TITLE: The Quality of Darkness
SPOILERS: Anything from the series is fair game.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Drake & Josh. All are owned by Dan Schneider, et al. I am not profiting in any way except creatively.

A/N: I know it's taken me a long time to post a new chapter, but I warned you that real life has been hectic for me! Thanks for being patient; I hope it was worth the wait.

A/N 2: I've taken a few liberties with some family/personal histories here as well; I hope they seem plausible.

Chapter 7: Aftershocks

She's been here before – this place of profound stillness; this place where she feels like if she moves too fast, the atmosphere around her will shatter into a million tiny shards.

She's thinking about her husband. Not Walter – sweet, gentle Walter – who saved her from the self-imposed prison she hadn't even known she was trapped in until he showed her that he had the key. No, her thoughts are crowded with memories of her first husband, Jason. She's thinking about the way he made her laugh like no one else, how she loved to just sit next to him and snake her fingers through his dark hair.

She's thinking about how much their son is like him in so many ways.

Drake was six years old the first time she saw him eat Chinese food with just one chopstick, gripping it in his small fingers and using it to stab his fried dumplings. She had asked the waitress to bring a fork, but Drake refused to use it, saying simply, "This is how Daddy did it." She had just stared at him, tears making his face swim before her; she didn't realize that he had remembered such a small detail about his father after so much time.

Jason Parker was so beautiful – dark eyes so full of life, a wide smile that would squeeze those eyes almost shut when it was at its fullest. He had swept her off her feet when she was twenty years old. He was twenty-three with wavy hair and a 1965 red Ford Mustang convertible that she used to joke he loved more than her. They used to drive fast down the interstate with the top down, listening to Pink Floyd and Frank Sinatra, her bare feet on the dash and his arm around her shoulders.

They married when they had nothing but each other, lived in a tiny apartment in Pasadena that didn't have air conditioning. Some nights it was so stifling, even with the windows open, that they sometimes slept in the Mustang with the top down.

Drake was conceived in that car, she remembers, and the memory makes her smile despite everything. She was terrified when she learned she was pregnant, but when she told Jason, he just laughed. He loved the idea of being a father. He used to sing to her belly all his favorite songs. He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but to her ears, it was the sweetest sound in the world.

To this day, she's convinced that's the reason why Drake became a musician.

She lost Jason in a hospital much like this one. Car accident. The cherry red Mustang with the trunkful of memories was nothing more than a twisted heap of metal after the collision. Semi tractor-trailer full of cargo; driver asleep at the wheel. Three lives changed in a split second.

Brain dead – that's what they told her. No hope for recovery. Would she consider organ donation? In the end, that's what happened. A young man with a congenital heart defect received Jason's heart. Another young man received his corneas. One of his kidneys went to a young woman in Texas.

She remembers sitting in a chair much like the one she's in now: worn with frayed upholstery and a tuft of protruding stuffing; armrests made of wood and shiny in spots where innumerable hands have absently rubbed in anticipation of news, any news, about a loved one. She was alone except for Megan, who wasn't Megan yet, really; more like an idea of Megan that she shielded with her hands as she tried to imagine a life without Jason.

There was nothing left to do but what needed to be done, so she signed the papers to end the life support, signed more to authorize the organ donations. She told him about Megan and then they took him away. But he was already gone, she knew. That life that had been Jason was already gone.

But it lived on in his son, who's grown to resemble him more with each passing year. Drake was four when his father died; he has memories of him, but they're few. When he was little, she used to tell him stories about his dad, but he has no need for them anymore.

Even now, after nearly fourteen years, Drake will laugh and it will be such a familiar sound that she almost calls him Jason. But Drake hasn't laughed, really laughed, in a very long time. The realization grips her, strangling her breath.

"He's a strong kid, Aud. He'll be alright."

Jason's voice is as clear as if he was sitting right next to her. He used to say that to her when Drake was sick and she would walk the floors with worry. It always turned out to be true. She wants to believe it will be true now, needs to believe it will be.

Her son tried to kill himself. She can't seem to get past it. She still hasn't really accepted it. Not her son. Never her son. Her son loves life. Her son is happy. Her son has everything to live for.

Lies, obviously. All lies.

There must've been signs. Why didn't she see them? He was a part of her; how could she have missed them? She's his mother. She's supposed to know him better than anyone.

