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Alicia picks Cary up at prison, parked outside the gates as he comes out slump-shouldered, wearing the rumpled suit he was arrested in, carrying a brown paper bag that probably has whatever else he went in with: wallet, cell phone, keys. The bandage wrapped around his hand looks ratty and gray, and now he also has a black eye, scrapes on his chin.
"Hey, Alicia," he says, mustering up a smile. He looks exhausted.
"Cary," she says. "What happened to your face?"
He shrugs. "Fell," he says, not making eye contact. She watches him until he finally looks at her again, smiling a little self-deprecatingly. She doesn't believe him, and he knows she doesn't believe him, but there's no point pressing it.
"Do you need to go to the ER?" she says. She feels strangely rattled, seeing him like this. At least he's out of jail now -- but he got ten stitches in his hand. Who knows what would've happened if they hadn't gotten the judge to finally accept the bail.
He laughs, giving her a weird look. "It's a black eye, I'm not dying," he says.
"Still," she says. She reaches out a hand to lift his chin, get a better look at those cuts, but he shakes her off. He's rolling his eyes, but smiling a little. "C'mon, Mom, let's go," he says, and opens the car door.
Even so, she drives him to her place instead of his. She wants to get a look at those cuts, find out if there are any more. And it wouldn't hurt to look at his hand either, make sure it's clean, give him some fresh gauze at the very least. And it wouldn't hurt to feed him before she drops him off at his empty apartment. He laughs a little when he sees them taking the wrong exit, like he's rolling his eyes again, but he doesn't protest.
"What do you want to eat?" she says as she unlocks the front door. "Scrambled eggs? Grilled cheese?" What else does she have that's quick?
"You really don't have to feed me," he says.
"Do you have any food at your apartment?" she counters, heading for the bathroom and the first aid supplies.
He thinks for a second. "No," he says. "Well. Cereal, I think. But no milk."
"Well, all right then," she says, as they pass the kitchen. She gestures at the stools at the island. "Have a seat."
When she comes back out with bandaids and gauze and Neosporin, Cary's completely zoned out, staring into space with his head in his good hand. He looks like he barely slept the whole time he was in there.
"Let me see," she says, reaching for his hand.
He blinks, like he's just now noticed she's back, and holds his hand out without protesting, letting her start to unwrap the bandage. His wrist feels hot under her hand, and the bandage is even scuzzier looking close up.
It's late enough that Grace is in bed, and even though Alicia turned the lights on, the kitchen still feels dim and quiet. "You'd think I'd be used to getting men from prison by now," she says.
Cary's surprised into a laugh, and he rubs his good hand through his hair, then over his face. "Yeah," he says. "You don't have a lot of luck in that department, huh?"
"No," she says. "Peter never got knifed though."
Cary looks at her, smiling faintly. "Neither did I," he says, that bald-faced, obvious lie that neither of them expect her to buy.
She shakes her head at him, the bandage coming free so she can see the stitches. It doesn't look good, a brutal cut across the palm of his hand, but at least it doesn't look infected. "Well, that could be worse," she says. She starts putting Neosporin on it anyway, just to be safe.
Cary's breathing's going slower and more even as she cleans him up, letting out long breaths like a sigh. He looks like he's slowly crumpling with exhaustion, face gray and internal -- she was going to take him to his car after this, but she's not sure he's safe to drive. He's looking younger and younger, and the impulse to feed him and tuck him in is getting overwhelming.
"Why don't you spend the night over here?" she says. "Zach's room's free. Then you won't have to drive home."
"Oh, no," Cary starts to say, but he starts a huge yawn in the middle of saying no, and has to pause. When he's done, he looks a little sheepish. "Well," he says. "Maybe."
She starts dabbing Neosporin on the big scrape down his jaw. "I'll get you some of Zach's pajamas," she says. She thinks they'll fit -- better than Peter's would, anyway.
She kind of expects Cary to make another joke about her mothering him too much, but he doesn't look like he has the energy. He just nods, yawning again, and she resists the urge to ruffle his hair before she goes to put clean sheets on Zach's bed.