Authors Note: Agh, there's a little bit of angst here as well, but I'm hoping that there is a little bit more fluff to cancel it out. Enjoy. Thank you to the anonymous reviewer that pointed out that I had them going to two different places. Sorted now, cheers :)

James had phoned at half past three that same afternoon to tell Lewis, that since he'd managed to eat and keep it down, they'd let him go home, as long as there was someone to pick him up. Lewis had assured Hathaway that he and Sam would come and get him in an hour. And how was he feeling? How was his knee?

Knowing that Lewis would see for himself in an hour, he didn't lie, there wasn't any point. He answered Lewis truthfully. "My knee hurts like hell. Doctors said I might feel weak for a few days, bastard gave me a pretty high dose." he sighed. "Chest bloody hurts as well, something to do with thrashing around while they were trying to make me breathe." Lewis had sympathised with him asking if he wanted anything other than a change of clothes.

"Just bring Sammy."

Sure enough, an hour later, Robbie and Sam we're stood in Hathaway's room, waiting for the doctors to give him the official green light to go home. James initially refused the loan of a wheelchair, opting for crutches instead. The nurse tried to tell him that he could have both, that he would probably need both.

"That dislocation was quite severe Mr Hathaway. Due to you being paralysed, the knee didn't relocate itself straight away like they often do. It's going to hurt. And you're going to feel weak for a few days. Crutches alone are going to be tough. It is a little too optimistic to be expecting your arms to bare even your little amount of weight, you're going to need to sit down."

Lewis could see James battling with his pride. An idea was forming in his mind and if it came to fruition, he was pretty sure James would be grateful for the wheelchair. Between them, the nurse and the ex inspector managed to convince James that the wheelchair was a good idea.

15 minutes later (with strict instructions for James to keep weight of his left leg and to return to the hospital immediately if he lost sensation in it) the three of them were walking out of the hospital. Robbie was pushing the folded wheelchair towards the car as Hathaway started to get used to his crutches. Lewis managed to keep Sam occupied by enlisting him to help push the chair. He could see that James was struggling a little, the weakness that he had shrugged off, obviously being more prominent than he thought it would be. Still, James refused to use the wheelchair.

"I don't need the bloody thing" he muttered with a wince.

"Your pride's going to kill you one day lad." James just set his expression firmer.

"You do realise how serious this injury is don't you son? I mean you screw this recovery up and you're putting up with pain and restricted mobility for the rest of your life." James looks at his son, happily pushing the side of the chair.

"Small price to pay for him Robbie." Robbie smiles slightly, resigned to his warnings falling on deaf ears. He should have known. He'd have been the same had their positions been reversed.

It takes a little while to get James into the car, due to him forgetting that he can't move his knee. And then remembering suddenly and painfully. The wheelchair gets stowed in the boot, and the crutches are left in the back with Sam, who is told not to move them.

Sam is on his best behaviour after Robbie explained the situation before they left for the hospital.

"We going'a get Daddy?"

"Aye. But you've got to be good ok kidda. Your Dad hurt his leg yesterday and he's going to find it hard to walk for a while."

"Did Daddy hurted his leg? Or did the bad men hurted his leg?" Lewis doesn't know how much he should tell the little boy, but then decided that James would probably tell him the truth.

"The bad men hurt your Daddy's leg."

"But they in a prison now?"

"Yeah. They're locked up." Sam nods and Robbie knows that he was right not to attempt to explain the laws of custody and holding cells. He continues; "Dad's also going to be tired for a few days ok? So you have to be calm around him, no asking him to play football or anything. "

"Is he tired cos the bad men made him so he wasn't moving?" Robbie is slightly taken aback by how much the little boy seems to understand what happened the previous night. But he covers it well.

"Yeah. And it really scared him. So you give him a big hug when we get home eh?" Sam nods happily and they get in the car.

So far, Sam's doing very well. He'd been a bit overexcited when they'd first seen James; babbling questions about crutches and what was that thing around Daddy's knee for? He'd been fascinated by the bruise around James left eye (hhe second one in as many weeks) that he got when he'd fought with Harper's father. But the young nurse had explained everything to him patiently and after he understood, Sam quietened considerably.

