shaping up to be a strange show," Donna comments. She slides out of her own chair without mishap, comes around and reaches down a hand to pull Dana to her feet. Dana's staring up at her.
"What was that you said?"
Donna blinks at the grate in Dana's voice. "I just said - it looks as if it's going to be - "
" - a strange show!" Dana finishes. "November 23! I knew there was something!" She turns on Jeremy, who quails before her even before she's said a word. "Thespis!"
All around her people are saying "Who?" and "What?" but Dana ignores them, focusing her full glare on the hapless Jeremy. "You! You told me Thespis didn't exist!"
Jeremy manages a weak protest. "I never said he didn't exist …" He takes his glasses off and polishes the lenses on his sleeve. "I just ... made some stuff up."
"You made it up," Dana accuses him, perhaps a little wildly, "and now you're making it happen!" She notices Rod, at the sound desk, waving to attract her attention and tapping his stopwatch, and shoots a daggers-glance his way. "What?!"
"Um - " he says meekly. "The show …?"
"The show!" Dana pushes Jeremy out of his chair, drags it over and swaps it with her own before settling warily onto the seat. She sends him a hideous scowl that's meant to imply 'This isn't over yet, Mister!', and adjusts her headset just in time to hear Scott throw to Kelly Kirkpatrick, and the connection go dead.
Dana moans softly.
From then on in, the broadcast's doomed: lost connections, missed cues, fumbles and blunders, a whole ghastly litany of accidents and errors, until Dana flings herself out of her purloined chair, runs outside, leans her head against the wall and howls. Quietly.
The only wonder is that Calvin Trager doesn't walk past just in time to see her make an ass of herself. Not that it would be the first time if he did. Score one tiny point for the good guys.
It's not enough.
When Dana gets back into the control room, Anna has her laptop open and is reading something off the screen. "'… now a mischievous spirit, and when things go wrong in performances it is often blamed on his ghostly intervention …'"
"But I made all that up!" Jeremy says again, a little desperately. "I swear it!"
"It's right here," Anna tells him, sliding the laptop over to him, clipping her coffee mug with the edge as she does so. Dana just manages to save it, which is the first stroke of luck they've had that night, or would have been if it hadn't then slipped through her hands, painting her cream linen skirt in cappucino tones. "Sorry!" Anna tells her, altogether too brightly, and then, to Jeremy, "Look! It's on Wikipedia."
Jeremy gives a disdainful sniff. "Oh, Wikipedia," he says, with a world of scorn. "Then it has to be true." He scans the article with all the enthusiasm with which he might inspect the suspect sole of a shoe.
"You're just bummed because you had to write your own entry," Donna says snippily. Jeremy doesn't deign to reply; just closes down the window, and starts to push the machine back to Anna. But then he stops; his hand closes tight, and his eyes widen.
"Dana?" he says. His voice is odd: wavery, uncertain. Enough so that Dana bites back whatever retort she'd been about to make.
"What is it?" she asks. She's surprised to hear her own voice shake. It's Thespis, she thinks angrily. Real or not real, he's got us all on edge.
Jeremy tries to speak. His voice catches, and he has to start again, but still doesn't make it. "Here," he finally manages, and the laptop finds its way to Dana's station.
Her first thought is that she doesn't know how Anna can work with so many windows open; a patchwork of shapes and sizes, they cover the entire screen: news sites, sports sites, entertainment sites, eBay, where she's got a pretty nice pair of red stilettos on her watchlist, Facebook, a whole page, for some reason, of terrible baby names, three trivia quizzes, and god-knows-what besides. Call her old-fashioned, but Dana gets twitchy if she has more than four things up at the same time, and she prefers them in a neat cascade that doesn't make her head spin.
Then she sees the headline on Yahoo News, and forgets everything else. Distantly she registers that, clichéd though it may be, it really is possible to feel the blood drain from one's face.
"Oh!" she says, faintly, as though the word hurt her. "Oh, god. Danny …" She finds she has a hand pressed against her heart, feeling it thud shockingly against her fingertips. "Danny …"
She doesn't realise she's spoken aloud. And she hasn't realised her mic's still open. She isn't wholly aware of anything for several seconds. Then Scott's voice registers, anxiously repeating her name.
"Dana?" he's saying. "Dana, what should we do now? Do you want me to carry on by myself?"
She makes herself look up. Her head seems to weigh three times what it usually does, and the former glimmer of migraine is now a cascade of skyrockets shrieking and swooping and shattering behind her eyelids.
"By yourself?" she echoes stupidly, not quite able to grasp the significance. "Why - ?"
Then she looks again.
Casey's gone.
***
Casey finds himself on the street outside without any conscious memory of how he got there. He must have stood up, unclipped his mic, removed his earpiece, walked to the elevator and ridden it down to the ground, but all of that's just white noise at the back of his brain. All he's thinking now is Danny; all he can see is the breaking newsflash running across every monitor in the bullpen as he crossed it.
