In recent nights, there were times when Micky could only lie awake, wondering in the stillness of the bedroom if his eyes were opened or closed. He arched his eyebrows, straining to see something - anything - only to mutter a quiet syllable of defeat to himself. "Open. I think."

When he closed his eyes, he saw the same thing.

On nights like this, he often felt a headache starting just behind his eyes, working to his temples, and then farther back. He hoped the pain signified that his eyes were somehow trying to work again, but he was always disappointed hours later when nothing appeared in his field of vision. He could call someone to help him get an Aspirin from the kitchen, but since Davy wouldn't help him, that meant waking up the whole house by yelling for Mike or Peter. No, not tonight.

Listening quietly for a while, he heard the steady, rhythmic sounds of his roommate's snores. They were quiet, but unique. And since Davy couldn't duplicate the exact same sound when he was awake and only pretending to be asleep, Micky knew for a fact that he had long ago descended into dreamland.

For a few moments, Micky lay there with his eyes closed, hoping he could find away to ignore the expanding headache and fall asleep himself. After several unsuccessful minutes of waiting, though, he sat up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed until his feet contacted the cold floor.

He'd never done this without help before.

His toes worked over every irregularity of the surface below. Every bump, every scratch, was part of the floor's grand, sweeping signature. Before his accident, the floor only existed at the periphery of Micky's consciousness, but now it presented a distinct, passive obstacle.

Licking his lips, he stood, feeling the odd vertigo of being completely alone and unattached. Unlike the first time he attempted this, though, Micky felt no fear as he stepped forward, his hand automatically seeking out a contact. He knew he would eventually reach the door; moreover, he could reassure himself that the house wasn't big enough for him to get irretrievably lost in, even if it felt like his world had suddenly quadrupled in size.

He found a certain splintered, warped board underfoot and nodded. Reaching out his left hand, he wrapped it tightly around the doorframe, proud of his small success. Stalling, he patted it gently, rubbing his hand over the surface and committing its signature to his memory. Every little knot and bump seemed intrinsically important to learning how to navigate the house by himself.

As he stepped out of the bedroom, the sound opened up again, and he couldn't help feeling his stomach drop a bit. He knew the general location of the kitchen, and that if he went to the right he could get there. But a hundred-thousand things stood between him and that bottle of Aspirin - walls and tables and clutter on the floor… And monsters and other invisible things that Micky couldn't even begin to name or describe. Sliding his foot forward, he ever-so-slowly crept forward until his hand found something else. Disoriented at first, he realized after a moment of thought that he'd reached the spiral staircase.

Sliding to the right, he reached his hand out until his feet led him to the kitchen table, and then, feeling his way around that, he stretched out his hand until he felt the counter.

With a sigh, he smiled. That hadn't been all that difficult, after all. Even so, the hardest part still remained - actually finding the bottle of Aspirin.

Having taken for granted the simple act of finding his way around a kitchen, Micky found himself fumbling with the edge of the cupboard in order to get it to open. For some odd reason, he completely forgot which side of the door hinged to the cabinet, and found himself tugging on the wrong edge. Sighing, he worked his hand along the bottom until it opened, only to bean himself on the forehead with one corner.

He swore softly. "Just what I need. Another concussion."

Again irritated with his disorientation, he felt around on the bottom shelf of the cupboard until his hand brushed against a few bottles. Carefully touching each one of them, he came to the dismal conclusion that each one had roughly the same general shape and size.

Micky leaned forward, his weight on his forearm as it rested against the shelf. Bowing his head, he tried to fight back the sting in his eyes again, gritting his teeth until his jaw hurt. Despite the effort, he still felt the odd, heavy flooding of tears running down his cheeks. Having never been particularly reliant on anyone, unless he made a conscious decision to do so, Micky found the helplessness to do even the simplest of tasks to be bordering on infuriating.

Narrowing his eyes and allowing a single sob, he reached for the bottles again. He yanked them out of the cupboard and set them on the counter in front of him one at a time, feeling each one in turn. One had no label, so he pushed it aside, because he clearly remembered that the Aspirin bottle had one. Another had no ridges around the cap, so he shoved that one off to the side, too.

Two remained, and were both absolutely identical to the touch. After a brief contemplation, he twisted the top off one and sniffed it, getting a noseful of what smelled almost like rot. "Antibiotics," he muttered, pleased with himself.

He did the same with the other, finding it to have a clean, plastic-like scent. It almost burned, but not terribly so. The scent triggered a memory, and he could clearly picture the bottle in his mind - along with its contents. "Yeah, this is— " He turned the bottle over, tapping it until two capsules fell into his hand. Running his fingers over them, he found them to be the right shape.

Closing his hand around them, he smiled. With his other hand, he felt around for a glass, picking up the first one he found and raising it to his nose.

It smelled like day-old citrus.

"Orange juice. No."

The next one smelled like dishwater, but considering the stoppered up sink, Micky could only sigh, "I think that's about as good as I'm gonna get."

