Comfort was out of the question. At this point, he would settle for a tolerable pain level, but that seemed too much to hope for as well. Knowing that he had only himself to blame for the current predicament did not make the situation any easier to accept. What the hell had he been thinking?

"Imbecile." He continued to mutter to himself as he shifted for what felt like the 1000th time, knowing the effort was a waste of his limited energy. As was to be expected, Dr. Romero had been completely accurate in predicting the outcome of his pointless escape attempt. Setting aside the pounding headache (would that he could!), he was dealing with more aches and pains that he could have imagined. There was scarcely a spot on him that wasn't taking exception with the slightest change in activity. His right leg was wrapped in layers of support bandaging, his arm was in a sling in a useless attempt to relieve the pressure on his shoulder, and his neck was wrapped in a brace served the dual purpose of restricting movement and making it impossible to rest.

Waking in pain had been nothing compared to the shock of seeing Chris Larabee's boots propped up on the end of his bed. The man himself was slumped in a seat close enough to allow his legs to stretch to that resting place. The memory of all that had happened, from the drive to the ranch right through to the scene in the ER waiting room flooded back to him, and he quickly closed his eyes again, hoping that his conscious state had gone unnoticed. Josiah's voice coming from the other side of the room had squelched that.

"Don't worry Ezra. You don't have to talk if you don't feel up to it. We're just here in case you need anything."

"Solitude."

Chris lifted his head slowly. "Anything but that. Not giving you the chance to wander off."

"I rarely make the same error in judgement twice Mr. Larabee. I can assure you I will not be repeating last night's misadventure again." No matter how badly I want to.

He watched as Chris sized him up. "Seriously Gentlemen. I give you my word I will follow the instructions of Dr. Romero to the letter. Please, go home. Enjoy your holiday and spare me the intended lectures for some other date. I am in no position to fully appreciate the vitriol at this point."

A theoretically covert look from Josiah cut off any response. Chris looked at Ezra again, seeing the complete surrender on his face. It was something he'd never seen before, and he didn't care for it.

"You rest. We'll be back." Josiah had patted him gently on the arm before leaving, waiting at the door for Chris to follow.

Now, hours later, Ezra carefully tried to reach for his glass of water while continuing his self directed diatribe. "Of all the addle-brained, oligophrenic, cretinous, goober-brained moves you have made Standish, yesterday tops the list."

"Did I seriously just hear Ezra Standish say 'goober-brained'? Never thought I would live to see the day!"

"My deterioration in language skills clearly traces to the excessive amount of time I have spent in the company of the unschooled masses Mr. Wilmington."

"Now Ezra, you wouldn't be calling us stupid, after what you were just saying about yourself?"

Well, this was getting off to a perfect start. Ezra's defenses were up and fully engaged before the entire team had even made it through the door. Even though it was too late to be effective, Vin tried offering the more customary greeting for the day.

"Merry Christmas Ezra. Not exactly how I imagine you planned on spending the day."

"An astute observation." He had been expecting something like this, although not a full frontal attack. After the last 48 hours, the inevitability of a final confrontation was something he had resigned himself to. After being left in peace and quiet for the morning, he'd allowed for the faint hope they would grant him some time to recover from everything. He did agree with the conclusion that obviously had been reached: no time like the present.

His assumptions were confounded by the array of bags and coolers being carried into the small room. Seeing the evident confusion, Nathan offered the explanation.

"Since you can't come to Christmas dinner, we figured we'd bring it to you."

"Technically, you'd have to say this was Christmas Eve dinner," JD corrected. "But since we got a bit distracted last night…" he faded off, realizing what he was saying.

"Yes, I can see where that might have inconvenienced you all. My apologies."

"That's not what I meant Ezra."

JD's apology was cut off before it could go further. Chris wasn't putting up with this game for the day.

"OK, that's it. This all started with you drinking and feeling sorry for yourself and I want to get that crap dealt with now."