He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't know what he thinks he can do once he gets there. He doesn't know what good he can be. There is no good here, there can't be. Dan made his choice, and it didn't include Casey. All he knows is that he can't sit, waiting quietly for the rest of the story to break. He has to try.
He grabs a paper from the nearest vendor and reads it as he walks, hoping it might tell him more. But it's an early edition still, carrying nothing more than the bare bones of the story, and the headline shrieking Talk show host in death crash horror! fills him with such rage that he can barely read the smaller print. All that's clear to him is the photograph: Dan's face, familiar to him as his own and twice as dear, gazing up through the grain of the newsprint. He's smiling, tuxedo-clad, and his arm is tight around Rachael Rydell's impeccably evening-gowned shoulders.
Casey crumples the paper in his hand and tosses it into the trash.
He's still none the wiser.
If their places were reversed, Casey thinks, Danny would know what to do. Dan always has the latest gadget: a music player that stores thousands of tracks, a phone that takes pictures, keeps his diary, surfs the internet. For him, the sum of the world's knowledge is never farther away than the touch of a button. Casey never saw the point of any of it. He likes music in the background, when he's relaxing at home; he doesn't need to carry it with him and, besides, he's not sure he has a thousand tracks in his entire collection. And his phone is a phone, nothing more, nothing less.
Somewhere along the line, Casey realises, he's become old without ever really being young. While Danny … Danny never ages.
His heart clenches at the thought. Oh, god, don't let that be the truth!
Then his phone - his plain, ordinary, just-a-phone - rings, startling him. It takes him three goes to fumble it out of his pocket, and his fingers seem thick and clumsy; it's several seconds before he remembers which button to press to answer. When he finally does, he lets loose a sigh of relief. It's Charlie.
"Dad?" he's saying, and Casey can only imagine the effort it's taking him to keep his voice so steady. "Dad? Okay, first of all - breathe."
For Charlie, cool, practical, level-headed Charlie, Charlie who loves Dan almost as much as he loves his own father, almost as much as Casey himself loves Dan, has nevertheless found the presence of mind to make all the calls that Casey couldn't, has found out everything there is to be known, and has still held it together long enough to pass the word along to his father.
Thank god. Thank god for Charlie. And thank god for the news he delivers: the news that there is still hope.
Ah, but at what price?
Casey hails a cab, gives the driver his directions, sits back, lets his head sink into his hands, and begins to pray.
The words won't come. They're blotted out by memories: all those years when Dan had been beside him every day, there each time he looked up, always knowing what to do, what to say, supporting Casey through some of the worst years of his life. Dan the first time Casey ever saw him, nineteen years old, smart, funny, likeable, efficient, his smile quick and ready, but his eyes dark with a hidden hurt that it would take Casey years to uncover. Dan angry; Dan exultant. Dan too often, way, way too often, fancying himself in love with some woman, some idiot woman who'd do nothing but tear out his heart and stomp it under her fancy high-heeled shoes. The weight of Dan's head on Casey's shoulder, warm breath against his skin, those nights of too much beer and too many secrets. Dan's voice on the phone when he'd been offered the Lone Star anchor position, stunned, incredulous, then babbling his gratitude, swearing that Casey would never regret it.
He never had. He never will. How could he?
All he regrets now is the way that they'd parted. But Casey had meant well: as a friend, it behove him to speak honestly. She's not right for you, he'd said, It'll end badly. Remember Rebecca! he'd said, only for Dan to turn on him, almost snarling, face fierce and bright and almost unrecognisable as he'd said ….
Casey blots out that memory, as he has so many times before, but the echoes remain: Just because you fucked up your marriage doesn't mean I'm going to fuck up mine. Maybe I've learnt from your mistakes, Casey. And, as Dan had walked through the door for the last time, he'd turned back - just for a moment. Maybe you should do the same.
That had been eighteen months ago. Casey had thought it would blow over - it wasn't the first time he'd been on the receiving end of Dan's temper, or vice versa; they'd always got over it. They'd been through too much together, meant too much to one another, to throw it all away over - over this. But weeks had passed, and there had been nothing. And when Dan's wedding had made the society pages, it was his brother David who'd been standing by him as groomsman.
Since then, all Casey's seen of Dan has been images on the TV, in magazines and on the internet, on the cover of his book showcased in the window of every bookstore in town; everywhere and nowhere at one and the same time. In every one of those pictures, Rachael's been at his side, tall and cool and blonde, her arm safely tucked into the crook of Dan's elbow, smiling up at her perfect husband as though she knows Casey's watching, as though to say You see? He's mine now! And always, always (Casey has noticed), with her chin tilted to give the camera its best angle.
None of that matters now. He can't believe that he'd ever been such a fool: to lose so much over so little.
There's a slight tussle when Casey gets to the hospital. Visiting, they tell him, is restricted to family members only, and Casey's not family. Much they know - and as if a little thing like that's going to stop him. "I'll wait," he tells them meekly, settling himself down in the waiting room. Then, as soon as their backs are turned, he's out of his seat, slipping quietly down the corridor, following his instinct.
