"Come on, Fawkes, I don't get what you're so unhappy about," Hobbes said.
Darien, sanity restored, had fallen asleep almost immediately, utterly spent by recent events. He'd woken up later in the Keep, being patched up. He'd gone back to sleep almost at once. Claire had decided that he would be happier and more comfortable in his own bed during his recovery.
In truth, despite the extent of all that had happened, and all he'd done, the damage wasn't too bad. Not only had Darien somehow managed not to break any bones, even in his unspeakably dangerous tumble down the stairs when he tackled the one guy, but he also hadn't actually killed anyone. Some of them had broken bones though, most had taken considerable damage to their skulls (damage which Claire recommended pointing out if any of them started talking about invisible people).
Hobbes had discovered the reason behind the kidnapping with ridiculous ease when he talked to some of the spooks he knew. Mrs. Shepherd had worked for a secret agency of the government for many years, but had retired from the game a few years ago. During her employment at this unnamed agency (which sounded familiar, of course), she had exposed corruption in other agents, who had been fired. Still holding a grudge years later, they had decided to kidnap her son to get even, though they had likely never had intention of harming him, and had even lined up a family that had agreed to take care of him without asking questions. Several of them had found employment with other government agencies after their corruption had been uncovered, and no doubt could have gotten tidy little promotions if they'd been able to bring an invisible man to their bosses. Now, of course, they were going to jail for multiple charges of kidnapping and assault.
Nicky was, as promised, returned to his family in the condition he'd been in at the time he was stolen, sleepy and just a little bit fussy, but unharmed in any way.
But it hadn't escaped anyone's notice that Darien was quiet and rather downcast, and had been ever since they'd found him. It was clear that something had happened, something that deeply upset him, but he had so far been reticent and refused to talk about it to anyone.
"You're the first guy in the Agency to ever convince The Official to give you Christmas week off," Hobbes persisted, "Granted, it's unpaid time off, but that's still gotta feel good, doesn't it?"
Darien didn't respond to this. He was lying on his bed facing away from Hobbes, partially curled up, a hand subconsciously over the place where a bullet had grazed him, staring at -but not really seeing- the wall in front of him. He wasn't really listening to Hobbes.
"Fawkesy?" Hobbes inquired, recognizing the lack of response, "You okay, buddy?"
The edge of worried concern to his voice drew Darien from his haze enough to realize that Hobbes was probably thinking of Quicksilver Madness, even though it wasn't time for another shot yet. He didn't like it when Darien turned away and went quiet, because sometimes that meant Darien was about to try and kill him. The realization drove Darien to at last respond.
"Yeah," he said, but the misery in his voice betrayed the lie, "Yeah, Hobbes, I'm okay."
There was a prolonged silence. Hobbes was not famous for his insight, or his sensitivity, but he sometimes picked up on things, and one thing he recognized was ill-concealed pain when he heard it.
"No you're not," Hobbes sighed, "You ain't been right since we found you. How come?"
Gentleness and sympathy were not much in Hobbes' nature, and he was unbelievably awkward at them. But the fact that he was straining his abilities so in response to the silent distress of his friend finally stirred something in Darien, who up to that point had been unable to actually articulate what was bothering him. Now, it came in a single rush of words.
"I betrayed him, Hobbes," Darien opened up, "I took his truck and I ran out on him and I betrayed him and... he's never gonna know why."
Darien had told his story, start to finish, more than once, though those earlier tellings had not put such emphasis on this particular detail, a detail which had seemed fairly irrelevant to his audience. In fact, the momentary hangup he'd had at this point in the story each time he told it had been assumed to be related to the Madness which had shortly followed.
Hobbes was silent a moment, then exclaimed, "That's what this is about? You saved that kid's life! You brought him home. He probably doesn't even remember the truck."
"You didn't see the look in his eyes," Darien replied quietly.
"Fawkes," Hobbes began, then stopped and sighed, "Fawkes, you did what you had to. If you'd done anything else, you'd probably have lost your head in the room with the kid, and then he wouldn't just feel betrayed, he'd probably be dead."
"If that was meant to make me feel better, it didn't," Darien said.
He knew, of course, that Hobbes was right. If he'd let the Madness in while still in the room with Nicky, he could've killed the boy. Nicky was so small and fragile, that a Maddened Darien could hardly have avoided seriously hurting him at least. But the fact that it hadn't happened didn't make up for the sick feeling that it could have happened. Nor did it improve his feelings with regards to what had happened.
"You saved the kid and got him home," Hobbes persisted, "What more do you want?"
"He believed in me," Darien said simply, "And I let him down."
"And I used to believe in Santa," Hobbes answered, "But he never came down my chimney."
Even preoccupied with his own misery, Darien heard a pain in Hobbes' voice that he couldn't ignore. He turned over a little, so he could look at Hobbes. Hobbes looked dead serious, so Darien decided his friend hadn't just been making some kind of poor attempt at a joke to get his attention.
"You?" Darien asked in some surprise, "You believed in Santa?"
"Sure," Hobbes replied.
"Did you run a background check on him?" Darien inquired, half-joking.
"No!" Hobbes snapped, "I asked my dad if he was legit."
Darien inclined his head slightly, understanding coming to him before Hobbes continued.
"My dad gave me the whole bit. That Santa comes and delivers presents to good girls and boys, and can see you all the time. Of course I was horrified that there was some sky man watching me," Hobbes continued, "Judging me. That was one of the worst things I'd felt. 'course, I was a little kid, so I didn't have a lot of experience. I hadn't learned that there's always eyes watching, wherever you go."
Darien said nothing, sensing the worst was coming.
