Damn, his mouth was full of cotton. 

Dry.  Too dry. 

Tongue didn’t help.

Head.  Who the hell’s poundin’ on m’ head?

Where was he?  Didn’t feel right. 

Eyes.  C’mon, eyes.  Shit!  Ow! 

Ah, shit!  Don’t try that again.  Hurt.  Everything, everything.  Hurt.

Fuzzy shapes.  Dimmer, but fuzzy.  Who?

Ah, hell, that was heaven!  Didn’t sound right, but it was.  Cold, wet.  More…

And now he knew.  Only place ya woke up with sand in your mouth and a body feeling like a punchin’ bag.

Hospital.

Why?

And then he remembered.  All of it.  Felt the horror and the degradation stab through him.

And he knew that fuzzy silhouette as well.

God no, no.

Don’t let him look.  Can’t stand…

Aaah!  Ohgodgodgod!

Just make him go away.

Damn!

Buck’s gaze followed Chris’s escape as he gently soothed Vin.  Couldn’t ease the one while the other needed him so badly.

“Buck?” Ezra’s somber face appeared in the doorway.

Yes!

“Ez, am I glad to see you.  You see…?”

“Chris?  Departing with demons in pursuit?”

“Yeah.”

“Ease yourself, my friend.  Mister Sanchez has followed.”

Buck sighed in relief.  “All right, then.”  His gaze dropped to the man on the bed.   Vin’s eyelids were drooping as the medications drew him toward sleep.  “I really have to stay with Vin for now.”

“Understood, Mister Wilmington.  Do you suppose…? That is… We’d like to…”

“Don’t see why not, Slick.  Looks like he’s gonna be sleepin’ for a bit.  We’ll see how things go when he wakes up, but for now, c’mon in.”

A brief expression of relief was quickly suppressed behind Ezra’s normal, noncommittal face.  He eased the door open and entered, followed by Nathan and JD. 

“How’s he doing, Buck?”  JD’s voice was high  and nervous.  His eyes flitted between the bed and the blank wall.

“He’s doin’ fine, Kid.  And he’s gonna be fine.”  Buck watched Nathan as he grabbed the chart from the foot of the bed.  “Keep it down, okay?  He needs to sleep.”

“I… Uh… Okay.”  JD’s gaze was now fixed on the machinery over the bed. 

Buck leaned toward the young man.  “Son, you having a problem here?”

JD shook his head quickly.  “No!  I’m fine.”

“JD?”

“I… I just…”  JD shook his head again, dark hair flying in agitation.  “Nobody I ever knew… I don’t know how…  Buck, they…!”

“I know, JD.  I know what they did.  But Kid…”   He gestured toward the still figure beside him.  “Who d’ya see in that bed?”

JD’s gaze flickered between the machinery and the bed, then finally settled on Vin’s bruised face.  “Vin.”

“That’s right.  Just Vin.”  Buck reached out and gripped JD’s wrist.  “I ain’t gonna lie to you, JD.  He’s not going to be the same.  At least, not right away.  But that’s just Vin.  Whatever it takes to help him deal with this, we help him.  It’s Vin.  The same guy you have so much fun risking your damned life with.  Just Vin.”

Some of the anxiety drained from JD’s face as he stared at the injured man.  Slowly, he nodded.  “Just Vin.”

“Don’t look like the physical side of this is too bad,” Nathan offered.  “He’s going to hurt for a while, and that concussion might give him some trouble for a few weeks.  But he’ll heal up just fine.”

“Right!” Buck nodded.  “So the two of you’ll be out there tearing up dirt tracks and hockey rinks in no time, putting women, children and wild things in fear of their lives.”

A small, forced smile curved JD’s mouth.  “That’s slander, Buck.  Vin’d never hurt no wild things.”

Buck chuckled, shook the wrist he still held, then straightened and leaned back in the chair.

“Dare I broach the subject of those injuries not physical?”

Buck twisted to glare at the southerner, now perched on the windowsill.

“That’s something we’ll deal with when we have to, all right?  He’s… Well, he was a bit upset when he woke.  Stands to reason.”  He turned back to the bed.  “We’ll just have to wait.”

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, JD cleared his throat.

“Think I’ll drag some of those chairs in here.”

Buck nodded absently, then stood.  “He’s asleep.  Won’t know I’m not here.  I gotta…”

The others nodded.  “Go, Buck.  We’ll be here.”

Josiah pushed through the glass door onto the cement landing above the parking lot steps, then paused, eyes on the solitary, black-clad figure leaning against the railing.

Moving with slow care, he approached Chris’s rigid back.

“Chris?”  He kept his voice low.

“Josiah.”  Chris turned his head slightly, keeping his face turned away from the other man.

“Cold out here, brother.”

Chris shrugged.  “Hadn’t noticed.”

Josiah grimaced.  He’d never really found the key to penetrating Larabee’s armadillo-like armor.  All he knew to try was patience.

For several minutes, they stood silently, one staring unseeing out over the parked cars, the other gazing sadly at a sorrowing friend.  Josiah actually jumped slightly when Chris spoke.

“You know what they did to him?”

“I do.”

Chris’s head dropped forward.  “My fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

“Threw him away.”

“No you didn’t, Chris.”

“Yes.  I did.  He knows.”

“What does that mean?”

Chris gave a harsh little laugh.  “He kicked me out.  Couldn’t stand to have me in the room.”

Josiah was silenced by surprise.  “Vin?  He…?”

“Yeah.  He didn’t say much, but he made things crystal clear.”