When it comes to Danny, his instincts are seldom wrong. The mistake he made was in not listening to them.
Dan's in a private room. It's blue-painted, calm; empty. Later, no doubt, there will be cards, flowers, all the paraphernalia of thank god it was you and not us guilt; for now there's nothing, nothing but the blue walls, the banks of monitors, the narrow white bed, and Dan.
He's asleep, Casey thinks. He hangs back at the doorway, just watching, taking in every last detail. From here, there's little damage evident; Dan's neck is in a brace, one arm in plaster, there's bruising on the right side of his face. But he's breathing without assistance, and the drip running into his other arm is the only evidence of ongoing care.
None of that shocks Casey; he'd been prepared for far worse. He knows how lucky he is to be standing here, not waiting outside a cold, steel-shelved room, bracing himself to look into a still face and name a name. He knows how lucky Danny is. The news channels, with morbid glee, have been flashing up images of the wreckage, a savage mockery of modern sculpture unrecognisable as having once been a vehicle. There's no way anyone should have escaped from that alive. And yet, here he is - thank god, thank god.
Whether Dan will be able to think himself lucky … No. Casey knows his friend too well, knows that he'll spend the rest of his life atoning for this new loss, burning with guilt and grief, as he had for his mother, as he had for Sam. It will fade, in time; that's all they can hope for, Casey knows.
What he hadn't expected was the grey that now streaks Danny's hair. Time, with all its ravages, has found him after all.
Then he realises that Dan's eyes are open; shot through with blood, they're fixed on him, and Dan's frowning. Before he can say anything, Casey steps forward, crossing the room to Dan's side. Which he never should have left; where he has always belonged.
Dan says his name, his voice weak and thready. Casey swallows.
"Yes, it's me." He has no idea what to say. "How're you doing?"
Dan doesn't answer; just keeps staring at him. He tries to lift his hand. It seems a tremendous effort. Casey reaches out his own hand, to spare him and rests it on Dan's. Dan smiles then, faintly.
"It is you." He breathes out a sigh. "You came."
"Where else would I be?" Casey says simply, and Dan smiles again. Then his eyes fill with tears.
"I fucked up," he whispers. "You were right, Casey. You were right, and I was wrong. And now - "
"Don't!" Casey says quickly. "Don't try to talk. Don't even think about it. Just get well. Nothing else matters now." He presses Dan's hand closer and feels in turn the fingers curling feebly about his own.
"I missed you," Dan murmurs, and his eyes drift closed. He's asleep again. That's okay. Casey will wait, and keep watch; and whatever the morning brings, the two of them will face it together.
***
Author: A S Lawrence (phoebesmum)
Fandom: Sports Night
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen, slash undertones
Word count: 5,300 words
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dana Whitaker; Casey McCall/Dan Rydell; Dan Rydell/OFC
Warning: Inevitably, references to Thespis.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations in this original work of fan fiction are based on the TV series Sports Night (ABC, 1998-2000), created by Aaron Sorkin.
Summary: Thespis isn't real; and yet, his influence is far-reaching - and fatal.
Note: Written May/June 2008 for sorkin_fest; prompt: Thespis returns, and this time someone dies. Many thanks to all the people who told me that Cardinals are red.
It's November 23, 1999. Thespis's Special Day.
Dana fears not ghosts. Well, okay, after last year maybe she fears them a little, but this time round she's ready.
She's given it a lot of thought over the past twelve months, and she's taken every conceivable precaution. She's been in and out of Dan and Casey's office all day long, reading and rereading every line of script as it comes out of the printer - "Are you checking for nuance?" Dan demanded, dripping sarcasm, and from the corner of her eye she saw Casey make a shushing noise, and Dan scowl, but she let it pass; she had other things on her mind. There were graphics to be scrutinised, torn to shreds and resubmitted, chyrons to be checked, troops to be mobilised. Jeremy's researched and re-researched every reference, each and every individual fact, figure, statistic and bizarre spelling preference. Maintenance has been dragged up to look over all the equipment, hunting down whatever she can think of that might possibly fall within their remit: trailing wires, overloaded circuit boards, loose screws - "They missed one," Elliott murmurs, glancing Dana's way, but this, too, she disregards. She herself has personally inspected the Craft Services table for any suspect foodstuff, and for the past three days has laid down a blanket ban on the consumption of rare meat, sushi, shellfish of any kind, leftovers, especially heated-through leftovers, and mushrooms in any shape or form whatsoever. As an afterthought, she orders Kim to perform a last-minute hunt for any potential double-entendres that the script may contain - Dana reasons that Kim is the best person for this job - with firm instructions that, if she finds any, she is to report them, not leave them be because she thinks it's funny.
