By the time he was ready to leave the rehabilitation facility, he was able to hobble about 80 yards without having to take a break. He was still in a lot of pain, and his energy level was well below his ankles, but he was finally allowed to go back home.

All of his wounds had either a solid scab protecting it, or had healed enough to have fresh scar tissue covering it. His leg was still discolored and pretty shapeless from all of the swelling. If it hadn't been for the freshly healed stitches over his kneecap from where they had opened his knee up to pull his kneecap back together with wire or something, he wouldn't have been able to locate his own knee.

Whatever muscles he had once had in that leg seemed to have vanished, it was a stark contrast to the other leg which had also lost a good bit of muscle mass since his injury.

"Do you need any help? Support? Anything?" Jack asked, almost ready to keep his uncle upright as they got ready to move from the room Full Metal had been staying in at the center to the truck Jack borrowed from his dad.

"No… Best if I just get enough room to move around."

"Oh, okay…"

"But it would be very helpful if you could take my bag…"

"Oh, yeah. Got it!"

"Thanks."

"Anything else?"

"Open doors?" Metal shrugged a bit before he started shuffling towards the hallway. The first door was already wide agape.

The trip from his room and out to Jack's car required four breaks. By the time they reached the truck, Metal was beading with sweat.

"What do you need?"

"Sit down." The answer came clipped.

"Need any help?"

He shook his head, but let go of one of the crutches to point at the car door.

"Open the door and don't touch you?"

He nodded.

Jack did as his uncle wanted him to do.

Jack glanced over at his uncle once he got in behind the wheel, "You're trembling."

"I noticed." Full Metal nodded quickly before he shoved his hands under his butt.

"Because of the pain?"

He shrugged a bit, "Can we not talk about that for a few minutes."

"Sure."

Metal closed his eyes and let his head loll back against the headrest.

Jack nodded and turned on the ignition and started rolling out of the parking lot.

"Think it was a mix…" Full Metal admitted a few minutes later, glancing over at his nephew.

"What?"

"The shaking." He clarified, "Pain and that I haven't moved that much in… A while."

Jack nodded, "How are you doing now?"

"It's better. Not good, but better."

"Want me to run up and fix a bunch of pillows on the couch before you get out of the car when we get to your place?"

Full Metal shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah, probably a good plan."

Ten minutes later he was stationed on his couch with his leg elevated once again.

"Do you need anything?" his nephew asked yet another time, "Ice pack? Hot water bottle? Pillows?"

Full Metal chuckled, "No. I'm good. Thanks."

"Oh, okay…" Jack nodded and sat down in the old beat up second hand stressless chair at the short end of the table, "Mom said she'd be by later. Told me to ask you if you wanted her to cook up something for you to eat."

"That would be great." Full Metal nodded, "I have no idea what I'd like to eat though."

Jack nodded, "I'm just going to tell her to cook up something she knows you like then…"

Metal nodded, then he suddenly fixed his nephew with his eyes, "Oh, I just remembered one thing you could do for me…"

Jack sat forward in his chair, ready to get up, "What?"

"The fridge and the freezer is disconnected… Could you plug them in?"

Jack nodded and got up to complete the tasks, "And the water? Is that turned off, or?"

"Yeah, it is. Red handle in the cabinet right inside the door."

Jack nodded and added that to his list of stuff to do, "Any other 'coming back home' tasks?"

"No, that should be it… Thank you."

"No problem…" Jack shrugged, "We take care of our own, right? Just like when dad was hurt when I was a kid."

Full Metal swallowed hard and nodded a bit, "Thanks, but… Do you even remember that?"

"Remember it? I don't remember him being in the hospital or anything. But I remember I stayed with you and Kiara for a while. I remember mom crying a lot right before she drove me to your place…" he shrugged, "I don't really remember dad being hurt, but I remember you took care of us. And I remember we did a lot of fun stuff."

Metal chuckled, "Yeah, we did some fun stuff."

Jack smiled, "I remember that epic blanket fort we made…"

"Epic? It was like three chairs and a couple of blankets…" Metal chuckled, "But, it kept you from asking where your mom and dad was at the time…"

"Well, it was epic for a four year old…" Jack chuckled as he returned from plugging in the fridge, the last item on his list, "What really happened to dad though? Dad won't talk about it. Mom won't talk about it…"

Full Metal nodded along.

"Is there any reason I shouldn't know about it?"

Metal sighed, "Not really…"

"Do you know what happened?" Jack asked as he sat back down, "Because… It's really just known as 'the accident' at home…"

Metal nodded, "You remember what your dad did before it?"

