Fools Rush In

APRIL SEEMED tired but sound.

"You came all the way up here?" Tad asked, his head sort of deliciously swimmy from the pain meds and exhaustion but his emotions in full operation.

"Guthrie's truck," April said, stroking his hand. "Tad, you gotta know… he just…. I walked into his work, and he just took me aside and said, ‘Yup. We gotta go.' I mean… I know you think he's a little bit gun-shy, but… but he fought for you. You…." She kissed his knuckles. "You gotta know."

"Thanks, honey," he said, closing his eyes. He wanted to dwell on that, bathe in it, let Guthrie's kindness seep into his pores. He'd do that later; he had to. Right now he had to worry about April because the getting on the bus thing, the coming up to Colton—that was some unprecedented self-actualization on her part, and he had to make sure that was okay. "How's your place? Are they okay with it?"

April made a suspicious sound, almost a laugh. "No," she said, hiding her mouth behind her hand. "They are not. But Guthrie's been talking to them. Callie Leonard hasn't ever had to deal with a Guthrie before."

Tad swallowed. "Baby, I… I hate that you have to go back there. I want you in Sacramento. I'll… I'll be laid up for a good eight weeks after this. Maybe you could, I don't know. If we're rooming together and I'm not gone all the time at first, maybe that's a good way to start? What do you think?"

April nodded like this had already occurred to her. "We'll get two cats, one for me and one for Guthrie," she said calmly. "We'll eat pizza on Friday nights and have movies, and Guthrie will come and go, but we'll make sure there's a home."

Tad stared at her. "You and Guthrie have, uhm, bonded?"

Her thumb stilled in its massage of his battered knuckles, which was a relief. He hadn't wanted to tell her that all his skin hurt. "He's good, Taddy Bear. He's… he's good. There's—" She rubbed her chest. "—something there. I can almost see it. It's like an aura of sadness, but even if it's there, he's still good."

Tad nodded, relieved. Two days and a thousand years ago, he'd planned to have the two of them meet, and he'd been happy and excited and hopeful. What he'd wanted to happen—that the new person in his life and one of the main people in his life—would meet and get along, had happened in a much deeper way than he'd expected, and he was grateful. So grateful.

He'd fallen silent, almost sinking to sleep again, when he registered April's question.

"Wha'?"

"Tad, did you really mean it? That I can come live with you soon?"

He nodded. "Let me get out of the hospital first," he murmured. "I'll call them and start making arrangements once I get back to Sac."

He heard another suspicious noise and really looked at her. "Baby?"

"I'm just so glad," she said, voice choked. "I… I know why I stayed in Bodega Bay at first." It was where they'd grown up. She loved the ocean. She hadn't wanted to leave. "But I'm bigger than the place we were born. I-I… the bipolar made me afraid. Of everything different. But I was on my meds—I brought them, Taddy Bear. And the truck ride sucked, and the getting here sucked, and the being scared for you sucked , and if I can get through all that without wanting to use, just to be with my brother who'd do anything for me, I think of what I'd do in the same town as you, and I think I'll be okay."

"Aw, baby," he murmured. "We'll do that, then. I promise."

She gave a tremulous smile and pulled out the bag she'd brought. To his immense relief she released his hand and reached for a bright pink blanket, almost done. "I should be able to have this finished before me and Guthrie leave tomorrow," she said earnestly, her hands starting their deft watch over the developing fabric. "And I've got some more yarn in here. I'm going to make hats for everybody ."

Tad's smile took up most of his face and most of his energy. "You mean the Larkins and the Georges?"

"And the Benitezes and the McDanielses," she said, and he laughed.

"See, you know everybody's names," he said. "All I know is that Aaron and Larx are heroes and their kids saved us all."

She regarded him levelly. "Oh, they are," she said soberly. "And they did. You've got no idea. Guthrie and I were on our last fucking nerve when we finally hooked up with Aaron's daughter. It was amazing . I've never…." She bit her lip. "Mom was so good, Tad. She worked so hard to keep us together, to keep us happy. I wish she'd had people in her life like this. I…. Olivia, Larx's daughter? She's bipolar too. We talked last night, and she… she's such a grown-up about her meds and her baby and her husband and… she's given me some faith, you know? That I can be normal. I can stay off the bad shit and keep doing the good. Whatever you gotta do to stay tight with these people, do that, okay?"

Tad gave a small laugh and confessed something to her that he hadn't even confessed to Chris, who had actually been the first in to debrief him. "Aaron kept threatening to poach me from SAC PD," he said. "I don't want to do that to Chris, but I think you're right. I think we should let ourselves have some friends."

"And you should let yourself have a boyfriend," April said softly. "You never told me the whole truth about why Sam left—"

"Because he was a douchebag," Tad said quickly. He still didn't want her to know the details. He'd told her the embarrassing story of Jesse because he knew it would make her laugh, but Sam had simply claimed he wanted something different.

