Fan Fiction

Part I: Rebirth
Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 :: Chapter 8

Part II: Reunion
Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 :: Chapter 8

The trauma team was ready when the helicopter landed on the roof of the hospital. The stretcher was unloaded and was immediately spirited away inside.

Caroline arrived about the same time. She went straight to emergency and saw the rush of doctors and nurses usher Sonny's lifeless form into the trauma room. She walked over to see what was happening, but a nurse stopped her at the door.

"Are you family?" she asked.

"Yes," she replied. Well, she used to be, and he was the father of her son.

"You'll have to wait in the waiting room. Someone will be out to see you when we know more."

Caroline walked slowly down to waiting room. She sauntered over to the vending machine put some coins in and pulled out a cup of coffee after the machine had filled the cup. Then, she sat down and waited.

A seemingly endless time later a nurse came to see her in the waiting room. Sonny's condition had been stabilized but was still critical. He was being taken to the OR to find out exactly how match damage had been done and to try to repair it.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"All I can tell you at this point is that his condition is critical and the doctors are doing all they can. If you'd like, you can wait in the OR waiting area. It's a bit more private."

Caroline nodded, picked up her untouched coffee cup and followed the nurse. When they arrived at the waiting room the nurse pulled out a clipboard and gave her some papers. "We need to have some release papers signed. I know this is difficult time, but it would be a great help if you could fill them in for us."

"I can't," she stammered. Caroline shivered. She remembered having to fill in papers when Sonny had been shot when they were still married, and she remembered filling in the papers when Bob and Joey had been taken to the hospital after the car accident.

"I'll just leave them here if you don't mind and you fill them in when you feel like it. I'll be by to pick them up later."

"No, you don't understand. I can't. We're not related. I'm just a friend."

"Is there someone we should contact then?"

"I don't know -- maybe his brother Jake, but he doesn't live in Miami. Maybe when his other friends get here they'll know."

Caroline sat down to wait. The room was quiet except for the soft steady hiss of the air system, and the faint sounds of announcements that came from down the hall. Occasionally a nurse or orderly would pass by, but no one came in. How long had it been now? She looked at the clock on the wall, but the hands had barely crept forward. There were 420 tiles on the floor and 215 in the ceiling. She counted them again -- the number didn't change. And still there was no word, and the hands on the clock hadn't moved much further ahead.

She found herself getting angry. Damn Sonny! Why did he have to get himself into situations like this? Why couldn't he just have a regular job like anyone else. Why couldn't he have come to Atlanta with her and Billy and left all this behind? She knew the answer now, just as she had known it when she left him so many years before -- because he was Sonny Crockett and that's who Sonny Crockett was. When she told him she was leaving, she had secretly hoped that he would quit the force, or at least transfer out of vice, and ask her to stay. But he never did.

She had left him a long time ago, and so why was she sitting here feeling this way, her insides in turmoil, waiting and worrying. She knew the answer to that too. It wasn't just that he was the father of her son. It was because she still cared for him. He was her first love, and that love had never completely died. Deep down inside she knew she was still hoping that he would give all this up and come back to her.

Finally someone was coming into the room. She looked up and saw Rico and Lieutenant Castillo. She recognized the others who were with them from a long time ago -- Gina, Trudy and Stan. The lieutenant came over to where she was sitting and asked about Sonny.

"I don't know. The nurse said his that condition is stable but critical. They took him to the operating room. But that was over two hours ago, and I haven't heard anything since."

They sat down and waited with her. It was easier having familiar people there waiting with her, but it didn't make the time go any faster.

Finally a nurse walked silently into the room. She looked drained and her expressionless face said nothing. As she approached, they could make out the unmistakable stain of dried blood on her operating greens.

"Are you with James Crockett?" she asked.

They all stood in response. She finally broke into a smile - the news was encouraging - even good. Sonny had pulled through the operation. He was still in critical condition but his life signs were stable, and the doctor believed they had stopped all the internal bleeding. He was in recovery and would be moved from there to intensive care so they could keep a close watch on things until they were sure he was out danger. There were no guarantees, but all things being said, his chances of pulling through looked pretty good at this point. At last, the tensions eased and a feeling of relief descended on the room.

"Can I see him?" Caroline asked.

"I can allow only one family member in at a time and only for a few moments," was the reply.

Castillo looked at the nurse. "We're all family," he said. The nurse smiled. She had delivered news to the waiting room before and she was very well aware that friends were often closer than family.

"That may be so," she said, not fooled at all by the assertion, "but only one person can go in for now. He's going to be in intensive for at least the rest of the night, so the rest of you might as well go home and get a good night's sleep. You can check back in the morning to find out how he's doing and when you can visit."

Castillo turned to Caroline. "You go ahead. I'll wait here and take you back to the hotel when you're ready."

