Chapter Twenty-one

Reid's stomach is still heaving sporadically when Andy fishes the first aid kit out of the trunk and takes over, easing Nate out of Reid's grip and the car's messy backseat. He pulls a flask from his jacket pocket, thrusts it into Nate's good hand.

"C'mon, Nathaniel. Let's get you stitched up."

And Reid's never been more grateful for the old man, for someone to shoulder his responsibility for just a moment. He's shaking so hard that he doesn't think he could handle stitching Nate up himself, staring at the bullet wound so closely and causing Nate more pain as he sewed it closed.

He's spent enough time feeling the person he loves hurt and bleeding out in his hands.

So Ben walks Reid a fair distance from the car, from Nate's stoic forbearance of Andy's field medicine and the stinking mess of Reid's vomit. And they don't talk, not at all. They just sit side by side on a broken wooden pallet, Ben's broad shoulders pushing into Reid's until he can feel his shuddering breath begin to even out, the image of Cara's death and Nate's blood easing back just enough to allow other thoughts to float through the front of his mind.

It's not until Andy is taping gauze over Nate's stitches that Ben finally speaks.

"You did it, Reid. You got him out of there alive when no one really thought it was possible. And it'll be easy now - just keep doing whatever you were doing before. You guys will make it to trial."

Reid exhales slowly, shaking his head. "There's still six months to go."

"Doesn't matter. You'll get his through those, too. You can do this, Reid."

Reid looks into Ben's steady gaze, his chin trembling when he says, "Just a few inches, Benny. Just a few inches to the left and he'd be-" Reid's voice catches over the word, makes it come out rougher than the rest, "-dead." He licks his lips and blinks, looks away out over the river. "And it would have been my fault."

Ben reaches over to squeeze Reid's shoulder. "Look at him."

But Reid can't, he's too busy trying to pull himself together. So he shakes his head, wipes at his eyes.

"No, Ben. I just...I fell apart back there. I should have made him get down in the floorboard, I should have been returning fire, I should've... I'm a professional. I should be better than this, but I just failed." Reid shakes his head again. "How is he ever going to trust me to take care of him after this?"

Ben sighs, gives Reid another long second before prodding again.

"Look. Nate is alive; he's going to be fine. Today was their best shot to get him before trial, and they missed. It wasn't perfect, but we won, Reid. You did your job. And we won."

Reid sniffs, feeling the guilt suffocating him like an elephant standing on his chest. But Ben just keeps looking at him, keeps telling him that the worst is over and they've survived. And somewhere, through the comforting press of Ben's shoulder and the reassurance of his words, Reid finds the strength to finally turn around and look at Nate standing in the distance.

He's nodding at something Andy is saying while carefully unrolling his shredded sleeve back into place. It's stiff and stained with his drying blood, and he's steadily sucking Andy's flask dry, but none of that contradicts Ben. He's right - Nate is still breathing, still mostly intact.

And, as soon as Reid can get his shit together, they can still do this.

There's just one thing he has to take care of first.

*******

Reid sighs and stands, shrugging out of his ruined jacket as he makes his way to the river's edge. Ben follows behind him, standing silently at Reid's side.

Reid was never very close to Cara, but they'd worked together for years. He remembers her dry sense of humor, her determination to do anything necessary to get the job done.

He looks up, whispering into the night air that's lit with the city lights.

"I'm so sorry. Thank you for saving him."

And then he begins to fumble through a small prayer for Cara.

Reid's never actually believed in this sort of thing, but he won't be able to attend Cara's real funeral. And it feels like he should do something for her. She died protecting one of his witnesses; more than that, she died protecting Nate.

So he prays.

And when he finishes, he crosses himself like he's seen other people do. He's only been in churches for weddings and funerals, but he found a rosary in his mother's things when he was a child. Maybe that makes him Catholic enough for someone up there to listen.

Reid tosses the blood-soaked coat into the river, watches it drift away on the current. Nate had testified that the Hudson has always been a favorite dumping ground for his family; somehow it feels right that Cara's blood join that of so many other Angelev victims.

The jacket floats out of sight and Reid takes a deep breath, blowing it out slowly.

And then he turns his focus back to the present, back to what he has to do. He looks at Nate in the distance and nods to himself. He quietly asks Ben to take them to the train station.

Reid never realizes that he's been crying, silent tears streaming steadily down his face, since the moment he stepped out of the car.

*******

Nate is in the bloodstained backseat when Reid finally returns, sitting sideways with his feet on the parking lot. Reid has so much he wants to tell him, but Andy's there and Ben is headed their way. So instead he just reaches out and rests one hand against the side of Nate's neck, his thumb brushing tenderly along the ridge of scar tissue there.

"I'm so sorry, Nate. I said I would protect you and I failed today." Ben climbs into the driver's seat, turns the engine over to get the heat going; Reid licks his lips self-consciously before continuing. "It won't happen again."

Nathaniel looks up into those bloodshot green eyes, that face that seems so concerned and sincere. And everything in him yearns to believe Reid, to lean into the warm hand on the sensitive skin of his neck, to dull out the burning pain in his arm and the aching pit in his stomach. But then Reid flicks his eyes to the front seat, to Ben and Andy, and Nate remembers that he's been living in a dream. All he can hear is the gruff rumble of Reid's voice when he said that Nate was just a job.

Nothing more.

But Nate doesn't say anything; he should have known better than to get his hopes up anyway. So he just nods and looks away, careful to avoid the glass shards as he twists to buckle in. And he's proud of himself when he's able to sign, his hands as steady as always.

"I know, Reid. None of it will ever happen again."

*******

They don't tell Andy and Ben where they're going.

After a long and so-complicated-there's-no-way-anyone-could-follow drive, Reid and Nate get dropped off at a train station three towns over, with tight but brief hugs from both marshals and quiet admonitions to watch their backs. If everything goes right, it's the last they will see of each other until the trial.

Reid feels like a tiny piece of himself cracks off and floats away after them.

But he can't think about that; he's got to get Nate out of here. They walk inside the station and make sure they are seen purchasing tickets to Milwaukee...and then they walk out the back and hail a cab for the port.

It's long past midnight by the time they arrive, Reid tipping the cabbie enough to ensure his silence. They sneak over the high fence and weave through the maze of shipping containers to the closest ship. It's on the small side and, blessedly, headed south. They've even got a stop planned at the port of Jacksonville, which is only a couple of hours from where the Camaro is waiting for them.

Reid pays off the captain but still makes sure that he doesn't see Nathaniel, waiting until the crew are all busy getting ready to sail before he brings him aboard. They hunker between the stacked containers and the starboard railing, pressed tightly together and jumping at every small sound until the ship gets underway.

And then, finally, the engine rumbles beneath them and the sickening up and down motion of the docked ship gives way to a smoother forward trajectory, the dark coastline sliding away before them.

And it's only then, under the pale starlight and hidden from everyone on Earth except Reid, that Nathaniel lets himself go. Feels himself drowning in all the blood on his hands - Cara's now added to that ocean - and relives the memories that Karl forced him to dredge up. He sobs, ugly and choking and uncontrolled, and lets Reid pull him into his shoulder, rub those same soothing circles on his back that he did in the shower in what feels like another lifetime.

The ship surges on, plowing forward into the pitch-black waves.