vii. Louis Daniel

The first thing he notices when he resurfaces from the dark, drowning depth of unconsciousness is how he feels light. Almost as if he is floating. Then, he thinks it might be the bed: it is moving softly, gently like a boat on the water.

But he does not know where he is.

Blinking past the rush of panic, he sees Rebecca, asleep on the cot next to his bed. The smile is natural, along with the overwhelming sense of relief.

As is the reaching out-

Pain.

Flashing through him. Through his entire body, from head to toe. Radiating out from his stomach, wave after wave. Something is wrong, he thinks, dimly, and then focuses on simply breathing.

Breathe. Calm down. What is going on here?

"Louis?" Rebecca wakes up like always, slowly and then suddenly and completely. She is at his side within seconds. "No, don't move! Breathe, love, just- Doctor, please, he's in pain!"

Carl, the psychiatrist, a farm hours in rural Paris. A gun, pointed at him–

There is a rush of sound, people running, calling out instructions. The only real thing is Rebecca holding on to his hand, refusing to move – and the pain pulsing through him. Then, the beeping sound of machinery recedes as his frantic heartbeat slows down and the drugs take over again. His head is fuzzy. His entire thought process is so slow he wants to scream. He wets his lips – Rebecca helps him drink some sips of water – and stares at the ceiling, wordlessly, until he falls asleep.

When he finally wakes up with a mind clear enough to ask questions, Rebecca is asleep on the cot (wearing something different, how much time has passed?) and Carl Hickman is sitting in a chair next to the windows. He looks… terrible, to say the least.

"What…" He has to take a breath. His voice sounds like sand paper, and the words hurt in his throat. "What happened?"

Carl stands, stiffly – a testament to how long he must have been sitting there already – and walks to the other side of the bed. Louis turns his head – it is heavy, so very heavy, but at least there is no pain – and asks the second question, more urgently than the first.

"Where are the others?"

And Carl…

Carl smiles. It is an exhausted, drawn smile, but something in Louis' heart relaxes in relief.

"Tommy and Sebastian brought Eva back. They're fine. All of them are."

"Thank God."

Louis closes his eyes, takes a breath. He cannot expand his chest too much, he notices, lest the pain returns. But right now, this… it is fine. Somehow.

"I'd tell you about everything," Carl says, quietly, "but you're banned from even hearing the word case until the doctors say otherwise."

Something in his tone makes Louis look at him again.

"What happened?"

Carl understands. He always did – they are similar, in a way, and very much so. Louis is glad his friend made it back after Genovese. After Ann-Marie. After everything.

"Eva's mother appeared. She gave us some information – I'm working on it. But I'm not telling you more until you're better."

"Ah." Louis leans back, tries to relax his muscles that protest from misuse – and, in the course of it, triggers some pain that is even worse. He breathes in deeply, hoping Carl hasn't noticed anything, but when their eyes meet he knows. Carlton Hickman is no stranger to pain.

It makes him smile; and, after a second, Carl almost smiles back.

"And… this?" Louis would gesture to the hospital room, but he doesn't dare move again. Hickman understands, anyway.

"You've been in a coma for two weeks. You were shot. That woman-" Carl clenches his jaw, his fist. Louis can see the guilt flash in his eyes. He knows it himself. If I had been faster, better, stronger – then this wouldn't have happened. There is no use beating oneself up. But guilt is not rational, never is. It does not go away because there is a logical answer to everything else.

"You…" Louis has to clear his throat. The American helps him with his water glass, but between a man who just regained his consciousness with a hole in his stomach and a man who lost the use of his dominant hand, they spill more water onto the sheets than he actually manages to drink. Not that it matters. "You couldn't have known, Carl."

"I should have anticipated it. I saw her as what she was. I just didn't expect-"

"You are not unfaultable. Neither am I. Eva." He does not manage to complete the sentence because a jolt of pain has him draw in his breath, sharply. Next to him, Rebecca stirs. Louis holds his breath and counts to twenty.

"Eva. Is… is she alright?"

Carl's perpetually shadowed gaze darkens even more. "She's fine. Physically, at least."

"Huh."

There is more he could say. More he wants to say, too, because if Tommy is like a son to him Eva is like a daughter. All of them are, really. He has not expected to come to care for them so much, but now he does and he cannot go back.

"Dorn is already preparing the prosecution," Hickman says, reading Louis' mind. "We'll get them, don't worry. Focus on getting better, okay?"

Louis wants to continue asking. He wants to help organizing and wants to go after the people that have endangered his team, wants to make then pay for the pain they have inflicted on Eva and, in consequence, onto all of the others. But there is something in Carl's eyes – darkness, and insecurity, and relief mixed with guilt and exhaustion and more guilt – that makes him stop.

