6

They don't say anything when they get home, but Lisa, dressed for bed in robe and slippers, making a cup of tea in the kitchen, peers at them with concern when they come through the back door. "Everything okay? You're back early."

"Yep." Lawson pops the P and leans in to kiss her cheek on his way to the fridge. "Dad get to bed okay?"

"Yes. Nancy just left." Lawson actually sounds pretty normal, but she doesn't seem convinced, brows beetling as she turns her worried gaze on Tommy. "Feeling okay, sweetie?"

He forces a smile that only deepens her frown. "Yeah, I'm fine. Dana and Leo had to beg off. We rescheduled."

At the fridge, Lawson turns, sandwich makings loaded in his arms, and sends him a derisive eyebrow lift from behind Lisa's back. Asshole.

Shithead, Tommy thinks back, and thumps out of the room. "I'm gonna take a shower."

He stands under the hot water a long time, letting it beat the tension out of his back and shoulders. It doesn't improve his mood, though. When he swipes a hand through the condensation on the mirror afterward, he looks tired, and sullen, and, yeah, like an asshole, hair slicked back with water and deep frown lines pressed into his face.

His gaze trails downward, and those frown lines deepen. He's still got some definition in his chest and arms, but his sucked-in, flat six pack has gone soft and convex after more than half a year of recovery and a distinct lack of sit-ups. His scars have faded some since the bandages first came off, but they've turned bright pink under the hot water, like two giant cigarette burns just above his bellybutton.

He touches them, and the skin there is as thick and numb as it ever was, but he imagines his insides shrink away from the pressure of his finger; that the damaged nerves shrivel and wither as he reaches for them.

When he gets to the bedroom, he finds Lawson standing by the bed, barefoot and bare chested, still in his jeans, but with his belt unfastened. He has a t-shirt and pair of boxers slung over his shoulder, and is in the process of setting a glass of water and a plate down on the nightstand. It's a sandwich; Tommy sees the curled edges of lettuce, and knows it will be turkey, cheese, tomatoes, and the spicy, whole grain mustard he likes.

"Eat that," Lawson says, as he steps around him, giving him a wide berth. "Drink the water." There's a small bottle of ibuprofen beside the glass.

The shower – the self-examination afterward – killed what was left of his anger. Now he's just cold, and miserable, and full of a nauseating kind of regret that he can't put into words at the moment.

He nods, and Lawson heads for the bathroom.

Tommy dresses, and hangs his cane up. Levers himself into bed, leaning back against the headboard, and pulls the plate into his lap. The sandwich is delicious – it's a simple thing, not rocket science, not even cooking, but he swears Lawson makes the best sandwiches – and drinks his water, takes his pills.

He"s in the middle of a mystery novel – very old-fashioned and gumshoe – and picks it up. Reads a few pages, not really absorbing the words. When he hears the grandfather clock in the hall chime the hour, he has the lurching realization that Lawson isn't coming to bed.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he mutters to himself.

He snatches up his phone and starts to fire off a text: where are u??

But then he hears the stairs creak, and he can envision Lawson's long frame crammed onto the couch. The knitted throw from the back pulled over him. The TV reflecting blue off his glasses as he falls asleep to old sitcom reruns.

He doesn't text. "Fuck you," he hisses to himself, flopping down onto the pillow – Lawson's pillow. "Fucking baby."

Says the man who got drunk off two-and-a-half beers and pitched a fit in a crowded bar.

Tommy lies in the dark and presses his hands over his face and hates himself. He debates texting Leo. Or Dana. But what good is another apology? He squeezed her hand and told her he was sorry, and the very next day he acted like a total bastard for no reason.

Lawson's words chase around and around his brain. "Is this about you wanting it for me? Or is this because you're sick of living in my old childhood bedroom and think a fat advance could go a long way toward living like you did as Tom Cattaneo?"

Is that the issue here? Is a part of his frustration rooted in something as meaningless as lifestyle?

He rolls over onto his side, stares blearily at the red numbers on the clock, and contemplates. And contemplates, and contemplates. Thinks of the mansion his team rented when he first returned to Eastman: its handsome wall paneling, and four-poster beds, and its wine cellar. Its chef's kitchen, and extensive gardens, its bridges and koi ponds, and massive garage full of expensive cars.

