'I don't know the end,
It's never how I thought.
Is it real or pretend?
Are we free or are we not?'

"Follow You Down" ~ Lights

"That's a foul."

"There are no fouls in Little Big Planet. I made an OddSock monster and that's final."

"It almost ate me!"

"Maybe yours is just slow."

"That was a foul," Spike interjects. "I totally saw it."

Wordy, entering the living room with his afternoon mug of tea, snorts. "Spike, your eyes have been closed this whole time."

He carefully steps over Clark and Dean's legs, stretched out where they sit on either side of Spike, to claim the empty lazy boy recliner. He gratefully sinks into it, cane propped on one arm.

Spike cracks open an eye just to wink at him. "Maybe I can tell a video game foul by sound alone. Huh, Wordy? Ever think about that?"

"Maybe I have more important things to do than harass college kids."

Dean flicks Spike's forehead. "Don't listen to him, Sonic. We love that you're here and not playing."

"Yeah," Clark chimes in. "It gives us a chance to actually win sometimes. Jules was bad enough."

"But you did not win this round." Dean's glare at Clark is mutinous. "Because that was a foul."

Spike is quiet for a moment. Wordy wonders if he's dropped off to sleep again, like he's been doing with absolutely no notice each time. He fell asleep with Wordy mid-conversation just yesterday.

Then he says, eyes still closed—"Lest we forget, I can still sabotage your game without ever touching a controller."

Clark and Dean whip around in a chorused move to throw Spike an aghast look. Spike smiles, like he can see this behind his eyelids.

"How is that even possible?" Clark asks, incredulous. Then he rolls his eyes at himself. "Never mind. I don't want to find out."

"Is that a promise of no more video game based nicknames?" Spike quirks a brow.

Dean unpauses their round with an angelic smile. "I concede defeat…Darth Maul."

Spike's eyes snap open. "Are you kidding me?"

Clark and Dean high five each other across Spike while he groans. Wordy laughs at their antics, the noisy banter and bright sounds from the game. Jules already whooped them at Halo.

When Sam offered, they didn't even bother, switching the game to something a little less…violent. Especially when Spike joined them.

Still, the two boys throw insults at each other that keep Wordy more entertained than the game.

Dean's a little stiff with the controller, thanks to bandages still eclipsing the back of his hands, but Clark has slowed his own playing to let his friend keep up. It's sweet and concerning, especially coupled with the fact Clark has become Dean's shadow. He hovers constantly with a worried expression, ready at the first sign of pain to run and grab Dean some Tylenol.

They're interrupted by a sound Wordy has come to know even in his sleep. He looks up when he hears it out of sheer instinct.

Pat! Pat! Pat!

"Cwark! Cwark!"

Minikin feet come rip roaring into the living room in a one-minded quest.

Clark has developed the near superhuman ability to pick up his little sister between his calves and keep playing at the same time.

When Izzy trots towards the couch, Clark doesn't even look away from the screen. His legs gently close around Izzy's ribs and retract, sweeping her closer to his spot.

She giggles. "Cwark! Dean!"

Clark juggles her closer to his lap to let her hop on. "It's so unfair that she can say your name right and not her own brother's."

Spike lifts her the rest of the way up. "Better than mine. I'm—"

"Missr Fiss-It!" Izzy actually gasps, a short, tinsel sound, when she notices him. She crawls over Clark to sit on Spike's lap, one elbow clamped around her giraffe. "'Pike!"

Spike blinks at her with a widening smile and no small amount of amazement. "Well, that's a first. You said my name! Good job!"

"'Pike!" Izzy says again in a loud squeak. Spike chuckles and it sets Izzy off.

Wordy goes secretly a tad soft, watching the cozy scene. The girl's itty bitty fingers bunch in Spike's sweater and his arm keeps her from falling off.

"He got a…a inj'ry."

"There's a big word." Spike looks to Clark for help, then Wordy, the only father in the room and fluent speaker of toddler. "Does she mean me?"

Wordy leans forward and points. "I think she means her friend. When you were…away…she wanted you to sew up the hole."

"Ah. Can I have a look, Iz?"

Izzy relinquishes her stuffie before he finishes asking. Spike's nimble fingers swivel the giraffe around with a serious expression. When he finds the hole and its protrusion of batting, he measures it with his index finger.

"Hmm."

"Hmm," Izzy parrots.

Even Dean can't hold in a surprised bark of laughter at that one. Clark shakes his head and musses with Izzy's curls. He looks exasperated, his own, almost matching curls swishing with the gesture, but Wordy spies affection in his eyes.

Clark is all bark and no bite, complaining about Izzy every time the wind blows and the first one to scoop her up when he's been away.

"Luckily," says Spike, "this is an easy fix."

Izzy braces herself on Spike's arm while he leans forward to retrieve Marina's mini sewing kit on the coffee table.

"Not a bad owwie, 'Pike?"

