Can we pretend I'm amazing?

Instead of what we both know.

-- Blue October

"What are you doing here?" The question didn't sound as sharp or as angry as Reid wanted it to. The emotions were boiling beneath the surface, all mixing and melting into one massive affliction. He should have been ready to explode. Instead he just felt tired, exhausted and fed up. For the first time in his life, he just wanted to quit. End. Game. He drew in a deep breath that rattled against his dry throat before inflating his lungs. The breath escaped his peeling lips in one short puff. With the breath escaped his substance. He felt empty. Cold. Alone. And he hated it. He pulled the blanket closer, held it tighter and shivered beneath it even though he was no longer cold.

"Caleb called me," Robert admitted. He strode forward into the room without invitation. He looked good, better than Reid remembered. A nice slick suit, like he'd had to squeeze in visiting his nearly fatally injured son right before his lunch break. Blonde hair that mirrored his son's was slicked back, not a hair out of place. His skin was pale but it looked darker than his son's. But Reid did look sickly pale; pale pink patches discoloring his cheeks. He had bed hair that curled awkwardly across his line of vision.

"Caleb should mind his own fucking business." The statement was just that -- a statement. Flat and indifferent. He would have blamed it on the drugs but everytime he moved he had to bite back the hiss of pain. Because the pain was there. His drugs had dimmed the pain but the drugs were wearing off and he was too tired to ask for more. He should have been pissed, on fire with intense hatred, but he didn't feel it. It was all so dull. His emotions, his pain, his anger and resentment that he should feel. At Caleb. At Chase. At his own father. It was all so dull and far away.

"No," Robert argued. "The boy did the right thing. I wanted to see if you were alright, son." His eyes surveyed the pale boy. He hadn't changed much in the past seven years. His face had filled out, losing that childish aspect. The blatant innocence wasn't there anymore. It was just gone, and Robert supposed that should have had some kind of affect on him. Made him sad or something. But it didn't. He didn't feel anything for the loss of this boy's innocence.

Reid's body was thin, but not as thin as it had been before. His muscle was apparent beneath the deep bruising and swelling. He was paler than he had been as a child, but Robert reasoned that the color was merely because his son was sick. His eyes were rimmed red, his cheeks pale even beneath the bruising. He looked vulnerable. He looked like a cild. And for the first time in seven years, Robert wanted to comfort him - to hug him and apologize. A purple bite mark on his pale neck forced a grimace from Robert. He didn't want to think about what had happened to Reid. It wouldn't help anybody. Wouldn't make any of this easier.

"I'm fine," Reid managed. He would have smiled but it took too much effort, and his stomach was busy twisting violently at the look of concern on his father's face. A look that shouldn't have been foreign to him but was.

"I'd like to see that for myself, kid," Robert admonished, venturing closer and trying to make it look natural. He failed but managed to look awkward.

"Like you care." Reid almost sighed, grimacing when the rise of his chest pulled too much at his muscles and skin. He weakly shifted a hand on top of his ribs but the movement failed to comfort his sore body and he gasped quietly when he moved his crushed hand too roughly.

"I do care," Robert said. "You've grown a bit, huh kid? How old are you now? Sixteen? Seventeen? Maybe even ascended?" Reid ignored the question and turned his head away. He acknowledged the audible sigh and ignored it. "I received a call from you mother," he said. "She's worried."

"When she's sober," Reid agreed. "It never lasts. Stress is too...stressful for mom. you know that; that's why you introduced her to the finest liquor available to man." Reid's eyes darted away from Robert's face and he missed the changing emotions taking place in front of him. Instead he focused on his hands, in his lap and across his stomach. He focused on the loose string on the blanket beneath his numb fingers, and he tried to idly twist the string but he couldn't feel his fingers and that made him clumsy. He focused on the interweaving blue fibers that made up the frail hospital blanket. He focused on the purple and the red of the skin that darted out from beneath the bandage encaging his hand. He focused on the aches and pains that were beginning to break through his stupor and how guilty he should feel about chasing Tyler away. He focused on the little changes within the boy that had occurred without Reid noticing. He wondered dimly how hard those changes will be to reverse. If it were even possible to fix Tyler. To make him who he used to be. He focused on how much he missed the past – how he wanted to return to school. Return to slacking off and watching Tyler from afar. He wanted to be normal once more. Without Chase. And without his father. Without Caleb's concern hanging over him like a cloud, threatening to smother him and save him from this misery. He was just beginning to wonder exactly how fucked up he was when his father's voice broke through his concentration. Concentration was so hard. Harder than normal and he blinked.

