Camillo, asleep on the couch with a book open on his lap, is very abruptly awake on the couch.

He doesn't quite remember the transition from the couch to the floor, kneeling by Valentine's side, taking his pulse, yelling Cato Cato Cato at the top of his lungs.

Valentine's eyes crack open, just barely,

and then he shuts them again.

"Please, not this. Not him, not again."

Cato bursts in in his pajamas and one sock, leveling a crossbow.

"What—"

When he sees Valentine on the ground, he freezes in place.

Alive. Conscious. Lucid, or almost lucid, or something like it anyway.

Cato's armed already. Good. "Cover him," and he's running off to the kitchen, fumbling for the cruet of oil from Jerusalem olives that isn't for cooking, the canister of Morton salt that sometimes is.

When he returns, Cato hasn't moved. He has the silver-tipped bolt pointed at Valentine's chest, knuckles white on the grip of the crossbow.

"Do you think it's him?"

Valentine is lying still.

"Anything else. Please."

His shirt has been meticulously mended in a dozen different places and bleached almost threadbare. The pale brown edges of bloodstains haven't quite washed out.

There's no possible answer Camillo can usefully make to either of them.

Camillo's thumb smears oil on Valentine's forehead, salt on Valentine's tongue. Camillo whispers old words of blessing, casting out demons, invoking peace and protection.

(There's still sleep unrubbed from his eyelashes. His book lies, spine broken, on the floor.)

At the last word of the incantation, Valentine scrambles onto his hands and knees and vomits black bile onto the floor.

It coalesces haphazardly, in a few places, into fat worms and lopsided, many-legged insectoids that skitter madly for the dark corners of the room, curses suddenly devoid of a host.

Cato takes it upon himself to stomp them.

It's not even proper magic, really. Certainly it's not the kind of thing that Valentine himself could marshal, in better times. But with Valentine gone as long as he has been, these four walls know Camillo as the head of the household, and he has some authority, here, to bless and to curse.

The first round of precautions observed, Camillo pulls Valentine up to his knees, starts unbuttoning his shirt to check what exactly has been bleeding. "Cato -- when you're done -- bread and water, I want him to eat something from here, make sure he stays..."

Valentine doesn't resist.

"Please don't."

It's not the same scattering of slashes and tooth marks and burns as before, not just fights and accidents. There are deep, uneven pockmarks all over his torso, some as wide as a dime, in clusters and constellations – a long, straight scar flanked by little angry red marks, winding up his torso like a millipede — a stretch of shining, featureless skin that drips down his side.

There's a ring shoved through the skin just under his heart with a little silver charm dangling from it, the one he used to wear around his wrist.

Cato smashes the last bug, grinds salt into the smear on the carpet with his heel before he takes off for the kitchen almost at a sprint.

None of it is actively bleeding or festering. None of his questions matter right now. None of Valentine's objections are material, because Valentine fucking disappeared for months on end and has now forfeited as many as several rights.

Camillo drags Valentine up to his knees, wraps his arms tight around his bare scarred chest, rocks him back and forth and whispers blessings too small to have any force behind them, childhood bedtime blessings, little nonsense verses.

Valentine is tense to the point of trembling, breathing shallowly, waiting for something.

His fingers curl into Camillo's shirt anyway.

Cato comes back with a slice of sandwich bread and a glass of water.

He drenches the bread in the oil that isn't for cooking, for good measure, before he hands it off to Camillo.

Camillo pulls back from Valentine just enough to hold a morsel of bread to his lips. 

He closes his mouth, sets his jaw, squeezes his eyes tightly shut.

God damn it. "Eat. Valentine. Valentine. Look, it's not..."

Camillo eats the bit of bread himself, to demonstrate, breaks off a new fragment.

He shakes his head and tries to back away.

"Valentine. Dad. Please..."

It's not working. He lets him back away, just a little.

"...Cato, I think he's scared of me, can you...?"

Cato kneels down next to them.

He gasps, when he sees Valentine's bare chest, bites his tongue and looks away.

He opens his eyes, sees them both together, makes an anguished sound and shuts them again.

"—fine. Fine. All right."

He holds out his hand, palm up. The skin is textured with hundreds of little pinpricks.

