Author's notes: Please heed any notes I put in future Author's notes - FFN does not have an adequate tagging system. Also I'm open to prompts.

Chapter One: Hospital Stay

Scott rose to consciousness slowly, first aware of a quiet beeping, then an antiseptic smell, a less than comfortable bed, and finally lights dimmed. There was a weight across his mid-section that was warm. He blinked once, twice, to clear his vision.

Ah, the weight made sense now. His Conrad was in a chair pulled up to close to the bed, his head resting on the bent arm that was not flung over Scott's stomach.

Scott was dimly aware he may have woken up before, but his memories were confused and clouded, and Conrad had not been in them. This was an improvement.

"Hey" he said or tried to; it came out breathier and raspier than he intended. And quiet. So he tried again, this time moving a hand to jostle Conrad's arm, "Hey!"

Conrad lifted his head, blinking sleep from his eyes. The smile he gave Scott was nothing short of incandescent.

"Hey, Scottie," he replied, his voice sounded almost as bad as Scott's, "you're awake. Really awake."

"Yeah," Scott got out in same soft raspy voice, he frowned, "what's wrong with my voice?"

Conrad stared at him for a moment, then carefully said:

"From what I was told, you brought in in a lot of pain," he swallowed convulsively, "a lot very loud screaming pain. You've strained your vocal cords, so maybe don't talk so much?"

Scott opened his mouth to say okay, thought better up it and just nodded.

Conrad summoned a nurse to check Scott over, and stood slightly away to given them room. That's when Scott realized he was more seriously hurt than he realized. The nurse patted his shoulder and re-assured him that he would make a full recovery in time, but he needed to give himself that time. They promised a doctor would come by in the morning and give him a full run-down of what had happened to him.

Conrad came back to his chair once they left.

He watched as Conrad pensively played with his wedding ring. Unlike Gordon and Penelope's platinum bands, theirs were black and made out of a super-strong alloy; Scott knew he had heard titanium was in there somewhere. They had had Brains make them. They had their names etched into them in binary. Scott's was a more traditional solid band, but he had made sure Conrad's was a spinner ring, knowing that his husband needed to have something to fidget with. The other choice was have him put on the stiff persona of Lt. Colonel Turner/Captain Black when he was in public (and that was fine in certain situations,) But Scott wanted more people to see the Conrad he knew rather the iron mask Conrad had created in response to the inept upbringing by his negligent legal guardians. Having something to fidget and toy with made it harder for him to keep the walls up.

Gods knew Conrad had helped reveal a side of Scott to his brothers that they had never expected. They knew Scott was sometimes hot-headed and impulsive, yes. Had they known he had base-jumped off of Tracy Tower in New York City at midnight during a thunderstorm? No. Not until Conrad casually mentioned it while talking to the Mechanic. Scott smiled at the memory of his Dad immediately informing Alan that it was a stunt never to recreated, by anyone, ever. Scott could hear the echo of the dressing down he and Conrad had gotten way back when, then the envious "What was it like?" from Dad once Mom and Grandma had left the room.

"I should call the rest of the family," Conrad murmured, "tell them you're awake."

"It can wait," Scott said softly, "The circumstances may be shit, but I haven't had a chance to be alone with you in five weeks."

"Pity we can't do much more than talk," Conrad smiled, "but I'll take it. And I might be a around long enough for more."

"Oh?"

"Yep, partial emergency family leave," Conrad explained, "I will have all the joys of paperwork and sifting through data and none of the fun of running after people and shooting them. Means my LtK is suspended too. That may have been deliberate. Charles doesn't want me going after Fishler and putting bullet between his eyes."

"Fishler? Wait, Fishler! That…That! He could have killed those people!" Scott sputtered angrily, throat pain be damned, beginning to rise, before Conrad placed a hand on his shoulder, and pushed him back down on the bed in alarm.

"He almost killed you," Conrad snarled, then forced himself to calm down, "sorry, I'm sorry, it's…it's one thing when it's natural disasters or even man-made disasters, or gods, even Ned Tedford," he managed a weak chuckle, "We both know how dangerous our jobs are; people are monumentally stupid. We can deal with that," he paused taking a breath, and then another, the snarl returning to his face, "But the persistent, willful, repeated idiocy of that man… and he has the nerve to be blaming you. He's out there, without a scratch, and he's threatened to sue International Rescue. It will get laughed out of court… if it even gets to court, but suing you. When if you hadn't…they all would have…and you….and you…"

Conrad just stopped, and lay his upper body down as he had been when Scott had woken up, breathing heavily.

"I don't get people like that, Scottie."

Scott didn't answer, but he ran his fingers through Conrad's hair until they both fell back asleep.

Of course, it had to be Gordon who woke them up a few hours later.