abrightboy | No One's Born Broken

"Maybe I was hoping you'd turn me in," he teased back wearily. He paused long enough that Raylan could probably only tell he was still there if he could hear him breathing. "When I was in college, I was talking to him about... how serial killers are very particular about the way that they kill. That sounds macabre, but it was for school. Anyway. I mentioned a case I read about where a sheriff's deputy was stabbed in the heart with a pencil and survived and Dr Whitly told me how it was done." He took a deep breath. "The only way to save the hostage was to stab him in the heart. He reminded me of that story. He told me how to do it. But when he told me the story back then, he said there was no room for error. That it's like threading the eye of a needle and... I don't know if I... did that."

He had to know that Raylan wouldn't. He was a shitty Marshal but a good lawman and frankly, if Martin Whitly had to take a knife to save an innocent person, truly had to, then it was for a greater good.

"Ninty eight percent of the conversations you seem to have with the man is macabre." But it was clear why. It was their normal. "Well," he started, bobbing his head thoughtfully. "He's not dead yet, right? That's promising. If he's already through surgery, that's the worst of it."

Maybe they'd all get lucky and he'd get an infection and stop being a pain in the Family's ass.

"Hold tight, darlin'. I'm on my way."

Hold tight, darlin'.

Malcolm nodded, even though Raylan couldn't see it. "Travel safely," he said quietly, then, as the call ended, found a nearby chair and sunk into it, still staring at - or rather through - the blank screen of his phone.

When Raylan wanted to haul ass, the man was more than capable of it and he got himself to the Lexington airport in record time. Thankfully, Lexington did redeye flights up to New York and after buying a ticket, he was on a plane and in the air.

It was only once he was up there that he realized he'd left the extra travel bag he carried in the trunk, in the trunk. Well, if he could avoid getting shot, shot at, or getting dirty, he could probably get away with it.

Two and a half hours later, Raylan was finally out of JFK and in cab, texting Malcolm that he'd be at the hospital in about 15. Raylan wasn't sure if Malcolm had left yet, changed his mind about waiting or hunkered down. Either way, Raylan and his hat were stepping off the elevator onto the correct floor, immediately looking for the Nurse's station.

He wasn't uncomfortable as a visitor here - he'd come because of Arlo enough times, so he knew the drill.

When he saw Raylan's text, he felt like he could almost breathe again. He got up and paced back to Dr Whitly's window, watching the hallway. He paced a circle in front of Dr Whitly's window, eyes still on the hallway. When he saw the familiar hat moving in the familiar way, he felt like he could burst into tears. Instead, he headed straight for it and wrapped his arms around Raylan without even thinking to look around first, his usual caution in public out the window in his distressed, racing mind.

Raylan barely got the chance to even look at Malcolm, only a sense that someone was coming being his warning to turn and look in the first place, before he was being hugged. He slipped an arm around Malcolm's shoulders, squeezing him in a tight brief hug as his off hand came down to gently disentangle them so they could move more easily.

"Let's get outta the way, c'mon," he urged softly. The arm was left around Malcolm's shoulder, hand slipping up to rest at the base of his neck as he let the smaller man guide them out of the busiest part of the hallway and down to Martin's window. Before they got to the door the preceded the window, Raylan pulled Malcolm to the side so they could talk against the wall and before he said anything, drew him back into a hug.

"Long day huh?"

Out of the way. Yes. They were in the way. He glanced around vaguely and let Raylan steer him, even as he led the way towards Martin's room. The hand at his neck was comforting, even if he didn't really recognize that it was at least partly because Gil moved him around that way when he needed to be moved.

He nodded numbly at the question, letting most of his weight slump against Raylan.

"What if she goes to jail? She didn't do anything."

It was an easy way to keep Malcolm under hand and still move freely, especially through hallways with traffic that didn't have the decency to be empty of racks. Despite the fact that Raylan had never seen Gil move Malcolm in such a way, it made functional sense. Maybe there was something to that that smarter people would spot.

For now, Raylan was focused on steadily taking Malcolm's weight. "She won't. Money like hers, his legacy of manipulation and mental abuse; a good lawyer will get her out of it. They haven't charged her yet, right? Means they haven't decided if they will or not."

Of course the LEO in him made him want to question Jessica, to question Gil and the rest of the team and get the full story, but none of those people were here at the moment and Malcolm was.

"He wanted you to stab him?" It was a beat later, but Raylan was running what Malcolm had told him over the phone in his head again.

"He wants me to be like him," Malcolm said miserably. He looked up at Raylan. "I couldn't cut a man with a scalpel to save his life from a haematoma, but when I was going to stab my father?" His face crumpled a little. "My hand didn't shake. Not even a little bit." He glanced towards the window. "He saw it," he added at a whisper.

Raylan looked down, face unreadable aside from the pinch of his brow before he shifted his weight, one hand coming up to lift a finger in gesture as he pulled back a fraction.

"Just because you can stab the man that tried to kill you when you were young and continues to try and bend you, doesn't mean anything. If anyone has needed a stabbin', it is that man right there. Son's violence against his father is almost a tradition," he said, head pulling back a little with the statement.

