After the highlights of the story had been recounted there had been slappings on the back and handshakes all around. The members of the rescue team had largely been too tired to do much, but the rest seemed insistent on congratulating them. Race had had his hand clasped no fewer than half a dozen times before he had finished making his way the short distance over to Spot.

Brooklyn's leader was standing a little apart from the rest with his boys. Cannon was muttering to him, presumably giving him a run-down of what was happening at the moment.

Spot tilted his head a little at the sound, Race guessed, of his approaching footsteps. "Race."

"Yeah, that's me."

"Man of the hour, huh?" Spot's voice held amusement, but no mockery.

"So they'se tellin' me. And Skitts, and Blink, and...the whole lot of them. Marched right in there, big as anything, and marched right back out again." He felt his chest swell with pride, not for himself but for all of them, Cowboy for facing down a dragon, them for retrieving Jack like that, and losing no one in the process. "And you, too. Only, an' I feel it's my solemn duty to inform you of this, ain't nobody gonna shake hands with you."

"Oh yeah? And why is that?"

"'Cause you'se a scary son of a bitch, that's why."

That surprised a laugh out of Spot. "But not to you."

"Nah, not to me. I'll shakes hands with ya." He reached out and tapped Spot's fingers, wrapped around the brass knob of the cane.

Spot hesitated. "I didn't go out there with yous."

"We wouldn't have been out there without you. We'd still be standing here arguing our fool heads off about it. So c'mon, give."

Spot exhaled slowly, then transferred his cane to his other hand and held out his right. Race grabbed it and shook it heartily.

If he hadn't been so practiced at watching faces, he might not have caught the way Spot's expression started to soften ever so slightly, and how, when Spot tried to harden it again, it didn't quite seem to want to go. Race would bet a year's worth of sold papes that Spot hadn't had simple friendly contact like this in a long time, when there was something to be elated about and appearances didn't need to be kept up, even if just for a moment. Even Jack's welcoming handshake yesterday—had it only been yesterday?—genuine as it had been, had been between leaders.

Race let him go before Spot could grow uncomfortable, and turned to Garrs, who was slumped on the floor near them, thirstily gulping water from a tin cup. "And I'll shakes hands with you, too," Race said, making good on it and holding out his hand. "You was all right out there. Ain't nobody could have swung that axe like you did to get Jack out."

Garrs looked up, startled, then he rose to his feet and returned the clasp. "He saved us all this mornin'. Glad you got your boy back," he said gruffly.

"Jacky-boy really all right?" Spot said.

"We'se still checking him out. Why don't you come se—come talk to him yourself?"

Spot shook his head. "I hears he's got more nurses around him right now than a convent. I'll be there later."

"Sure." As Race took his leave, he could see in his peripheral vision first one boy, then more, lining up to offer their hands to Garrs. A few brave ones even shook hands with Spot. Race hid a grin.

Spot's decision to wait before coming over had been a wise one. As Race stepped over to where Jack lay, the immediate area was a bustle of activity. Bumlets, Boots, and Snitch were bending over Jack. Specs and Dutchy, the only two who'd escaped the flurry of congratulatory handshakes, were having the rope burns and fiber-splinters on their palms and fingers tended to by Chopper and Toms. Skittery was keeping Snoddy company as the latter lay on a thick blanket, while Skittery slouched against the tunnel wall beside him, holding the Parker shotgun. The two were deep in conversation, something about the gun by the looks of it. Blink and Mush were still up and about, full of nervous energy and grinning fit to burst, but they stayed very close by.

Race took a spot on the floor next to Jack, near enough to help if needed, not near enough to get in the way if not.

David was still there, head still buried in Jack's shoulder, but he had moved, or maybe had been moved, to one side. Jack's hand was still in his hair, and weak though his grip was, he didn't look like he would be letting go anytime soon. Jack's—well, it had been Dutchy's—shirt had been unbuttoned, and his skin looked almost too pale in the relative darkness of the tunnel, despite the extra lanterns that had been brought over.

Boots had his fingers resting gingerly on the bruises on Jack's torso. "Right, 'nother breath, now. Not too deep—"

It didn't surprise Race that Jack being Jack, he tried a deep breath anyway, and had to break it off halfway, momentarily rigid with the pain.

"You'se a lousy patient, Kelly," Race chided him lightly.

"Lousy...bedside manner...Higgins."

"One more breath," Boots said.

Snitch, at a quiet word from Specs, had rolled up Jack's left sleeve and was sponging away the dried blood from the gashed elbow. He peered closely at the wound in the lantern-light. "It's tore up pretty good. Got some splinters in here, looks like."

