Terry was the first thing Don saw when he woke up. Terry sitting by his bed, her stocking feet propped up on the corner of his mattress, reading files. He had no idea how long he'd been out or how long she'd been sitting there. It must have been a while; she was favoring her left shoulder, which always bothered her after she'd been sitting for too long. That injury dated back to her first field office assignment, about a year after they'd graduated from Quantico, which is to say about a year after they'd agreed to break up. It was the mature thing to do, maybe, she'd ventured. And he'd agreed, gone one better: mature and professional, he'd said, not realizing that she'd wanted him to disagree with her. Don hadn't realized he'd wanted to disagree himself until he'd seen Terry's name on an injury list months after the fact.
It hadn't been a terribly serious injury: slices from flying debris sustained when a suspect tried to shoot Terry through the concrete pillar she'd been using as cover. Not as bad as it could have been. Still, Don had wanted to send something, some flowers, a card, or—knowing Terry—a really long biography of some obscure historical figure. Strange, he remembered agonizing over whether that would be a mature and professional thing to do (would she think he was desperate? Or sexist? Or sweet?) but he couldn't remember if he'd actually sent anything. Even stranger, long after he knew it was an injury to her shoulder, all he could think of was the small, curving scar on her knee from when she'd fallen off her bike as a kid. It bothered him to know that she now had scars he wouldn't recognize; this is what it means to be broken up, he figured. What an accurate phrase.
Terry sensed his eyes on her and looked up.
"Hey, Don," she said quietly.
"Hey, Terry." His voice sounded creaky from lack of use. A flash of concern jumped across his face and he said, louder, slower: "Hello? Terry?"
"Don? What's wrong? Don!"
He lay back on his pillow, scrunched his eyes closed, then opened them and looked at her, just a little panicky in a way that made her feel more than a little ill. "Terry?"
"Yes?"
"I can't hear a word that either of us are saying."