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She leaned forward and kissed her husband on the cheek.

Cap smiled adoringly at her.

Nick didn’t understand old people.

Jazz and Gibby went with Mary to the Bell home to pack Nick a bag. As weirded out as he was by the idea of them digging around his underwear drawer, he wanted to stay with his dad as long as he could.

Becky smiled at him when he returned, gesturing toward a chair set up next to the bed. “Doctor Chaudry will come talk to you in a minute. Your dad is in good hands.”

Nick sat in the chair. “Is he—is he hurting right now?”

Becky shook her head. “It looks worse than it is, trust me. He’s probably going to be in some pain when he wakes up, but that’s what morphine is for. We’ll get him stoned, and you can record him for blackmail later.”

Nick liked the way Becky thought.

Doctor Chaudry gave him the breakdown. Two broken ribs, punctured lung. Superficial burns on his arm. Contusions. Abrasions.

“It’s the head injury we’re watching the most,” he told him.“There’s some swelling, but it should go down. The breathing tube is for his lung. If there’s repeated pneumothorax, we’ll need to consider surgery, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

“When will he wake up?” Nick asked, fidgeting in his chair.

Doctor Chaudry smiled at him. “Soon, Nick. Probably within a couple of days. He’s healthy and strong. He’ll have to take it easy for a while, but I think he’s going to be fine.”

He was finally left alone as night began to fall, the rain slacking off to a miserable drizzle. The officers had shifts to get to, or they needed to go home to their families. Officer Rookie volunteered to stay with Nick, but Nick shook his head. Before he left, Officer Rookie wrote down his phone number on a piece of paper, telling Nick to call if he needed anything.

“Why, Officer Rookie, you sly dog. Way to slip me your number while I’m in a vulnerable place—”

Nick was almost offended at how fast Officer Rookie fled the room.

Turning back to his father, he hesitated before reaching out and touching the back of Dad’s hand. His skin was warm, and Nick struggled to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“Hey,” he managed to say. “Um. Becky told me that it was okay to talk to you. That you probably wouldn’t hear me, but she thinks it helps. She’s—uh. She’s your nurse. She seems really nice, I guess. So. That’s good.”

Nick looked at his hand atop his father’s. He was paler than his dad. He’d never noticed that before.

“I’m—” He coughed and cleared his throat. “I’m proud of you. I’m sorry if I don’t tell you that enough. I am. I don’t… I don’t know why we don’t say that to each other more. I know I screw up sometimes. And that’s my fault. I don’t mean to be this way. Not always. I know it’s rough. Without her. I don’t even know how we got this far. But we did. And we’re going to go further. I need you. I don’t want to do this on my own. You’re my dad.” A tear trickled down his cheek, but he didn’t wipe it away. “I’m grounded, remember? Soit’d be pretty great of you to wake up now so I don’t do anything I’m not supposed to.”

His dad’s chest rose and fell as the machines beeped and hissed.

Nick lay his head down on the side of the bed near their joined hands.

He stayed that way for a long time.