Chapter 22

The most awkward thing was deciding who to go home with.

There was no doubt Sawyer was going to need some help for a few more days, especially after being in the hospital for five. He felt like that was too long—that infection had sucked, but it hadn't been that bad. Or at least the drugs had made it seem less bad. And it wasn't like his neck was actually broken, just strained. The only thing that was broken was his left arm—a compound fracture of the radius and ulna that was going to take way too long to heal. But it would heal, he was told, and that was the important thing. It would heal, and so would the rest of him.

Not if he had to live with his sister, though.

Sawyer stared at the tenth message from Jessica just this evening. She'd found out about his accident—not because he'd asked anyone to call her, screw that, but through her local contact, who was probably Felix. Rather than being dismayed by what had happened to him, she was weirdly enthusiastic about it.

"Just think!" she'd said during the one conversation they'd had after her first flurry of texts. "You're the ultimate insider in this case now! Targeted by the killer himself…seriously, it's gold! You can't make this stuff up! I have to be there to see how it all ends. And to take care of you, of course," she added at the end, like that helped.

"No."

"Who else is going to sit around with you all day?" The sarcasm in her voice had been cutting, and Sawyer didn't like that it found its mark. The truth was…he wasn't sure.

The second Molly heard he was in the hospital, she'd reached out of course. She'd offered up a place in her home, or one of her sisters if he preferred to stay in his own place. "I'd love a break from them," she'd said in an honest and tired tone of voice. "And they both know how to care for someone who needs help."

"I appreciate that," Sawyer told her, "but I'm not really comfortable with a stranger coming into my house, and I don't want to put you in danger." Not after what happened to Kurt.

"Oh, honey." Sawyer heard forgiveness and compassion in her voice, neither of which he really felt like he'd earned, and he'd ended the call soon thereafter.

Nan was pushier and hard to say no too, especially because she felt guilty for, as she put it, "fucking up your life more than I needed to," but there was no way Sawyer was going to take her away from her wife and kids. Besides, one of them needed to be working the case, and it wasn't going to be him for the next mandatory two weeks of leave.

The one person Sawyer was interested in spending more time with was, ironically, the one who hadn't said he'd be available. It wasn't because Bashir wasn't interested, Sawyer was pretty sure, although the space between them was quieter than it had been before, and not just because Sawyer was too tired to talk a lot of the time. It was because Bashir's morgue was currently extremely understaffed.

Tami was under house arrest since she was a person of interest, and she wasn't fighting it anymore. Once she'd seen that Bashir was done believing her—Sawyer hadn't been there for that confrontation, but from what Bashir had described, it was a hard necessity—she'd gone into a sort of fugue state, pulling away from everyone and everything and shutting herself up in her house. A cop monitored her door and checked every package she received, but apart from that she had retreated from the world.

The fact that Andy Boyce had fucked off on vacation didn't help matters either.

That was another fight Bashir hadn't recounted in specifics, but he hadn't needed to. Sawyer could imagine it perfectly. "Your staffing issues aren't my problem. I'm owed this leave—figure the rest of it out on your own." He was away for two weeks on an island or something off the Carolina coast, something that Nan had objected to strongly but, without charging him, they couldn't hold him. And they couldn't formally charge him yet; there just wasn't enough evidence.

So Bashir was working his ass off and could only visit randomly, Sawyer was fielding desperate complaints and entreaties from his sister, and the case had stalled. At least no one else had been attacked over the past week.

Yeah, because the killer is on fucking vacation.

"Sir?"

Sawyer looked up at the nurse who'd appeared in his room's doorway. "Yes?"

"I've got the wheelchair for you."

He wanted to snap that he didn't need a wheelchair, but honestly…he kind of did. It was a long walk down to the first floor of the hospital. "Thank you."

"Are you all ready to go?"

Sawyer forced a smile. "Yep." He had a single bag with some clothes, toiletries, and the stuff they'd managed to salvage from his very busted car, but apart from that there was nothing but him.

