It had been more than a year since David Washington had last stepped foot in his house.

Putting his bag down, he took a reluctant step into the entrance hall where he used to hang his coat up and placed his shoes on the rack right underneath. They had always been as neatly and efficiently placed as he did now.

Old habits die hard, huh?

Walking around in his socks, he could see that his house was spotlessly clean. The kitchen, the living room, the bathroom… even his bedroom.

He suspected that his friends had looked after the house for him. Given the fact that it was so spotless, it could only have been the joint work of Maine, Carolina, and North cleaning the house thoroughly while he had been in the hospital for his recovery period.

There wasn't even a bit of cat hair lying around in his house that he had grown so fond of during the last few years.

After leaving the army, he had bought that house and had begun taking up stray and abandoned cats who needed a new home. Up until now, he had five cats in total: Theta, Delta, Epsilon, Gamma, and Sigma.

Theta was a cuddly cat who was so small that you could mistake him for a kitten. His behavior wasn't one of a grownup cat, either.

Delta looked like a fucking know-it-all and his expression seemed to be permanently stuck on a 'told-you-so' mode.

Epsilon was an asshole – all the fucking time.

And Gamma… was just Gamma. He was a weird cat. He was a kitten from a pretty much feral litter of a cat hoarder who had grown up in awful conditions and then had to be rescued out of a fire from which only two cats out of his entire litter, himself and Sigma, ended up surviving. That must have done a number on him, along with Sigma.

Sigma was a backstabber par excellence. He would purr and then the moment you weren't watching out for him, he would scratch your face.

Or… Gamma and Sigma had been like that.

However, during the time that he had been in rehabilitation, Carolina had taken them to her apartment to take care of them. One time, when she hadn't been watching what was going on with them too closely, the brothers managed to sneak out and they hadn't been seen since.

The redhead had searched for the cats for a full week before attempting to break the news to Wash.

Wash had been somewhat sad to hear of what had happened, but he had always had the same problem with them. Sigma and Gamma had always tried to get out and away at any given chance they found to do so, so it wasn't a huge surprise to him to hear that they had actually managed it while they were in a foreign place.

They also hadn't shown up at his house, so they probably were off fending for themselves.

It had taken Wash a full thirty minutes to break it to Carolina that he wasn't angry with her and that she shouldn't beat herself up over what had happened since he knew it was most likely going to inevitably happen one day with the brothers. It could just as easily have happened to Wash in a moment of carelessness.

Anyways, he could only afford five… no, three cats now and such an amazing house due to being paid generously by the army.

Being honorably discharged at thirty and getting a pretty decent pay for the fuck-up they did sure paid out, Wash mused while he carried his bag up to his bedroom and started unpacking and sorting his clothes.

Soon there was a pile of dirty clothes waiting to be thrown in the washing basket and another pile of stuff that he had needed for the hospital and the rehabilitation center he had been in after being discharged from the hospital. Anyways, after putting the toiletries and other small things away and putting the dirty clothes in the washing basket, he snatched said basket and left his bedroom to head to the basement to start washing his clothes.

It felt like coming home from some sort of holiday, when the first thing you usually did was put your things away and wash your dirty stuff.

Just when he wanted to take the first flight of stairs down to the ground floor, he had the distinct impression that he was seeing someone walk into the spare bedroom at the end of the hall out of his peripheral vision. He would have sworn that he saw a glimpse of dark skin.

Walking downstairs, he shook his head.

He had probably just seen a light reflection from one of the windows where the sun was shining through, or he just wasn't used to living alone again after having been around people for almost a year.

He still didn't like being in a huge group, but during the past several months he hadn't really had many other options.

Padding over the floor on the ground level of the house, he was just about to turn around to take the next stairs down when the doorbell rang.

The ex-Navy Seal suspected that it was some of his friends, such as North, Maine, Carolina, or York, who were coming over to check on him and to bring him his cats who had been living with them while he was recovering.

Opening the door, he could see his friends outside as he had suspected. Everyone was cheering and had their arms full of stuff, along with three transport boxes for the cats.

"Hey, Wash! We thought we'd bring some stuff along. I bet your fridge is empty." York cheered when entering, carrying a huge bag with food.

"No, actually a fairy godmother came by and miraculously filled the fridge." Wash replied in a deadpan voice.

North snickered from behind York, and Carolina threw him a grin.