She realizes that she doesn't know him at all.

Words. So many words. Big words. Small words. Words of comfort. Words of caution. Words of sympathy. All of them meaningless, none of them as loud as the unspoken words of her son. The ones he didn't say. The ones he couldn't say. The ones that would have explained the pain that eventually drove him to decide that death was better than life.

He's asleep; has been since she arrived in a frenzied panic at the hospital all those incalculable hours ago. Feels like a lifetime. She doesn't know – no one does – that he's already opened his eyes once and found the experience traumatic. Phrases like "possible brain damage" and "catastrophic blood loss" scrape across her mind like desiccated leaves.

"Too soon to tell," the doctor says mildly when Audrey asks him if her son is going to be alright. "We're monitoring him."

Good luck with that, she wants say, the bitter words poised on the tip of her tongue. I've done that his entire life. Look where it got him.

She can't cry. Not anymore. There are no more tears left. She stares dry-eyed at the collection of empty cups that once held vending machine coffee weak enough to rival dishwater. They're spread out on the table in front of her, scattered among back issues of Vogue and National Geographic. Some of them are stacked like a pyramid at the other end of the table. Josh did that, she remembers. He stacked them and knocked them down, over and over again, until Walter finally gave him the keys to the Explorer and told him to go home.

Walter is wandering somewhere, testing his personal theory about the speed at which bad news travels. He has this idea that if he keeps moving, then the bad stuff won't be able to catch up to him. That if he can hide from the worst, then the worst won't happen.

She prefers to face it head-on, whatever it is.

Even if 'whatever' turns out to be the worst 'whatever' there is.

His forecast called for rain. Walter is standing in the solarium – a fairly new addition to the hospital, a gift from a rich benefactor – looking at the sky through the glass ceiling. Cumulo-nimbus clouds darken the sky and Walter almost laughs out loud at the fact that, for once, he's going to be right about the weather.

The bleak weather seems fitting. It's dreary inside – inside the hospital, inside his head, inside his heart – why shouldn't it be dreary outside as well?

Walter heaves a heavy sigh, the exhalation shaky. His eyelids feel like sandpaper against his eyes and if he didn't know any better, he could swear that the force of gravity is double what it was yesterday – his limbs feel too heavy.

He looks around; he's alone in the room. He's not surprised, really. There's not a whole lot that's more depressing than a sun room without sun. Worn-but-comfortable chairs and tables peppered with out-of-date periodicals are scattered throughout the room. Potted plants in big cement planters divide the room in half and line the floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side.

It's quiet; it feels like the rest of the hospital is far removed from this place. Walter thinks that maybe that was how it was intended – a place of peace in an otherwise chaotic and unpredictable environment. But he doesn't feel at peace. In fact, he feels jumbled and unsettled. His mind can't rest, it just keeps racing like mice injected with speed and released into a maze, searching for the way out.

Except it's a trick; there is no way out.

The rain has started and Walter walks over to the glass and looks out. They drove into the rain last night, just outside San Diego. He had been pushing the speed limit, then past it the closer they got to home. When he closes his eyes, he can still hear the steady whoosh of the wiper blades against the windshield. It seemed louder than usual since it was the only sound inside the car. Neither of them had spoken, fear and anxiety stealing their voices.

He keeps replaying it in his head – the moment the world caved in around them.

When he hangs up with Josh – actually, Josh hung up on him – he immediately tries to call back. When Drake's voicemail picks up without even ringing, he ends the call; he knows Josh has turned off the phone. He stands staring at the phone in his hand, trying to assimilate what Josh has just told him, his brain resisting comprehension.

"Drake tried to kill himself." He says the words out loud, trying them on for size, surprised that he can say them without effort. "Drake tried to kill himself."

He keeps saying them, over and over, until the wall that is blocking their meaning is finally breached. Then the shaking starts, deep inside his chest. He has to remind himself to breathe. He looks around their hotel suite – plush carpet, a hot tub, and a gorgeous view of the bay – and doesn't see any of it.

It's Audrey's voice calling his name that brings him back. She has just come out of the shower and she's wrapped in a fluffy white robe with the hotel logo embroidered on it, using a towel on her wet hair. She is as he likes her best – without makeup and smiling. But when she sees the look on his face and his fingers wrapped around his phone in a vise grip, her smile melts away.

