Chapter 2
When Caroline called the boys, Dad included, to the dinner table, William had begun to regain his equilibrium a little. This at least was familiar and comforting. As always, Zak came tearing down the hallway from the boys' bedroom, latched on to his father's arm, and skipped alongside William for the short walk to the dining table. Lee followed shortly after, typically less excitable than his little brother, and took his place quietly at the round table. William sat with his wife on one side, and Zak on the other. Lee sat between his mother and Zak. Caroline spoke a brief prayer of thanks to the Lords of Kobol that her family was all joined together that night, happy, healthy, and with a bright future ahead. With thanks concluded, they settled down to eat.
William took a bite of Caroline's roast and savored the moment. She wasn't a fancy cook, but William didn't have fancy tastes. Dinner was just the way he liked it: simple, good food. He watched his kids eating for a minute. Zak was struggling a little, but doggedly intent on spearing a piece of broccoli onto his fork. He finally had to use both hands to control the positioning of the food on his plate, while happily chewing away. Lee, for all of Caroline's comments earlier about his hollow leg, didn't seem very interested in eating. His left hand sat in his lap, under the table, while he idly poked the fork around the plate with his right. He took one small bite and chewed slowly, as if he was bored.
"So Lee," William asked, "did you finish your reading?"
Lee looked at his father and said quietly, "No Sir. Not yet." His eyes returned to his plate, but he only pushed the food around, instead of taking another bite.
"Zak, how about you? Did you finish your homework?"
Zak stabbed a piece of roast and stuffed it into his mouth before it could elude his fork. "Almost," he mumbled, with a mouthful.
"Zak, chew your food and swallow before you speak," Caroline instructed him.
"But Daddy...," Zak stopped, swallowed, then said, "Daddy asked me a question."
"He'd have waited until you swallowed," she told him. "And the answer would have been easier to understand."
William tried to keep the amusement from showing on his face. "So, you're still almost finished?" He turned his attention to his older boy. "Lee, didn't I ask you to check on your brother and make sure he was doing his homework?"
"Yes Sir," Lee said sullenly. "And I did. But I had my own work to do. I can't just stare over his shoulder all the time to make sure he's doing math instead of drawing more pictures."
William regarded his first-born. "I don't appreciate the sulky tone, young man. A simple answer to my question was all you needed to say."
Lee stared at his plate.
"Are you listening to me Lee?"
"Yes Sir," he said, still staring downward at his largely untouched meal.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," William said in a firm, though not harsh, tone.
Lee swallowed, though not because he'd been eating. He looked at his father's face, his bright blue eyes opened wide.
"Are you listening to me?" William repeated.
"Yes Sir," Lee dutifully repeated his answer, facing his father.
William nodded to him, and Lee's eyes immediately dropped to the tabletop again. Goodness, the boy was moody that night. "Now I want you both to buckle down and finish your homework right after dinner, because I want you both to get to bed early tonight."
"Awww," Zak protested. "But you just got home and we don't have school tomorrow. Why can't we stay up late and watch a movie?"
It was a family tradition for when William came home. They would all crowd together after dinner on the couch, turn out the lights, and watch a movie. When they were both younger, the boys would predictably fall asleep long before the movie was over, and Caroline and William would just sit contentedly through the evening with their sleeping children cuddled between them. These days, Lee usually stayed awake until the end, but Zak typically still nodded off and would have to be carried to bed.
"We'll have movie night before I go back on duty, I promise," William told Zak. "But I want you boys to go to bed early tonight, so that we can get up early tomorrow and take Mommy out for breakfast." He noticed Caroline's eyes were fixed on him, and she was listening carefully for what he would say next. "I missed her birthday last week," he said. "So, tomorrow is Mommy's day off. After breakfast, we'll go spend the day at the beach. All right?"
Zak grinned excitedly. Lee said nothing, but looked like he was bitterly disappointed.
Zak eagerly asked, "Can we go out and look at the tide pools?"
"If it's low tide, sure," William told him.
"I wanna catch a sand crab," Zak said, biting into another mouthful of roast.
William looked at Caroline and raised an eyebrow, silently asking, "Is that okay?"
She smiled in response, reaching under the table to take his hand and squeeze it.
