……………………………………..Awake

I awoke without a thought in my head. It was kind of nice. I felt insulated in some sort of cotton batting, drifting in a semi twilight I saw no reason to leave.

"You're awake," a familiar voice stated. The voice was familiar but I couldn't be bothered to fit it into the puzzle of my life.

"Drink?" The voice went on. I opened my eyes with some difficulty. They felt glued shut.

In a bleary, blurred edges way I saw an extended hand curled around a plastic cup of water, ice melting near the top. At the sight of it I realized my mouth was dry.

I took a sip of the water, my throat tingling as it slid down. Then I coughed, and coughed, and coughed.

"Easy," the familiar voice chuckled a little and I lifted my eyes to his pale blue ones, obscured by white blond hair. Dallas Winston.

And then it all came back to me.

……………………………………Filling In

Dallas, cool and calm, told me how Mrs. Sheldon tried to kill Johnny but that I had gotten in the way.

"We thought she'd killed you. What with all the blood,"

I knew this, I remembered how her arm shook as she leveled the gun at Johnny's heart.

"He almost finished the job," Dallas said, blue eyes unflinching.

"What? Who? What does that mean?"

I reached for the water and Dallas brought it to my lips. I took a smaller sip this time and coughed a smaller cough.

"The night you were shot Johnny tried to kill himself," There was a sort of quiver around the cool in Dallas' voice and I saw that the events of the past few days? Weeks? Time had become a bit fluid, I was afraid.

Dallas and I sat in a drab hospital room and I thought it was afternoon, based on the half square of sky I could see through the window.

"Johnny tried…" My voice was croaky, rusty at the hinges.

"He tried. Got hold of some razor blade or a shard of glass, sliced the hell out of his wrists,"

"Both wrists?"

He nodded, and I watched him look at the window and several points on the wall.

"Where is he?" I said, each word kind of cracked and breaking.

"He's uh, he's in the, um…" My eyes widened as I listened to Dallas stammer and search for words. I'd never heard him sound so unsure.

I waited. Doubtless it would come to him.

"He's in a mental hospital for criminals," Dallas said, and looked down for a long time.

…………………………………..Clyde Ellingsworth

Dallas had been gone for awhile. I drifted on the gentle wave of the painkillers they were giving me and I thought of the mess I had made of things without guilt, just a dull curiosity.

How had it all gone so spectacularly wrong?

"Dean?"

My ears perked up and I moved my eyes in my new slow way toward the voice. My mentor stood in the doorway in all his wealthy lawyer glory and shook his head in the sad, chagrined way one might over a puppy that had piddled on the floor.

"Clyde," I croaked in as happy a tone I could muster on such short notice.

He pulled up a chair and took in all the various tubes, hoses, beeping machines, and dripping bags of fluid that were keeping me going.

"Oh, Dean,"