"What is it?" she asks. She stops drying her hair, her arms falling to her sides, the towel dangling from her right hand.

He opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out, so he closes it again. He feels a little like a fish out of water, like he's drowning on dry land.

"Walter," she says, taking a step towards him. Her eyes are wild and he can see that she's afraid to ask, to put a voice to the one thing that has been eating at her since they pulled out of their driveway several hours before.

She is worried about Drake – he hadn't been feeling well in the last week and despite the fact that Walter had been convinced the boy was faking, he couldn't convince his wife. She knows something is wrong with her baby and the look in Walter's eyes confirms that she's right.

Except that it's much worse than she even imagined.

When he tells her, all she can say is, "No." She fumbles for the bed, settles onto it, the fingers of her left hand gripping the coverlet tightly. She stares out the sliding glass doors, into the night sky that hangs over the dark bay below, which is speckled with the lights of pleasure boats and cargo ships.

Finally, in a voice in search of hope, she says, "'Tried'. He said 'tried', right?" She looks over at her husband, who hasn't moved, can't. He can see the tears welling in her eyes and blinks back his own. "That means he didn't… That he's not…" But she can't say it.

But Walter knows what she means. It's the same lifeline that's keeping him tethered as well.

It means he's not dead.

His heart broke again when he saw Josh – the cracks in his son's foundation were plainly visible in his light brown eyes and he was on the verge of collapse when he and Audrey arrived. He wouldn't tell them what happened, kept the knowledge secreted away in that place inside of him where he keeps all his pain. The doctor told them the facts in that sterile, detached way that's supposed to lessen the sting but doesn't.

Walter is well aware of Josh's fear of hospitals, knows the reasons behind that fear. Walter, single father, had suffered a heart attack when Josh was ten years old, collapsing on the kitchen floor while he was making dinner for the two of them. The boy who had never had a mother had been terrified that he'd lose his father, too, as he sat alone for hours in the hospital waiting room until his grandmother had finally arrived to be with him. Josh was nearly a man now, but that frightened little boy was who Walter had seen peering out of Josh's eyes when they had found him in the waiting area outside the ICU.

The glass in front of him is fogged up from his breath and he reaches up and wipes it away. He's not sure how long he's been standing there, but it's gotten dark. And it's still raining; the outside lights have halos around them.

He knows he can't stay here – guilt is already starting to gnaw at the back of his mind. It's not fair that he's found a retreat from the raw horror of the real world while his wife is in the heart of it, all alone. Except that even six floors down, surrounded by glass and plants and an immense room that's designed to be full of light, he still feels it – the oppressive sensation of helplessness.

He can't change a thing – he can't take that blade out of Drake's hands; he can't hide the pills the ER doctors pumped from Drake's stomach; he can't take the anguish from his wife's eyes or the emptiness from Josh's; he can't outrun the grief that has spread throughout his body like a cancer and settled in his bones.

All he can do is wait.

The pavement's still wet when Josh turns down his street, puddles gathered along the curbs like rubberneckers behind police barricades. Rainfall is threatening again, but for the moment, the setting sun peeks out from behind the clouds, casting elongated shadows across the street's surface. A rosy glow softens the sharp edges of the houses along the block.

Josh's heart is racing when he pulls into the driveway, nudging the big SUV behind his and Drake's Accord. Turning off the engine, he stares through the windshield at the quiet house. It's hard to believe, looking at it now, that less than 24 hours ago, his brother nearly died inside of it. It looks so ordinary.

He heads towards the house as the first drops of rain begin to fall – softly at first, falling with muted sounds as if they know that Josh prefers the quiet. He steps onto the porch and slides his key in the door, finding that the door is unlocked. He hadn't stopped to lock it on his way out of the house last night.

His head is throbbing with fatigue – a dull ache that has taken up residence behind his eyes. Walking into the living room, he drops his keys on the coffee table and sinks into the couch with a sigh, resting his head along the back and closing his eyes. He hadn't wanted to leave the hospital – what if Drake wakes up? – but once he was outside in the parking lot, he couldn't wait to get as far from there as possible.