The car journey was uneventful. James spent much of it in silence, although he did comment on how glad he was to get out of the hospital. His face was grey and Robbie thought that the hospital was a bit premature to let him out. But he also knew that James had probably underplayed how he felt, just so that they let him leave. Lewis was determined to make the man rest. He'd be no good to Sam if he wore himself out.

They get into the house and James collapses gratefully onto the sofa. With his eyes closed, he doesn't notice Sam make Lewis bend down so he can whisper in the older man's ear. He also misses Robbie's nod.

The next thing he knows, Sam has climbed onto the sofa and he is standing on it so that his head is just about level with James' own.

"What are you up to eh?", James says, eyes still closed. There's no answer except for two little arms wrapping themselves around his neck and a little blond head on his shoulder. Robbie watches as a warm smile spreads across James face and he hugs his son back.

"Cheers little man. I needed that. "

"Unca Robbie said to wait to you be sitting down other wise you'd fall an' break your arm or things." James looks up at Robbie and smiles at him, trust Lewis to know exactly what he needed.

"Wise man is your uncle Robbie."

It's Lewis' turn to smile warmly.

Lewis waits until the evening until he sets his plan in motion. James is comfortably settled on the sofa, painkillers taken and they've all eaten copious amounts of takeaway pizza. Sam has fallen asleep curled into Hathaway's side.

"When's the last time you took the bairn to the seaside?" James has the good grace to look guilty.

"Er...I haven't."

"Sam's never been to the sea?"

"When I was ...I was the new boy wasn't ?. Just an inspector. Fresh into the Met...I was covering shifts and being put on the donkey jobs from the beginning. " Lewis nodded in understanding. He did more than his fair share of donkey work when he was with Morse.

"And then after Chrissy was...well I was focussing more on getting up in the morning to make him breakfast than I was on day trips." James cocked his head.

"Why d'you ask?"

"Lyns partner is at a 4 day conference, I think she's feeling a bit lonely. Suggested that I went up to Manchester for a bit."

"I'm sorry. If we're in the way we can-"

"Don't be ridiculous Jim. I can't leave you to look after the lad with your knee like that. Nah, I reminded her that you were here, and she instantly suggested a trip to the seaside. Figured that we could do with a break from this house." Lewis paused, watching James carefully.

"I didn't want to agree till I'd asked you. I was gonna suggest something similar anyway" James smiled.

"Sounds great. Sammy'll love it."

"I'll tell her to book a B&B or something then eh? We can wait a couple of days if you want, wait for your muscles to strengthen up a bit"

"Nah", James waved his hand dismissively, "Sea air do the trick I reckon."

"That's sorted then, I'll go and call our Lyn. She's stayed down south a few times, or thereabouts. Raves about it. Anyway she knows a good place to stay"

"Nice. Cheers Robbie"

"Away man, s'all Lyns idea."

"I mean for everything."

"Leave it out kidda. You'd have done the same." Robbie gets up and phones Lyn. She's delighted at the prospect of the seaside outing and says she can get them somewhere for two days time. Robbie agrees readily. A holiday is just what they all need after the last week and a bit.

When he gets back into the living room, Hathaway has fallen asleep on the sofa, bad leg half off, arm folded across his chest. First, Robbie lifts a sleepy Sam off the sofa and takes him upstairs, getting him ready for bed. It isn't hard since the boy is half asleep and lets Lewis change him and tuck him in with no fuss. He makes sure to settle Sam on the left side of the bed this time, just to ensure he won't accidentally catch James injured leg while they sleep. Next Lewis heads downstairs, grabbing the crutches from the hall on the way. He gently shakes James awake, making sure to be ready to stop the younger man from jerking his leg too hard.

"Wha?"

"Bed, son. You can't sleep down here, it won't just be your knee that hurts in the morning if you do. Come on, Sam's already in bed." James nods sleepily and starts to sit up. He winces and Lewis hands him a crutch, which he slowly levers himself up with. Robbie gives him the other one and he stands properly. After a minute though, he swears softly and Lewis turns to see his arms shaking as he holds himself up.