Buck had been expecting this, although not quite so fast. "Way to control your temper there Grinch."

"Ezra, you ok?" Vin's attention was riveted to Ezra, who had gone pale at Chris's words. "Ezra?"

"No. I may have been foolish when I left the offices, but I assure you Mr. Larabee, all of you, I was not been drinking before making my way to your home. The alcohol in the vehicle was intended as gift. I was not –"

"Steady Pard. Slow down. We know that. We never for a minute thought that." There was no reason for Ezra to ever know a few had had moments of suspicion.

"I heard – I remember the medics saying they could smell the wine. And that only a fool drives drunk. I assumed…" He had assumed the worst, as he was used to.

Bits of information, disjointed in his mind because of the accident, had been haunting him most of the day. He was sure his drunken encounter with the team was well before the accident, but the details of the last 48 hours were still a jumble to him.

"Even if there had been any questions from the authorities they were erased by your blood tests." Vin's words slowly sunk in, and Ezra's flash of panic began to subside. Josiah tried to finish the job.

"As for the medics, I'm guessing they were talking about the other guy, who was drunk as the proverbial skunk. The witness confirmed he ran straight through the stop sign and into your car. You have none on the blame here son. None."

Waiting a moment for the situation to settle Chris took the time to try to get his thoughts in order. He'd convinced himself he'd let Ezra have the day free of any talk about the problems they'd been dealing with, but that scene had proven to him not only that there was no point, but that it was probable that they didn't have the luxury of time on their side. Ezra was on the edge, and if he chose to jump in the wrong direction, they'd lose him.

"Since the issue of blame has been raised, there is one more thing that needs to be made crystal clear. I don't know what happened to screw up the St. Claire case, but since it seems like it needs to be put on the record, I do know that it wasn't your fault."

"Mr. –" Ezra stopped his defense before he could even start it. "It wasn't?"

JD gave the confidence boosting response. "Of course not. What idiot would say it was?"

"A good number of idiots seemed quite certain of my culpability, and all of them rank as our superiors and are in a position to act upon just such a supposition."

"So you quit to keep them from firing you? A bit counterproductive, wouldn't you say?"

"I prefer to think of it as denying them the satisfaction Mr. Jackson."

"Well," Chris's tone told them all he was taking control of the discussion back, "I prefer to make them prove their case, and since there isn't a chance in hell they could do that, I prefer it that my men don't walk out on me, or on the team."

"How can I walk out on something I am not a part of? When not wanted, I find it generally advantageous to beat a hasty retreat."

Chris's temper flared again, and this time he wasn't alone. Buck was the first to react. "What the hell do you mean not wanted? And what is with all this Mister crap again? Thought we were done with that."

Nathan took a step closer. "You really don't believe you are part of this team Ezra? That we weren't all scared shitless last night that we were going to lose you?"

This wasn't happening. Not now, and not here. Ezra couldn't believe the act he was seeing. He couldn't believe they were this good at putting on this kind of show. He'd heard them talking about him. He may have been drunk, but he'd heard them. So why were they denying it now? What possible gain was there in a charade?

He stopped himself. Those were good questions. Why would they be lying to him? The opportunity to remove him from the team had been handed to them on a silver platter, and they seemed to be turning it away. He couldn't begin to understand and looking into the faces that challenged him he couldn't come up with an answer on his own. There was only one thing left to do.

"What are you playing at? Why do you say one thing behind my back, and another to my face?"

"Ezra, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Hang on Buck." Chris didn't know how Ezra had found out about his first reactions to the St. Claire case, but somehow he had, and if that was what was causing the problems it needed to be cleared up. "I'll admit it Ezra. I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong, and the first thing that came into my head was that you had to be involved. But you have to believe me when I say it wasn't that I doubted you. An inadvertent slip, or someone in the gang recognizing you was what I was betting on. You gotta know that if I'd had doubts about you, you never would have been on the team in the first place."