"Yeah, well...you try crawling...through a busted table...with a damn dragon on ya."

Race held out a hand, and Bumlets passed him a pair of tweezers from their medical box. He raised the glass of the closest lantern, stuck the tweezer-tips in the flame, then shook them to cool them and started pulling splinters from Jack's elbow. He had to bend low and squint; Snitch held up the lantern so he could see better.

Dampening another cloth in a fresh basin of water, Bumlets gently reached over to David to grasp his nearest wrist. David flinched back at the contact, shooting up to a seated position and breaking Jack's tenuous hold on him.

Jack's gaze, half-lidded, snapped fully open. "What the—? Davey?"

Race abandoned the sizable splinter he'd been aiming for and cautiously withdrew the tweezers.

David shook his head. Bumlets extended a hand again. "Let me help you with that, all right?" he said soothingly, but David jerked his arm away a second time.

Jack narrowed his eyes. Despite his own weakened state, he reached out and caught David's forearm with no apparent effort. He looked at the rope burns and torn skin that circled the wrist, at the streaks of blood that had soaked into the fabric of the sleeve. He looked at David's expression, his posture, the way his body curled in on itself defensively. "Give me the other one, Dave," he said quietly.

David hesitated, then obeyed without objection. The other arm was no better.

Here we go, Race thought.

Jack turned his attention to the rest of them, still loosely gripping David's forearm, and they couldn't help but cringe a little. "What," he said, his voice flat, "happened here?"

Part of Race noted that Jack didn't seem to be gulping for air anymore. Probably because right now, he was taking very measured, deliberate breaths, waiting for their answer.

He, Blink, and Boots tried to speak at once.

"Well, it's like this—"

"We didn't know what else—"

"We didn't want to—"

"It was my decision," Spot's voice broke in, and they all turned to see him striding closer, though Garrs stopped him at the edge of the gathered group where there wasn't any further room to step. The small commotion must have caught the Brooklyn boys' attention.

"Your decision," Jack repeated. There was a shade of incredulity in his tone, and more than a shade of challenge.

Spot didn't blink. "Yeah. It'd been a couple of hours since you was gone. Every minute longer we took before sending someone out was another minute you didn't have. We had to do somethin' about him, so that we could do somethin' about you."

"We tried everything else we could think of first," Mush put in earnestly. "We tried to talk to him, we tried to keep him calm as we could, but..."

"You tied him up," Jack growled.

Were Jack not significantly injured, Race had no doubt he'd have someone's lapels clamped in his fists by now. Were it anyone else but Spot speaking, Jack probably wouldn't even be listening. As it was, it looked like even that wasn't a sure thing.

Spot's mouth tightened. "These bums had nothing to do with it. Like I said: my decision. Waiting those hours for the fire out there to die down was real hard on him. The longer we had to wait, the harder it got. One minute he'd be all right, he'd know why we couldn't go get you already, then the next minute he couldn't help it again."

"What the hell," Jack ground out. Race could see his free hand clench in fury, though the fingers of his other hand didn't so much as dent David's skin. "That don't mean you gotta—"

Spot cut him off. "Jacky. He probably woulda walked through that fire for you. You'd do it for him. You'se kidding yourself if you think he'd do any less." He paused a moment; Race watched Jack's face as that sank in, as he drew David's arm a little closer to himself. When Jack didn't interrupt, Spot went on. "By the time the fire was out, and the boys was ready to make their run outside to get you, he was shakin' all to pieces."

What Jack didn't know, and wasn't going to as far as they were concerned, was that David had taken a swing at Skittery as the latter had tried to stop him from lunging one more time towards the ventilation shaft. Of the two of them, David had looked the more shocked at his loss of control; it had made Skittery quickly forgive him, but the implications of David's action had been obvious.

"He wasn't hisself," Spot continued. "If he'd gone out like that, not thinkin' straight—"

"We couldn't let that happen," Race said. "We couldn't." He was addressinhg his words as much to David as to Jack, but David did not raise his eyes from the floor, shoulders hunching lower at each new sentence as though he wanted to shrink away. Race had the impression that he would have, if not for Jack's grip; it was in no way restrictive and he would have been let go at the slightest tug, but it might as well have been a steel band.

"We had to keep him back somehow," Spot said. "He got hurt this way, yeah. I knows it. It ain't no way to pay you back for what you done for all of us today, but he might have got hurt a lot worse if we hadn't."