It's so unfair. It's all so unfair. Valentine's back and he's not here to save them, he's a horrible frightened tortured mess who doesn't know them and it's the middle of the night and he's tired, okay, he's tired.

Camillo drops the stupid oily fragment of wonderbread in Valentine's palm and he tries not to cry.

Valentine eats.

His brow furrows in confusion, when he tastes the oil.

He swallows without even thinking.

"Good. Okay. Good."

Water, now, for more mundane reasons. Wherever Valentine's been, it hasn't been good for him, and dehydration doesn't help with anything.

He takes the water, and takes a slow, cautious first sip, flinching just before it hits his tongue.

After a moment of waiting, he takes another.

Having exhausted his immediate precautions, Camillo feels abruptly helpless. He covers for it by picking up his book from the floor while Valentine drinks, uncreasing the bent pages.

"...Dad, you're home."

He exhales sharply and tightens his grip on the glass.

"I'm not going to play along," he says, with the last strength he has.

(He leans back against the couch, so he doesn't have to bear his own weight.)

Cato is clutching his crossbow, point down, totally at sea.

"What do you mean," he says, voice almost breaking.

"He doesn't remember us -- or he's hallucinating -- Cato, go back to bed, you still have school in the morning, I'll call you if I need you."

Cato doesn't need to see Valentine like this.

"Fuck off," he says, with tears in his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

Valentine finishes his glass of water and sets it carefully down next to him on the carpet.

He wipes a little black streak from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Fine," Camillo says to Cato, because that fight was doomed from the beginning.

And to Valentine: "More? Still thirsty?"

"I'm all right, thank you."

It's fully automatic.

"Fine," Camillo sighs, exasperated, and gets a throw blanket to drape around Valentine's shoulders. "...Cato, lock the Death Trap, I don't want him wandering off all delirious in the middle of the night."

The Death Trap is the second lock on the front door, installed backwards so it locks with a key from the inside. Camillo named it when he was twelve and reading about fire safety, and it stuck.

Cato nods and runs off.

“…how could you possibly know about that,” he says, in the same tone he uses when he’s been tipped off to the taxonomy of some malevolent spirit by the shape of its slime trail.

"Dad, it's me. Camillo."

The throw blanket is as much for decency as for warmth, and as much for his comfort as Valentine's. He tucks it around Valentine's bare torso and tries not to think about the marks beneath.

He ignores the claim, and pulls the blanket closed around him.

"If someone's put a welcome mat at our door..."

"No one put out a welcome mat."

He's so tired. Why are they rehashing first-grade safety curriculum. Go to sleep.

"Go to sleep. It'll probably all make sense in the morning."

"...oh, am I sleeping tonight, then." 

He sounds relieved.

He drags himself up onto the couch, keeping the blanket tight around his shoulders.

Cato comes back, lingers in the door frame.

"Doors are locked."

"Great. Go to bed. Still a school night."

It apparently worked on Valentine. Maybe it'll work on Cato this time.

"Did I not say fuck off loud enough."

He comes in and sits down right next to him.

Valentine takes a deep breath.

"Suit yourself. I'm going to sleep."

If he's choosing to sleep stretched out on the rug by the couch, so that Valentine can't very well get anywhere without stepping on him, that's no one's business but his own.

Cato climbs into the biggest of the armchairs, with his crossbow in his lap.

"...he's back. So it's going to be fine."

"Yeah," Camillo lies.

It takes Cato about five minutes to drift off into a fitful sleep, still clutching his weapon.

Valentine watches them both, eyelids dropping for longer and longer every time.

Even on the floor, Camillo falls asleep before Valentine does.

When the sun rises, Cato stays asleep in his chair.

Valentine, however, doesn't.

He pulls himself upright and tries to step out over Camillo without being noticed.

He's weak, though, doesn't have the control of his body that he relies on. His foot clips his side.

Camillo grabs Valentine's ankle before his eyes are open.

"Where are you going."

Valentine flinches and yanks his foot back up onto the couch.

Camillo's finger catches, briefly, on – something –

before Valentine frees his foot and tucks it back under him.

He's awake, now, though still miserably groggy.

"Did you just want the bathroom?" he asks, sitting up. "You can use the bathroom. Do you remember where it is?"

"...you can't have done the whole house."

