They were heading into the city to a Christmas party at Claire and Charlie's. Boone had filled the trunk of his car with baked goods he'd made to give as gifts to their friends, as well as stuff for the party, Claire hadn't asked him to cater the event, he'd just automatically offered, their overnight bags were crammed into the small corner of trunk space that was left.
They both reached for the keys to the car at the same time, their hands colliding. "What do you think you're doing?" Boone frowned at her.
"I'm driving." Shannon informed him.
"Uh, no," he gave her look.
"Uh, yes," she imitated his tone and look.
Andrew was starting to become highly amused. Who needed TV when they had these two?
Shannon glanced down at his shirt, she'd noticed earlier that he'd missed a button; the thing was all screwed up. "When did you learn to dress yourself?" The question appearing to come out of left field.
"What?" He frowned.
"Boone you're so tired, you haven't even done your shirt up properly, and you're a total fashion victim." It was so unlike him, he was so meticulous. "Didn't you even notice that the collar's all fucked up and lopsided?" She explained her seemingly random question.
The thing with Terry helping out with the baking was working out well. Shannon wondered why Boone had thought that it wouldn't; he could be so obstinate sometimes. He'd always delegated easily, you had to when you were organizing a high profile wedding for several hundred guests, so she was mystified as to why he'd been so reluctant to ask for help. Maybe it was because the cooking was so much more personal to him than someone else's nuptials. She knew how exhausted he'd been letting himself get, the slight mishaps had become almost a daily occurrence, a broken glass at breakfast, the shirt just now, the tripping last week, though when he'd put the phone in the oven it had made her laugh. She knew he'd gotten up at four that morning, what she didn't know was that he hadn't come to bed 'til well after one. In order to get him to agree to go to the party at all, she'd had to capitulate on his getting out of bed at such an early hour.
"I was in a hurry," he answered lamely looking down in surprise, he couldn't even remember putting the thing on, and why had he chosen the one with the red stripes? Heather had given him that one, and the colour did nasty things to his complexion, with his naturally flushed cheeks making him look like he'd just downed a fifth of Johnnie Walker Blue.
"Whatever," Shannon dismissed his answer, not believing him for a second. "I. Am. Driving." She stressed each word.
They started a round of No/Yes, sounding like kindergartners arguing over a colour of pavement chalk for their hopscotch game at recess, until Andrew tired of their bickering. "Boone." He interrupted, kind of disappointed at stopping them, wondering just how long they could have gone on. His guess was pretty much indefinitely.
They'd both forgotten he was even standing there, and looked at him a little startled. "I'm not getting in the car if you're going to drive." He informed his father calmly.
"Huh?" Was every one against him?
"I've seen you like this before. You're like Dead Zombie Boone, all zoned out, but still mobile. It's always like this before Christmas, you get in too deep, make too many commitments, then you panic, then you go for like forty-eight hours straight with no sleep working like you're trying to negotiate some kind of world saving peace accord. Then we're sitting in front of the TV for like the five whole minutes I can actually get you to sit down, and suddenly you pass out cold right in the middle of a sentence. I'd like to live to see ten, and if you pull a stunt like that while you're driving a law abiding sixty-five down the highway, I don't see that happening." Andrew shrugged, making his position on the matter very clear.
"You're the devil's spawn aren't you?" Boone shook his head at him. Now it was Shannon's turn to be amused.
"You guys can decide that amongst yourselves, after all, you're my parents." He pushed his luck a little farther, one day his smart mouth was going to get him in trouble.
Shannon snatched the keys off the keyboard and headed for the door, the other two following in her wake.
Out on the driveway she turned to her husband. "Will you sleep if you lie down in the back?"
"Enough already, I already agreed to let you drive, I'm not lying down in the back, I'm not six." Boone protested.
"Andrew, get in the passenger seat." Shannon instructed.
Okay, this wasn't like TV, this was better; more like the circus, when were the clowns going to show up? He wondered, moving to the passenger door and opening it.
"I'm not sitting in the back seat of my own car!" Andrew waited to see if Boone would actually stamp his foot.
"Well the passenger seat's taken, and I'm driving, so I'd have to say that you are." Shannon answered smugly.