"Don't blame your mother's problems on me," Robert told Reid in an authoritive voice. He had almost forgotten how much he hated that voice. He hated it more coming from a man who had discarded him. So easily. "You weren't help for her either. Disappearing for months at a time. She told me you've just left her alone in that big house for the past six months, Reid. You know how your mother deals with isolation."

"You don't give a fuck how mom deals with isolation," said Reid. "You abandoned her first."

"That excuses how you treat her?" Robert asked. "You've done her no better."

Reid frowned, trying to force his face into a glare and failing miserably. He instinctively tried to shove himself into a sitting position but fresh waves of pain tore through him and he gasped. His back was on fire and sharp stabs of pain erupted across his ribs. Robert was at his side, a heavy hand forcing him back to the bed, but causing a new strain of pain in its wake. He tried to escape the hand, to arch his burning back away from the bed, but Robert possessed strength Reid no longer did. "Don't touch me," Reid gasped and Robert jerked away from him as if he'd been burnt. "I didn't abandoned her," he growled. Pain spiked through his throat but his brain didn't process it. "She fucking abandoned me." His voice broke violently.

Who knew you could sum up your entire existence in two sentences? But what else was he supposed to say? He'd torn himself apart trying to please that woman, trying to make her happy, make her better. The emotional trauma he'd experienced because of his mother did more to him than just shape him into the person he currently was. His father wasn't there. He didn't know what it felt like -- to have to coax your own mother into taking her medication just so she would acknowledge him, just so she'd want to see him. His father didn't know how he used to cook for her, and clean up after her, and beg her to shower unassisted. He didn't know what that did to a child. To force a thirteen year old to not just live a totally unassisted life, not just to do his own homework with her help, ignore his nightmares without her comfort, feed himself and find his own transportation to school...without her -- but to also have to do all these things for his mother. Things she had already refused to do for him. He just didn't understand it. The last thing Reid had wanted to do was abandon her. He hadn't wanted to let her go, but she'd already tried to leave him. Never again could he invest himself in that woman, not after she'd tried to kill herself.

His father couldn't see any of it. He couldn't see how much Reid had needed his mother's approval. He couldn't know how much he missed her touch. Or how he longed for her to run her hand through his hair, or rub his head like she used to when he'd crawl into her bed and complain about a stomach ache. He yearned to be hugged again, to be craddled and comforted. And each passing day that lacked such comfort is a day in which that hole in his chest, that hole annihilating his heart, left by the loss of his father and the rejection of his mother, grows. He was coming to realize the fear that maybe one day that hole would be too big to ever fill. What if that hole becomes him? What if that's all he ever has? Just a hole. A nothing. Just empty space yearning to be filled but never quite managing it.

"Look," Robert sighed. He shifted uncomfortably but Reid didn't see the agitated movement. "I'm sorry, kid, alright? It's the fucking Covenant. Nothing good has ever come of it."

Just the prolonged existence of our families..."It's not the fucking covenant," Reid bit out, curling a fist around the blanket. It hurt, to grasp at something, anything, but he didn't stop. His fist curled tighter. "The covenant didn't make you an asshole. And it didn't make mom a flake. Family doesn't do that to people."

"Family?" Robert repeated, his face breaking out into a smile. A mocking smile. "They're your family now," he agreed . "But when the dust settles, your real family, your real blood, will be all you've got left."

"Don't see how that's possible," Reid mumbled. "I don't have you now. I won't have you then. Just because your covenant saw you for what you --"

"They'll mirror their fathers," Robert interrupted.

"Fuck that." Whatever indifference he'd had before had deteriated completely and the anger coursing through his body was making it ache. He couldn't make himself relax, not with this man in his room. "Get out."

