A/N: I have plans for a sequel to I've Been Thinking about the Way Things Change, but as it goes right now, I need the angst in my life. I like writing the emotional stuff. So this one is going to be rough, trigger warnings for drug abuse.

Jason is angry. However, the anger is a cover. He's hurt. His parents don't understand; it's not like they're around enough to understand. He feels abandoned. And guilty for being angry about that. They are important people. Their country needs them. He knows that. He even forgives some of their neglect. Only because he's sure, they don't realize they are neglecting him. There are so many demands on his parents' time and energy. He's positive they'd freak out if they knew he was here. They'd come to get him. They'd yell at him. And it would remind him that he was wanted. That he wasn't an accident. He was their lucky number three.

Jason knows better than to be here. He knows he can call. Not his dad; he'd be too angry. But he could call his mom, and she'd come to get him, and she'd cry. She'd ask him if he needed help. He does need help; he's drunk every day now. He's never quit drinking since his parents found his finsta; he just stopped posting about it. They haven't noticed. Mostly because he's blacked out by the time his mom gets home from work. Jason doesn't know how much longer he'll last. He's scared. So very scared. But that doesn't stop him from taking the pill out of Carly's hand. He knows he should say no. He knows that drinking is one thing. It's a soft drug, as his mom would say. But the pill in his hand, it's a hard drug. Jason has seen what it can do to people addicted to it, or at least he knew what it did to Harrison Dalton.

"C'mon Jason, it's fun." Carly's words slur in his ear, and before he thinks too hard about it, the Oxy is swallowed. Ten minutes later, his whole world exploded. It's the best feeling in the world. He's sure that nothing could ever feel this good. His body feels like it's on fire but not burning up. The rush of euphoria hits him so fast that he almost falls over. That night is a rush—a rush of singing and dancing and making out. Everything seems beautiful at that moment. Carly is right there with him, and he forgets Piper's name. The spiral has started. Unbeknownst to him, he got on the ride. And may never get off.

….

That first night was amazing. He's been chasing it ever since. Every minute of every day since then has been dedicated to the next time he'll get high. No matter what he's doing, he's thinking about it. It's the world's worst obsession. That first night was amazing. But no one told him he'd be shaking in his school bathroom seven months later, waiting to buy an oxy fix with eighty bucks he stole from his dad's wallet. Not that his Dad noticed. He hasn't. Jason spends a lot of time wondering how much money his parents have when they don't seem to see eighty bucks go missing every few days. But then again, no one ever notices him anymore. Not since they moved here. His mom is too busy to know what happens in her house. And his Dad is busy now, too, doing god knows what for the DoD. So Jason is always left alone and expected to be an adult who can live independently at fifteen. And when he's not alone, he's being yelled at for being a smart ass. For getting a D or, lately, an F. Hell, he was the victim of a swatting incident, and his mom left him alone five minutes later. That's just how things are these days. He doesn't mind. He used to, maybe, but now he has the pills. They're everything. Nothing else matters. Usually, he feels great. But not right now.

"Do you have the stuff?" Jason knows he sounds desperate. He is desperate. Desperate to get high. Desperate to feel anything other than the ache in his bones. He didn't realize bones could ache before he started taking the pills. But they can and his do.

Tanner, a high school senior who doesn't plan on college, smiles and hands him a plastic baggie full of white powder. "I couldn't get my hand on any Oxy, but I have H."

Jason swallows. He's never crossed that line. Not the Heroin line. His dad always said there are only two outcomes from that. Prison or death. He debates on not buying it. On leaving. On telling his parents he needs help. But his skin is itchy all over, and sweat beads on his forehead. His heart is hammering in his chest, and the room spins around him. He squeezes his eyes closed. When he opens them again, it takes several moments for him to recognize where he is. He needs it. Badly. So he talks the last bit of sense he has out of his brain and hands over eighty dollars. Tanner hands him the baggie and a straw. And Jason is alone in the bathroom, snorting the powder before he can think. He doesn't know it's too much. He doesn't know it's too pure.

Finally, he feels a light turn on in his body. It's literal magic. The colors in the bathroom, the lights, they all seem brighter. The pain in his joints is gone, replaced with numbness that spreads through his entire body. It's like someone has put a blanket over him. It's warm and soft, and he doesn't notice his breaths coming slower and slower and slower.

…..

He's found twenty minutes later by a first-year algebra teacher. Jason isn't breathing. His heartbeat is slow, but Mr. Reynolds feels it and starts CPR. This will be a long game; he has to keep his head straight.

"Get the nurse, and call 911!" He yells into the hallway as he continues two breaths and five compressions. Jason isn't breathing. The twenty-four-year-old teacher is startled to notice the straw still in Jason's hand. His effort won't work. "Tell her he's overdosing!"

He hears the student he yelled at start running down the hall. He turns back to Jason. The teen is unresponsive, but the color in his face is returning, and the oxygen he's supplying is just enough. Mr. Reynolds keeps going, his adrenaline keeping Jason alive by holding his head steady.

Reynolds almost cries when Meredith Summers runs in on her cell phone, already opening a box of Naloxone. When the nasal spray is administered, Jason takes a spontaneous breath. Only one. Meredith swallows. This isn't good. This might be the kind of OD you never come back from.

