He bloody well should have known better.

Also, Swan was going to kill him - if she managed to figure out where the bastard was hiding him in time.

But mostly that first one.

Killian should have waited for her. They were supposed to be working together. He didn't like her sticking her neck out while he hid on the sidelines biding his time, but she was the Internal Affairs Investigator, not him. And, she'd assured him while he scoffed his dislike at sitting on his hands, they'd get better results - better evidence - if he could fly under the radar. With all of the bad history between him and her suspect, Emma had wanted him to remain as anonymous as possible.

Not quite so anonymous, after all. You're a bloody idiot, Jones.

He didn't even know when it had all gone so wrong. He'd thought they were careful to keep him out of it, leaving him as Swan's eyes and ears in the department. Then, he'd gotten a lead on a deal with the man behind the curtain, the bastard orchestrating this whole thing. It was a lead that, looking back, he should have realized was being handed to him on a golden platter.

He should have waited for Swan.

But while patience was a virtue that Killian took pride in, it had been nearly two years of false trails and dead ends and he hadn't wanted to waste any more of Swan's time until he knew for sure. Not to mention, he didn't want to risk her if he didn't have to.

So of course it had been a bloody trap. He could see now that it was designed to lure Emma and whomever she was working with (assuming that they didn't know it was him already) into making just this mistake.

And he'd leapt in with both feet like a goddamned rookie.

Liam would have his head.

Killian roughly shoved away any thoughts of his brother when he heard the creak of the warehouse door being lifted again. He prayed to anyone, anything who would listen that it was Swan or Locksley or even some teenagers breaking into the old building to do who-knew-what.

It wasn't.

Four Months Earlier…

"Jones!" Gold bellowed from his office, the summons echoing across the bullpen.

Killian Jones rolled his eyes at his partner before closing out of the file on his computer and shoving away from his desk. "The Dark One calls," he muttered, earning a smirk from Locksley and from Nolan at the next desk.

Nolan's rookie, Henry Mills, barely looked up. Mills was a good kid - eager to please and absorbing everything the three of them tried to teach him like a sponge. But once he got his head wrapped around something - whether it was research for a case or plotlines for the books he tried to get published in his free time - they tended to lose him to the information written down in front of his nose.

Killian almost envied him the naiveté that came with being a rookie. It felt like it had been centuries since he'd been that young and green. When he'd gone home at night to Liam's flat, nearly bursting with stories about all the good he'd done that day. Liam had smiled at him every time and let him have his moment, the same way Killian and David now did for Henry. Too many cases and too many unhappy endings had knocked that right out of Killian, and he dreaded the day that the same would happen to the kid.

"Jones!" Gold bellowed again, and Killian huffed out a breath in exasperation.

"Coming, you old crocodile," he murmured under his breath - this time earning a reaction from Mills.

The rookie's eyes went wide and his head whipped around to Gold's office as if he were afraid that their captain could hear him across the bustling bullpen. When Henry didn't find the man storming across the room after Jones, however, he bit his lip and started scribbling something madly in one of his notebooks. Killian had a feeling that, somehow, his insult would make into Mills's next book.

Sighing in resignation, Killian finally made his way through the bullpen with all the enthusiasm of a pirate walking to the gallows. He could feel eyes on him, other cops - some who knew of his less than stellar relationship with their captain and others who were just glad it wasn't them - watching his death march.

"You bellowed, Your Majesty?" Killian snarked, leaning against the door jamb with his thumbs in his belt loops.

Gold sneered. "Come in and close the door."

Killian didn't move, crossing one ankle over the other in a show of nonchalance.

"Jones," Gold ordered with a hint of anger coloring his tone.

Killian smirked. Perfect.

"I'm comfortable here. What can I do for you?" He paused, waiting for Gold's face to turn red before adding a disdainful, "Sir."

Even from across the office, Killian could see the muscles of Gold's jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth. He sighed inwardly. Liam had told him time and again to tread carefully - first with the foster parents who had grudgingly taken them in and then with their commanding officer.

Killian never learned.

With Gold, it was almost too easy. To say they hated each other was a gross understatement. Gold knew that his wife Milah would rather find love and freedom with Killian than to be shackled to him; had done so for years under his nose. And Killian knew that Gold was responsible for her death, though he still couldn't prove it.

