Boone found his son less than half a mile from the house, in a stretch of road with no houses, not much time had passed, so no cars had come by yet and the boy was still alone. Andrew was huddled on the curb, holding his left arm across his chest, cradling it in his right, his bicycle lying in the road in front of him. He stopped the car right in the middle of the road and threw the door open leaving the engine running, he crossed the asphalt quickly.
He crouched down beside the boy, "Andrew?"
He raised his head, his face was pinched and white, more fear reflected on it than misery, his eyes were dry. "Daddy," his face collapsed and he started to cry.
Boone pulled him into his arms carefully; the pain the boy was in washed over him, making him feel slightly nauseous, he rocked him gently. "Ssshhh, it's okay, it's going to be okay," he reassured him.
A car pulled up, the power window on the passenger side hissed down. "Everything okay here?" the man behind the wheel asked suspiciously, you never knew when someone was trying to abduct a kid.
Boone looked up, "Yeah thanks," he smiled and nodded. "My son fell off his bike."
"This your daddy, son?" The man asked.
Andrew raised his face, sobbing, "Yeah."
The man couldn't mistake the resemblance, "Okay, then, just checking."
"I appreciate it," Boone said sincerely, there weren't enough concerned citizens willing to get involved these days, he thought.
The window slid back up and the car drove off.
"A cat," Andrew blurted, sniffing.
"Huh?" Boone wasn't following.
"A cat ran out into the road, I almost hit it. I grabbed the brakes and fell off. I…" he bit back a sob, "I think I hurt my wrist."
Boone had to agree with that assessment. "Yeah bud, you sure did."
"I'm sorry, Boone." Andrew apologized.
"Why?" he asked.
"I screwed up, you just bought me that bike. I think I bent the wheel."
Boone shook his head, "It's okay, and no, you didn't screw up, it was an accident, they happen. Just ask me, they happen to me all the time."
Andrew shot him a look, "Yeah, they do." Now it was his turn to agree. They shared a brief smile.
"I think we need to get you to a hospital, I think you've broken it." Boone assessed, referring to Andrew's wrist, shivering slightly in the chill of the early evening, he hadn't thought to grab his jacket before running out the door.
"I want to go home first, Shan's probably frantic, and Sawyer too, I guess." He figured they'd both probably picked up on it, at least that's why he figured his dad had shown up so quickly, he hadn't meant to broadcast it, it just happened.
"You sure? Cause I can just call on my cell and tell them what happened and we can be on our way from here." Boone waited for his answer.
"No, I want to see mom," Boone looked at him sharply, he'd never heard him refer to Shannon as 'mom', "and let her know I'm okay." he continued. "She's probably freaking right now."
'Mom and daddy', god we've turned into our parents, Boone reflected. No, he'd never once called Sabrina 'mom', and Shannon sure as hell hadn't, but she'd definitely called Adam 'daddy', and Boone thought that he might have done the same, he wasn't sure; the man had been so nice. How he'd fallen for Sabrina, he'd never been able to discern. He felt tears prick at his eyes, thinking how lucky he was that he'd ended up with the family he now had.
"You're such a sap, you know?" Andrew forced a smile at him through his tears.
"You weren't supposed to pick up on that." Boone frowned, then breathed a little laugh, and helped him to his feet.
He put him in the passenger seat, popped the trunk for the bike and drove home.
Shannon interrupted Sawyer's explanation to Joan of their time on Craphole Island in order to announce, "They're home."
She rose, crossed the room to the door and opened it, waiting.
"Oh baby," She pulled Andrew carefully into a hug. Boone shot Sawyer a look over her shoulder at the sight of Joan, still sitting at the kitchen table. Shit, she'd been there when he'd rushed out, what had she made of their strange behaviour?
Sawyer shrugged, "She knows. After what she saw, we had to tell her pretty much everythin'." He answered Boone's unspoken question, guessing that that's what the man was wondering.
Boone rolled his eyes, and groaned at the ceiling, thinking, 'Ten years, ten fucking years away from that godforsaken place, and now, now, they'd unintentionally revealed themselves to someone.' They'd chosen to inform Tom and Heather, after all, they'd been living with them so it would have been pretty hard to hide, and besides which, they were both so grounded that it really hadn't rocked their world at all. But Sabrina had remained in the dark, far too high strung to be able to deal with how much they'd been changed by their island experience. And now Joan knew. This was something he just didn't want to deal with right now, but he figured he didn't really have a choice.
He walked over to the woman. "You okay?" he asked hesitantly.
"I'm fine, I'm more than fine. I'll keep your secret for you. I can't say I won't tell my husband, but then, I know he'll take it to the grave. After hearing about the hell you people have been through, I'm not telling anyone. You can take that to the bank." She reassured him.
"You're good people, thanks." He nodded a little shyly.
"So are you," she said, simply. "Andrew, okay?" she looked to where Shannon had seated him at the table.
He shook his head, "Broken wrist I think."
"Kids heal fast." She offered. "I'd better get back out front," This was a private family matter; there was no need for her to be there. "Terry probably wants to get back to whatever it is you've got him working on. And Boone, thanks for the opportunity." She indicated the piece of paper.
He smiled and nodded, turning back to his family as she left the room.
Shannon was wiping Andrew's tears with a tissue, Sawyer standing beside her, holding a bottle of peroxide and a cloth. Given his track record, Boone kept first aid supplies in quite a few places in the house; Sawyer had probably gotten those from the downstairs powder room. Andrew had torn the knees out of both pant legs and had abrasions not just there, but on the palms of his hands as well. Boone got a towel from a drawer and a gel pack from the freezer and put them on the table beside the boy's arm. Working cautiously, he folded the child's jean jacket sleeve up and laid Andrew's wrist on the gel pack, knotting the towel around it, securing it loosely.
