Chapter 16 Watching Him Break #3
He was still wanted. Still chosen. Still loved.
Even now. Even as he was. Still loved. By him.
No lectures. No pressure. No demands.
Just… loved.
He turned off the light. Lay back on the bed. Eyes open in the dark.
And for the first time in weeks, he let himself believe—just a little—that maybe he wasn’t beyond saving.
Later that night, Joshua slipped into the guest room.
The floor creaked beneath his bare feet. Colin lay on his side, facing the wall. Still. Awake.
Joshua didn’t speak. He eased beneath the covers, careful and slow.
For a while, they lay in silence. Not touching. The space between them heavy with everything unsaid.
Then—wordlessly—Joshua reached out, sliding his fingers across the mattress until they found Colin’s.
At first, Colin didn’t move. But after a long moment, his fingers closed around Joshua’s.
A sigh—soft, shaky—escaped him.
No words. No apologies. No declarations.
Only the quiet weight of presence. Only hands clasped in the dark.
And the fragile beginnings of hope.
For now, that was enough.
When Colin entered the CAO the next morning, Norman Clayton was waiting outside Colin’s office. Arms folded. Eyes dark.
“Got a minute?” Norm asked, voice carefully neutral.
Colin hesitated, then nodded. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. Norm followed.
The door clicked shut.
“You want coffee?” Colin asked, moving toward the door.
“Oh, cut the crap, Colin!” Norm snapped.
Colin froze. Then turned.
“Kid, I love you and I’m tremendously proud of you,” Norm said—his voice low and firm. “But what I saw in that courtroom yesterday? That wasn’t you. That was a broken man burning alive from the inside out, trying to pass it off as justice.”
Colin’s jaw tightened. “Don’t—”
“I’m not judging,” Norm cut in. “I’m here because I care about you.
And I’m not the only one. You’ve got a husband who is falling apart, waiting for you to come home.
Friends walking on eggshells. And you? You’re standing in front of a jury, performing rage like it’s theater.
That’s not justice, Colin. That’s pain. Who the hell do you think you’re fooling? ”
Colin looked away. “You don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Silence.
Then, barely audible: “I failed, Norm.”
“Failed? How?”
“Sarah died doing her job. Hannibal too. Our home burned. Joshua could’ve died. Nothing I did mattered.”
His voice cracked, and for a moment, he wasn’t in the room—he was back on that lawn, choking on smoke, staring at the spot where she fell.
In his mind, he heard her laugh—quick, warm, always edged with steel. “You’re not bulletproof, Campbell,” she’d told him once. “You’re just too damn stubborn to break.”
He wondered what she’d say now if she saw the man he’d become.
He drew in a breath that shuddered through his chest. “I could’ve lost him, Norm. Just like Kathy. How the hell do I live with that?”
Norm let the silence settle. Heavy. Not unkind. Then he stepped forward and laid a hand on Colin’s shoulder.
“You didn’t fail. You survived. So did Joshua. That means you still have a choice. Go on living in the blast zone—dragging everyone who loves you through the wreckage—or start clawing your way back to life.”
Colin’s fists clenched. His breath stuttered. “Jesus Christ, Norm… one of my best friends was blown off the face of the earth ten steps from my front door!”
The hand that had rested on Colin’s shoulder slammed against the desktop–Norm’s voice cracking like a whip.
“Don’t you dare lay this on Sarah! She was one of the finest police officers I’ve ever served with—and she’d be fucking furious to see you using her death to justify this—this act you’re putting on! This pretense!”
He broke off, breath hissing through his teeth, then leaned forward—his voice lower, quieter.
“Think about the story you’re telling, Colin.
Sarah’s part of that story now, and you’re letting guilt, grief, and rage write the ending.
” He met Colin’s eyes. “That’s not justice.
It’s surrender. And surrender sure as hell doesn’t honor what Sarah stood for or what she died for. ”
He hesitated, then leaned his weight against the desk. His voice dropped another octave—quieter, steadier. “Know this, too, Counselor. And know it well! There’s only one thing that could drive Joshua away for good—seeing you suffer and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
He straightened, jaw tight, eyes flashing, and walked out. No goodbye. No glance back. Just the door, closing behind him.
Colin stood alone in the quiet, his heart hammering in his chest, his breathing ragged—because for the first time in weeks, the words hadn’t just reached him.
They’d gotten in.
When he got home that night, Colin found David waiting in the kitchen.
It was late. Quiet. The kind of quiet that usually suited him.
But not now.
David stood at the stove in a sweater and jeans, one hand on the plunger of his French press. He didn’t turn when Colin entered.
“You look like hell,” David said evenly.
“Good evening to you, too. Where’s Josh and Nate?”
“At the house—helping Graham unpack boxes of kitchen tile.”
Colin nodded. “I didn’t know.”
“Would it have mattered if you had?” David pressed the plunger down. “You going to pretend this is all normal, or are you finally ready to stop bullshitting the people who love you?”
Colin leaned against the doorframe, already weary. “If you’re going to lecture me—”
“I’m not.” David poured two mugs and slid one across the counter. “Well, maybe I am. But mostly? I’m here to remind you that you do not live on Mount Olympus.”
Colin blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” David finally turned to face him. “You’re not omniscient. You don’t grant life. You don’t deal out death. You don’t control the mind of a madman. You’re not god, Colin.”
Colin’s hands curled around the mug, knuckles white.
“I know you think you failed. That if you’d done just one more thing—been one more thing—Sarah and Hannibal would be alive and your house wouldn’t be ashes.
But that fantasy? That illusion that it’s somehow your job to save everyone?
That’s not noble, Colin. It’s not heroic. It’s ego! Arrogant, impossible ego.”
Colin flinched.
“You’re not grieving,” David continued. “You’re punishing yourself for not being something no human being could ever be. And in the process, you’re throwing away everything that’s left, which—whether you get it or not—is a lot.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t.” David’s voice was soft, but sharp. “Don’t lie to me. I’ve known you too damned long.”
“Nate and I have watched your heartbroken husband struggle with his anguish. Watched that sweet boy who adores you slowly unravel. Watched him fight to keep hope alive with no one to lean on. No one to support him!”
David closed the distance between them, his voice edged with sudden fury. “He lost just as much as you did, Colin! But he’s grieving alone! Without the one thing that would make any loss bearable: you!”
His voice suddenly cracked—letting his own pain show. “He’d live in a hole in the goddamn ground and call it paradise if you were beside him!”
Colin looked down, jaw tight. “He doesn’t deserve what I’ve become.”
“No,” David said more quietly. “He deserves the man who stood by him through fire and blood and pain. The one who taught us all what strength looks like. He deserves a husband. Not a broken man who’s trying to bleed his way to redemption.”
Silence.
Then David placed a hand on Colin’s shoulder.
“Stop trying to be a god. You’re so much more likable when you’re just a man. A man who loves. A man who hurts. And even a man who fails. And maybe—just maybe—you’ll see that grace hasn’t left you, Colin. It’s still yours. It’s still you.”
Colin’s throat tightened. He looked away, blinking fast.
“I don’t know if I can,” he whispered.
David gave a faint smile. “You already did.”
Colin looked at him.
“You sent him a heart emoji, didn’t you?”
Colin let out a quiet, broken laugh.
“Then start there,” David said. “You’re not lost, Colin. You’re hiding.”
He leaned in, voice low—unflinching.
“So, for god’s sake, pull your head out of your ass before the man who loves you drowns in the silence you keep mistaking for atonement.”