"Great." The nurse offered his arm, but Sawyer was able to sit down in the chair by himself. He wasn't that decrepit, damn it. "Do you have someone waiting to pick you up?" the nurse asked as they rolled toward the elevators.

"Ah, no." He'd texted his expected release time to Bashir, but he wasn't sure the man had even seen it yet. He'd offered to take him home, but the job came first. "I'll get an Uber, it's fine."

The nurse, maybe sensing that now wasn't the time for making polite conversation, fell silent. Sawyer focused on his hands, staring at the visible bruises, the thick end of the cast on the left side and the spots of blood in the back of his right hand. His nails needed trimming, too. Great. Something he could handle once he was home…on one side, at least. He wasn't sure his left hand was going to cooperate that much.

They got outside, and Sawyer was about to get up and fish his cell phone out of his pocket when he realized someone was calling his name. He looked up and—

Oh huh, he wasn't hallucinating. That was Bashir. He was running across the parking lot and got angrily honked at a few times on his way over, but then he was at the entrance to the hospital and beaming. "I'm so glad I caught you," he said as he held up his phone. "The battery ran out while I was at work and I didn't even realize—and then I called your room, but no one answered. "

No, because the sound of the ringer on the hospital phone was enough to drive Sawyer crazy, not to mention kick up a vicious headache. "You…"

"You must be his ride!" The nurse beamed at Bashir. "I'll let you take the chair to get him settled, if you like."

"That's all right," Bashir said, staring intently at Sawyer. "I think we can make it."

"All right, then." Sawyer barely noticed the nurse leaving, he was so fixed on staring right back at Bashir.

"You thought I wasn't coming."

"I thought you were busy," Sawyer corrected. "And we didn't really talk about what would happen when I was released. I think the last time we tried, we both fell asleep."

"Yeah." Bashir ran a hand through his dark, messy hair. "Work has been…terrible, basically, but I always meant to come and pick you up. You could have called the office line."

"I didn't want to interrupt things."

"I want you to interrupt things," Bashir pointed out. "I want you to be my whole focus when I'm with you."

Sawyer laughed. If it sounded a little bitter, well, anyone would understand that his acting skills weren't up to par right now. "But that's not how our lives work. We're both so career-focused, and you know I respect that. I'm not about to get between you and your work."

"I know." Bashir nodded. "That's why I've taken the next week off."

Sawyer stared. He knew his jaw had dropped, knew his eyes were wide by the way the stitches on his forehead pulled, but he couldn't help it. "You took…a week off?"

"I did."

"While your other pathologist is off on vacation?"

Bashir shrugged. "I called in a few favors and got coverage from a couple of pathologists from the next county."

"What about support staff?" He knew Tami wasn't working, and without her—

"Covered as well. It turns out a few of my retired staff have gotten pretty bored sitting at home just reading about all the weird stuff coming through the morgue lately. It was easy to convince a few of them to step in and help out for a while." Bashir closed the distance between them and, very gently, took Sawyer's right hand between his.

"We have things to talk about," he said. "Serious things. I know that, and I respect that, but for now I really just…I want to take care of you." He sounded completely honest, almost heartbreakingly so. Sawyer blinked a few times to clear his eyes.

"Okay." He gave a half smile. "It's been a long time since anyone's tried to take care of me. I'm not sure I'll be very good at letting you, but I'll try."

"I'll remember that when you're mad at me for not brewing coffee."

"Never mind, I hate you."

That got enough of a laugh to lighten the mood, and when Bashir looped his arm around Sawyer's waist, he leaned into him instead of forcing himself to stay upright like he would have with anyone else. It seemed as though it ought to feel strange to be alone with Bashir like this, out of the hospital—if just barely. Like it should feel more awkward than it did. He was grateful for the sense of ease instead. "So where are we staying for the next week?" Sawyer asked.

"I assumed your place, but maybe I shouldn't have." Bashir glanced at him as they headed across the parking lot. "What do you think? "

He grimaced. "I think my place has been sitting around without anyone to check on it for five days. Some of the stuff in the fridge was already iffy. I don't know if it's going to be very nice. Plus…" He went to shrug, then stopped himself. "It's a townhouse. A lot smaller than your home. You might not be comfortable there."

