#dawsmith

Laying in his hospital bed, Will tries to sort out his feelings.  He'd sort of thought his heart had died, but apparently it'd just been sleeping because it was racing now and the muddled mess of emotions in his head right now made him feel like he was back to being seventeen, no less an idiot now than he was then (perhaps even more so).  He'd given up on Robbie long ago, knowing that what he'd done didn't deserve the forgiveness Robbie had offered, and coupled with the situation that had resulted...well, Robbie deserved better than him anyway, and he deserved to be miserable forever, so everything had worked out as it should.

And then, after taking one too many stupid risks in the field, he'd wound up here in serious condition.  It'd been an opportunity for him and Robbie to talk where he couldn't run away, and it had been agonizing, but also...cathartic, in a sense.  They had been best friends for years before they were ever together, and Robbie knew Will better than Will did sometimes.  Even Will knew he needed to be shouted at after what had happened, and fortunately for him, Robbie was one of the few people left that he might actually listen to.

He doesn't know what's going to happen now--between them, or at all, but there's a tenuous something there. It's enough for a bit of his school-days charm to rise to the surface, still functioning of a bit rusty with disuse.  When Robbie comes into his room, Will throws his arm over his eyes and begins to moan overdramatically about the substandard quality of the hospital shampoo.  He and Robbie both know what this is really about, and when Will moves his hand to laugh, he catches a smile on Robbie's face, a real one, brief but definitely there.

His breath catches in his throat and he completely loses the thread of what he was going to say.  He feels a bit like he's been hit by a cheering charm. 

And I don't get waves of missing you anymore, They're more like tsunami tides in my eyes Never getting dry, so I get high Smoke away the days never sleep with the light on Weeks pass in the blink of an eye, And I'm still drunk at the end of the night I don't drink like everybody else, I do it to forget things about myself, Stumble and fall with the head spin I got My mind's with you but my heart's just not

It isn't her fault.  Really, it's not.  Will would very much like to blame her, her and her overly-fertile uterus, but he can't, he can only sort of admire her.  She tracked him down to make sure that he knew what had happened, and looked him dead in the eye without a trace of fear and told him that she was keeping it and whether or not he was going to be a father was entirely up to him.  By that point, Will, who had always been brave far past the point of recklessness, was terrified beyond belief, watching his whole world crumble around him, and a small voice in his head said quietly "Well, at least you've managed to knock up someone who has their shit together, as you obviously don't."

If anything, he pities her, because he is a wreck and a half.  Will is going to be the worst father, he just knows it, because every time he sees this kid--his son, he found out last week--it's just going to remind him of the worst mistake he's ever made in a lifetime full of colossal fuckups. How is he supposed to love someone who is the physical manifestation of what he did to the person he loved above all others?

The sad part is that he doesn't even remember what the argument was about.  He knows that it was stupid (though as this is the result, anything would seem stupid by comparison), knows that he overreacted after a long day at work and a bruised ego and an argument with his brother through owls the day before and a perfect storm of bad circumstances.  It's not enough to justify what he did, though.  Nothing is.