But not for a bloody lack of trying.

And then, as if he wanted to watch Killian suffer day after day with the knowledge that the one who murdered the woman he loved was on the loose and no leads, Gold had him transferred into his unit. On paper, the transfer was a gold star - a promotion from Patrol to Homicide on the personal request of the unit's supervisor - and came with a jump in rank. Then "Officer" - now "Lieutenant" - Killian Jones knew better. Gold just wanted to torture him with the ability and means to hunt futilely for Milah's murderer when there was nothing to find.

Speaking of…

"Have you found anything on Milah's murderer, Lieutenant?" Gold asked as if he was actually concerned with the results.

It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did to be asked. Not by him. Killian had enough trouble getting through his days without being accosted by Milah's absence from his life without being tormented by his failure to turn up any solid evidence.

That, he supposed, was what the Jolly Roger was for.

Inwardly, he seethed. Gold should be running scared. He should be worried about what Killian was going to find and when he was going to find it. Because he wasn't going to stop looking. Not until the day someone put a bullet in Killian's chest and ended what passed for his miserable existence. And even then.

Instead, Gold just sat at his desk like the smug little imp he was, ruling over their department like some kind of despotic king. He didn't seem to have a care in the world.

"Nothing yet," Killian answered, jaw clenched and muscles twitching in his cheek before he once again added a curt yet insolent, "Sir."

"Pity," Gold's oily voice slithered over the word. "You came so highly recommended. I guess you're just another disappointment. Milah really should have picked a better champion, shouldn't she?"

The room turned a startling shade of red. Killian couldn't see anything other than the bloody color filling his vision, his imagination helpfully vaulting himself over the desk and throttling Gold for his callousness.

David's hand on his shoulder was, perhaps, the only thing that kept him from a suspension and another black mark on his record.

"Was planning on taking the rookie out to an old scene, Cap." David didn't let go of Killian as he spoke to Gold. "Thought I'd see what he could find on the Hatter case. If that's all right?"

"Yes, yes, dearie," Gold muttered, waving him off. "Take Jones with you; looks like he's been in the office too long."

Killian spun on his heel without being formally dismissed, moving through the bullpen and right past Locksley without a word. His hands were shaking as he shoved them in his pockets, an icy chill working its way down his spine as he kept moving. He needed to get out of there, needed just a minute to…

He didn't even know what he needed. Milah had always known, but she was gone and unavenged and there was apparently nothing that he could manage to do about that.

God, he just wanted her back.

Killian found himself on the roof, hands wrapped around the wrought iron railing and still trembling. It was loud out here - the wind howling through the buildings and the ever-present din of traffic far below - but Killian loved it even more for the noise.

It silenced the self-recriminations, if only for a moment.

Given the chance, he'd have flown across the city - using lights and sirens if traffic was moving too slow - and sailed away from it all. The soothing cadence of ocean waves against his boat's hull was far more relaxing than the sounds of the city, but he'd have to take what he could get while he was still on duty.

Maybe he and Liam could take her out this Saturday, if he could entice his brother to come back from the cabin for the weekend - or maybe a little bit longer. Liam had been spending more and more time out there, the seclusion and the work that the place required enough to distract him from the bustle of the city. From what he'd lost, himself.

The State had given Liam a generous settlement package - full disability and his complete pension package along with a medal accompanied by their very sincere thanks for nearly giving his life in service to the community - but it couldn't account for everything. Liam had lost the means to protect Killian, not to mention the people of the city - people that Liam had built his career around keeping safe. It weighed on him far more than any financial stability could ever overcome.

But that was neither here nor there and Killian couldn't focus on Liam right now. Not when he needed to get his head back in the game and stop replaying the needling jabs Gold was always throwing his way.

"All right, Jones?" Locksley's voice drifted across the roof, light on the wind but not casual enough to mask his concern.

Killian nodded, the lie tasting too much like ash to make it past his lips. "I'll be down in a minute, aye?" He threw over his shoulder, still staring at the traffic far below them.