"Really? Oh well, it's winter and there's snow outside. You can put the stuff outside."

Wash threw him an incredulous glare. He still had trouble deciphering if York really didn't get his dry sarcasm or if he was paying him back the same way. Although he didn't want to think ill of York, he couldn't help but think York really didn't get it. Even less when Carolina rolled her eyes beside him.

"Oh, by the way," said man continued, unfazed by Wash's troubles, "There's some cat food too." York stated with that same easy grin on his face.

He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb to where North stood with an equally large bag, the tops of different cans sticking out of it. The larger man shot him an apologetic smile.

"I wanted them to wait another two or three hours, until you were at least halfway settled after being gone for so long." He explained when passing by Wash, "But York insisted on coming here and bringing you all this food for you and your cats."

"If we had come any later, Wash and his cats would have starved to death." York exclaimed from his way to the kitchen.

York and North made a beeline for said room, while Carolina and Wash stayed in the living room with the three transport boxes in which his cats started meowing impatiently.

Crouching down, Carolina and the blond male opened the boxes.

Theta was the first to appear, toddling out of the box as if it was no big deal. That was just the way he was.

Next was Delta. He was a bit more cautious, sniffing the air as if checking for dangers. Upon noticing that there were none, he came out too.

Their old home was new again to them now since they had more or less accepted Carolina and York's place as their home for the past several months.

Last was Epsilon. He was very strongly refusing to leave his box, hissing and clawing at Wash whenever his face appeared in front of the hole in the transportation box.

In the end, Carolina became so fed up with his behavior that she grabbed the box and turned it upside down until Epsilon tumbled out onto the ground.

Immediately, the blue-eyed Carthusian scrambled under the couch and glared at them from his safety spot there.

Whenever someone walked by there for the next several hours, Epsilon would claw at their feet and leave ugly scratches.

That was actually nothing new. Epsilon often had such cranky days and would attack Wash without a reason, just to be an asshole.

York just happened to leave the kitchen a moment later.

"Hey, Wash, the fridge is-OUCH!"

He had gotten too close to the couch, and Epsilon latched out from underneath of it and left four long and bleeding marks on his foot.

"He seriously reminds me of your brother, C." York muttered after having jumped on one foot for several minutes.

Wash brought him some napkins so York could dab off the blood. However, the man insisted on not needing a patch.

After all… a real man knows no pain, huh?

Theta was wandering around in the house, while Delta went to find the most important things for a cat: the food and the litter box.

Epsilon still was hissing from underneath the couch.

Since it was too dangerous for their feet to sit on the couch, the quartet decided to sit in Wash's kitchen to have some coffee.

"How are you doing Wash?" Carolina asked after a while.

"I'm fine." He replied, adding upon seeing the doubtful glances of his friends, "Really. My knee sometimes hurts a bit still, but otherwise I really am fine."

This seemed to put his friends at ease, although they still seemed to be waiting for more information.

"Really, I'm doing fine." Wash sighed heavily, "It's not okay yet, but it's on the way there. The accident was rather serious. I'm lucky to still be alive."

"Speaking of which..." North interrupted, "The driver was too shocked to say anything more than that he did not want to kill you and we didn't want to bother you with that." The man stopped talking for a moment, looking thoughtful, "But we are still missing some details about what had happened. The driver of the car only said that you were suddenly standing on the street."

Wash sighed. "Yeah… I was reckless, I know." He lifted a hand when North opened his mouth to say something, "However, I had my reasons."

With that, he started explaining.

He was just coming home from his daily jog in the woods close to the house he was living in. He had been doing so every morning since his military days, as he thought it to be a great way to start the day and to be ready and energized for what would come later.

However, he had decided to quickly drop by the Blood Gulch Donuts to get a coffee and some donuts for his breakfast, which was a rather big exception since he wasn't so into sugary things. But on that particular day, he felt an unrelenting desire for something sweet.

He had just rounded the corner to the street where the BGD was located when he saw a young boy leaving said shop who was only a few meters away.

He had on black jeans, dark blue shoes, and a teal hoodie. If the cable disappearing into the hoodie over his head was any indication, he had headphones on. The boy also had a steaming mug in his hand that he was just taking a sip from.

Without even looking, the young boy who Wash suspected of not being older than ten or eleven, walked out into the street. Just when he had stepped foot into the street, a car skidded around the corner that was going way too fast and way over the speed limit.

