I woke up feeling strangled, and realized it was because someone had wrapped like an entire roll of gauze around my neck. Opening my eyes, I frowned slightly as I tugged at the wrappings, just to have familiar hands curl around my own, stilling my movements. 

For a moment I was distracted and fascinated by the fact that I had somehow memorized the precise placement of each callus on his palms. That I almost instinctively knew how his fingers were jointed, and exactly how they fit around my own hands.

Squinting against the lamp light, I turned to find Shane looking down at me. We were lying on the bed, an IV still in his arm, and his arms around me, keeping me propped up against his chest. I frowned at the odd expression he was wearing, but ignored that in lieu of being able to breathe properly. Rasping, I said, "Shane, I need to loosen the bandages."

He blinked slowly, then let go of my hands, letting me sit up. The dresser across the room from us had a small mirror set above it, and I watched distantly as I quickly unwrapped the endless length of dressing someone had put on me. I was starting to suspect who.

"Did Kyle do this?" I asked, still watching as I continued to unwind my neck. Shane nodded curtly and I sighed. It was still coming off.

When I finally got to the last couple layers, I slowed down, unsure of how bad the damage was. I didn't want to do anything rash and bleed to death in front of Shane. Or... anyone, really.

I felt strange, though that's not exactly what it was, considering what I felt in the moment was actually nothing. I remembered exactly what had happened. I remembered getting to the room and falling forward into Kyle. Everything was in weird crystal detail. And I was fine, didn't feel a thing.

And that's not normal.

Regardless of how familiar I'd become with death, I shouldn't have been this comfortable. I should have been rattled. I should have woken up disoriented. I should have been scared... I should have been in pain.

I realized this last with a frightening calm. No jolt of concern, no nothing. Just completely un-rattled. Carefully I peeled away the last few layers, which were bloody, and gazed emotionlessly into the mirror, watching for a brief moment as bright red started to trickle down the side of my neck again.

My movements efficient I wound the fabric, though definitely a much shorter length, back around my throat. Since I was still breathing, I knew he hadn't hit the carotid. I wasn't surprised by the bleeding though. Sometimes people forget that there's a bunch of little veins and other arteries in the neck because all they ever hear about is the carotid. It doesn't really matter where you get hit, if it's your neck it's probably going to bleed like a son of a bitch.

I wasn't even surprised that I'd passed out, though, I suspected shock and exhaustion had just as much—or more—to do with that than blood loss all by itself. I still wasn't concerned.

And later... that concerned the hell out of me.

Because as soon as you become comfortable with death, that's when you wind up meeting the bastard in person.

Calmly, I turned back around to Shane, who was still watching me with that weird look on his face, and asked, "How long was I out?"

He blinked once, then tonelessly said, "A couple hours. It's the middle of the night."

"Dammit," I muttered. "I don't suppose Kyle used those grand powers of deduction and figured out that he did this and caught him?"

Now Shane blinked rapidly. "What?"

I stared back blankly. "What, what? If Kyle didn't go after him immediately, he's probably long gone by now."

I kinda felt like I was watching a play. This wasn't happening to me, so it didn't require any sort of real response.

See, back when I was little, for every birthday my grandparents would take me to this old-fashioned dinner theater club. It was my favorite part of my birthday because I loved the elegance of it. I loved feeling like I was back in the fifties, eating dinner and watching a floor show, like I was in White Christmas or something.

The one that stands out to me the most was this murder mystery. That was the play for the month and my grandparents always got us a table near enough to the stage that we could see everything perfectly. The other thing special about that particular table—because it was the same one every year—was that it was right next to one of the ramps leading towards the stage.

When the lights went out so they could set the scene, I could always hear the actors and set people rushing up and down the ramp, right next to me, but couldn't see anything beyond a vague outline. Something was happening, but I had to wait for the lights.

The image that stands out most vividly is that the mystery was just beginning. We were waiting for the killer to strike. Then they did.

It went dark, there was the rushing, then the lights came back on and there was a murder victim on the couch placed in the middle of the stage. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her tongue protruding like she'd been strangled.

Funny thing is, I don't remember who the culprit was. I don't remember how they solved it. I don't remember much beyond that one scene. The shock of seeing someone dead right there in the middle of my dinner, even though I knew it was just an act.

That's how I felt in that moment with Shane. The lights were off. I could hear rushing about. And I was about to find a dead body. Just weightless suspense, where nothing bad had happened yet, so you can't possibly have a reaction.

