Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. Unfortunately not mine.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s only me and I walk alone

Why does this always have to happen? Every time I almost start to like my situation, there’s something that screws it up. I’m starting to think I’m cursed, not Jack. Laying on my bed and staring blankly at the ceiling I can’t see, I let out a deep sigh. I feel like I should be doing something, but there honestly isn’t much a blind man can do in a hospital room.

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

A knock on my door snaps me out of my eternal sulk. When nobody comes in, I stand up and make my way over to the door. Impatiently waiting for the person to announce themself, I think I can guess, but decide I should keep my mouth shut just in case.

“Hey,” says a tentative voice I recognize almost painfully well.

“Nadia,” I greet her. “You could have just come in.”

“The doctor says he wants you to –”

“Regain my mobility, I know. He hit me with that chestnut yesterday.” Perching on the edge of the bed, my eyes follow her uselessly to the chair beside it.

I walk alone, I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk a…

The tense silence echoes through the room until she finally speaks up, “There’s no chance you’ll ever see again?” Really it’s more of a statement, but it came out like a question.

Rubbing a hand over my face I sigh haggardly. “No. They want to transfer me to some kind of assisted living program,” I spit the name like a poison.

“But that’s just until you get back on your feet, right? I mean...” she trails off, uncertainty clear in her voice.

“What, so I can come back to CTU? You know as well as I do that’ll never happen.”

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I walk alone

“You’re one of the most experienced field agents we have,” she put on her formal voice. “We could use you for strategy if nothing else.”

I sigh again. I do that a lot these days. “Yeah.”

I’m walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the borderline
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Nadia suddenly says, “I’m really sorry.”

“About what?”

“This,” I hear her hands hit her lap, like she’d just thrown them in the air in some restless gesture. “Everything. I guess I’m kind of responsible for it all.”

“You’re not. If anything I brought it upon myself. I didn’t think to look for explosives.”

Read between the lines
What’s messed up and everything’s all right
Check my vital signs
To know I’m still alive and I walk alone

“Pretty much cost you all –”

I snap and involuntarily go back to my old self. “I really don’t want to hear about what it cost me, all right? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m already aware of that.”

I barely hear a little, “Oh,” escape her mouth.

I walk alone, I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk a…

“I get enough pity from the doctors. I don’t need any more,” I mumble miserably.

She sighs quietly. “Well, I’m sorry.”

God, I wish I’d stop doing that. I’m a jerk, and I know it. Right now I blame it on the medication, but I know that’s a weak excuse.

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I walk alone

I think that maybe she knows what I’m going through. I doubt I’ll ever work up the courage to tell her how much I appreciate her trying to help me through this, but if I could quit ruining everything I touch I might be able to actually be nice to her. I sound ridiculous...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

“Well,” Nadia announces, “I have to go.”

Nodding slowly, I say, “OK.”

Just before she leaves, she turns around like as if she wants to say something. I don’t bother looking in that direction, because I know she’ll go anyway.

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Till then I walk alone...