Title : Worth A Thousand Words

Genre : Drama/Angst

Summary : Post "I'm Sorry, I'm Lost". David waits anxiously for Nate to return home after hearing the news of Lisa's death.

Notes: This is actually a repost of a fic that I've had up for a while on , under a different name. I just re-read and noticed several minor problems, just things that could be phrased better and tightened up. So I did some tweaking, added some bits, and here it is. This plot bunny hit me while I was rewatching the last few episodes of season 3, and particularly that motel scene for the millionth time.

Worth A Thousand Words

The sound of the telephone ringing cut through the peaceful darkness, shattering the silence within the Fisher house. David awoke with an unpleasant jerk, sitting upright and glancing over at the luminous clock display. 4.53 a.m. Who the fuck would be calling him at this hour?

"'Hello?"

"David? This is Brenda."

David blinked several times, trying to force his bleary mind into action. Why on earth would Nate's ex-fiancée, whom he had not spoken to for almost a year, be calling him in the middle of the night?

"Uhmm...Brenda, hi."

"I know this is weird, I'm sorry to wake you."

"That's okay – what's going on?" More alert now, David recalled the events of the previous day. "Have you seen Nate?"

"That's why I'm calling. He came by earlier, around midnight - he was in pretty bad shape. Beaten up, bleeding..."

"My god, is he okay?" David asked, alarmed.

"He wasn't badly hurt, but he wouldn't tell me what had happened. He wasn't..." Brenda's voice trailed off. "I've never seen him like that. He wouldn't speak to me, barely said a word. All he said was..." She stopped again, and this time did not continue.

"What?" David was out of bed now, on his feet and pacing the room. "What happened?"

After a moment, Brenda's voice came again.

"He said Lisa was dead."

David closed his eyes, feeling a shiver go down his spine. Numbly, he leaned back against the wall, trying to absorb the blow. Of course, he had suspected this for weeks now; had more or less convinced himself of it. Somehow, this did not make the awful truth any easier to hear.

"David?" came Brenda's voice. "David, you there?"

Taking a deep breath, David tried to keep his voice steady.

"Where's Nate now?"

"That's the problem. After I'd cleaned him up a little he just fell asleep on the couch – I didn't know what to do, and in the end I guess I fell asleep too. Woke up a few minutes ago and he's gone."

"Shit" David swore softly. Normally, he would have said that Nate was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. However, normally Nate would not have disappeared halfway through the evening and left his baby daughter alone. Normally, Nate would not have gotten himself into an accident, or a fight, or both. Normally, Nate would not have been grieving for his wife.

"Have you tried his cellphone?"

"Four times, I kept getting the machine" Brenda answered, sounding desperate. "I swear, David, he scared me a little. He was just not...Just not, actually. Not anything, not himself. I mean, he was standing right in front of me, but it was like he wasn't even really there." He heard her sigh, "Sorry, I know I'm not making sense, I just...I'm freaked out." There was genuine panic in her voice now, which did nothing to ease David's own increasing sense of foreboding.

"How long ago do you think Nate might have left?" he asked, trying to force his agitated mind to think logically.

"I don't know. I guess he fell asleep around 1...I didn't go to sleep until a while after that. He couldn't have left too long ago."

"So maybe he'll turn up here soon" David reasoned, trying to convince himself as much as Brenda. "How far away is your place?"

"It's a good half hour's drive. Maybe twenty minutes at this time of night."

"Alright, so we should wait. Wait to see if he shows up. He could be on his way right now." David marvelled inwardly at how calm his voice sounded, considering that he couldn't remember a time when he had ever felt less calm. A shaky sigh came from the other end of the phone.

"Okay, you're right. I'll keep trying his cellphone, just...Promise you'll call me if anything happens."

"Yeah. Yeah, I will."

He hung up without saying goodbye and sank back onto the bed, his mind reeling. Part of him wanted nothing more than to remain seated there, unmoving, trying not to think of anything at all. However, a much larger part of him wanted to get up, needed to be active. He needed to do something, even if in truth, there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Grabbing hold of the nearest clothing he found, David dressed quickly and headed down to the ground floor, treading quietly so as not to wake anyone. He knew that Mom would panic if he told her that Nate was missing, and telling her would mean involving George, which he had no desire to do. He considered waking Claire, but there was nothing to be gained in alarming her for no reason - from what he had seen at the wedding, she was overwrought as it was.

As he stood there, in the semi-darkened hallway, the full force of it seemed to hit him for the first time – Lisa was dead. Not missing, not lost, it was not "possible", or "probable" or ambiguous in any way – she was gone. While David had never been close with her, or even known her very well, Lisa had, in her quiet way, become an integral part of their extended family. She and Nate had had their problems, there was no doubt about that. Towards the end, though, in those last few weeks before Lisa's disappearance, David had noticed a change in the way the couple interacted. Gone were the false smiles, the frosty silences, the vague yet constant tension in the air. He was not sure what had changed, but both Nate and Lisa had, for the first time, seemed truly happy in each other's company – relaxed, open, even youthful in some moments. Less like a married couple, and more like two young people in love for the first time.