Caroline disappeared down the hall with the nurse. Castillo stood there with his hands crossed in front of him, a hint of a smile on his face. Tubbs and the others traded high fives and smiles.

"Hey, I'm hungry," said Switek. "Anyone want to go for Chinese?"

"You people go ahead," said Castillo. "I'll wait for Caroline and join you later."

When Crockett finally opened his eyes the next morning he had no idea where he was. He felt so weak -- there were tubes and machines everywhere. The sounds of the machines filled the otherwise silent room. He had no strength to move, but he could feel a warm hand on his. His eyes wandered over that way. Caroline -- was that Caroline? Oh man he must still really be out of it.

"Hi Sonny." It really was Caroline. He tried to talk but he couldn't. She placed her hand on his cheek. "You're safe now, Sonny. You're in the hospital in Miami. Everything's just fine. You just close your eyes and sleep now." And she kissed him gently on the forehead.

He was moved to a regular room later that day. His friends came by to check in, but it was still a few days before Crockett was well enough to really enjoy their company. Her business finished and satisfied that Sonny was going to be okay, Caroline left to go back home with a promise for Billy that his father would visit as soon as they let him out of this place.

He was improving every day, but three days after leaving intensive care he was still pretty weak and a long way from leaving the hospital. Regular doses of a clonidine cocktail had pretty much cleaned the heroin out his system, and he was finally able to think straight again. His mind wandered back to his last jog along the beach at Salt Cay, before this whole nightmare had taken place. He remembered that, as he was running along the beach, he had been thinking about who he was, where he was going and what was important in his life. These last few weeks had added a whole different spin to things.

Almost eighteen years ago, he had let Caroline leave with their son. He told himself at the time that it was to make it easier for her, and to protect them from the dangers his life as a vice cop brought on. He had avoided deep relationships until he had met Caitlin and fell in love again. When he lost her and their unborn child in a senseless killing aimed at getting revenge on himself, it confirmed his belief that it was unsafe for him to keep anyone he cared for close to him. He drifted after that, finding less and less meaning in the job that had been his passion. Finally, when he had felt totally let down by the system, he had left his colleagues, his friends and his partner in Miami, and took off on his own to find a place where the water was warm and the drinks were cold - a place where he didn't know the names of the players. He had shut out of his life or lost the very people whom he cared for the most.

Maybe that's why he could never settle down and establish something solid. He was afraid to -- afraid of being hurt, or of hurting someone close to him. Salt Cay provided a refuge he could return to when he needed a place to rest for a while, a place to try and find himself. But it really wasn't home -- it was a place to wait out the storm.

And then when he really needed help, it was the very people whom he had tried to shut out of his life that came to his rescue. Why?

He really cared for these people, but he had let them down, abandoned them. Why would they put everything at risk just to get him out of a jam? The answer was almost there, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it, though he knew he would have done the same for any one of them.

He asked them why when they came by to visit later that day.

They just shrugged and looked at each other and smiled. It was Tubbs who put it into words, Rico who always seemed to have a surprising depth of knowledge and an amazing knack of seeing through things and coming up with a simple answer:

"Because we're your friends man - you're important to us. Hey, friends are there for you when you need them. That's what friends are for, man. That's what friends are for."

After they left, Sonny lay there and thought about the past thirteen years he had been on his own, the feelings he had experienced during the past few weeks, and Rico's answer to his question.

And James Sonny Crockett finally found the answer he hadn't been able to quite put his finger on when he had been jogging on the beach on Salt Cay -- the answer he been seeking thirteen years before when he had packed his bags and left, wondering whether it was all worth it. That seemed like a lifetime away now.

He had been to hell and back and he had survived, even during the worst of it, because he had found a reason to live and he had believed he could get through it. Despite everything that had happened, he had found a feeling buried someplace deep down inside, that maybe someone cared. And amidst all that cruelty he had met a young man in a bad situation who had managed to keep kindness in his heart.

When all is said and done, he realized, it's the belief in yourself and in those people closest to you that count most in this life. The bad guys and the other players would always be around -- only the names and faces would change. But true relationships are solid and part of who you are. Real friends are there when you need them.

As he lay there contemplating what all this meant, he began to understand why he hadn't been able to the find peace of mind he had been looking for over the past thirteen years, and even before that - why he had burned out and run away. He was surrounded by good and bad things every day, but he had let the bad ones take over his life and he had lost or shut out the good things and those people who were most important to him. And in doing that, he had lost a part of himself, the part that said Sonny Crockett was an okay guy. Maybe that's why, even after the intensive therapy sessions he had gone through just before he left, he found he didn't like the person he had become. Now it was time to stop running away from the good things in his life, the people who were important to him. And it was time to stop running away from himself.

The relief of finding the answer overwhelmed him. He felt like he had been reborn. And for the first time in a very long time he slept a deep and restful sleep.

Ricardo Tubbs tied up some loose ends in Miami and returned to New York and at OCB, work went back to usual.

