When they had finished with their lunch Lili excused herself to go and try and get at least an hour or so of sleep, as she had been quite run down and still suffering horrible insomnia despite it. A few moments after she headed inside, Jared and Ian also finished their quiet meal, no one seeming very talkative that day.

“Well, I would offer to help with the dishes…” Ian finally spoke up as he set his carton/bowl aside. “But I figure I’ll save that for people in less pain,” he smirked.

Jared attempted a look of sympathy as he responded. “Want more aspirins?”

“Nah, I think I just need to actually try sleeping this off some too, which I didn’t manage to do much of last night,” he grumbled as he winced through another attempt at standing.

“Need some help?” Jared stated the obvious with an attempt at a wry smile.

“I doubt Kyle is in the mood to help again. He was being a bit, shall we say ‘little-shit-like,’ this morning,” Ian retorted as Jared moved to help him up.

“An immature seventeen year old? Imagine that,” Jared mumbled.

“Yeah not an old man, like you, huh?” Ian teased.

“Believe me, I feel way older than eighteen,” Jared added in the same mumble as he got the elder of them, who was still not even twenty-four yet himself, up to his feet.

“And the first kid isn’t even born yet,” Ian couldn’t help adding, which only caused a slight sigh as Jared continued helping him through the doorway. Once he got Ian back to his own sleeping area he spoke once more. “Yeah, I guess this is a better option than over with Lili, huh?” he couldn’t help returning with a smirk.

“Only if you really meant you wanted to give the leg a rest,” Jared told him pointedly. “You know, just in case you’d like to still be able to walk by the time the kid needs to learn how to,” Jared added his warning with a slight look downwards.

Ian sighed as well, easily noting the worry that Jared spoke with, despite trying to make his comment seem light. “So, doc, there’s no way to know right now, is there?”

Jared then looked back from where he had just stood to begin heading back outside, himself. “Know…what?” he returned quietly.

“Whose it is,” Ian responded, though nearly inaudibly.

Jared allowed a deep breath as he looked away again. “Does it really matter right now?”

“I guess not,” Ian admitted with his own look down. “But I figured maybe if it actually was Kyle’s; maybe that’s what it would take to get his head screwed on straight.”

“Maybe,” Jared returned with a bit of defeat, before looking around again. “Where is he, anyway?”

As if just noticing the younger man’s absence, himself, Ian looked around worriedly. “Did he even have lunch with us?”

“No,” Jared returned distractedly. “He said something earlier about going further down the river to get more fish…but that was a while ago,” Jared stated with new touch of worry easily seeping into his own tone.

Ian then sighed heavily as he started to get up again. “If you help me back up, I’ll go find him.”

“You’re not serious, are you?” Jared returned with a raised brow.

“Well, it’s still my job, right?” Ian managed with a wince as he made the attempt to sit back up.

“I think your doctor has placed you on medical leave,” Jared returned as he scowled back at Ian’s stubbornness.

“Didn’t know this particular job came with that,” Ian mumbled though still gave into the pain enough to lie back once again.

“If he’s just down the river, I’m pretty sure I can handle that on my own, even without military training,” Jared informed him firmly.

“If anything looks remotely dangerous, you get back here, immediately, got it?” Ian ordered.

“Aye aye, sergeant,” Jared returned wryly.

“And…” Ian began again.

“Yeah I know, take a fucking gun,” Jared interrupted with a roll of his eyes as he moved to retrieve one of the many that never left Ian’s side for long.

“You’re learning,” Ian returned with a smirk.

“Insert Kyle’s favorite line here,” Jared shook his head. “Now, off to find the other lovely genius,” Jared sighed heavily once more before tucking the gun into the back of his jeans and squaring his soldiers before heading outside once more.

After walking nearly half a mile down a less than forgiving riverbank, Jared finally spotted Kyle sitting further up the river on the rocks below a small crevice or cave that looked out from the rocky hill behind him. He was sitting there seeming to be looking downwards and intensely concentrating, though at that distance, it was hard for Jared to tell what had gained such concentration.

Once he managed to take a few more steps, Jared noted that Kyle had his jumpsuit unzipped and pulled down to his waist while his left hand held his t-shirt up off his stomach and his right hand seemed to be clutching that knife that Ian had given him months ago, the sun glinting off of the blade. Jared furrowed a brow and moved closer to note that not only was Kyle holding the knife, but actually using it to cut several tiny slices into the skin of his stomach.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jared exclaimed loudly, his voice startling Kyle from his task as he quickly looked toward the other teen, dropping his t-shirt down over his still bleeding flesh.

“Trying to be alone,” Kyle scoffed as he slid the knife back out of sight and wiped at his pain-filled eyes while not looking directly back to see the expression Jared was wearing right then.

“Really? Cause it looks like you’re trying something a lot worse than that,” Jared growled as he moved to a spot within a few feet of the younger man.

Kyle just shook his head again. “Please, if I was trying to kill myself I wouldn’t have been aiming for my stomach. It doesn’t take a doctor to know it’s not exactly a prime target for fatal incisions,” he mumbled the words more than spoke them though.

Jared allowed another scoff of disbelief. “But maybe a doctor is needed to tell you exactly how stupid what you’re doing is. Or maybe, to take a more ‘medically detached’ view; to tell you how big of a risk you’re taking by using some knife that’s been used on who knows how many alien species of animals, not sanitizing it, and then cutting into your own flesh with it, and doing all that out in the middle of the wilderness alone, too.”

“Sorry, I’ll bring some rubbing alcohol next time,” Kyle scoffed.

