He’d woken up fully clothed in a running shower, head throbbing and face badly bruised, and his first thought had been, “What’d I say?”

The stare the man behind the desk gives him when he enters the hotel reassures him somewhat—he must look at least as horrible as he feels. Kara hadn’t told him much and he hadn’t been content, exactly, to leave it at that, but the alternative…

By the time he’s reached his room, wringing out his jacket in the elevator on the way up, he’s wondering what he did.

The room’s clean, he can always rely on that much, and his head hurts enough that he doesn’t notice the slight shift in location of his briefcase, his bedside table and several bottles of scotch. He leaves the lights off, plucks clothes from the closet at random, and takes four aspirin and a thirty-minute shower.

He falls asleep—in his bed, which he counts as an accomplishment—still attempting to account for all the blood: Kara’s hand, Tucker’s arm, his head. When he wakes up, he feels considerably worse.

Message upon message has been left for him and soon he’s not paying them any more attention than the scotch he’s consuming with mechanical grimness.

Apparently he’s been gone for some time. The next time this happens, he hopes he has the sense to stay gone.

There’s a note on the table from Victoria, one he can’t make sense of even after his eyes have adjusted to the light. I’m worried.

He falls asleep again, wakes up with the light still on and a good half-glass of scotch ready at his side, and wonders if he dreamed it all.

And he waits for the other shoe to drop.