This time they don't let Charlie out early. He was now being forced by the hospital (and Tidwell) to stay his full three week minimum, as he'd 'proven to them that he couldn't be left to his own devices with an unhealed injury.' Simply put, he'd ripped open an injury that hadn't even begun to heal and thereby made it worse, and, much like a child who'd spilled milk from a glass, was now back to a sippy cup. Trust is so easy to break, and so hard to earn back.

Ted drops by the most often, whenever he isn't teaching at the college. Charlie has a hard time looking at him, at the black-purple bruise that's spread across his cheek. He feels so guilty.

Dani is the second person to come pay him a visit.

"Heard you had a nervous breakdown," is how she greets him. Charlie gives her a blank look, but his eyebrow twitches in irritation.

"Ah. Sore spot, huh? Sorry." Dani sits down in the chair next to him. She's wearing the necklace he gave her, which makes him smile a bit. She glances at it briefly.

"It's nice," she tells him, "the only one I wear, actually. I'm not big on jewelry, but this I can appreciate. So. Thanks again."

"You're welcome," Charlie croaks. They're silent for a beat, neither having anything to talk about. Charlie is uncomfortable in the silence, tense and stressed. He taps his thumbs over each of his fingers and back across again.

"I can't deal with the silence when I'm alone," he says suddenly. He doesn't really mean for Dani to hear it, having nearly forgotten she was there.

"Is that why you had your breakdown?" She's needling for information, which strikes him as unusual. He's more often the one digging for information about her. He wonders if Tidwell has put her up to this. He'd been by the morning Ted brought Charlie to the hospital, to make sure he stayed put this time. Charlie had still been shaken up then, and the captain had been witness to his nervous, terrified energy. Delirium, they'd called it. Said it was from the pain. Tried to cure it with more medication. He'd only been a step away from being cuffed to the bed. Thankfully Ted was there to tell them why that was a bad idea.

"Not exactly," he dodges an answer. "I was just thinking about how I couldn't stand the silence in prison. It was never a good thing, not really."

"But now you can deal with it, just as long as you share it with another person?" She finishes the thought for him, but poses it as a question. Charlie nods sagely, letting his eyes slide shut. He wants to open up, expose the raw core of his being. He wants to blossom like a flower.

But he's kept prison close, bottled up and locked away, best forgotten. He doesn't want to talk about it, yet somehow he always does. When there's no case to distract him, no personal investigation to keep him on his toes, his mind always goes back there. He thought he'd had it under control, but the nightmare had proved him wrong.

Twelve years of hell wouldn't just go away after two of freedom.

He needs something more. The orange grove, the fast cars, the Zen, even the job - they're all just distractions. He needs something solid, something real. Something to soothe the chaos in his heart and head, something to stop the pain of things from the past. Something that isn't just him running from the mess of his soul. He thought he'd find peace in catching the real killer, in putting together the puzzle of who framed him, but it means nothing to him anymore.

"Crews?" Dani's voice draws him out of his thoughts. "You alright?"

Charlie realizes there are tears in his eyes, and he scrubs them away angrily. He nods, afraid to speak through the tightness of his throat, looks away. He hates looking weak. Vulnerability was something he'd taken with him to prison and left there, bloody and bruised. He gained nothing from it, only humiliation and suffering.

"Crews," Dani's voice is lower than usual, less confident and demanding. "I know we don't talk much outside of work. It's nothing personal. If you need someone to talk to, I'm here. We're partners, we've seen a lot of shit together."

Charlie is still for a moment, his gaze locked with the younger detective's. He smiles, a tiny and bitter expression.

"Tidwell put you up to this? I know he saw me the other day."

Dani sighs. "Yeah," she admits. "He did ask me to check up on you. Make sure you're 'fit for duty.' But that's it. Everything else here is me. I would have come even if he hadn't asked me to. I'm worried about you, and that, Crews, is all me."

Charlie sighs, dragging a hand across his face and sinking back into the pillows. "I'll be okay when I get out of the hospital," he rasps. "It was just...a bit of a scare. Tore the stitches, the pain made me delusional. It happens. I'm better now. I'll be back to normal when I get out."

"Right," Dani says, clearly not believing him. He can see it's the story she'll tell Tidwell, but not the one she'll think of when she looks at him. Charlie decides to take the plunge.

"Do you ever feel like it's just you and me against the world, Reese? I feel like, ever since I got out, nobody really wants to be my friend. Except for you and Ted. I know we are none of us alone, but...sometimes I feel so alone here."

"Crews," Dani smiles grimly. "I know exactly what you mean. We're both cops who fucked up. You were innocent, but you still did time, so everyone else figures you had to have been guilty of something - and I was just too damn good at my job, too good at the drugs. Good cops who go through bad shit never get treated the same."

She seems to have a realization then, an epiphany of sorts.

"You weren't delusional from the pain," she states. It's almost a question, but not really. Charlie shakes his head no.

"Not the pain of this," he says, placing a hand over his bandaged hip. He smiles tightly at her, knowing she's figured it out. He's afraid she'll look at him differently, see the weakness in him and turn away in disgust, or convince herself that that's a lie too and he isn't to be trusted. But he doesn't see any of that in her expression. Rather, she looks at him with a touch of wonder, like she's just found a connection with him she hadn't ever expected to make.

"It's something you carry every day," she says slowly, "but some days it seems heavier, like it's doubled in size, and it does its best to smother you, to crush you."

"And you can't breathe, you can't relax, you jump at shadows and hurt your best friend, and it doesn't go away for hours. It never really goes away. It just slides back into you and waits. Waits for the next chance to attack. Waits like it did in solitary, scratching in the back of your head like the rats trapped in the walls." Charlie chuckles humorlessly, looking at his partner. "Yeah. That's what happened."

"I can understand that,' Dani says softly. "I was the same way for a while."

A silence passes between them, stretches and settles until Dani breaks it.

"You can always talk to me if you need to, Charlie. You have my number."

The redhead looks at her, surprised, and she realizes she'd just used his first name. She shrugs, sketches a smile. "This isn't work," she explains. "We're friends, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right, Dani." Charlie smiles back at her, a warm smile that reaches his eyes. One she's never witnessed before, because it's an expression reserved for close friends.

She pats him on the arm. "I'm glad we had this talk," and it isn't a sarcastic comment, for the first time. "Unfortunately, I do have a case to investigate, and I'm five minutes late. I'll drop by with the details later, if you'd like. I know I can't stand lying in the hospital with nothing to do."

"That'd be fine," he agrees, "see you around, Dani."

The younger detective stands, nods to her partner, and leaves, the sound of her heels tapping down the hallway slowly fading away. Normally he's reminded of the times Constance had visited, the sound of her walking away and leaving him in that godforsaken prison for another day, another week.

But that memory doesn't cross his mind at all. Instead he sees the moment for what it really is: a good friend walking out of his hospital room to investigate a murder and possibly save a few lives.

He realizes the rats in the back of his mind have finally silenced their scratching.