Despite his decision not to alert the others, David was finding it more and more difficult to keep calm, with no-one to talk to and nothing to distract him but the deafening silence. His mind seemed to be flooding with images, pointless questions and 'what if' scenarios. What if Nate really wasn't on his way home? He could be anywhere, doing anything; if there was one thing David had learnt in all his days as a funeral director, it was the power of grief. In these circumstances, who knew what Nate would be thinking? What he could be capable of? How he would react to news like this? An involuntary shudder passed through David as he tried to imagine how he would react to losing Keith; the very thought made him feel physically sick.

Abruptly, David stood up, unable to stand being alone with his thoughts any longer. Walking through the pastoral room and into the office, he picked up the phone and dialled. More waiting. Come on, Nate, pick up your phone... "Hey, this is Nate, I guess I'm not picking up, so leave a message, I'll get back to you."

David sighed, replacing the receiver and closing his eyes. When he was young, he used to be convinced that monsters hid under his bed, and at night they would come out to get him; he had a feeling this had had something to do with Nate showing him Night Of The Living Dead at the age of five. He used to think that if he screwed his eyes shut tight enough, the monsters wouldn't be able to get him. It might have worked back then, but David was pretty sure it wasn't going to help in this case. When he opened his eyes, Lisa would still be dead, and Nate would still be gone, and he would still be alone here, waiting.

Just as he was contemplating calling Brenda again, a faint sound caught his attention. He froze, turning towards the noise, straining his ears – had he imagined it? After a moment, it came again, louder, and again; the muffled sound of approaching footsteps. And then, unmistakably, the sound of keys in the lock.

David rose to his feet, feeling suddenly, ridiculously, nervous. Slowly, he moved back into the pastoral room, past the wall of caskets. Reaching the doorway, he froze, as he saw Nate standing at the front door, his back turned, closing it behind him.

Weak with relief, David moved across the hallway towards his brother. "Nate, thank God."

Nate turned to face him, and David almost recoiled. It was not Nate's appearance that shocked him, though he had never seen him in a worse state - his shirt was torn and bloodstained, his face was covered in bruises and cuts, and one of his eyes was swollen and purple. But it was the look in Nate's eyes that had got to David – it was beyond sorrow, beyond grief, beyond any reasonable or recognisable human emotion. It was the deepest, rawest pain he had ever known. Worse than that, however, was the helplessness in Nate's eyes, the hollow defeat etched into every line of his face. He looked utterly broken.

A long moment passed, during which neither moved nor spoke. Then, hesitantly, David reached out to Nate, laying a hand on his back. Nate allowed himself to be led through the office, over to the couch in the intake room.

Sitting down beside him, David regarded his brother somewhat apprehensively, unsure of how to proceed. Nate was not looking at him, but gazing unblinkingly at the coffee table before them, eyes glazed with pain.

"Nate?" David asked, hesitantly. "Are you..." Do not ask if he is okay, you fucking idiot, he berated himself. He racked his brain, trying desperately to think of something to say, anything that might be the slightest of use. There was no way he could bring himself to spout the usual canned, funeral director trademark platitudes – "It'll be okay", "It just takes time", "She's in a better place now" – but he found that he could not think of anything more meaningful to say. He was spared the effort, however, when Nate turned to face him, and once again the expression in his eyes spoke far louder than words ever could.

"She's dead."

Those two small words seemed to resonate eerily in the silent room. David drew an unsteady breath - somehow hearing it out loud, hearing Nate speak the words in that hollow, broken tone, made the truth all the more painful.

"She's dead, Dave." Nate repeated, his voice cracking. He turned away, swallowing hard, trying desperately to hold himself together.

Knowing that there was nothing he could possibly say that would help, David acted on instinct, wrapping an arm around Nate and pulling him close, resting their foreheads together as the other man began to shake with suppressed sobs. Feeling the rigid tension in his brother's body, David moved a hand to his back, rubbing small circles to try and soothe him.

"It's okay Nate", he whispered, "just let it out. I'm here."

Unable to hold back any longer, Nate let out a strangled sob, tears beginning to spill from his eyes. As David pulled him closer, he wrapped both arms around his younger brother, burying his face into David's shoulder as he continued to sob, his entire body shaking.

"Sssh, it's alright, I'm here", David whispered again, rubbing Nate's back with both hands, "Let it out, it's okay..."

And Nate did simply let his emotion out, sobbing bitterly into David's shoulder as his brother held him close, murmuring words of comfort into his ear. Eventually, Nate's sobs began to quieten, and his ragged breathing became steadily more even. Glancing down at Nate, David saw that he had fallen asleep where he was, head resting against David's shoulder. David smiled to himself; their first intake wasn't until 1 o'clock, so the room wouldn't be needed for hours. He would let Nate sleep - God knows he must need it. And, since he didn't want to risk waking him, he figured he might as well take a nap too. The wedding party had ended late last night, and the events of the past hour or so had left David utterly drained. Laying a kiss on his sleeping brother's forehead, he rested his head against Nate's and closed his eyes.

He was asleep within moments.