"Money had been tight that year, both parents working, no time to shop until the last minute," Hobbes' voice fell, and he started looking at the floor, and made frequent pauses that Darien didn't take advantage of, "Ma was out on her own that night. Some idiot hit her car and drove away. And then some other idiot came and, instead of helping her, just raided the car for everything of value in it, and also the presents in the backseat. Ran off. Ma was there fifteen or twenty minutes before anybody else came. It was late, and she wasn't on a main street. She was taken to the hospital. She got better."
Darien continued to say nothing, knowing that there was still more to it than that.
"My dad," Hobbes said, "Didn't tell me the truth, that Santa wasn't real and all that. I don't think he even gave it a thought. His wife was in the hospital, fighting for her life. Nothing else mattered. He was right, of course. But I was a kid. It wasn't that I didn't get any presents that year. It was that... I'd been told I wouldn't get presents if I was bad. I tried to think of everything I'd done for the entire year, my entire life, to figure out why. And then I heard about other kids that got presents, kids I knew had done bad things. You know, lied to their parents, stole candy, the sorts of crimes kids do. They all got presents. Why not me? I didn't know. And I didn't ask, because I didn't want anyone to realize what a bad kid I was. I guess I got it in my head that nobody would know I didn't get any presents if I didn't tell them, even though we always sat around the tree together to open them. But you get weird ideas when you're a kid. I didn't want anybody to know how bad I was. Especially not when I didn't know... what I'd done wrong."
He fell silent, seemingly surprised at his own confession, or perhaps by how much that old wound still hurt. Darien couldn't think of anything to say, and so he didn't say it.
"I even..." Hobbes said after a moment, a partial but humorless smile on his face as he recalled this ridiculous bit, "...I even thought maybe Ma hadn't been hit by a car, that it had actually been Santa's sleigh. Not that Santa was drunk, but that I was just so bad not giving me presents wasn't enough."
Darien swore under his breath in sympathy.
"'course, later on I found out Santa wasn't even real," Hobbes said, "But by then I'd been working so hard for so long under the belief that there was a big man watching me that I couldn't stop. I didn't even believe, and yet I still felt this fear all the time that Santa was going to see me, and if I wasn't completely perfect... he might send another drunk driver to kill my Ma."
"Ouch," Darien observed.
"Yeah," Hobbes agreed quietly.
The brief exchange seemed somehow more than adequate to express the full depth of Darien's new understanding of Hobbes in that moment. It was easy to think Hobbes had suddenly come mentally unhinged one day, courtesy of some traumatic event while he worked for the government. But Darien saw now that maybe something like that had broken the camel's back, but it had been collecting straws for a long time before then. Maybe Hobbes had never had a shot at "being right in the head," without outside aid, maybe it was just that his body didn't make the right stuff for mental stability, sort of like how a certain Gland in Darien's head made all the wrong stuff for mental stability. Or maybe too many people had hurt Hobbes during critical points along the way.
In either case, Darien saw nothing to make fun of here. He had childhood traumas of his own. And he himself had distinct memories of never being good enough. Never being smart enough. Never being talented enough. And, of course, he knew that damage the death of parents did to a kid, because it had happened to him. He could understand the fear of losing a parent, no matter how irrational that fear actually was. It was a pain he knew, and from there he understood the rest.
Ever the opportunist, Darien saw that Hobbes had, in opening up, made himself vulnerable. Easily could Darien compare recent events to this past trauma. He could point out that the true cause of the pain was Hobbes' father, who had lied to him and -in so doing- betrayed his trust. He could compare that to the trust he himself had betrayed with Nicky. But Darien did not act on that realization, because he recognized that he wouldn't be doing it to try and make Hobbes understand how he felt, he would be doing it because it was a brutally elegant means of laying on guilt.
Despite the fact that he was not so good of a person that he wasn't tempted to take that advantage for everything it was worth, Darien realized that he was trying to be, that he wanted to be a better friend.
A few months ago, Darien would not have hesitated. But a few months ago, his brother had been gunned down while saving his life. Since that time, he had met people unlike any he'd ever met before, learned things he'd never imagined were true. He wasn't who he'd been a few months ago. Sometimes he wasn't sure who he was anymore, but he knew for sure he wasn't who he'd been, and that (though he was loath to admit it to anyone) he was actually growing marginally ashamed of that person.
By this point, Darien had obtained a sitting position on the bed, still subconsciously holding a protective hand over the point where he'd been shot. Darien knew that he'd come unbearably close to death, and been saved more by chance than anything else, and that was a scary thing to realize.
For a lengthy span of time, both he and Hobbes were silent, neither knowing quite what to say.
Hobbes seemed to realize on his own what Darien had decided not to say. He didn't say as much, but Darien saw the look on his face change from sad reflection to what looked almost like dawning horror.
"Come on," Hobbes said suddenly.
Darien cocked his head, the imp of mischief that was normally his slowly reawakening as he replied, "I thought I was supposed to stay quiet at home and get some rest."
"Fawkes, I will pick you up and carry you if I have to, but I think we'd bother rather you walked."
Darien raised his eyebrows at the idea, not because he doubted Hobbes' ability to pull it off (which he didn't doubt at all), but because of the sudden commitment in his eyes, a sureness that was usually only there when he talked of government conspiracies.
"Where are we going?" Darien asked, getting up and slowly looking around for his shoes.
"Don't ask stupid questions," Hobbes replied, "Not when you already know the answer."
Darien had suspected, but not entirely been willing to believe, what Hobbes was saying. Now he understood, and felt not just relief, but a flood of gratitude that honestly surprised him so much that he couldn't think of anything to say. But he saw that he didn't have to.
Hobbes understood.