Feeling a little more secure about the whole family situation now, he ventured to ask his wife, "So when do you hope to start your new job?"
"The 21st," she told him. She began to tell him about her encounter with an old school friend a few months back, which had led to a discussion about part-time workers needed at the university medical center. She told William all about the facilities, and the other staff members that she had already met. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she told him, her excitement about the job showing plainly on her face.
As he listened to her going on and on it began to dawn on him that she had planned to take the job all along. He glanced at the boys, who weren't reacting at all to the news that their mother would be working soon. It was not a surprise to them. That meant she had already discussed it with them. The boys knew all about it. William realized that Caroline had not been asking his permission earlier, she was simply giving him advanced notice. He felt a sharp pang of anger toward her, briefly, which was quickly accompanied by an equally sharp pang of remorse. She didn't need his permission. She was his wife, not his property, and she had waited to discuss it with him before officially accepting the job offer. The situation might have bruised his pride a little, but that was the only harm done. The kids weren't worried about it. Why was he? It would impact their lives much more than his, and there was definitely no concern being shown on their part. Zak was just contentedly clearing his plate, even humming a little tune. Lee was... well Lee was still rearranging the food on his plate instead of eating it.
Apparently noticing William's attention on Lee, Caroline looked at her son. She too saw that he'd barely touched his dinner. "Lee?" she inquired. "You've hardly eaten a thing."
The boy looked at his mother and nodded. "I'm just not very hungry."
"After running around all afternoon? You should be famished." She reached over to feel his forehead. "No fever."
Lee hesitated a few seconds then said, "Peter's mom made some cookies. I guess I shouldn't have had so many."
"Lee, did you spoil your appetite?" William asked, looking sternly at his son.
"Yes Sir," he admitted, facing his father without being instructed to this time.
"How many did you eat?" Caroline asked.
"Six... I think."
"I didn't get any," Zak complained.
"You weren't around," Lee retorted.
"Six?" William was mildly amused but hid it from his face. It was instruction time again. "Lee, your mother put a lot of time and effort into making a very nice dinner for all of us this evening. It's very inconsiderate of you to go spoiling your appetite and showing your mother that you don't care how hard she works to provide for you. Now you owe her an apology."
Lee didn't hesitate at all to look at his mother and say, "I'm sorry Mom." His face was so earnest, and his voice so remorseful that William suddenly felt guilty for the lecture. Was he being too hard on the boy? It was just a late afternoon snack, after all. Hardly cause for a flogging. But Lee almost looked like he expected to be hauled off to prison. He wasn't crying, but he looked close to it. William hoped that wouldn't happen. If there was one thing that William simply couldn't handle, it was seeing his children cry.
Caroline brushed Lee's sun-bleached blonde hair back from his forehead. "It's all right Sweetheart. Apology accepted. Thank you."
Lee looked back at his plate. "May I be excused?" he asked quietly. "I'd like to finish my homework."
Lee didn't appear to be on the verge of tears any more. He had fought back that urge and bore a much calmer expression now. William was glad for that. Husker Adama could face a squadron of Cylon raiders, but he couldn't face a child in tears. His brain would just scatter and then shut down leaving him with no idea how to deal with it. Thank goodness his boys were not whiners, but they had not been allowed to be. Right from the start, William had insisted that no tantrums of any kind were to be tolerated. Whiners and brats would never become warriors. They had to be strong and responsible for their actions. It was both expected and demanded of them. But there were still circumstances when children's tears were inevitable: a scraped elbow, a nightmare, a frightening encounter with a hostile dog. When those happened, William couldn't fault the children for crying, but he was grateful that Caroline knew how to deal with it so that he wouldn't have to. He knew it was cowardly on his part, but it was something he was not equipped to cope with.
Now that Lee was no longer teary-eyed, William was inclined to deny the boy's request to leave the dinner table. This was his first evening home in more than four months and family dinners were meant to be shared by the entire family. Lee might have spoiled his appetite, but he could still at least do the family the courtesy of joining them at the table. But before William could respond, Caroline had already spoken up.
"Are you feeling all right?" she asked.