Jared just shook his head down at him once more. “What the hell is this, Kyle?”

“It’s called cutting. Look it up,” he mumbled, sniffling again as he continued to look away.

“And how long have you been doing this exactly?”

“And that’s relevant, how?” Kyle continued in the same mumble.

Another shake of his head as Jared stooped a few feet away. “If you’ve been doing this regularly, I figured Lili might have mentioned it to me, considering I am your doctor too.”

“Please, she doesn’t tell me all about your scars and birthmarks. It might kinda kill the mood,” Kyle added in the same bitter mumble, despite the sarcasm. “Besides, when she has the opportunity to see anything, it tends to be dark, and I’m very good at distracting her at those particular moments,” he added with only a tiny trace of wryness to the otherwise melancholy tone.

“Why are you doing this? Maybe that’s the better question,” Jared stated, forcing gentleness to his tone despite his upset at such a discovery.

Kyle allowed another scoff of indifference to the facts of his own behavior before speaking again. “You want the dictionary’s definition, then? I believe it’s referred to as an ‘unhealthy’ way to deal with emotional distress; an attempt to cause one’s own pain because of the belief that it is the only pain that one can have any control over at all. That medical enough for you, doc?” Kyle sniffed again.

Jared sighed once more as he searched for the words. “I get that you’re stressed out. We all are, but this isn’t something that you just up and decide to do at age seventeen. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Again I ask, relevant how?” Kyle scoffed.

“I’m just trying to understand,” Jared returned softly.

“And you understanding, as if you could, is that really gonna fix any of this?” Kyle stated in his own near whisper.

Jared looked down once more. “Please tell me what all is causing this, other than the most recent, and obvious, stress factor of the last couple of days.”

“Yeah, cause that’s a real small one,” Kyle returned with a weak sarcasm while continuing to refuse to share any eye contact.

“Just talk to me Kyle, please. I don’t know what I can honestly do to help at all, but I can at least try to listen.”

“You think you’re the other kind of doctor now too?” Kyle scoffed again.

“Please, Kyle.”

After another long pause, wherein Jared continued waiting in silence for any kind of response, Kyle finally gave in and offered one. “You tell me that it’s about trying to be there for Lili, right? It’s all I can do just to get up and keep breathing, and to keep pretending any of this is all right, and now this, too? I honestly never, ever thought that a baby would be a possibility, seriously,” he swallowed a bit. “And now it’s not just a possibility but a reality. And another reality is that it could be my baby,” he sniffled again. “And I can barely deal with the fact that I could be responsible for whatever horrible things might happen to the four of us, let alone, responsible for what might happen to an innocent child, that may even be mine? How am I supposed to live with that, and be there for her too, knowing that all of us being here, all of it, it’s my entire fault? How am I supposed to do that, honestly?” Kyle choked on the words as he spoke them, his tears even more obvious then than they had been upon Jared’s first approach.

“Your fault…?” Jared began, only couldn’t finish the question as his eyes were immediately drawn to the mouth of the cave, only about twenty feet or so behind where Kyle now sat. “Don’t move,” Jared stammered, choking on his own words right then.

“What?” Kyle responded, more than a little surprised by the sudden change in Jared’s response.

“Don’t move. Don’t talk Don’t breathe if you don’t have to,” Jared whispered as he tried to reach for the gun without drawing any attention to himself, his panicked eyes watching as a huge fur-covered creature emerged from the cave, sniffing the air and moving slowly, in a manner most similar to a member of the bear species that had been found on earth.

“What…what’s there?” Kyle stammered, having to use enormous amounts of will to keep from turning back to see for himself.

Instead of answering, Jared simply swallowed hard as he managed to raise the gun, pointing it up the hill towards the animal, his hands shaking more than a bit as he tried to remember to pull the hammer back. “I would tell you to get out of the way, but I’m not sure how good of advice that is, either,” Jared whispered as he took another breath while keeping the animal in his sight.

“Whatever it is, fucking shoot it,” Kyle returned with a bit of panic.

Another deep breath as Jared swallowed once more. Upon seeing the animal easily catch their scent and turn its dark eyes toward them as it began to take its next lumbering step, Jared finally forced his fingers to pull the trigger. The bullet was lucky in that it whizzed by several feet above Kyle’s head, considering the trajectory and the hill behind him, but it was less lucky in the fact that it just barely grazed the animal’s shoulder.

The beast let out a howl of anger and pain as it came toward them, now at a much more deliberate near run. Not trusting his own skill or aim at all in that moment of terror, Jared reacted on pure instinct. Rather than pulling the trigger again, he instead centered his dark, intense gaze on the animal which, in that moment, suddenly flew backwards, away from them. Its head was thrown back to immediately smash against the cave opening behind it, knocking the beast into a bloody unconsciousness as its hundreds of pounds of flesh, bone, and fur, fell into a limp heap there in front of the cave that had apparently been its home.

“What the fuck…” was Kyle’s only breathy response as he had turned only a moment earlier to watch that more than startling scene.

“Not sure it’s dead: Questions later,” Jared returned with his own hurried breath, the panic barely lessening as he gestured for Kyle to follow him back up the river toward their now somewhat distant home, before they did get to discover whether or not the beast was indeed dead, after all.

“Fuck that,” Kyle retorted, taking the gun from Jared’s still shaking hand before turning to take a few equally shaky steps toward the heap of fur, before he then emptied another bullet directly into the beast’s nearly shattered skull as well. “Now, we can go back,” he added with a deep breath as he then took the lead, Jared simply shaking his head as he moved to follow, their previous conversation all but forgotten, for the moment, anyway.