As for the more random and uncontrollable elements of the show … well, Dan and Casey are under strict orders to be on their best behaviour and, although they'd ignored her the first couple of times she'd told them and, thereafter, laughed at her long and loud, she thinks that her threat to sic Natalie on them if they misbehave has finally got their attention.
Watching the senior staff trickle out of the conference room after the 10.00 pm rundown, Dana sinks back and sends up a silent prayer, hoping with all her heart that Sam Donovan, wherever he is, won't be watching too closely. It's bad enough that the show is destined for disaster. The last thing she needs is for Sam to phone her up afterwards and snark about it.
She finds herself holding her breath as Dave counts down to the credits. She doesn't breathe easily again for the whole of the next hour.
And then, after all that, nothing happens - nothing untoward. The show runs perfectly: like clockwork, like a well-oiled machine, like a dream.
Perversely, Dana finds herself feeling a little disappointed.
*
In Anthony's that evening, she subjects Jeremy to a line of cross examination - who was Thespis again? Why, last year, had he picked the Sports Night team, out of all the people in the world, to torment? Why had he passed them by this year? Did it repeat in cycles, was there any pattern to it, is there any way they can safeguard themselves against his return? - until eventually Jeremy gives a discreet little cough, adjusts his spectacles, and admits that there is no such person as Thespis.
Dana feels her jaw drop. "No such - ?"
"That is," Jeremy corrects himself, "there was a Thespis, and, as I said, he was the first actor, in the sense that we understand it today - hence," he adds stuffily, "'thespian', of course. He appears as a character in one of Gilbert and Sullivan's earliest …" His voice tails away off Dana's look. "Um, okay. You don't care about that. But the whole thing about his ghost? I just kind of … made that up."
Dana wonders if her face is as blank as her mind at this moment. All she can do is repeat, flatly, "You. Made it. Up."
Jeremy wriggles his shoulders, evidently highly uncomfortable. As, Dana considers grimly, well he should be. "It was a little Gedankenexperiment I came up with."
Casey who, in spite of the din in the bar, is apparently able to overhear them from two tables away, leans across to say, or rather yell, "A Gedankenexperiment is purely theoretical, Jeremy. Like Schrödinger's cat."
"About that," Natalie pipes up, leaning across Dana to make her own voice be heard; Dana breathes in too deeply, and finds herself with a mouthful of Natalie's hair, which she tries to spit out discreetly. "I've never understood that. I mean, the cat would know if it was alive or dead, wouldn't it?"
"I'm sure Schrödinger didn't think the cat's opinion counted," Casey explains. "And, in any case, there never really was a cat. That's what makes it a Gedanken-"
Dana snaps. "Can we all shut up about Schrödinger?!"
Knowing what's good for them, they do, and she turns back to Jeremy, their self-appointed Lord of Misrule (for Dana, too, knows a little of historical customs). "So, Jeremy, you’re saying that everything that happened last year - all the screw-ups, me falling on my face, the power grid going down, Isaac's daughter nearly dying, might I remind you - all the rest of it - "
"The turkey," Elliott puts in. Elliott has been brooding on that turkey for a whole year now. He'd had to send a maintenance crew up into the lighting grid after that particular show, and the clean-up job had lasted way past golden time and a good long distance into platinum. There had been giblets up there that had gone boldly where no giblet had ever gone before, or, if Elliott has his way, ever will again.
"All the rest of it," Dana repeats. She's sick and tired of forever getting the blame for the turkey. It had seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea at the time, is she to be given no credit for innovative thinking? "All of that was just coincidence?"
"It always was." Jeremy sounds apologetic although, in Dana's opinion, not nearly apologetic enough, not by a long way. "Even if there had really been a ghost, it would still have been no more than a coincidence. It was a classic example of mass hysteria. You started to panic, and everything spiralled from there."
"And you thought this would be funny because - ?" Dana demands. Nowhere near apologetic enough, she thinks, and way, way too pedantic.
He starts squirming again. "I just wondered how far you'd let it go. I thought it might be interesting. Psychologically."
Dana stares at him. "Psychotically, maybe," she eventually says, ice dripping. She's remembering now that she'd never really liked Jeremy. He's far too smart for his own good, and he wears nerdy glasses. "Were you ever going to tell us about this?"
Jeremy is now squirming so hard that he's almost corkscrewed through the bottom of his chair. Maybe that's the idea, maybe he's trying to make a quick getaway. "Not really," he mumbles, grabs his glass, which is still half-full (or, perhaps, half-empty, if they're going to get into pointless philosophical speculation), and stands up. "Um, can I get anybody a drink?"
Dana squints at the cocktail menu hanging behind the bar, checking out the prices. "Margarita Paradiso," she decides, and adds, "Double." These days she doesn't generally drink more than a couple of beers when they go out - alcohol's started to make her feel nauseous for some reason she's choosing not to examine too closely - but tonight, for Jeremy, she'll make an exception.
When she stumbles to the bathroom at 5.00 the next morning and spends the next twenty minutes bidding a not-so-fond farewell to her stomach contents, Dana knows she can't really blame it on Thespis - imaginary or otherwise.
