A/N: Flashback!chapter...not a good one, unfortunately. I'm not sure who comes across worse in this chapter, Martin/Teddy or Danny. Well, regardless, they were both very confused, try not to hold it against those poor boys I put through hell so much!
Thank you Cores for your lovely review (and for all your other reviews, on my collab with Ruby and my solo fics too! You have honestly made my day so many times you don't know!), this is an idea I've had for a long time and I've finally decided to write it! It makes me so happy to think that you see the potential in it-I was worried not many WaT fans really watch Nashville or that Nashville fans just don't like Teddy. Personally, Teddy is my favourite character (although I may be bias considering my love for Eric Close in general...) so I felt like there needed to be another fanfiction about him!
Also, thank you to Megan and Aoibheann for your encouragement in whatever I write! Love you guys!
When he opened his eyes, he was tucked beneath the sinks in the men's bathrooms at the New York courthouse. His knees were pulled to his chest, his entire body was shaking so hard and the hammering in his chest had subsided only a little in the seconds he had been passed out.
Another panic attack-or whatever this state he kept working himself into was clinically called. He blinked away the tears forming in his eyes, then tried to focus on his breathing instead.
In, out. In, out.
"Here you are," a voice said, and before Martin could stop himself, he jerked away from the shadow of the person standing above him.
His father crouched to get a good look at Martin, the expression of hurt evident on his face at the ridiculous thought his son might fear him. "Martin," he said, his voice softer than he had ever heard it before, laced with confusion and helplessness. "It's alright. It's me."
He was such a disaster, such a mess. He was a man, for God's sake. But here he was, crying like a child in a public bathroom after running out of the courtroom when his friend had needed his support.
"D-Danny," Martin managed to murmur. His father shook his head.
"Danny is fine. Martin, let me take you home."
He held his hand out for Martin to take for a second, but Martin couldn't and so he quickly pulled it back. His father cleared his throat and stood up, straightening his tie in the mirror. "It's over, Martin. You've said what you had to say; you've given your testimony. It's out of our hands now."
Out of his hands, but stuck in his head. The months since their ordeal had been traumatic enough, being on the witness stand today had broken apart what was left of the man he once was.
Reluctantly, and regretting it with every movement, Martin edged his way out from under the sinks. "I-I'm sorry I left like that."
He stood up, shoulder-to-shoulder with his father now. He looked at the older man in the mirror-questioned silently, but not for the first time, how on earth it could be that they were so closely related. He wondered why his Dad had been the one to find him; he wondered how the greatest stranger in his life knew where he would be hiding.
The car ride was painfully quiet. Neither of them spoke, until they were parked outside Martin's apartment complex. He watched as his father unbuckled his seatbelt.
"You're coming in?" Martin asked, the words tumbling from his mouth with little regard with how they sounded spoken aloud.
His father just nodded. "We have some things to discuss."
What things? That Martin was a failure? That he no longer wanted him associated with their well-respected family? That he had been right all along when he'd warned his son the FBI was not for him?
The panic attack had taken all the energy Martin had possessed, so he didn't argue. He just slipped out of the passenger seat and followed his father into the building.
"Pack your things," Victor told Martin when they were safely inside his little apartment.
Normally, he would have protested. Staying with his parents would only make him feel worse, he was sure. Still, he had to admit that being away from Danny for a while was appealing.
He didn't think his slowly-vanishing sanity could handle any more of the Danny-Elena love fest that had swept the office up. It was his own fault, of course. He'd had hundreds of chances to make a move on Danny, to make his feelings known, to make things work between them. But since that horrible two weeks they'd spent together in the basement of some nutcase's log cabin, Martin couldn't find it in himself to care about any type of relationship in his life.
It made it even worse that Danny had already gotten mostly back to the way he had been before their kidnapping. He was laughing again, cracking jokes. When they had been recovering in hospital, he had even flirted with the nurses. And now, he was building a new life with Elena.
Meanwhile, Martin was tortured by nightmares of their time as hostages. He was haunted by his new-found knowledge- the number of minutes it took to for someone to bleed out when they stabbed themselves in the throat with a pencil; the number of days a little girl could go without food before she gave up and begged them to kill her; the language of terror, the meaning of various screams. The number of times he could have done something-should have done something-but was too terrified to take action.
In a way, he resented Danny for moving on from the pain. His friend was hurting too, of course. He'd even broken down in the middle of Martin's testimony. But he had a woman who loved him holding his hand, a step-daughter who thought he hung the moon to go home to, a life beyond the abuse they suffered when their undercover-stint went horribly wrong.
Getting away from his friend before the love he had once felt for him changed to hatred seemed like a good idea in Martin's mind.
He packed what little things that did not remind him of what had happened. Clothes, basic necessities. While he was retrieving his shaving foam from the bathroom cabinet, his father picked up a Christmas photo of the team that was sitting on Martin's bedside table.
"They'll miss you," he said.
Martin tossed the shaving foam into the suitcase. "They'll survive. I'm useless at work, anyway."
"I believe their bond with you goes far beyond the job, Martin." He didn't really know what to say to that, so Martin just shrugged. His father pointed to Danny's face, smiling widely in the picture next to Martin. "Especially him."
Suddenly, Martin felt uncomfortable with the turn this conversation had taken. He didn't want to go into this-not now and certainly not with his father of all people. So he took the picture out of his father's hands and set it back where it belonged, by the bed he no longer had use for now he wasn't sleeping at night.
