“Why?” Ty asked defensively.
“We can use it to our advantage. If you’re off your usual style, that may throw him,” Zane pointed out seriously. “Of course, you might wake up after a thirty-minute nap and be back to your usual irascible self.”
Ty stared at him for a minute and then his lips twitched in a half-smile. “Irascible?” he echoed weakly. Rubbing his hands over his eyes with a sudden sigh of frustration, he shrugged. “It’s like swimming through cotton, trying to remember the past couple weeks,” he answered. “I remember some of the smallest details. But other things, bigger things, I can’t recall at all.”
Taking the few steps up so he could reach him, Zane pulled Ty’s hands away from his eyes. “Don’t push it—that’s what the doctors told me.
Trying consciously to remember will just give you a bad headache.”
Ty looked down at him, nonplussed. “I already have a headache,” he admitted.
Zane smiled sadly and looked over Ty carefully, still holding both of Ty’s wrists in his hands. “You look … unwell,” he murmured with a frown.
“I can’t think,” Ty murmured in response, fidgeting as much as a man could when he was perched on top of a staircase with both hands being held by someone else.
Zane sobered and watched his agitated movements, slowly releasing his hands so he could pace if he wanted to. “Ty. You’ve got to calm down.
There’s only so much we can do right now; that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to do more later.”
“I can’t,” Ty finally told him with an uncharacteristic show of emotion. He sat down hard on the top step and bent over, placing his hands on each side of his head and squeezing his eyes shut as if he were trying to block out everything. He began to rock back and forth slowly as he spoke. “I can’t concentrate on anything, not when all I can think about is you. And now with this f**king headache,” he ground out in frustration, not finishing his thoughts as he closed his eyes once more and held his head in his hands. “I feel sick,”
he finally added pitifully.
Zane’s breath was caught in his chest. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Ty was obviously having more difficulty with the concussion than he had been outwardly letting on, and the slip of admitting that he couldn’t concentrate on anything but Zane made his body warm uncomfortably. It was hard to decipher what Ty really meant through the babbling.
“What do you suggest?” Zane asked softly, trying to stay as detached as possible, at least for a little longer.
Ty pressed his lips tightly together and breathed out slowly through his nose. “I think I need to request medical leave,” he answered finally, his voice hoarse and full of pain. It was obvious that he had never before been forced to admit he was not physically capable of something.
The mask broke, and Zane looked stunned. “Ty … I …” He didn’t know what to say. His hands curled into fists.
“This can’t be done alone; we’ve already established that,” Ty breathed. “And I can’t … think,” he ground out in frustration. “If I request it before they can suspend us, the suspension won’t go in your file,” he added.
Zane nodded slowly, feeling helpless. Powerless. Again. He lifted both hands and rubbed at his eyes.
Ty sat there and bowed his head with a sinking feeling. “We both know I’m no good to you,” he said finally. “Hell, I’m light-headed right now.”
Dropping his hands, Zane pulled open his eyes to look at Ty. “Lie back before you fall over,” he said quietly, tone soft, even worried. “Please.”
Ty tilted his head up, and his expression softened as he looked up at Zane. “You won’t miss me,” he murmured to him softly. He knew it was the right decision, to pull himself off the case. It didn’t mean he had to like it.
Zane reached down to run his fingers through Ty’s hair, but just as the tips of his fingers touched, the loud clank of the stairwell door being pushed open startled them both and interrupted the tender gesture.
Ty lowered his head again as an agent stepped into the stairwell, and then he looked up to meet Zane’s eyes again. They looked at each other intently for several heartbeats before Ty climbed to his feet unsteadily and turned to face the man.
“I need a doctor,” he said hoarsely to the agent.
“AND I want you both to know this will in no way negatively impact your records. Grady, you’ve been cleared of any involvement in the murder, not that we really expected trouble there,” Assistant Director Burns said as he looked at the two men. He received no answers, much the same as the last ten minutes he’d been talking. “Garrett, you’ve been put back on active duty for immediate assignment,” he continued.
The two agents in the room with him were about as different as night and day from the last time he had seen them. Ty sat quietly, slightly distant and reserved. He’d been kept at a hospital in New York under observation for nearly a week, diagnosed with a severe concussion and PTSD. When they released him, he’d been flown directly back to DC and driven to this very meeting. Burns noticed that he still wore the little hospital bracelet on his wrist.
Meanwhile, Zane had been taken straight to Washington to be debriefed over and over as the internal investigation continued. His attitude had understandably been for shit the whole time. Getting him to cooperate with anything had been a fight, but Burns didn’t really blame the man.
Now, Ty was scheduled for medical review over at Walter Reed in two hours, and looking at him as he sat in his office, Burns wasn’t sure he would pass muster. He had never seen Ty Grady look so defeated. And Burns had his doubts about Zane’s willingness to go back to work at all. Zane stood at the window, staring out with his arms crossed, face schooled blank. Burns suppressed a frown. The Zane Garrett of old seemed to have made a reappearance: dark jeans, T-shirt, black leather jacket, two days without shaving, at the least. Burns could smell the cigarette smoke coming off him from ten feet away. It was only because he’d seen Zane’s medical review the day before that Burns knew the man hadn’t gone back to any more of his old habits.
It was almost like the two had switched places. He shook his head.
This had not been his aim when he had paired them up. He should have known Ty could corrupt anyone.
“Do you two have any questions?” Burns asked. Ty shook his head, and Zane merely stared out the window without responding. Burns sighed.