"So I hear you're getting out today." Jim Brass had a genuine smile on his face as he perched in the chair next to Sophia's bed. He had stopped by a few times while she'd been in the hospital, but he'd never really had a chance to talk with her alone and he had a feeling that they now shared a sort of kindred spirit and that maybe she needed to talk to someone who really understood what she had gone through.

"That's what they tell me, but I'll believe it when I see it." A decidedly smirky smile graced her features and she let out a sigh. "Of course from what I've gathered from a few of the residents that refer to me as the gun shot wound, I could very well have still been in the ICU for a while longer. I guess I should be thankful that I'm lucky."

Brass leaned in a bit conspiratorially. "No luck about it; seems to me that maybe someone upstairs was looking out for both of us." He wasn't a particularly spiritual man; he was far too cynical to buy into organized religion really, but he couldn't discount that he really should be dead, and Sophia really should be too. He had no other explanation than maybe there really was something out there that had its fingers in how the universe spun.

Sophia let out a soft chuckle. "You may be right." She had definitely been giving a lot more thought about her own mortality and what direction her life was headed. She had always assumed, even with the dangers of the job, that she would live a long full life, retire from the force and then annoy her daughter the way her own mother annoyed her at times. Of course, things change in a flash and she hadn't gotten around to having children yet; in fact if it hadn't been for the shooting she wondered just how long it would have taken her and Alex to go public about their relationship and if they would even be engaged right now. Perhaps fate had dealt her a second chance at a real life; the one she'd always dreamed of and who was she to thumb her nose at that?

"I know I'm right." Brass let out a soft sigh and reached over and grabbed her hand in an uncharacteristically affectionate gesture. "I don't know how much they told you, Sophia..." As her eyes snapped to his, he offered a reassuring smile before continuing. "They lost you a couple of times on the operating room table...I don't even know what Alex knows to tell you the truth, but I thought you should know that you beat the odds and in Vegas that doesn't happen a hell of a lot."

It took Sophia a moment to absorb what Brass had said; she had a vague recollection that someone had told her something about surgery, but while she was in the ICU she had been pretty out of it. She squeezed Brass' hand. "You beat the odds too, Jim." She had worried about him when he'd been the one in the bed. She counted him as a true friend and that was something you didn't find everyday; and the fact that they'd shared a very similar personal hell tied them together in a way that anyone who hadn't lived through it couldn't understand.

"Yeah, I did." Brass didn't get sentimental too often, but he'd softened quite a bit since his own experience and somehow he knew that Sophia would appreciate him being real with her about it rather than sitting and talking about trivial things to pass the time. "I really didn't think I was gonna make it."

Sophia's eyes widened just a bit and she nodded in relief that she was normal for having felt the same way. "And what did the department shrink have to say about that...I think that's the part I'm dreading the most, having to talk to someone about this who doesn't have a fucking clue what it feels like to think that you're going to die and that you haven't even really started living the life you always thought you'd get around to."

Brass just nodded, he knew that this conversation would be far better therapy for her than to talk to any shrink that was really just interested in whether you represented any danger to yourself or the department if you had a gun pulled on you again. "Well someone thought you needed a second chance to live that life, Soph." His tone was soft, these were the same thoughts that he'd had and part of the reason that lately he'd allowed himself to really contemplate what life after death held.

Sophia looked at him for a long moment with a furrowed brow. "How long did it take your nightmares to go away?" She hadn't really told anyone about them, although she was sure that Alex would discover it soon enough. She truly hoped that they would fade because if it weren't for the pain medication she was taking she wouldn't be getting much sleep.

Brass raised an eyebrow and let out a breath like a shrug. "I still get them." There was something about talking to Sophia about this that felt freeing to him; she understood in a way that no other friend could. "But it'll get easier."

Sophia looked at him doubtfully. "When?" There was part of her that wondered if he was just telling her that to make her feel better, or if he was doing it for his own benefit.

Brass let out a chuckle. "Alright." His expression became a bit more serious. "So I'm struggling with it, but keeping busy and cutting down on coffee so I'm actually tired when it's time to go to sleep; it helps some." He had managed ok, and he was doing well at work. There were some that thought he should just retire, but police work was in the fabric of who he was, he was sure that he would be doing this for a very long time. In the back of his mind he knew that in part it was because he never wanted another suspect to sucker him they way the bastard that had shot him had. Maybe every case he worked was a way to sort of buy redemption from that one mistake.

Their conversation was interrupted by Alex Vartan walking into the hospital room; he only had eyes for Sophia. "It's time to break you out of here." He was grinning like a thirsty man might grin at a waterfall. "Just a couple of forms and as soon as the nurse gets here with the wheelchair, I get to take you home."

Brass gave Sophia one more squeeze of the hand before letting go and offering her a warm smile. "I think I'll be going so your knight in shining armor here can take you away in his pumpkin." He got up and glanced at Sophia with a smile.

"Thanks, Jim." Sophia's eyes conveyed her gratefulness at his understanding of what she was going through; she was sure this wasn't going to be the last conversation they had about it.

"Hey, just because you're driving that new Magnum and I'm still stuck in a hand me down Taurus doesn't make it a pumpkin." Vartan and Brass had been exchanging barbs about the Captains hot police ride for months and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was issued one as well, but in the meantime it had become a sort of inside joke.

Brass let out a good natured laugh and let himself out of the room.

"I don't care what the hell you take me home in, as long as we're going home." Sophia wanted to grumble about having to ride in a wheelchair to the car when she was discharged, but the reality was, she just wanted to go home and let the man she loved hold her.

Vartan sat down next to her on the bed and leaned over to kiss her forehead. He was so looking forward to getting her out of here where he could just take her in his arms and hold onto her for a long time to make sure she was really ok. "That's my girl."