Listen to Her || A Chicago P.D. Fanfiction

28- Case 10

A/N: The episode being used for this chapter is 'Weigh Station'.

His eyes catch movement coming from the front doors behind her, and when he looks properly, his smile fades when he sees a man dressed in all black clothes reach for something in his pocket, looking right in their direction. As soon as he sees the gun, Al grabs Danielle by her shoulders, shouting, "Get down!" He quickly shoves the both of them to the floor, others around Molly's screaming as the guy blindly shoots through the bar, gunfire ringing through the place as everyone hits the floor. Al instructs Danielle to keep her head down as he quickly takes his gun out of his holster and starts shooting back at the offender who hides behind the ATM machine near the doors. Hearing a grunt and then something fall, Danielle looks behind Al, her eyes watching Tyler fall behind the bar, holding onto the right side of his neck with his hands. "Tyler!" She shouts, hurriedly crawling over to him, the gunfire suddenly coming to an abrupt halt. Al takes the opportunity to stand up from having taken cover behind one of the tables, seeing the offender run out of the bar, Olinsky following him after receiving a thumbs up from Danielle.

Al cautiously looks out the doors before stepping out onto the sidewalk, hearing tires screeching as a blacked out car speeds past Molly's, someone in the backseat hanging out the driver side backseat window while shooting at Al. Olinsky fires back, following for a few steps trying to take out their back window which he's able to shoot out, but the car disappears after that, leaving the detective to look around in shock that someone really just tried to take out Danielle. "You're okay. I need you to stay calm. Just stay calm, okay?" Rodriguez tells Tyler who's begun bleeding from his mouth slightly, grabbing the small cleaning towel from his apron's waistband then putting it on his wound, applying pressure. "I need you to call 911 now." She tells the other bartender who nods and quickly goes over to the phone at the other end of the bar, dialing the emergency number in a hurry. "Charlie 5021 emergency. I need backup at 4292 South Emerald Street." Al says into his radio outside of the bar, keeping an eye out in case the offenders come back around, but decides to go see if he can be of any help inside. "Tyler, everything's going to be okay." Danielle assures the bartender, applying more pressure to the gunshot wound. "Danielle?" Al calls out as he enters the building. "Hey, come here." She answers loud enough for him to hear, hearing his footsteps growing closer. "Was anybody hit?" He asks the people around the bar in general as they all begin standing up from the floor, the 59 year old rounding the side of the bar. "Al, I need more towels. I need more towels. Give me towels, now." Danielle tells him in an urgent and slightly frantic tone as the small towel she has is getting soaked in blood. "Yeah, here." Al tells her, grabbing a few from the stack on the counter and quickly handing them to her, hearing her softly thank him as she presses a clean towel to Tyler's neck, the young man gasping for air as his body starts going into shock. Sirens wail in the background, the sniper feeling relieved that help is coming. "Help's on the way." She softly assures Tyler who's eyes are wide as he just looks up at her. Al walks outside to get the paramedics, informing them on the way inside, "Shot to the neck. My partner's got him behind the bar." A woman crouches down next to the sniper, looking over Tyler. "We got it from here." The lady tells the sniper, taking her place. "I need the stretcher, the back board, and kerlix for the bleeding." The paramedic tells her partner who relates to the message to the other paramedics on scene, the transporting device and medical supplies soon inside the building, Tyler swiftly being lifted onto it so they can work on him. Danielle looks over at Al who finds her looking at him in great worry, so he walks around the bar to stand next to her. "We'll get him." He promises in a whisper, slowly guiding her away from behind the bar as the shot bartender gets wheeled out, both of them following the paramedics outside, finding Kevin, Adam, Hank, and Antonio now at the scene. "Hey, are you guys alright? What happened?" Adam asks his mentor and the sniper as he and the other men rush over to them. "A guy walked in, drew a gun, and aimed in our direction." Olinsky answers softly, not letting go of the 20 year old who stays looking at Tyler who's being loaded into an ambulance. It clicks to the men that what happened tonight is because of the bounty. "Who's in the ambo?" Kevin asks. "Tyler. He got hit with one of the bullets." Danielle speaks up, feeling horrible that something meant for her was unintentionally taken by someone else. "Get her in your car and to the station. We'll meet you both at the office once we're done here." Hank tells Al softly, his right hand man nodding before gently leading Danielle away from the others and into his car. He hurries over to the driver side and gets in, exiting the parking lot to make their way to the 21st district. The ride is silent, the events of a few minutes ago running through Danielle's mind as she looks out of the window. Al glances over at her from time to time, knowing she's most likely feeling that Tyler's injury is all her fault. To give her some comfort, he reaches over and takes her left hand in his right, holding it softly, feeling her hold onto his hand. "Do you have an extra shirt?" He asks as he slowly pulls into the Unit garage, having noticed that she has quite a bit of Tyler's blood on her shirt. "Yeah, my sniping one." "Good, change into it while I wash out the blood from this one." He tells her before they get out of the car, both heading to the locker room after she gets her work bags from the backseat. "I hope he doesn't hate me after this." She says softly as they walk into the locker room, Al knowing she's referring to the bartender. "Hey, pumpkin, look at me" He says, softly grabbing her arm so she can be facing him after she's set her bags down on the bench in front of her locker, "what happened a little while ago isn't your fault, okay? We didn't know it was going to happen, and