"Done what to the whole house? Dad..."

Camillo glances around despairingly. It's not that much of a mess, is it?

Now that Camillo is sitting up, he does his best to get up quickly and brush by him, heading for the living room door.

"Dad -- c'mon, wait, Dad--"

Camillo scrambles to his feet, grabs for Valentine's hand.

Valentine flinches, again, and stops in his tracks, as soon as Camillo's hand closes around his.

"Where are you going? What's going on?"

Is someone after him? Is he trying to protect them? Has he just forgotten them altogether, does he think his house has been invaded by strangers?

"Dad. Valentine. Let me help? Please?"

He stops in his tracks.

He looks through the door. He looks over his shoulder at the bookshelves, at the couch he slept on, at Cato asleep in the armchair.

"This isn't—"

He stops, takes a deep breath, looks around again.

"...can I be permitted to see the kitchen?"

On the one hand -- there's knives in the kitchen, and things more dangerous than knives. It would be stupid to let Valentine in, when he's in this state. Valentine doesn't approve of him being stupid.

On the other hand: it's Valentine, and it's Valentine's kitchen.

"Sure. One second. Cato!"

Cato startles awake, yelping, leveling the crossbow before he comes to fully and points it away.

"—good fucking morning, I guess!"

"Same to you. Come point the crossbow at Valentine while he has a kitchen reunion."

"...sure."

He looks down, to aim for his calf,

and pales.

There's a thick metal ring punched in between Valentine's Achilles tendon and the bone, hanging down and resting against the back of his heel.

Valentine looks to Camillo for permission to go on.

"Okay," Camillo says, "let's go," because the sink is in the kitchen and he thinks he might be sick.

Valentine makes his way to the kitchen.

He favors his right foot in a way he didn't before.

When he gets there, he hesitates, and then steps past the threshold.

There's a gasp like he's had the wind knocked out of him.

"It was Cato's turn with the dishes," Camillo says, automatically and stupidly.

“This is my kitchen,” he says, unsteadily. “This is my home.”

“Please — are my children still alive?”

"--Dad. Please."

He's crying, and it's as much relief that Valentine remembers he exists as it is anything else.

“That’s us,” Cato says, but even as he does realization is dawning on his face.

“I can’t believe that. Not again.”

He sounds desperate to. His voice is shaking, and he braces himself against the counter by the door, unwilling to look back over his shoulder.

"--okay. Can you just..."

Cato's hands are busy with the crossbow; Camillo can't reach out and take one. He puts a hand on Cato's shoulder, instead, and tries to pretend that it's to steady Cato.

"...can you just, be, in your kitchen, and not believe us, that's okay -- do you want to cook something, we have things..."

Cato is taking tight little breaths and blinking hard, bow still trained on Valentine's calf.

"Why — have you been put up to being part of this? — is there a way for me to help you, something they want from you, I..."

His kitchen table is right there. His kitchen table and his kitchen chairs.

He limps to them, sits down in one, pulls the blanket back tight over his shoulders.

"...you're home. We're safe. You're safe."

Camillo comes over, cautiously -- not too close -- and squats on the floor nearby, tries to look nonthreatening.

"Can you see the nicks on the table from when I built the Parthenon? And the glue on the window from that stupid sticker Cato put there?"

Valentine traces his fingertip over the nicks in question, slowly.

"...the sock monkey sticker," he says, faintly.

"The purple one," Camillo agrees.

"Cato. I don't think he's going to do anything. Can you get the bolt cutters?"

Cato nods sharply, drops his crossbow on the kitchen island, and runs for the garage.

"...not for any digits, I hope," he says, distantly.

"Jesus," Camillo sighs. "--for the ring, Valentine."

"The..."

"...oh, right. That one."

He touches it with the toes of his other foot.

"You might have trouble with it. It's quite thick."

"We cut through my U-lock that one time," Camillo says, optimistically.

Where's his phone. There's his phone. He needs to call Cato's school and tell them Cato will be out sick today. Not that Cato ought to miss another day of school right now, but he'll never convince him to go in.

The school is not pleased with Cato's absence. They want to see a doctor's note this time.

Cato returns with the bolt cutters and one of the three first aid kits.