Shane leaned forward slightly, concern melting away that other expression I hadn't been able to place yet. "What he are you talking about, Raleigh?"

Now it was my turn to blink rapidly. I tentatively placed my hand against my neck and said, "The person who did this."

There was a long silence that confused me, though still only mildly, then Shane asked, "Who?"

The confusion deepened and I frowned, my eyebrows pulling together sharply. "Who do you think did this?"

He hesitated and I finally understood what that look had been. Or at least... I thought I did. My voice lowered and I repeated, "Who do you think did this, Shane?"

Muttering softly to himself, he said, "Justin." Then he looked up at me. That sense of wrong grew when I had the distant thought that he was taking this revelation quite well. Quietly, he said, "I didn't have a damn clue. For all I knew, you'd taken off outside the fences again and it was a damn accident. Wouldn't be the first time you'd hopped the fences and come back covered in blood."

"You sure you thought it was an accident?" I growled and the look of complete shock I received should have done much more to placate my suspicion.

But I was more than slightly off-kilter and hadn't been feeling very stable as of late. The last week had left me rode hard and put up wet, and blood loss never did anything for rationality anyway.

I stood up too quickly and swayed, making Shane reach for me. His fingers managed to brush my arm, but then I was out of reach. I wasn't mad... that's too strong and I was still too numb. But I was with it enough to understand that I didn't like what I thought he was insinuating. 

My voice still calm, I said, "Shane, if I were going to kill myself, I wouldn't cut my throat. That's messy. And painful. And I'd be left to wander around in my own rotting corpse." I smiled a little, though the expression was humorless.

"I didn't—" he started to object, but I didn't let him.

Shaking my head, I said, "I get it. These last weeks have been bad, and it's probably been pretty obvious that I haven't been handling it with buckets of grace. With Sacha and then you..." I had to frown and think if anything else bad had happened. "I killed Cam. I hurt a lot of people. Doesn't mean I think the solution is to off myself."

Shane tried again to open his mouth, but I said, "At this point I'm not sure I could quite bring myself to do it. There are a few reasons, but what I just can't understand is how you thought I could leave you."

There was a heavy, intense silence after that with us both just staring at each other. Shane was pale and looked like he was working through several different emotions while I remained in that unsettling serene state.

Finally, he cleared his throat, and hoarsely, said, "The thought never crossed my mind, Raleigh."

I'm sure my smile was condescending, though I don't think I meant for it to be, because he snapped, "The fuck, Raleigh? What in the holy hell are you thinking? Are you even thinking? Because you're creeping me out with your T-800 act."

My mouth quirked. "Did you just call me a Terminator?"

Shane's eyes closed for a moment. "I was worried. Because what happened happened and then you left and I didn't know where you'd gone."

"I told you," I said robotically. I think that might have been on purpose, because of his previous comment.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Yeah. And I seem to have a distinct memory of some other time you disappeared on me and came back gushing blood."

"Gush might be a little dramatic," I pointed out.

The muscle in Shane's jaw feathered and he took two impressively deep breaths. Then he said, "Whatever. I don't care if it's a fountain or a sprinkle, any blood from you is too much. And let's face it, Raleigh, when things get bad, you've been known to go off script to try and fix something."

I shook my head because I wasn't sure how true that was.

There was another intense silence, and I realized he was waiting for me to speak. My lips formed words that had no meaning, that didn't even have an order as I grasped for some way to respond.

I was starting to realize that there was something wrong with me. Still didn't concern me. That came later.

Frowning, my brows furrowing, I sat back on the bed next to him, leaning against the headboard and folded my arms. Staring blankly across the room, I asked, "What happened after I left?"

I caught Shane's little side-eye, but he just answered, "I wanted to go after you but my damn brother wouldn't let me get up."

I nodded approvingly and he growled, his fingers itching at the needle in his arm. I took his hand to restrain it, caught a little off guard when he threaded his familiar fingers through mine. My frown deepened as that sense of wrong started to wake up a little more. Sighing when I didn't immediately pull away, he said, "I was... concerned because of what had happened." He nodded toward my throat, but I didn't say anything, just waited impassively for him to continue.

His frown deepened. "But I've more than learned by now when to give you a second and some space." He smiled slightly, but it faded when I just nodded. "So I just waited for you to get back, going crazy. Then... I think I dozed off. I remember that someone was talking, but that must have just been Kyle and Lauren. The next thing I really remember is the door opening and you falling into the room."

