"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

~"The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

Bash hadn't been within the realm of adults in so long that he'd almost forgotten how difficult they could be.

"Without your guardian here, we can't admit your brother, love," the receptionist at St. Elmer's Clinic was saying.

Bash drug his hand over his face. "I'm his guardian, Miss."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen," he lied.

The receptionist lifted an eyebrow. "Do you have identification?"

Bash sighed. "I was walking him home from school. I didn't think I'd need it." He glanced over his shoulder, where Smiley was cradling his arm in the empty waiting room, staring forlornly out the window.

Bash turned back to the receptionist. "Please. Just help him."

A torn expression crossed the woman's face. "Let me go check with the doctor."

While he waited, Bash pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly.

As a rule, the Crumbs tried to avoid government-funded spaces. They always asked too many questions and there were only so many answers they could give that didn't incriminate them as orphans without an orphanage.

"Smiley! Oh, you daft idiot, are you alright?!"

Bash turned and saw Kathy and Syl coming through the door. He'd phoned Wolgemoth & Sons from the clinic to tell them that Smiley wouldn't be able to man the radio this afternoon.

He walked over to them with an attempt at a greeting.

"Why'd you tell them to come?" Smiley muttered.

"I didn't," Bash replied evenly. "They're here because they care about you."

Smiley glared at Bash and, for once, Bash glared back.

Kathy and Syl both looked from one brother to the other, too stunned at the tension to ask what had happened.

"Mr. Gibbs?" A nurse stood beside an open door. "The doctor said he'll see you and your brother now." Her eyes narrowed at Syl and Kathy. "Will you two be wanting to join them after the examination?"

"Yes," Syl and Kathy said in unison.

Bash helped Smiley to his feet and they followed the nurse into the examination room, where the doctor gave them suspicious glances as he prepared Smiley for the X-ray.

Bash stood on the other side behind a glass window and watched as Smiley painstakingly placed his arm on a table beside his chair.

Bash took a deep breath to prepare himself for whatever he was about to see. He could tell Smiley was in excruciating pain, but couldn't help but wonder why he had to be so stupid.

The X-ray was taken and Bash was allowed back into the room.

He lowered himself into a chair beside Smiley, whose eyes were bleary. Smiley's cheeks were splotched with red and his hair was a mess.

The image reminded Bash of the day their parents died. When the police had come to tell them of the accident, starting their sentence with the words, "I'm sorry boys..." Smiley had looked similar to how he looked now.

Except, now, he also looked angry. Disappointed. Bash put his hand on his brother's shoulder.

The doctor, an elderly man with as many hairs on his head as he had fingers, held the printed X-ray up to a backlit screen.

He didn't need to explain what the boys were seeing. It was as plain as a single white cloud in a clear blue sky.

Several of Smiley's fingers were broken, seemingly snapped in half like pencils.

Smiley leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. Bash gripped his shoulder, unable to look at the screen too long.

"The bad news is the fingers. The good news," the doctor said, "is that your wrist is only sprained. That would've taken a lot more time to heal. I'd say in about nine weeks, your fingers should be recovered."

He said "nine weeks" as if that were quick enough. As if Smiley didn't need his hands sooner than that. As if they didn't have a concert to play in fourteen days.

"I need to go fill out paperwork, then I'll be back with your splints."

As soon as the doctor left, the weight of what had happened settled in the room like a suffocating quilt.

"You could have been worse off," Bash said. "Greg Whitman could've killed you."

"Don't patronize me."

Bash let out a shallow laugh. "Smiles, do you know what this accident means?"

Smiley gritted his teeth and glowered at the ceiling. "Of course I know what this means. And I don't need you to remind me."

"It's quite something else that you're angry at me when all I've done in the past two hours is break up a fight that you started and taken you to the hospital to fix your broken hand, which, by the way, might be the demise of our radio station."

"Don't say that. Don't you dare." Smiley's eyes were wild with grief. "If I'm the reason we lose our home, I couldn't live with myself."

His chin quivered and Bash closed his mouth, chastened.

Before he could apologize, the door opened and Syl and Kathy came through.

"We heard," Syl said. Her face was a mask, either angry or sad or afraid or all of them, Bash couldn't tell.

Kathy, on the other hand, had tears making zigzag patterns in between the freckles dotting her cheeks.

She knelt beside Smiley's chair and took his good hand in hers. "We're here for you, Smiley."

Her words were like a blow to Bash's stomach. That was what he should've said to his brother instead of using his mistakes to make sure he felt bad enough about them.

As Kathy asked a million questions that Smiley only halfheartedly answered, Syl came to stand next to Bash and put a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll make it," Syl said, though even she didn't sound convinced.

"I don't know," Bash replied heavily. "A cat has only so many lives."

The doctor came in then with a hesitant sweep at the new occupants in the room before asking them to move aside.

He splinted Smiley's pointer and middle fingers together, then wrapped his pinky.

"No more fistfights, young sir," the doctor reprimanded.

They were herded out of the office and stood on the sidewalk, altogether silent on the matter at hand.

