A/N: Sorry for the delays between updates, uni is a little hectic at the moment…

…so naturally I chose the week when I have three assignments due, two of which I currently haven't started, to begin work on the next chapter. Procrastination for the win!

On another note, I couldn't really imagine the original Book referring to his son as "junior" nor as Buck because that would be confusing. I have a friend called Buck and for some odd reason, he has always been called Buddy… hence the nickname. Also, in his mid to late forties, Book would have just been old enough to have served in the Vietnam War.

Electronic cookies and hugs for whoever picks the reference to my all time favourite book in this chapter. Buck strikes me as the sort of thoughtful guy who would read stuff like that.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Chapter 2

"Riley?" A gruff voice barked and Buck was jolted out of the uncomfortable sleep he'd managed to fall into. He sat up far too quickly causing his neck to crick, its way of complaining about his sleeping position and general mistreatment of his body. Rubbing the sore spot, he looked up to find his commanding officer peering round the door frame with his arm in a sling.

"What're you still doing here? Paula must be mad with worry," He said, looking down at Book, still perched on that same damn chair. Under his battered countenance, Book thought he could detect a hint of concern.

"Could ask you the same," he replied, gingerly getting to his feet.

The captain replied with a noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh as he jerked his head towards his arm, now wrapped in a thick white bandage.
"Just a bit of shrapnel," he grumbled, "Now your turn."

Riley glanced toward the bed with tired eyes.
Sure as hell he wasn't fooling anyone.

"I couldn't just leave him," he said eventually.

"Book," his commander said in a voice unusually gentle that would have startled him had he had the energy to care.

"You look like shit…"

And it was gone. Just himself, in his dirty fatigues, and his grumpy old bastard of a commanding officer, slapping his shoulder in what he supposed was meant to be part consoling, part telling him to toughen the hell up.

"…Go home, beg your wife to forgive you and feed you and for Christ's sake wash the kid's blood off before you come back."

On his way out the door, he turned back briefly with a rare smile and added, "that's an order."

Book knew he was right but that didn't stop the thought crossing his mind disdainfully.
Officers.

He was quite capable of looking after himself thank you very much and besides, the kid lying on the bed – Schofield, he reminded himself – was probably an officer and look at the bloody mess he'd managed to get himself into.

Crossing the room he looked down hard at the thin silver ball chain around the boy's neck, disappearing into the folds of the hospital gown. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, Book slipped a hand just below the neckline and fished out the small metal plate.

It was hot against his hand from where it had been pressed against the boy's body, absorbing his heat.

Lieutenant Commander, he interpreted the short hand. symbols

Book let out a low whistle. The kid either had good connections or some serious talent to have a rank like that at his age.
"Not bad kiddo," He said with a smile as he ruffled the dark hair but Lieutenant Commander Schofield didn't stir. From what Buck could see, his face was peaceful as he slept under those bandages.

"I'll be back," he said as he made to leave the room. He wasn't sure if he was reassuring the boy or himself but he'd heard it said somewhere that people in comas could hear you.
Not that the boy was in a coma – surely he'd wake up soon – but it was worth a try.

By the time he pulled into his own little regulation white washed military cottage, Buck Riley was starting to realise exactly how tired he was. He ached right to the bone and his eyes felt so damn heavy but it was nothing a good hot shower and an equally steamy cup of coffee wouldn't fix.

As he walked in the door, he could already smell a pot brewing.
Sometimes, he reckoned he was the luckiest man alive to be married to Paula.

"Honey, I'm home," he called out and his wonderful wife appeared around the door to the living room. Her light brown hair, flecked with grey at the temples, was swept up into a messy bun and her face wore the same wide smile he'd fallen in love with so many years ago now. Before she could even speak, he pulled her soft body to himself and held her close, inhaling her familiar scent. She smelt like warm bread and cinnamon and something floral he could never identify.

It didn't matter if he'd been to Saigon or the local shops; Book always loved coming home to her.

"What were they thinking, sending a kid into a war zone?" He asked.
In his head, the words were angry but muffled by the soft skin of her neck, they just sounded tired.

They'd had many conversations like this over the course of their marriage. As a recon, his operations were almost always blacklisted so he couldn't tell her anything. Through the years, she had somehow learnt to follow the threads of the conversation and ignore the holes. Paula Riley knew, in the way only a woman can, what was really bothering her husband and she always knew what to say.