After filling the glass and hoping that the two gross-tasting tablets he'd just tossed into his mouth weren't one of his science experiments, he took a long drink of pure accomplishment. Really, it was just water, but it sure felt like he'd achieved something major.

Strangely, he could feel something switching on in his brain. Granted, this weird feeling was there all along, right from the beginning, but he just now felt truly aware of it.

Pressing his lips together, he turned his head back toward the bedroom, but he realized he'd never be able to sleep with the restlessness that currently nagged at him. Micky felt almost excited. Giddy. Absorbed in a re-kindled sense of self-sufficiency that he hadn't even felt before his injury. After feeling his way along the counter for a couple feet, he allowed his eyes to slide shut again and stepped into the unknown.

But this floor felt somehow familiar. In his head, he could picture where the table would be, so he didn't go in that direction. The next obstacle to avoid would be the couch, but now that Micky'd strayed into the center of the room, he could no longer be completely sure of where everything was around him. Crouching down a little, he inched forward; with each step, his senses all manifested a passive anxiety, telling him that he should be contacting the couch at any moment. Another inch… Another inch… There. There it was.

Nodding, he carefully felt his way around it. There would be a table to his left. Chairs to his right. Careful not to trip over the steps which he knew he must be approaching, Micky slid his bare feet across the floor until they contacted them. Then, very gently and deliberately, he managed to avoid Mike's guitar and Peter's bass.

He knew the drums were in front of him, still set up as they'd been before. Knitting his eyebrows, he reached forward until his fingers touched the sheet, and he carefully pulled it off, folded it as best he could, and set it to the side so he wouldn't trip over it later. Then, finding, the stool, he sat down.

For a moment, it felt as if he were in complete sensory deprivation. It was so quiet in the pad, and he couldn't sense any light through his blinded eyes. The only thing he could feel was the seat under him.

With surprising accuracy, he reached out and touched the edge of his crash cymbal, and as he ran a finger along it, the picture began to build itself in his mind. First, it was just an outline, but then color started to appear in splashes of beautiful memory. A sense of distance and space, which he'd never had a reason to hone, guided his hand to the floor tom, where it gracefully lit on the edge for just a moment, before moving on to the snare. He reached for the hi-hat, finding it off in its positioning just a tad, so he moved it closer.

As he did so, the two halves of it touched, creating the faintest tch sound.

"You echo," Micky mused, smiling. He could almost feel where the sound reverberated from the nearby surfaces with a sort of quality he'd never noticed before. He never had to notice it before.

His ears were working both in unison and separately, picking up exactly when a sound reached each one. The old fridge rumbled, and he found that he could pinpoint its exact location; when he looked in that direction, his imagination filled in the details. It was no substitute for sight, but he suddenly felt a whole lot more comfortable in his own home, which was a vast improvement from only a few hours prior. When the rumble struck the things around him, the echo bounced back, giving him a very general idea of how close he was to other things.

"I need to talk to Mike about writing a song about dolphins," he announced to no one. "Whales. Porpoises. Yeah, that's the one. One. One." He continued to speak quietly and in wonderment as the world of sound and its echo opened up to him. Even as he stood, his fingers continued to trail along the various pieces of his drum kit, his mind's eye forming a picture of each one.

Curious, he headed toward the bay window, continuing to mutter softly under his breath. When the quality of the sound changed, he reached out and found the wall right where he thought it would be.

Carefully, Micky found the step off the bandstand and descended to the main floor. Instead of speaking this time, he shuffled his feet, walking more quickly and with more confidence than he had before. When he neared something, the sound that reached his ears changed, just slightly, but enough so that he knew he was about to run into something.

For the first time, he felt as if he could potentially still live a decent life if his sight never came back. Of course, he still wished it would, but now Micky had hope. And it felt good. So good, that he continued on his somewhat reckless course through the house without paying proper attention to what was hanging around on the floor.

Before he knew what was happening, he tripped on whatever it was at his feet. Without his eyes, he couldn't find anything around him with which to catch himself, so he fell heavily, striking his elbow on the floor as he tried to tuck inward so he wouldn't hit his head again.

With his mood sufficiently dampened, he reached out for whatever it was that tripped him. The sound of a dialtone reached his ears just moments before his hand closed around the phone's receiver.

"What are you doing in the middle of the floor?" he grumbled.

His concentration on the phone prevented him from hearing the approaching footsteps.

"Micky?" the voice asked. Deep, baritone, British accent.

The echo from the sound of his breath reached his ears more quickly after that, so he could only conclude that Davy was now crouched down next to him. To confirm, he reached out a hand, which contacted a robed shoulder.

"Micky, what're you doing out here? On the floor?"

Hearing the voice was surprisingly painful. Quickly, he made sure to look away, toward the floor. A moment later, he heard a slight rustling of fabric and a quiet grunt. Perhaps, Micky thought, Davy was sitting down next to him? When the voice came again, it was slightly closer, confirming the suspicion. "Micky? You gonna talk to me? Why didn't you call for help?"

