Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Usually, waking up didn’t involve a throbbing pain occupying his skull. Jamie groaned, uncertain if he wanted to even bother trying to get out of bed.

It took him a moment to realize- he wasn’t in a bed.

His eyes snapped open.

Old and grimy concrete walls. Oily puddles across the floor. A single door, industrial grade metal, no handle. With a sharp sense of dread pooling in his gut, Jamie slowly sat up.

One lone lightbulb flickered weakly overhead, while water dripped from a nearby crack. No service hatches, no visible pipes - whatever the room was supposed to be, it clearly had been emptied and abandoned a long time ago. And Jamie didn’t have a single clue how he’d ended up stuck inside.

Despite the increased throbbing in his head, he eased onto his feet and stood. The room swayed; alarming, but not enough of a deterrent to stop him. Leaning against the nearest wall, Jamie shuffled forward, heading for the door. Maybe it wasn’t locked. Or maybe he could knock it out of place. The metal looked thick, sure, but those hinges were pretty rusty, and clearly the whole place was dealing with long term water damage-

-or maybe shoving at the door with his whole body wouldn’t produce so much as a squeak. Grunting, Jamie slammed his arm against the metal, like driving an elbow into someone’s face. The muffled thud without any sort of echo beyond it didn’t give him much hope.

Winded just from that small amount of exertion, Jamie let himself slide back down to sit, leaning the side of his face against the door. “Hey!” He shouted, “Anybody out there? Hello!”

Nothing. No voices, no footsteps; nothing but the reverberation of his own words in the small room, which just made Jamie’s headache worse.

“Nice going, Reagan,” he muttered to himself. Shifting on the cold concrete, he took in his own state, and tried to figure out what the hell happened. No shoes, just the plain dark socks he usually wore to work, soaked with water after stumbling across the floor. Police uniform pants, with a layer of grime along the backside, possibly from- from getting dragged across the ground. Jamie’s alarm grew.

No belt, no gear, and nothing in his pockets, either. No jacket or bullet-proof vest; the only thing he still wore on his torso was a white undershirt, also wet from where Jamie had been half lying in a puddle when he woke up. He carefully ran both hands through his hair, and sure enough found a bump: a nice big egg-sized souvenir from getting hit on the head, which would explain both the pain and how someone managed to drag him down to this place without a struggle.

Leaving possibly the most important question for last: why?

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It didn’t take long for a chill to set in.

Or maybe he’d already been cold, and just needed a few minutes to get past his initial panic and actually notice. Either way, once Jamie started shivering, he couldn’t stop.

He tried stripping off his clothes one at a time to wring out, but each piece stayed pretty damp when he pulled them back on. Locating the driest patch of ground to sit on didn’t really have much effect either, but pacing wasn’t exactly an option with the way his head continued to pound with every step. Every so often, Jamie let loose another yell, hoping someone might hear, but... no luck on that score either.

And so it became a waiting game.

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Hummed bits of song lyrics came and went. So did a few softly recited prayers. Thoughts about what his family must be doing, how worried they had to be. Jamie tried not to dwell on that last one; not when it so easily shifted into remembering the shock and grief of Joe’s death.

Then, at least, they’d all known what happened. Been able to mourn properly.

If Jamie didn’t get found...

He shook his head, despite the flare of pain. Nope, not going down that road. Danny would find him. Danny would never stop looking, or their dad for that matter.

They’d find him.

Eventually.

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No phone or watch meant no way to keep track of the passing time, but Jamie figured he’d been trapped for at least a few hours when he gave in to thirst. Sitting in the driest spot turned into standing awkwardly underneath the crack in the ceiling, hands cupped to catch the drips, until enough accumulated for a sip of water. People died of dehydration long before starvation; as long as Jamie could stay patient, collecting drops, he’d survive. He would.

He would.

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The lightbulb went out.

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Chapter Text

“He say anything yet?”

“No, but you are not going to talk to him,” Maria said firmly. Her partner visibly grit his teeth, and she held up a hand to stop him from storming towards the interrogation room anyway. “Danny. You going in there and beating this creep to a pulp is not going to give us the info on where he stashed Jamie.”

The man genuinely growled, glaring at the observation window.

“You heard the higher-ups,” she went on, leaning closer and dropping her voice. “One wrong move, one step too far, they take this case and our perp and hand both over to another pair of detectives.”

“...I know. I know,” Danny huffed, turning away from her to slam a fist against his desk. “I just-”

“You want to get your little brother back.”

“Yeah. That.”

‘Need’ was probably more accurate than ‘want’, honestly. Especially with Danny blaming himself. Not that he said as much, but Maria could see it; felt the same, too, if to a lesser degree. The suspect they were hunting got wind of just how close she and her partner were to finding him, and obviously panicked, deviating from his previous kidnapping patterns to snatch a beat cop off of foot patrol. To snatch Jamie Reagan, with a note left behind at the scene telling the detectives to back-off if they ever wanted to find him alive.

Maria could have told him it was a poor choice.

Instead of stopping, Danny only threw himself into the search with even greater determination, and less than twelve hours later they caught the guy about to board a Greyhound bus out of the city.

