A new idea hit me like a freight train, and I'm also feeling a bit better at the moment, so y'all are getting at least one more multi-chapter fic before 'SEAL Team Week.' This story is probably about halfway written already. I'll try to post every 2-3 days. There will be eight chapters total, plus an epilogue.

I want to clarify right off the bat: this will not include any kind of significant injury to a child. However, there will be quite a lot of fear, speculation and discussion around the general idea of a child potentially being kidnapped and harmed by a close, trusted family friend. I wanted to make sure to warn for those themes up front because I know they are heavy and might be triggering for some.

The story title and all chapter titles come from the poem Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, by Galway Kinnell.

1. Let Nothing of You Go

Ray Perry knows he's lucky.

The fall that gave him bruised ribs and a nasty concussion could easily have broken his neck instead - and if his boys hadn't made it to him so quickly afterward, he would have had too many bullet holes to worry about little things like head injuries or sore ribs.

Knowing that on an intellectual level doesn't make the recovery process any more fun or less frustrating, though. Thanks to the persistent dizzy spells, Ray isn't allowed to try driving for at least another week, which means he can't even pick up his own daughter from school on days when Naima is at work.

Normally Naima's mother picks up Jameelah when Naima is working and Ray is spun up or otherwise unavailable, but she has gone to spend some time with her terminally ill brother in Nashville. This becomes an issue for the first time on the Friday before Mother's Day, when Naima unexpectedly gets called in to cover an extra shift for one of her coworkers who's out sick.

Ray and Naima long since added his teammates to Jameelah's school's list of trusted people who are allowed to pick her up. Jason is unavailable. Next on the list is Spenser, who agrees with a level of enthusiasm that makes Ray narrow his eyes suspiciously.

"Do not stop and get her ice cream on the way home," he says.

"I won't," Clay promises.

"Or a popsicle."

"Copy."

"Or anything else that contains sugar."

"Roger that."

"Or caffeine," Ray adds.

"Or caffeine," Clay agrees solemnly.

"Or-"

Spenser laughs. "How about I just promise not to buy her any food?"

There are clear loopholes there that Ray doesn't trust. "Or candy. Or drinks."

"No sugar or caffeine," Clay says. "No noise-making toys. No ponies. No crystal meth. I know, man. Naima already gave me this lecture, and no offense, but it was way scarier when she did it."

Ray rolls his eyes, but lets it go at that.

He honestly kind of feels like shit. His ribs throb, and as the day wears on, he develops a pounding headache. He feels exhausted by noon, and it's nearly 1500 by the time he finally manages to persuade RJ to take a nap by lying down with him.

Of course that ends with Ray falling asleep as well.

He jolts awake, groggy and confused, an unknown time later. The room is so dark that for a disoriented moment Ray thinks he has slept past sunset. Finally, his addled brain registers the roar of rain on the roof, followed by a great crack of thunder that makes RJ startle in his sleep.

Well, that explains the dim lighting. Now that he thinks about it, Ray vaguely remembers hearing that it was supposed to rain later today.

Leaving RJ sleeping - like his sister, the little man can sleep through a tornado once he's finally out - Ray fumbles around until he finds his phone where he left it sitting atop RJ's dresser. A glance at the screen makes him groan as he quietly leaves the room, easing the door shut behind him.

Jameelah has been out of school for more than an hour and a half. Clay must have stayed and kept her quiet so Ray could sleep. It isn't really fair to Spenser that the school pickup unexpectedly turned into babysitting, but honestly, Ray is grateful. He feels much better now than he did before the unplanned nap.

Ray makes it halfway down the hallway toward the living room before he stops, gripped by a sudden, strange sense of unease.

The house is dark. There isn't a single light turned on.

And beneath the steady drumming of rain on the roof, Ray hears nothing but silence.

It finally occurs to him to scroll through all the notifications on his phone, and there it is: a text from Clay.

Taking J to get a gift for Naima. Shouldn't be long.

The text was sent 80 minutes ago, not long after Jameelah would have gotten out of school. There are no other texts from Spenser. No missed calls either.

Telling himself not to jump to conclusions, Ray does a sweep of the entire house just to confirm that Clay and Jameelah aren't hiding, playing some kind of ill-advised prank on him. They aren't.

Next, he checks the yard to make sure that Spenser hasn't taken his daughter out to play in the downpour - because honestly, he wouldn't put it past Clay. But there's no sign of them there either.

What the hell did Clay do? Take Jameelah to Chuck E. Cheese to wait out the storm, and forget to let her parents know about it?