"You ready to go have that taken care of?" Boone asked him.
He nodded. The cold was helping to take the edge off the throbbing.
Boone grabbed his leather jacket, and his bag, stuffing a couple of bottles of water and a few more gel packs into it. Shannon offered to go instead of him, knowing how much work he had to do, but before Boone could refuse, wondering why she could possibly think that work would come before their son, Andrew spoke up, saying, no, he wanted Boone to go. He didn't say so out loud, probably not even realizing the reason for his choice, but he needed the authority figure that Boone represented to him, a feeling of security more important right then than the buddy role that Shannon filled.
Shannon's attempt to not feel slighted was helped by Sawyer's offer to stay and keep her company, a ridiculously over played dirty grin on his face.
"Pervert." She remarked, smacking him on the shoulder.
They left after Boone promised to call with updates.
He drove at a reasonable pace the 45 minutes to the hospital, it wasn't like the wrist was going to break any worse and he didn't want to jostle Andrew any more than was necessary. He turned the radio to Andrew's favourite station, and uncapped a bottle of water for them to share. Boone told a bunch of stories about Sawyer to pass the time, and give the boy something to else to think about, he'd heard most of them before, but that still didn't diminish their amusement factor.
At the hospital they sat in emergency waiting for a doctor, a clip board on Boone's knee, neatly filled out with Andrew's information, all of it recalled from Boone's memory, he was a stickler for details, and easily memorized the most important ones.
God, but he hated hospitals. Having actually died once, and almost died several times after that, albeit by his own hand a couple of those times, he'd developed a pretty healthy aversion to members of the medical practice, Jack aside, though. He kept glancing around nervously, decidedly on edge, after all one of those times had actually been in this same hospital, when he'd had that strange fever. Andrew, sensing his father's unease, had reached over across his body a few times, patting Boone's arm in comfort. The irony of the gesture wasn't lost on either one of them.
It was like fate, Boone reflected, he'd refused to come to the hospital last week for stitches when he'd gotten the glass stuck in his leg, but here he was anyway.
He called home on the pay phone in the corner. There were warnings all over the place about the use of cell phones, something about the possibility of them interfering with the delicate patient monitoring equipment. Sawyer answered on the third ring. "City Morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em."
"Ha, ha, very funny," Boone responded dryly, wondering if the guy was, like, twelve. "Shan there?"
"She's otherwise occupied right now," he answered in a mysterious tone.
Fuck, Boone so wasn't into playing games right then. "Sawyer, is Shannon there?" He asked again.
"She's pretty close, but then so am I," he groaned, as if in pleasure, typically twisting Boone's question and attributing a sexual spin to it. "Honey, stop that, it's your husband."
"Sawyer, honest to fucking god, I am so not in the mood for this! Let me speak to my god damned wife this second, or I swear I'm going to kill you!" Boone was reaching the end of his patience.
"Jesus Metro, she's in the can, hold on." Sawyer sounded annoyed.
He heard tapping on a door, a muffled exchange, then Shannon asking, "Boone?"
"He's a mad man!" Boone exclaimed.
"Who?" she asked.
"Sawyer, who the fuck else, Jesus!" he replied. He went on to give her a status update, really all they'd done was sit in the waiting area; there wasn't much to convey.
Andrew flipped through a magazine, awkwardly holding his left arm protectively against his stomach. He'd had it balanced on the arm rest, trying to hold it up a bit to minimize the throbbing, but a small, unsupervised toddler had been running like a raging wildebeest through the room and had lurched against the chair, grabbing at the arm in an attempt to stay on his feet. He'd latched onto Andrew's fingers and tugged hard on his hand, sending bolts of agony through him, and by extension, Boone too. Andrew had squealed in pain, and immediately looked like he was going to pass out, throw up, or both. Boone's head had snapped back, smashing into the pillar that was behind his chair, the force so strong that it almost caused him to black out. He'd been understandably furious, and, after assuring himself that Andrew was going to be as all right as he could be, given the circumstances, tracked down the offenders' slacker parents, berating them in a cold, calm, disgusted voice. They'd stared with wide eyes at the imperious persona Boone was projecting and corralled their rampant offspring.
Hours later, it was finally their turn, Boone followed Andrew into the curtained off area to which they'd been directed, his hand, comfortingly, on the boy's shoulder.
When the doctor finally joined them, he took the clipboard from Boone and asked Andrew a few questions. Boone figured he was just assuring himself that the boy's injuries weren't a result of child abuse. He stood beside his son quietly; trying not to look nervous, even though he had absolutely nothing to be nervous about, he was a bit jumpy by nature though, so he hoped he didn't look at all guilty. He guessed he'd passed the test, when the guy patted Andrew on the head, and told him to be more wary of cats, especially black ones crossing his path when he was riding his bike.
After x-rays confirming the break, Andrew chose the blue colour for his cast. The doctor warned him, before he straightened his wrist, that it was going to hurt. Boone instantly blocked Andrew's thoughts out of his head, picturing the scene: him lying on his back on the floor, after the jolt of pain hit him, the doctor, in amusement, asking Mr. Carlyle if he was okay to continue. He held his son's hand, flinching when Andrew whimpered, the boy's grip tightening.
After getting a card with the date and time for an appointment in the fracture clinic, and some painkillers, the exhausted pair left for home.