AN: Slight AU in that Wordy is still on the team. Set late season 4. Bon apetit!

"Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes." ~ The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

"You have my son in there."

Without taking his eyes off Marcus' Glock, Greg unzipped his Kevlar vest. It landed on the floor with a fatidic thud.

"Boss?"

"Greg?"

Voices clashed in his ear. Greg ignored them. In fact, he removed his head set, held it up for the men to see, and tossed it by a pile of tarps. Marcus squinted at him.

Greg said it again, surer this time. He removed his sidearm and placed that on the floor too. "You have my son in that room. He's got auburn hair and big brown eyes so full of wonder and trust that they…"

He swallowed and it tasted like release. Salt too, from the mist slowly filming over his eyes in a cathartic haze. The corners of his lips flipped up.

He huffed a helpless laugh, finally identifying that woollen ball in his chest cavity as it welled up now, soaked in such fondness and purpose that it threatened to choke him.

"That's my son in there and I've loved him longer than I ever realized." Greg huffed again and maybe it was a laugh or maybe it was a sob but either way he'd never felt this broken open, throbbing, since Dean and his wife left.

"I didn't know how much he'd mean to me, not at first. From the moment those crinkled eyes locked on me, my life changed. Whether I knew it or not doesn't change that."

Greg licked away a tear. "And I blew it. Blew it big time in every way that counted. Put myself first, my own feelings and wants before his."

Though his voice cracked, Greg held his head high, eye contact firm.

Marcus laughed. Against Greg's heartfelt sound, this harsh bark was a butterfly knife to the throat. Other men echoed it quietly. Darkly.

Marcus cocked the gun. "You think we'll just let him go because you waltzed in here and asked nicely?"

Greg shook his head. "No, sir. I'm not asking for that at all." He sighed, looking away for the first time to glance at the door again. His pulse quickened. "I'm asking you to let me join him."

The men mumbled in shock.

Greg held out his wrists. "Take me too. Whatever you have to do, just don't let him be alone."

Let me hold him, every instinct demanded.

Marcus stared at him, barrel lowered. "The lengths a father will go to for his son."

Greg grinned, weak but fiery, and the two shared a knowing look. "You're somewhat of an expert on that, aren't you, Marcus?"

The crunch of boots approached from behind. Marcus' grudgingly respectful look was the last thing Greg saw before it all went dark.

(Two weeks ago. Two weeks left.)

It started like this.

"What?" Greg blinked at the receptionist. "Sorry, could you repeat that?"

Then he did so himself, eyes huge—"That's why they called me? I've been down as his next of kin for two years?"

He'd thought this was a courtesy call. Because he needed to know if someone on his team was compromised.

The woman eyed him warily. "Yes, sergeant. And we really need to discuss these results with you."

"Not his mother?"

A pitying look melted the granite lines around her mouth. Greg waved a hand to stop any assumptions.

She nodded. Her eyes were still sympathetic. "He never told you?"

"No." Greg stared at a dirt smudge on her desk. "No…he didn't."

A question of his own occurred to him suddenly, so pressing that it took his breath away. It was at once the most important thing to know, a confirmation of something he'd wondered about for a long, long time.

"Was his mother or father ever down as his next of kin?"

This took the woman a few more seconds of computer clacking to find the appropriate records. Greg was shocked she'd even let him know. This was technically a grey area of medical-patient confidentiality.

Probably the vest, Greg concluded. The sight of it always put people at ease. He'd been on duty when he got the call. Now, at one in the morning, he was glad he'd sent everyone else home for the night early. They don't need to know about this.

"Ah." The woman's voice helped him refocus. "Here we are. It looks like his mother hasn't been down as next of kin or medical consent since he was seventeen. As soon as he turned eighteen, it transferred."

Greg's hand clenched around his hat, balled up in the fist resting on her desk. "Who?"

She seemed bewildered by the urgency thrumming through his voice. "Uh…it switched a lot, actually. Looks like a college buddy, then a McCoy fellow, then someone named…"

Now she met Greg's eyes full on. "It was Lewis Young until two years ago, until he…"

Greg's face shuttered. He scrubbed a rough hand down his eyes. "Right. Okay. That's…right."

"I'm so sorry."

He nodded, hollow. "Thank you. Can I see him?"

Without waiting for an answer, he marched around the desk towards the hallway. She made a startled noise of protest and jogged around her desk. "Sergeant, please. How much did the nurse on the phone tell you?"

To Greg's credit, he actually stopped moving. "Something about a bar fight?"

