tw; talks of alcoholism,  death of a sibling,
violence,  murder,  and wounds.  proceed
with caution.

SO PERSISTENT IN MY WAYS,  HEY,
ANGEL,  I AM HERE TO STAY.  NO
RESISTANCE,  NO ALARM.  PLEASE,
THIS IS JUST TOO GOOD TO BE GONE.

HE REMEMBERS WHEN he finally heard Ellie’s voice again.

What had started as a drunken (wasted, more like) call to Gale had spiraled into slurred pleas to speak to Ellie-Marie.  He'd been three days sober prior to the night where he dreamed once again of his little girl bleeding out on the ground,  alone in her death after he fled like a coward.

Drinking after that hadn't been a want.  At the time,  it'd been a need.

Dewey can't recall too much about the conversation, the primary features found in fear and loathing directed inward,  but he can remember the one clear sentence that had broken through.

“If you're sober tomorrow,  call.”

That'd been it.  No promise,  no hint to if he'd actually get to speak to his daughter or not,  but the very idea of speaking to her like he hadn't been hiding from the repeated phone calls Ellie would make was enough for one day.  Hours ticked by like years as he waited for the day to pass,  then picked up the phone twenty-eight hours later.

“Well, you don't sound fucked up.”

“I'm-I’m not.  I'm not,  Gale.  Please.  Please,  can I talk to her?”

He remembers the shuffling,  whispers that Ellie-Marie still wasn't too good at intelligible through the line before the phone hung up.  It was a response he deserved,  undoubtedly,  but God did it hurt.

The chance to mourn what he'd cut off himself hadn't gotten two seconds in his mind when his phone rang again,  his baby's picture flashing on the screen for a mere millisecond before he answered.

“Hi, Daddy.” 

Like he'd never done anything at all.

Dewey Riley isn't a deserving man.  He knows this better than anyone.  He's done a few good things for people who deserve far more and that's about it.  Gale Weathers is an example of someone he failed out of fear,  his soulmate soon followed by his daughter,  though that line certainly began with Tatum.  Tatum,  who he's sure sent him the best thing he's ever given to the world.

Wherever she is,  he's well past praying that she's protected his second chance at living once again.

The scene around him now is familiar.  Ambulances and paramedics swarming the theater,  gurneys pulled from the building.  His head feels like white noise to everything,  from EMT workers at his elbow to the gathering crowd around crime scene tape.  A distant voice tells him he's bleeding and he's faintly aware of when someone tapes a layer of gauze along his temple,  but it's nothing.

None of this is anything until he has what matters.

He spots Abi first.  His surrogate little sister,  quite possibly the only thing connecting him to sanity for eight months of the year,  now stands beside Sam Carpenter in front of an ambulance.   Blonde locks are matted with crimson and he’s on his feet regardless of the two decades screaming for his body to stay down,  moving through the crowd with an ease he's never carried before.

“Abi!”  Dewey calls,  raising a hand high above the crowd.  He can barely make out her face softening in what he's pretty sure is relief before there are sudden arms around him,  squeezing around his middle with a strength that,  twenty years ago,  he may have doubted could come from her.

He knows better now.

“I'm okay,”  Abi assures before he has the chance to ask,  settling like the little girl he remembers against him.  “Before you even ask.  This is the only thing I've even got to show for that shit.”

In a muscle memory he's lived long enough to retain Dewey pulls back, keeping his touch light as he examines Abi's head.   “It looks-”

“It looks like you've got one to match,  Sheriff,”  Abi cuts off,  arching her eyebrows pointedly.  “You've got no room to talk.”

“I'll be fine,”  the grin he cracks isn't wholly authentic despite his best efforts,  one hand coming to tap the uninjured side of his head.  “I got a hard head.”

This earns an eye roll that Dewey's sure he probably deserves,  half of his attention still devoted to her as he scans the crowd.  There isn't a thing he wouldn't do for Abigail,  but as much as he's a big brother,  he's also a father.
It just so happens that the latter is what’s controlling his heartbeat now.

“Abi-”

“She's okay,”  his sister fills in.  She knows what he needs without him saying it,  something he's been wildly grateful for on more than one occasion.  He doesn't bother pretending his shoulders don't slacken with relief; if he gets teased for being overprotective,  so be it.  That's more than a little fair at this point.  “Don't tell me you think I'd be out here if she wasn't.”

She wouldn't be.  Dewey knows that as well as he knows where he'd be if Ellie was-

If the worst had happened.  He swore to himself once,  in the months leading up to her birth,  that he'd never put his daughter in the same frame of thought as death.  When she cut it close for the first time years ago,  it took everything he had to not remind the doctors of how they held two lives in their hands.

He's going wherever she goes.  It's that simple.

That doesn't make the thought of her in pain any easier to sit with.

“Dewey,  she's-”

“DADDY!”

Faintly he can hear Abi chuckle as she takes a step out of the way.  The roaring in his ears is going softer and softer as the little blonde head staggers her way through the crowd in a manner that he'll most definitely be investigating once he finally,  finally has her in his arms and he can thank his lucky stars for protecting his baby in the way he's failed to do far too many times.