He didn't hear the sound of the access door closing, so he knew his partner was still standing there, silent and supportive. Killian dropped his head, letting the tension radiate through his shoulders before he finally pushed away from the railing.

"We'll get him, mate. You know that right?" Locksley asked, clapping a hand on Killian's shoulder and shaking him a little.

It didn't help.

"Aye, of course," he replied anyway, but he wasn't certain he believed it. Not any more. Not when he had to watch Gold thrive in the spotlight every day, smug and full of such hubris that even Killian was starting to believe that he'd gotten away with it.

Milah would be furious.

Killian shook off Robin's hand and made his way back downstairs, bypassing the bullpen entirely and heading for one of the unmarked cars. Nolan waved to him from the driver's seat of his own car before they pulled out.

Maybe a couple hours combing over a cold case with the rookie wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It was almost nice to see the world through Mills' eyes for a little while, where the cases were still black and white and a missing girl was still just that (if the rookie was ignoring the fact that a missing child case was being handled by Homicide, Killian wasn't going to burst his bubble just yet).

They'd been over the abandoned warehouse with a fine-toothed comb more than once. The only real evidence they had that the girl had even been here was a ratty stuffed animal that might have been a rabbit once upon a time. Jefferson Hatter, her father, swore that he'd given the toy to his daughter for her birthday and routinely called the precinct asking when it could be returned to him from the evidence locker.

His daughter would need it, he reminded them each time, when she came home.

Killian didn't know what it was about the case that got to him; he'd handled plenty of cases with kids and they didn't gnaw at him like this one did. By rights, they should have kicked the file to the cold case division months ago. There was no real evidence that the girl had been killed, she was just gone.

Vanished into thin air, like magic.

And yet, here they were.

Killian could hear David explaining something to Henry down the hall but the words were muffled. It didn't matter; not really. He knew the case backwards and forwards and while there was a hint of optimism that his cynicism hadn't quite extinguished yet, it was dwindling. They weren't going to find anything. They weren't going to find her. Not the way that any of them wanted to find Grace Hatter.

Trying to silence the morose path his thoughts were taking, Killian scrubbed some of the grime off a window pane and looked out. The alley below was full of trash and abandoned boxes - he had a feeling that there was a tent city of sorts there in nicer weather. He expected to see the bum at one end of the alley, picking through a dumpster with a stolen shopping cart nearly full of cans behind him.

He didn't expect to see two men, dressed in suits and overcoats, hunched against the wind and gesticulating wildly at one another just under his window. It was curious enough on its own, but when the taller man looked up, Killian took off at a run. He practically leapt down the stairs, stumbling on the landing and blowing past Mills and Nolan at a full sprint, shouting for backup. He pulled his weapon, flicking off the safety as he held it securely in his right hand. The barrel of the gun led his pursuit, wavering only slightly with each step he took.

He heard the pounding of feet behind him, heard Mills calling into a radio, but couldn't concentrate on that. He knew that Locksley was somewhere in the building, likely on his way to their location, but he needed to focus on getting out the door and into the alley before-

The alley was empty.

"Bloody hell!" Killian shouted in frustration, legs still pumping as he bypassed the area where the two men had been meeting and burst out onto the street, nearly tripping over the homeless man's treasure on his way past.

There.

The tail of an overcoat billowed in the wind as one of the men rounded a corner and out of sight again. Killian pushed himself further - pushed himself harder, faster, beyond his limits - following his mark between buildings and down another alley. He rounded a third corner, the sounds of the city muffling the footsteps of his partners, thinking only of-

He was lying on the ground. How did he get on the ground?

"Killian!" Locksley's voice startled him. "Jones, wake up! Are you- Mills, where's the ambulance?"

Wake up? Was he sleeping?

The world spun sickeningly around him, like a carousel careening wildly out of control, and Killian couldn't do anything more than squeeze his eyes further shut and try to scrabble for any type of handhold to keep from sliding off the ground into the abyss that was surely waiting for him. His stomach rolled and he tried to bite back the nausea that was creeping in on him, to no avail. He only had a moment's warning before the acrid taste of bile and… it hurt too much to do more than heave, thinking was out of the question.

Hands on his head helped to keep him steady as he lost his lunch onto the pavement, shaking slightly with the effort when he was rolled to his back again.