More than a little annoyed, Ray calls Spenser's phone. It goes right to voicemail. He immediately calls back, and the same thing happens. Tries a text instead. Doesn't get a response.

Ray feels like there's a weight on his chest now. He breathes past it, past the pain of his injured ribs. Tells himself to stay calm. There's an explanation for this. Has to be.

He calls his other teammates. None of them have heard from Clay since yesterday. None have any idea where he could be.

Between those calls, Ray keeps trying Clay's phone again and again, with the same result each time: straight to voicemail.

Come on, Spenser. Turn on your damn phone. Please. Oh God please.

Ray's mind is running away from him, imagining Clay's truck in a ditch somewhere, or wrapped around a tree.

Imagining the two of them trapped inside, unconscious, maybe severely injured, for more than a fucking hour with no one looking for them, because Ray was asleep and didn't realize they were even missing.

He locks down the panic and regret, refusing to let himself dwell. If there's one thing his job has given him, it's the ability to move forward as long as there's still a job to do. To focus on the things he can still change, rather than the mistakes of the past.

His job now is to fix this. To find his baby girl, and his friend, and get them home.

Ray calls Naima and leaves her a message.

Then he calls the police.

The next few hours go by in a blur. The storm passes. The police arrive. Naima comes home as soon as she gets Ray's message. Jason and Sonny show up and take over entertaining RJ to keep him out of the way.

Stupidly, Ray keeps glancing over at the door, like he expects Spenser to just stroll in with Jameelah in tow, wearing a sheepish grin and offering some dumb excuse.

It never happens.

There's no sign of Clay's truck anywhere on the route between Jameelah's school and the Perry home, or anywhere else in town. No one matching his or Jameelah's description has been admitted to any local hospital. Clay's phone remains either off or out of service, meaning the police aren't able to track it.

It isn't until almost 2000 that evening that the investigation finally digs up an image of Spenser's truck that got captured on a traffic camera about 25 minutes after Jameelah got out of school.

Like pretty much everything else about this situation, it doesn't make any sense, because the photo was taken at the last traffic light on the edge of town. Past that point, there's really just woods and wildlife management areas.

Clay's text said he was taking Jameelah to pick up a gift for Naima, but there are no stores out that direction. There's not much of anything. Ray can't come up with any logical reason why Spenser would have been headed out there.

The photograph was taken from the back, capturing the rear license plate of Clay's truck. It's blurry and out of focus, but Ray can just see through the rear window well enough to make out the two heads: Spenser driving, and Jameelah's dark hair on the passenger side in the back, barely visible over the top of the seat.

Ray stares at them and forgets how to breathe. His fingers shake as he ghosts them over the fuzzy image of his daughter's head, her hair still neatly pulled back in the French braid Naima put it in just this morning.

Where are you, baby? How do we find you?

It's after the photo surfaces that the detective who currently seems to be in charge of this investigation, a woman who introduced herself as Detective Deina Pérez, starts asking Ray and Naima a lot of questions. Nearly all of them seem to be centered around Clay.

How long have they known him?

Has he spent a lot of time with Jameelah? Bought her gifts? Showed her any sort of special attention?

Did they ask him to pick her up from school, or did he offer to?

Does he have access to any other vehicles, or only the truck?

Do they know of anywhere he might go (besides his apartment, which of course has already been checked and cleared)?

Who else is he close to? Girlfriend? Family?

"What is the point of all these questions?" Ray asks finally, unable to keep the exhausted, frayed frustration out of his voice.

"Mr. Perry." Pérez's voice is soft and sympathetic in a way that sets Ray's teeth on edge. She's talking to him like... like he's a victim. "Clay Spenser is our primary person of interest in this case right now. We're trying to learn everything we can about him. Every little piece of information that might help us bring your daughter home safely."

At first it doesn't even register. Ray just blinks at her, his head aching, mind utterly blank.

In that same gentle tone, Pérez continues, "When an adult family friend disappears along with a 9-year-old child under circumstances like these, unfortunately there are some questions that have to be asked."

It finally hits Ray with the force of a mortar to the chest. Gut twisting with nausea, he exhales sharply. "No," he says. "No, Clay isn't just a family friend. He's..."

The words trail away, because though Detective Pérez is listening patiently, Ray sees in her eyes what she's thinking.

She's thinking that she's heard this before. So many times.

He wouldn't.

Not him.

My friend would never hurt my child.

She's heard it from parents whose friends hurt their children.

"Excuse me," Ray says in a choked whisper.

Wobbling and dizzy, he stands up, finds his way to the bathroom, and then throws up until his head throbs and tears and snot stream down his face.