'These are my arms,
Come to them when you're cold.
This is my shoulder,
Rest your head and dream of home,
For there'll be nights and there'll be days
It seems a long, long ways away.'
"Take Us Home" ~ Alan Doyle
Greg has spent every hour of the last three and a half days clamouring to get to Spike's side. Sometimes he felt like he'd be torn in half if he was separated from his boy any longer.
But now…now that Spike is right here…Greg's steps are slow.
Spike watches him approach, and though no more fear lurks in his eyes, they're shuttered. Defeated.
Greg bypasses the only visitor's chair to sit on the bed beside Spike's hip. He's not very warm, though they've wrapped him up in that yellow hoodie Sam brought along and two blankets. Greg tries to take Spike's hand only for there to be too many tubes and wires in the way.
They end up with their thumbs tangled around each other.
"Hey, you."
Spike nods to return the soft greeting.
"You doing better? Feeling alright?"
Another nod. Spike points to his chest.
"You can breathe better? That must be a relief."
Spike dips his head. His eyes stay up, on Greg, unreadable. He's not sleepy or groggy like Greg imagined he'd be.
"They tested the syringe Jules found while you were under and got a match. You know about your symptoms, the poison?"
Spike mouths a word to himself.
"Anthrax, that's right. Couldn't believe it and I'm so sorry they hurt you like that. You hear me? It was awful and you're allowed to feel like it was awful. You don't have to brush it off."
Spike looks down. He's a little stiff. Greg wonders what he's bracing for. To be yelled at or to feel scared? Both?
Greg's jaw ticks. He can't allow that. "You wanna get out of this joint?"
Spike's head whips back up. His eyes, wide as they can be when he's so weary, search Greg's face.
"If not," says Greg, "or if you're tired and want to sleep, that's fine. Just thought you might like to take the tour. This is a post-op recovery room. They'll be moving you to a regular one soon anyway."
Spike's eyes do a full circuit and then land on the wheelchair. His brow quirks in question.
Greg holds an arm out. "Your chariot awaits."
There's a tap of timid fingers on Greg's bad leg.
Greg winks. "I figure if you push the tire with your right and I push the handle with my left, we'll make it work. Physics, right?"
Spike's face doesn't change, but he fists a hand in Greg's sweatshirt. A concession.
While the poison leaving Spike's system makes him fatigued, it's not the boneless frailty of a concussion or gunshot wound. Mostly because they haven't given him many painkillers or drugs, not wanting to cancel out or dull the antitoxin.
His mind is clearly racing around; Greg can practically hear it and Spike hasn't even said a word.
A tall nurse enters in a fit of good timing and between the two of them, they lower Spike into the chair. His feet, wrapped to high heaven, brush the pedals but he just pales and waits out the pain.
The nurse clips the IV pole to the chair handle, so that it will wheel along behind. He also unhooks the pulse ox and nasal cannula.
"You need any help?" the nurse asks, a dubious gaze resting on Greg's cane.
Greg waves him off. "We're covered. Just…keep our little excursion under wraps. We're taking the scenic route to his room."
The nurse laughs. He approaches with a mask in preparation of looping it around Spike' ears. "Your immune system is compromised, so this 'excursion' isn't exactly textbook. Gotta keep those germs away."
With the cloth so close to his face, the whites of Spike's eyes flare, all at once in a rush of fear.
Greg suddenly remembers they found a blindfold in that basement too.
"Hey, hey." He rests an elbow on the chair and bends. "You're here with me, Spike. No one's going to force anything on you that you don't want."
The nurse's eyes are sad. He covers it up quickly. "Here, Officer. You do the honours."
Spike shakes himself. He takes the mask and puts it on, eyes flitting between the nurse and Greg. The nurse, in a sage move, steps back.
It takes a few tries for them to get the hang of coordinating. Spike pushes weakly on one side, Greg's left on his cane and right on the handle, and together they achieve a snail's pace of motion.