Ezra slowly pushed himself to a sitting posture. "If I may be so presumptuous as to quote Mr. Wilmington – what the hell are you talking about?"

"My reaction when the case went bad. I said stupid things because I was pissed off. What are you talking about?"

"The evening you gentlemen determined my residence was suitable for a Boy Scout jubilee and turned it into an overnight campout. Operating on the assumption I was too far gone to comprehend the discussion you proceed to make it perfectly clear I did not fit into your circle. I believe the term you used repeatedly was misfit."

"I can assure you Ezra no such discussion took place." Josiah couldn't begin to imagine where this was coming from.

Vin was about to add his own objection when laughter from the corner silenced everyone. JD was chuckling softly, trying with no success to rein it in. "I'm sorry Ezra. Really I am. I'm not laughing at you, or at this. I mean, what you're saying is just nuts. But I get it. I really do." He looked at the killer glares aimed his way and quickly sobered. "Ezra, can I ask you something? I know how stupid this is going to sound, but by any remote chance, were any of us singing?"

Chris threw his hands in the air. It was bad enough to have one agent in his command who apparently had gone of the deep end, but to watch JD jumping in after him was more than he could handle. It just got worse when Josiah chuckled as well.

"Of course. Well done JD. Well Ezra?"

Perhaps being asked to leave this group wasn't the worst thing in the world, since they had obviously lost touch with reality. "I do believe I would recall an orchestral accompaniment."

"Nothing that fancy Ez. More like this." He began humming, and as the light went on for the others, Buck and Josiah joined in. Ezra stared at them all while feeling around with his left hand for the button to page the nurse. He had just found it when the familiarity of the chorus struck him.

"What, pray tell, are you gentlemen doing?"

"It's the Misfit song from Rudolph Ezra. That's what we were watching. That's what you heard."

"Rudolph? Precisely who is Rudolph?"

JD took the song cue and started at the beginning of the song, but Chris quickly cut that off. "The kid's Christmas show Ezra. The song was from that."

"I am supposed to believe that you men were sitting watching a children's show about singing misfits?"

That stopped them all. "You can't be telling us you don't know Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer Ezra?" Even with his own less than typical childhood, Vin had always had his favourite Christmas shows and movies to look forward to each year, harbouring a particular fondness for Charlie Brown.

"It's one of the classics Ezra. Like Grinch, or Scrooge."

"Miracle on 34th Street? Wonderful Life?" Nathan added to JD's list.

Every new title brought an equally confused stare. Yes, he'd heard of these titles, these characters. But the notion that he was to believe that was how six ATF agents had spent their evening was beyond ludicrous.

"You all expect me to accept a scenario that has you watching children's Christmas nonsense rather than –" he paused, uncertain how to end the thought.

Buck finished it for him. "Rather than believe we were all sitting around ridiculing a member of our team who was obviously hurting and needed us there, whether he liked that fact of not? Yeah. That is exactly what we expect you to believe. Because that was what was happening."

"Evidently, you assume that simply because there had been a mild head injury, I am now gullible enough to believe even this most preposterous of explanations."

Deciding this had gone on long enough, Chris stepped as close to the bed as he dared, staying far enough back to resist the temptation to reach out and strangle the man. "Listen Ezra, because I am only going to say this once. No, we were not trashing you behind your back, or to your face. And I can guaran-damn-tee you that if we had, we wouldn't have been singing. Yes, we have issues that need to be worked out here. And all of us take on some of the blame for that. All – including you, but not just you. But here is the main headline Ezra. We – each and every one of us want you on this team. It wasn't easy for me to find a damn good operative who also happens to be crazy enough to fit in – and I choose those words deliberately – with this band of reprobates. Now that I did, you ain't walking away." He paused long enough to take a deep breath. "OK. That's it. You can join us for some lunch here or sit quietly and mull all of this over, but we are not leaving until we are satisfied you are on board." He turned away. "Buck, fix me a damn sandwich."

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc