Work Text:
Unwelcome Epiphany
by Jayed
He'd always supposed he would like a settled home, a family, friends. So many people he'd encountered in his life had those things, valued them. He'd always supposed that someday he'd achieve at least one of them. He thought he'd found friends once or twice, before Maude moved him along. He thought he'd found a home in Atlanta, a home and friends, but that had been terribly untrue. This time, however, this time, he'd thought he'd found all three, that he'd finally achieved what he hadn't really realized he'd so very much wanted.
The first raid, when the others paired off so smoothly, leaving him with an unknown agent from Team 5, should have made him wonder. The first Monday he overhead the others talking about a weekend gathering to which he had not been invited, he should have suspected. When there was a celebration, complete with cake and champagne for Nathan's birthday, a week after his own had been forgotten or ignored, he should have acknowledged the truth. But he'd made excuses in his own head, trying to hold onto his latest and seeming best chance.
Now, lying in a hospital bed, alone for the third day in a row, he could no longer pretend. No longer hide. The others might be family to each other, were clearly friends with each other, but he was not included. He had thought perhaps as his Team Leader, at least, that Larabee might have stopped by, or Buck, as Team Second. He'd thought that he had formed at least a small bond with JD and Vin. He'd fought Josiah's calling him 'son,' but he'd assumed it meant there was some small affection there. Yet not even Nathan, as Team Medical Officer, had stopped in. They each had a reason to come; none of them had.
He didn't need constant coddling. He didn't expect them to put their collective lives on hold. But he'd have thought that at least one of them would have come by, just for a moment or two, to acknowledge his medical incarceration, to commiserate or berate. He'd hadn't hoped for it. He'd expected it. Despite all the lessons of his life, all the slights from this group of men, he'd still assumed. One final time.
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