Broken Wings

The hospital always smelled funny to him, all the sterilization appeared to have warped the air that choked its way into his lungs. His hands burned beneath the salve and the bandages that the obnoxious Medical Assistant had insisted that he have before she would consider consulting the doctor when he had demanded to be left alone and allowed to leave. Munch gritted his teeth as the insistent itching started driving him made as the medical assistant ruffled through a file cabinet for at home care for his burns. Looking back with hindsight, he had to wonder if he had indeed what Ang had called a “death wish.” Shaking his head, Munch accepted the material as he pushed himself onto his feet.

“Get your boney ass up already.”

Munch scowled at the figure filling the doorway to his room, “what the hell do you want?”

Glancing curiously at the medical assistant, “what kind of drugs you give him? He’s acting halfway human for the first in forever!”

“Very funny, Fin. Just get me out of here, now.”

“Bossy isn’t he? Oh, well, that’s get a move on it then.” Fin sighed as he stepped back into the hallway and waited for his partner. “Too bad they couldn’t transplant some a nice set of manners while they had you.”

Munch rolled his eyes and brushed past the detective, heading straight for reception desk of the hospital’s Emergency Room. “I definitely need to start attending Temple.”

“That’s new, what brought that one?”

“You see that nurse,” as he pointed to a woman that looked like she was in her late forties. The nurse’s gray hair was done up in a fashionable bun and a pair of spectacles was balanced on the tip of her nose. “That my friend is the incarnation of Satan’s spawn.”

“You need some serious help.’ The nurse glared at them as Munch walked stiffly up to her. Leaning against the chest high counter, Munch rested both his bandaged hands carefully next to the buzzer. “What does it take to get out of here?”

The nurse sighed as she passed him a clipboard, “fill this out.” Circling a word on the bottom page of the sheet, “full signature here.” Shaking her head, the nurse walked away.

“Regular Florence Nightingale, isn’t she?” Fin snorted as he followed his partner to Chairs and calmly watched Munch try and hold the pen in his clubbed hand. “Want some help?”

“If its not beyond your scope of skills,” he replied.

Taking the clipboard from his partner, “name?” Fin chuckled softly at the glare that his partner gave him. As he quietly filled out the paperwork, “what in the name of all that is holy were you thinking when you charged into that mess?”

“What are you babbling on about now?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question, damn it. I want to know exactly what you were thinking, John.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?”

“I wasn’t thinking, Fin. I just reacted, that’s all. Case closed.”

“I’m starting to worry about you, Partner.”

“Only starting?”

“Damn it John, I’m trying to be serious here for a minute!”

“I know that, but you realize that we’re still in a hospital.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I think that they can give you something for that.”

“For being serious?”

“Yes.”

Fin sighed as he finished filling out the sheet. After an hour of waiting for his partner, Dr. Warner had started in on the new evidence that she had found during the autopsy and had handed him the report. Worried, Fin had waited in front of the Medical Examiner’s building for his partner. As he went over the written report, Fin had turned on the radio in hopes that the music would sooth his nerves. Halfway into first song, the radio DJ had made the announcement. A few seconds later he had gotten a call from the captain informing him that his partner wasn’t going to be able to make it to the ME’s.

Fin wove through the morning traffic until he found himself at the hospital, only to be held back by an obnoxious nurse that informed him that his partner was being treated for mild burns to his hands and smoke inhalation. He had spent over an hour pacing the Chairs as he waited for news on Munch’s condition. The captain had called him for an update and had echoed his thoughts when Fin had summarized what little information he had been able to glean from the uniformed officers on the site. “You know, I’ve known John a bit longer then you. But from what you just told me, I would swear that you were actually talking about someone else. I’ve never heard of him acting like that,” Cragen had said.

“I know Captain, it’s like he was possessed or something. I’m worried about him,” Fin had replied after a short pause.

“I think that when you two get back to the house, I’ll schedule sometime for Munch on Huang’s couch.”

“But would he talk to him or just say what he thinks we all want to hear?”

“That’s the problem with him, Fin.” The captain had said before he hung up the phone and severed the connection on his end.

Sitting next to his partner now, Fin was careful to not show any of his concern. It was common knowledge that Munch shunned such feelings directed towards him. The elder detective was infamous of his treatment of those who pitied him or showed any emotion about his well-being. Sometimes, Fin felt as though his partner hid behind a fortified wall, daring people to attempt to break through. After the initial breaking in period as partners, an unspoken comradeship had quickly developed between the pair. It was common knowledge at the station house that if you messed with one half of the detective team, you had to knock heads with the other half.

With the detective team of Stabler and Benson, everyone could feel the sexual tension there. It was common knowledge that if Elliot Stabler wasn’t married, Olivia Benson would have him stuffed and mounted by now. How they had managed to establish a workable and professional relationship amidst the sea of electricity was beyond his comprehension. Some how they had managed to, despite the odds stacked against them. The detective team of Fin and Munch was different though.

Fin had learned the hard way that December was a hard month for his partner, even though he could tell that Munch tried to hid behind his sarcasm. By the second year of their partnership, Fin had stopped asking about Munch’s holiday plans and had stopped trying to get the veteran detective to socialized during the cold month. Whatever event or events that haunted him, Fin didn’t know. He hoped that one year his partner would tell him, but with the way things were going, it didn’t look like this would be the year.”I’ll meet you at the car as soon as I give this back to Lucifina.” Fin grinned at his partner as he pried himself up from the hard plastic chair.