Lee nodded. "Yes Mom." That was all he said, but it was apparent to William that Lee was ill at ease over something. William wasn't home enough to be the best judge of the boy's behavior, but this didn't seem normal to him. Lee had never been the bubbly chatterbox that Zak sometimes was, but he wasn't a gloomy, moody child either. Was this a phase that Lee was going through these days? William looked to Caroline, since she certainly knew Lee's recent moods much better than he did, and her puzzled expression confirmed to William that Lee was not quite himself that evening.
"Lee?" he asked, trying not sound as though he was about to embark upon another lecture. "Is there something you'd like to tell us Son?" As he waited for Lee to respond, he thought the boy's expression started to turn emotional again, but then Lee blinked and faced his father calmly.
"No Sir," he answered. "I just have a lot of reading left to do if I'm going to finish in time to get to sleep early."
William was struck by how professional his son's response had sounded. He'd actually sounded like one of the pilots in the Galactica's squadron responding to a question in a mission debriefing. Was the boy really only nine?
"All right then," Caroline told him. "You're excused. Just take your plate and leave it by the sink."
Lee slid his chair back and placed his utensils on his plate. He lifted the plate from the table with both hands, very carefully, almost absurdly so, as if one fallen crumb would land him behind bars. He carried the plate into the kitchen, so intent on balancing the plate that the concentration was visible on his face. When he reemerged from the kitchen he passed the dining table and headed straight for his room without paying his parents or brother even a passing glance.
William sat back and looked at his wife. "What the hell is up with that boy?"
Caroline's protective maternal instincts kicked in. "Up with him?"
Zak chuckled. "Daddy you owe me a cubit."
"What?"
"You said another bad word."
"I said a...? All right Zak, I'll pay you right after dinner." Then William asked, "Zak, did Lee mention anything to you about something happening at school?"
Zak shook his head. "Nope."
"When do report cards come out?" he asked his wife.
"Three weeks," Caroline answered. "Why?"
"Is Lee having trouble with his schoolwork?"
"No. You saw how diligent he is about his homework and his test scores have been fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure." Caroline's voice was slightly terse in her reply. "The boys always show me when they get their tests back."
"Always?"
Caroline crossed her arms. "What are you trying to imply?"
"Well," William suggested, "maybe the reason he's diving into that book so hard tonight... cutting playtime short, ducking out of dinner... maybe it's because he didn't do very well on a recent test, and he's embarrassed to admit it, especially in front of me."
Caroline thought about it, but then shook her head. "I don't think so. He had a history test just last Friday, and he got it back 2 days ago. He got a 95. He shouldn't be having another test until next week."
"Pop quiz maybe? Unexpected... he hadn't studied... maybe it shook him up a little."
"He wouldn't bother to hide it," Caroline replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," she said, notably annoyed now.
"Then what is he hiding?"
"The boys never hide anything from me," Caroline declared. "Do you Zak?"
Zak smiled slyly. "No."
"And why not?" Caroline further prompted him.
Zak laughed. "Because you always find out anyway."
"That's right," she nodded her approval of a lesson well-learned.
William tried to control the extent of his grin. "Ah, but you did say earlier that Lee was approaching that age where boys start trying to hide things from their mothers."
"Schoolwork is not one of those things," Caroline declared. Then it was her turn to grin. "Unless... you're implying that we should double-check that history book and make sure he isn't using the cover to hide some other kind of reading material."
William's eyes widened again at the suggestion that his little boy might be growing up faster than expected, in ways that William was not prepared to deal with. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary," he said.
"Or maybe...," she suggested, "he's dug out the pages and has a flask hidden in there that he gets refilled when he's over at the neighbors'."
"All right..."
"OR... maybe he's really compiling a long list of obscenities that he overhears while hiding in a dark corner at the officer's club in the middle of the night so that he can corrupt the impressionable mind of his little brother."
"Were you trying to make a point?"
Caroline looked her husband straight in the eye. "You can trust your son, Bill. He's a good boy. Stop jumping to conclusions that he's done something wrong. All he did was admit to eating a few cookies and ask to be allowed to finish his homework. So save the handcuffs for another time."
William watched as his wife broke eye contact with him and resumed eating her meal. Family conversation at the dinner table appeared to be over for the evening.
Once again, William wondered if he was being overly hard on Lee. Caroline was right, Lee hadn't really done anything wrong, but there had to be some reason why the boy was so moody. If not school.. .then it must be related to the family. If it was something in the family... Am I the reason Lee is so uneasy tonight? he wondered. I have done little more than lecture him since I arrived. Does it make him that uncomfortable to have me home?