He's moving quicker than she is.  It feels like one step is all Dewey has to take before he's sinking to his knees, ignoring every screeching halt in his body in favor of catching Ellie-Marie in his arms.

She's soaked in blood and he can feel her shaking like the time she fell in the lake rescuing the neighbors’ dog as she all but collapses in his arms, wrapping her own tight around his neck in a move that may hurt in another time but now grounds those fretting fears born in ‘96.  

“It's okay,”  he breathes into her hair.  She smells heavily of iron and dust from the theater above her typical scent of warm vanilla and he can feel the blood seeping onto him the longer he holds on,  senses conscious despite his inability to bring himself to care. “It's okay,  babygirl.  I've got you.  I've got you.”

There's no reason for him to be crying.  There isn't and Dewey knows this,  knows that Ellie's tears are far more valid than his own at this moment,  but he can't stop how his own build only to pour against her shoulder.  

He's nearly died several times.  He should've died in ‘96,  should've died in ‘97,  should've died in 2000 and ‘11.  Last year most definitely should've killed him and he knows it,  knows he owes his ability to pull through to the angel trembling in his arms,  but each memory dims when he weighs today's fear against it.  With every possible scenario spinning through his mind and no way to know if or when his baby would be coming out,  being knocked unconscious was almost a mercy in comparison to being awake.

He can handle an unspeakable amount of pain.  What he can't handle is the idea of losing his life.

“Daddy,”  Ellie hiccups against his shoulder, pulling back as far as his hold around her will allow- which admittedly isn't much-  to stare up at him.  “You're hurt.”

Oh, babygirl.

“It's nothing,  baby,”  he assures.  He'd actually forgotten about the evidence of bloodied gauze that probably (definitely) isn't helping with how terrified Ellie seems to be,  leaning back with utmost reluctance when she unfolds her arms from around his neck,  pulling away as far as Dewey thinks he can physically let her for the time being.  Her nose wrinkles as she sniffles once more,  clearly displeased by the way blood goes up with the act even as she focuses elsewhere.  Her touch is lighter than a feather as she presses her fingertips to the gauze,  lip wavering once more.

“What happened?”  Ellie asks, voice impossibly small.

“Knocked me out,”  is the quickest and best answer Dewey knows to give now,  readjusting to simply pull her back close.  Not even an oversized child backpack would soothe him right now,  he thinks.  “I’m okay.  I'm still whole.”

That earns the smile he was looking for.  Shaky as it is,  he's certain he can feel his heart slow to a steadier pace at the very existence.  Her hand drops from his head once it becomes apparent he won't be letting her fret more for now,  lingering in the air for a split second before her arms are back around his neck.

“Did you get hurt?”  The question is one he has to ask despite the blood existing to seemingly confirm it,  one hand running down the column of her spine like he used to do when she was little and feeling sickly.  “Anywhere?”

“Uh…”

“Ellie,”  the lack of a pet name is serious enough for her head to perk back up from his shoulder, looking very much like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  “Are you hurt?”

“Not bad,  just…”

“Just?”

When she tries pulling back this time Dewey lets her,  leaning back on his aching knees (he's in his fifties,  for God's sake.  The nerve damage may as well be conspiring against him for this one) to better assess what she’s pointing out.

Only to see an open wound right opposite of the first failing on his behalf.

He hasn't always been a good father.  Hell,  his own dad was only worse than him by a margin in his books,  but Ellie-Marie protests that every chance she gets.  She's called him her best friend on more than one occasion,  tries to intermingle him with her friends,  makes every adorable little effort in the name of proving that he is the very best by her standards.  The title he's proudest of is being her father,  with second best being ‘Best Dad In The Whole World,  No Arguments Allowed’, courtesy of Ellie herself.

He's wondering how quickly this is going to get that revoked.

“Shit,”  he exhales with a hiss,  using one hand to guide Ellie closer.  “Ellie-”

“Most of the blood isn't mine!”  She hastens to explain,  like that makes this situation any better.  “It's Quinn's.  I,  uh,  I…”

She doesn't have to finish.

Her bright eyes,  the same baby blues that first pulled him to her mother,  are wide with a distress he doesn't know how to fix.  The only person he's ever killed was Roman,  which doesn't keep him up at night after remembering the bodies he left in his wake.

But he wasn't a nineteen year old girl who's now killed two people,  so he's sure it's not the same.

When he removes his arms from her entirely he can see the panic,  a desperation to not be left that hits right at the aching wound deep in the center of his chest.  He did that.  This is inarguable despite how fervently Ellie will try to argue against it,  her panic when the briefest absence is shown,  and it makes him move even quicker to properly pull his jacket off.

“Daddy,”  Ellie begins,  a protest to her tone that he absolutely will not be giving into.  Dewey doesn't offer her a response as he tugs it around her shoulders,  pressing some of the hangover to her hip.

“Keep pressure on that,”  he instructs.  “Hold it there for me,  baby.  We're getting you to the hospital.”  

Any fight Ellie-Marie may have put up fades once he pulls himself to his feet,  wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her tight to his side.  She's up,  he tells himself.  She's okay.  She's actually okay.

With his life in his hands,  Dewey feels like the end finally shining like the sun.