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It takes London five days to get a hold of him after the station explosion. Nick spends most of those five days in the hospital, watching over Danny, who hasn't woken up yet. Surgery went well, the doctors are optimistic—but he hasn't woken up yet.
He takes the call at the hospital front desk, when they finally give up on calling his mobile and track him down there. Nick isn't sure where the mobile might have ended up.
The inspector explains how they want him down in London to debrief about the incident. It’s an order, in fact. Nick tells him no and hangs up.
Later, keeping vigil over Danny yet again, Nick wonders if this will end up with him demoted, maybe fired even. He's disobeying orders, and the entire incident is such a big mess, they'll certainly need a fall guy.
He watches Danny's chest rise and fall, listens to the rhythmic beeping of the monitor, and closes his eyes. Danny took a bullet for him. He can’t stop seeing the scene in his head. The gun, the way Nick was so sure he was done for, and then Danny, out of nowhere, jumping in front of it.
Some things are more important than the job. Nick isn't going anywhere.
In the end, Danny wakes up on the seventh day, confused and in pain but still laughing about the whole thing, asking Nick to tell him about the explosion and how awesome it was. The Met has decided Nick's attitude can be excused by trauma and is letting him stay in Sandford. Or so the Turners tell him. He still hasn’t been picking up their calls.
Staying in Sandford presents its own challenges. Nick got kicked out of the hotel due to all the property damage (and because he arrested both owners), so he's just been crashing at Danny’s place.
On week 3 of Danny's hospital stay, Danny now sitting up in bed and allowed to eat as much Jello as he likes, Nick realizes he might have forgotten to tell Danny that, because Danny is earnestly asking if Nick could stop by his place and check if everything is okay. Nick agrees, and fails to mention how easy it will be.
Nick goes home afterwards (Danny’s home, not his, he must remember that) and starts working on the housing issue. He was promised a cottage when they transferred him here, after all, so he puts in a request for it.
London calls the very next day, on his new mobile, the one he was sure they didn’t have the number for.
“Sergeant Angel, long time! We haven’t been able to reach you at the station for weeks! Aren’t they giving you the messages?”
“Sorry… we don’t have a station right now?” Nick offers as an excuse, not that the sergeant seems to need one, carrying on as usual.
“Anyway, we have a great proposal for you! Perfect position here in London, and it comes with housing—great flat, center of London, people would kill for it!”
It takes Nick about ten minutes to convince the sergeant, and then the inspector, that he really isn't coming back, and another ten to figure out that they don't know any more than he does about his promised cottage. At this point, Nick is ready to just go live in his office, even though currently “his office” is really just the precinct car.
Nick ends up confessing his living arrangements to Danny a couple days later. Danny seems almost happy that Nick has taken the liberty, like it’s no big deal that Nick has moved into his empty flat in his absence.
"Can't stay there myself anyway, so someone ought to," Danny says.
The doctors have told him he can be released, but absolutely not if he's going to go back to a flat where he has to go up and down a big flight of stairs every time he leaves the building.
"Plus they say I'd need someone to stay with me, and Dad is in jail, so I guess I'm not leaving the hospital for a while yet."
As it turns out, Danny also knows everything about the cottage. Apparently it's been closed down for a couple years, needing some repairs and someone willing to do them, but perfectly habitable if one doesn’t mind doing the work.
Nick goes to check it out. It’s really a lovely place: spacious, with a nice kitchen and a big living room that could host the entire team. Two bedrooms and an office. Only one of the rooms upstairs.
Nick has the entire team helping repair the cottage the very next day, and tells the doctors he'll move Danny in with him while he finishes recovering before he even tells Danny.
His phone rings three times while he's driving them home. London area code. Danny has spent half the time since he heard the plan trying to convince Nick he doesn’t need to do this, Danny will be fine on his own, really, and the other half excitedly planning what movies they'll watch as soon as Nick picks up Danny's TV and DVDs from the apartment.
Nick lets the calls go to voicemail.
The last time he picks up a call from London trying to convince him to go back, it’s Janine. Nick is in the kitchen, picking up a fresh beer. Friday’s pub night has been moved to the cottage while the pub is closed for repairs.
“Hey, Nick.” She sounds unsure, and Nick can’t imagine many reasons why she would be calling him now.
“Did they put you up to this?”
“No! I mean… yes, but I wouldn’t have called if I didn't also miss you, Nick.”
“How is Dave?” he asks, meanly, still somewhat upset at being so easily replaced.
“Didn’t work out.”
“Oh.”
“That's why I’m calling. I know you hate the country. You don’t have to pretend to enjoy Sandford just to save face, Nick. They want you back here.”
Nick closes the fridge and puts his beer down on the counter, a hundred possibilities filling his head. They could… try again?
But… “You knew I wanted to move to the country.” His voice sounds doubtful even to his own ears.
“Yeah, in the future, to retire. Not to work.”
“Janine….” He takes a deep breath. “I….”
Nick looks over to the living room. His team is sitting around the table, drinking and laughing loudly. The blueprints for the new station lie rolled up against a wall, and the new plants his team got to replace his peace lily are sitting on the windowsill. Danny is passed out on their couch, knocked out by pain meds but looking much healthier than a few weeks ago.
“Nick? You still there?”
Janine sounds just like she used to when he got distracted by work and she would tell him to switch it off. Nick remembers the way it felt to have his entire team throw a party when they heard he was leaving, and how Janine got so offended by his dedication to the job. How Danny is the only one who called it amazing.
He remembers the feeling of living alone in the trainees' quarters, and getting beat up as a kid without anyone to have his back.
He smiles, alone in his kitchen but surrounded by his people. His loud, annoying, inappropriate people.
“Yeah—the thing is, Janine, I really do like it here.”
“You do?”
“Turns out, I can switch it off in good company. Goodbye, Janine.”
Later, collecting empty bottles from the table, he'll wonder if maybe he shouldn’t have been so short. It’s not her fault they didn’t work out, or that he really doesn't want to go back to London. But there's food in his kitchen someone left over for him and Danny, and a pie they bought earlier in the fridge. A movie is playing on the TV and he can hear Danny snoring softly in front of it. Sandford policing has returned to the normal and mundane, and in summer the construction of the new precinct will start. Nick has never been so at peace.