"Do you want to do it yourself?" Camillo asks Valentine, because he's pretty sure Valentine isn't going to try to hit one of them over the head with the bolt cutters given a chance.

He holds out his hand for the tool.

Cato hesitates, for just a second, and then hands it to him.

Valentine lifts his foot up onto the chair next to him, hooks his finger into the ring to pull it up and out.

It stays in place, more or less, as he slips it between the bolt cutter's blades.

"...I won't have enough leverage."

He might, on a normal day. But not this one.

"...do you want me or Cato?"

It should be his job, really. But Cato might be less threatening.

"You."

If it's not his children, they can do what they want either way.

If it is — Camillo will want to protect Cato, much more than he'll want to pass off the job.

So Camillo kneels by the chair and applies the bolt cutters to the iron ring, trying not to jar it too badly.

Valentine shuts his eyes and breathes through it as it shifts.

It's solid, but not solid enough to hold up to the shears. It resists, a few seconds, and then gives all at once.

"There we go," Camillo says, as if Valentine is very small and Camillo has just pulled a splinter from his foot. "Do you want to take it from here?"

It's surely going to hurt, taking it the rest of the way out.

"...cut it again. So there's a larger gap. Then I'll pull it out."

Cato is preparing bandages, and not looking.

"Yeah. Okay."

Don't start telling him how to handle it. It's too normal, too comforting -- he'll relax. He can't.

The second cut takes a couple of tries; the ring keeps slipping under the shears. He gets it eventually.

He lets out the breath he was holding, when he hears the piece of iron clink off the seat of the chair onto the floor.

"...all right. Look away."

Camillo wants to protest that he doesn't need Valentine to protect him, but he remembers how relieved he was, just a moment before, to see Cato looking away.

He turns his back.

He pulls the sharp cut edge of the ring through the hole and out.

It's not nearly the worst thing he's had to do to himself in the last three months.

He lifts it in his palm, then, and just looks at it, the ring freed from his body, his body freed from the ring.

"...this should have some power to it," he muses, miles away.

"Oh my god," Camillo complains, affectionately exasperated, and then it's time to wash Valentine's ankle in a mixing bowl with lots and lots of fresh clean water.

There's not much blood at all. It must have had some time to heal. It's just a hole, lanced all the way through.

"...it really is you," he says, watching the water trickle through him.

"It's us, Dad."

He sacrifices one of the older dish towels to dry Valentine's foot, holds it steady in his lap for Cato to bandage.

Cato's wrapped a lot of bandages. He makes quick work of it.

Valentine watches his hands.

He reaches down to take one of them, when it's done, feel it light and warm in his,

and then nearly knocks them all to the floor grabbing them and pulling them into his arms.

"You're alive. You're alive. You're alive."

He chants it like it's its own blessing.

"We're alive. We've been okay."

The latter is a bit of a stretch, but at this moment, with his face in Valentine's shoulder and his arms around Cato and Valentine both, it feels true.

He smells like blood and sickness and the texture of his back is wrong on Camillo's hand but he's here, and holding him, and not letting go.

Cato has one hand tight in Camillo's shirt and one on Valentine's wrist, like if he doesn't hold onto him he'll disappear as quickly as he arrived.

"--you need more water. And food, and electrolytes, and a bath -- and antibiotics, probably, if you have anything fresh, and painkillers..."

He can't stand to just be here and feel. It's too much.

"No painkillers," he says, before he can even finish processing the sentence.

"Advil, Valentine, jesus."

And they're back on familiar ground.

"...all right," he says, reluctantly, "Advil. If it's already here — "

Cato is already passing it over.

And Camillo is already filling a glass with water.

Valentine will take two little capsules and sip half a glass of water, huddling under the blanket draped over his shoulders.

"...how long?"

"Three months -- four? -- no, three. Three months."

"...three months."

He's not sure if that sounds too long or too short.

"And are there — active threats?"

"The usual. Sightings of Hubert's stag in the suburbs. Something keeps trying to break in the side door at night. We've got it under control."

He sighs and it's like half the weight of his body has left on his breath. His shoulders crumple and his forehead tips down towards his glass of water.

"You are both marvels. Wonders of the world. I'm so proud of you."

 The inside of his shirt is good for wiping away tears.

"We missed you. I'm so glad you made it back."