"Because of me," April said without heat. "I'm not stupid. You disappeared from Sac for two months, and when you went back, you didn't have a boyfriend anymore. I… at the time it registered, but I couldn't…."

"It's okay," he told her softly. "He wasn't husband material. I should have figured that out when… when Mom passed. I need someone who sticks."

"Guthrie wants to stick," she said, and he grimaced.

"Yeah, but like you said…." He was bruised and sore, but he could still make a weak rubbing motion around his heart.

"Yeah," she repeated. "But maybe he needs a guy who will stick right back."

He shrugged then, his eyes closing. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'll stay here a minute," she said, "then send Guthrie in."

"Thanks," he mumbled. And he meant all of it: the coming to see him, the reassurance, the effort to be with people. It was all important. That she'd do that for him was worth being ghosted by Sam, was worth taking a risk on the far more ephemeral-appearing Guthrie. April, his little sister, was here , when he'd thought he was all alone in the world. And she'd brought the man Tad had been trying not to obsess over. Who had stood up.

Who had really stood up.

The enormity of what Guthrie had done for him, for April, was still settling in. Who… who did that? Who left a job they needed to follow a woman as unstable as April had undoubtedly appeared into the wild blue yonder after a man he'd slept with once .

Apparently, Guthrie.

Tad had been hopeful before, but this went beyond hope. This was perilously close to the human connection of a lone sweet voice reaching through his heart, through a velvet black void.

This emotion, this attachment, this need couldn't be taken back. It couldn't be countered. It was like getting shot and falling off a cliff. One minute you were standing there, taking in the lay of the land, and the next the bottom dropped out of your world, and God knew when the pain would hit, but you knew it had to be coming.

And he couldn't help it. He fell anyway.

Not on his ass this time; that would be too easy. He knew exactly where the pain would be when he hit bottom. Wasn't a thing he could do to stop it.

As his eyes fluttered shut and he succumbed to exhaustion and the painkillers and the things his body was doing to heal, he suddenly realized why Sam had left. Tad had never really loved Sam. He couldn't have. This was what falling in love was like. This was the fear it wouldn't ever be returned.

This, in all its fear and its adrenaline and its glory, was why Guthrie was so terrified.

Tad got it now, and he could only pray that Guthrie was there with him like he'd been the night before. He wasn't sure he could survive this fall if there was nobody out there to save him from the cold dark void.

He wasn't sure how long he was out, shivering in his sleep. He knew the nurses came in and checked on him, but their touch was impersonal, and he could ignore it. But suddenly there was a quiet around him, and a comforting smell. Someone put something warm around his shoulders and… gah! It smelled like Guthrie. Tad used the hand not hooked up to all the tubes and shit to burrow under it, shifting even more to his side than he had been in an effort to be comfortable.

He saw a vague figure standing across the room.

"Move closer," he slurred. "Sit."

"If you like," Guthrie told him, his twang leaching into Tad's bones and soothing some of their ache.

"Who hauls a freaked-out woman two hundred miles to sing to a man under a starry sky and hides in the back of the fuckin' room?" Tad mumbled, although the answer to that should be obvious.

Guthrie approached and sat down in the chair April had vacated, gazing at Tad with those mournful brown eyes. "You didn't ask for that," he said softly. "I didn't want you to feel obliged."

Jesus save him.

"Seriously?" Tad groused. "No, idiot, give me your hand. I've been dreaming about you for two weeks, and you're just going to sing to me and leave? God, you suck."

He heard Guthrie's amused chuff of air but, even better, felt the roughness of guitar-callused fingers as they twined with his.

"Well, I wasn't leaving until tomorrow," Guthrie told him, like it was a secret, "but I was planning to come back."

"What's tomorrow?" Tad asked, squeezing his fingers.

"April's home needs her back," Guthrie said. "And I was going to leave my keys at my own place so the girls I'm going to apartment share with can get them and move in whenever they want." He squeezed back. "And I may stop at a friend's apartment and get him some clothes and shit to make staying in the hospital easier."

Tad shuddered under the sweatshirt, which smelled like somebody else's fabric softener but Guthrie's skin. "I think your friend would so appreciate it," Tad mumbled. "God, so much. Some pajama pants and some T-shirts and some underwear. You have no idea. Eventually, I'll get out of this johnny, and I'd like to look good."

Guthrie used his other hand to brush the hair back from Tad's forehead, and Tad closed his eyes, savoring the tenderness.

"You look good already," Guthrie said softly. "You're alive. You're mending. You keep looking alive, I won't be able to resist you."

Tad chuckled. "But all bets are off if I'm dead?"