Jack would not openly insult Spot or the others by asking David directly if it were true, but the question was clear enough in the look he directed at his partner. David kept his gaze on the floor; the angling of his body away from Jack was slight but definite, and the sight of it was unfamiliar to Race. Jack's fingers tightened minutely until David looked up. He stared at Jack for the space of one uneasy breath before dropping his head again, but whatever Jack had seen in those wide eyes must have convinced him, because he only bit out, "All right, Spot, I understand. You didn't have no easy choices."

"No, I didn't."

Jack was silent for a moment. Breathed in. Breathed out. "You kept him safe. I knows that." He had relaxed a bit, but his voice had lost none of its hardness. Then he turned to David, and his tone changed completely. Race had seen it happen countless times since the night of the dragons' first attack. Tension from any outside conflict was never transmitted when Jack spoke to or touched David; it was as though David existed in a bubble against which Jack's external frustrations harmlessly dissipated. "You let Bumlets take care of that for you, Dave. You'll feel better."

David wavered, flicked his eyes for a second towards Bumlets.

"Go on," Jack told him, releasing his wrist. "The sooner they start on you, the...sooner they can start...again on me."

That did it. David extended his arm towards Bumlets who, as placidly as though nothing were out of the ordinary, started to clean the abrasions. Not once did David lift his head, his shoulders remaining bowed. He did not seem to take any interest in his own injuries.

Race surreptitiously tapped Boots' shin. Thank god the kid was sharp as a tack, because he immediately piped up with, "You'se got a cracked rib or two, Jack. Maybe just bruised. Nothing's loose, anyway."

When Jack did not reply, attention still on David, Spot said, "If your ribs is busted, you'se going want to sleep sitting up for at least a week or two." He paused, then continued more quietly. "Don't wrap 'em. You got to keep breathing steady, keep your lungs clear. If you don't, pretty soon you gets sick. Then you gets sicker. It...it ain't a good way to die."

Race winced. From Spot's and Garrs' expressions, they were too familiar with this.

Jack obviously caught it as well, was pulled out of his preoccupation entirely, sympathy flashing across his face. "Thanks, Spot. And Boots. All of you." He covered his eyes for a moment, suddenly looking drained, then let his hand fall away, blinking. His voice was a little shaky. "All of you."

"It coulda gone worse," Race offered.

He and Spot slouched against the wall, keeping their voices low. Things had finally quieted down. Between the two of them, they'd seen to it that a scant morning meal had been hastily passed around and more or less consumed; that scavenging teams had been sent out, though fewer than usual, the dragon attack still fresh on everyone's minds; that other teams had gone out to search for a replacement for the destroyed carriage. The security watches had been posted. The boys still left in the tunnel were sharpening weapons or, primarily in the case of the rescue crew, resting.

"Worse, huh? You lay one finger on the M—on David, Jacky-boy flays you alive. Anybody knows that one."

Race gnawed at his bottom lip, arms crossed. "That was in the old days. He's even touchier about it now." He prodded a loose chip of gravel with the toe of his boot. "It ain't his fault, of course. Ain't Davey's fault, neither. His whole family's gone. He tried to save them, and somethin' went wrong. I don't know what it was, but whatever Davey went through, it was bad enough to stop him talking, and make Cowboy throw up these iron walls all around 'im."

Spot went very still for a heartbeat, then nodded, the gesture neutral.

Race cast a glance over to where Jack sat propped against the thick plating of the tunnel's curve, dozing restlessly. The boys had collectively managed to persuade him to accept several blankets around his shoulders to insulate him from the coldness of the metal. David sat close beside him, both wrists wrapped in clean gauze. Race noted that while David had ducked Jack's gaze earlier, now that Jack was asleep David couldn't seem to take his eyes off him.

Even in slumber, Jack kept a fistful of David's shirt-hem, the warning clear to any onlookers.

"So yeah, I understand 'em," Race continued. "But that don't always make it easy for us to know what to do about it, when they gets riled up about each other. I...I ain't always done so well with that, myself."

"I figured it was somethin' like that." Spot absently tapped the tip of the cane against the brick floor, almost soundlessly. "I said at the time I'd take full responsibility..."

"Yeah, you did. Ain't none of us had the guts to make that call about what to do with Davey, but you did."

Spot's mouth twisted with something that wasn't quite humor. "That's me, the scary son of a bitch."

Race jabbed him with an elbow—very gently, because he liked having all his teeth and wanted to keep them. "You havin' the guts was a compliment, you dope."

Spot merely lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. But at least he didn't say anything.