Does he miss his silk shirts, and bespoke suits, and ruby-studied tie pins? His Rolex, and his Lincolns, and being "sir" and "Mr. Cattaneo," always spoken with a deferential head-tilt.

His immediate, kneejerk reaction is no. All of those luxuries were the trappings of a lie, an act he was performing while the constant threat of death and discovery loomed overhead. He wasn't having fun; was trying like mad to get back here. This town, this man, this family, this marriage.

Which he's rapidly dismantling, brick by brick, with bitterness, resentment, and harsh words.

He groans, and rolls the other way, and breathes in the smell of Lawson's shampoo off the pillow.

He must doze at some point, because the alarm jars him awake at seven.

He's still alone in bed.

~*~

The alarm is Lawson's. It's Saturday, and Tommy doesn't have work, but Lawson does, and had allowed himself time to help ready his dad and have breakfast with Tommy before heading off for his noon shift at Coffee Town. After Tommy slaps the alarm button, he debates getting up and going downstairs to ensure that Lawson's getting up – but there's no need. He hears Lawson and Bill talking in low murmurs down the hall.

Gritty-eyed from a restless night, he rolls over and goes back to sleep. When he wakes next, it's light out, he has a headache, and feels like shit in ways more than physical.

A light knock sounds at the door. "Tommy?" Lisa calls.

"Yes?" His voice is rough; he sounds like he's been crying though he hasn't. He sits up, rubs the grit from his eyes, and rakes a hand through his ruffled hair. "You can come in."

She eases the door open, and her expression is cautious – until she sets eyes on him, and then her face does something distinctly motherly. She doesn't cross the threshold. Lawson said she used to come in all the time to pick up his abandoned socks, gather Coke cans, and gently scold his housekeeping habits, despite him being thirty-seven. Once they got married, though, she stopped. It doubtless helps that Tommy keeps things much tidier than Lawson did on his own.

"Morning," she says, half-hopeful, half-worried.

He glances at the clock. 12:22. "Morning." His voice is croaky. He badly needs a drink of water.

She considers him a moment, and he thinks she's going to ask if he's okay. Or, worse, ask why Lawson spent the night on the couch.

Instead, she says, "I hate to bug you on your day off, but I need to run to the store, and wanted to see if you could keep Bill company?"

"Oh, sure, absolutely. Lemme just–" He gestures vaguely to his blanket-clad legs.

"Take your time." She starts to step back, already reaching for the doorknob – then pauses, and steps into the room. Walks over to the nightstand to collect his empty plate and glass from last night, expression going maternal again. "I made biscuits. They're under a towel on the counter downstairs."

"Okay. Thanks."

Maybe it shouldn't, but her entrance into the room is somehow a comfort. Like he's her kid, and not the strange married man living in the second bedroom that she needs to tiptoe around.

When she's gone, before he drags himself out of bed, he checks his phone to see if Lawson's texted. They usually text off and on throughout every day. Work anecdotes, and random questions, and memes, and sometimes just emojis; little signs they're thinking of one another.

But his screen is blank.

~*~

Bill's watching cooking shoes – the Saturday Food Network lineup – and though Tommy settles in the window seat with his book, the sounds of chopping and sizzling keep capturing his attention, and before long his stomach is grumbling.

"I don't know about you, but this is making me hungry," he says as he climbs to his feet. Getting worked up and overly tense always leaves him fumbling more than usual, and after last night, he leans heavily on his cane and steps slowly and carefully. "Ready for lunch?"

"Ready for…" Bill lifts an unsteady arm to point at the TV. "Th-that."

Onscreen, a woman makes some sort of steak sandwich with peppers, onions, and melty cheese sauce.

Tommy snorts. "We're fresh out of that. But I'll see what we've got."

He's microwaving the morning's leftover biscuits with the intention of making sausage sandwiches with them when he hears the thud. One big one, and then a series of smaller ones. A pattern: thud-thud-thud. And a plastic and metallic clatter.

Panic grabs him by the throat.

"Bill!"

So many times over the past seven months, his legs have failed him – but they don't now. I can't fall, he thinks, as his heart leaps and his pulse accelerates so rapidly he feels faint. I can't fall, not now.