There was a sudden stillness, and for a moment Tad thought he'd gone too far. Then Guthrie took in a sharp breath and let it out.

"Probably. I can't stand a man who smells worse than I do. But right now, you've got a while to catch up."

Guthrie had driven all day yesterday, then slept in the back of his truck, and then picked up April and come to the hospital to wait for Tad's surgery. What Tad found to be comforting could probably be damned embarrassing for a man who was only comfortable on stage or in the quiet of his own home.

Tad relaxed, thinking he'd escaped scaring Guthrie with the morbid joke, when a suspicious sound broke the quiet.

After a startled moment, Tad focused on Guthrie's face and saw what Guthrie had probably been hiding while leaning against the wall, what he hadn't wanted Tad to see when he'd come to visit.

"Aw, Guthrie—"

Guthrie shook his head and tried to let go of Tad's hand, but Tad wasn't having it.

"Drop the side rail," he ordered. "I know you can figure it out."

The sound continued while Guthrie obeyed him, and Tad cursed hospital rooms and awkwardness and gun-shy lovers until the thing was down and Tad could order him to bring the chair closer.

Guthrie's tear-streaked face was finally close enough for Tad to cup his cheek.

"Baby," Tad breathed.

"I'm stupid, and you should ignore me," Guthrie told him, brows drawn down. "It's just, you know, been a day. And…."

"And you thought I was going to die," Tad said, getting it.

Guthrie shook his head. "It would figure, right? I finally find someone good? It felt like I'd doomed you." He gave a half laugh that sputtered tears, and Tad rubbed under Guthrie's eyes with his thumb.

"I didn't mean to joke about it," Tad whispered.

"No, you did. And it was funny." Guthrie nodded, so earnestly that Tad found himself smiling. "It's just… damn, son. It's good to see you."

"Good to see you too." And because Guthrie had cried first, had been vulnerable and in pain, Tad let some of his own fear show through. "I…." His voice caught. "I almost cried when I saw the hoodie, you know. And when you started to play? God, Guthrie. You saved my life just by letting me know you were there. You saved all of us. We… we had the worst fuckin' night. And suddenly there was this song, and it was so sweet. And the night didn't feel so big and black anymore, and home didn't feel so far away." He took a shuddery breath, aware his own dam had burst, his own tears were falling.

"There was nothing I could do," Guthrie whispered. "You were okay, and I was going to see you, and then… God, you dropped through a hole in the world?" He glared at Tad through the tears. "How could you drop through a hole in the world? That's not right!"

Tad laughed a little. "Well, I was lucky, you know—"

"Oh I know," Guthrie said, his eyes shifting wildly. "If you had to drop through a hole in the world, you ended up doing it with, what? Dad gods? Is that what you found? Dad gods of backcountry California?"

Tad laughed a little harder. " Yes !" he said, hysterical. "Oh my God, yes ."

"Did you know there were aerial photos of the damned pulley system? How much paracord did that take, by the way? I need a minimum amount to fuckin' stock."

"You're killing me," Tad wheezed, still laughing. "And you'll have to ask Larx. I guess it was his idea. I… from what I can gather, Aaron slithered down the damned canyon to get him after the SUV rolled, and Larx was lying there, his brains practically leaking out his ears, telling Aaron how they were going to get the supplies and themselves up the hill. I mean―" He pulled in a shuddery breath and sobered. "—they kept me alive. They… they could have stayed down there and left me and the MacDonald kid to die, but they didn't. They came all the way back up for us." He dragged his fingers through the mess of Guthrie's long hair, thinking this man needed cozening. He needed a hot shower and some soup and some kindness, and Tad could literally not even sit on his own ass. "They did all that with the pulleys and shit to keep me and that poor kid under the tree alive. Guthrie, I swear, between you and them and Chris, who was apparently moving hell and earth to find the people who'd been shooting at us, it was, like, a day for heroes."

Guthrie grunted. "Don't forget the teachers and teenagers, buddy," his said, settling down a little. "I mean, you fell down a magic hole in the earth, that is for certain."

Tad settled too, remembering a moment when he and Larx and Aaron had been huddled on the hill. Larx's daughter, pretty as a pixie princess, had appeared over their heads, floating on a contraption straight from the high school stage.

"Magic humans," he said, echoing Larx. "We found magic humans."

"You did," Guthrie said softly. His eyes sobered. "Listen, if you get a chance to get April here? With these magic humans? You've got to do it, okay?"

And Tad felt the sting of rejection deep in his gut. "But you and me—"

Guthrie shook his head. "I didn't say that was the end of us," he muttered, and this time he soothed Tad with a touch to the face. "I'm saying you and me will be you and me. But you and your sister deserve all the magic humans you can get in your life. Do you understand?"