there was no way of preventing it." Al tells her calmly, her eyes searching his as she lets his words sink in. Danielle nods before he turns around to let her change shirts, hearing her unzip her duffle bag followed by some shuffling. Once done, she hands him her shirt which he takes then walks over to the sink in, getting to work on washing out the blood as the sniper gets her bags situated in her locker. "I'm gonna go wash my hands in the restroom." She tells him softly, Al nodding to go ahead, hearing her leave the locker room. She enters the restroom and quietly walks over to the sinks, turning the knob for cold water on one of them, putting her hands under the clear water that becomes red as she rubs her hands together to get most of the dried blood off of her hands, Tyler's distressed facial expression popping up in her mind. Trying to blink the image away, she comes to terms with herself that she won't be okay if she loses another person, already having lost 6 friends in the past month and a half. Though her and Tyler don't have history of any kind, she doesn't want the horrible picture of a bullet meant for her taken by the innocent bartender engraved in her brain. The sniper remembers seeing his teeth had started getting covered in blood that was collecting in his mouth before it leaked out slowly to one corner of his mouth. The red water is now light pink as she finishes getting the stains out of the crevices of her hands. After a few minutes, Danielle is satisfied with how clean her hands are so she shuts off the water and dries her hands, walking out of the restroom and into the hallway, Al already waiting for her near the doorway. "The others are already here." He tells her softly, watching her slowly dry each finger with the paper towel in her hand, repeatedly drying over, under, between, and on the sides of each finger. He motions for her to walk in front of him, Danielle doing as told while clutching the paper towel in one hand. The others stop what they're doing to look at her as she and Al walk into the office area, the sniper walking to and sitting at her desk, throwing the paper towel into the trash can under her desk, keeping her eyes casted on her keyboard.
~a few long hours later, now Friday morning~
"So...we know the victim." Hank tells everyone, taking the silent and unwanted looks off of Danielle who is just sitting at her desk, fiddling with her sleeve cuffs quietly. The team has been in the office since 11:30 last night, not having been able to do much since it was late, aside look through lots and lots of footage from street pods and traffic cams and wait for patrol to finish questioning people in the surrounding neighborhood to see if anything popped up. Jay, Adam, Kevin, and Antonio were the only ones to be able to get some sleep at their desks for about 3 hours. "Tyler Callahan. We all know that he works there." Jay speaks up. "No I.D. on the shooter?" Hank asks. "No, patrol's going door to door in the neighborhood looking for witnesses." Kevin answers as Antonio hangs up a phone call he had just answered. "That was the hospital. Tyler's in ICU, but he's alive." Antonio announces to everyone but looks at his partner as he spoke. "Thanks." She tells him very softly with a nod as everyone else gets busy. He walks to the right side of her desk, keeping eye contact with her as he puts his hands on her desk. "Hey, it's not your fault." He tells her in a whisper, Danielle giving him a very tiny smile that doesn't last not even half a second. Feeling bad for her, he speaks what comes to his mind. "Someone needs to talk to Bembenek." Antonio says, turning around to look at Hank who's standing near Mouse's desk. "Oh, Olinsky's already on that." Hank assures Dawson and the others, Al silently slipping away to the garage. "A black Arcadia was found abandoned in Inglewood. It matches the description of the getaway vehicle, but there's no prints. They torched it." Kevin rapidly informs everyone as he and Adam walk into the office from having been in Mouse's tech room. "White male just checked into a South Side clinic about a half hour ago, two bullet wounds." Adam adds in a hurry. "You and Halstead, get on it." Hank orders Dawson who seems lost in thought. "Something doesn't make sense to me." Antonio says, everyone looking at him. "Okay, so you, me, Olinsky, and Halstead cornered the Bembenek brothers, right?" He asks Danielle and Jay who nod. "Yeah." Jay answers, sounding curious. "You were in your sniping gear." Antonio says, looking at Danielle. "Mhm." She hums, trying to follow along with where he's going. "So then how did the offender know to shoot at her if he doesn't know what she looks like?" Antonio asks the men who all have puzzled expression. "He must think Rodriguez is a guy's last name." Jay makes the realization. "Meaning he was just looking for a guy cop to take out." Hank adds, the men nodding in agreement. "Whoa, hold on, so if the offender was looking to take out a guy cop, does that mean Danielle is, in a sense, clear to be out and about?" Kevin asks. "Dude, she needs to be protective custody until this dies down." Adam retorts like it's a no brainer. "But the offender was looking for a guy, which she obviously isn't." Antonio tells Ruzek. "What if he figures it out though?" Adam asks. Jay looks over at Danielle who's just watching the others bicker back and forth. "I've got an idea." Halstead speaks up, everyone looking at him. "I'll be Rodriguez for today." He voices his idea, looking at Danielle. "I can't let you do that." She speaks up, looking at him. "You've saved my life, so let me repay you." He tells her, remembering how on her birthday she could've left him for dead and just saved herself, but she didn't. The others look at Hank who thinks about the idea as he looks between Halstead and Rodriguez. "Okay." He approves with a nod, Jay smiling a bit. "Call McClain and Garcia up here. Have them watch 'Rodriguez' and keep Jay on house arrest to make this work. Antonio, Danielle, go hit up the clinic." Hank orders Kevin then Dawson and 'Halstead'. "Won't the offender know that she was there last night?" Kevin asks before Danielle and Antonio leave. "I had my back to the doors." She answers softly, the men watching the partners take off to the garage.