Henry had felt helpless throughout the entire crash. It wasn't a feeling he had ever enjoyed. It wasn't something he had ever wanted to know. He remembered seeing Shawn, with the headlights behind him, then watching as his son was tossed into the aisle and he was thrown down the other side of the bus. His head had hit the metal door with a sickening thud and he almost bit through his lip to fight back the cry of pain that threatened to accompany it. He had almost blacked out then and there. But the memory of Shawn came to the front of his mind and he stubbornly held onto consciousness. He had to unclench his teeth and let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding in order to finally speak.

"Shawn!"

His son, with bits of glass sticking out of him like he was some deranged artist's masterpiece, turned towards him. Their eyes met before Henry was once again thrown from his spot on the floor. The bus turned around God knows how many times. Henry could only focus on trying to hold on to the leg of the seat, not to fall victim to the rolling metal vehicle. Then there was the scream. The scream that would no doubt haunt his dreams assuming he made it out of here alive. He recognized the scream as one of unbearable pain, a sound that sent chills up and down his spine. That sound was never supposed to come from Shawn. Not if he was there to protect his son's ass; there was no way he could let his son be in that much pain.

Henry heard the deafening screech of the bus as it slid across the street. He tightened his grip on the seat leg and pulled himself forward, trying in vain to get closer to his son. He saw Shawn looking at him with relief in his eyes. Like Henry was supposed to be able to save him. He saw Shawn's arm reach for him, but he was unable to close the gap as the bus suddenly stopped in its tracks. Henry was thrown away from his son and was unable to keep his eyes open as he hit his already throbbing head on one of the bus seats.

He could feel a searing pain in his arm that was only muted by the agony that felt like a nail was being driven slowly into his skull. He tried to focus on breathing, on staying awake and not falling into an unconsciousness which seemed very appealing right now. He wasn't able to do much beyond that at the moment, and even the smallest motion on his part seemed to aggravate his already monstrous headache. He listened to the tinkle of glass moving as a body shuffled towards him. A slight shake of his shoulder caused his head to pound unmercifully and he moaned. The pain was enough to force his eyes open and he saw Shawn leaning over him. As strange as it sounded, he'd never been so happy that his son was there to cause him pain.

"Stay…" Shawn panted, barely managing to speak above a whisper. "Stay with me Dad."

Henry wondered how bad he must look for Shawn to be worrying about his safety above his own. He gingerly touched his scalp and winced when his fingertips came away with red. He was about to answer Shawn, to lie and tell him that he was just fine, but at that moment Shawn collapsed on the floor next to him.

If the pain hadn't entirely snapped him out of his daze, the sight of his son lying motionless on the floor did. "Shawn!" he cried, trying to crawl the few inches that separated his son from him.

As Henry tried to move his left arm, he grunted and inhaled sharply through his nose. The dormant pain inside what was most likely a broken arm had flared up when he tried to move it. He ignored it and continued to crawl forward with only one arm. Henry felt like he was moving too slowly, like the time he had wasted figuring out the state of his arm could be costing Shawn his life. He tried to tell himself that Shawn would tease him for thinking such an irrational thought. Because he didn't know what he would do if his fear was true. Oh God no, Henry thought desperately. Please don't let him be dead. He can't be, he just-

Henry almost smiled at the annoyed grumbling that had come of his repeated prodding of Shawn. Even when the kid had been through a bus ride from hell, he could still muster the energy to protest.

Henry turned away from Shawn and gripped his head. Oh God, did it hurt. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. He had to see the details. He had to put them all together. It was all he could think to do.

He slowly opened his eyes and took in the scene with a critical eye. He was lying awkwardly on the side of the bus, the few pieces of glass that were left in the window digging into his leg. He moved his leg slightly and looked around the bus. The bus driver was still in his seat, unconscious, but the seat belt appeared to have protected him from the worst of the crash. The man and the woman were a few feet away from each other. The woman seemed to be knocked out and the man was beside her, trying to comfort her with the little energy he had left.

Henry didn't know if he was strong enough to look at the remaining passenger on the bus. He could objectify the bus, the passengers, even the crash. But not his son.

Henry took a deep breath and looked at Shawn, taking in every one of his injuries with the distance of an officer writing his report. That still didn't stop him from feeling slightly nauseated at Shawn's appearance.