Another twenty had passed since then.

And still, he refused to give them so much as a single clue pointing towards Jamie’s location.

Both Danny’s sister and grandfather had made brief visits. Maria fully expected his father to quietly slip in and out too at some point, if he hadn't already. From what she’d seen so far, all of the Reagans were caught waiting on a knife’s edge-

“Detective Baez? Think we got something.”

-but maybe they’d be able to step off of it soon.

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Maybe the darkness was starting to get to him after all.

The dark, and the cold, and the wet- all of it pressing down on Jamie where he huddled in a corner, grounding himself as much as possible against the walls and floor. He’d tried gathering water drops for another drink earlier, only to stumble and fall to his knees in the process, skinning them pretty badly on the rough concrete. Since then, he just stayed put, waiting.

Hoping.

Thoughts of his family continued to loom. Sunday dinners, absent another plate at the table. A new memorial photo, placed on the shelves behind his father’s desk in the Commissioner’s office, right next to the one of Joe. Maybe not right away, but... eventually. After the search for him changed status, from rescue mission to recovering his remains.

With a shudder, Jamie curled into a tighter ball, and tried not to think about the dwindling chances of him being found alive. Not that picturing an actual rescue did much good either; the idea felt too dangerous, a vice grip on his heart that squeezed every time Jamie thought he heard something.

And then it just became too much, when his mind couldn’t resist imagining the sounds of pounding boots, distant shouts growing louder. Jamie tucked his head down, and just- checked out.

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“Hold position,” Danny barked, stalling the squad of officers behind him. Up ahead, maybe halfway down the old service tunnel, the beam of his flashlight stalled on something dark lying on the floor. “Okay, cover me.”

Cloth rustled and metal clinked as the two nearest men adjusted their weapons, ready to shoot at anything that moved. Cautious, Danny eased down the tunnel, flashlight held atop his pistol. Maybe ten steps away from the dark patch, he finally realized what he was looking at.

The bastard left his warning note with Jamie’s patrol cap, when he drew the kid away from his partner and got the drop on him. Danny thought nothing could beat the fear that seized him, arriving at the scene and seeing the familiar hat held out to him. And yet- that was nothing, compared to finding the rest of Jamie’s clothes abandoned on the ground.

And there was no time to check them for bloodstains.

“Clear,” Danny managed to choke out. “Baez, where’s the damn closet?”

“According to that map, should be at the end of this corridor,” his partner answered, coming up with the squad. She inhaled sharply, seeing the clothes. “Reagan-”

“End of the corridor,” he repeated, cutting her off. “Right. Let’s move!”

Thirty-four hours wasn’t too long. It wasn’t. Danny led the way, only stepping aside when they found the object of their search: an old storage room meant for maintenance workers, far from any service tunnels still in use and too deep underground for anyone to randomly stumble across.

For such an old door, it sure had a shiny new padlock.

“Get it open,” Danny ordered, and one of the squad brought up a set of bolt cutters. One heavy snap and clink, and then rusty hinges shrieked as they shoved the heavy metal aside. Multiple flashlights swept the room, clearing it for threats, before several stopped to focus on the lone figure curled up in a corner.

He isn’t moving.

In a blink, Danny skidded across the wet floor and dropped beside his baby brother. One hand cupped Jamie’s chin and lifted his head; the other went to his neck, two fingers pressed against too-cold skin to check for a pulse. Danny didn’t dare breathe until- there!

“He’s alive!” The man shouted over his shoulder. “Somebody get a stretcher down here!”

Baez took up a position behind him, providing Danny a bit of meager privacy as he tugged Jamie out of his huddle to pat him down for injuries. “How is he?”

“Unresponsive,” Danny said, “But no holes in him, as far as I can tell- kid? Jamie, wake up. Come on, I know you’re in there somewhere- Jamie. Jameson! Dammit, tell them to get us a shock blanket too-” Even as he said it, though, eyelids fluttered - and then Danny’s little brother was squinting at him in the harsh light. And finally, thirty-four hours after it first took up residence, a terrifying weight slid off his shoulders.

“...Danny?”

“Hey, knucklehead. You trying to scare us all into an early grave or something?”

“...Danny,” Jamie whispered again, a little more clarity lighting up his eyes, with a lot more relief softening his face. “Found me.”

“‘Course I did,” Danny told him, throat tightening up a bit. He ducked in closer and pressed his forehead against Jamie’s, hands holding tight to his brother’s shoulders. “‘Course I did. That’s my job, remember? I’ll always find you.”

“Wasn’t... sure. When.”

Trapped alone in a pitch-black room for a day and a half, Danny couldn’t blame him. “Well now you know; I got here as soon as we found the old sewer schematics your kidnapper downloaded. A quick check for any little boltholes that would’ve appealed to him, and here we are.” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “I’m sorry, kid. This wouldn’t have happened if I caught the guy a day sooner.”

“S’okay,” Jamie mumbled, eyes sliding shut again as the voices outside picked up, a pair of EMTs coming through the door. “S’okay, now.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed, shuffling aside for the first paramedic, but refusing to let go of his brother entirely. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”