With all the commotion going on, Nicholas automatically retreated as far down into the couch as he could go. It was such a comfortable couch, he mused. He wished he'd had it when he was having to sleep on that warehouse's floor. It would have been heaven. His eyes slipped closed again and there was a small smile on his face. He was trying his best to ignore the pain that didn't seem to want to go away. He wished it did.

At the same time he heard Jake slamming the door shut, Mattie was beside him in a chair. He heard her say something, and he opened his eyes a little to look at her. In his almost delirious state, he couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked. He'd only known her less than twenty-four hours, and yet he felt like he'd known her his whole life. They had already been through so much together.

"Thank you," he found himself whispering. Mattie was the closest thing to family that he had left, because all the rest were gone or dead now. His mind wandered to think about his mother and Alisa, lying there in the street, flames engulfing their bodies...and it was his fault. It was all his fault.

He put his hand up to his face to cover the fact that he started crying.

---

Jacob stared out into the street where the person had run off. It didn't make any sense - did he look that scary? But the boy had turned to run off before Jacob had even answered the door. He shook his head, gave the street one last look, then slammed the door shut and turned around, assault rifle still in hand. Mattie had pulled up a chair next to where Nicholas lay. In a way, it warmed his heart.

Carefully, he sat himself on the sofa across from them. Nicholas' face animated distress before he put his hand up to cover it, his body shaking. Was he crying?

He got up and went into the bathroom, searching through the medicine cabinet. He was sure he had to have had some kind of pain killers. When he found a bottle of some that weren't too high in strength but not too low, he shook out three of them and then shut the cabinet. He went into the kitchen and got a glass and a bottle of water, filling the glass with the water. He brought it out and handed it and the pills to Nicholas. "Pain killers," he told him.