The thing that immediately drew Henry's eye was Shawn's leg. A large piece of metal, most likely a piece of bus pole, jutted out of his thigh. "Jesus," Henry murmured. He couldn't see the pole coming out of the other side of his leg, but it sure as hell was in there deep. The top half of the pole had been painted rusty red from the blood pouring steadily out of Shawn's wound. His jeans from the waistband to the knees were wet with the stuff. Henry could only stare at the blood for a moment, wondering how there could be so much of it.

Shawn's quiet moan quickly snapped him out of his trance. His mind raced as he struggled with what to do. It would take more than a few minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and God knows how much longer for paramedics to navigate their way into the interior of the bus. Henry looked again at the blood leaking from Shawn's wound. He had been trained in first aid, and he knew that applying direct pressure to the wound, elevation, and pressure points were often the best way to stop bleeding out. But Henry was afraid to move Shawn's leg or put pressure on the already deep gash for fear of making it worse. Henry sighed and carefully took off his jacket, but still not careful enough to spare himself movement of his wounded arm. His breathing grew harsh when he barely waited for the pain to subside before turning his attention to Shawn.

Henry had performed a tourniquet in the field once before, in a robbery standoff gone wrong. But he knew the risks involved. The stop of blood flow, while life saving, could lead to tissue damage. But he would take tissue damage over death any day.

In the twenty seconds it had taken Henry to make this decision, Shawn had grown even paler. Henry quickly wrapped his jacket just above the wound, careful not to jar it. That didn't stop him from accidentally grazing the pole, which resulted in a sharp gasp of pain from Shawn. "Stop," he groaned, the most conscious he had been in minutes.

Henry sighed in relief. "It's for your own good, Kid," he said, making sure the jacket was secure around his son's thigh. Shawn whimpered but held very still as Henry adjusted the makeshift bandage. Sweat was beginning to pour down Shawn's forehead and his breathing had grown more rapid in the last few minutes. His eyes opened slightly and his weak smile was only a shadow of its former self.

"Stay with me, Shawn," Henry said, though Shawn's eyes still fluttered closed out of exhaustion.

Watching as Shawn passed out seemed to drain the energy from him. Henry began to feel the effects of his possible concussion as it punished him for ignoring the injury for so long. His head began to throb in a slow steady rhythm as he eased himself to the floor. He would have shaken his head in frustration if he had felt like running the risk of his head imploding. He needed to help Shawn; his injuries could wait.

Shawn was lying on his side, his breathing slightly steadier than before - not that it was much of an improvement. Pieces of glass were still embedded in his back, and Henry's weak attempts to remove them only resulted in dislodging a few of the many small pieces. Somewhere outside, a streetlight had managed to somewhat illuminate the bus, making the small red pieces of the window prominent in Shawn's hair. His sleeve had been torn, and a gash slowly seeping blood could be seen. There was a large bruise blossoming on his cheek, and it seemed even darker when put into comparison with his pale skin. A bruise is the least of the kid's problems, Henry thought as he noticed the puddle of blood beneath Shawn that had stained his jeans an ugly purple.

Henry managed to turn onto his back without jarring his arm, and he turned his head so that he was facing Shawn. It was almost like looking at a corpse. Shawn's deathly white complexion and his battered body made him look like a victim at a crime scene. The only thing that assured Henry that Shawn was still alive was the almost imperceptible movement of his chest rising up and down.

Henry's neck protested being in this position for so long and he again turned onto his back. But this way he had no way of knowing if Shawn was still alive, or if his life had slipped away while he had lain beside him helplessly. Henry gently grabbed Shawn's wrist and felt for a pulse. The thump of an artery greeted him. The almost rhythmical pulsing of his blood was oddly comforting.

Henry looked up at the ceiling. It was strange to be looking up at the bus windows, instead of out them. The little pieces of glass that had stubbornly refused to break from the crash were now falling one by one, piece by little piece, as they fell slowly , hauntingly, towards the ground, creating a miniature symphony as they hit the floor. Henry listened as the ringing bells of the glass joined the beating of Shawn's pulse to make a song that differed largely from the fast, wild beat that had been the crash. The tinkling glass softly combated the strong drum beat of the pulse.

Henry listened to the symphony of sounds, most of all Shawn's beating pulse. That was the sound that mattered to him the most.

Thump thump

The missing panes of glass in the windows provided a view of the night sky above them, which perhaps would have been a neat effect if not for the circumstances in which it had occurred. Henry could see past the empty frames of the windows and outside the crash. The stars looked down at him, and he saw the different constellations in the sky.

Thump thump

What if this hadn't happened?

Thump thump

What if Shawn hadn't followed him to the bar?

Thump thump

What if they hadn't taken the bus?