"Fish and chips?" Kathy offered weakly.

~~~~~~~

The following days after the accident were quiet. Everyone kept moving forward with concert preparations because they didn't know what else to do.

Kathy put up fliers. Syl decorated the set. Bash continued with repairs.

And Smiley sat at his piano for hours on end, plucking away with his left hand as best he could, though nothing ever sounded half as good as it should.

He couldn't sleep at night, both for the pain in his hand and for the consequences of his fight haunting him at every turn.

He wanted to blame Greg Whitman for breaking his fingers, but as much as Smiley wanted to convince himself that Greg had done it on purpose, he couldn't.

Now their concert was in jeopardy. Their home was in jeopardy.

Smiley couldn't look Bash in the eye. Because, when he did, he saw disappointment there. And where he saw disappointment in Bash, he always saw their parents.

He'd let them down, and that thought was almost as jarring as the prospect of losing the radio.

Tonight would mark the sixth night Smiley hadn't slept a wink. His body ached for rest, but his mind wouldn't have it.

Nighttime always brought demons out from the shadows to lurk by his bedside, calling to mind every mistake he'd ever made and making them seem worse than they were.

Tonight was no different.

He stared up at the dark ceiling, feeling, for the first time, like he wanted to cry.

Instead, he stood up. He wasn't going to fight sleep all night; he might as well do something productive.

He climbed up the ladder, into the crisp night air. Wolgemoth was so peaceful at midnight without the Crumbs' ruckus to disturb it.

The deck was dark, but not as dark as the ocean beyond. Smiley took in a deep breath of the salt-tinged air.

There was the occasional splash of a fish in the distance and the stars...Smiley couldn't quite explain how looking at them made him feel. It was good, he supposed.

He headed up to the wheelhouse to find that the light inside was already on.

Smiley breathed in the scent of freshly brewed tea and looked around to find that he wasn't alone.

"Syl?"

She sat in the broken armchair near the sofa, facing the large window that overlooked the deck. She wore a long emerald green bathrobe, but she didn't look like she'd been asleep or had any plans to sleep in the near future.

"Kettle's hot," Syl offered without turning around.

Smiley poured himself a cup. It took twice as long, just like everything else these days, but eventually, he had himself a steaming mug balanced in one hand.

He plopped down on the sofa beside Syl's chair, splashing a few droplets of hot liquid onto his lap. After uttering a string of curses, he finally settled in his seat.

"How do you stay up so late?" he asked.

Syl gave him an annoyed glance. "I enjoy the quiet."

"Well, it's kicking my arse." He took a loud slurp of his tea.

Syl returned her attention to the window, watching as the moon occasionally illuminated the crest of a wave.

"You think Bash hates me?" Smiley asked.

"No."

"He should." Smiley flicked the tea tag to the other side of his cup. "It was a stupid fight, anyway. It's just when I saw Greg's ugly mug, all I could think about was the listeners he was stealing from us. The station is all we have and the Teddy's could have anything in the world. Why'd they have to choose radio, of all things?"

He looked down, studying his tea like a clairvoyant attempting to read the leaves on the bottom.

He took a breath to fill the air by saying something witty, then stopped.

When Smiley talked to Bash, he was talking to his older brother. When he talked to Kathy, he was talking to his sister.

But when Smiley talked to Syl, he liked to entertain the thought that he was talking to a friend. Sure, Syl was older than him, but they were similar in the same way she and Bash were opposites.

So he said, "When I threw that punch, I felt like I was somehow protecting the radio. Like I was doing us all some sort of favor."

Syl surprised him by responding with, "I know what that's like."

Smiley snorted. "Right. I'm fairly certain you've never made a mistake in your entire life."

Syl glanced at him and took a long, thoughtful sip of her tea. "Assuming someone has never made a mistake puts the same noose of responsibility around their necks as assuming everything is someone's fault."

Smiley rolled his eyes but took her point. It was funny how Syl could construct such sentences in perfect English whenever she was correcting him.

"Fine," he consented. "What did you do?"

A cloud settled over Syl's face. Smiley suspected it had something to do with the sudden sum of money that had appeared of which nobody would ever talk about.

But instead of explaining, Syl said, "Sometimes I feel like it's easier to do things on my own because I'm the only person I've ever been able to trust. When we forget we're part of a...what's the word? Not family." Syl closed her eyes to focus. "Team. When we forget we are part of a team is when things get muddled. I've learned that the hard way."

Smiley looked down at his hand. "Yeah, me too."

"People like us try to fix things," Syl said.

"And we end up making them worse," Smiley finished.

Syl let out a halfhearted chuckle. "Exactly. Maybe we both need to stop fixing and start letting things be. Because we can't fix the Mad Teddy's. We can't do better than our best. Hopefully, our best pays off, but if it doesn't, then..."

"We get to live in that abandoned warehouse near the Thames?"

"What?"

"Bash and I saw it years ago. It has green windows and old factory equipment inside."

Syl rolled her eyes. "Now you sound like Kathy."

They both laughed and it was the most joyous sound to come from Wolgemoth in days.

It was a shame Bash and Kathy weren't there to join in, but perhaps the laughter was reserved for those who needed it most.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heyyyy guys! Sorry for the late post! I had a crazy weekend performing for the first time (sadly, I did not play guitar as good as Bash lol), but it was fun!

~How do you think the Crumbs handled the accident?

~What do you think will happen with Smiley's broken hand?

~General thoughts on the chapter?