"Carl," he says instead, his hand finding his friend's arm despite the numbness of the painkillers. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." The response is automatic. Even drugged and injured in a hospital bed, Louis Daniel can see a lie for what it is.

"You're not. Can you tell me?"

Carl Hickman turns away halfway and stares at the wall. His lips tighten. He looks old. Well, Louis thinks, with a pang of sadness, gratitude and irony all in one, these past weeks have taken years of all of them, probably.

"Not now," he finally says. "But I will, I promise."

"Okay." He can live with that. Sometimes, patience is more than simply a means to an end.

Carl glances at the clock at the wall. "Sebastian will be here soon. I have to go. Dorn keeps asking for our official report."

Louis thinks that – wait. "Have you set up a schedule to watch me?"

Carl grins. "As if we'd do something like that." He sobers. "No, seriously. We all would feel a lot better if you let us do this, Louis. We promise we're not getting in the way."

Louis sighs without much strength. "I probably can't persuade you otherwise."

"Well." Carl's grin turns self-deprecating. "You can try…"

"Louis?" Rebecca's voice is thick with sleep. Her hands search his even before she opens her eyes. "Oh, thank God, you're awake! Are you in pain?"

Suddenly, the only thing he sees is her face. Louis has to swallow at how beautiful she is.

"Rebecca."

He hears steps leaving the room and, briefly, imagines his team: one of them standing guard in front of the plain hospital room, Carl, Sebastian, Tommy, Eva or Arabella. As if he was important. As if he meant something to them. It is… humbling. It is more than he ever would have dreamed.

"They are crazy," Rebecca whispers in his ear after they have watched Carl leave and Sebastian take his place. "They've been here for the past two weeks."

"You have been here, too," he reminds her, gently.

Rebecca presses her lips to his hand. "I love you. So do they, apparently."

Her voice is playful, but her words are full of gratitude.

Louis chuckles. "What would I do without all of you." When she glares at him, he laughs again softly and stops immediately. The movement is painful.

"I love you, Rebecca."

"I love you, too."

Her kiss is careful, quick, it fills him with warmth. She slips onto the thin bed next to him, puts her head to his shoulder.

"So what's with Hickman?"

They never really discussed his team in the past. But since she returned to the ICC to work as a prosecutor once again, she has met them often enough. And, Louis figures, since they agree on how much they mean to him, he cannot leave her out of it.

"I think he's thinking of returning back to the States. His former partner called me sometime ago. She wanted to show him some opportunities."

"Hm." Rebecca's voice is thoughtful. "What will you do if he leaves?"

"I don't know, honestly. I just hope…" He takes a breath. "I just hope he will make the right decision for himself."

She shifts against him, minutely, trying not to cause him pain.

"And what about the others?"

"I'm worried about Eva," he confesses silently. "She must be struggling. Carl wouldn't tell me everything, but I'm sure whatever has happened has upset her greatly. She always loved her parents a lot. Seeing them again - after believing them dead - it must have been horrible for her. And Sebastian and Tommy will be worrying for her. They always do."

"They are always together, aren't they?"

"In a way, yes."

"And Seeger? Doesn't she feel left out?"

"Honestly? I don't know. She's different, not as dependent on others as the others are. But she's always been a part of the team. I don't know what I'm going to do if Carl leaves. He always managed to balance them out, somehow."

"You did, too."

"Yes. But he was a part of the team. I am... I was..."

"That doesn't make you less a part of them, you know?"

He knows. But sometimes... "Sometimes, it doesn't feel like I am."

"But you are. Look at them. They're here, aren't they?"

There is no denying that, he guesses. And they came back for him twice now. He can close his eyes again and again, but he cannot refuse the truth. He is a part of the team, too.

"Yes. Yes, they are."

His wife turns to face him, her eyes gentle. Her voice is silent, but the security in her tone is magnificent.

"It will be alright, Louis. Don't worry. Everything will turn out just fine."

Rebecca is magnificent.

And Louis realizes that he has been worrying about making her understand in vain. There is no need to explain himself to her when she already understands him, he does not need to make explanations because she knows. She understands him and his concerns, his hopes and his fears. The sudden rush of love he feels for her is dizzying.

"Yes," he repeats, softly, and leans down to kiss her hair. "Everything will be alright."

Her smile is brilliant.

This is what Louis Daniel has learned. He has been taught by the people he works with, those amazing, wonderful, broken people he selected himself as a means to an end and who stayed with him, regardless. He has been taught by his oldest friends and by his new team, by the people that have become so precious to him over the past year that he would rather give up on his revenge than lose one of them. He has been taught by his son: how precious it is to love, and how human to hurt. And that both belongs to each other, intertwined until the end. And finally, he has been taught by Rebecca: his wife, the person he gave his heart to all those years ago and who has carried it with her through the seasons.

Everything will be alright.

Through the curtains, he can see the sunrise.

trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
[e. e. cummings]