"I hate you." Okay the kindergartners were making reappearance; Andrew looked on in anticipation of act three.
"Just think of how much more you can hate me after you've had a nap. I'd hate to have you waste all that negative energy on only a half-hearted attempt." Shannon was maddeningly calm.
"Fucking bitch, fucking bitch," Boone muttered pulling open the back door.
She walked around the vehicle, sliding behind the wheel. They were exactly the same height, another thing which pissed Boone off to no end, so she didn't have to bother adjusting the seat. She started the car; then glanced in the rear view. He was sitting in the middle of the back seat, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at her. "Boone, you're not sitting in the back seat so you can glare at me over my shoulder. Lie down and go to sleep."
"Fucking bitch." He kept up his litany, pulling off his jacket, balling it up and putting it on the seat behind Andrew, using it as a pillow as he brought his legs up and settled down on his side.
Shannon turned to him over the seat as he crossed his arms over his chest again, and looked at her furiously. "Now did you go to the bathroom before we left the house, 'cause I don't want to have to stop?"
Andrew lost it, snorting laughter, as Boone gave her one last "Fucking bitch."
She pulled out of the driveway, and, at the first stop sign, no further down the road than a mile, she glanced back over her shoulder at him, he was out cold.
By the time she got to the turn off to the highway, she could have hit Boone over the head with a brick and he wouldn't have responded. Once he decided he was ready to go to sleep, it was like someone had flipped a switch. Stopped at the traffic light she turned again to look back at him. His right hand was lying on the seat, up beside his head, palm up, his fingers curled and relaxed, his left pressed between his knees. He was so precious and innocent looking, until she took in the vertical scars on his exposed wrist, and remembered.
Andrew fiddled with the radio dial, tuning it to his favourite station, but keeping the volume low, not wanting to disturb Boone. He'd been trying to decide if he was going to tell them what he knew, he'd never kept secrets from Boone and didn't want to start now, with Shannon back, it almost seemed like that was even more important now than before. He'd gotten the confirmation of what he'd always suspected, several months ago, still he knew he'd broken a major house rule in acquiring the information, and wanted to avoid the shit storm that was sure to follow.
He swallowed before he began. 'Shan?' he started their silent conversation.
'You've done something wrong, haven't you?' She kept her eyes on the road.
'Yeah,' he paused. 'After you came back, the first few days, I listened in when you guys were talking in the bedroom.' He reluctantly admitted his transgression.
'You've got an agreement not to do that.' She frantically thought back to her first few days. Oh fuck, she thought, they'd rehashed pretty much everything, more concerned about what he'd learned than the fact that he'd broken his word.
'I know.' He admitted, ashamed. 'I'm still just a kid. I was scared; you don't know what it was like for me. I didn't even remember you, I just knew what your leaving did to Boone.'
'So, what're we talking about here?' She was starting to get a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
'Sydney,' even in his mind, whispering the word.
'What about Sydney?' she already knew the answer.
'I know I was an accident, that what you guys did should never have happened.' Andrew he bit his lip waiting for her reaction. 'I know you guys love me, I can feel it, but it doesn't change the fact that I was an accident.'
'Baby, you don't know. We were so screwed up.' Why was he doing this now? Shannon just wanted to pull over and bury her head in her hands.
Boone started whimpering in the back seat.
What the hell was she going to say? 'Andrew Adam Carlyle, you're our son. You'll always be that. And you're right, we love you, however you came to be, we love you. I can't believe sometimes how badly I screwed up, because, ultimately it was all my fault, I conned him into coming to Sydney, I seduced him." Shannon took all the blame on herself, because, really it was hers, she knew how vulnerable Boone had been, that it wouldn't take much on her part to get him into bed, she'd just wanted a feeling of control again, after Brian had screwed her over, taking the money. "But I wouldn't change anything for the world. God, you're amazing. I love you so much. I love you both. Maybe fucking up can sometimes result in something positive."
She recalled an incident from when they were growing up when Sabrina had angrily informed Boone that he'd been an accident and that she was sorry he'd ever been born. She couldn't remember exactly what it was he'd done, probably something minor like get a fingerprint on the wall, Sabrina hadn't actually slapped him that time, but the emotional blow she'd landed was much, much worse. He'd just stood there hanging his head, quietly absorbing yet another little jibe from his mother. Andrew may have been an accident, but Shannon had never once been sorry about it, and she'd been sorry about a lot, she'd done a lot to be sorry for she thought ruefully.