Spike doesn't seem to care much where they go. Greg does all the steering, making sure his stronger push doesn't burn the tire against Spike's only good hand. He just has to nudge at it to match Spike's effort.
While it feels a tiny bit deceptive to keep Spike away from the team before they can see him, Greg knows Spike isn't ready yet.
There's still something haunted in those big brown eyes. Something jarred loose that needs to be made secure.
They end up in what has been Greg's favourite place so far. He's walked the whole clinic during Spike's two hour long procedure and in that time come here three times.
The head nurse is a hobby gardener.
They enter a solarium, all curved windows for half the ceiling and clear panes for the other two walls.
Every square inch except for the floor—and that just barely—is covered with something green or the vibrant jewel tones of big flowers. The room is balmy, much warmer than the rest of the hospital from sunlight and humidifiers.
A bench sits in front of the window, which looks out over the back park. Next to the American flag lawn decal is a small pond. Ducks, those left for the season, splash around in groups.
Greg locks Spike's wheelchair next to the bench and sits down.
Spike doesn't take in the flowers, though his eyes find the ducks. If Greg can breathe easier in this oxygen-rich room, he imagines Spike feels it too.
They just look out the window for a while, the sun finishing its rise over the tree tops. Spike remains alert, his chest working but calmer, at a normal cadence compared to when they found him.
The bubbles of toxin inside his muscles, where they bonded with the oxygen molecules, also seem to have dissipated. He no longer winces every few seconds, like during the ambulance ride to the clinic.
Greg finds Spike a much more interesting subject to watch than the scenery:
He twitches and breathes and runs his hands over the hoodie fabric, then a huge sunflower to his right. His fingers pirouette over the petals.
Greg thinks he might drown in the love he has for this member of their little family. He twists so he's facing Spike. "You and your obsession with yellow, huh?"
He can't see Spike's mouth or nose behind the mask…but the tech's eyes crinkle a touch.
Greg grins along. "When we get back home, I'm buying all the yellow confetti and flowers I can find and rigging them to blow from your locker."
Spike starts to smile again, then his eyes drop. He squeezes them shut.
"Spike?" Greg shuffles even closer, reaching around the IV pole so he can touch the bowed hair.
Spike shakes his head, violent, frustrated. It strikes Greg yet again that Spike hasn't cried, hasn't broken down in anger or mania or even panic. Hasn't reacted at all, really.
He got rescued and just…shut down.
Retreated deep inside himself.
Many people, in Greg's experience, are not aware that 'fight or flight' response is incorrect. There's actually a third, the most devastating of them all—freeze response. Freeze responses in trauma patients are much harder to overcome.
Spike is most definitely geared with a freeze response.
Not always, but certainly for things like this that are hard to process and mentally break down. He's seen Spike fight—his surface level go to—but once in a while the freeze takes over.
"Spike, son." Greg strokes his hair. "I want you to know that you don't have to talk to us yet. I get it. I get being scared. Your voice, your decision to engage or not engage with a situation, is the only thing you have control over right now."
Spike stills. He shakes his head again, slow and fizzling. The line of his shoulders shudders.
"L-left him behind."
Greg's heart races at hearing Spike's voice for the first time in days. He keeps his face neutral but open. "Who, Ed?"
Spike opens his eyes and they're troubled. "I'm not scared. My fault."
Shame. He's punishing himself.
"Spike—"
"I left him there!" Spike's hands ball up on the arms of the wheelchair. "He…he was helpless and I walked away!"
Greg and the others, obviously, haven't dared ask for a statement from Spike yet. Just the thought of it is crass.
Now, Greg starts to wonder if maybe they should. If for no other reason than to understand the emotional context of what happened.
"He'd-he'd still be here if I hadn't…" Spike bows his head into his hands.
"Spike, look at me."
He doesn't.
Greg gently, carefully pulls the mask away from Spike's face and cups it all in one go. Spike's lips quiver.