She still kind of does, though.
*
In fact, the only thing of any real note that happens that November 23 is that Casey arranges for a dozen red roses to be delivered to Dan while he's in Wardrobe. Nobody can tell whether it's a genuine gesture or just a gag, and no-one quite dares to ask. Dan is tight-lipped and silent as he accepts them, and doesn't say much to anyone all night. After the show he gives the flowers to Monica - "You deserve better than second-hand roses, but I'd be honoured if you'd accept these?" he says, his lopsided smile making it into a question, making it seem as though she's doing him an enormous favour - who leaves the building clutching the bouquet with a stunned expression on her face, while Dan goes straight home without stopping to change back into street clothes first, and without a word to anyone else.
Casey doesn't seem to care. Dana knows she ought to, but then … Dan's been in a weird mood so often lately, snappish, impatient, sometimes even downright rude. He's not so far gone, it's true, that he doesn't catch himself up when he acts that way, and he always apologises with his usual grace and charm, but still. It's not like him, and if Dana didn't have quite so much on her own shoulders, what with her broken engagement, and the multiple threats to her show, and the Dating Plan and, oh, yes, what with Casey being an enormous ass, not that there's anything new about that; if not for all those things and more, then Dana would be worried. But as things are, she tells herself that Dan's an adult, he can take care of himself. He's just going through a rough patch, he'll get over it. The way they all do. Get over things. Over everything. Eventually.
When the following March rolls around, bringing the nightmare of Draft Day with it, Dana realises just how badly she'd misjudged the Danny situation - for 'situation' was what it turned out to be. But, by then, the damage is done, and all she can do is stand back and wait for the fallout to settle.
Maybe, she thinks miserably as she sits in Isaac's office and lets the full force of his righteous wrath sweep over her - maybe she isn't as good with people as she'd always led herself to believe.
And maybe, too, Thespis gets around more than anybody had ever suspected.
*
2000 is a bad year. The next one … doesn't bear thinking about, for many, many reasons. By the following November, Thespis is only a dim and distant memory, one that fades more and more as each year passes. Fast-forward a few additional Novembers and he - it - is forgotten as though he had never been. Which, if you think about it, actually he hadn't.
By this time, those who'd been around for the Thespis show are in the minority. Things change. Time doesn't stand still, and nor do people. Natalie is long gone - that was one of the many Bad Things of the year 2001 although, in retrospect, not so major a one as it had seemed when she'd made the announcement. Late that spring she'd finally succumbed to one of the many lures that were forever being cast in her direction, and now she's working across town for twice the salary but, although she'll never admit it, at the cost of much of her personal happiness. Kim had taken Natalie's place for a short while, but she, too, had been snapped up almost before she'd had time to change her password. Jeremy's moved up a chair, and next to him now are Donna and Anna, names which, in the noise and confusion of an average show, are just similar enough to one another and, indeed, to 'Dana' that they don't need to go looking for any more trouble. Dave and Chris have both moved on, while Elliott's a marketing manager now, spiffy and businesslike in sharp black suits and a variety of witty neckties, doing them a great deal more good from behind the scenes than he ever had from the frontlines.
Even Dana's starting to get itchy feet. Sure, she still loves Sports Night - it's her baby, she made it what it is, nursed it from a sickly beginning to its current state of wellbeing - but there's no challenge any more, it's all too easy. Maybe she's ready for something else, something different, something new. And the clock's ticking, she knows. If she's going to make a move, she needs to do it soon, while there's still a market for her, before she reaches her use-by date.
Then again, maybe she just thinks she should move on because it's what Casey's forever threatening to do. But he only ever talks about it; never actually puts his money where his mouth is. She has a lurking feeling that, no matter what he claims, Casey's going to be with the show for a good long while yet, maybe even to the bitter end. And maybe she will be, too. Who can tell?
They all miss Dan. Even the ones who'd come after his time miss Danny. They don't know that's what's absent, but they're aware of something lacking, some vibrancy, some spark. The show's comfortable, it's safe, it's successful, but there's no magic any more. That's what Danny brought to the table: magic. Magic, and a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear, a sympathetic voice, a helping hand in time of need. Now that he's gone, they realise too late that he'd been more, much more than only that. He'd been the heart of Sports Night, the heart and, quite possibly, the soul too, and without him they're nothing more than an empty vessel that makes only meaningless noise.
*
Dana hasn't really registered the date. She's faintly aware, somewhere at the back of her mind, that there's some significance to November 23, but damned if she can put her finger on it. She's checked her calendar, searched the internet, and phoned her mother - she can barely keep count of all her nieces and nephews these days, let alone remember their birthdays - but nothing's come to light, so she's put the feeling to the back of her mind, settled down to her job, and is single-mindedly fixed on the show.