She looked up to share that with him, but could tell by his smile that he'd already picked it out of her head. 'So, why are you telling me, and not Boone, or both of us together?'
"No," Boone moaned.
'Are you kidding me?' he exclaimed. 'He's a mess. If I told him this, instead of being mad that I'd broken the rules, he'd have had something like a nuclear meltdown that I knew the truth. He's in the middle of a huge depression right now. He tries to hide it, but I know the signs.'
'He's depressed?' Shannon shot him a surprised look. 'I thought he was just overworked and stressed.' Andrew shook his head at her.
'Has he gotten depressed a lot since I came back?'
'A few times, less than before though, he's a lot better with you around.' That was putting it mildly.
She hadn't even realized, she'd have to talk to him about that. It wasn't good that he was hiding things from her.
"Shan?" Boone moaned, whimpering a little.
Shit, she'd hoped he'd sleep all the way to Claire's, why was he awake? "Yeah?" She answered, glancing over her shoulder at him, seeing that he was still sleeping. He'd drawn his knees right up and was lying in the fetal position. His face was twitching, he was frowning, caught up in whatever nightmare he seemed to be having.
Andrew undid his seat belt and turned around, kneeling on the seat. 'He's dreaming about…'
'Don't you even think about doing what you were planning,' she warned him.
'But he's not in his bedroom.' He protested.
'Given that you've already admitted to breaking that particular rule, I'd be a little careful if I was you. Stay out of his head when he's sleeping. And mine,' she added.
He looked ashamed.
'Did you read him before I stopped you?' Shannon asked.
He shook his head.
Boone started making sad crying noises, muttering her name.
'Wake him up.' She was becoming concerned, he was so exhausted, she was surprised his mind had the energy to conjure up the obviously intense experience he was having.
'He's calling for you, I think you should do it.' Andrew turned back around on the seat.
'I'm driving here,' she pointed out the obvious.
'Then pull over,' he suggested.
She swung the car over to the shoulder and stopped, getting out and coming over to the passenger side; opening the back door. Shannon leaned over him and shook his shoulder gently, "Boone, honey, wake up."
He whimpered again.
"Boone," she said more forcefully.
His eyes flew open, he started hyperventilating, staring at the back of the seat.
"Boone," he was scaring her.
He sat up in the seat, staring at her in disbelief, "Shan?" he said it as if he couldn't fathom why she was standing in front of him. He was out of the car in a flash, holding her and shaking. "You're here, oh Jesus, I was dreaming you were gone again." She could feel him start to heave. He pushed away from her and turned, lurching down the road a few feet before throwing up on the pavement, his emotions completely overwhelming him, he supported himself weakly with his hands on his knees. She went to him and stroked his back, calming him. Once he'd quieted down a bit they walked back to the car.
Andrew opened his window and handed his father a bottle of water, sadly used to this reaction from Boone.
"Sorry," after he'd rinsed his mouth, he apologized to them both. They brushed it off as unnecessary. He sat on the guardrail and tried to compose himself, still staring at Shannon like she was an apparition that was going to disappear as surely as Marley's ghost.
She asked him if he wanted to go home, but he declined, pointing out that they were only half an hour from their destination, and that he had most of the food for the party in the trunk. "Besides, it was only a bad dream, I'm okay now."
"A dream so bad you threw up? You're not," she paused, then rushed on, "going to have another nervous breakdown are you?"
"Jesus, I sure as hell hope not, one a lifetime's more than enough. It was just a bad dream." Boone repeated.
"Andrew told me you're depressed." Shannon wasn't convinced he was as okay as he claimed.
He looked up at his son, startled. "You knew?"
"Boone, don't you think after all this time, that I'd know?" God, Boone could be a dunce sometimes.
A transport truck roared by, shaking them all. "I suggest that we take this discussion on the road." Boone stood, sighing. "And I'm driving."
They played musical chairs, each switching seats before he pulled back onto the highway.