Tad nodded. "But right now, I'll be glad there's you and me. Are you glad, Guthrie? That there's an us?"

"You have no idea," he whispered. He pulled back and wiped his face on his shoulder before resting his chin on the bed again so they were face-to-face. "You… you give me a whole new faith."

Tad smiled, suddenly exhausted and drifty and floaty again. "Good," he slurred. "Keep believing."

And he fell asleep again.

WHEN HE woke up, he peered around blearily and saw Guthrie sitting cross-legged in the back corner of the room, eyes closed in sleep, the sweatshirt he'd put over Tad's shoulders back around his own.

"Don't get too excited," said a man's voice. "April's going to come in and say good night, and then Livvy and I are taking them both home."

Tad squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, trying to get a fix on the guy sitting in the chair. He wasn't big—midsized, slender, with a full two days' worth of brownish beard. He had hazel eyes and what was probably a round chin and full lips under the scruff. Cute, Tad thought muzzily, in a boyish sort of way, but those hazel eyes regarded him with steady patience, and Tad got the feeling this young man was underestimated a lot.

"'M sorry," he mumbled. "Who're you again?"

That drew a laugh. "Elton McDaniels. You might not know me, but does an electric-blue Kia ring a bell?"

Like it was in slow motion, Tad saw the unfortunate vehicle balancing precariously on two wheels before it went sloooooowwwwllly over the edge of the service track in the canyon, pulling down the rest of the road with it.

"Larx was really sorry about that," Tad said, remembering Larx and Aaron's banter about how the thing had been stocked to the gills. "Are you his son-in-law?"

A faint smile. "I am. My wife seems to have taken a shine to your sister and your boyfriend. I wanted to let you know they're in good hands. I understand Guthrie has to take April home tomorrow, but they'll be visiting before they go."

Tad nodded. "I can't believe they're here," he whispered, the relief of their presence filling him all over again.

"Neither can we," Elton said with a small smile. "Do you know Guthrie badgered the sheriff's department, SAC PD, and the hospital before he found you?"

"April told me."

Elton shook his head. "Whole town about rolls up its sidewalks after eight. I should know." He shook himself. "Look, I just wanted you to know. After April comes in, you'll probably fall asleep again, and he won't be here until tomorrow. Don't worry. We're taking good care of him. Livvy says he needs to eat, and he really needs to sleep in a bed. You get better, and we'll make sure we don't scare him off."

Tad smiled and glanced at the figure in the corner again. Guthrie's arms were wrapped around his knees, his cheek resting against the wall, eyes closed.

"Thanks," he said softly, but Elton shook his head.

"Aaron and Larx'll be in to talk to you tomorrow. Truth is, you had Aaron's back out there. Whole family appreciates it. We, uhm…." He glanced around. "Look, I'm new here and the last person they need to hear from, but you gotta know. If Aaron offers you or your partner a job up here, he's not blowing smoke. Half his department just quit because one of the guys you took out was a member of the department who's been gunning for Aaron since he came out to date Larx. Yeah, saying. If at any time you'd like to throw your hat in for a low-paying, low ambition spot in this tiny little town, you'll be up to your eyeballs in casseroles and dinner invitations, because Larx and Aaron mean something here. So, you know. We'll take care of yours 'cause you took care of ours." He chuckled. "And before you think, ‘Oh, I could never fit in here,' I need you to rethink what I just said and remember—until February I was a San Diego surfer with middling ambitions for Silicon Valley and a trust fund. This is a good place. We'd love more good people."

A rustling at the door caught Elton's attention, and he stood and smiled. "Come sit, April," he said softly. "He's awake. Livvy had me come so she could drive you home and I could take Guthrie's truck. God, you can hear that thing rattling all the way down to Tahoe, right?"

April shuddered. "He kept apologizing because it needed servicing. I didn't want to tell him it needed to be shot ."

"Don't shoot my truck," Guthrie mumbled from his spot in the corner of the room before his head fell forward onto his knees and he all but curled up on his side, right there on the hospital floor.

"Won't shoot your truck, sweetheart," Tad said, and it may have been wishful thinking, but he could swear Guthrie's huddled posture on the floor relaxed.

Then April took Elton's place, and she pulled out her yarn work, and he invested himself in her stories of three cats and a giant dog and girls who kept trying to see if she wanted old T-shirts. And how very much she did want their old T-shirts because they weren't black and they may have been hand-me-downs but they didn't smell like her rooming building, which reeked of old smoke and ammonia, but rather of fabric softener and girl things and memories of when April had thought she was like these girls.

Tad listened to her talk and dreamed a little of April talking to peers, to "girls" or young women like her, who didn't judge her for her addiction but celebrated her freedom from it.

And curled up in his heart was Guthrie, who didn't want him to shoot his truck.