Mark does cry when the EMTs intubate his student. Jason's classmates stare on as he rushed out of the school on a gurney.

…..

Henry has been working on the Covenant of John case around the clock for two weeks. They are down to one week before the bioweapon is deployed. At least, they think. That's the trouble with this; it's still a guessing game. He gets frustrated when his phone rings. Jason's school. He doesn't have time for this. No time for a failed math test. No time for smartass comment. Not time for Jason. His guilt at that thought makes him quickly answer.

"This is Dr. McCord." He says flatly.

"Dr. McCord," The tears in Principal Saunders' voice causes Henry to retract his previous frustration.

"What happened?" Henry can hear his paternal panic. He knows something is off.

"Jason is on his way via ambulance to George Washington University Hospital. He overdosed in the bathroom today during the third period." Henry's throat constricts as his heart beats uncontrollably fast. This can't be happening.

"I'm on my way." Those are his words, but his body freezes in place for a second too long. He doesn't know what to do. But some divine intervention snaps him into action, and he runs faster than he's ever run out of the Hoover building and to his car.

….

He doesn't park at the hospital. He knows he should. He's going to get towed. But he doesn't care. He runs into the ER entrance with only seconds to spare.

"Jason McCord? I-I'm his father." The admin nurse looks up at him, sympathy written on her face. It's never easy when a fifteen-year-old comes in after an opioid overdose, but it's even harder when you see the love and fear on their parent's faces. And it's the hardest when you're sure that boy will die.

"The Doctors are working on him now. They've resuscitated him twice, but he's still not breathing independently." Henry wants to scream. This isn't fucking fair. This isn't right! He has to fight to keep his anger from showing.

"So I can't see him?"

"Not yet. It's best to let the doctors do their work, but I'll show you where you can wait." The nurse gestures towards the waiting room.

Henry walks past the other families waiting to find a chair. He sits down in the middle of the room. His mind races. His son is on drugs. Opiates. He was found in his school bathroom, post overdose. The nurse used the word resuscitated. His son almost died, or technically did die, twice. He didn't notice. That's not true; he saw the missing money but bought the hot air balloon excuse. He thought the money was for wooing a girl. He never would have thought this.

This is the first time since Stevie was a baby that he has no idea how to parent this. His wife is on a trip. Does he call her and tell her? Does he ask her to come home right now for the emergency? Does he call Conrad for advice instead? That way, he would have a plan before he called his wife. He's sure he's never been so scared for one of his kids, not watching them go to school for the first time, not when Stevie fell out of the tree. This is a fear that your kid might never be okay again. Of knowing that addiction is a lifelong disease. Of knowing that Jason could still die. He breaks and calls his wife.

Blake answers as politely as ever, but Henry has no patience.

"I need to talk to Elizabeth now; it's urgent." He feels the adrenaline oozing from himself.

"Dr. McCord, she's in a very delicate nego-"

"Blake, I need to speak with my wife now!" He doesn't mean to snap and yell at the kid, but now, he doesn't care about the world order or Elizabeth's job. He only cares about Jason, about being a good father.

There's a pause. "She is unavailable," says Blake, less sure of himself.

"Blake, take the goddamn phone to her right now!" Henry yells into the phone.

"Babe?" Three minutes later and he can feel her fear dripping over the line. She knows something is very wrong. She would've known just by Henry's insistence to speak with her, but one look at Blake with his tail tucked between his legs told her that Henry did something he rarely does. He yelled. Henry only yells when he's scared.

"Jason overdosed." He chooses not to sugarcoat or break it easily. None of this will be easy. He hears her gasp and hold her breath. "He's alive. He's alive." He chooses to leave the rest out. Leave out that he's not breathing on his own. Leave out the CPR. Because if Jason dies, he won't tell her that over the phone.

"Oh, my God." Her voice is small. He hears her breathing over the line; he times them. Box breathing. She's trying to stay calm. Losing people, she loves that's her biggest fear. And she loves her children more than she loves anyone else. It's why she is such a great mother.

"Can you get home?" Henry asks. "I'm here with him, at George Washington. But I think you should come home now."

Her heart stops at his insistence; the worst thought possible goes through her head. "Henry?" He hears the rest of her question in the way her breath hitches.

"Baby, I don't know. They haven't really told me anything. You need to be here." There's an underlying bitterness to his voice. She can feel his anger at her, well maybe not her exactly, but her job. The thing that keeps her away from them too often. The thing that has her in a different county while their baby boy is struggling. Maybe dying.

"I'm coming home. Right now. Three Hours Max." She's never been so happy to only be in Ottawa. Her emotions are running wild, worry, guilt. Yes, definitely guilt. "Is he going to be okay?" She doesn't know if she means immediately, in the long run, or maybe both. Definitely both.

"I don't know." Henry's voice breaks. What is okay for an addict who overdoses at fifteen? And that's assuming he lives.

He hears her heels clicking as her breathing increases. She's jogging out of whatever building she's in.

"I'll call you when I'm in the air." She breathes out. "Tell him I love him, okay?" He knows what she's afraid of. That Jason will die, and she won't be there. He vows that if he does, she won't know about it until she can learn about it in person.