She blinked. "Oh, heavens no! Well, I mean he did throw a punch—clearly put up a struggle—but it wasn't…we did a toxicology screen, see, and it came back positive."

Greg stared at her for a long moment.

Oh. Oh.

Abruptly, his face drained of colour.

"Whoa!" A paramedic, walking by with a burger in his hand, rushed to swing a chair around. He shoved Greg into it. "Easy there, sarg."

Greg dizzily wondered how this man knew his rank until he realized it was both on his vest and that he recognized this EMT from past cases. He couldn't be bothered to remember the man's name. Only one thought dominated Greg's world.

He hated it, but he had to know—

"What was it?"

"Sorry?" The woman crouched next to the EMT and frowned. "I didn't catch that."

Greg cleared his throat. His voice still rasped. "What drug was it?"

Her face fell. She inhaled a bracing breath and lightly touched his knee. "Rohypnol."

The paramedic shoved Greg's head between his knees when he groaned and swore.

The receptionist clucked. "Someone at the bar called an ambulance when they found him in the bathroom. He hadn't consumed very much, not enough to be knocked out. Just enough to have a wicked headache tomorrow. I think he knew something was wrong the moment he took a drink. He refuses to sleep or even close his eyes with someone else in the room."

Greg's stomach constricted in a primal tug.

"Did…" He closed his eyes a moment to gather strength. "Did you administer a kit?"

The receptionist smiled faintly. "Yes. And it came back negative."

Greg slumped. "Thank God."

The paramedic stood and chuckled. He took a bite of his dinner. "Indeed. Think you can make the trip on your own?"

In answer, Greg pushed to his feet, jaw hard. He had to do this.

The receptionist led them to the last door in the hall, surprisingly—or unsurprisingly—isolated for privacy. Greg thanked the two with a nod and they backed off to give Greg some space.

He peered into the room, his eyes going soft.

Ah, kid.

He was in his own clothes, oddly, rumpled as they were. The hospital issued gown sat beside him. He had one arm thrown over his eyes, even though the lights were dimmed. An IV threaded into his left arm, which seemed strange at first until Greg spotted the bloody gauze around the right knuckles.

What chilled Greg was the knife from his dinner that he had tucked under his left thigh, the one closest to the door. The nursing staff probably hadn't even noticed.

He doesn't feel safe. And he certainly knew how to use that blade, small as it was.

The door was open, but before Greg could knock on the door frame so as not to startle the young man, Spike spoke up.

"For the last time, I don't want any pain killers. I've had enough drugs for one night, doc."

Greg, for reasons he couldn't even begin to decipher, felt a flutter in his gut. "I don't blame you."

Spike whipped his arm away and squinted. "Boss? Why're you here?"

There it was again. That sharp, scraping feeling inside his body. Greg kept his movements slow when he walked to the bed.

To anyone else, Spike's posture was normal, if tired. Greg, however, saw the hyper aware movements and his white knuckled grip around the butter knife. How his eyes tracked the exits.

And Greg's hands.

Unacceptable.

"Hey," he said, soft so as not to aggravate the obvious headache. To appear as nonthreatening as possible. "Where else would I be when one of my own is laid low?"

This apparently stumped Spike. He reached over and reapplied an ice pack to his forehead. He looked like a cross between a wide-eyed toddler and a frat boy caught hung over.

Greg smiled. "I'm listed as your medical consent, remember? And you're not cleared to be staying alone tonight. No driving, no operating a stove or anything else. Okay?"

Spike made a face. "I was drugged three hours ago, boss. It's wearing off already."

"Doesn't matter. Someone just roofied your drink, Spike, tried to…" Greg let out a whoosh of air. "Call it insurance for my peace of mind. You'd be doing me a favour."

Spike perked, his brain catching up. "Does this mean I get to leave?"

"Yes." Greg shook his head with an amused grin. "It does, as soon as you're cleared of any complications."

"Sorry you got called away from our shift."

"That's okay." Greg again eyed the knife. "We were just patrolling anyway. No hot calls, so I ended it early. Wanna tell me why you called in sick today just to go to a bar?"

"Guy can't go out for a drink on a…" Spike rolled this around in his head. "Thursday—"

"It's Wednesday, Spike."

"What, I'm not allowed to drink on a Wednesday night?"

Greg shot him a heavy look.

For a moment Spike's eyes took on a glazed quality Greg couldn't read. It made his breath catch.