"I'm going to be comfortable wherever you are."

"Spoken like someone used to sleeping on an expensive mattress."

"Let's check it out," Bashir said, "and if it's going to take some work, we'll go to my place tonight and fix yours up tomorrow." He opened the door for Sawyer, who slid gingerly into Bashir's very nice Mercedes-Benz SUV. "Who usually looks after your place when you're gone?"

"Kurt," Sawyer said. "Or Molly if we were both working crazy hours."

"Oh." The conversation paused while Bashir came around to his side of the car and got in. "I can see why that's not happening this time around."

"I've got a neighbor collecting my mail and grabbing any packages," and being a nosy busybody, no doubt "but she's not someone I trust enough to let into my home."

"I understand." He headed for the address Sawyer gave him, and for a while the car was silent. Sawyer let his eyes fall closed and shifted in an effort to make his back feel better. Weird how he could break his arm, then carry all the pain and tension in his back.

Or maybe it was just because this was the first car ride he was conscious for since his accident, and he was as stiff as a board because of it. Maybe he should just give in to the impulse to look behind them to check and make sure a black SUV wasn't following, just in case. Maybe—

"Hey." Bashir's hand found his leg and rested there, comforting and warm enough to make Sawyer's spiral of paranoia stutter for a moment. "Breathe."

Damn it, when had he stopped? But when Sawyer drew in a shaky, unstable breath a moment later, he knew Bashir was right. Spots flickered in and out of his vision, and he took a few deep breaths to get himself past the moment. "I'm okay," he said at last.

"I know."

That was heartening to hear.

"It's fine if you're not, too."

"Are you also a psychiatrist?" Sawyer had meant it to be snarky, but it just sounded tired to him.

Bashir shook his head. "I don't have to be to realize that this might be difficult for you, after what happened before."

After you drove yourself into a river.

Actually, Sawyer couldn't feel bad about that—it had seemed like the best way to deal with the situation at the time. "I'll be okay," he amended. "It's not the first time I've had a bad reaction to a situation, and I always get over it pretty fast."

Bashir was quiet for a second. "I know we're still getting to know each other, but I feel like this might be important to talk about."

Sawyer grinned. "It's honestly not as bad as you're thinking." And it wasn't as bad as he remembered either, now that he was getting into the old memory. "For a long time when I was a kid, I suffered from a fear of clowns."

Bashir's pretty brown eyes opened wide. "Okay, that's not what I was expecting at all."

"I know." He'd probably anticipated it having to do with the movie business, or his mother's kidnapping. Ha. Way weirder than that. "Coulrophobia," Sawyer continued, enunciating it with relish. "And it's not even a really good story, either. When I was a kid, I went to a birthday party where the entertainment was a clown, but he also told stories, and when he went into a different character's perspective he held a picture of the lower half of their face in front of his. He told one story that had a lot of animals in it, and as soon as he put a picture of a dog's muzzle in front of his own mouth, I freaked out. I couldn't stop imagining this clown with a mouthful of sharp dog teeth."

"That would be terrifying."

"It was to me. I screamed so much my mother had to come and pick me up early. It took me years to get over it, too." Sawyer glanced at him. "Okay, I shared. Now you. Tell me a phobia you have."

"Hmm." Bashir thought about it. "I don't know if it's a full-blown phobia, but one summer a few years ago I decided to learn to scuba dive. It didn't hurt that the instructor was really hot." He went on to talk about the sensation of being underwater, and how it turned out that he didn't really like not being able to hear things clearly. By the time they got to Sawyer's house, he was laughing hard enough to hurt his injured arm.

"Oh my God." He wiped his eyes with his good hand. "That's…"

"I know. Needless to say, I never went on a date with that guy again." Bashir came around the car and helped Sawyer get out. "How about I tackle the fridge while you put together an overnight bag? We can come back tomorrow morning to air things out and make you comfortable."

"Thank you." Sawyer fumbled for the keys in his coat pocket, then climbed the steps to the front door and let them in.