"Bugger!" James mumbles. Robbie puts an arm round James waist, making sure to support the left side since that's the leg he can't use. He has a horrible feeling that if he'd been much longer about grabbing the lad, James would have fallen.

"They did say you'd feel weak lad. it's only going to be for a little while. Away, let's get you upstairs."

They make their way slowly upstairs, Robbie acting like a second crutch. Although he suspects that he's holding on to James a lot more than James as actually managing to hold onto him. The lad seriously underestimated (or more likely ignored) just how much his muscles were going to let him down. It doesn't help of course, that he's tired and he's recently taken heavy painkillers.

Once Lewis has helped him to sit on the bed, he manages to swing himself on without too much pain. He utters a quiet and tired thank you to Lewis and within minutes, James is fast asleep.

When Lewis eventually goes to bed, sleep doesn't come easily to him. There's some small part of him that is convinced that something bad is going to happen. He listens out for any sign of trouble from he spare room, as long as he can, before he succumbs to sleep.

.

The next morning, James feels a lot stronger and he's already awake when Lewis gets up to check on him and Sam.

"Morning James", he says as he walks past the room and sees James sat up in bed.

"Morning Robbie". There is a muffled sound from the duvet on the floor an Lewis looks down in confusion.

"Ah, that. He's building a cave apparently. I think he meant 'Good Morning'. "

"Right. How're you feeling this morning mate?"

"Better. Definitely not as shaky as yesterday."

"That's good. You fancy some breakfast then?" he crouches down to the duvet bundle on the floor. "Does the caveman want bacon?"

"Yeah!"

"Well we never discovered bacon in a cave. Come downstairs and help me cook some up" Sam scrambles eagerly out of his duvet cave and runs out of the room after the older man. James hears hushed conversation and then Sam runs back in again, grabbing hold of James crutches from the other end of the room and drags them over to his Dad.

"Thanks Sammy" he says ruffling the little boys hair.

"Cheers" he shouts after Lewis, knowing that the older man had told the boy to help him.

"No problem" Lewis shouts back and James grins.

Hathaway gets dressed with some considerable difficulty and he is panting slightly as he pulls the T-shirt over his head while balancing on his right leg. Clothes on, he settles into the crutches and leaves the room. He makes his way slowly down the stairs, grateful that so far, his arms seem to be taking the weight ok.

Suddenly this trip doesn't seem like such a good idea. He's going to be a liability. The others are going to have to watch out for him and he thinks thats unfair. Its supposed to be a break for them as much as him, and he would bet that Robbie needs it. He's mulling it over as he reaches the bottom step. He rests a while against the wall at the bottom, just as Robbie and Sam come into the room with a plate of bacon and a small plate piled high with toast.

"Okay?" Robbie asks, concern on his features. James nods.

"Yeah, just...stairs" he says, breathing deeply.

"Go and sit on the sofa lad." Hathaway shakes his head, making his way to the dining table.

He's starting to think that the wheelchair was an ok idea after all, the crutches are proving to be something of a nuisance. They point blank refuse to be stood up against a surface. Which would be ok, if he could get down to pick them up. They clatter to the floor again and he swears under his breath. Lewis goes to pick them up and James stops him.

"Let me. I've gotta get the hang of it anyhow." Lewis watches as James reaches down to the fallen crutches. He grips the table tightly with one hand and Robbie can see the strain as the veins in his arm show up. However, it does put Lewis at ease a little. He knows that James isn't lying about feeling stronger today, there's no way he'd have been able to do this yesterday.

They finish eating and James notices that Sam is being very quiet. The little boy looks glum and he's fiddling with a bit of bacon that's left on his plate with his fork.

"Hey little man, what's up?" Sam looks up at him.

"Now your leg is hurted, does that mean I not allowed to sit on your lap?"

"Course not. Just means we gotta do it different." He gets up, tapping Sam on the head as he swings past.

"Come on, we'll find out how".