She pulled back and, resting her hands gently on either side of his face, she forced his dark brown eyes to meet her cool grey ones.
"And how old were you when you went to 'Nam?" She asked wisely.

Buck Riley found he didn't have a suitable answer to that for, as always, his darling wife was correct.
The kid had just as much right to risk his life as he did.

She smiled at him with raised eyebrows before pottering off to the kitchen to finish making that pot of coffee. Buck was always more agreeable with a few cups down his neck.

"Doesn't make it okay," he grumbled as he slumped at the kitchen bench, massaging the headache forming above his eyes. She passed him the cup wordlessly and he drank half of it before he continued; "What if it had been Buddy?"

She looked at him, suddenly serious. Every line that crinkled at the corner of her eyes or bracketed her mouth seemed to deepen. Settling herself into the chair beside him, she covered his broad weather-beaten hand with her own.
"Sometimes," she said slowly, "You've got to let children make their own mistakes."

"Just like their father," she added with a smile. "You can't save the whole world sweetheart."

Riley downed the rest of the coffee in one swallow and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, before running off for a hot shower and some clean clothes.

Maybe he couldn't always save the world but he'd be damned if he didn't try.
For her.

Methodically, Book scrubbed every inch of the other marine's blood off his skin and out from under his fingernails.
Funnily enough, it made him feel better.

Now Buck Riley wasn't stupid. Perhaps he thought slow but only because he was being thorough and as he stood in the shower, letting the hot jets wash away the blood and grime and Bosnian dirt, an idea hit him.

The kid – 'Schofield,' he berated himself mentally again, 'Schofield.' He was going to have to try harder with that. If the kid woke up and heard him call him that, Buck was willing to bet he'd end up flat on his back with another bruise to add to his collection on Schofield's account, blind or no – needed company and Buck, well he needed an audience and it wasn't like he'd probably ever see the kid again after this.
Hell, he didn't really know why he was going to go back anyway, only that he would.

As he walked back out his front door, Buck paused only to kiss his wife and grab a single large battered notebook that was stuffed with flyaway loose-leaf sheets and napkins and anything else he could scribble on. Every possible inch of it was covered in his cramped scrawl.

Watching him go, notebook in hand, Paula just smiled and shook her head a little to herself.

By the time he'd arrived at the white façade of John Hoskins University Hospital and wandered through the now familiar corridors to the small room on the corner of the fifth floor, another couple of lines had hit him and the first thing he did was seize a stack of napkins lying beside the untouched lunch tray. Schofield still slept soundly.

He rustled through his pockets, looking for the pen that he always kept handy and began to scrawl them down before he forgot. Flashes of inspiration tended to hit him at inconvenient moments and he found he just had to write them before they drove him mad flapping around inside his head, or even worse, managed to escape.
Which was exactly how his unit had managed to find out about his little hobby.

Not that Buck really considered it a hobby. He needed to write like he needed to breathe.
It helped him forget the world he actually lived in and remember the type he was fighting for.
One where everything had a happy ending, where the darkness passed and all that was green and good in the world was restored.

He knew he'd never be published but that didn't matter. He wrote for himself, not for anyone else and so very few had ever laid eyes on the contents of the once handsome but now rather worn leather-bound notebook.
"Well kiddo," Buck broke the silence, addressing the prone figure still lying motionless in the bed, "I don't do this often, so you'd best listen up."

And he began to read in his slow and oddly soothing voice.

"What do you think?" He asked but his only reply was a low moan from the bed.

"That bad eh?" He said flippantly but he was already getting to his feet. Other than the screams, it was the first sound he'd heard Schofield make and it didn't sound good. Reaching the bed, he could see immediately that his skin was flushed red and the sheets twisted around him were damp with cold sweat. He hit the nurse call button without even thinking and only minutes later, the soft sounds of muffled shoes padded into the room.
"He's feverish," Buck said urgently.

It took her several further minutes to ascertain with the aid of a fancy looking machine what Buck could have told her with a single hand.
The boy was dangerously hot.

For a little while longer, the room was suddenly busy with doctors and nurses checking dressings to work out where the infection was coming from – a deep puncture wound on his chest, they eventually decided - and prescribing intravenous antibiotics and cool flannels.

Finally, Book was left alone with the sick marine and another bag of fluid disappearing into his other arm.

"That's quite a collection you're building there kiddo," Book said teasingly before suddenly becoming stern. "But if you didn't like my book, you could've just said so."

And settling himself back in what he was now thinking of as his chair, he waited.