1982

It's almost 2:30 in the morning by time Alan makes it back home, but he's never felt less tired in his life. He's downright wired, as a matter of fact, still running high on adrenaline and sheer disbelief at what he'd involved himself in, never mind that they'd succeeded. He can't even imagine the three-ring circus that work is going to be on Monday, and against his better nature he can't wait to see it.

I just helped a guy commit enough felonies to land us in Club Fed for the next two years, Alan thinks for the hundredth time, still trying to get a handle on it in his head, to pound it in like a nail. And I don't even like him.

He wonders if that's true, though, anymore.

The message indicator light on his answering machine is blinking rapidly, and Alan raises an eyebrow. Unless it's work-related, the only person who ever really leaves him messages is Lora, and he's been with her all night. Curious, he crosses the living room to the end table, tossing his blazer onto the couch as he goes. If it's Jay calling to tell me about the access restrictions, I'm going to laugh until I die.

When he hits play, however, the voice on the tape is definitely not that of Jay, the head of his department.

"Hey, Alan, it's Roy. I'm sorry, I know it's late and you're probably either out with Lora or asleep…"

Underneath his obvious attempt to sound casual and cheerful as usual, Roy sounds shaken. Alan can hear it in his voice even over the ambient noise of wherever he's calling from and the scratch of the answering-machine tape. He frowns, brows knitting.

"—n't want to worry you but I got in a little bit of a fender-bender driving back from the movies tonight and I'm kind of stuck at the USCMC ER, even though I TOLD the paramedics I was fine, I just bumped my head a little, but they wouldn't listen. Anyway I'm fine, if you're busy I can take a cab home, the nurse just wouldn't leave me alone until I called someone…"

Alan's grabbing his keys and his blazer again before Roy's even finished talking to the tape, wondering half-seriously if something weird is going on with the zodiac tonight. It's beside the point, anyway. 'Take a cab home' indeed, he thinks, shaking his head. From downtown? You live in Burbank, fool.

He's a little worried that Roy will have taken the cab anyway by the time he gets to the ER. When Alan walks into the waiting room, though, he's there, sitting in between a sleeping drunk and a nervous-looking mother with a two-year-old on her lap, folding one of the sheets of his discharge instructions into a paper airplane. There's a taped bandage on his forehead, and he looks tired and uncomfortable.

"Hey, Roy."

Roy looks up with a lopsided little smile, looking slightly abashed. "I told you I was gonna take a cab…"

"You were gonna take a cab 15 miles, at 3 a.m., with a concussion." Alan counters, hands on his hips. "Give me a break. Lora would smack you."

"Hey, I don't have a concussion," Roy protests. "I told you on the message, I just have a bump on the head and maybe a little bit of whiplash. I'm fine." He tries to stand up to prove it, but winces and falters a bit, one hand going to his head. "Oog."

Alan rests a hand on his shoulder to steady him, frowning and giving him the hairy eyeball until he's sure Roy isn't going to keel over on him. "Come on, Roy. Let's get out of here before someone comes in shooting."

Roy smiles gratefully to him. "Sounds like a plan."

"So what happened, anyway?" Alan asks as they drive down I-5. "You're the safest driver in LA, have you ever actually been in an accident before? You got the other guy's insurance and contact info, right?"

Roy shifts uncomfortably in his seat, rubbing at his neck. "…it was my fault," he mumbles softly, shoulders hunching. "I don't know what happened."

Alan blinks, frowning and glancing over at Roy briefly. "What do you mean?"

"I just…I don't know, okay? I was heading back home from seeing the 9:00 showing of Conan the Barbarian over in Monterey Park and all of a sudden everything just…just went sideways on me, and the next thing I knew the guy behind me slammed into me and my head bounced off the steering wheel."

"Well that's what you get for staying up all night every night the way you do…Jesus, Roy, you're just lucky you weren't on the freeway, falling asleep at the wheel like that." Alan hears the edge creeping into his voice and feels guilty for it, but he can't help it. Roy's become like a little brother to him in the last few months since they became cube neighbors, and the thought of him getting seriously hurt disturbs him.

"I didn't fall asleep at the wheel, dammit," Roy mutters, a little sulkily. "I told you, I don't know what happened to me there. And anyway, you're one to talk, you sure seem pretty wide awake for 4 in the morning. I bet you were working, and I bet Lora was annoyed."

For three minutes or so, neither of them says anything, Alan driving and Roy fidgeting with his seatbelt and occasionally wincing when he's sure Alan isn't looking. Finally, Alan breaks the silence. "So was it any good?"

Roy stares over at him, boggled. "The accident?"

"The movie, you dingbat."

"OH! Yeah, it was great," Roy answers, and Alan smiles slightly when he sees Roy's own smile return to him. "Total B-movie but a hell of a lot of fun. You should take Lora, she'd love it. Oh, man, and there was this great trailer attached for a movie called The Thing that's coming out next month…we've totally got to go see it together."

"You're on," Alan replies, grinning a bit, thinking that maybe he'll even invite Flynn, provided he promises to behave himself.

"So how'd it go with Dillinger, anyway?" Roy asks, switching topics. "Are you still locked out?"

Alan's grin widens. It may be 4:00 in the morning, but the thought of seeing Roy's reaction to the the tale of the Great Encom Caper of '82 makes him feel giddy and hyper all over again. "Oh, boy…wait until we get to your place, buddy," he says. "Have I got a story for you."