It didn't smell terrible, but there was an undertone of something sour that made his stomach turn, like old garbage. Of course, because he'd missed garbage day. Ugh.

"I'll get the trash, too," Bashir said. "Which way is the kitchen?"

"Right over there." Sawyer let him brave it and headed back to his little bedroom. Night clothes, socks and underwear, and toiletries all got put into a backpack that he didn't even try to get over his shoulder. He just carried it to the front door, then turned around to go help in the kitchen.

Ding dong.

Or nope, he'd just answer that. He knew who it was anyway. "Hi Jane," he said once he'd opened the door. His neighbor to the left, whose house was connected to his, smiled for a moment, then looked concerned.

"Oh my, you look like something the cat dragged in."

"I know." Shorter answers were better when it came to handling Jane.

"Well, I saw a car pull up and I figured I'd bring over your mail!" She held out a huge pile of what looked like mostly junk.

"Thank you." Despite the awkwardness, Sawyer took it, because he knew if he invited her in she'd be almost impossible to boot out. "I appreciate it."

"It was my pleasure," Jane simpered. "Anything to help out. I—"

"I think I got it all," Bashir said as he rounded the corner of the kitchen.

Jane glanced at him with interest. "Oh my!" she said again, then turned a sly smile on Sawyer. "I didn't know you were entertaining gentlemen tonight. Is the other one still around?"

Other one? Sawyer sighed. He didn't have time to get into it with her right now, not with a headache creeping up on him. "I'm sorry, we've got to go," he said, grabbing his backpack and stepping out onto the porch. That forced Jane to step back and make room for Bashir, who came out with a rank-smelling bag of trash. "Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome," Jane replied, wrinkling her nose as Bashir headed over to where the trash cans were placed on the side of the building. "I hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks." With that, they made their escape, leaving Jane staring after them with a speculative expression on her face.

The rest of the evening was a blur. He was too tired to think clearly and too sore to move any more than he had to. He ate what Bashir presented to him—some sort of lemony chicken and rice soup, it tasted delicious—and, after getting his cast wrapped, took a shower with him in his oversized stall. It was his first real shower since going into the hospital, and felt incredible. Bashir washed his hair, peppering his face and shoulders with little kisses as he did so, and if Sawyer hadn't been so damn tired he would have happily started something right then and there. But he was so damn tired, so he let Bashir lead him to bed instead.

He woke up in the morning with Bashir flush to his back, warm and comforting, and the sound of his ringing phone doing everything in its power to eliminate that comfort. Sawyer eased his good arm over to the bedside table and grabbed for his phone, groaning when he saw it was Nan. Damn it, he couldn't just ignore her. "'lo?"

"Sawyer?" Nan sounded worried. "Are you at home?"

"Mm…no." Not that it should matter, as he was off-duty for the foreseeable future. "Why?"

"Because we just got a call a few minutes ago for your neighbor's place. A Mrs. Jane Simmons? Apparently her carbon monoxide monitors went off this morning—she was pretty sick by the time she realized something was wrong. She's in an ambulance on her way to the hospital, but nothing in her house is leaking. Did you leave the stove on?"

"No," Sawyer said numbly. Carbon monoxide? "I didn't. But someone should go into my place and check anyway. There's a spare key under the flower box."

"Okay, I'll let the firefighters know." She paused. "Did anyone else have access to your house while you were away from it?"

"Just my neighbor, but she didn't go inside." And anyone who could have found your key. Didn't Jane say something about entertaining gentle men at your place? She had. Shit.

"I didn't know you were entertaining gentlemen tonight," she'd very clearly said. "Is the other one still around?"

The other one? Oh. Fuck .

"Tell the firefighters to be careful," Sawyer said. "I'll be in soon."

"No, you're absolutely not coming in. I'll update you as soon as I have something to tell you. Got it? Stay where you are." She ended the call, and Sawyer turned his head to look at Bashir, who was awake and clearly apprehensive.

"What was that about?"

"I think someone tried to kill me. Again."