Washington DC
LockDown Ward
03.23am Monday
There's so much I want to say to you.
So many things we've left unsaid for too long now.
Secrets kept from each other.
But I've decided that secrets aren't what I want.
From now on there will be no lies between us.
I don't know when it happened exactly
Don't even really know how.
But it has... I'm in love with you Case.
I can't lose you now.
Not like this.
Not to him.
AJ's a wreck.
But that's to be expected.
He is your father after all.
I found the letters Case.
I didn't mean to look at them.
But I'm glad I did.
I know you'll be pissed at me when you wake up
But right now even that sounds great to me.
Come one Casey...just wake up.
Give me a sign that you can hear me.
That you're coming back to me.
Anything at all.
Anya's still here.
She's waiting for you to wake up too.
She's been sitting by your bedside with me.
She gives me strength in a strange way...maybe it's the hope I see in her eyes. Yesterday I was coming back from getting some coffee
And she was sitting by your bedside.
Talking to you and gently stroking your hand.
Asking you to wake up so I would smile again.
And for the first time, I thought about parenthood.
What it would be like.
But I don't want it.
Not if I can't share it with you.
The Dr says you're getting stronger.
But that part of me that knows you, says you're barely hanging on.
I'm sorry Case...I'm so sorry.
Maybe if I had gotten there earlier...
Maybe if we hadn't gone to 'Orion's' in the first place.
There are so many maybe's now.
And even more, 'if only's '.
I'll never forget the look in your eyes when I got there.
"Don't leave me." You said.
I made you a promise then Casey, I'm not leaving you...not ever.
I keep thinking back to other times at the cabin.
Like that night we were sitting on the porch swing.
Talking about what we missed about each other while you were away.
It turned into a joke and I regret that now.
I never got to tell you what I really missed.
I missed the way you smile at me, and my heart jumps.
The way you play with your hair when you're really thinking about something.
Or the way you always fall asleep first whenever we fly anywhere.
I missed little things...
Like the way your perfume lingers when you get out of my car
The way you know how I like my coffee.
Or the way you play with the CD player when I'm driving...just to annoy me
And the way you argue with me about what route to take anywhere
And then...you're always right.
I missed the way you challenge me to be a better person.
The way you make me feel.
I just missed you Casey.
I lay awake every night you were gone wondering if you were OK.
Then when you told me about Wilkes...I was scared.
I had almost lost you then and hadn't even known it.
I know I pushed you that day at the cabin.
You didn't want to talk about Wilkes.
But you were so scared the night before.
I had never seen you so vulnerable before.
And to tell the truth, it scared the hell out of me.
You've always been so fearless.
But holding you in the moonlight while you cried yourself to sleep.
Tore me apart.
I wanted nothing more than to lay there and hold you all night.
To kiss you and make you forget.
But you needed to heal.
And to that, you had to share the pain with someone.
I'm just glad it was me.
AJ cleared his throat from the doorway startling Clay.
"How long have you been standing there?"
Clay asked looking up from his seat by Casey's bed.
"Long enough to know that I don't know you at all Clay."
AJ looked at Clay sitting there in suit pants, his white shirt open at the collar.
Clay looked from AJ to Casey.
"I'm going to ask her to marry me...if she'll have me."
He declared.
"I suspected as much."
AJ said smiling at him.
"You don't mind?"
"Having you as a son in law?" AJ asked.
Clay nodded.
"I could do worse." AJ said softly.
Clay couldn't believe it...AJ had actually just complimented him.
"Yeah, you could."
He said with his Webb trademark arrogance.
AJ smiled at Clay again.
"Don't push it!"