Bad Dream

'I wake up, it's a bad dream.'

"I thought you said he was doing okay?"

Steph looks a little accusingly at me as she seems the carnage in the room. The place is still wrecked from the night before and Shawn looks completely freaked out. "Steph, he tried to kill himself, how good do you think he's gonna be?"

Her eyes look past me and she frowns, concern evident. "I'm gonna keep dad downstairs. I don't want him to see this mess."

"He's already seen worse than this." I tell her, reminding her gently that he was there the other night. "Listen, I'll stick with him for now okay. I'll see if I can find anything out. We'll just take it one step at a time."

Steph nods gently, looks up at me and smiles a little.

"I'll go back downstairs. I don't know if we'll wait here a while. I'll let you know though."

"Okay." I wrap my arm around her and kiss her on top of the head, before letting her go. I return to the room, locking the door behind me. Shawn's position had barely moved from the slightly defensive posture he'd got himself into on the bed. I couldn't help notice how much he looked like he was trying to protect himself, although the doubt was starting to creep into my head as to who he was trying to keep away.

"We should go to a doctor and get your wrist stitched back up again today." I say. He looks at me without saying anything for a moment, so I prod him. "What?"

"Can I get something else to wear?"

It was a pretty simple request. "Sure. I didn't bring anything with us and to be honest, I could do with something new as well." As long as he was relatively calm, I was happy. And to be fair, we really needed something else to wear, seeing as the top he had on still was covered in his own blood. Not a great look. He had a gentle trace of stubble across his chin and jaw, but there was no way in hell I'd be letting him shave.

"We can do it soon?"

I shrugged. "Whenever you want, buddy."

"Now?"

"Sure." I said, casually. The sooner I can get rid of the bloodied top, the happier I'll be.

I walk over to the chair and pick my jacket up. Remebering there's just the one between us, I pass it over to him to put on. He takes it without acknowledging why he's wearing my jacket. Last time I had to fight him to put it on and this time not a peep. I start to wonder if he's started to remember yesterday. I'll have to pick my moment to grill him about what exactly happened. He does the jacket up, hiding the blood stains.

"Come on then." Shawn rushes me.

"Hang on. If we go down, there's a chance we could run into Vince and Steph. You want me to call Steph and asking them to stay away?"

"I-" Shawn starts but doesn't seem to know what to say.

"I'll call her and tell them to stay away." I say when no answer comes back to me. I step into another room and make the call. Steph demands to know where we're going and why I'm taking him out of there. I explain everything, tell her that I don't think Shawn will handle seeing them real well right now. She points out the fact that there will still be people out there who will recognise us and if I think Shawn will handle that any better. I know she's right, but what can I say to Shawn, to stay in a bloody shirt for ever? Plus, he really does need to get stitched up again. We hang up and I can tell she angry with me. Don't know why I'm getting the flack here.

Shawn's still waiting for me when I come through and part of me wants to shout at him right now. It's his fault that my wife is angry with me. I swear he doesn't know how many people he's stressing out right now. Not sure he even cares much.

"Are we going?" Shawn asks.

"Just wait a minute." I snap at him, unusual for me. He's testing me right now, I swear. I take a breath, mutter an apology which probably sounded about as insincere as it felt and tell him that we'll just go.

He doesn't say anything, and I look at him. His face is a blank canvas, nothing showing at all. Even his eyes are fixed in a glossy stare.

I know if I ever want to find out what happened I need to relax and let him open up to me, not be the cause of his closing off. I open the door ready to leave, but block the path. "I'm really sorry, Shawn. I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"It doesn't matter." He says. "Can we just go?"

I nod, hating myself at that moment. Damn, if Steph knew she'd be even more pissed off with me.