'There's a room I need to sit in,
Surrounded by my favorite view,
And I need a hand to hold…
Would it be okay if I came home to you?'

"Home to You" ~ Sigrid

If Spike is honest with himself, he doesn't remember much of the trip home.

It's only a two hour flight, maximum, from JFK to Pearson airport, but for some reason it feels like they're up in the air for a lifetime, a cradle of safety and leaked fears, hands open to let go of all the anxiety.

To happily watch them float up into the clouds and away forever.

The US government bought them all first class tickets, as a thank you and show of good faith that no charges will be pressed, though Jules is flagged and not allowed to drive through the border for a while. She's relieved to hear she didn't kill anyone. She and Sam have been placed on probation but Greg knows it won't stick for long once they're back at the SRU.

Spike dozes off against Sam's shoulder and Ed dozes off on his left, against the window.

It doesn't escape his notice that the team strategically chose these seats so that anyone trying to get at Spike and Ed will have to go through Greg, Sam, and Jules. A diamond point formation executed without a word, seamless, even though they haven't worked together as a unit in almost two years.

Even in sleep, Ed's right hand doesn't leave its burrow in Spike's sleeve. He hasn't asked for the sweater back and Spike gets the feeling he never will.

Sam, by contrast, is keyed up. He keeps the sewing leg at a minimum for their sake, but his thumbs fly over some slingshot game on his phone.

Jules, seated across from her husband in the aisle, asks him in an aching voice how being back in the sand felt. "Bad memories?"

"Yeah…but it was nice to make some good ones, you know? Saved an innocent life instead of taking it for once."

Spike tries to listen to their heartfelt conversation but the racing of Sam's pulse through his shirt, where it meet's Spike's nose, and the heat of Ed's fingers around his wrist lull him.

He phases in and out. Sometimes, between slatted eyelids, it's Greg crouched in front of them with that broken down, adoring expression. Just watching.

Spike closes his eyes. Opens them. Then it's the CDC doctor checking his feet and blood pressure.

Close. Open. Dean tucks a double blanket around he and Ed.

Close. Open. Sunshine through the window instead of frosty night black.

Close. Open. Ed's twitching worsens.

"Hey." Sam reaches across Spike. The elbow fabric of his fatigues brushes Spike's cheek in delicate shapes that leaves static-y spots. Sam pitches his voice low. "Ed, you're having a nightmare. It's safe now. You can stand down."

That's not what Spike would have said to comfort his team leader. But to his astonishment, it works.

Ed gasps. He jolts awake ready for a fight. "Spike!"

"Right here, man." Sam's arm moves again. Spike has closed his eyes at some point, still mushed into Sam's shoulder, so he wonders what it signals. Then Ed's bandaged hand is guided back to its place on Spike's arm. "See? He's mostly in one piece. So are you."

"Spike," says Ed again, so barely-there Spike wouldn't have heard it if he wasn't expecting it. Ed's touch moves upwards, to Spike's chest of all places. It rises and falls, taking the passenger of Ed's hand with it. "He saved my life, huh? Interpol found me at the airport before they could take off."

"Not just with the cellphone trick. He's a hero," Sam whispers. "You both are. I've read the statistics—most agents never survived past the kidnapping stage. You were the first to escape and get each other out alive."

Spike is almost asleep, half dreaming about teacups filled with gritty sand, half fixated on the micro pointed sensation of Ed, the weight of his hand, through the blanket. The real smell of him, so much more vibrant than the sweater.

He takes a big breath in, just to feel Ed's palm float upwards.

There's a hum in Ed's chest, so painfully loving, and he rests his own forehead on Spike's shoulder for a moment. Just a moment.

When it lifts, Ed secures the blanket around Spike once more. Fingers gently tweak Spike's nose, just like he does to his kids all the time.

Ed never really lets go after the airport, Spike notices. There's always a fluid contact point somewhere between their bodies.

There's a lot of touch in the coming hours, Spike learns. An endless well of it, even though no one is supposed to be getting too close to him to protect him from getting sick. Like the stars in a desert sky, Spike finds constellations of touch everywhere he turns.

Patterns of bright, pulsing light that guide him home. Vibrating at frequencies that battle the lingering phantoms in his mind. Twinkling in colours so different from blood red and sand beige and bandage white.

Effervescent and calm all at once.

Like the hands that meet them when they land, Sophie completely ignoring the doctor's advice and hugging him after kissing her husband silly. The Lanes' arms are all over each other, their children squished between their bodies, Izzy on Clark's hip.

Then Spike is pulled in to the Lane family dog pile.

Wordy clasps the back of his neck. Shelley kisses his cheek.

Lilly's little hand takes his, her other holding a piece of yellow construction paper—"I drew you the maple tree in our backyard! Look, it's even your favourite colour!"—while Winnie has her turn kissing him silly.

Like the hands that carefully lower him in the car after one last visit to the hospital with strict meds, masks, oxygen tanks, and instructions for Greg on what to take and when. It's not exactly textbook procedure to let release a patient from medical care so soon after being poisoned, but after what happened, even doctors understand that a familiar environment is what he needs now more than a sterile hospital room.

Like the way Sam and Dean hoist Spike, one of his arms each across their shoulders, to alleviate pressure on his feet and carry him into the Parker house.

Crossing the stoop, he and Sam meet each other's eyes in a single, shared thought and nod.

Like Marina's smeared makeup and megawatt smile, framing his face with her hands and pecking him on the forehead. Ed who stumbles in behind, his hand still between Spike's shoulder blades where it's been for the last three hours.

Spike is plopped on the couch where he instantly—shocker—starts drifting off. More fingers, Jules, slip a cannula into his nose and then pat his stomach.

The hands fade away, though their voices do not. All of them, plus their families, chat in the kitchen, the children running around outside.

Until only Ed's hand remains. It's on his ankle this time, where Ed has taken a seat at Spike's feet. The washing machine swirl of warmth and safety is intoxicating, better than any lullaby. It's bizarre and no small amount of culture shock, going from desert heat to autumn chill, from arid Arabia to this noisy, urban north.

Spike cracks open an eye. "Hey, Ed?"

"Yeah." Ed's on the ready at once, body posture stiff. "You okay? You still in pain?"

Spike shakes his head; the medication, along with this round of antitoxins, took effect the moment he stepped foot outside the hospital. It's making the world drowsy and a little incoherent.

He just stares at Ed for a few minutes, savouring that he can do so without threat. Eyes blinking, alert, awake. No blood on either of them.

"Spike? You're scaring me here."

"Ed." Spike wiggles his toes to feel the tendons ripple on Ed's palm. "You're worth way more than the fifteen million the FBI paid to find your location."

Ed's jaw drops.

"If I was a kidnapper," Spike insists, "I'd ask for more. Like…ten times that, at least."

Ed stares at Spike as if he's never seen him before. It starts as a crinkle around his eyes, lips tight, followed up by hitch in his breathing. And then he's off laughing, bubble popping notes of mirth.

It's supposed to be a compliment, in Spike's addled mind, but he joins along, coughing here and there, until Greg comes in to check on their snorting, homely sounds.

When he sees, his eyes go impossibly soft. He just flaps his hand and leaves them to it.

"Crazy as usual," he says. "You're definitely going to be okay."

Spike falls asleep to the delicious first taste of Ed's laughter in eight days.