"We don't know that, Spike." Greg won't let him look away, voice resolute. No room for argument. "What if you'd stayed with Ed, hmm? What if they'd just shot you too? Sounds like they planned on it."
Spike's tense hand finds Greg's sweater again. It tugs the fabric right over his heart. "I tried to lead them away. A blood trail. Cov-covered Ed with leaves."
"Only they found him anyway," Greg finishes, tone brittle. "You did everything you could, Spike. That was a clever plan."
"Didn't work."
"No, it didn't. But that's not what matters. What matters is that you tried to save Ed's life."
Spike's expression smooths. He calms himself with a visible effort that leaves Greg feeling tired. There's something very chilling about how quickly he does it.
"He…" Spike swallows, voice a whisper. "He wouldn't wake up."
There are times, deceptive times, when Greg forgets that he was human long before he was ever a cop. When the dam of pent up stress and emotion can almost be forgotten in the current of the next case. He compartmentalized all of it: losing his family, that harrowing ride across the border, the FBI's case and all its grisly photos, the blood everywhere…
Spike's childlike tone for those four words is the tap that breaks the dam.
Greg moves in a frenzied rush. He throws his arms around Spike and squeezes him tight. Hushed words are exchanged—"I love you." "Thank you for coming for me." "Always. We're not leaving you."—but Greg mostly just tries to plug the gushing wounds of Spike's heart with his arms alone.
"Son, we're going to find him."
"Not alive," Spike argues. "I know you know better. I'm not a civilian you can soothe with false hope. He's not going to stay alive much longer."
Greg closes his eyes and cups the back of that spiky hair. "Maybe not. Maybe I'll have to do my search from prison—but we will find Ed, you hear me? Even if it's just to give him a proper burial."
Spike's arms twine around Greg's neck. It's familiar. It's a move for when Spike is feeling both vulnerable and trusting.
It causes the first sharp needle of hope to pierce this hazy, depressed curtain over the world. Dizzy relief assails Greg. He feels the shell of Spike's ear begin to warm up.
"Yeah, Greg. I got it." Spike turns his head and his nose is cold against Greg's neck, like the rest of him.
"And what happened to Ed, to you both, is not your fault. Do you understand that?"
Spike is quiet this time.
Greg wants to debate, to rage at anyone who will listen that this sweet man doesn't deserve this kind of weight. That he's innocent. That he'd lay down on a road and be run over if it would save someone else.
Greg doesn't say any of this. He doesn't growl in frustration.
He simply hugs Spike close and rocks them for a long, long while.
There's something of a debt paid in the action. For he knows that since Ed can't hold their boy, Greg has to do it for him. To honour how far they got before being overpowered.
The thought of taking one more step, a life without Ed, is an Atlas worthy load upon Greg's shoulders. Something deep inside him knows Spike probably won't return to the force without his friend and mentor either. And that if he does, he'll never be the same.
But whatever comes next, however dismal—he needs to carry their boy off the battle field. He needs to make this moment right.
Greg breathes out a laboured sound. "I'm proud of you, you know that?"
Spike is silent again. He does go a little red.
"I am," says Greg, staunch. "You escaped, from what I can tell. Dragged Ed a long way with anthrax in your system—I'm not over that, by the way. And you continued to fight when we found you."
Spike's grip tightens.
"Ed would be proud of you too," Greg finishes.
Spike still isn't crying or sobbing or anything remotely resembling an overstock of emotions to sort through. But his fingers brush across the back of Greg's neck and they're shaking.
Greg's love surges up again and he kisses Spike's shoulder. Even if he goes to jail for life, he'll make sure Spike never has to live in fear again.
I'll take care of them, Eddie. I promise.
"There they are! Sam, this way!"
Greg looks up to see Jules standing at the door, waving down the hall. Her eyes are bleary with sleep, like Sam's when he stumbles through the solarium doors.
Both of them get almost jittery with excitement when Greg pulls back and they see Spike awake. Their faces brighten.