It certainly hadn't always been that way. He remembered vividly those previous homecomings when both Zak and Lee would come running out of the front door to greet him, grabbing on to him excitedly, and he would have to carry both boys back into the house at the same time. They would be clamoring all over him for hours, both competing for room in their father's lap while he told them all about life on a battlestar and flying vipers. Lee would beg for piggyback rides or for wrestling time on the living room floor. And when it was time for bed, Lee would snuggle up under his arm for a bedtime story that would always see him nodding off before the hero ever managed to slay the evil wizard.
When had all that changed? Why had it changed?
Caroline stepped into the bedroom and closed the door just as William was toweling his face dry. He didn't usually bother shaving before going to bed, but he didn't usually have a beautiful woman going to bed with him. Nine to ten months out of the year was spent sleeping alone on a single-sized, military-issue mattress with nothing but fond memories and photographs for company. But William wasn't sleeping alone tonight, and he planned to do a lot more than just sleep.
"The boys are asleep," she told him, walking over to the closet.
"Did Zak ever get his math finished?" he asked with a laugh.
"Yes," she smiled. "Along with a nice new collection of pictures on the back page of his notebook." She took off her blouse and pants, hanging them up neatly.
"And Lee?"
Lee never had emerged from his room that evening, even after Caroline told him that he could still have dessert despite the fact he hadn't eaten dinner. Lee had declined. That had worried her enough to take Lee's temperature, but there had been no sign of a fever.
"He fell asleep in bed with his history book," she told William. "He didn't put it down all evening. I can't believe his teacher really assigned that many extra pages on a Friday. Frankly Bill, I'm a little concerned."
From the corner of his eye William saw Caroline remove her bra and slip her nightgown on over her head. His pulse quickened for a minute as he reached for his toothbrush. "You're concerned because he enjoys reading history?"
She joined him in the bathroom and found her own toothbrush. "I'm concerned because he seems to be hiding himself away for some reason. I think something is upsetting him."
"You're the one who said he can be trusted not to hide anything," William pointed out, and set about brushing his teeth.
"I know," she said. "But he's been such a recluse this evening. It's not like him."
William rinsed out while Caroline brushed away. "Well... I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about. If he's not likely to hide a pop quiz from you, he wouldn't hide anything really important. Would he?"
Caroline rinsed out. "No," she said, though she didn't sound very certain any more.
William had already discarded his uniform tunic and undershirts. He stepped up behind his wife and ran his hands along her bare arms. "Relax," he said, his voice growing husky. "After a good night's sleep, I'm sure Lee will be back to his old self. Tomorrow he'll be chasing seagulls, burying Zak in the sand, and eating enough for ten nine year-olds again." He gently pressed a kiss to the side of her throat.
She sighed, and then smiled. "You're probably right. Hey... I thought the party was supposed to get under way tomorrow night."
His arms embraced her waist and pulled her snugly against him. "Any reason we can't do a little early celebrating?"
She kissed him on the lips, very briefly. "Yes. Family Day tomorrow. No work. No discussion of work. No griping about work. No reminiscing about work. No lecturing to the boys about work. Just you and me, and Zak and Lee. Got it?"
"Got it," he confirmed.
"Good," she told him, stepping out of his arms. "Because I want my present before you get yours." She walked away from William to her side of the bed and climbed under the covers. Switching off the light on her nightstand, she said quietly, "Good night Bill."
William sighed inwardly. Yep, if children never forgot anything, they definitely got that trait from their mothers.
William dragged one eyelid open. It wasn't easy. He'd been sound asleep and it was still deep into the middle of the night. But Zak was standing there at the side of the bed, nudging his arm and insisting that William wake up. "Zak?" William growled sleepily. "What's wrong Son? Bad dream?"
Behind him, William heard Caroline stirring. She sat up. "What's wrong Sweetheart?" she asked.
Zak sniffled. "Lee's crying," he said, sounding very upset.
"Lee's crying?" Caroline was immediately on the move, throwing aside the covers and climbing out of bed. She headed out of the bedroom door with Zak right behind her.