Wash could see the driver hitting his brakes, but the ex-Navy Seal just knew that he wouldn't be able to stop in time. To make things worse, the boy stopped moving and looked at the car like a deer caught in the headlights – literally. He did not move an inch to save himself from the car.

Wash reacted without thinking. Sprinting forward, he managed to push the boy out of the way just a second before the car was there. Instead of the boy, the car hit the man and his head slammed into the windshield and his body onto the bonnet.

The funny thing was, he didn't think he was going to die. He more or less thought that he always had a bad track record when it came to cars. What could he say, cars just hated him.

The car came to a stop finally, his body getting thrown off the car and hitting the ground. He skidded over the tar some meters before he came to a stop on his back.

It was strange. He didn't feel anything really. His body felt numb, but he didn't feel any pain. And given the injuries he must have, he should have been in horrible pain.

However, he just felt… Nothing.

Immediately, there was a flurry of people around him and someone must have called an ambulance at some point since he heard the horn from it sometime later on.

There were hands on him, and some people were turning him on his sides to make it easier for him to breathe.

And then there were other people around. There were people putting an IV into his arm, asking him who he was and if they should call someone.

He remembered himself rasping out his name and saying that he had a wallet in his jacket with his ID card. He remembered saying something about calling Carolina. He had her name as an emergency contact in his wallet.

After being released from the army, he had asked his squad leader if she would be okay with him putting her as an emergency contact since Wash didn't have any relatives left.

Well, that's how Carolina learned of his severe accident.

Wash had been in an artificially-induced coma for about a week only to make his head injury no worse than it already was. Cracked skulls weren't funny, he could say that much.

In any case, after waking up and being somewhat coherent again, Carolina had come to visit him. His remaining friends from the squad had been visiting him, Carolina being the first at his side with a packed duffel bag full of his clothes and everything he needed for personal hygiene. She was correct with her assessment that he would ask for different stuff later on.

Anyways, after waking up and being coherent again, Carolina had showed up and lectured him about being reckless.

Well, if reckless meant saving a life… then he would gladly be reckless.

Breathing in and out deeply, he looked up from his cup of coffee and looked at the others sitting around him.

"I wasn't hallucinating, okay? There was a boy. He seemed to be deep in thought and he was in a direct line with the car. I just wanted to save him."

"There were several people who said the same thing. However, when the police arrived, the boy was already gone." Carolina said in a stern tone.

Wash knew that she believed him, but she was a realist at the same time.

"Maybe he got scared and ran off? I'm sure he's happy you saved him back there though." North tried helping out, and Wash nodded to that.

A thank you from the boy sure would have been nice, but since he doubted that the boy would show up again after so long, he decided to be happy with the fact that he had saved a life that day.

The boy was so young, he still had his whole life ahead of him. He shouldn't be the one bleeding out on the pavement.

After some hours had passed, his friends decided to leave for the day as York and Carolina still had some planning to do for their new apartment.

After years of making dreamy eyes at each other, they got their shit sorted out and had finally become a couple. This was their first apartment together and they wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

Wash was happy for them, albeit he felt a bit lonely.

He had never had someone be as close to him as Carolina and York were to one another. It hurt seeing them like that sometimes, although he felt happy for them all the same.

It was strange, but he didn't let himself think about that hollow feeling in his chest for too long. He probably would find someone later on since the chances of meeting your soulmate was higher around here than in the army in the Afghan desert he had been stuck in for the past three years.

North was still single too, although Wash highly suspected his gentle friend of having something going on with a girl since he seemed happier for the last few weeks. It looked as though he got someone now who was doing him a world of good too, then.

Getting up from his seat with a small pained voice as, okay, his knee still really hurt, he walked to the washing basket that was still waiting for him by the entrance to his house.

Walking over to grab the basket, he noticed that it was standing about two feet away from where he had put it down.

Well, he had probably only imagined putting it there originally and had actually put it where he ended up finding it. None of his friends had been near the basket, so it must have been that.

Grabbing the basket to walk down to his basement, he again had the impression of seeing someone walk into the living room from his peripheral vision.

Seconds later, he heard Epsilon hiss like a madman.

"Epsilon! Stop being an asshole!" He called out, not giving either incident a second thought and going to wash his clothes.

His mind was probably playing tricks on him.