Upon Your Waking Hours- Chapter 2

Fooled some of you and quite proud of myself. Not who you expect in this chapter. :)


He hated the insomnia. The doctors had warned him when he started this new medication that, until his body got used to it, he would probably not be able to sleep well. He usually wouldn't have minded. A few extra hours in the day were nice for anyone but not when there was so much on his mind. Not when he was trapped, no one to talk to, nothing to abate the constant cycle of thoughts that wound't leave him alone.

Work kept his mind off things a little. It wasn't nearly as stimulating and demanding at being at the SRU; he was barely in the field unless he was on a team serving a warrant and even then all he got to do was wait for the SRU team to apprehend the subject and get to read them their rights. His mind wasn't even stimulated by the Guns and Gangs unit, he spent the first few months trying to see the situation from multiple perspectives, trying to connect and understand, but after a while he just became jaded like all the other officers in his unit and all he saw day after day was kids (they really were kids, kids that reminded him too much of his own children) ruining their lives with drugs or killing each other with weapons they could barely wield.

His family, his girls and Shelly, kept his mind off things a little bit better. There was nothing he loved more than playing princess or tea party or doing fractions or reading a Dr. Seuss book now-a-days. Anything to spend time with his girls, anything to make him smile a whole smile. one that reached his eyes, even if it did involved dressing up and eating imaginary biscuits over the plastic table, sitting on the plastic chairs that he was afraid he would one day break.

He was afraid overall that he would break. He was so scared of one day just...losing it. Losing the ability to think clearly, to rationalize; losing control of his body...even more than he already had; losing all the things that were important to him, his family and friends and job and life. He was so afraid of leaving his family in debt. Shelly had picked up a part time job since they learned of his diagnosis, since the medical bills started to pile in and they needed to start taking money from the carefully planned savings account that they had started ten years ago. He made a vow that they would not dip into the college savings that they had started to put away for the girls but he was ever more aware at how they were putting less and less money into them each month. And it scared the hell out of him.

Because, it wasn't a matter of if he would die young, leave them in debt and in pain, it was a matter of when. It was a matter of how much longer it took before his hand wouldn't stop shaking, when the dosage on the medication would need to be raised, when he would no longer be allowed to carry a gun and put exclusively on a desk, when he wasn't able to work a desk anymore. When he wasn't able to pour his own coffee because of the shaking in his hands, when he wouldn't be able to braid his girl's hair or when he wouldn't be able to feed himself. When he wouldn't be able to bathe, eat, or breathe on his own, because it would come to that one day. And one day, Shelly would be standing over a grave, three girls, probably still young, clinging to her as she tried to move on with life and support the family that he had failed, that he couldn't protect.

These were the thoughts that made the insomnia so much more painful. At some point, he wasn't sure if it was the medication keeping him up or the thoughts that he couldn't escape, the reality that he couldn't escape. What was reality these days though? He knew that he was probably assuming the worst case here, that he'd have time to work through these concerns and that he still had years to worry about the progression of the Parkinson's; the doctor's prognosis was fairly good apparently but he still couldn't' stop himself from jumping to these horrible conclusions.

He hated feeling so worthless, so helpless to stop this disease which had snuck up on his body and so helpless to assuage Shelly's fears. She put up a great front but there were moments in which he could sense her weakness. It came when Claire, such a clever girl, asked why his hand kept shaking or offered him a blanket because he shivered, when Lilly asked why Daddy had so many vitamins to take every day and why they didn't see Uncle Ed and Uncle Spike and the rest of the team as much as they used to. They were catching on but he couldn't tell them, couldn't let them feel the fear that Shelly and he felt, couldn't even begin to explain what was going to happen.

He got out of bed, tears in his eyes as he went downstairs to the kitchen, his phone in his hands. He couldn't seem to stop the tears now as he thought of all the ones that Claire and Lilly and Allie would shed once they told them how sick their Daddy, their superhero, was. He couldn't stop his racing mind, the images of the things that he would miss; first dates and proms and college graduations and weddings and grandkids and all the other accomplishments and cuts and scrapes and first loves and heartbreaks. Shelly and he had agreed long ago that he would teach them how to drive, he was more calm, his reflexes better...what would happen now? He felt renewed tears again as he resolved himself and dialed a familiar number. It wasn't until the second ring that he realized how late it was and how tearful he was but it was too late to hang up now.

"Hey, what's up?" A familiar voice answered him, almost soothing in the normalcy. The forced calm was evident in Ed's voice but there was also genuine concern.

"Ed, promise me that, when the time comes, you'll teach the girls how to drive." Wordy spoke quickly, his breathing hitching a bit between words. "I promised Shel a long time ago that I would teach them, she said I was calmer and that she couldn't do it but I don't know what state I'll be in and...and I just want to know that it's taken care of-"

"Wordy." Ed spoke with care but also with authority, needing to cut off his friends hysterical, panicked ranting.


Kinda in love with this chapter. I love Wordy and I love angst and as much as it hurts me that they wrote him off in such a tragic way, I love the angst that came from it. Can you tell? Let me know what you think, some more of our favorites coming in soon.