Not long after falling asleep on the couch, Clay had a familiar dream, or rather a nightmare. It was just like the one he experienced in SERE training where his father was trying to drown him. Except this time every time he broke free from his father's tight grasp and swam to the surface, he was met by Stella or someone from Bravo team.
The first time he reached the surface and was met by Stella. She had tears in her eyes as she was breaking up with him. As he went to speak his father grabbed ahold of him and pulled him back under the water, where he once again struggled to break free to try to get back to Stella, except this time when he got to the surface he was met by Ray who was questioning his loyalty to the team and yelling at him for breaking the rules. Once again, as he went to speak his father pulled him back under. This time though he couldn't break free. His father had too tight of a hold on him, continuously telling him how Clay will never be better than he was, that he's just like him and he can't have both a family and be on the teams. He had to choose which one he would rather have.
Finally, right as he felt like he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, he woke up. He was freezing cold and trying to catch his breath. He hesitantly stood up and walked to the bathroom. Leaning on the sink, he just stared at himself in the mirror. For the first time in his life he didn't recognize the reflection staring back at him. He hated what he was looking at and couldn't figure where his life went so wrong for him to feel like this.
After a minute or two of staring at this 'stranger' in the mirror, he lifted his right hand and landed a punch right smack in the middle if the mirror. Broken glass fell all over the bathroom, small pieces getting caught in the cuts that formed on his knuckles.
He took a few steps back and once his back finally hit the wall, he slid down to a sitting position. He threw his head back against the wall and starting crying. He felt like everyone he at some point cared about was turning their backs on him and he had no idea how to stop it.
He took a look at his hand and through the tears, immediately noticed the bloody and bruised knuckles, with small pieces of glass stuck in the cuts. It hurt like a bitch but he did his best to get all the glass out. Once he was confident he got most of the glass out, he grabbed a hand towel and wrapped it around his hand to try to stop the bleeding. He pulled his knees close to his chest, rested his arms on top and then laid his head down on his arms, where he then cried himself to sleep.
Around 7:30 am he heard a loud banging on his door.. He reluctantly opened his eyes and noticed he was still sitting on his bathroom floor. He sat there for a minute or two, looking around at the broken glass and dried blood that was all over the floor and hoped whoever was at his door would just leave.
"Come on pretty boy. I know you're in there!" Sonny yelled through the door as he continued pounding on the door. "Don't make me a knock a hole through this door, cause you know I will."
Clay rolled his eyes. "Dammit Sonny." He mumbled under his breath. He slowly got up, walked over towards the door and unlocked it. "What do you want Sonny?" He asked as he cracked the door open and poked his head out of the door.
Sonny was a bit taken aback. The kid looked like he hasn't slept in days. He looked Clay dead in the eyes and then pushed his door open and walked right in.
"What the hell are you doing Sonny!? You don't just walk into someone's place." Clay yelled out to him.
"What the hell am I doing!? You should be asking yourself that question! Look at you, you look like shit. When's the last time you slept? And what's up with the hand?" He asked as he pointed to the bloody towel wrapped around his hand.
"Well I was sleeping before someone came pounding on my door and the hands nothing, just a little cut." Clay answered defensively.
"Yeah, ok." Sonny said sarcastically then headed to the bathroom to get stuff to clean Clay's hand. He was not expecting to find broken glass and blood all over the floor. "Dammit kid." He whispered to himself. The concern in his stomach began to grow. He carefully stepped around the broken glass, grabbed what he needed and headed back out to Clay's living room where he found Clay sitting on the couch staring blankly at the wall.
"You want to tell me why it looks like world war three occurred in your bathroom?" Sonny asked carefully as he sat down next to Clay and tried to grab his arm so that he could clean his hand. Clay just pulled it in closer, not waning it to be messed with.
"Slipped getting out of the shower." Was all Clay said. He wouldn't even make eye contact.
"Come on man. Don't lie to me. What's going on with you? Why'd you kill the mirror? Is this all still because of Stella, or Mexico or…"
"Don't!" Clay warned. "It's not. And why are you here anyway?"