"Doctor Lightfoot filled us in," says Jules. She thumbs through Spike's hair. "You're going to be just fine."
Spike nods. He's shy again, wan and heavy eyed.
"Where's Dean?" Greg asks, watching Sam tuck a blanket around Spike.
"He was out, boss. Like…out." Jules flops down beside him. "Sam decided to let him sleep."
"He's not going to be happy about that."
"No." Dean shuffles in, eyes puffy. "I'm definitely not. You owe me, jar head."
Sam grins. He's crouched next to Spike and double checking the IV lines. Always more at ease with something to do or a way to help. "We're all running on empty, man. Figured it was better to let you rest with how long this case has been."
Dean doesn't answer or take the bait. The older adults go still, on alert, when they see Dean's lips turn down into something stormy. Sam stands, backing off to give the boy space but still close.
Dean rounds the wheelchair so he stares Spike head on. Spike's eyes are a blank page, at the mercy of Dean's polygraph gaze.
Everyone waits for the cathartic words, yells, the unspoken fears, the confessional of those torturous hours, trying to piece it all together. They're long overdue to be spilled. Dean has held it together for so long and Greg knows this particular incident shook him up, terrified him down to his core, more than he'll admit.
Finally, Spike's nose twitches. He sniffs. "Sorry about your socks."
It surprises a laugh out of everyone, including Dean.
He ducks into Spike's space and Spike is ready, arms reaching out. His hands fist into the back of Dean's flannel shirt, reassuring the boy of his presence, that he's alive and out of the woods.
"Don't you ever do that again," Dean quavers. "You're not allowed."
Spike's lips quirk up. "Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir."
"You're such a sass bucket."
"Maybe I learned from the best."
"Oh no," Dean argues, muffled and maybe crying a bit. "Dad says you were like this long before I came around."
"So you're saying you learned from the best, yours truly?"
"Nice try."
People don't understand when Greg tries to explain it. The hyper specific sensation that comes over him when he watches both of his children pour out the love in their hearts to each other.
It's a cactus prickle along the back of Greg's throat, fuzzing up behind his nose, burning in little balloons until it reaches his eyes. Then he has no other choice but to breathe through it. Ride the rush. Only Ed, who has two children and says his favourite thing in the world is watching Clark waltz Izzy around the living room, fully understands. He's experienced it too.
Jules stretches around Greg to touch Spike's knee. "Good to hear your voice. Thought we'd lost you for a while there."
Spike avoids their eyes. "Worst day ever, right?"
A beat.
The Braddocks frown at each other.
"Actually…" Greg speaks for them all. "A few days have passed."
"That can't be right." Spike's forehead cinches in his signature way, when he's attempting to solve a puzzle. "I just spoke with Jules yesterday. We got the tip about the angry housewife."
Jules grips Spike's hand, to stave off the startle response. "Spike, it's been almost four days since you disappeared on the gun call."
Spike's eyes shoot around. They find Sam's, followed by Greg's, searching for any falsehood. His mouth drops open, brows high. "What…that's not…we…"
Sam is just rushing to intercept the impending shock when Jules' cellphone rings.
"Hang on," she mumbles, rooting through her pocket. "This is Braddock—"
Leah is talking before Jules even brings the phone up to her ear. The rushed babbling is audible to them all and it's not even on speaker phone.
"Slow down!" Jules lifts a placating hand out of habit, though Leah can't see her. "What do you mean you found his identity…?"
It takes a lot to catch Jules off guard. She is Toronto's head negotiator now—her average day entails drug dealers and spree shooters and bank robberies—
But Leah barks something on the other end and Jules breaks into an instant sweat.
"Tattoo is FBI?"
AN: So I know Spike being wheeled out of post-op doesn't seem like very good protocol, but I had major surgery once and that's exactly what they did to me. They said it helps circulate blood flow better and get rid of the painful bubbles inside a patient's muscles from the anesthesia (they hhuurrrttt). Just thought I'd throw it in as a fun fact!