Nothing good in his life has ever happened in a hospital, including his birth, when his mother died bringing him into the world. Things like that weren't supposed to happen in the 20th century; women didn't die in childbirth. But his had, setting a precedent for events to come.

Her name was Rebecca Watson Nichols. She had black hair and green eyes and small, even teeth that peeked out through full lips when she smiled – Walter had shown him pictures of her. She had an infectious laugh, his dad told him, and a sharp sense of humor. And she loved him, Walter had assured him, even before he was born. Joshua had been her choice for a name; Walter, in all his masculine pride, had wanted to name their son Walter, Jr.

Josh loved his name; he thought of it as a gift from his mother.

"Goodbye, Josh."

He's almost asleep when he hears those words, clear as day, in his brother's voice. He sits up and looks around towards the front door, expecting to see Drake standing there. He isn't, of course. But then it hits him – Drake said those words to him last night, as Josh was leaving for his date. And it had been bothering him ever since, though he couldn't put his finger on it until now.

Goodbye. Not 'bye' or 'see ya' or 'later' or any other variation of the expression, but goodbye. Josh can't remember Drake ever saying that before; it's much too formal a word, much too final.

But, looking back now, Josh realizes that final is what Drake was going for.

He can see his brother standing there in the doorway that leads to the stairs, can see the crooked smile and the dark circles under his eyes, the slight tilt of his head and the way his hair nearly falls into his eyes. He can see his unusually roomy jeans and the brown long-sleeve t-shirt with the stylized peace sign across the chest. And it suddenly occurs to him that those clothes are still where Drake left them, stacked neatly on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom.

Josh stands suddenly, the sudden movement making him light-headed. He pauses a moment, breathing in slowly, until his vision stabilizes. He hasn't had anything but coffee in the last several hours and his stomach grumbles rebelliously, but he can't think about that now. All he knows is that he can't leave things the way they are; he can't let his parents find the evidence. He didn't tell them about what happened, about the details – not because he couldn't find the words, but because he couldn't be the one to put that indelible picture into their heads.

So he heads for the stairs, climbing them with effort, his hand sliding along the rail for balance. When he reaches the top of the stairs he sees that the bathroom light is still on, bathing the hallway in warm yellow light. The door isn't closed, of course. Not anymore. Josh has already opened it and found all the terrible things that were hiding behind it.

He stands in the open doorway. The stillness is what strikes him the most. Everything is just as it was – the bath mat lies in a twisted heap on the floor; the shower curtain hangs half in, half out of the bathtub; Drake's clothes lie in a neat stack on the toilet; the towels Josh used to bandage his brother's wrists are where the EMTs left them when they tore them away to assess the damage – snaked along the seam where the wall meets the floor. Streaks of dried blood stand out against the light green terrycloth. There's not a lot of blood, he sees, and the truth of what that means slices through him.

He doesn't touch any of it, just stares at it, detached, as if he is looking at the set of some macabre play. Snatches of memory flash across his mind – the shower running and how empty it sounded; the water dripping from the edge of the mirror; the way his brother's dark lashes stood out against his cheeks; the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears.

He begins peeling off his own clothes before he even knows he's doing it, dropping them carelessly on the floor around him. The itchy feeling he gets when he's been wearing the same clothes for too long becomes more acute and he hurries, tearing at his clothes like they're on fire. When he's done, he stands there among the detritus of a nightmare, his breaths crowding against each other. Finally, he walks to the shower and turns it on, closing his eyes against the sound, trying to forget the last time he heard it.

But he doesn't want to forget, knows he couldn't anyway even if he tried. What he wants is to understand, to know what it was like to be inside Drake's head in the moments before he plunged that blade into his arm, before he watched his life slowly slithering away.

He steps into the shower and pulls the curtain closed behind him. The water is hot, hotter than he likes it, and he automatically reaches down to adjust it, then stops. This is how hot the water was when Drake stood in that exact spot the previous night. If Drake could stand it, so can he. He steps further into the stream, until the water hits the top of his head and cascades down his face.

He has so many questions for his brother. How long did you stand here before you settled down to die? Did you agonize over it or were you at peace? Were you scared?

Closing his eyes, he leans his hands against the side of the shower and lets his head dangle between his arms. The hot water runs off his shoulders and down his neck, falling in a thin stream from his nose. A hard sound snaps him out of his reverie. He's heard it before and knows what it is. When he opens his eyes, he sees it, right where it had come to rest.