After a little bit of experimentation, they find a way that Sam can sit on James' lap without causing excruciating pain and the young boy perks up considerably. He sits on the floor, playing with his cars, and occasionally interrupting James' rest or Robbie's reading in order to get them hide the bad guys car from the police.

James is busily helping a gang of bank robbers evade capture from Constable Sam when Sam employs another police car from his little pile and crashes it into the robbers car, narrowly missing James' finger in the process.

"You can't do that!"

"Can. Maked them stop and now they going prison."

"Yeah but policemen aren't allowed to cause crashes, they'll get sacked Sam." Sam frowns and shakes his head.

"The boss won't mind because they robbers are bad men an' now they get the money back." Robbie chuckles and James has to fight back a grin. He gives up trying to work out Sam's logic and sits back, smiling. Robbie grins and looks over at him.

"We weren't always by the book Jim."

"...Course we were."

"If I remember correctly, you nicked a CD from that music blokes room. And I went to a bloody dinner party with a suspect."

"Oh yeah. We weren't all that clean were we? But we never caused a car crash."

"...Er."

"When? When did we cause a car crash?"

"When we stopped that dealer on Peterson's drugs raid, you blocked him off."

"That was fully justified, he elbowed you in the face."

"Yeah, but that was after you crashed your car into him."

"I was being pre-emptive. Boss didn't mind though...Maybe the boy is onto something here." They continue to watch Sam playing, and eventually, the robbers make a break for the stair case and the kid follows them out. Robbie looks after him and murmurs;

"Did Jean tell you how the back up came to be at the house?"

"No...well maybe, there was a few times when she was talking to me but I was freaking out too much to listen, something about telling Sam I was dead. I'm not sure, I was sedated wasn't I?" That last bit was more of a question than a statement. Lewis heard the uncertainty in James' voice.

"Yeah. They thought you were gonna have a heart attack or something..." Lewis doesn't mention how close he came to having the same when Jean had told him of that particular risk.

"Jean said, I asked her, she said that Sam called the police. They couldn't work out what he was on about at first, but o'course Innocent knew the situation. Apparently Sammy told her that he could hear you and Harper shouting. She dispatched them when he said he hadn't heard me speak yet. I guess that's why she asked for you when she walked in, probably thought I'd been shot."

"Bet seeing me motionless on the floor came as a bit of a shock then."

"Yeah. Bit of a shock to everyone. 'Specially Sammy. "

"He saved our lives didn't he Robbie?"

"Aye. He's a smashing kid James."

"The best." Robbie smiles. "Lyn said she's booked a B&B for three days, starting tomorrow. We can't check in till 6pm though. So we can take a leisurely drive down, don't have to start too early."

"Brilliant. Where are we going?"

"South Devon...Torquay I think. Lyn said there's some lovely beaches there. She and Tim took Eddie a few years back. Couple of lovely quiet ones."

"Sounds like heaven."

"Aye, thought you'd like the sound of that."

Sam comes running back into the room and James flinches involuntarily as he runs past. Lewis sees it and he knows that James' knee must really hurt, it'd take a lot to make James shrink away from his son. Sam doesn't notice though, and he climbs up onto the sofa and carefully sits on James' lap in the position that he'd discovered earlier, tongue sticking out of his mouth as he concentrates on getting it right. He then grabs his comfort blanket from where its been dumped next to James hand, and gently lays it on Hathaway's left leg.

"Make it better." James squeezes Sam with one arm as he grins.

"Ah, thanks kid."

"S'gonna take time though Daddy. Not putting weight on it ok. And go to hostipal if you lose 'ensation. You have to p'omise!" Robbie and James both grin, both at the fact that Sam is lecturing James and the mispronunciation of the hospital nurses words.

"I promise Dr Hathaway." James says solemnly, and Sam nods, satisfied that his patient has been listening to him.

They pass most of the day just relaxing. Robbie has found some felt tip pens and paper and so Sam is busily drawing at the kitchen table. After lunch, both of the adults pack some clothes and things for the trip in the morning. They get it done fairly quickly, they're only going for a few days after all. Lewis has to help James a little since, he can't move around all that quickly. They head downstairs and Lewis starts to talk.