"Damnit Reid," Robert snapped harshly and Reid flinched. "I was concerned for you. Your mother has been crying herself dry for the past six hours, fearing that her only son is dead. And all you can do is lie there and drudge old grudges. I was naive enough to hope that maybe you'd matured since the last time I'd spoken to you."

"I have," Reid said. "I understand now that you've got nothing I want. I don't need you, and probably never have. I'm mature enough to know when to cut loose excess baggage that can't do anything more than weigh you down. I cut you loose, father. You don't ever have to talk to me again. Now go away."

Robert shook his head, momentarily speechless, rearranging his face into the anger Reid had first anticipated. "This is what I fucking get for showing concern."

"You had your chance," Reid told him softly. "Should've showed concern two years ago, when I needed it." Maybe then I wouldn't be plagued with nightmares every fucking night. Maybe then I wouldn't have to isolate myself in fear that my friends will abandoned me, like my family. "You fucked me up. So you can take your concern and choke on it."

Like clockword, Tyler quietly slipped into the room. His face was rearranged into an expression that Reid couldn't identify. The boy looked pissed, but it was more of a resigned, quiet sort of pissed. Reid didn't know who the boy was pissed at, but he felt like apologizing either way. It was his fault. It was always his fault and he was beginning to regret that.

Sarah appeared beside Tyler but Caleb was absent. It was odd for the older boy to always be absent, but he had a lot on his mind. Even Reid knew that. He was probably in Pogue's room thinking and strategizing. He hadn't expected to see Sarah though. They weren't friends; in fact they were probably less than friends. He hadn't made a pass at her, not after she complained about being watched in the showers. Truth is, he had felt something there too. A presence that he couldn't see. But was he supposed to tell her that? How was he supposed to be friends with her? He wasn't good at befriending girls without sleeping with them. He wasn't good at befriending girls at all. Pogue had been dating Kate for six months, and Reid was still barely on talking terms with her.

"I think you'd better leave, sir," Sarah said. Reid hadn't expected her to talk. She generally left him alone to his own predicaments and problems. Her voice sounded kind, but even Reid could hear the firmness unaccustomed to the blonde hidden within the suggestion. She wasn't just asking him to leave.

Robert's eyes darted away from Reid's weary glare, to lock onto Sarah's softer gaze, and then flickered to Tyler's hardened glare. He looked back at his son before he shook his head again. "Your mother said she would come. You better treat her with more respect than you've shown me. I'll be back." He turned away from his son and trudged toward the door. Sarah stepped aside for him but Tyler forced him to walk around. The door slammed shut hard in the man's wake.

Sarah glanced over at Tyler. He still looked pissed. She hadn't ever seen him show any range of emotion the entire time she'd known him. She knew he was quiet, and she knew he humored Reid, and he laughed at Reid's jokes, and he shared in Caleb's concern, and he listened to Pogue's stories. But she hadn't ever seen him mad, at anything. Or concerned quite so much. He'd looked terrified earlier, when she had first arrived. On the brink of tears, and based on his red rimmed eyes, perhaps even beyond that brink. But right now -- he was shaking with rage, absolutely fuming.

"You okay, Reid?" She decided to ask, tentatively taking a step away from Tyler and closer to the blonde. Caleb hadn't ever told her anything about any of the sons -- just his own history. Sometimes he'd tell her lost, nearly forgotten memories that had always shed light onto some of the boys, but nothing of substance. He'd told her the first fight Reid and Aaron had ever had. Why Reid took up swimming. He'd hinted that maybe Reid lacked the motivation for substantial relationships with females because of how his mother manipulated and then rejected him. But that hadn't been detailed. He'd told her how he and Pogue had became such good friends, and how Reid and Tyler had done the same. She had learned that Tyler had always been somewhat quiet, always reserved. Only Reid could make him talk, and Caleb hadn't known why. Why would such a smart boy trust somebody like Reid? He had revealed that Reid had rejected the power for an entire year. That Reid had closed in on himself for an entire year and became somebody else. But he never told her why. Or Reid's history. He believed that in their own time, their histories were of their own discretion. If they trusted her, they'd tell her about themselves, and he couldn't impose upon that. But she knew that Reid would never admit his history to her, even if he did trust her. Reid wouldn't admit his history to anyone who hadn't been there. Sure, his history had made him who he was today, but that didn't mean he had to embrace it. He wasn't proud.

"I don't know," he mumbled, his eyes dropping to his pale hands. "God," he groaned, bringing a hand up to cover his face, his injured hand lying limp against his injured ribs. "He's such an ass," he shouted into that hand.

Sarah crossed the room, but she did it silently, gracefully. She appeared at his side, a soft hand placed tentatively on his bare shoulder. Her thumb stroked his skin in a circular motion and he unconsciously leaned into the contact. It had been so long. It had a certain feel to it, affection he hadn't felt in years. Affection that only a mother could give. Absolutely nothing sexual. The mere thought that a female touching him didn't turn him on was surprisingly scary. When you took out the sex variable, it only left emotions. And feelings. And shit Reid didn't want to think about.

"You're no longer in critical condition, Reid," Sarah murmured beside him, brushing his blonde hair away from his pale forehead. She was slightly surprised when Reid didn't shrug her off. He was indirectly showing the sort of vulnerability that he usually rejected. "That's why you're permitted visitors. Your doctor says you're healing at an alarming rate. Caleb thinks it's because this Power makes you indirectly more powerful. Physically. If it weren't for the asphyxiation, you'd probably be released in a day or two. But the doctors want to observe you, to make sure nothing can go wrong."

Reid nodded against the gentle hand stroking his head. His face was unnervingly serious. "Caleb called Tyler's parents too," she told him quietly, her eyes glancing down to meet Reid's cold gaze. The boy didn't interrupt her so she continued. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure move away from the door and ease into a chair behind Sarah. "He called his own mother too. Caleb felt that Chase is now a problem of the entire Covenant. He broke the law when he attacked Tyler. He broke it again when he tried to kill you. And he's going to break it again, when he tries to force Caleb to give up his own Power. Caleb says his death is justified now. And he wanted to involve all the elders."

"Yeah?" Reid asked derisively. "And how'd that go?" He'd gotten into trouble twice with the elders before because of his borderline addiction; once when he was fifteen, after his mother's suicide attempt, and another time the summer before Junior year, when his power almost killed a student. He was definitely not on good terms with the elders.

"Your father didn't want anything to do with it," Sarah answered honestly. "He wasn't supposed to come here, Reid. Caleb made that clear to him." She ran a hand through his hair and he tilted his head slightly. "Your father claims to have removed himself from the covenant as far as he can, and until there is an actual death...the elders allow him that." Reid scoffed and shook his head. Sarah's hand stilled until he turned his head back toward it. "Tyler's father said that Chase was of the new generation, and therefore he is a problem of the new generation. Pogue's father didn't ignore Caleb's concern, but he was still pretty hopeless about the situation. He told Caleb he'd have to 'duke it out'. He told Caleb to get on with it, before Chase can do anymore damage."

"He could die," Reid mumbled pessimistically. It wasn't just because Chase was inevitably stronger; inevitably more powerful. It was because nothing held him back -- nothing restrained him. No voice in his head telling him what he did was wrong. No bad feelings about what he did to strangers -- strangers who had once been his family. It was like he had no conscious. Caleb wasn't so lucky.

"You could have died," Sarah reminded him softly. "Pogue's father didn't think Chase had meant to alert Caleb of your..."

"Crucifixion," Reid profided.

"He thinks Chase wanted Caleb to find you there...dead..." Sarah continued. "You could have died. Nobody knows what happened. The link between you and Tyler. It's unheard of, especially when you're not ascended...or whatever. He has altered all of our lives severely, Reid, and Caleb intends to stop him before he can do anything worst." She paused, her hand perfectly warm on his head. "Do you want me to leave? I don't want to impose..."

Tyler was quiet, waiting patiently to see what Reid would do but all Reid did was shrug...or attempt to shrug. "You're not imposing," he told her quietly. A smile turned up the edges of Sarah's lips but Reid didn't see it. His eyes had already slipped closed, as his head tilted into her stroking friends. "Your hand's soft." Only Tyler saw Sarah's smile brighten. When he tore his eyes from Reid and Sarah he noticed Caleb leaning against the doorframe.