Thump thump

Quite frankly, Henry didn't do "what ifs". He didn't see the point of dwelling on what could have been when you could look forward and get on with your life. When you're a cop, you get used to this point of view. You get cold cases, you get escaped criminals, and "what ifs" did nothing except distract you from the next case.

Logically speaking, they were a waste of then again, logic never really got rid of the "what ifs".

Thump thump

What if the ambulance didn't make it in time?

Thump thump

What if Shawn and he had never fought tonight?

Thump thump

What if Shawn left him? What if he left him again…?

Thump thump

March 17 1995

The quiet thump of feet on the steps preceded Shawn's entrance into the kitchen. Henry looked up from the meaningless words on the newspaper. He knew that Shawn would pretend not to notice that he had been reading the same page for over an hour.

Shawn pulled out one of the three chairs that surrounded the kitchen table and sat in it, ignoring the creak of the well worn wood. Shawn began picking at the table, and ran his fingers along the scratches that ran along it.

"So," he said with a forced cheerfulness. "Have you read the comics yet? I have to catch up on my Garfield," Shawn said as if he were talking about celebrity gossip. He looked down and sighed. "That cat gets me every time."

Henry wordlessly handed him the comics section, which had been separated from the rest of the newspaper. He knew that Shawn had come down here for more than the comics. He never went outright with what he wanted to say, instead delaying subjects for days at a time. Henry waited patiently for Shawn, as he leafed through the comics and glanced down at the cat without a smile.

"Eating a pizza," Shawn laughed. "What is it with that cat and eating? He stays in good shape though, I admire that."

Henry listened to his son's spew nonsense about Garfield and waited to hear what was really on Shawn's mind. Not that he didn't already know. The empty third chair at the table said more than the memory of last night could.

Shawn, knowing that his father was waiting for his inane babbling to stop, got out of his seat and made himself a bowl of Cheerios as an attempt to avoid any conversation. Henry didn't get how it was possible to avoid a topic and want to talk about it at the same time, but Shawn managed it.

Suddenly changing tracks, Shawn abandoned the box of Cheerios and grabbed a box of Frosted Flakes instead. He poured the cereal into the bowl and drowned it in milk. He sat back down at the table, and, without looking at his dad, took a bite out of the soggy flakes.

"Shawn," Henry said finally. "We have to talk about this."

Shawn looked up at his cereal and stared long and hard at his dad. "We have to, Dad? What, a meteor will fall to Earth if we don't bare our souls to each other, is that it? Because as much as I'd love to prevent the Earth's destruction, I really can't talk about my feelings with you."

"Stop being an idiot," Henry said. "I know it's difficult for you to actually be serious about anything, but I'm not asking much from you."

"Okay, what do you want to talk about? 'Oh, hey Shawn, your mom left, P.S. you have to stay with me.'" The joking had left Shawn's eyes. "I knew that. So what's so important that you need to say?"

Henry groaned internally. His son just wasn't going to make it easy for him, was he? "I just wanted to say, I'm…sorry it turned out this way for your mom and me."

"Yeah, so am I," Shawn said scathingly.

"Alright, Shawn, I've had it!" Henry snapped. "Whenever I try to do something for you, you throw it right back in my face, and I'm tired of trying anymore."

"You're doing this for me?" Shawn laughed without any humor. "That's funny, it sounds like you're just apologizing to get rid of your own guilt."

"I'm apologizing so you don't feel any guilt about what happened!"

"Why would I feel guilty for this, Dad? We both know it was all your fault that Mom left!" Shawn tried to stop yelling, but his voice rose automatically as he kept going. "You're the one who drove her away! You're the one who couldn't hold onto her!"

Henry was taken aback by this, but hid the pain that had stemmed from Shawn's words. He didn't know why he did what he did next. Maybe it was the heat of the moment. Maybe all of his anger just built up and Shawn was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it happened.

"Don't blame me for all of it, Shawn. You're the only thing we ever seemed to fight about!"

Shawn's angry expression slipped, but for just a moment, before his features rearranged to indifference.

Henry cursed under his breath. "Shawn, I didn't mean that." Damn it, why did he say that? Good cops didn't let their anger bubble up to the surface, and they certainly didn't say idiotic things they didn't mean.

Shawn looked down at the table and avoided Henry's eyes. He got up from the table and abandoned his soggy cereal as he walked upstairs without a word.

Shawn didn't say much of anything for the next three months. Not even when his dad arrested him. And as soon as he got out of jail he left.

Left Henry all alone.