Then, he turned away from Victor and continued to pack.
"Where are we going?" Martin asked, taking in the unfamiliar turn-off. He must have fallen asleep, because it was dark now, and they had been driving for hours. "Why aren't we going to the airport? Are you driving to DC?"
"It's better this way," his father told him, sounding more desperate to reassure himself than Martin and not really answering any of his questions.
"Dad?" Martin asked, his voice sounding like a child's. He sounded so small, so in-need of something he couldn't put a name to. "What's going on?"
"My father died when I was five years old," Victor said, and Martin realised they were obviously not having the same conversation. "I barely remember him and my mother only re-married after I had moved out. It's no excuse, but I thought you should understand that I really didn't have much to go on."
"You're not making sense," Martin said, rubbing his forehead to soothe the ache that was surfacing there. He was still so tired, so weak from earlier, he couldn't handle this cryptic talk.
"I tried to do right by you. But my career has always come ahead of my family, even when I tried to tell myself it didn't."
Was his father...apologising? Martin felt his cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment. He had never heard this man sound...sorry before. He didn't know what reply his dad wanted from him. "Look, Dad-"
"I haven't been a good father; I know. Financially I've always supported you, but there is more to being a parent than that."
"Dad, it's okay-"
"No, no it isn't. But it will be."
It was a little too late for the father-son fishing trips and bedtime stories he had craved as a child; nothing Victor could do or say would take back the last twenty-six years Martin had spent seeking his dad's approval only to constantly fall short. But if it would end this conversation quicker, Martin would agree to anything. "Yeah, sure-"
"-Open the glove compartment, Martin."
Martin blinked at his father, who never took his eyes off the long stretch of road in front of them. He snuck a glance at the compartment in question, then looked back to Victor. "Why?"
"You'll see."
This seemed like a really bad end to an action movie, or maybe a horror film-Martin couldn't decide. Was there a gun stashed there? Was his father going to ask him to do something crazy?
With a deep breath and some reluctance, Martin pulled back the slot to the compartment. There wasn't a gun, or something equally as exciting. It was filled with...papers.
"What are these?"
A birth certificate, a driver's license with a southern code along the top, more documentation belonging to a man whose name rang no bells in Martin's mind.
"Your name is Teddy Conrad. You're the son of Henry Conrad. He's a politician for the state of Nashville. He divorced your mother when you were young and you lived with her. Now, in your late twenties, you're returning to Nashville to stay with him."
His words were coming so fast, hitting Martin so hard, like spitballs fired from the back row of his high school English class. "W-what are you talking about?"
"Witness protection programme," Victor illiterated. "I'm sure you've heard about it, Martin."
"Well, y-yeah but...I mean, I never agreed-"
"So you don't wish to start over somewhere else? You don't want to be someone else, if only for a while? A fresh start won't do you the absolute world of good?"
Martin's head was pounding with the struggle to concentrate. "I-I mean yeah, of course, but-"
"-no buts, Martin." Victor continued to drive, never once turning to look at him. "I can't risk the bastard who is responsible for your current state getting out of prison or telling his associates to hurt you."
"B-but, what about Danny?" If Martin was in danger, so was his friend. He couldn't just clear off, knowing Danny and Elena and Sofie could be hurt while he was safe hundreds of miles away.
"Agent Taylor will be fine. I give you my word, Martin."
What made Victor so sure he could protect Danny, but not his own son?
Martin looked down at the papers in his lap. Teddy Conrad. The letters on the page in front of him began to swim as his eyes filled with tears. His father wanted rid of him. He wanted him gone, completely. Erased from their family and erased from his life.
Could Martin really blame him?
"I've never even been to Nashville," Martin murmured, acutely aware that he sounded like a petulant toddler who had been dragged on a road trip he didn't want to go on.
"You'll soon adjust."
"W-what about my job?"
Finally, Victor turned to his son. "Do you really wish to return to the FBI?"
Martin didn't reply. There was no right answer. Whatever he said would be wrong.
"That's what I thought," his father said, looking back at the road again. "Henry is an old friend of mine. I've briefed him on your situation, he is more than happy to help."
Sniffing, Martin asked, "Do I have a job in Nashville?"
Victor shook his head. "I'm sure Henry can find you something, if you wish."
Politics. The idea made Martin want to laugh out loud. He would rather die than go into that sort of world.
"Won't everybody wonder where I've gone?" he asked, considering his mother but seeing only Danny's worried face in his mind.
"I will take care of it."
"Dad, they find missing people for a living. They can track me down. They will."
"They won't find you," Victor said, quite possibly the first promise he had ever made Martin. "I will make sure of it."
It was later that night, unpacking in Henry's spare room after his father left, when Martin found the picture. The team Christmas photo. It had been taken from it's frame and slipped in among his socks and underwear. His father had written a message on the back at some point when Martin had been busy fretting about which shirts to take.
Do the right thing.
Had Victor meant the right thing was to call them? To tell them himself where he was?
Or was the right thing to stay away, somewhere he couldn't shame his family and friends any more than he already had?
Crumpling this last reminder of his old life in his fist, Martin-no, Teddy, stuffed the photograph into the inside pocket of his suitcase, somewhere he would never have to look at it again.