"I thought I fell into Kyle?" I asked.

Shane gave me a dry look. "Who was in the room. You were bleeding and unconscious and Kyle wrapped you up a little... overzealously."

"Not that anyone tried to stop him," I noted.

He shrugged. "It was a lot of blood."

There was another bottomless silence, then I asked, "Where's Kyle now?"

"Probably asleep."

"Why?" The question came out so forcefully we both jumped, and I frowned.

Shane blinked once, then again, then I literally saw when he finally realized the problem. Turned out I wasn't the only one moving a little slowly in the intelligence department. If everything had been normal, I would have shivered at how flat and cold his eyes went, their color now an arctic grey.

His breath came a little faster as fury tore through his expression, and before I could do anything, he ripped the IV out. He was across the room faster than I anticipated, digging a pair of jeans out, then into his boots and I wondered rather absurdly if he had really been as sick as I thought.

The sound of him clattering down the stairs spurred me to action, and I went out the door after him.

When I got to the front door, he was already across the lawn and into the mini-city of tents. I saw him grab a passerby's arm, ask something, then that person pointed toward the edge of the settlement where a tent stood near the fence, lonely and somehow vulnerable.

I tried to move faster to catch him, but it was kind of difficult to stay in a straight line. I was still a little woozy, though this realization was met with the same blankness as the string of realizations before it.

Shane tore the tent open, then just as quickly reversed course. I was still doggedly making my way toward him and I knew when he saw me, because he bolted back over to me and started pulling me back to the house. I shivered slightly in the cold air and said, "If I'm going back, you are too."

This pulled him up short, then I was the one tugging us along when I saw his breath cloud in front of him. All he was wearing was a t-shirt and jeans. It was too cold for him to be out here. Shane's hand tightened on mine, and I anticipated when he would try to stop, jerking him forward immediately when he did. Except he did the same thing to me and I ended up colliding with his chest.

Shane coughed slightly and said, "I need to go get him."

I blinked, the chill making my eyes water. Finally I nodded, but when Shane tried to walk away again, I said, "Not now."

"What?" he hissed, outraged, though not at me.

Numbly, still feeling like this had happened to a complete stranger, I said, "Fine, but it's dark. You aren't going to be able to track him anyway and it's just as likely that you'll keel over out there exerting yourself."

Shane glowered and I shrugged impassively. "It's not my fault you caught something that kicked your ass."

I looked him up and down, registering the dark circles under his eyes, the pallor of his skin in the low light and finally, the way his clothes hung off of him somewhat. I blinked, squinting, then decided that four days of sickness hadn't caused that. I just hadn't been paying attention over the weeks and months it had taken him to lose the weight. I was merely noticing it now.

When Shane looked like he was still going to argue, I said, "We'll see if any of the vehicles are missing. If not, then how far could he get really, considering he's probably not running around in the dark either?"

I sort of think Shane hates when I fight him with solid tactics. He likes that I know them, but it irritates him when I lay out facts and the Marine in him can't argue with the strategic strength of my points. Eventually he just nodded, one short bob of his head, then we were headed toward where all the cars were.

Nothing was missing, which meant he was on foot, and Shane uncoiled about a picometer's worth of tension from his shoulders. Reluctantly, he listened to me, but only insofar as returning to the house.

He went up the stairs and I sighed when he went down the hall on the second floor instead of continuing to the third. He pounded on one of the doors and waited impatiently at the muttered oath and the scuff of clothes trying to be found. A very grumpy and rumpled Kyle emerged a moment later, quickly closing the door behind him when he saw who it was.

Sighing in frustration, he leaned against the closed door and crossed his arms, but before he could ask, Shane said, "Get Lauren and Cas. Meet me in the upstairs study in five."

Kyle didn't exactly snap off a salute, but he did hop to it with the way Shane was rapping out orders. I silently followed Shane up the stairs where he knocked on the three other doors that were in our hall.

A sleepy Danielle emerged from one, then a second later a yawning Sam joined us. Shane frowned at the third door and I blandly pointed out, "She probably just fell asleep in Sacha's room."

Shane considered that, nodded once, then about-faced before making his way down the stairs. Danielle gave me a look that was an interesting mix of irritation, concern and confusion. I just shrugged, then waved for them to follow me down a different hallway that took us to the other side of the house.

