A/N-This is CONSIDERABLY less angstier than Long Slow Burn. Almost fluff compared. It definitly helps if you read Long Slow Burn first...but if you don't want to wade through 37 chapters of angst, here's the condensed version. Abby comes back, dies. Garret starts drinking. And drinking. And drinking. And tries to kill himself, but fails. Gets sent to remote location, Jordan shows up, tries again, fails again, stays sober for about a month, before Abby's boyfriend winds killing himself, which drives Garret back into the bottle and he shoots himself but misses and Jordan runs up the stairs to find him, well, alive but bleeding all over the place, stitches him up and he realises that maybe life isn't THAT horrible. And that's where this one picks up. I don't own them either, they belong to Tim Kring and NBC and Tailwind, not to me.
Comes a nightmare you can always stay awake
Comes depression you can get a better break
Comes love, there ain't nothing you can do about love
It had been a long day. They hadn't moved from the couch. She lay there curled close to him being there for him, with him. They just at there, unmoving, in silence. Day had broken, sunlight was streaming through the window. He hung onto her, one arm wrapped tightly around her, clinging onto her for dear life.
He sat there with her in a kinda stunned silence, he didn't know what to think, what to feel. He couldn't think about anything. He just had her there with him. He was numb, unfeeling. He didn't have anything to think about. He was just blank.
Her stomach gave a low growl. "Breakfast?" He asked her and she nodded. "I don't have much around to eat though-" He had spent the past two weeks living off of scotch, he hadn't gone grocery shopping at all.
"I'll go grab some while you clean up. No offense Gar, but you look like shit." She got up, extending her hand to him to help him off the couch. "Just remember to keep those stitches dry." He rolled his eyes, he knew the drill. He reached up to the back of his head, rubbing the fine line of stitches, wincing as he did.
He made his way to the bathroom, shocked at the amount of dried blood that covered the back of his neck and had soaked into his shirt. He pulled the shirt over his head, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
He had to admit that he didn't look the best. His eyes were sunken with bags underneath them, he was gaunt and far too skinny to be healthy, paler than he had ever been, and there was two weeks worth of a beard growing on his face. He stripped the rest of the way down as he started the water, getting it to a comfortably hot temperature before stepping in. He let the warm water cascade over his body, washing the blood off of his neck while being careful not to get the stitches wet, blindly following her instructions.
He stood there a long time, just thinking as the hot spray washed over him. Thinking about everything and nothing as the last of the pink tinged water washed down the drain. His blood. He had come within an inch, literally, of death. If he hadn't flinched, he wouldn't be here right now.
He looked again at his reflection in the mirror, wiping away a spot in the fog to stare at himself as he easily toweled off, wrapping the damp towel around his waist. He reached for the razor before he stroked the growing beard. It really didn't look that bad, it looked kind of good, really. And it wasn't that uneven. It would have to be trimmed even in a few days, but he could put that off, it wasn't really necessary now.
The smell of bacon and eggs drifted into his bedroom as he got dressed. He'd barely eaten at all in the past two weeks and his stomach suddenly reminded him of that fact. He threw on the first thing he could find, a pair of loose shorts and a shirt, he didn't really care, it was the end of July.
He grabbed a piece of toast as it popped out of the toaster earning him a glare. "That was mine." She said, giving the bacon a small stir to stop it from sticking and burning.
"Too bad." He said as he buttered it, pouring himself a cup of coffee and retreating back to the table, crunching into it. She grinned at him.
"So you have your appetite back?" He nodded. At least for now it was back. "You're going to get better Garret, for real this time." He shrugged and took a long gulp of coffee, diving into the plate of bacon and eggs that she had just placed in front of him. "You are going to get better." He didn't answer for a long minute, eating, before he looked up at her.
"I'm an old man Jordan, I can't promise you anything. I'm set in my ways." She sat down across from him.
"Garret, that doesn't mean anything." They lapsed into silence and he looked around the apartment. There were still empty bottles strewn about the couch, and there was a dark red stain on the back of his couch. He spied the overnight bag in a corner and quirked his eyebrow. "What? That? You have a pull out couch. I'm not leaving you alone Garret, not until you're back on your own two feet." He wanted to glare at her, but he couldn't. He wanted to be mad, but he couldn't.
"It's not comfortable." He said, trying to come up with something to drive her away.
"Garret, I spent the past two weeks sleeping in my car in the garage beneath this place, I know uncomfortable." He stared down at his plate. She had sacrificed even sleep for him. He wanted to be mad at her for forcing her way into his life, but he couldn't be, more than anything, he just wanted to stop the pain, stop the hurt, feel better.