"Jones? You with us?" One of his partners - he wasn't quite sure who, what with all the ringing in his ears.

White hot pain lanced through his forehead when he tried to nod in the affirmative, making him think twice about opening his eyes. It was safer in the dark, far less painful.

"Wha' happen'?" he slurred, surprised at how wrong the letters sounded.

Locksley's voice finally filtered through the ringing in his ears. "We were hoping you could tell us. Looks like whoever you were chasing took you out with a metal pipe."

There was the clang of metal against asphalt and it sent shivers down Killian's spine as the sound assaulted his ears and made them ring. The wail of sirens nearly made him sick again, and if he were less stubborn, Killian may have allowed himself to pass out. But there were too many people around him and no one chasing-

"Hades," he bit out, a little startled by the sound of his own voice. "It was Hades in the alley. Did you-?"

Everyone around him was murmuring now, and he could hear the rustle of movement.

"No one saw who you were chasing, Jones. Are you sure?" That was David, the accompanying hand on his shoulder squeezing in gentle support.

"Aye," Killian managed, well aware that he shouldn't try nodding his head again. "It was him. Did no one-"

He was cut off by the arrival of the paramedics and there was no more time for questions. Plenty of time for that later since Hades was clearly long gone.

There was a blood pressure cuff on his arm and a mask over his face and Killian wanted nothing more than to bat both of them away. He didn't recognize the voices of the medics, didn't want to think too hard about who they were anyway, and tried not to lose what little composure he had as he was lifted from the ground onto a gurney that rolled too quickly for his liking. Trembling in spite of himself as he was jostled and lifted yet again, Killian latched onto the hard plastic beneath him and held on for dear life.

"It's all right, Jones, we've got you," Locksley soothed from somewhere to Killian's left, the doors to the ambulance closing and muffling the sounds of traffic. He thought he might have made some sound of acknowledgement, but the world slipped away from him as the ambulance began to move.

Liam Jones glared down at the mess of shingles littering the ground around the cabin and cursed. The late summer storm a few days before had wreaked havoc on the roof that he and Killian had been putting off replacing and Liam didn't even want to know what damage had been done inside. He'd gotten out of the truck and just climbed up on the roof.

Still, glaring at the mess wasn't going to fix it and with another storm predicted before the weekend, he couldn't wait any longer for Killian to come out and help him. His little brother would probably have a fit when he realized Liam had been climbing ladders and up on the roof, but Killian had to realize that he was getting better every day.

He hadn't had an attack in months.

As if his nerves were determined to betray him, Liam's hands shook minutely. He glared at them, wrapping his fingers more tightly around the hammer and began to pull up the damaged shingles. It took awhile, but Liam lost himself in the repetitive task, the echo of the hammer through the woods the only thing to distract him from the pure, blessed silence.

It had been just over a year since the day he'd nearly lost everything, only just managing to step in front of an adrenaline-and-hate fueled teenager intent on stabbing Killian in the back. The fire that had raced along Liam's side and settled deep inside him had frightened him, but not nearly so much as the sound of his brother's confused and increasingly panicked screams.

Killian had sounded so damned frightened and the blood he'd been rapidly losing had stolen Liam's ability to comfort his little brother as consciousness fled quickly.

There had been poison coating the teenager's blade. Dreamshade, the doctor had called it. A bloody neurotoxin that reacted poorly with adrenaline and caused violent muscle tremors. A goddamned nuisance if the job required you to shoot a weapon accurately under pressure.

He wouldn't change a thing. Killian was safe - as safe as one could be as a detective with Boston Police anyway - and able to do his job. It was all that mattered, as long as he was-

The phone ringing through the trees startled Liam and made his hands start to shake. Grumbling at himself, Liam breathed out slowly through his nose and allowed the muscles to calm before answering the phone. His former partner's face was on the screen, a dumb picture from Killian's last birthday that David grumbled about every chance he got.

"Jones," Liam answered by rote, already reaching for the next shingle, plotting out how best to finish this project.

David's voice came over the line, the muffled voices around him letting Liam know that he was on shift. He thought he heard Killian's voice, but something seemed a little off. "Liam? It's Nolan. Where are you right now?"