"We were supposed to go running this morning, like we do every Sunday morning when were home. You didn't show up, so I tried calling you multiple times. Your phone went straight to voicemail. So I came to make sure you were ok, which clearly, you ain't." Sonny answered. "Now will you please let me take a look at your hand and clean it properly, cause I'm sure you didn't bother cleaning it out."
Clay looked over at Sonny with a slightly confused, slightly annoyed face. "Why are you doing this?"
Sonny was a bit surprised by the question. 'Why wouldn't I being doing this?' Sonny thought and felt like saying, but Clay was in a fragile place so he had to choose his words carefully. "I'm worried about you kid, now please just let me clean your hand."
Clay reluctantly took the towel off his hand and gave it to Sonny. "Jesus Clay. You should really get that checked out." Sonny said as he started cleaning out the cuts. It hurt like hell but Clay let him finish.
"It looks worse than it feels. It'll heal up in a couple of days." Clay said, afraid Sonny might force him to get it checked out.
"It better. We only got a few more days off before we have to report back. If that hand ain't better, I'm dragging you to the hospital myself."
Clay just looked at Sonny. He didn't know what to make out of Sonny's threat so he didn't say anything.
Sonny walked over to the chair where Clay had hung his jacket and picked it up. "Here. Put this on. We're going to get breakfast. You need to eat something and you clearly have nothing here." Clay reluctantly grabbed his jacket and put it on. He wasn't hungry at all. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew the only way to get rid of Sonny was to join him for breakfast.
Sonny couldn't help but notice the way Clay walked to the car. He had his head down, hands in his pockets and didn't say a word. It wasn't his normal, cocky, 'walk with his head held high' walk. The kid looked defeated and he was determined to figure out what had him so down.
"Where you wanna go?" Sonny asked as they entered his truck, attempting to engage Clay in any sort of conversation.
Clay just shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care. Whatever you want."
"Clay. Just pick somewhere. Please." Sonny was almost begging.
"Fine. The diner down the street sounds good."
"See now that wasn't so hard now was it?" Sonny smiled hoping to get one in return. He didn't.
As they sat down in the diner and looked over the menus, Sonny looked up at Clay. He was staring blankly at the menu. "You know what you're gonna get yet?" Sonny asked.
Clay snapped out of his thoughts and answered "Yeah, just eggs and toast, what about you?"
"Since when do you only get just eggs and toast?" Sonny wanted to know.
"Clay shrugged. "I'm just not that hungry ok?
Sonny threw his hands up in surrender. "Come on Clay. You have to eat. At least order more and take the rest home for later. It's all on me." Sonny's concern was growing.
Clay agreed only to get Sonny off his back.
After they ordered, they sat there in silence for a couple minutes. Clay sat with his arms in his lap, staring out the window while Sonny tried to figure out how to get Clay to open up to him without freaking out.
"Sooo, you want to tell me what's on your mind?" Sonny finally broke the silence.
Clay looked over at him. "Not really. Honestly, I just want to go back to bed." His voice was weak.
Sonny nodded. He has definitely battled his fair share of demons himself to know when to give it a rest. He backed off the topic for now, but he was nowhere near letting Clay fight this battle alone.
Once their food came, Sonny watched Clay pick at his food, occasionally taking a bite and then returning to pushing the eggs around on his plate. After he noticed Clay starting to fight sleep at the table, he decided it was time to get some boxes and take Clay back home.
Clay's eyes shut almost immediately after they got back to Sonny's truck. Sonny hated waking him up when they got back to his place but he had to get him up to his bed somehow.
"Hey man. Come on. Let's get you up to your bed." Sonny said as he gently woke Clay up.
Clay slowly opened his eyes and Sonny helped him back up to his apartment. He unlocked the door and walked Clay straight to his bedroom.
After getting him settled in his bed, Sonny stood there and watched for a couple of minutes, until he was absolutely positive Clay was asleep. Once he was sure, he headed to the living room sat down on the couch and called Jason.
"Hey boss." Sonny said into the phone after Jason picked up.
"Sonny, what's up?" Jason asked a little concerned.
"Yeah, uh. I'm over at Clay's. We have a little situation over here…"