He grips his cane tight, and though he hurries, he keeps upright, keeps his steps short, sliding rather than stretching his legs out the way he wants to.

He reaches the living room to find the wheelchair overturned on its side, Bill on the floor, on his side, juddering and jerking and twitching. He was a cop, not a paramedic, but he had basic emergency training, and Tommy knows what he's looking at: a seizure.

Dread and fear threaten to choke him, that first awful moment, when he's just a guy looking at his father-in-law in crisis.

But then his almost twenty years on the force kick in and he shoves all feeling aside so he can do what needs to be done. His teeth click together when he hits his knees, but the pain is peripheral. He gets Bill on his side, and pins his arms, and holds his head with his other hand, so he can't bang it on the floor and hurt himself any worse than he might have. There's foam on his lips, and his breath is coming in sharp, inconsistent hisses.

Tommy holds, and waits, and, slowly, some of the rigidity seeps out of Bill's wasted frame. He moans, and whimpers, and his body goes limp, eyelids fluttering.

"Hold on," Tommy says. "You're okay, I've got you." Deeming it safe to release his head, Tommy rests it back against his knee and whips out his phone, thankfully in his sweats pocket, to dial 911.

~*~

Tommy rides in the ambulance, so he's in the waiting room of the neuro wing at the hospital when Lisa and Lawson rush in, both wide-eyed, breathless, and looking painfully alike, with their blue eyes and blond hair.

The only other person in the waiting room is a stooped, gray-headed man paging listlessly through a newspaper, but Tommy plants his cane between both feet and stands as they enter.

"Hey," he greets as they cross the small room. Lawson's still got his apron from Coffee Town tied around his waist, and Lisa's glasses are crooked. "He was stable by the time we arrived, but I haven't talked to the – oof."

They converge on him from both sides, Lisa on his right, Lawson on his left, and they both hug him, Lisa's arms deceptively strong around his waist, Lawson's familiarly heavy around his shoulders and chest. Lisa presses her cheek to his, and Lawson shoves his nose down into his hair.

Tommy closes his eyes a moment. He can't hug them back, arms trapped at his sides, but he doesn't know if he's ever felt so surrounded, and been so glad of the fact.

He swallows the lump in his throat and says, "I haven't talked to his doctor yet, but he was alert and speaking when they wheeled him back."

Lisa draws in a wavering breath, and her voice squeaks with emotion when she says, "Oh, sweetie. Thank God you were there." She sniffs. "You did so well."

Lawson doesn't speak, but he burrows his nose down through Tommy's hair until his breath rushes hot and uneven across Tommy's scalp.

Lisa lets go first, stepping back to dab at her eyes with the fingertips, and to squeeze Tommy's shoulder with the other.

Touching them, feeling the evidence of their worry, and their love, brings some of his own anxiety bubbling back to the surface. His next breath is less steady than the previous. Guilt twists in the pit of his stomach.

"I was in the kitchen when it happened," he says like a confession. "I didn't–"

"No, no." Lisa shakes her head. "You were there. You did everything right."

Lawson nods, tip of his nose sliding up and down on top of Tommy's head. With an arm free, now, Tommy reaches up to grip Lawson's forearm where it's pressed to his chest. Squeezes.

"Are you Bill Granger's family?" a new voice asks.

They all turn toward the doctor who's come through the swinging doors, but Lawson doesn't release him. He keeps an arm across his shoulders, holding him warm and close, and Tommy slips his own arm around Lawson's waist as comforting counterpoint.

"Yes," Lisa says. "How is he?"

The short answer is that he's okay. Dr. Mendelson thinks the seizure was a result of one of his new medications, but wants to run further tests and keep him at least overnight for observation. Lisa goes back to see him, and when she looks back at them expectantly, Lawson says, "We'll come in a sec, Mom."

When they're alone – save the old man with the newspaper, who may or may not have fallen asleep while reading – Lawson takes Tommy by both shoulders, turns him so they're facing, and then hugs him so tight Tommy can barely breathe.

He can hug back, though. Rub his hands up and down the bowed line of Lawson's spine, and feel the faint trembling under his shirt and skin.

"You okay, sweetheart?" he asks, quietly.

Lawson sniffs, but his voice is clear when he says, "Yeah. Glad you were there."

"Me, too."