All he can feel is pain.
There's so much pain, he wants to sob. Oh god, does he want to sob out, scream in his pain.
But he doesn't. He stays silent, letting the tears course down his cheeks.
Walter had propped him up against the side of the cage after the Jerry who had carried him tossed him unceremoniously unto the floor. Raymond is bent over his leg, pressing hard against the wound in his thigh.
Ray shifts his weight, presses down harder.
Daniel stops fighting the pain.
He let's the blackness that he's been fighting grab hold.
When he wakes, the cage is pitch black.
He's covered in mud, and sweat, and blood, and his own damn tears.
And he aches. God, does he ache. He thought it might get better, but it hasn't. The nerves in his damn leg are screaming, and he knows enough to realize he's probably as good as dead.
But he tries not to think about it. Tries not to focus on the gaping hole in his leg, or the sound that the bullet hitting bone had made.
He tries, but he can't.
He sleeps again.
He starts to hallucinate next.
He starts talking to Harvey, telling him about the pain he's in and how he wants it to end.
Harv just shakes his head, replying by saying, get over yourself. Getting shot doesn't hurt that much.
How would you know? Daniel replies, his voice a hiss.
And then he remembers.
He remembers watching as his best friend, the man he had grown up with, getting shot. Remembers seeing the bullets slam into his friends back as he scrambled across the ground, having tripped on the body of one of the Jerry's.
He wants to scream. He needs to scream. He screamed when he had watched his friend collapse, dead.
He doesn't scream now.
He opens his eyes again, and closes them instantly.
He's tired of the hallucinations. He's tired of the shakes that wrack his 's tired of the freezing cold. He's tired of…
He feels a hand on his shoulder. He feels his body shake.
He opens his eyes and looks at the man.
The blond man with the star on his helmet, and the colors of the flag on a shield.
A fucking shield.
Who takes a shield to war?
You're going to be alright, the blond says, giving Daniel a pinched look. You'll be just fine, Major.
And Daniel finds himself wondering how the hell he had become a Major one last time before blacking out again.
He has what has to be a fever dream. It must be.
The blond man is there, again, along with… well, a goddess.
This divinity is brunette, her hair falling in perfect curls around a perfect face. Her lips were the brightest red Daniel had ever seen.
Except for Harv's blood.
She's beautifully full-figured, her brown dress hitting all of her curves perfectly.
Are you an angel, Daniel murmurs, looking at the brunette, before falling again into the blackness that seemed to rule his life.
The next time he wakes, he stays awake.
Walter and Raymond come and visit him, Walter with his arm in a sling and Raymond with a crutch.
They're with him when he realizes he's lost his leg.
He cries. The tears aren't for his leg, though.
They're for Harv.
He shakes with sobs, not saying words, just making noises. Walt and Ray both pat him on the back, but Daniel can tell they are uncomfortable.
They don't know who the tears are really for.
He's sent home, of course. Can't have a crip working against the krautz. No, not even as a code breaker. Can't gather intelligence, either, even though who would be a better spy then a guy who can't run? No country would put a gimp in such a position. And that's what would make him a good spy.
He hates it.
He hates limping off the boat with his crutches in a death grip and the empty pant leg pinned to his thigh.
He sees his mae standing on the shore, Carlota and Ines standing next to her. Mae has tears streaming down her face, a bright smile on her face. Carlota and Ines are usually both stone-like, but they both have looks of relief on their faces.
From everyone else, it's just pity.
It's been a year. A year of adapting, a year in the VA, and a year of loneliness.
He was able to go to Harv's funeral.
Mrs. Nash had hugged Daniel, wetting the shoulder of his dress uniform with her tears.
He wets the shoulder of her dress with his own.
Mrs. Nash visited him often, almost as much as his own mae and his sisters had. They had talked about Harvey, about how much they both missed him, and how important he had been to them both. They had cried together, laughed together.
He was starting to heal.
After his release from the VA, he starts searching for jobs. They start out as odd ones; he did inventory for a library, he worked in a laundromat, and edited a paper.
Then he discovers the SSR.
He signed up quickly. He could tell that the head honcho wasn't sure about it, didn't want to hire a lame man. But after looking at his resume, there was really no way the man could say no.
But he was reduced to filing.
A part of him was furious; angry that he he couldn't do what he wanted to do just because of his lost leg. He might have gotten a prosthesis, but that didn't mean he could fight again, or run again, or probably ever go out into the field.
And then there was Jack.
Jack wasn't as bad as the damned Polak, but he was still an awful man to work with. He constantly made comments about Daniel's prosthetic, and jokes about his limp and crutches, and laughing at his occasional… attacks, really, of shakes and sweats and tunnel vision.
Months later, he sees a face from his past.
The brunette angel is sitting at the desk farthest from the door when he limps in. He wasn't usually late - in fact, he was usually first - but his prosthetic had been giving him even more pains than usual. He woke up with tears streaming down his face.
And there she is.
She is just as he had… well, obviously not imagined her.
He decides he has to befriend her.