'All this time we were waiting for each other,
All this time I was waiting for you.
We got all these words, can't waste them on another—
So I'm straight in a straight line, running back to you.'

"All This Time" ~ OneRepublic

"They're coming out!" Dean's youthful, bright chirp lights up the JFK tarmac. "See? There!"

They've been granted 'special access' to the smaller, discreet part of this airport. Civilians are not even technically allowed on the ground where planes taxi around them, but staff are compassionate. Agents and journalists from all over the world stand at their backs.

The team hasn't gone home right away, waiting for Ed and Spike to fly into JFK airport for a final statement to some hot shot officials—they are responsible for uncovering one of the biggest FBI frauds in history, after all—and so Spike can be medically cleared as no danger to himself, his immune system, or others before entering his own country.

Greg is known for his politeness, especially out and about when off the job. He'll assist everything from an old lady with too many groceries to a child's broken bicycle chain.

At the sight of Ed, gingerly walking down the France-American ambassador's plane stairs with a head swaddled in bandages—the first time they've seen him in over a week—Greg doesn't even think.

He's in motion before any of the others can exclaim greetings. All of Greg's tact is abandoned to physically push a UN nurse aside and wrap Ed up in grateful, rough arms.

Ed absolutely dissolves into the familiar hug, every last practiced muscle uncoiling into the burly immutability of Greg's love.

They remain there, windblown by the jet engines, grasping at each other with enough strength to bruise. Greg's hands are buried in the scrubs and Ed's face is hidden in his friend's woolly pullover.

When Ed at last steps back, his eyes flash with delighted, tired humour. Greg waits for the quipped deflection, the words to cover up how teary eyed they both are.

Instead, all Ed says is, "I missed you. So much."

Greg has no comeback or textbook phrase for that. He embraces Ed again for good measure.

There are many more hugs. In fact, for fifteen minutes, in a little, unused terminal, that's about all they do. Jules even stretches up for a kiss on Ed's cheek. Dean rushes at 'uncle' Ed with arms outstretched. Even Holleran steals one. There are teary declarations of love and thankfulness that he's okay and praise for the fight he put up, right until the end.

"He's coming?" Ed asks Greg. "It's today too, right?"

Greg nods, throat working until he can trust his voice. Both men have recovered in separate hospitals overseas for the last forty-eight hours, Ed in Paris and Spike in…

"A joint military task force is flying him in from Saudi Arabia as we speak," Greg explains. "He's already given his statement several times and a specialist from the CDC is checking him over right on the plane. So we can fly straight to Pearson, home, whenever you're ready."

"Home," Ed murmurs. He shakes his head, leaning down absently for another embrace from Jules. Then, in an awed tone, "They flew him all the way to the Middle East? How did you find his location before they could wipe him?"

Greg opens his mouth to answer with that particular mind boggling tale, when there's a clamor at another terminal down the hall, a busier section of the airport.

The sudden eruption of voices and security pushing back journalists and nosy onlookers draws Greg's steps at once.

The others trail behind him, Holleran, Damien, and Lazlo's agents coordinating with airport security to contain the crowd. Camera bulbs snap everywhere. UN officials give statements to keep reporters and video cameras busy.

Saul O'Leary is marched inside, cuffed. When Hartford—also in custody—is allowed to approach and speak to him, Saul spits at his feet. They are hustled away from the chaos.

Greg is glad he's at the front of the hubbub. It grants him a first class seat to watch the instant Ed catches sight of them.

A full military escort files through the door, a huge camouflaged plane visible through the windows. Sam, still in his desert fatigues, linen scarf around his neck, is wheeling one wan and split lipped Michelangelo Scarlatti through the onlookers. He bends down to whisper something in Spike's ear. Spike nods with a grimace.

Then comes the moment Greg is breathless with anticipation for—

They both look up.

And all the noise goes away.

Spike is too far away, over thirty feet, to hear what he mouths in one quick motion.

But Ed must know, because he breaks into a beaming, toothy smile and fresh tears simultaneously. The convoy stops when Spike jumps to his bandaged feet.

He's not supposed to be walking, that much is clear when Sam grips a steadying hand in the back of his shirt.

Ed's shirt.

Spike wears a gifted pair of military combat trousers but the sweater, freshly cleaned, is the same one Greg last saw him in.