The utility knife is bouncing against the bottom of the tub as the swirling water pushes it around the drain.

Josh bends to pick it up, holding it in his left hand. He hefts it; it feels solid and heavy and dangerous. The blade is pushed all the way out and Josh slides it back in, then out again, repeating the motion several times, mesmerized by how easily the slider moves under his thumb.

Did you do it standing up? he asks. No, he answers. You would've needed more leverage. You were sitting when you did it.

So Josh sits, easing himself down into the corner of the tub where he found Drake, grimacing as he does so. When he draws his knees up, he finally sees just how badly he banged his right knee. It's bruised and slightly swollen, purplish-black in color.

Transferring the knife to his right hand, he rests the back of his left wrist on his left knee and studies it. He can see his veins clearly, prominent against the thin skin. Incongruously, he remembers reading somewhere that veins look blue because the skin filters out the red component of reflected light. He can actually see his pulse beat, strong and steady.

He slides out the blade and brings it to his wrist, pressing the edge to his skin, feeling the pressure. His hands are shaking, but he ignores them. Did it hurt? he wonders. Or was it more like euphoria?

He presses harder, until a pinprick of blood appears, which is quickly washed away. The pain is sharp, but lasts for just a second. He does it again, pulling the blade down a few millimeters, then a few more. Dark red blood oozes out and runs down his arm and he watches it passively as it gets washed away, pulled by the flow of water towards the drain.

How long did it take until the water ran clear? Were you awake for all of it or did your brain mercifully pull you into unconsciousness before it stopped?

So many questions.

He goes to pull at the knife again, then stops. He's hiccupping, his breath catching raggedly in his throat. He's been crying and hadn't even noticed. He drops the knife like it's suddenly hot and follows it with his eyes as it slides to the end of the tub.

Did you cry? Or were you just glad that it would all finally be over? He presses his hands to his eyes and concentrates on his breathing. He'll never understand. Not ever. Even if Drake described to him every last excruciating detail, he'll never understand.

Because he doesn't know what it's like to want to die.

Her call had come as Josh was standing in his and Drake's bedroom, contemplating the orderliness of his brother's side – another unspoken message from Drake, no doubt, about the finality of his intentions. Megan had sounded annoyed as she said, "Where have you boobs been? I've been calling all day." He silently endured her special brand of sarcasm and had agreed without comment to her demand that he bring her iPod to her. His acquiescence had taken her aback; she had been prepared, as usual, to resort to blackmail if necessary.

They're currently sitting along the curb in front of Katie Stinson's house, where Megan was spending the weekend. Her eyes are as big as he's ever seen them, like they can't get enough light to focus. She's sitting across the console from him, nestled in the passenger's seat of the Explorer. The SUV had been her first clue that something was amiss; it was supposed to be in San Francisco.

"When?" she finally asks, looking over at him.

"Last night," he answers her. He glances out the passenger window towards the Stinson home, a pang of envy coursing through him at the sight of the warmly lit windows. Their lives are still intact.

She looks down at her hands, which are folded, palms up, on her lap. "Last night," she repeats. "That was a long time ago." The implication is crystal clear – why wasn't she told sooner?

Josh doesn't know what to say to that, says simply, "I'm sorry."

But she's shaking her head fiercely. "I hate him," she whispers angrily.

"Don't say that."

"I do. I hope he dies." But the tears that come, suddenly and violently, tell a different story.

Josh reaches out a hand to her, but she pulls away, out of reach. She presses herself against the door, sobbing. He pulls his hand back and turns to stare out the windshield. She doesn't want comfort; she wants to feel it. She wants to hold this new reality in her hands and shape it into something less terrifying.

Her tears subside after a few minutes and he can see her wipe at her eyes. He turns his head to look at her – she's staring out the passenger window and he can hear her breath hitching in her throat. "Megs," he ventures.

"I didn't mean it," she says softly.

Josh nods. "I know."

Another silent moment passes until all that can be heard inside the vehicle is the sound of their breathing. He's staring out the windshield again when he hears her shift beside him. He can feel her eyes on him, those wide eyes hungry for light.

Her question, one word spoken in a tremulous voice, makes him cringe; it's the one thing he wants to know more than anything.

