A/N: mein harz, mein lebn is Yiddish for "My Heart, My Life"; mein yingi is Yiddish for "My Boy"
Chapter 18
It was an oddly pleasant sensation, floating.
Not quite in contact with his own body.
Except for the cold. The freezing cold liquid running through him.
And the freezing cold liquid was bringing him awake, making him aware of other things.
For instance, he heard someone moaning.
And another thing. His shoulder was on fire and someone was twisting a knife in the middle of it. Tendrils of agony shot all the way into his hand.
He didn't really need that arm. He would just take it off. If he could just manage to find his other one…
G-d.
G-d, please.
It had to stop, but instead, it seemed to grow steadily worse. He had to get away from it, before it killed him.
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He didn't know where to look.
One son half-lay in a chair, so exhausted that despite his intentions to the contrary, he slept.
The other lay bruised and broken in a hospital bed. With his nose taped, his right arm bandaged, his left shoulder swathed in an acre of white, an IV line into each hand and his left foot sporting an ace wrap, it was hard to know for sure that he was actually in there.
He stood between them. Charlie moaned in his sleep, and Alan automatically reached a hand out to sooth him, but didn't know where to put it.
Finally he rested it on the bed's side rail. He heard himself speak, and it surprised him. There was no one to listen.
"Charlie…Charlie… mein harz, mein lebn …what have I done to you? How have I made you feel that I love or need your brother any more than I do you?"
The hand strayed out again of its own accord, found its home in the soft and familiar curls.
"Perhaps, since your mother died," he mused, "I have come to lean too heavily on Don. His strength was such a comfort…but I never meant for it to seem as if…as if…"
He smoothed his son's brow.
"It is the father's job to lead his children. Not to burden them with too much, or cripple them with too little… mein yingi, how can you not know what you are to me? That without you, even Don's strength would not be enough to cause me to draw another breath? I would not survive the loss of either of you. I could not choose between you, even when Rosa… How is it that you think I already have?"
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Don was careful not to move, not to breathe. He wanted to listen to his father's soft voice, wanted to feel the words sink in, wanted to know, the way he knew that he needed oxygen, wanted to know that he could let his guard down, just for a moment. He wanted to be the child, again. He needed to be the son.
He missed his mother so much…and he had known that it would be worse for his father, so he just did it. He applied his tough older brother, tough FBI agent persona to them. He had always protected Charlie. His mother died, and he had to protect his father as well.
Unless…listen. Hear the words. Maybe I can be the son again. Just for a moment, just until I'm not so tired…