And here we are-THE FINAL CHAPTER! Thank you so much for your support over the months posting this story. It means so much...It really does. I hope to see you at my next stories and the ones after that.

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Something Bad Happened

Chapter 12-Brand New Day

THE FINAL CHAPTER-Jamie comes home and considers somethings.

When he wakes up his wife is there looking at him. At his other side is his father and both of them have the same expression on their faces. Danny at the door just looks devastated. He looks as if his entire world is about to come crashing down around him and when Jamie makes what he remembers as a terrible rasping noise his brother makes a noise as if he is being stabbed himself leaves the room and does not come back for several hours.

His wife doesn't leave his side. Eddie upon seeing he is able bodied and able minded sobs into his side and Jamie doesn't know what else to do other than to tell her over and over and over again that he is alright.

His Dad is perhaps even more frightening.

For all his work the other man just sits there and stares at him with eyes wide as if he is terrified Jamie is going to disappear with a second's notice. Jamie doesn't know what to do with that. It ties into the living world he has been half living in for a long time.

Or what feels like a long time.

Joe…Vinny…his Mom…Linda.

It goes around and around and around in a vicious circle.

Joe Hill steps into the room and it's almost a relief because Joe is the one person who doesn't look at him with that shared grief that comes with the knowledge that he is the second Reagan to get shot in the line of duty and the only one to wake up off the hospital bed. Not that he is sure Joe made it to the bed. His knowledge of his brother and the night forever seared into his memory was that Joe was pretty much dead before he hit the ground. Jamie likes to think that anyway. It's hard to believe that he wants Joe to be shot in the back but the last thing he wants is that bastard Sonny and his smug smile to be the last thing that his brother saw before death claimed him for her own.

At first it's just dizzy and hellish. He thinks Eddie is crying when he drifts in and out and his Dad is holding his hand as if he is afraid that if he lets him go he will float back to that big office in the sky but Jamie finds the second time he wakes up is better than the first.

The third time that he wakes Danny is with him. Danny looks at him with a haunted expression. He's gutted Jamie can tell, gutted inside and out like someone's took an ice cream scoop and emptied out his lungs and his insides and placed them on the bed with him. Danny looks at him and Jamie looks back and this time he feels like he can speak.

"Ow" he says quietly.

Danny flashes him a look and Jamie knows that he is terrified that he has lost it. To be fair it's not a totally unfair assessment considering what he's seen and where he's been when he was under.

He tries to flash a grin and Danny is still watching him.

"Dan—"

"It would kill me" Danny says into the silence of the room and each word is strangled. Each word has the feel of pulling teeth out of it and Jamie watches as Danny seems to visibly struggle with saying what he feels. Danny has always been like that he thinks…it was only ever Linda who seemed to get underneath the hard armour Danny wore like a shield.

"What?"

"It would kill me…If something happened to you…it would…kill me" he said finally looking Jamie dead in the eye. "I buried Joe, I buried Linda…I…I cannot bury you. I cannot bury you Jamie I wont survive burying you. I don't…I don't…I cannot be the only one left."

There was a pause as Jamie looked at him and he could see it. The fear, the terror, the way Danny was holding on. He had been like that when Linda had died. Had held it together for the boys and bottled it all up until he had told their Dad that he was putting in his papers. Even that had lasted three days before he was back but the terror had been in his eyes for a long time. What it must have been like for Danny who was the first one there and the first one who had, had to break it to the rest of them that Joe was there but only in body.

Danny who had been the one to call the bus. Who had turned and asked another Joe to call a bus because he was bleeding out. Jamie. His kid brother.

"I don't plan to get shot again" Jaime said after a lot of water and some difficulty. Danny rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"Sorry I scared you" he said quietly and again Danny said nothing and this time his gaze was on the edge of the bed. For a second his brother looked at the bed spread and then he huffed out a breath and then another and he smiled though it was false.

"Yeah well…don't do it again" was all Danny said. Jamie huffed a laugh and they both knew it was as promise that he couldn't keep.

He saw his brother and his wife more than his father those days. He was in and out riding the wave of an intense drug related high. It wasn't that hard to realise why people got into addiction over this when the pain relief that came with the escape was so good.

He must have said this because Danny was laughing suddenly and Eddie was smiling though the shadows under her eyes were bruised and violent in their purple nature. Danny didn't look much better.

Joe came too and he brought someone called Noah who brought donuts that were handmade and Jamie thought it was cruel there was a hole in his stomach which meant that he couldn't eat them but had to watch Danny work his way through something called a pistachio caramel crumble with a vicious glee that came with not caring about the calories.

Bastard.