Ten seconds in and Casey chokes. Literally: chokes. His face turns beet-red, tomato-red, red as the reddest of Cardinals, and his eyes begin to bug out. Beside him, Scott's eyes are almost as wide from sheer panic, but as Camera One pulls him into close-up he straightens his back and plasters on a smile to fool the world, if not the control room. "This is Scott Kramer," he announces, suave and professional, "Currently alongside Casey McCall, and, if anyone out there knows the Heimlich Manoeuvre, we should both be back after this break."
Allyson, as it turns out, does in fact know the Heimlich, and is trying to apply it at that very moment, much against Casey's will. "I just need some water!" he gasps, finally managing to throw her off - Allyson is surprisingly strong for such a small woman. He grabs his water bottle, takes a deep swig, and then hiccups. Loudly.
The entire studio holds its breath, but that seems to be an end to it. Allyson, used to being an unsung hero, only shrugs, straightens Casey's tie, dusts off his shoulders and moves along.
Dana leans forward, sighing gustily into her mic. "Casey, there are 23 hours in the day when you can eat non-stop if you want to. Do you have to wait for dinner until you're on air?"
It's an old argument. Dan used to be every bit as bad - but then, Dan was horribly prone to stammers and stutters and verbal blunders even on his best day. Back then, they'd thought it was kind of sweet. And, actually … it kind of was. Funny how he's got over it, now that he's a serious political pundit. It's probably significant somehow, but damned if Dana can see how. Not her problem, anyhow.
Casey's making a spluttery and still slightly hoarse half-protest, but Dana's heard it all before. She cuts him off and sits back, reaching up a hand to rub her forehead where the slightest hint of a migraine is starting to blossom behind one eye. Sports Night hasn't been good for her health. She recently found she'd been nursing a stomach ulcer for years, blissfully unawares; her skin still breaks out with a regularity that is, frankly, insulting in a woman nearing (no matter how slowly) her 40th birthday, while only the most charitable would still attribute the lines on her face to laughter. And she's still single. Not that she cares. She's just saying.
She leans a little further back, rolling her neck to stretch the muscles, whereupon the back of her chair gives way and tips her unceremoniously to the floor.
She says, "Shit!" with some feeling, and glares around, just daring anyone to laugh. Nobody does, although she'd take bets some of them are having to choke it down pretty hard.
"Looks like it's shaping up to be a strange show," Donna comments. She slides out of her own chair without mishap, comes around and reaches down a hand to pull Dana to her feet. Dana's staring up at her.
"What was that you said?"
Donna blinks at the grate in Dana's voice. "I just said - it looks as if it's going to be - "
" - a strange show!" Dana finishes. "November 23! I knew there was something!" She turns on Jeremy, who quails before her even before she's said a word. "Thespis!"
All around her people are saying "Who?" and "What?" but Dana ignores them, focusing her full glare on the hapless Jeremy. "You! You told me Thespis didn't exist!"
Jeremy manages a weak protest. "I never said he didn't exist …" He takes his glasses off and polishes the lenses on his sleeve. "I just ... made some stuff up."
"You made it up," Dana accuses him, perhaps a little wildly, "and now you're making it happen!" She notices Rod, at the sound desk, waving to attract her attention and tapping his stopwatch, and shoots a daggers-glance his way. "What?!"
"Um - " he says meekly. "The show …?"
"The show!" Dana pushes Jeremy out of his chair, drags it over and swaps it with her own before settling warily onto the seat. She sends him a hideous scowl that's meant to imply 'This isn't over yet, Mister!', and adjusts her headset just in time to hear Scott throw to Kelly Kirkpatrick, and the connection go dead.
Dana moans softly.
From then on in, the broadcast's doomed: lost connections, missed cues, fumbles and blunders, a whole ghastly litany of accidents and errors, until Dana flings herself out of her purloined chair, runs outside, leans her head against the wall and howls. Quietly.
The only wonder is that Calvin Trager doesn't walk past just in time to see her make an ass of herself. Not that it would be the first time if he did. Score one tiny point for the good guys.
It's not enough.
When Dana gets back into the control room, Anna has her laptop open and is reading something off the screen. "'… now a mischievous spirit, and when things go wrong in performances it is often blamed on his ghostly intervention …'"
"But I made all that up!" Jeremy says again, a little desperately. "I swear it!"
"It's right here," Anna tells him, sliding the laptop over to him, clipping her coffee mug with the edge as she does so. Dana just manages to save it, which is the first stroke of luck they've had that night, or would have been if it hadn't then slipped through her hands, painting her cream linen skirt in cappucino tones. "Sorry!" Anna tells her, altogether too brightly, and then, to Jeremy, "Look! It's on Wikipedia."
Jeremy gives a disdainful sniff. "Oh, Wikipedia," he says, with a world of scorn. "Then it has to be true." He scans the article with all the enthusiasm with which he might inspect the suspect sole of a shoe.
"You're just bummed because you had to write your own entry," Donna says snippily. Jeremy doesn't deign to reply; just closes down the window, and starts to push the machine back to Anna. But then he stops; his hand closes tight, and his eyes widen.