Liam blinked. David knew he was at the cabin.

Something was wrong.

Sandwiching his phone between his shoulder and his ear, Liam started climbing down the ladder, sure that if he didn't now, he wouldn't be able to by the time he hung up the phone.

"You know where I am. What-" Sirens. Ambulance sirens. "-David?"

Nolan sighed over the phone. "How long will it take you to get back here?"

"What happened?" He didn't tell David that it would take him a lot less time than it should. Nolan already knew that.

"We don't know exactly. We were down at the old Hatter scene, showing the kid around. Killian took off like a bat out of Hell and when we caught up to him… yes, Mills stay on the phone until they're here… sorry, Liam. It looks like someone tried to take him out with a pipe."

Liam grabbed his keys off the porch rail, already sprinting up the hill towards where he'd left the truck. "Is he all right?"

David didn't answer him right away and by the suddenly muffled sounds it sounded like his hand was over the phone.

"Nolan! Is my brother all right?"

More mumbled conversation that Liam couldn't make out. He scratched the key through the paint around the door lock before he managed to get it inserted correctly, doing his best to tear the door from its hinges when he wrenched it open.

"Liam? Still there?"

There were a choice number of disbelieving curses on the tip of Liam's tongue. As if he'd hang up the bloody phone when he still didn't know anything. "I swear to God, Nolan…"

"He's not really with it, but he's been in and out since we found him. The ambulance is almost here, but… hold on, he's coming around."

"David! Don't you dare hang up!" Liam shouted into dead air, the tires of the truck digging into the mud before catching and sending him hurtling forward along the dirt road towards Killian.

Towards home.

"No one saw who you were chasing, Jones. Are you sure?" David's voice, further away this time, but blessedly still on the line. And talking to his-

"Aye, it was him." God, that was his brother. Killian, conscious and sounding like he'd been on a bender, but awake. "Did no one-"

There was a squeal of brakes and the deafening scream of sirens interrupting his brother. Liam stomped on the gas as soon as he was on pavement again, his own tires squealing as he pushed the old truck to its limit.

He had to get back to the city. He had to be there now. God, why had he thought it was such a bloody good idea to go out to the cabin today? He should have just waited for Killian, gone with him this weekend. Would the damage from a second storm really have been worse than the hours it was going to take him to get back to the city now?

He didn't even know what goddamned hospital they were taking him to yet. Didn't know what he'd find when he got there. Didn't know what had happened.

"David!" he shouted into the phone again, his fingers nearly shaking too violently to stab the speakerphone button and smash the device into the car mount when Nolan still didn't answer. There was a control to the chaos on the other end of the line, one that he knew all too well, but it didn't make him any more calm, didn't do anything to quell the rise in adrenaline as he laid on the horn to get the too-slow grandmother out of his path to the highway.

His fingers shook harder, his arms trembling with the strain of holding the wheel in a near-vice grip to try and keep the truck steady. He could feel the tremors all over his body, sure he looked like a strung-out addict jonesing for his next fix.

He didn't care a bloody whit.

"Liam?" David's voice finally came back over the line. "The paramedics have him and Locksley is riding along."

"Locksley? Why aren't you in there?"

David sighed. "Robin is his partner, Jones. Just like I'm yours. It's his right to be in there and you know it. Where are you?"

"On my way."

"Whatever speed you're doing right now, slow down by at least twenty."

Liam didn't answer.

"I mean it, Jones. However fast you're going, that truck can't handle it and I refuse to get to the hospital and tell Killian that his brother isn't coming because he's in a car wreck on the side of the road."

"Sod off."

"Liam!"

Liam sighed, but he eased off the accelerator a fraction, glaring at the speedometer as it crept down a few miles an hour. He was still going far faster than Nolan intended, but at least the only shaking now was coming from his afflicted muscles and not the engine.

"Where are they taking him?" Liam swerved onto the on-ramp, ignoring the blaring horns and sparing a glance over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't actually caused an accident.

There was mumbling from the phone and Liam nearly shouted again before David came back. "MGH. They're taking him to MGH."

Massachusetts General Hospital. They were taking him to a level one trauma cen-

"It's just because it's closest, Liam. Stop freaking out."