"Nope." Spike cuts off a line of brown thread with his teeth. "A minor injury, don't worry."

It takes some coordinating for Spike to wrangle Izzy and thread the needle at the same time. It's impressive to watch, though he nearly drops the giraffe.

Wordy laughs. "Need some help?"

Before Spike can answer, Izzy taps his arm and looks at Wordy. "He gonna fiss it, Unca Wordy."

"He sure is," says Wordy. With Izzy's attention diverted, Spike finishes knotting the thread. "Have you finally thought of a name for your giraffe? You've named all your other toys."

"Mmm…" Izzy thinks about this, watching Spike make the first puncture into the giraffe's foot. "Don' hurt him, 'Pike."

There's a round of stifled snickering from everyone. Clark squeezes her little toes.

"I won't," Spike assures her with a solemn look. He feathers the needle out and back in. "Your friend won't feel a thing."

Dean makes an impressed face while his avatar pummels Clark off a tree. "Never lie to a subject."

Wordy rolls his eyes at the same time Jules laughs from the kitchen. She pokes her head in briefly to 'aww' at the scene around a mouthful of bagel before Clark tosses a bobbin at her.

"No Halo cheaters allowed in this room!"

His throw misses by a mile but she laughs again.

"Maybe I'm just a better sniper than you, Clark. Nobody likes a sore loser."

"This is called a ladder stitch," Spike explains over the repartee. "See? Perfect for fabric."

Izzy dutifully gets close to see the coordinating back and forth suturing. It's calming to watch the measured weave of Spike's needle. Tiniest Lane though she may be, Izzy's studied, intense gaze matches Ed to a fault.

Something occurs to her. "Like climbin' a twee."

Spike's eyes widen. "Exactly like that! Nice one, Iz. Your dad uses the ladder to climb up and trim branches?"

"Yeah!" Izzy nods with enthusiasm, forcing Dean to push at her back so she doesn't spill onto his lap. "Ladder!"

"Where is Ed anyway?" asks Wordy.

Clark sighs. "They offered to let him take the requalifying test today."

"Really?" Spike pauses. "So soon? It's only been three weeks since we came back."

"Only for light, in-house work, if he passes at all," says Clark. "The concussion went down faster than they expected. All that's left to deal with are some headaches and fatigue. They want him to stay sharp."

"Oh." Spike takes on a glazed, absent quality. His eyes fix on the far wall without seeing it, hands still in his lap.

"'Pike?" Izzy frowns, reaching to touch Spike's chin. "He's on da outside."

This sentence is confusing enough for Spike to refocus, a little, and look down at the giraffe's foot.

Sure enough, where the hand stitching is almost finished but not quite, a puff of batting sticks out, clinging to the other side of the giraffe's leg.

Spike stares at it. This spill out of polyester and unfinished suturing and open wounds.

"'Pike?"

Wordy stiffens, half rising in his seat. He feels it too. "Spike, bud?"

Spike blinks. His face goes from blank to grinning—a plastic, wonky grin—in two seconds flat. "Hey, Iz. I'm just going to use the bathroom for a second, okay? I'll finish that when I come back."

"Okay." Izzy shuffles onto Clark's lap instead. Giraffe back safely in her chubby hands. "Thanks, 'Pike!"

Spike briefly touches her head and then he wobbles off the couch and up the stairs. The two boys are still playing but the minute Spike's out of earshot, they pause it.

Dean's eyes are huge.

"I've got this," says Wordy, standing. "I'll check."

If he possessed any hope of this really truly just being a bathroom run, it's shattered when Jules meets him halfway up the steps, wearing an alarmed look.

"He shoved right past me," she whispers. "I've never seen him like that, Wordy."

They make it to the upstairs bathroom, the one at the end of the hall. The door is closed. There comes the distant, barely there sounds of retching but by the time Jules knocks on the door, it's quiet.

She keeps her tone low, private. "Spike, doing okay in there?"

No answer.

Wordy reaches around her and tries the door knob. Locked.

They share a moment of panicked eye contact.

This doesn't track, based on Spike's daylight hours behaviour so far of sleeping and joking around, in that order. They wait a hair-raising ten minutes, but everything is silent, on both sides of the door.

"We just want to make sure you're not passed out or in any distress," Jules pushes. "Fair warning—if you're unconscious, Spike, I'm breaking this door down."

The sound of the toilet flushing is almost ironic, such a pert, Spike thing to do that it keeps Jules hushed until Greg hobbles his way up too. "What's going on?"

"Don't know," says Wordy. "He ran up here and locked himself in. Threw up but now he won't open the door."

Something comes on in Greg's face. "Call Ed."

"What?"

Greg fights a taut line around his eyes. "This is about Ed. Call him."

Jules does, looking confused the whole time.

Wordy squints at his former team leader. "Boss?"

"If this is about what I think it is…" Greg's brows dive into an anguished expression. "Then we can't fix it. Only Ed can."