“I’m sure you misunderstood, Chris.”  Josiah gripped Chris’s shoulder firmly.  “We all know how that boy feels about you.”

Another harsh bark of laughter.  “I don’t think you do, Josiah.  And you sure don’t know what I…”

“We know enough, pard.”

Both men turned at Buck’s voice, borne on a gust of warm air from the open door.  Josiah felt a wave of relief sweep through his chest. 

“Chris, you know Vin’s not thinking straight.”  Buck spoke gently, voice soft with affection.  “He was hardly awake, all mixed up.  No way to tell just what he was thinking.”  He stepped out onto the cement landing with them.  “What the hell is he going to think when he gets his head straightened out, and you ain’t there?”

Chris’s lips tightened, and he swiveled back to glare out over the parking lot.  “There wasn’t much mistaking what he meant, Buck.  You heard him.”

“Yeah, I did.  But I also saw that he was all panicky and muddled.  Give him a chance, Chris.  Don’t let him think for a minute that you’ve given up on him.”

“There’s no time a thing like this would be anything but terrible, Chris.  But you two were already in the midst of a crisis.”   Josiah tightened his fingers on the stiff shoulder.  “Whatever was going on is bound to confuse things for Vin.  But don’t you make it any worse than it has to be.”

For a long moment, Larabee continued to contemplate the cars in the lot.  Then he sighed sharply, and turned toward the door.

Josiah exchanged a relieved nod with Buck, and the two followed their team leader back into the hospital and toward the elevators.

“Damn, them Broncos!”  Buck scanned the article.  “Listen to this, Vin!”

Enthusiastically, he read the introductory sentences, flicking his gaze periodically to the side, watching his captive audience.

He felt a sigh building.  No response.  Vin was with him, but not.  He lay in the hospital bed, eyes directed absently toward the ceiling.  Face closed and expressionless. Buck was running out of things to talk to himself about. He’d discussed everything from the weather—beautiful for this time of the year—to recent developments with the team. He’d even managed to turn some of the tales of Baker’s woes into humorous anecdotes.  Well, he thought they were funny, anyway. He wasn’t entirely sure Vin even heard.

“C’mon, Junior.  Ya gotta admit that was a hell of a play!”

Movement at the door distracted him.  That other brooding presence slid silently into the room.  Without a word, Chris handed a cup of coffee to Buck, then lowered himself into the chair set beside the door.  The chair he’d occupied for nearly forty-eight hours.  The chair Vin so carefully ignored.

Buck sipped the hot, bitter liquid, shaking his head slightly.  Two more stubborn men had surely never before graced the same city at the same time.  One refusing to acknowledge the existence of the second; the other unwilling to reach out, yet unable to leave.

It was a hell of a stalemate, and he was fresh out of clever solutions.  They’d all taken their turns at Vin’s bedside, desperately trying to behave as if things were normal, hoping the pretense would help them find the reality.  But Vin had closed himself away from all of them.  He listened, he responded when appropriate, but he didn’t connect.  Never met their eyes, never initiated conversation.  And he simply refused to see or hear Chris.

Nobody could claim Larabee wasn’t a fast learner.  He no longer engaged in the fantasy of normality.  But he just couldn’t bring himself to truly walk away from the man who’d become so central to his own balance.  So he glowered in the corner by the door, a silent, depressed and depressing shadow.

And of course, there was the newest little game.  Vin would be discharged soon.  They all knew the last thing he needed was to be left on his own.  A month ago, there would have been no discussion.  They’d have packed him out to Chris’s ranch and let him heal in the clean air and comfort of his best friend’s peculiar style of nurturing. 

Now… that solution just wasn’t on the table.  JD’s tentative suggestion had been instantly and viciously rejected by the injured man.  It had been the greatest demonstration of animation from him since that first awakening.  Even the sometimes less-than-perceptive JD had realized instantly how irrevocable Vin’s refusal had been.

They’d discussed—without significant contribution by Vin himself—the loft Buck shared with JD, Josiah’s house, Nathan’s town house.  Ezra had even offered his luxurious condo.   But the loft could hardly be described as a calm, healing environment.  Nathan shared his living space with his fiancé.  Though Ezra was clearly at ease with the offer of space, it was equally clear that the simple, down-to-Earth Texan would not be comfortable in an ambiance created by valuable furniture and objets d’art, or whatever it was Ezra called them.

Josiah’s seemed like the best solution, but he was scheduled to spend the next weekend at a conference at UCLA, schmoozing with profilers from around the country, and they’d be back to the problem of leaving Vin alone.

As far as that went, they had that problem no matter where they sent him.  Though Buck refused to buy that Vin was a suicide risk, the professionals at the hospital weren’t so sure.  They’d been pretty adamant that he not be left alone.

And all of the rest of them had obligations to the ATF.  Obligations which had become more acute over the last two days of constant hospital presence.  They’d been spending every moment they could justify at Vin’s bedside, but the demands of the Mellin case were growing.  They were officially backup for Team Five, but the indications were that the scope of the impending crisis and bust would be major.  They’d be needed.  They were needed now in the planning stages.

So no matter where they sent Vin, he’d be alone too much of the time.  And the frustration of the five planners was heightened by the lack of participation by the subject of the discussion.

Buck’s ruminations were disrupted by a soft tap on the door.  Nick Adamson stood in the partially open door, brows lifted in query.

“Hey, Nick.”  Buck forced a smile, knowing why his old friend had come.

“Hey, Buck.”  Nick stepped into the room, pausing as he met the fierce glare from the man revealed behind the door.

Part 10