The little girl absolutely refused to let Nolan put her down. He wasn't complaining too much, really; she weighed barely anything compared to his pack, but still, his arms were starting to go a little numb from holding the position for so long. As they were regrouping outside the tent, he'd tried to give her to Cooper so he could check her out, bandage the wounds on her wrists at least, but she'd clung to him and started to sob again the second Coop's hands reached out for her. "Okay, okay, bad idea," he'd said soothingly, rubbing her back, trying to get her calm again. It had taken a few minutes, but once she was convinced he wasn't letting go, she'd settled back down into the same quiet shaking she'd been doing since he'd pulled her out of that stinking tent. She'd even let Coop check her over, as long as she could stay in Nolan's arms; it had taken a little maneuvering, shifting her so the other man could clean each wrist in turn, but overall Nolan called it a win. She hadn't made a sound during the whole process, even though it had to have hurt like hell, Nolan thought; she'd just buried her face deeper into his shoulder, panicky breaths puffing against his neck.
That was one concerning thing—she seemed to be in a constant baseline state of panic. She hadn't even been able to answer them when they asked her name, her breath hitching too hard every time she tried to speak. She was quiet now, but even so, he could still feel her pulse where she was draped over the join of his neck and shoulder. It was thrumming like a hummingbird, way too fast, he knew, even with his limited understanding of Irathient physiology. But Coop hadn't wanted to risk giving her a sedative, especially with the snakebite doing god knows what to her. That had not been a fun discovery in itself; her tattered blouse had slipped off her left shoulder as Nolan had turned her in his arms, and his eyes had gone immediately to the two puncture wounds there, leaking thin blood. The little girl had started shaking harder as Coop probed the bite, then begun crying silently, and as her tears soaked his uniform, white-hot fury had grown in him at whatever the fuck they'd been doing to her in there.
Now they were sitting against a huge downed tree, facing away from the tent, both a little exhausted. The girl was curled in the crook of his arm, her little body like a live wire. The knobbly bark dug into his back, but it barely even registered. Nolan sighed, shifting her weight from one arm to the other, and shook his arm as the pins and needles rushed in immediately. He heard boots crunching in the dirt and looked up to see Coop heading their way. The other man stopped a few feet away and knelt down, smiling gently. "Hey, lil miss," he said lightly, trying to catch the girl's eye. "Can I hold you for a minute while Mr. Nolan takes a break?"
She tensed almost immediately and shook her head violently, and he could feel her fingers digging into his uniform as though she thought he was going to pry her away. Coop held up his hands and backed a couple more steps away. "Okay, no big," he said, not pressing it, and turned his back to them, dropping onto the ground and unslinging his kit. The girl watched him suspiciously for a few moments while Nolan rocked her, and then Coop started humming.
It took a few bars for Nolan to catch on, but when he did, he stifled a laugh and started humming along. Once they were both in tune, Coop began to sing quietly, drumming on the pack in front of him, just nonsense at first but slowly resolving into the lyrics to Here Comes the Sun. He and Coop were always driving the others nuts, singing snippets of old rock music, the Beatles being one of their favorites. This time, though, Nolan suspected it wasn't about killing boredom or irritating their squadmates. He rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the song, keeping time with Coop, and picked up the lyrics on the second verse.
"Little darlin', it's been a long cold lonely winter," he sang, and the girl went still against him. "Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun," he felt her loosen her death grip on him and slip down in his lap to rest her head on his chest, "here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right." He tightened his arms around her, numbness and discomfort entirely forgotten, and carried on, feeling her shaking slowly begin to subside.
That was how the others found them a few minutes later, the Geist brothers and Eddie, returning from a sweep of the tent and the surrounding woods—in full swing of the song, swaying and bopping their heads, Coop still sitting facing away from them and drumming his fingers on anything in reach—canteen and extra magazines and even his gun—and singing the chorus over and over while the little girl laughed in Nolan's arms. Jered covered his mouth, shoulders shaking uncontrollably, while the others just stared.
Nolan didn't miss a beat of the song as he raised one arm over his head, well away from where the girl could see it, flipped them off, and kept singing.