William laid there for a minute, still trying to clear the cobwebs out of his head enough to wake up. He knew he should probably get up and go see what was happening, but Caroline was already on the job, and he knew he was totally inept at dealing with crying children anyway. Most likely Lee had simply had a bad dream, and had inadvertently wakened his little brother. A few minutes with Mommy and both boys would be back sound asleep in no time.
The next thing he knew he was being roughly awakened again, by Caroline, who was yanking on his arm to get him up. "Bill, get up! Now!"
"Wha- what's wrong?" He shook his head, yawning.
"Get up," she repeated. "We have to take Lee to the hospital."
That brought William rapidly to wakefulness. "What? What happened?"
"I think his arm is broken," Caroline had already dragged a pair of sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt out of a drawer and was pulling them on. She grabbed her shoes and slipped them onto her feet without worrying about socks.
William was stunned. "What do you mean his arm is broken? It's the middle of the night. What the hell happened that he broke his arm in the middle of the night?" He moved rapidly to retrieve a set of his own workout clothes, since they would be faster to pull on than his uniform.
"He said that he fell," Caroline answered.
"He fell? Fell out of bed?"
"No, not out of bed."
"Then what was he doing?"
"I don't know!" she nearly shouted at him. "We can worry about that later. Right now your son needs to get to a doctor. Now are you coming or not?" She didn't wait for a reply. She just hurried back out the door to the boys' room.
William's head was spinning. He dressed as quickly as he could, and then hurried after his wife. Lee was sitting up on the edge of his bed, still wearing his pajamas and cradling his left arm. There were tear stains covering his cheeks, and his breath was catching every few seconds. He was still crying, but very quietly. There was no wailing or complaining going on, such as William had feared there would be. Caroline was kneeling in front of him, putting his shoes on. Lee glanced up at his father standing in the doorway then dropped his head and wiped at his face with his sleeve. The tears stopped.
Caroline spared her husband a brief glance. He was still standing in the doorway, clueless over what he should do. "Bill, get Zak's shoes please. And his coat."
William followed his wife's instructions, fully content to let her take charge of the situation. He focused on getting Zak at least partially dressed. Zak sat on his own bed on the other side of the room, and the younger boy was deeply distraught. As William got Zak zipped into his coat he tried to ease the boy's mind. "It's all right Zak. Lee's going to be fine." The words had little effect, however.
Caroline hadn't even attempted to get Lee's coat on him. She draped it over his shoulders and kept her arm around him. "Can you walk to the car Sweetheart? Or do you want Daddy to carry you?"
William saw Lee's distressed eyes look up at him briefly then turn quickly away. The boy sniffled and told his mother, "I can walk." William felt a pang of disappointment, but said nothing as he watched his son stand up and walk, slowly, cradling his injured arm, while his mother walked immediately beside him. He took Zak by the hand and followed.
Caroline sat in the roomier back seat with Lee, keeping him tucked protectively under her arm. Zak rode up front, while William drove. It wasn't far to the base hospital. The drive would only take about 10 minutes, but William had to resist the urge to gun the engine just the same. It would be better to take the drive nice and smoothly than to scream around corners for the sake of saving a minute or two. His nerves were jangled, but he didn't want the kids to see that. He heard Caroline behind him, talking softly to Lee. Though William heard an occasional sniffle, the boy was being remarkably quiet. He hoped that wasn't a sign that something more serious was wrong with Lee. He told himself that Lee was a strong boy, and that was all it meant. Don't let your imagination run away with you, Husker, he thought to himself. Lee will be fine.
Zak was another story. They had gone only a few blocks when Zak started to cry. William didn't know what to do. Zak wasn't the one who was hurt, but he was tired and scared for his brother. It was the middle of the night and they were on the way to the hospital. No six year-old would find this a happy situation. William was at a total loss. He didn't blame Zak for being upset. Hell, he was upset. But he had no clue how to deal with Zak.
Thank goodness Caroline had a better handle on the situation. "Zak, Honey it's all right," she told him, from the back seat. "Your brother is going to be fine. We're just taking him to the doctor where they can make his arm feel all better again."
"That's right," William agreed. He felt like he had to say something. "There's no reason for you to cry Zak. You're not even hurt." He hadn't intended to sound cross, but even to his own ears he knew that was how it came out. Zak quieted down a bit, but he didn't stop crying. William's anxiety level edged upward a notch.