"Dana?" he says. His voice is odd: wavery, uncertain. Enough so that Dana bites back whatever retort she'd been about to make.
"What is it?" she asks. She's surprised to hear her own voice shake. It's Thespis, she thinks angrily. Real or not real, he's got us all on edge.
Jeremy tries to speak. His voice catches, and he has to start again, but still doesn't make it. "Here," he finally manages, and the laptop finds its way to Dana's station.
Her first thought is that she doesn't know how Anna can work with so many windows open; a patchwork of shapes and sizes, they cover the entire screen: news sites, sports sites, entertainment sites, eBay, where she's got a pretty nice pair of red stilettos on her watchlist, Facebook, a whole page, for some reason, of terrible baby names, three trivia quizzes, and god-knows-what besides. Call her old-fashioned, but Dana gets twitchy if she has more than four things up at the same time, and she prefers them in a neat cascade that doesn't make her head spin.
Then she sees the headline on Yahoo News, and forgets everything else. Distantly she registers that, clichéd though it may be, it really is possible to feel the blood drain from one's face.
"Oh!" she says, faintly, as though the word hurt her. "Oh, god. Danny …" She finds she has a hand pressed against her heart, feeling it thud shockingly against her fingertips. "Danny …"
She doesn't realise she's spoken aloud. And she hasn't realised her mic's still open. She isn't wholly aware of anything for several seconds. Then Scott's voice registers, anxiously repeating her name.
"Dana?" he's saying. "Dana, what should we do now? Do you want me to carry on by myself?"
She makes herself look up. Her head seems to weigh three times what it usually does, and the former glimmer of migraine is now a cascade of skyrockets shrieking and swooping and shattering behind her eyelids.
"By yourself?" she echoes stupidly, not quite able to grasp the significance. "Why - ?"
Then she looks again.
Casey's gone.
***
Casey finds himself on the street outside without any conscious memory of how he got there. He must have stood up, unclipped his mic, removed his earpiece, walked to the elevator and ridden it down to the ground, but all of that's just white noise at the back of his brain. All he's thinking now is Danny; all he can see is the breaking newsflash running across every monitor in the bullpen as he crossed it.
He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't know what he thinks he can do once he gets there. He doesn't know what good he can be. There is no good here, there can't be. Dan made his choice, and it didn't include Casey. All he knows is that he can't sit, waiting quietly for the rest of the story to break. He has to try.
He grabs a paper from the nearest vendor and reads it as he walks, hoping it might tell him more. But it's an early edition still, carrying nothing more than the bare bones of the story, and the headline shrieking Talk show host in death crash horror! fills him with such rage that he can barely read the smaller print. All that's clear to him is the photograph: Dan's face, familiar to him as his own and twice as dear, gazing up through the grain of the newsprint. He's smiling, tuxedo-clad, and his arm is tight around Rachael Rydell's impeccably evening-gowned shoulders.
Casey crumples the paper in his hand and tosses it into the trash.
He's still none the wiser.
If their places were reversed, Casey thinks, Danny would know what to do. Dan always has the latest gadget: a music player that stores thousands of tracks, a phone that takes pictures, keeps his diary, surfs the internet. For him, the sum of the world's knowledge is never farther away than the touch of a button. Casey never saw the point of any of it. He likes music in the background, when he's relaxing at home; he doesn't need to carry it with him and, besides, he's not sure he has a thousand tracks in his entire collection. And his phone is a phone, nothing more, nothing less.
Somewhere along the line, Casey realises, he's become old without ever really being young. While Danny … Danny never ages.
His heart clenches at the thought. Oh, god, don't let that be the truth!
Then his phone - his plain, ordinary, just-a-phone - rings, startling him. It takes him three goes to fumble it out of his pocket, and his fingers seem thick and clumsy; it's several seconds before he remembers which button to press to answer. When he finally does, he lets loose a sigh of relief. It's Charlie.
"Dad?" he's saying, and Casey can only imagine the effort it's taking him to keep his voice so steady. "Dad? Okay, first of all - breathe."
For Charlie, cool, practical, level-headed Charlie, Charlie who loves Dan almost as much as he loves his own father, almost as much as Casey himself loves Dan, has nevertheless found the presence of mind to make all the calls that Casey couldn't, has found out everything there is to be known, and has still held it together long enough to pass the word along to his father.
Thank god. Thank god for Charlie. And thank god for the news he delivers: the news that there is still hope.
Ah, but at what price?
Casey hails a cab, gives the driver his directions, sits back, lets his head sink into his hands, and begins to pray.