Micky clenched he jaw, placing the handset of the phone back on the receiver.

"Uh, don't answer that," Davy muttered.

Micky felt around behind him until his hand contacted a wall, which he leaned against. When he heard a scuffling and felt a warm shoulder against his, he realized that Davy had done the same. After a moment, Davy said, "Look, I know it's the middle of the night, but I guess this is as good a time as any to talk."

Micky forced a smile. "Talk? Again? I'm still reeling from the last time we had a conversation. I think my ego still has bruises."

Davy didn't reply.

Sighing, Micky reached up and tangled his fingers into his hair.

"Thanks for finding the phone?" Davy ventured.

"I think the phone found me." Micky scrunched up his nose as he felt the tears returning. He hated them, and how sensitive he was lately. Things he could brush off before just seemed to tear at him, running him down to a point where crying was quite high on his list of possible reactions. Thankfully, he could shamelessly blame stress on their frequency.

"Micky, I'm… I can't even find the words to tell you how sorry I am."

Micky stared straight ahead, still looking away from Davy, as he felt hot tracks work their way down his cheeks again.

"You know, I wanted to help you. And — I know… I know you're you, and I know that this … thing that happened to you, it's not…" Pausing, he growled under his breath. "I can't quite put you and broken together in my mind, Mick."

Micky turn his head just a little. Not quite facing Davy, but not looking away, either.

"It wasn't what you said to me yesterday, either. It wasn't that. I don't know what made me say those things… I know you're not faking it, Micky, and I know you aren't pullin' me down with you, and I know you aren't a failure. You're hurt. And I don't… I don't know why I said what I did."

Micky sniffled, but smiled, leaning a little bit more against Davy's shoulder. "Don't feel too bad. I don't know how to find the words to tell you, 'apology accepted.'"

Davy didn't reply at first, then he said, "Sorry, I'm… You can't tell, but I'm smilin'. I kinda thought after what happened…"

"It hurt," Micky said, voice cracking. Still, like he told Mike, he knew how Davy reacted to situations like this. He needed someone to blame. Despite the sting in his shorter friend's words, Micky knew that the outburst was right, that it had substance built out of more than just hate. "Did you feel better after?"

"No," Davy mumbled. "…yeah. Yeah, a little."

"We're all kinda scared, Davy."

Again, silence fell on the room, and Micky paid close attention to Davy's breathing in the interim. At such close proximity, he could also fell a gentle pulse from his friend's heart.

Hp. Hp. Hp.

"What's it like?" Davy asked. "What do you see? Black?"

Micky shook his head. "Nah, it's weird. It's not like when you shut your eyes. It's just nothing. There's nothing where my sight should be."

"So you don't just see darkness?"

"I think I imagine it, but it's not really there. I don't know how to explain it."

"Does it still hurt?"

Micky nodded. "I get headaches. But they're less intense than they were before. I actually came out here to get some Aspirin."

"Oh… I can get that for you."

Davy started to stand up, but Micky reached out, managing to get his hand around an arm. Smiling he said, "I got it already. I was kinda getting used to hearing stuff when I tripped on the phone."

He could hear the incredulous smile in Davy's voice when he asked, "Hearing stuff?"

"Yeah! It's cool. I can kinda navigate by listening to how close I am to things. I'm like Batman."

Davy laughed, settling down on the floor again. "Well, I think that's great, Micky. Not that I wanted you to have to get used to not seein', but… I guess if you gotta…"

Micky smiled again, and brushed his sleeve across his face to dry it. "Hey, look, I'm sorry about what I said about the tambourine, too. It's not completely without skill. I mean, you got a really good sense of rhythm and all."

"Peter said that, too."

"Yeah? He's right."

"Been tryin' to learn the drums. Sure would be nice if you'd take up that banner again, though."

Truthfully, if he could picture them, Micky could probably play them. Still, the idea of sitting on stage, completely blind, in front of a few dozen people with his empty eyes was completely unappealing. "I love playin'," Micky said. "Kinda thought getting the tambourine was like a consolation prize. I think I woulda felt the same if Mike told me to play the guitar instead. It's just not me. But…"

"Competition's coming up, you know."

"You're doin' fine. Peter told me. And I can coach you a bit."

"At least sing? You're the voice, Micky. I mean, we all got songs, but you… You own 'em."

He considered this for a moment. He could stand stationary in front of the mic, and he certainly didn't have to worry about his inability to see affecting his vocal range. It wouldn't be like drumming, where he could easily miss striking a cymbal or drum completely. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll sing. I can do that."

"Maracas?" Davy ventured.

Chuckling, Micky nodded. "That can be arranged."

He heard Davy mutter a very quiet "yes" under his breath. After a time, he asked, "Micky, we're okay, right?"

Yawning, Micky nodded. "Davy, we never weren't okay."