They caught the traffic signal at one of the base's main intersections and had to stop and wait. The opposing traffic was virtually non-existent, and William was tempted to run the red light, but decided against it. It would be just his luck that a base marshal was watching somewhere and would pull him over. He could probably beg off a citation by pointing out that he had an injured child in the car, but overall it would just delay their arrival at the hospital. Better just to wait. Lee was holding up well enough. There was no need to start getting reckless.
As he stared at the signal, waiting for it to turn green, William tapped the steering wheel restlessly. He hated waiting. It was the middle of the night. Zak was still crying. And he had no idea what the frak had happened with Lee. Finally, he just had to loose some of the tension and ask, "Damn it Lee... what the hell happened? What were doing that you broke your arm in the middle of the night?"
"Nothing," Lee answered quietly.
"Nothing? Your arm just broke for no reason?" William hadn't wanted to sound so harsh, but he would not stand for having his children lie to him. "What were you doing?"
"I fell," Lee answered, starting to sound upset.
"Fell doing what? Were you sneaking around somewhere?"
"No," Lee said, his voice quavering now.
"Bill... later," Caroline interjected.
"No, I want an answer," he said. William's flayed nerves just wouldn't allow him to leave it alone. "The boy has to learn what it is to be responsible for his actions. Now Lee, you've caused the whole family a lot of trouble here young man. You've dragged us all up in the middle of the night. Your brother is upset. And the doctors are going to have to spend time taking care of you instead of looking after warriors who have been injured in the line of duty, serving the colonies. Now tell me what you were doing up and around in the middle of the night!"
"I wasn't," Lee cried, sounding absolutely miserable now. Zak also started crying harder.
"Were you sneaking to the kitchen, since you didn't eat your dinner when you were supposed to?"
"No," Lee said.
"Were you trying to sneak out with that neighbor boy... Peter?"
"No!" Lee insisted, his voice breaking.
"Bill! That's enough!" Caroline insisted.
"I want an answer," William declared.
"Later!" his wife growled, sounding angrier than William had ever heard her. He started to protest again, but she abruptly interrupted. "So help me, Adama... one more word out of you now... and you'll be spending the remainder of your leave sleeping on the front doorstep," she hissed.
The signal finally turned, and William drove on, in silence. He could hear Lee crying behind him now, though not nearly as loudly as Zak was crying. Caroline was talking to Lee, softly, in the kind of comforting tone that belongs to mothers alone. William felt terrible. He knew he'd made everyone, including himself, feel even worse about the whole situation. But he just didn't know how to handle these things. When problems came up within a squadron, especially when someone got hurt, you fixed it by identifying what went wrong, making sure everyone knew where the error occurred, and educating all parties involved in order to ensure that it didn't happen again. That was just how it worked. That was the only way William knew how to deal with a crisis. By the book. But obviously military procedures didn't translate well into dealing with children.
When they pulled up in front of the hospital a few minutes later, Zak had quieted down a little, and Lee had again stopped crying altogether. William brought the car around to the curb by the emergency room door. He got out but ended up only standing by while Caroline steadied Lee, who got out of the car by himself. Caroline walked their eldest son inside while William got back in the car and drove around with Zak to the visitor parking lot. Then he took Zak by the hand and returned to the emergency room. He spent the next 15 minutes trying to find out where his wife and son had gone. Finally, one of the nurses who had met Caroline and Lee at the door told him that Lee had already been taken down the hall to have his arm imaged. Luckily it was a slow night, so they'd been able to look after the boy right away.
It was almost 20 minutes later before another nurse caught William's attention in the waiting area. "Captain Adama?" she called.
"Yes," he responded. He nudged Zak, who had already begun to doze off on the couch next to him.
"Your wife and son are right down here Sir," she said, waving for him to follow her.
Zak was rousing groggily, so William just picked him up and followed after the nurse. They were ushered into a small examining room, with two beds that could be separated for privacy by a curtain running on a track in the ceiling. The other bed was empty for the time being, so the Adamas had the room to themselves. Lee was lying down, with his left arm propped up slightly at his side, wrapped up on a board. It had not yet been set into a cast. Lee was calm, and awake, but the sight of his little boy in a hospital bed twisted William's gut. Caroline stood next to Lee's bed, looking very tired.