Liam's breath heaved out of him in a whoosh, but that did nothing to calm the tremors. "I hear you," he responded anyway, eyes narrowing at the brake lights ahead of him. God, he missed having lights and sirens.

"I mean it, Liam. Be careful, all right? I don't want to be responsible for investigating your fatal accident." He paused and Liam didn't have time to hope that the lecture was done before- "I don't want to have to keep Killian away from that scene."

Finally, Liam slowed down. It was a low blow and it took everything he had to stay in the present and not delve back into those memories. God, Killian couldn't manage another car accident scene.

"It'll take me some time to get back to the city. You'll call…" he paused, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself down. "You'll call if you hear anything?"

"You know I will," David assured him before hanging up.

The silence in the truck was deafening. He didn't really mean for the speed to creep up, but the longer he drove, the more scenarios popped into his head. Killian was injured badly enough that they'd called an ambulance. Killian was injured badly enough that David hadn't called him first. Killian was injured badly enough that he hadn't been able to deny the need for an ambulance.

He was still conjuring up nightmare scenarios when he finally noticed the flashing lights behind him. Liam rolled his eyes but kept going. If it happened to be an officer that he didn't know, he'd deal with it once he got to the hospital. Surely, there would be enough cops there who could vouch for him.

The sirens came next and Liam resisted the urge to step on the gas even harder. He was coming into the city proper and it wouldn't do to actually lose control of the truck trying not to crash into the inevitable traffic.

Then his phone started to ring - the idiot must have run his plates.

"Tell whoever it is that I'll stop when I get to-"

"It's me, you stubborn sonuvabitch!" David started shouting over him. "Pull over!"

Oh.

Liam smacked the signaler, ignoring David's strained laughter at the unlikelihood of Liam Jones having manners while driving at breakneck speed down a Boston street of all places, and pulled off to the shoulder. He was already out of the truck before David pulled in behind him and he sprinted towards the car.

The rookie was sitting in the passenger's seat.

He didn't have time to worry about it, but as the cruiser pulled back onto the highway and Liam had nothing to distract him any longer, it rankled. That was supposed to be his seat. If he had been there instead of Mills, maybe Killian wouldn't be…

Well, he wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed somewhere without his brother at his side, that was for damn sure.

But that was neither here nor there. He couldn't take his place at David's side again any more than he could have prevented Killian from getting hurt - though he bloody well would have tried. The tremors had torn away his ability to look out for Killian every day on the job and had stolen his career from him, but he'd do it again and again.

Every damn time.

Even if he was now relegated to a two-bit private investigator just praying every day that he'd hear from his brother after his shift.

He was so caught up in self-recriminations that he didn't realize how close they were to MGH until the flashing lights of ambulances made him wince. He pulled on the handle out of habit, nearly snarling when he couldn't open the door.

"Mills is coming, Jones, relax," David tried to placate him, but the lad was clearly trudging through molasses for how fast he was moving.

Liam nearly stumbled when his legs didn't want to hold him up from the tremors, but he brushed off Henry's concerned hand and forced himself to walk (jog, sprint) through the open door.

"Where is he?"

In a bloody hallway, as it turned out. His brother had been remanded to wait in a hallway with no one but his partner monitoring him. Liam was going to have someone's head.

Locksley clearly thought it was going to be his if the way he rushed to diffuse Liam's poorly disguised wrath was any indication. "It's been an absolute zoo in here. Some idiot on 93 decided to get on the off-ramp and caused a huge pile-up. They've been checking on him, but there's just no better place for him right now."

Liam wanted to stalk off and rail at the nurses. He wanted to make a scene until someone was paying proper attention to his brother. As if Killian sensed his rising adrenaline, he chose that moment to whimper and tense.

Liam was sitting by his hip, hand on Killian's forearm, almost before he'd registered the change. "Killian? Can you hear me, little brother?"

Killian bobbed his head wildly and it was clear he immediately regretted it, if the alarming change in the color of his skin was any indication.

Liam rolled his eyes - his little brother could never try anything in moderation first - but squeezed Killian's arm in sympathy. "Slowly, Killian. Do you know where you are?"

He didn't.