Spike pulled the ice pack away, slowly, and condensation droplets expressed more than his eyes could, where they ran down his cheeks.

Something in the air shifted. It scared Greg enough for him to gently yet firmly close his hand around Spike's fist. "Give me the knife, Spike. I promise, no one is going to hurt you. Especially not with me here. Over my rotting corpse does someone lay a hand on you."

The words were dramatic, vehement. More fitting for an Ed declaration of protectiveness.

But they did the trick and Spike released his shaking hold on the knife. Motions careful, Greg set it far out of arm's reach on the bedside table.

Spike sighed. His voice was haunted, flat affect. "It's the anniversary."

"The anniversary of…?" It hit Greg without warning. Deep shame coursed through him. "Lew. Spike, I'm so sorry. We completely forgot this year."

"Pretty dumb, huh?" Spike snorted but there wasn't an ounce of humour in it. "Of all the people to get targeted, it's me—a cop. What are the chances? I wasn't even talking to anyone at the bar. I went there to be left alone."

"It's not your fault, Spike. You didn't ask for it." The very idea of that made Greg delirious with fury. He realized finally what that sharp sting in his gut was—anger. Pure, untainted rage. "Not seeing someone slip it in your drink doesn't make you a bad cop."

"I know." Spike rubbed at something on his hand. "My glass was already half empty so when I took a swig, I knew when the bourbon didn't taste right."

Greg nodded. Spike was more observant than a watchdog even on his worst day.

"What's that?" he asked, when Spike wouldn't stop playing with his left index.

"Huh? Oh." Spike held up his hand with a baffled look. "Something sticky on my fingers. It'll come off once I shower, I'm sure. They wouldn't let me right away, because…"

The reality of it seemed to slam into Spike rapid fire, right before Greg's very eyes. His skin paled.

"The kit," he finally managed.

"Yeah," Greg said, barely above a whisper. "But no one violated you, Spike. Even your clothes…your jeans…had no additional DNA on them. I know you probably don't want to talk about this now, but did you run into the bathroom because you knew?"

Spike seemed surprised by this query. "Like I said, the taste wasn't right. And then the room started spinning. I knew I had to get out of there before walking became impossible. My intent was to lock the door." He frowned. "I don't know if I succeeded in that plan."

He hadn't, but Greg didn't have the heart to tell him.

Then Spike gazed at his wrapped knuckles. It didn't seem to be the first time. "I guess I didn't, if someone got in enough for me to sock them. And before you ask, I don't want this on my record."

"Are you sure?"

He met Greg's eyes full on for the first time. "No report."

Greg's heart sank. "Not even to help us catch this bastard?"

Spike shook his head. "I don't have any memory of his or her face anyway, of anyone at all. My memory says I was alone in that bathroom until the EMTs showed up, but clearly I wasn't."

"Okay, Spike." Much as it pained Greg, he understood. "I'll honor that."

He drove Spike home with orders from the doctors to keep on bed rest and watch for any vertigo, low blood pressure, or vomiting.

Spike was unsteady on his feet. He took one look at the stairs in Greg's two storey house and mumbled something about the couch being as comfy as a bed any day.

Greg checked on Dean upstairs—still dead to the world in his cocoon of blankets—and then knelt beside Spike, sprawled on his stomach. Greg wondered how much of this he'd remember in the morning.

He left a bucket next to the arm of the couch, just in case, before spreading a comforter over him. The shoulder muscles were tense under his hand when he rubbed it.

"You're safe here, Spike. No hidden attackers. No drugs. I promise I won't give you anything without your consent, even for that killer migraine you're suffering through."

Spike still blinked off at some point on his living room wall. Glazed again.

"Spike." Greg let some of the ache in his heart seep through, listening to it thaw into something tender. "Spike, close your eyes. You can close your eyes now."

Spike's next words showed how truly out of it he was, when they slurred together sounding small and scared. Greg nearly fell over his heels from the impact of them.

"Not in the bathroom?"

Greg darted closer, willing the tightness to leave his voice. He pressed his forehead briefly to Spike's. "No, Spike. You got out of the bathroom. No attackers. You're safe here."

Spike, at last, closed his eyes.

Greg stood and went still. In the dead silence of his suburb home, hands on his hips, he listened to the faint snores from his son upstairs and melodic breaths of the young man below.

They overlapped, a song otherworldly and foreign.

Something woollen, prickly, balled up under Greg's rib cage and didn't dissolve even when he showered and changed for bed. He laid there in the dark, trying and failing to inhale full breaths around it.

It started like this.