Zak twisted around in William's arms for a view of his brother. "Lee?" he called worriedly.
Lee looked at his little brother and told him with remarkable maturity, "I'm okay Zak."
That seemed to be all that Zak needed to hear. He put his head down on his father's shoulder and closed his eyes, drifting right off toward sleep.
"Any status?" William asked his wife.
Caroline looked at him coolly. "You have someplace else to be right now?"
William chose not to chew on that stinger. "I just want to know how my son's treatment is progressing," he said in measured tones.
The tension in her face eased away. "They're studying the images," she said. "At first evaluation it didn't appear too serious. Not a bad break at all, but..."
"But what?" he asked, growing concerned.
"There's an awful lot of swelling," she said. "Normally that would indicate a more serious break due to the irritation of the tissues by the bone fragments. But with a break that serious... well Lee would have been in a lot more pain."
William looked at his son. Lee had hardly cried at all through the ordeal. In fact, most of the tears had been prompted by his father's interrogation in the car. William felt even worse about that now that he could see his son's face. Lee was lying there very quietly, but he looked miserable. And even though Lee was not complaining, the swollen, broken arm had to hurt. The boy might have a lecture coming, but William had chosen absolutely the wrong time and place for it. He wanted to hug Lee, and tell him that he was sorry. But he was still holding Zak, and he was also leery of disturbing Lee's splinted arm. He promised himself he would do it later.
A doctor came into the room and nodded to the family. "Captain? I'm Doctor Bernard," he introduced himself. "I met your wife when she came in with Lee."
"Nice to meet you Doctor," William said. "I'd shake your hand, but..."
The doctor smiled. "Yes, I can see you have your hands full. Well I have good news, and not-so-good news. The fracture is a simple one. We should be able to set it pretty easily, and it should heal just fine. He'll need to wear a cast for about four weeks. At that point we'll take another look to verify how it's healing and determine if any kind of brace will be needed, but that's probably unlikely."
The doctor turned his attention directly to his young patient. "Lee... that means you're going to have to sit it out on the sidelines for about a month. I know you're not going to like that. Your mom says you're quite the little athlete, but until that bone is mended, you have to take care of it. All right?"
Lee nodded, but he couldn't hide his disappointment. "Yes Sir," he said.
The doctor smiled at the formality of Lee's reply. "I'm a civilian son. You don't need to salute me."
"Was that the not-so-good news?" William asked.
"'Fraid not," the doctor replied. "We can't properly set the bone or put on a cast until the swelling comes down. We're going to apply some ice to his arm and give him some anti-inflammatory medication, but it could take several hours."
Caroline nodded. "I suspected as much," she said.
William shouldn't have been surprised that his wife expected that news. She was a medic herself after all. He just wished that she'd clued him in in advance. Lee was going to have to stay for several more hours yet? That didn't sit well with him at all. Lee didn't look happy about it either.
The doctor excused himself, with a final note that a nurse would be by shortly to start applying the ice. Caroline thanked him, and then turned to her husband. "Why don't you just take Zak home? Put him to bed. I'll call you when there's an update."
William didn't feel right about leaving his son behind at the hospital, but with another child to consider, it seemed to be the best course of action. Lee wouldn't be alone. William knew perfectly well that Caroline wouldn't leave his side for a minute. Still, he felt guilty about going. He nodded to his wife then stood beside Lee's bed. His son was not looking at him. He seemed to be purposely avoiding looking at his father.
"Lee?" William called gently. "I'm going to take your brother home now, but... I'll be back soon to take you home too."
Lee nodded, then still without looking up at his father he said, "I didn't mean to make you mad Sir. I'm sorry."
William felt awful. Again, he wished his arms had been free so that he could hug Lee without hesitation, but once again it would have to wait. "We'll talk about that later Son," he said. "I'll see you soon."
Caroline leaned over to give Zak a quick kiss on the cheek before William left. Then he turned to leave. As he reached the examination room door he saw that a nurse had been standing there, observing the family. He inclined his head politely to her as he passed her and left the room.
He never saw the look of suspicion that she favored him with as he carried Zak down the hall.