"Bayliss?"

He recognizes Frank's voice in that vague sort of way that everything admonishing and pissed off sounds like Frank. His alarm clock sounds like Frank, scolding him every morning. The lady who sells him his paper and tells him he needs a better jacket sounds like Frank. Everyone telling him he's doing everything wrong sounds like Frank. He's done something wrong again, he's pretty sure, since the only sound he can hear is Frank.

"Jesus, Bayliss. Christ."

"I think I got shot, Frank."

"You think you got shot. You're a real brain trust, Bayliss, you know that?" Frank's voice is higher than normal, slightly panicked, and Tim isn't sure what that means exactly. Frank doesn't panic. Frank gets mad and Frank gets angry and Frank gets theatrical, but Frank doesn't panic. Tim wants to ask him about it, but the words seem hard to find and everything shifts sideways and crooked, so he just closes his eyes. "Don't you die on me, Bayliss. You die on me, I'll kick your ass."

"Right. Don't die." The words sound funny to his ears, but he's pretty sure they're the right ones. Frank doesn't say anything else to him that he can hear, everything sounds like he's in the water, rushing up to meet him, rushing in his ears. Everything's muffled and far away, but he can feel something solid in his hand. Maybe it's his gun - Did he fire his gun? Is someone else bleeding? - or maybe it's something else. He's not sure and he wants to ask Frank, but even he seems far away, a dark shadow on the surface of the water that's dragging him down.

Waking up is sort of like dreaming. Everything has a white aura around it, and if he were the kind of man who really believed, Tim might think he was in heaven, but he's pretty sure that heaven isn't made for men like him who have seen too much and done too much. Besides, he's relatively sure that Frank's not dead and there's no one else that can be glowering at him like that from beside the bed.

"Did I die?"

"Am I kicking your ass?"

Tim smiles slightly. "I'm numb from the chest down, so I don't actually know the answer to that."

"Some would say you're numb from the neck up, Bayliss." Frank leans down so that Tim can actually see him. There are dark circles under his eyes and lines etched in his normally smooth skin. Tim meets Frank's eyes and holds them, reading things that almost make getting shot worthwhile. Frank's looking at him the way he looks at Mary, at Olivia. Frank's looking at Tim like he's family. "But you're not dead yet."

"Good to know, Frank." Bayliss nods as whatever's in the IV drips into his arm and through his system. "Not dead yet."

"Yeah," he thinks he hears Frank sigh. "Let's keep it that way."