Six woke up.
Given that people didn't generally do that after being shot in the face, this pulled him up short. He was blind when he woke, and shivering, and his limbs were so heavy he could barely move them. There were no coherent thoughts, here on the operating table— just sightless groping for a gun that wasn't there. The doctors saw his fingers twitching, loaded him up on more anesthetics, and his mind quieted once more.
The only thing that stood out in this time-but-not-time, besides lying on a cold slab like a bloody piece of meat in a butcher shop, was the insane throbbing in the left side of his head, and how it spiked suddenly. He thought they might've been picking needle shards out of his skull, and wondered if he'd lose an eye. The pain would pass, he thought. He would either die or they'd fix him, and then he'd stop hurting.
He had to tell himself that a few times, to believe it.
Darkness again, then light, bright light, and he woke up for real.
On the first day of his recovery, the doctors made him do small tests. They asked him to blink, so he did, and they asked him to cough, so he did. He wiggled his fingers and toes, told them his name and Spartan I.D. number and birthday, and some fucker shone a flashlight in his eyes and pretended that he couldn't hear Six cursing like a sailor. Six asked for the date. They said it was the first of April. He asked if they could take out his I.V. They said no, not yet. The only thing he did not ask was where his team was.
On the second day, a nurse gave him a paper cup of water and watched him fumble with it. His hands trembled and wavered and they wouldn't do what he wanted them to, and the only thing that pissed him off more than that was the sympathetic smile of the nurse. He refused her offer to wipe the spilled water from his chin, and when she left, he crumpled up the cup and threw it at the wall in frustration.
On the third day, he realized he had a catheter at the exact moment another nurse forcefully ripped it out of him. The watery eyes had nothing to do with the fact that Emile would've laughed his ass off, and everything to do with the fact that it hurt like fuck.
Again, he had to tell himself that. Over and over.
On the fourth day they took out his I.V. and gave him a lunch of mashed potatoes and meatloaf drowned in gravy. He ate quietly, only spilled a drop of his water, and tried very hard not to think about how Jorge would've picked peas off his plate, or how Cat and Jun would have sat on the foot of his bed, passing comments on hospital food.
On the fifth day, they made him walk around the room and stretch to see how well his muscles and nerves were holding up. The doctors were surprised he could move so well for how much damage he'd taken. Carver would've shook his head and smirked at Six's trembling knees, but instead of that, he got pre-rehearsed praise and encouragement. It stung more, for whatever reason. The doctors told him he'd be released in the morning after a few more tests, and left.
That night Six paced the room, barefoot in his papery hospital gown, and said that a universe without the rest of Noble Team was still a universe worth living in.
He ended up telling himself that, in the mirror, and realized, as he slipped back into bed, that he'd be doing that for a long, long while.