Page 74 of Shrapnel

Grant answered on the second ring. “Elijah?”

“I need my uncle,” Noah answered breathlessly as he tried to right himself on the bed. Elijah helped pull him back onto the mattress, hands hovering over his injuries. Noah batted them away.

The line knocked and he heard angry grunting in the background before his uncle growled sleepily, “What?”

“Did you ever know anyone to call Luther ‘Lulu?”:

His uncle sighed. “It may surprise you to know that Luther and I weren’t friends. We didn’t talk much.” The phone rustled again. “Do you know if anyone called your ugly ass ex ‘Lulu?”

Noah could hear Grant’s soft voice murmuring from the other end of the line, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“Grant says no. What’s this about?”

“I just…I remembered something from my childhood.” Noah tried to remember that guy's face, his voice, even the type of shoes he wore. Nothing. Even the memory itself was faded. All soft around the edges and indistinct. Noah might have thought it was just a dream, but he knew it wasn’t. It was sitting heavily in his mind like something real.

Elijah rubbed his back, and he pushed some damp hair from his face.

“Grant told me about the explosion. Elijah said he was with you but…are you ok?”

Noah answered without thinking. “Fine.”

Kurt grunted like he didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t going to call him out on it. “Do you…you know that you can…” He had never heard his uncle so out of sorts. Kurt was going to say some kind of platitude. Tell him that he could count on him or come home.

Noah couldn’t. He didn’t trust his uncle to be strong enough to take on his burden as well as his own and like it or not, this mansion of lies and deceit was his home.

“I said I was fine.”

Kurt exhaled sharply. “Right.”

Like it or not, Noah was half Beckett. And the Beckett’s were always fine.

Just fine.

Jamie found himself questioning the decision to get a second-floor apartment for the second time in as many weeks. He limped up the final two stairs and rested against the concrete wall, ignoring the way the hand railing dug into his back as he caught his breath.

He spent the last couple of days sprawled out on Jackson’s bed. Periodically, the mercenary would prod him awake to feed him something, then stuff pills down his throat. By the time Jamie was sober enough to realize where he was, Jackson wasn’t in the room. Jamie took that opportunity to flee the small motel.

The painkillers had succeeded in giving Jamie enough respite that he could sleep, but they didn’t erase the memories of what had happened before. There were other people he could have gone to—one phone call to Elijah or Grant would have had him whisked away to a proper hospital.

But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want the Weavers to see him so vulnerable. A weakness that had absolutely nothing to do with the stab wound.

Yes.

Jamie didn’t know a word could hurt so badly. But Owen telling him that he was afraid of him? That hurt worse than any broken bottle. That one syllable cut through his walls like one of Elijah’s blades, crumbling the previously impenetrable mortar and wounding Jamie deep. The fresh pain was a combination of guilt, sadness, and a thousand other things Jamie hadn’t felt in years. It was almost enough to bring him to his knees.

Time had not lessened the pain, not that Jamie would let it. He kept picking at the wound, scraping off the scab to feel that fresh wave of pain. Over and over. Until it choked him and every time he closed his eyes he could see the horrified, distant look Owen had given him.

Even now, he could see Owen’s stiff shoulders. The way he clutched the door to keep Jamie out as if Jamie would force his way into his apartment like some kind of savage.

Like a monster.

If he was feeling better, he might have laughed. Owen had given him a gift by hurting him. Jamie thought that if Jackson’s anger couldn’t make him feel anything then he was truly lost. He had been looking for an explosion, a fiery burst of rage. But what he had needed was an over-caffeinated geek with cute cheeks to remind him that somewhere deep down, he was still human.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he glanced over at his front door. Only a few feet away, it still felt like too much. His muscles ached and the wound itched where the gauze and tape were stuck to his skin. Jackson had done a good job in bandaging him.

Pulling keys from his back pocket, he unlocked the front door. His eyes immediately dropped to a pair of stupidly small sneakers. Rolling his eyes, he closed the door quietly and walked into the dim apartment.

The TV was on, but the volume was turned down low. Some woman in a ridiculous chef hat was icing a cake that looked remarkably like the last US president. Noah was curled up on their couch, Elijah’s comforter draped over him.