I eased the door to the study open, saw it was empty, then led the other two in. I sank tiredly into the chair behind the desk and waved a hand when Danny started to ask. Indifferently, I gestured to my neck and said, "It was Justin. He's gone. Shane's pissed. But at least he knows he needs a game plan."

Danny gave me a sharp look that I returned blankly, and the look softened to something a little more concerned. She tried to ask, but then Shane came in, leading the rest of our little band into the study.

Everyone arranged themselves about the room and waited.

But I was just checked out. I would have fit in more at the Hotel California than I did here at this moment. Briefly, I wondered if maybe Kyle had given me something, but decided Shane would have told me.

The problem was that I was still detached. I'm not sure shocky is right. Maybe removed could explain it. Everyone, including Shane looked at me, but I just watched them. 

Sedated... I think that's the word I want.

Shane hesitated, like he was catching up to the fact that I was so completely checked out, but he couldn't stop now. Briefly, he outlined what happened and I watched in apathetic interest at the horror and rage everyone displayed on my behalf.

The rest of it was sort of blurry. They talked about searches. About extra precautions. About shooting on sight.

It might have taken minutes or hours.

I didn't tune back in until Shane was helping me to my feet and leading me down the hall back to our room. Quietly, I reinserted the IV, then climbed into the bed. I felt Shane's fingers gently inspect the bandaging on my neck, then there was nothing but the sound of his breathing.

I'm sure I was breathing too, but I couldn't consciously feel it. Couldn't feel my heart beating either. It was like I was a human void, and the only thing I could think was that at least it wouldn't keep me up.

                                                                               ~~~

I've always been fascinated by the gauntlet of reactions humans can potentially run when faced with any kind of trauma. Heightened emotional states: rage, anguish, whatever it was, all interesting. 

Shock was something I had always been rather confused by. Emotional responses I get, they're still a protection mechanism, keeping you aware of your surroundings.

Shock just kind of makes everything cold and removed. I could never figure out why your brain would shut you down like that after a traumatic event, because I'd always thought it would make more sense to stay on high alert. You could always still be in danger. Shock seemed like an excellent way to accidentally get hit by a car or let an attacker get an opening.

However, I was eventually taught that being a little removed wasn't such a terrible thing.

You see, I'm used to almost dying. Most of us are. Almost dying is living now.

What I was not accustomed to, at that point, was death threats.

Many people don't understand that there is a pretty significant difference between the two things.

It's one thing to die because there were one too many zombies, or because pneumonia decided to come and kick your ass. It is a completely different thing to look someone in the eye and see that they want you dead. That they want your blood to spill and your heart to stop beating.

It had been a stranger who'd had that knife pressed against her throat... Until I woke up.

Lurching upright, I was astonished and horrified when I felt a tear cut a too hot path down my frozen cheek. I tossed the covers aside, startling Shane awake judging by the small huff coming from his side of the bed. I wasn't sure because I was running across the cold hardwood floors into the bathroom, falling to the even colder tile.

Funnily enough, some part of me was thankful that I even had enough in my stomach to be so sick. The pain had finally decided to make an appearance and my cut neck was not happy with my body's violent reaction.

When it was over, I scooted across the frigid tile and rested my back against the wall.

I was still crying.

I was scared.

I hadn't been scared like that in so long that I'd forgotten how devastating it was.

Sure, I mean, I'd been scared for Shane, for Sacha, for all of them. But this... this was different. It had been a really long time since I'd actually been scared for myself. And it actually, physically hurt to remember that, no matter how hard this world had made me, I was still vulnerable.

I've never, truly hated someone until that moment. And it was almost scary how easy it was to hate him. I'd always considered hate to be a useless emotion. Something that clouded your judgement and kept you from seeing the whole picture.

But in that moment, it was something comforting to cling to while all of the reactions I should have had earlier flooded through me in one overpowering wave.

Eventually, the door swung open. I looked up to find Shane watching me, a deep sadness in his eyes, and I wondered how many times he'd seen this before. Quietly, he padded over to where I was on the floor, then slid gingerly down the wall, stretching his bad leg out in front of him.

He tugged me toward him, until I was resting in his lap, my cheek against his chest. His fingers combed through my sweaty hair and I just sat there, trying to catch my breath in something more gentle than a ragged gasp, trying to swim my way out of this impossible riptide.

Once I'd stopped trembling and my breath was coming in a more normal fashion, Shane whispered, "He'll never touch you again."

I didn't stop to think, couldn't even hesitate over the fact that I was signing a man's death warrant. All I did was nod and breath, "Please."