Joe was nice though, he still looked at Jamie in an odd way as if he didn't know what to say or what to do. If there was a secret he was missing. Jamie who had seen Joe now and closed that door smiled at him.

"He's hot" he said when Noah left the room.

"Shut up" Joe said but he was blushing.

"Hey hot is a chef, cooks, snap him up kiddo" Danny said licking icing off his finger. "Snap him up and get married somewhere in the Bahama's so we can all crash a ride"

"God I don't think I could imagine you on a plane" Joe said still blushing. "Can you imagine—we'd have to give TSA a heads up"

"If they did their jobs—"

Jamie hissed with pain trying to laugh. He thought he mastered it wonderfully but the truth was that didn't…between Danny and Eddie he was rapidly learning that privacy was something that when shot didn't exist.

Danny was on him like a drug dog at the airport.

"You okay kid?"

"Just sore. I think it's sitting around here all day. I think if I could just move—"

"No" Eddie said firmly. "The Doctors said you couldn't get out of bed yet. You've got one more day before I can get you home and then you can move"

"Not before" Danny said looking at him with that unnerving glance. "You look cold, Joe does he look cold to you? I think I'm gonna see if they can get you another blanket"

And then he was gone and Jamie sighed.

Joe blinked.

"Wow" he muttered and then his phone chimed. "Damn court" he said with a wink. "See you in a bit" and then he was gone.

Eddie sighed.

"Erin is gonna come around tonight and—"

"I don't need a babysitter you know…have you been sleeping any?"

Eddie looked at him for a second and then sat on the edge of the bed.

"Some" she said carefully. "But Jamie I don't…" she stopped talking and Jamie understood.

"Oh…Eddie you should…"

"I see it when I close my eyes" she confessed and her eyes were shining with tears. "I can see it, they asked me if I wanted you to see a priest Jamie"

Oh.

Shit.

He reaches out with his hand and takes her own in his. They'd took of his wedding ring for surgery he notes. His fingers are swollen with the drugs. He wants it back.

"I love you" he says simply. "I…I came back for you"

Eddie looks at him with an expression that is very strange.

"Came back from where?"

Jamie opens his mouth to tell her but then he closes it.

"I don't know" he says quietly. "But you asked me to keep fighting and I fought…you don't…you can let me do some of the fighting for you now if you want?"

Eddie smiles at him tears making her face wet. Jamie thinks she looks beautiful. Stunning in every which way he thinks like a loon. She watches him for a second more and then suddenly the tension in her shoulders gives out and she begins to cry. Jamie drags her as close as they dare and Danny doesn't come back in the room and they cry for the cruel reality of what they do for a living hitting them for the first time in their marriage.

But he knows…he knows it gets better.

He gets home in one piece, gets the standing ovation from his father and then the man himself turns up. Eddie opens the door beaming as if getting him home and to the couch is something that they do every day instead of the mammoth task that it was getting up the last two stairs. He feels like an idiot. He doesn't know why, maybe because he got shot, maybe because after that first night he didn't see his father much. Certainly he didn't see him in jeans and a jumper holding a box of pizza.

"Hey" he says trying to get up but the pain flares down his ribs.

"Lie down" his Dad says passing Eddie the box with a smile. "Honestly your worse than Danny and he pulled out all his stiches at fifteen that one time cause and I quote he was board"

Jamie remembered.

"I just…how are you doing?"

His Dad shot him a look.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Jamie shrugged.

"Frank are you staying for pizza?" Eddie asked.

"Please" his Dad said. His gaze had not left Jamie's face as if he was trying to sear it into his memory. Jamie didn't know what else to do other than to look.

His Dad lowered himself to the couch and even though he thought he was too old for this Jamie found he was cuddled up to his side as if he was six and not nearly thirty four. His Dad said nothing for a second and then he felt lips brush the top of his head.

"My boy"

It was said so quietly he had to strain to hear it.

"Dad?"

"I don't need another hero for a son" his Dad said quietly and his voice was thick with emotion. "I…I quite like the one I've got you understand me?"

And Jamie did.

"Got it Dad" he said sleepily. "Love you too"

It was how he drifted off he thought listening to his wife and Dad talk safe and sound and warm wrapped in a blanket his side still on fire. Something bad had happened but Jamie had survived it and he would carry on surviving.

He would get better.

His family would make sure he got better.

And the last thought that he had before he drifted off to sleep against his father's side that somewhere beyond whatever this world was he knew for the first time absolutely that Joe, Linda and his Mom and Vinny were waiting for him and that their hugs in the next life would be just as real as the hugs he got in this one.

And there you go, I hope you enjoy.

AND AGAIN-A MASSIVE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!