The words won't come. They're blotted out by memories: all those years when Dan had been beside him every day, there each time he looked up, always knowing what to do, what to say, supporting Casey through some of the worst years of his life. Dan the first time Casey ever saw him, nineteen years old, smart, funny, likeable, efficient, his smile quick and ready, but his eyes dark with a hidden hurt that it would take Casey years to uncover. Dan angry; Dan exultant. Dan too often, way, way too often, fancying himself in love with some woman, some idiot woman who'd do nothing but tear out his heart and stomp it under her fancy high-heeled shoes. The weight of Dan's head on Casey's shoulder, warm breath against his skin, those nights of too much beer and too many secrets. Dan's voice on the phone when he'd been offered the Lone Star anchor position, stunned, incredulous, then babbling his gratitude, swearing that Casey would never regret it.
He never had. He never will. How could he?
All he regrets now is the way that they'd parted. But Casey had meant well: as a friend, it behove him to speak honestly. She's not right for you, he'd said, It'll end badly. Remember Rebecca! he'd said, only for Dan to turn on him, almost snarling, face fierce and bright and almost unrecognisable as he'd said ….
Casey blots out that memory, as he has so many times before, but the echoes remain: Just because you fucked up your marriage doesn't mean I'm going to fuck up mine. Maybe I've learnt from your mistakes, Casey. And, as Dan had walked through the door for the last time, he'd turned back - just for a moment. Maybe you should do the same.
That had been eighteen months ago. Casey had thought it would blow over - it wasn't the first time he'd been on the receiving end of Dan's temper, or vice versa; they'd always got over it. They'd been through too much together, meant too much to one another, to throw it all away over - over this. But weeks had passed, and there had been nothing. And when Dan's wedding had made the society pages, it was his brother David who'd been standing by him as groomsman.
Since then, all Casey's seen of Dan has been images on the TV, in magazines and on the internet, on the cover of his book showcased in the window of every bookstore in town; everywhere and nowhere at one and the same time. In every one of those pictures, Rachael's been at his side, tall and cool and blonde, her arm safely tucked into the crook of Dan's elbow, smiling up at her perfect husband as though she knows Casey's watching, as though to say You see? He's mine now! And always, always (Casey has noticed), with her chin tilted to give the camera its best angle.
None of that matters now. He can't believe that he'd ever been such a fool: to lose so much over so little.
There's a slight tussle when Casey gets to the hospital. Visiting, they tell him, is restricted to family members only, and Casey's not family. Much they know - and as if a little thing like that's going to stop him. "I'll wait," he tells them meekly, settling himself down in the waiting room. Then, as soon as their backs are turned, he's out of his seat, slipping quietly down the corridor, following his instinct.
When it comes to Danny, his instincts are seldom wrong. The mistake he made was in not listening to them.
Dan's in a private room. It's blue-painted, calm; empty. Later, no doubt, there will be cards, flowers, all the paraphernalia of thank god it was you and not us guilt; for now there's nothing, nothing but the blue walls, the banks of monitors, the narrow white bed, and Dan.
He's asleep, Casey thinks. He hangs back at the doorway, just watching, taking in every last detail. From here, there's little damage evident; Dan's neck is in a brace, one arm in plaster, there's bruising on the right side of his face. But he's breathing without assistance, and the drip running into his other arm is the only evidence of ongoing care.
None of that shocks Casey; he'd been prepared for far worse. He knows how lucky he is to be standing here, not waiting outside a cold, steel-shelved room, bracing himself to look into a still face and name a name. He knows how lucky Danny is. The news channels, with morbid glee, have been flashing up images of the wreckage, a savage mockery of modern sculpture unrecognisable as having once been a vehicle. There's no way anyone should have escaped from that alive. And yet, here he is - thank god, thank god.
Whether Dan will be able to think himself lucky … No. Casey knows his friend too well, knows that he'll spend the rest of his life atoning for this new loss, burning with guilt and grief, as he had for his mother, as he had for Sam. It will fade, in time; that's all they can hope for, Casey knows.
What he hadn't expected was the grey that now streaks Danny's hair. Time, with all its ravages, has found him after all.
Then he realises that Dan's eyes are open; shot through with blood, they're fixed on him, and Dan's frowning. Before he can say anything, Casey steps forward, crossing the room to Dan's side. Which he never should have left; where he has always belonged.
Dan says his name, his voice weak and thready. Casey swallows.
"Yes, it's me." He has no idea what to say. "How're you doing?"
Dan doesn't answer; just keeps staring at him. He tries to lift his hand. It seems a tremendous effort. Casey reaches out his own hand, to spare him and rests it on Dan's. Dan smiles then, faintly.
"It is you." He breathes out a sigh. "You came."
"Where else would I be?" Casey says simply, and Dan smiles again. Then his eyes fill with tears.
"I fucked up," he whispers. "You were right, Casey. You were right, and I was wrong. And now - "
"Don't!" Casey says quickly. "Don't try to talk. Don't even think about it. Just get well. Nothing else matters now." He presses Dan's hand closer and feels in turn the fingers curling feebly about his own.
"I missed you," Dan murmurs, and his eyes drift closed. He's asleep again. That's okay. Casey will wait, and keep watch; and whatever the morning brings, the two of them will face it together.
***