"No…"

Metal chuckled a bit, "Well, your dad, was once a part of the same team as I was…"

"My pencil pushing dad?" Jack's voice went an octave higher than he had planned on, out of pure disbelief.

"He wasn't always a pencil pusher…" Metal chuckled, "He was pretty… Pretty badass…"

"For real?"

"Yeah." Metal nodded, "He was."

"But, he's not…" Jack shook his head, "He's… He couldn't have been… He's too scared to go on the most gentle rides in amusement parks…"

"Well, the accident… It really changed him." Metal shrugged, "Before that he was the guy you just couldn't scare."

"Can't be true…"

"Oh, I have proof…" Metal chuckled.

"For real?" Jack chuckled, "My dad?"

"In my room, on the top of my closet… Should be a grey shoebox…" Metal pointed towards his bedroom door, "I think it's the grey one anyway… Could you get it?"

Jack got up, but didn't move towards the bedroom just yet, "Are you serious?"

"Like cancer…" Metal nodded, "Grey box on top of my closet, should be pictures from the late 90s… Oh, and bring the yellow one as well. That should be early 2000s."

Jack nodded and went to get the box.

"Now what?"

Metal didn't answer at first, he just reached out and picked up the box Jack had placed on the table. Then he lifted the lid off and pulled the first stack of pictures. "Lift the chair closer so we can go through these together."

Jack did as he was told.

Metal made sure to hold the pictures so Jack had a clear line of view, "Now this right here, is from one of the first times I met your dad. We went through basic training together."

"You did?"

Metal nodded, "Yeah. Competed about being the best one, made each other better. Became pretty solid buddies."

"You both look so young there…"

"News flash: We were." Metal chuckled, "Like, two or three years older than you are now."

"Hard to imagine…"

"Well, it feels like a lifetime ago…" Metal shrugged and revealed the next picture, "These are obviously not in order…"

The picture was of Full Metal holding Jack when he was less than a day old.

"That's me?"

"Yeah." Metal smiled, "You were so tiny…"

Jack nodded, "Obviously."

The next picture showed both Full Metal and Robert, Jack's father, hanging from their knees upside down from a wall which was meant to be climbed over. Metal had his arms down by his head, while Robert looked like he in the middle of doing a sit-up.

"Competing each other better?"

"Yeah." Metal chuckled.

"Who won?"

"It's almost two decades ago… I don't remember." Metal shrugged, "-Your dad probably did. He was better at core exercises than I was back then…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, the man was a machine…" Metal shrugged, "I beat him on lots of other stuff though."

He flipped over to the next picture. It showed Metal with a split lip a swollen eye and bloodied t-shirt, and Robert with a shiner swelling his left eye shut. Robert had one arm slung around Metal's shoulder, both had wicked grins plastered on their faces.

"What?"

"Oh, uh…" Metal shrugged, "We don't need to mention that one…"

"No, WE DO NEED to mention that one…" Jack chuckled, "What is the backstory for that?"

"We… Some guy was uhhh…" Metal shrugged, "Some guy was not very nice to Kiara. We took it upon us to fix that."

"That's how you and Kiara met?"

Metal nodded.

"Do you miss her?"

"Not that much anymore. I think it was for the better that we split." Metal answered in a hollow voice, "But, of course… She's probably the only woman that would ever care to keep up with me."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, about that picture…" Metal chuckled a bit, "Kiara was the one who split my lip."

"No?"

Metal chuckled, "Yeah. She thought we were on the guy's team…"

"Auntie Ki?"

"Yup." Metal nodded, "You probably remember her as the second most motherly figure on this planet, only second to your own mom… But that woman, she never needed a man. She… Tough as nails."

Jack nodded, "Why did you really split up? Can I ask?"

"Yeah…" Metal nodded, "She wanted kids. I didn't want to potentially make her a single mom… And I never really managed to find a way to quit the team…"

"You're stupid, you know that?"

"Yeah. I do." Metal nodded, "But… She deserved a lot better than what I could offer."

Metal switched over to the next picture again, like that would be a universal marker for 'end of conversation'.

"Did you ever want kids?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me…"

Metal shrugged, "I'm really not a father type…"

He flicked over to the next picture. Him in a ditch, with a shovel.

"You'd be an awesome dad." Jack shrugged, "I know that because you're the best uncle ever…"

"Kind of you to say, but… Being a dad and being an uncle is two VERY different tasks."

