Bonus - Week 13 - UDC 10

Someone

At home that night, after dinner and homework, Walt stood in the doorway as Helen read a book with both Nick and Pete. They'd both wanted to tell him about the meeting earlier in the day, but Pete had come home closed off and not letting anyone in, not even Nick, really. It wasn't odd, and when this happened, it was best to wait him out and not push too hard. If they pushed, the closed-offness lasted longer, and that had been a hard week for them all.

He let his attention drift around the room and noticed the changes, subtle but there. Walt smiled at that, at the pictures on the two bedside tables and the slight messiness of the hamper in the corner by the closet.

"Walt?" Helen's voice brought his attention back to them and he wasn't surprised to see her holding the book out to him. "Your turn."

"My turn, huh?"

Nick smiled. "Yep!" He nudged Pete. "This one loves the voices you do."

Walt took the book from his wife and sat down on the bed. "Well, then. Let's read, shall we?"

Ourselves

Later, Nick sat on his own bed staring at his hands while both parents sat on either side. "I think he remembered something unpleasant."

"Oh?"

Nick nodded, still not looking up. "He was fine yesterday, and then this morning... I don't know. It was like talking to a curtain all day and just going through the motions, if that makes any sense." He sighed. "Which is weird, you know?"

Helen looked at Walt over Nick's head, for they both did indeed know how weird that was. Carefully, she pulled him into a hug. "We shouldn't be making you do this all by yourself."

"You're not, Ma," Nick mumbled into her shoulder. "You're not."

"Seems like we are, sometimes," Walt said carefully. "And-"

"Where is everybody?" Pete's voice said from the hallway, and then he walked in, sleepy as all get-out, and blinked at the three of them. "Oh."

"Nick needs a minute," Walt explained and beckoned Pete closer, snagging him when he got close enough. "And so do you, you sleepy rascal."

"Not tired," Pete told him through a yawn. "Don't want to sleep."

Nick chuckled. "Dad? Was I this bad at three or four?"

"Worse," Walt told him as he pulled Pete up onto the bed beside him and simply hugged the boy. "And you might not be tired, Pete, but the yawning proves otherwise." Pete yawned again and fell back to sleep into his side. "Oh."

Whichever

"Clingy and tired," Nick mused with a tired smile. "Ma?"

"I think you're right," Helen said after a minute, watching her husband stare down at Pete with an unreadable expression. "And while I would normally say no, probably the only way he's going to actually sleep tonight is if he's in here with you."

Walt agreed on that, seeing as he'd sought them out just now, tired as he was. "I think we're going to have to tell Alan that Friday would be better."

Helen nodded. "That would seem prudent, yes."

"Better for that?" Nick wondered.

"Dinner plans," Walt told him. "Nothing big, just a get-together and company. Sheryl and Dean are going to host, and Alan had a friend fly in from San Diego..." As much as he wanted to just tell Nick right now, the subject of the get-together was sleeping and leaning against him, and had had who-knows-what kind of a flashback if Nick was right. It wasn't as simple as just telling both their sons who had flown in from San Diego to check on a friend's family, put on a plane by his wife straight from deployment without even a chance to change. He wanted it to be that simple, but it really wasn't.