"Get his doctor," Liam hissed behind him, not knowing - nor caring - who obeyed the order.

Someone did - he'd bet on Mills from the sound of footsteps scurrying down the hall.

"Killian," he waited until his brother's head angled towards his voice, his eyes still stubbornly shut. "What's my name?"

One eye - the one not swollen shut and half-covered in hastily applied bandages - slitted open and searched for him. "D'nno. D'n know you," he slurred before relaxing back into unconsciousness.

Liam was sure his heart stopped.

"Where's his bloody doctor?!"

Be-beep. Be-beep. Be-beep.

Killian turned his head automatically towards the insistent beeping, groaning when his hand got trapped under the blankets and he couldn't mash the snooze button on the alarm.

Why isn't the radio playing?

"You can keep trying, little brother, but you're not going to turn off that machine."

Machine?

And then, Liam?

He tried reaching for the sound again, only to be stopped by his brother's fingers wrapping around his own, the sharp tug of something stinging the back of his hand. "Oww," Killian mumbled, trying to pull away from his brother's grasp if Liam was going to make his hand hurt like that.

"Leave it, Killian," Liam ordered, and Killian could feel the petulant pout crawling across his face as he huffed in annoyance. "You can't reach the monitor anyway."

He hurt. His head was pounding, the right side of his face strangely warm and tight. He hadn't yet risked opening his eyes, but if Liam was there, then he didn't need to. He was safe.

"Stay awake, little brother," Liam continued, his tone still carried the familiar weight of an order. It should annoy him.

"Y'mean younger, Li'm," he slurred, surprised at how drunk he sounded. He hadn't had a drop of alcohol since Milah.

Liam sighed next to him, and it sounded almost like relief - which didn't make much sense. Intrigued, Killian slitted his eyes open just enough to make out Liam in the dim light.

And the familiar makings of a hospital room around him.

Oh.

Memories started to flutter through the headache: the chase through the alley and then the disjointed images of the emergency room, Liam's concerned voice echoing around him.

Hades.

Goddamnit, the man was on their Most Wanted wall for a reason. He was slippery as an eel and wanted for a dozen crimes. If Killian could have chased him down, if he could have apprehended Hades of all people, he wouldn't have to work under Gold any longer.

Hell, if the hints of rumors he'd heard third-hand were true, catching Hades might bring down Gold entirely.

"You with me, Killian?" Liam's concern had ratcheted up a notch while Killian's mind drifted. The worried tone of voice was enough to convince Killian to open his eyes - well, eye - so he could meet his brother's gaze.

"Sort of," he mumbled in answer, but it was enough for Liam to sit back down at his bedside instead of hovering. "M' face hurts."

Liam laughed, a strained little thing, but he tried to smile anyway. "Aye, I imagine it does. It doesn't look too pretty right now."

"'M always handsome," he snarked back, then groaned when the half-smile that had threatened to turn into a smirk made his head pound. "Oww."

That made Liam laugh for real, which was mostly what Killian intended.

"If you wanted me to come back from the cabin for a few days, little brother, you could've just asked."

"Younger, Liam. Younger brother," Killian replied crankily, the nickname rankling him though he wasn't entirely sure why. He couldn't remember a time when it wasn't a source of minor annoyance between them, but it hadn't made him mad in a long time. Not like this. The beeping from the machine increased and Killian could feel his face getting red, his chest getting tight, his-

"Aye, Killian. Younger. You're my brother, that's all that matters."

Well, then.

Just like that, the anger faded, replaced by an exhaustion that nearly had his eyes closing in sleep. He'd felt like this before - the irrational mood swings, the headache and nausea, it all told him what the doctor inevitably would when he made his rounds: Killian had another concussion.

"Sorry," he mumbled, shifting on the uncomfortable mattress and sliding his hand around until he found Liam's again. He squeezed lightly, smiling when Liam returned the gesture.

"It's all right, Killian, just sleep," Liam accepted the apology easily - their roles had been reversed more than once.

Killian's brow furrowed - he hadn't even noticed when he'd closed his eyes - and he muttered in annoyance, "Was trying to. You said-"

"Sleep, little brother."

He never heard the doctor come in to check on him.