"Not that different."

Next picture. A bunch of young soldiers who was laying in the sun with their t-shirts pulled off and their pants rolled up to their knees.

"Well, it's not going to happen now anyway." Metal shrugged, "That particular train left the station with Kiara."

"You could always meet another woman…"

"That would keep up with me?" Metal scoffed, "As if…"

"I mean it…"

Next picture. One that needed commenting.

"Now this one… First time your dad met your mom."

"But, that's not at a football game…"

"No." Metal chuckled, "First time your parents met, was at a family gathering. I had a few of my teammates with me. We were about 20, 21… Amy was still a teen. I don't think your parents really remember that. They officially met when Amy was 21, eight years later. At a football game."

"You're kidding?"

Metal chuckled and shook his head, "No. And that was a weird conversation. Rob came back from leave saying he had met this amazing woman and talked a bucket full about her. Took me 20 minutes to realize it was my younger sister."

"-And, how did that go?"

"Well, I was skeptical at first." Metal chuckled, "One of my best buddies and my sister together. Sounded like trouble."

Jack nodded.

They ended up going through the entire grey box of pictures, and Jack saw pictures of his dad doing stuff he had never imagined his own dad doing. Like standing ready to jump out of an airplane with a parachute on his back, and climbing, rappelling and practicing hand to hand combat with fellow soldiers.

Well into the yellow box, Metal found the pictures which explained it all.

"That's a lot of tubes and wires…" Jack swallowed.

Metal nodded.

"What was wrong?"

"Your dad got really hurt." Metal started, "Broke most of his ribs, something in his back. Luckily that didn't injure his spinal cord. Punctured one of his lungs. Internal bleeding. Had a concussion so bad we didn't know if he'd be himself when they brought him out of the medically induced coma they kept him in. Or even if he'd wake up…"

"How?"

"Our chopper got shot down." Metal ran a hand over his hair, "Somehow none of us died."

"You were in it as well?"

Metal nodded.

"And you didn't get hurt?"

"Broke my left arm…" Metal shrugged, "Banged up one of my knees. That's why we did low energy stuff like building a blanket fort and watching cartoons the first couple of weeks."

"The first couple of weeks?" Jack tilted his head, "But, I wasn't at your place for that long… Was I?"

"Two months and two weeks. But you were with grandma and grandpa every now and then as well."

"But…"

Metal glanced over at his nephew.

"But… It wasn't that long…"

"You were a kid, luckily you don't remember how long it was…"

Jack nodded and looked at Metal, "You and Kiara really took care of me for that long?"

"With grandma and grandpa to step in every now and then…"

"But where was mom?"

"Look at this picture, where do you think?"

"She stayed with dad?"

Metal nodded a little, "She did that, and she cried. And she wanted to shield you from it, so instead of letting you know what was going on in real time, she just told you that you were going to have a vacation with us."

Jack nodded, "But when did I learn that dad got hurt?"

"When he was ready to come home." Metal shrugged, "We said it was a much smaller accident than it really was. Not life-threatening like it had been. And since you had already spent months with me limping around with a knee that slowly got better and a arm I had a cast on, you understood that your dad needed to rest a lot."

"That's so different from what I thought I remembered…"

"Yeah?"

"We played football and basket ball and…"

"Yeah, well…" Metal chuckled, "We did. Not the first couple of weeks, but it would be a shame if a member of SEAL team didn't keep up with a 4 year old when he's only got a bum knee and a forearm which needed rest."

"Okay, probably true…" Jack chuckled, "And you taught me how to ride a bike."

"No. That was all on your own." Metal chuckled, "I was just there watching, ready to comfort you if you skinned your knees or elbows…"

"Really?"

"Yeah…" Metal nodded, "Anyway… Your dad did recover really well. There's no… He's got the same personality and all… But I guess he just figured he was mortal, and couldn't deal with all the craziness anymore."

"He really was that badass before?"

"He was a complete machine…" Metal nodded, "You know how most of my buddies call me Full Metal, or Metal…"

Jack nodded.

"Well, Rob really was 'The Machine'…"

"How don't I know all of this already?"

"Because… Because…" Metal shrugged, "I don't really know. We slowly stopped calling him that when he became an accountant, and… It just faded away I guess. -You were probably too young to catch onto it back then…"

Jack nodded, "I wish I had known him like that…"

Metal shrugged, "He's become more of a father than he was before the accident… Went from job first to family first. I think you grew up with the best version of your dad."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Metal nodded, "You did."