"And what about letting their mother go to prison for them?" he countered. "That seems... decidedly less noble."

He took a steadying breath and then let himself out of Raylan's grasp to turn to the window and stare at the man in the bed.

"She said she needs to do it. For all the things she didn't protect me from."

Raylan couldn't do much more than take a breath at that. It was a sticky situation. He didn't fight Malcolm's drawing away, but he followed to stare with him, one hand coming up to find its place mindlessly on his own hip. He could understand why Jessica felt that way, why she'd choose to go down this path. Raylan would like to talk her out of it for Malcolm's sake but it would only put him in the hot seat.

He had to agree with Jessica.

"You were both working under duress. No court in the state gonna hold it against you. You let me talk to Gil, we'll figure out what's what." Between the two of them, there had to be something. A way to swing it, a way to prove the killer's responsibility. He looked over at Malcolm. "You gone in there yet?"

He shook his head, shifting closer to Raylan.

"No. No. I don't see the point."

Getting out of Raylan's arms had been a bad idea. He found the crook of his shoulder to burrow back into.

"You know what the killer said to me when JT took him away? He said 'I did you a favour, Malcolm; your father's dead'. Is that true? I don't even know how I feel about it." He put his hand on his own stomach. "Everything is knots and nausea."

There was one, in Raylan's opinion but Malcolm was allowed his own choices. He could question it later if he felt like it. He didn't miss the shift closer to him or the unsubtle sink of Malcolm back into his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his shoulders again.

"About doin' you a favor? Maybe. But I've also shot my daddy once or twice. Without duress. Might not be the best one to be askin' about it." He took a deep breath. "It's gonna be fine."

Arlo was to stubborn to die, until the ripe old age he got too; was Martin the same way? The fight of a heart did a lot in times like these and he didn't know what kind of fighting spirit the fine pressed Martin Whitly had.

"But he's not dead yet. My advice, don't put him in a box til he's ready to be there." He rubbed Malcolm's shoulder back and forth. "Where's Ainsley in all this?"

"She was here. She left with my mother. Before he told her to kill Dr Whitly, the killer called Ainsley on live TV. Tried to drag her and Mother through the mud. Demanded my mother bring him a million dollars or he'd kill someone. She brought it where he asked, even though Gil and I told her not to. She wanted to save the hostage. The killer killed him anyway."

Raylan's jaw flexed. Of course Jessica would do as she was asked, despite advice. These good heartfelt people were going to get themselves killed.

"Always lookin' for attention," he muttered of the killer, unimpressed by the antics he'd all too happily missed.

"How long have you been here?" Since it happened, he assumed, but he had no idea how long it had been since The Incident. "Eaten? Slept?" All valid questions when it came to the welfare of Malcolm Bright.

He frowned faintly and lifted his arm to look at his watch.

"Oh." He'd had no idea what time it was. Nearly 5am. "About...10 hours, since they brought him in here."

Of course he hadn't slept or eaten. At this point, everyone probably assumed he'd gone home for the night.

"I did kind of wonder why it'd been so long since anyone had been here." He looked up at Raylan. "I have to take my meds."

He nodded. "Let's get you home. They'll take care of him and I'm sure if anything changes, they'll call." He was sure that Gil and the team had told him to go home, but Malcolm was a notoriously bad listener when he was in the thick of it. Raylan was pretty confident he could manage to get it done.

He looked over. "Do you have something to eat at your apartment or are we gonna have to steal Jello off the breakfast trays on our way out?"

Malcolm heard the question about food sort of passively, his attention currently focused on Raylan's face once it had wandered there.

"...What happened to you?" he asked with a crease of consternation in his brow. Raylan had been there for at least ten minutes and he hadn't even noticed.

It wasn't like Raylan had forgotten about them, but he also sort of had in the wave of questions and worry, and he scoffed a little as he glanced down, idly thumbing the healing split in his lip.

"I fell in a shower. Couple of times." Losing fist fights he should have won wasn't cool, in more ways than one, so he didn't see the need to share the details right out of the gate. "It's fine."

Malcolm's frown deepened a little.

"Sorry, who do you think you're lying to?" he asked simply.

There was no helping the half scoff of amusement or the way Raylan tongued his teeth before he looked over, eyes squinted into half moons of hazel. He was caught in it, there was no point in trying to push that as the real reason. Not when it was the first excuse of every battered housewife.

"I got into a fight with someone I shouldn't have," he explains, casual as ever. "Hell, I deserved it. It's still fine." That part hadn't been a lie.

Malcolm looked at him dubiously. "What does that mean? What happened?" he pressed.

"I'll tell you if you let me take you home," he bartered reasonably, gesturing towards the empty hall behind them. "Unless you're going to demand one of the nurses look at me for no reason."

"I wouldn't go that far; if you had an orbital bone fracture or something, you'd look way worse than that," he pointed out, starting to walk with a last glance at the window, but otherwise keeping a wary eye on Raylan and the bruises he didn't want to talk about.

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