Even Sam can't quite keep up when Spike darts forward. It's a little stiff and jilted, strides faltering, but not even the people pressing on either side can bar Spike from that weeping face waiting for him.

Waiting might be a lie. Ed runs forward too, wheezy with emotion.

Their faces are a supernova to watch.

Blinding, an agony of fire burning out and disintegrating into something burnished, new, so pulsing with cardinal elements they're lost in each other's gravity.

However, just shy of Ed's reach, Spike halts in his tracks.

Ed's breathing misses a few beats. "Spike?"

The tech's eyes are pinched far at the edges, mouth open and panting faintly. His gaze roams over Ed's face. Greg isn't sure he's aware of anything else.

"I'm sorry," Spike croaks.

"Sorry?" Ed repeats, confused. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

Spike's eyes fill. "For leaving you behind and letting you get taken again. It was my fault."

Ed immediately stretches out an arm for him but Spike backs up a hair to avoid it. He won't let Ed touch him.

Jules takes an aborted step towards him, ever the fighter, but doesn't tug Spike into their arms like Greg knows she wants to. Physical contact has to be his choice and they all realize this at once, especially after the lack of autonomy he's been granted. Sam looks at his wife but stays at Spike's side so he's got some shelter from all the eyes. Worry seeps from everyone in the tight huddle.

"Spike…" Ed wipes at his eyes, for all the good it does. "Spike—you did nothing wrong. You're not responsible for what they did to us."

Spike's lips tremble. "I wasn't good enough. I failed."

"Failed, how?"

"My plan, it…" He shakes his head. "It didn't work. I walked away from you!"

"And saved your life in the process. It's what I would have ordered you to do anyway."

Spike exhales a weak sound, features blank but shaking. "It should have been me. I'm the one who deserved to get taken."

"Spike, how could I ever blame you for what happened?" Ed loses his breath, and it quavers on the way out.

"I'll understand...I'll understand if you don't want..." Spike briefly closes his eyes, fists clenched. "Don't want me on the team anymore."

"Spike." Greg watches his friend struggle not to fall apart, and Ed has to say the name a few more times before he wrangles his horror under control. "I couldn't even do this job without you."

Spike wavers, like he wants desperately to believe it but isn't sure he should let himself.

"You said something to me once." Ed leans closer but doesn't make contact. "That to be loved means never keeping score of our deeds or favours to each other."

"But—"

"No. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to forgive. You hear me? You're Mike Scarlatti: and that is more than enough for me, for all of us. You are more than enough."

Spike's face crumples in a messy rush. He reaches forward. "Ed."

Responding to the plea in that tone, Ed lets out a guttural cry of complete anguish, one so strangled by his larynx, coated with catharsis, that it turns Ed's face red. Greg's never heard it from his friend before and it pushes the reality home of what an earth-shaking toll this whole experience has taken on both men. The scars that have been prodded and picked at in the last week alone.

Ed sweeps Spike to his chest without a second's hesitation.

Spike doesn't move for a moment, then both of his arms reach up to coil around Ed's neck. Jules ruffles the tech's hair, Dean joining in with an arm around Spike's shoulder, Sam clutching Ed's hand.

It's an intimate embrace for so public a theater but the world can spin around them in burning circles for how little Greg and the others care.

This is home, no matter what country they're in. It's not a place at all.

It's also a breathtaking contrast to behold: one mentor, Hartford, cold and rejected by his protégé, against the crown jewel of Spike bundled in Ed's arms.

Greg stares between the two images for a long minute.

Ed's other hand, the one not around Spike's back, smooths up and down the thick heath of brunette hair. He rains tears into it. Spike's eyes are open over Ed's shoulder and they shed a few of their own before at last meeting Greg's.

Greg places a hand on his son's cheek, fingers brushed by Ed's in his self-reassurance that Spike is really here and really alive and really out of those woods.

Spike's eyes narrow a little with warmth, like a cat when it's happy.

Greg doesn't ask, "are you okay?" or "do you know you're safe now?" or "jumping in front of that plane was the stupidest thing you have ever done—is this part of some grand scheme to send me to an early grave?"

He just thumbs at the bloody skin and smiles. Spike takes a hand off its death curl in Ed's scrubs and touches the one on his face.

He, surprisingly, gets the first, whispered, words in. "I knew you'd come for me. Always."

It's Greg who ends up front page news, sobbing in JFK airport.