"Lyn's going to drive down tomorrow, should get here about noon. We'll have lunch and then head off at about three. Should get there somewhere between half six and seven."

"Great. Looking forward to it. I haven't been to the seaside in ages." Lewis grins at the smile in James' eyes.

"Get away with you, you big kid."

"Ah come on, you're the same." Lewis contemplates this for a moment.

"Aye, aye I don't deny it. I should probably get started on dinner."

Hathaway manages to help with the cooking, providing he sits down while he's chopping various vegetables. He tries to stand and chop peppers, but he nearly falls over with the effort of balancing on one leg. Soon enough though, they cook the stir fry up and they all sit down to eat. Sam is a bit put out at having to stop drawing, but he soon comes round when the plate of food is put in front of him.

Dinner finished, they all sit and watch TV together, Sam sat in between James and Robbie. The little boy soon succumbs to sleep, curled into James side. His comfort blanket is pulled right up to his nose and spreads over Robbie's thigh. Robbie picks him up and puts him to bed, aware that James can't manage his crutches and carry a child. James follows him up with the intention of putting Sam to bed, but one look at him and Lewis tells him to sleep too. While its clear that James is much stronger today and has all but recovered from the effects of the drug (if not his knee), he's still exhausted, mentally and physically. He doesn't protest against Lewis' almost order and after some painful moments when trying to get his pyjama's on, he's in bed and almost asleep before Robbie comes to say good night and leave Sammy a glass of water.

But Lewis knows its too good to be true. If he's perfectly honest with himself, Robbie's been expecting it. He knows straight away that the lump on his bed is Sam. He'd heard Hathaway's hoarse screams start a minute before. But he'd left it for a little while, hoping that James' dream would sort its self out. He regrets that, as soon as he feels Sam's hand on his arm. Its not fair to have left the boy there.

They go into the bedroom and Lewis knows this is a bad one, worse than the previous nightmares that he's had while he's been staying. Once again, Sam is stood a small distance from the bed, shaking a little as he watches his Dad squirm around. Lewis holds him down, aware that he's going to damage his knee even more. James is muttering, and Robbie realises that he's pleading with whoever it is in his dream that's confronting him. Although he has a good idea who it is.

"Leave him...Please!...bastard...Sam's nothing to do... get your hands off...fucking bastard!" His eyes snap open as Robbie shakes him gently. Robbie smiles at him, but Hathaway appears not to see. Instead, his eyes widen and absolute terror fills them.

"I can't...I can't move Robbie...Shit!...Robbie I can't fucking move." Lewis frowns, doesn't James realise that he's squeezing my hand, that his head is thrashing about? He realises that the lad is in a state of utter confusion and most likely not fully awake yet. He is also drenched in sweat.

"Kidda...you can move. James you are moving! Come on lad, you're ok. It was a nightmare. James, you're ok son." He keeps up this gentle litany of words, repeating them and saying James name in an attempt to get through to the younger man. It takes a good five minutes, but eventually James calms. Robbie knows that he's going to be alright, when he looks sheepish.

"Sorry. I didn't...didn't mean to wake you up"

"Are you ok?" Lewis cuts in, he doesn't care about being woken up, why does James never see that? More to the point, why does James always see himself as an inconvenience? Slowly, James shakes his head.

"Er...n-no."

"Do you want to talk about it kidda?" James looks over at Sam, beckoning at him to come back onto the bed. Sam is hesitant, more so than last time. Hathaway shakes his head again.
"In the morning sir. Not now, not with Sam about." Lewis nods, but he is determined that they will talk about this in the morning.

"Aye, if you want it that way lad, not in front of the bairn. He gives Sam a hug, pats James on the shoulder and bids them good night. Robbie can hear them murmuring and he knows that Hathaway is trying to reassure Sam that he is ok.

He keeps an ear out for the next hour and a half, and it comes as a genuine surprise when James stays quiet.

Robbie finally sleeps, deeply and dream free.