"Why?"

He closes his eyes, gripping the steering wheel tightly. He doesn't have the answer.

It's dark outside, he notices, as his eyes seek the window. And it's raining, the water drops on the glass giving the outside lights a kaleidoscope effect. He doesn't know what time it is, but the dim lights inside the room tell him it's late. And he's alone, for which he's grateful.

He's lying on his left side; he's been awake for a while. He looks at his hands, which are lying on the bed in front of him, just below the pillow. The heart rate monitor covers the tip of his left middle finger, the wire snaking along the back of his hand and up his arm. His fingers are cold and he flexes them, wincing at the tugging pain that barks back from his battered wrists. The sensation almost makes him laugh – now it hurts, he thinks. Now, after the fact. When all he wanted was to stop hurting.

The bandages on his wrists are white and wrapped tightly, sealed with tape by expert hands. He reaches with his right hand, worrying the corner of the tape on his left wrist with his index finger and thumb. He picks at it until the edge of the tape rolls back, until there's enough to grasp between his fingers. He pulls at it, unwinding it slowly, watching as it tugs at the gauze that's protecting his wounds.

When the tape is off, he throws it over the side of the bed to the floor; it makes a soft sound when it lands. He pulls away the gauze; it sticks, caught on the stitches and he tugs it away, joining the tape on the floor.

He stares at them – the horrible evidence of his failure. They're red and angry, slightly inflamed along the edges. There are two cuts, each about three inches long, each dotted with heavy black stitches holding the tattered edges of his skin together, trying to make him whole again. Gingerly he touches them, the rough sutures scratchy against his fingertips.

So this is what his pain looks like from the outside. He's disappointed, really. It seems so much uglier inside his head.

Anger surges through him, heating his skin, and he begins trying to tear his stitches out. But he can't get a hold of them – his fingers are too big and the stitching is too tight. So he brings his wrist to his mouth, digs into his skin with his incisors, his teeth finally finding purchase. He jerks his head back and can feel the sutures begin to tear through his skin.

The taste of blood is like a handful of pennies on his tongue.

He pulls his wrist away – blood seeps from the re-opened cut, and he watches it impassively as it trails slowly down his arm. It pools in the crook of his elbow, then overflows onto the sheets, dark red soaking into stark white.

He's calm again, the anger dissipating with each breath that pushes past his lips. The thread is hanging loose now and he grasps it in his fingers, tugging. The next stitch pops open, then the next one. It hasn't been long enough for the skin to fuse together and the wound opens up like a flower. Beads of blood push through to the open air, joining others in the flow. It hurts and tears sting his eyes, but he doesn't stop. He keeps tugging until all the stitches are gone and the stain below his elbow blooms like a rose in spring.

A wedge of light slices across the room. A nurse, making her nightly rounds, pops her head inside. She sees that he's awake, begins to smile at him before she realizes what's happening. Her hand goes to her mouth and she pauses, shocked, for the briefest of moments before her professional training kicks in. In a second, she's next to him, snapping on a pair of latex gloves in one expert movement and seizing his left arm. She doesn't speak to him, but presses the button next to his bed, calling for help, her voice urgent. She then grabs his other arm, holding them both tightly.

"No…" he says, but she doesn't seem to hear him. She's not looking at him. "Stop. Please."

He looks up at her, his eyes pleading with her to just let him go. She finally makes eye contact with him, a brief exchange of glances, and she tries to smile reassuringly at him but fails in the attempt. Another person bursts into the room, then another. The room suddenly feels crowded and Drake starts to panic.

"No!" he yells, digging his heels into the mattress, trying to get away, this sudden burst of strength fueled by pure adrenaline. Hands seize his feet, others seize his shoulders. The nurse still holds his arms. "No!" He's sobbing now and on the verge of hyperventilation. A man – a doctor, if the white coat is any indication – speaks softly to a nurse across the bed and she injects something into Drake's IV.

Seconds later, Drake gives up the fight, no longer able to move his limbs. He sinks down into the bed, his labored breathing eventually slowing as the sedative takes effect. He can feel tears pooling in his eyes and he blinks to clear them away, but his eyelids are heavy and stay closed after the second blink.

When he wakes up again, he'll be in restraints.

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