Kodiak stood, setting the coffee down. “Try to get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Okay.”
Kodiak hesitated, then squeezed his shoulder once before heading for the door.
Left alone, Breakneck let his eyes close again, the morphine tugging him under.
Ice was alive.
Blair was safe.
If he did this right, if he took the hit himself, maybe she always would be.
Even if it meant losing the one thing he wanted more than anything he’d ever survived.
Some time later, he woke up to darkness and the soft hum of machinery. This time he breathed through the pain in his side, swung his legs over the bed, and used the IV stand for support until he could get his wobbly legs to work. He wheeled it out of the room, clasping the thin metal and leaning.
The place was quiet, empty. He walked slowly until he made it to the ICU, then found Ice’s room. He slid the door open and went inside. There in the bed, his white hair bright beneath the dim lights, lay Christopher Snow.
Emotion flooded him and his knees buckled. Affection that was more than one brother for another washed over him in a tidal wave. He went to the side of the bed, pulled up a chair, and sat down. He stared at him, at the heart monitor, and his pale face, and he collapsed forward, in a sobbing rush of tears and an overwhelming gratitude that he was alive.
He sobbed until the sheets were soaked, his eyes burning, his chest heaving with something he didn’t know how to stop. The sound tore out of him, raw and broken, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t try to rein it in.
Then he felt it.
Ice’s fingers ruffling his hair.
The simple, familiar gesture undid him completely. He inhaled, a broken sound ripping from his throat as the memory slammed into him so hard his gut twisted and his stitches pulled.
Flashes overlapped, Blair’s hand in his hair, the way it grounded him, the way it made the world quiet, and beneath that, something older, deeper.
His dad.
The way he used to do that every time he saw him, fingers brushing through his hair like it was the most natural thing in the world. First thing when he came home. Last thing after tucking him into bed. No words. Just presence. Just love.
Breakneck clutched the edge of the mattress, breath shuddering as the understanding finally reached him.
This was grief.
Not something to outrun or lock away. Not weakness. Not failure. It was love with nowhere to go and letting it break him open didn’t erase the loss, only honored it. It made it real.
For the first time, he understood why he’d never been able to feel this before.
Because no one had ever shown him it was safe.
Blair had.
Ice had.
Boomer, the team.
The emptiness hurt like hell, but threaded through it was something else, meaning. Connection. A sense that what had been lost mattered because he had been loved.
An inconsolable grief opened up, and a thought lodged somewhere deep and dangerous. He made the decision, but it didn’t hurt any less. He was losing Blair, truly losing her. There would be no outrunning it this time. This grief wouldn’t burn itself out in tears or exhaustion. There was no mission to bury it under, no distance that would dull it. He had no idea how he was going to survive without her.
“It’s okay, Kelly,” Ice murmured. “You were there when it mattered. Thank you.”
He reached up and grasped Ice’s wrist. Lifting his head, he met Iceman’s ice-blue eyes, softer than he’d ever seen them. “Chris…I’m the one who is so thankful. You’ve always believed in me and was there when it mattered. I’m just glad I got a chance to be there for you when you needed me.”