Munch spared his partner’s backside a small nod as he headed for the Emergency Room exit. He ignored the sympathetic looks that a passerby had given him as he wound his way through the hospital’s parking lot until he found the dark Sedan. Munch sighed as he reached for the passenger doorhandle and mentally braced himself for the inevitable pain that would quickly follow with a deep breath. He had gone against the doctor’s advice and refused the pain medication. Munch knew that Cragen would confine him to a desk and at the worst send him home. In his opinion, the burns were only superficial and didn’t warrant the fuss that it had generated. His hand stung as he gripped the doorhandle and pulled the passenger door open. He cringed as his hand flared up, it seemed as though it were buried beneath an ocean of glowing red coals. Munch was immediately glad that his partner was nowhere in sight or that anyone else he knew wasn’t around. With everything that already happened that morning, Munch wasn’t sure if he could tolerate sympathy or pity.

Fin lingered in the shadows of the doorway of the Emergency Room and watched his partner’s face twist in pain. He fought the overwhelming urge to rush to the veteran detective’s assistance, but he knew that his unasked for helping hand would be as welcomed as a snowflake in Hell. So Fin watched from a far as his partner struggled through the pain alone. Fin held the prescription for Munch’s painkillers tightly against his thigh as he waited for time to pass by before considering approaching his partner. The paper crunched, wrinkling in his grip as he held it tighter with each agonizing passing second of Munch’s obvious pain. Fin’s heart ached as he watched his partner double over in the front seat of the Sedan, agony was clearly making itself home on the detective’s face. Sighing in resignation, Fin slowly made his way through the vast maze of parked cars and across the parking lot.

The drive back to the station house was a quiet one as each man was absorbed in his own individual thoughts. A light drizzle of rain fell from the gray heavens as if the detectives’ moods had invoked the turn in the weather. Fin quietly worried about his partner’s mental health and cast covertly, worried glances at the older detective when the opportunities arose. Munch felt himself sinking further and further into the familiar bleak abyss as he stared out the passenger window. A part of him wanted to confide his demons to his partner, but he was used to drowning in his own problems and letting in Fin or anyone else would mean exposing a part of himself that he had always tried to cut out and kill.

Munch was startled from his thoughts as the Sedan came to a stop outside the station house. His seatbelt clicked softly before snapping back as it retreated across his chest. He bit his lip as he opened the passenger door, closing it behind him with a push from his elbow and Fin turned the ignition off. Stepping out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, Munch absently noted that Cragen’s car had been retrieved as he stalked quietly up the steps. His hand stung with new venom as he pulled the heavy glass door open and oblivious to the concerned look on his partner’s face as it swung lazily closed behind him. Munch ignored the balding desk sergeant and the various uniformed officers passing through the lobby as he calmly walked towards the elevators.

He glared at the button panel before turning his attention to his bandaged hands. The insistently burning had begun to fade as he contemplated relighting the fire. “Can I help you, Detective?”

Munch nodded, inwardly admitting defeat to himself as he allowed the officer to help him. “Yes, I can’t seem to push the damn button.” His verbal admittance cut deeply, wounding his pride.

“Up or down, Detective?”

“Up, please.”

The officer nodded her head as she pushed the upward arrow, “anything else?”

Munch bit back the stinging reply that was sitting on the tip of his tongue. “No, thank you.”

She nodded, “anytime.”

Munch shook his head as he watched the officer walk away and his partner round the corner. “I see you didn’t have too much trouble finding me,” Munch tiredly baited.

“Its your animal magnetism that gave your boney white ass away.” Fin said as he leaned against the wall and waited for the elevator.

Though his appearance suggested that he was at ease, Munch could almost see the wheels turning in Fin’s head. An uneasy silence stretched between the two detectives as the impatiently waited for the elevator. As the seconds stretched slowly by, Munch kept glancing at his partner from the corner of his eye. Something kept telling him that the street-wise detective may have found a crack in his carefully constructed mask. The elevator chimed a moment before the metal doors slid open on invisible ropes. Fin brushed past him, into the elevator and leaned against the handrail as Munch followed him quietly. The twin metal doors slid closed as Fin pushed the correctly numbered button that would take them to the level that housed the SVU squad room. Munch felt like an animal being led to slaughter in the prime of his life. Neither man spoke as the elevator steadily rose before chiming again as its doors opened.

A visibly concerned Captain Cragen was waiting for the two detectives as the metal doors slowly rolled open. “My office, now.” He said before turning and walking stiffly towards the squad room. Fin avoided his partner’s eyes, feeling as though he had ratted out his best friend for a crime that he didn’t commit. Walking ahead of Munch, he missed the resignation in the older man’s eyes as the wove their way through the maze of desks. Keeping his eyes fixed ahead of him, Munch missed Detective Benson’s sympathetic look as she watched him file behind Fin. Breaking her gaze, she looked upward at her partner. Detective Elliot Stabler trailed off on his conversation with a uniformed sergeant as he too watched the defeated form of his colleague being marched into the Captain’s office like a naughty school boy having been sent to the principal’s office for fighting. Stabler glanced down and met his partner’s gaze as the trio of officers disappeared into the off, his concern mirrored hers in his eyes.


Munch’s shoulders slumped as Cragen closed the office door behind them. From the corner of his eye, he watched Fin cross the room to stand by the far wall and the captain move behind his desk. An overwhelming feeling of disaster hung over him as waited for the dull blade of the executioner’s axe to fall.