It was another week or more before Crockett recovered sufficiently from his injuries that he was physically well enough to leave the hospital. The doctor suggested he spend some time in rehab after that to recover fully and deal with the psychological wounds as well. This time he accepted the help willingly. He knew that he had some things to work through and sort out, not only the things that had happened in the last few weeks, but also all the baggage he still carried from the past. The intensive sessions he had been forced to attend just before he left vice had only made things worse -- at the end of them he found that he still didn't like the person he had become.

This time he was ready to deal with the issues, including Caitlin and Burnett, and he checked himself in to the clinic. It was intense and at times difficult, but by the end of his stay, he knew a lot more about himself and he had come to the realization that maybe James Sonny Crockett wasn't such a bad guy after all.

It was a perfect Miami morning, comfortably warm before the intense daytime heat descended on the city, a gentle breeze blowing across the grounds, humid enough to be soothing but not stifling. Sonny sat outside in the shade of a big old oak tree leaning his back against its ancient gnarly trunk and chewing slowly on a stem of grass that dangled from his lips. He had been two weeks at the clinic, and tomorrow he would be checking out. As he sat there in the peaceful solitude of his thoughts, he was contemplating where he would go from here.

He had come a long way in the past few weeks. There were still some things to work out, but he sensed that he would now be able to face those issues and deal with them when the time was right. Until then, he had decided not to make any long term plans. So he concentrated on the short term. The first thing he planned to do was to keep his promise and head up to Ocala to see his son. He had missed the graduation, but he still wanted to visit with him and with Caroline. He could admit that now. At some point he knew he would have to come to grips with his feelings for her and the realities of that part of his life, but that would have to wait until he had a better idea of where he was heading.

The next thing would be to go back to Salt Cay and pick up the Vitus II. Perhaps he'd just sail around for a while and think about what he wanted to do with his life. Maybe Billy could join him for a while and the two of them could take off and do some deep sea fishing with the new gear he had bought for him.

After that, he would keep his promise to himself and try to find Maria. Ricardo was a good kid. If he could get her out of Fuente's grasp, Ricardo would be free to leave him too. He'd have to be careful though - he didn't feel like running into Fuente again, not for a while at least, and certainly not on his terms.

He thought about his time with Ricardo. He remembered the tragic story he told him about his mother dying in an explosion when he was a baby, and about a father who didn't even know he was alive. Maybe he could find out who and where his father was and help him get in touch with his son if he wanted to.

THE REALIZATION HIT HIM LIKE A TON OF BRICKS -- why hadn't it come to him earlier? Could it really be true? Ricardo looked familiar. Of course he did -- he was the image of his mother, Angelina Calderone. Everything fit -- the dates, the events, an American father who thought his son was dead, even the name. Ricardo could be Rico's son -- had to be - the son Rico thought he had lost in the explosion so many years before. The image of that day burned across Sonny's mind.

Orlando Calderone had kidnapped Angelina, his half-sister, and the baby to use them as bait to lure Rico to an isolated point of land that reached out into the ocean. Sonny was there with the backup team, hidden away back of the point, where they could watch and act when the time was right. But the right time never came. Calderone had tied Angelina into the front seat of a car that was rigged to explode either by detonator when he blew it himself or by movement within the car if she tried to escape. Everyone thought the baby was on the seat beside her, but Sonny realized now that Calderone must have only rigged it to look that way. Calderone never got the chance to blow up the car or kill Tubbs. Sonny had watched with Rico as Angelina wriggled free and blew up the car herself to save Rico from her brother's vengeance.

He had watched Rico fall apart that day, and in the days afterward, had tried to help his friend get through his grief. The hurt diminished with time, but Rico had never been able to fully come to grips with how Angelina could have killed herself and their son to protect him. Now, maybe that one unanswerable quandary could be explained. She had sacrificed herself to save the man she loved, because she knew that their child was not in the car.

And that bastard Fuente knew it. However he ended up with Ricardo under his wing, he knew that he was Rico's son. That's why he had him care for Crockett -- it was another one of his sick jokes, another way of getting revenge. It was why he made sure that Rico would see Ricardo, his own son, pumping heroin into his old partner, and the sweet thing for Fuente was that Tubbs didn't even know it.

Sonny sighed as he recalled the explosion that had killed Angelina and the look of despair he had seen in Rico's eyes as he watched his lover and child die in that explosion. He had to talk to Rico and let him know what he now believed to be the truth. Sonny didn't know how his old partner would react, or even if he would believe in the possibility. But whatever Rico planned to do, Sonny would back him up and give him whatever help he needed.

After all, that's what friends are for.

Part I: Rebirth
Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 :: Chapter 8

Part II: Reunion
Chapter 1 :: Chapter 2 :: Chapter 3 :: Chapter 4 :: Chapter 5 :: Chapter 6 :: Chapter 7 :: Chapter 8