Sand everywhere, blowing in Kenneth's eyes. He can't see. He blinks, but he's too dehydrated; his eyes can no longer make tears. Yelling. Lieutenant yelling. Set up a perimeter! Kenneth knows what that means. He knows how but he can't move. The sun is molten gold, burning, blinding. The M-16 in his hands is too heavy. Too hot. It sears his hands, so he drops it, loses sight of it in the sand and the sun. Cover. Why? Cover what? Why is the world exploding? A wall of hot air, sharp things ripping at his skin, shredding his face. His eyes are wet with blood. Aaron doesn't want to die. He wants to see. He wants to be seen. But Kenneth is dead, and he knows it. There is nothing left in Kenneth's world but the glare of the sun.
His eyes pop open. He gasps, ready to fight, if only his body would listen. If only his body would move. He doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to die in the desert alone. This light is blue, cold, pretend. Aaron licks his lips. It's not the tang of blood, but of salt and sweat. He's roasted and freezing at once, his limbs shaking beneath a thin, sterile blanket. A monitor is humming beside him; networks of tubes feed into his arms and nose. Hospital. And then he remembers. They offered him a home, a place to belong, people to belong to. They gave him the injection and then he was here. Dying. Alone. Did they lie? Aaron puzzles over that. He's never suspected others of lying before. He always said what he thought others wanted to hear, the best he could think of. He always did what he said, because he'd said so, because it was right, because then maybe they would see him. But he's been lied to; he's sure, more sure than he's ever been, and he doesn't know why.
It's becoming hard to keep his eyes open. Every time he closes his lids the sun is there, etched behind them. No. He doesn't want to go back to the desert. He doesn't want to go back there. There was pain there, worse than the shrapnel that nearly killed him. Their faces were there. They were there, smiling at one another with those funny smiles that Kenneth tried but could never quite imitate. Mocking him, Aaron knows, though Kenneth never had. Jackson and Mendez are coming towards him. He can hear their boots clicking on the floor. He can already see their smirks. He won't laugh this time.
"…and this is Outcome 5," a male voice says, somewhere behind the sun where Kenneth can't see. Aaron wills himself back to the hospital, back to the cold blue light and the silent, remote staff. This one was a doctor. Aaron has seen him before, but he's never heard him speak. Who is he talking to? It's like he's looking through fog. The doctor is old, jowly. The doctor looks, but can't see anything at all. Aaron tries to move away from him, his limbs too weak to cooperate. All he can do is tangle his fingers in the blanket and kick the sheets. "We're seeing the same signs we did with Outcome 8. I estimate we'll lose him sometime after midnight." The doctor disappears from Aaron's vision, but his words remain, bouncing around in Aaron's skull. Lose him? They're going to leave him to die. Aaron won't. He refuses. Then why can't he do anything but writhe and sweat and wish for death? Better to die alone now than to live alone and die later. The voice is wry, amusing. Aaron wants to laugh at this voice. At Aaron's voice.
This is a face he hasn't seen before. He would remember. He will remember until he dies, not that that's apt to be long. Aaron wants to laugh again. She's so pretty Kenneth thinks she's an angel, a goddess in a white lab coat. Aaron thinks it's hilarious that he's going to die at the hands of his wet dream. His vision begins to clear a little, and he gasps as something cool and soft is set against his forehead. It feels like rain in the desert. The pretty doctor is looking at him. Maybe…Kenneth always was a romantic. Kenneth still thinks she's his guardian angel. Aaron is not so foolish. Aaron examines her with all the concentration he can muster. He looks at her soft, pale skin. He looks at her dark hair. He looks at her lips, and her blue eyes, and he's pretty sure you'd find her in the dictionary under 'perfect'.
She isn't far away like the other doctor. She looks at him and she sees him. Aaron catches the way she purses her lips, trying to hide a frown. He notices when she glances away every time he tries to make eye contact; she's never quick enough to hide the sympathy. Is that what he wants? Does he want her sympathy? He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore except that he's burning alive, falling into a furnace, back under the baring light of the sun. He doesn't want to go there. He can't. He reaches for something, anything, to anchor him to Aaron's world.
His hand catches onto something cool and smooth and soft. He can feel fingers twining between his. He holds on. He won't let go. She holds on, too. "Don't leave me, Doc. Don't leave. Please don't leave." Aaron isn't entirely sure he's speaking, or if he's making sense. It doesn't matter, because she's looking right at him and she knows, and her fingers seal the pact.
"I won't leave. Go to sleep, now. You need to rest. You'll be fine if you get some rest." Her other hand is against his cheek. Her thumb is rubbing his temple. Aaron can't believe what he's hearing. She's lying. She's lying like the other doctor. She's lying like Hirsch. Kenneth doesn't care. Kenneth believes her. Kenneth wants to hold her hand and sleep and dream, protected by an angel with dark hair and slender hands.
Aaron tries to fight the exhaustion, to combat the drugs seeping through tubes into his blood. If he gives in, how does he know it won't be Kenneth who wakes up? Aaron knows why he is here, what they want him to do. Kenneth would break. Aaron struggles to sit up, so weakly that she doesn't need force to keep him down.
Her dark eyes turn on him, earnest, "Do you want to live?"
"Yes," Aaron whispers. The word drains the last of his strength and even the effort of keeping his fingers curled around her hand is too much. When she tightens her grip, he closes his eyes and sleeps.
He's surprised when Kenneth is right. He's surprised there is no parched desert waiting for him behind his eyes.
And when he opens them again the room is dark. He's hungry. He hasn't been hungry since they gave him the injection. Aaron tries to move and realises that the weight of his hand isn't his. There's hardly any light, only the dim glow from the monitors Aaron is hooked up to. Enough for him to see with surprising clarity. Her slim fingers are draped over his hand, delicate as a bird's bones. Maybe not an angel, Aaron decides, but she was his guardian nonetheless. He will be hers.
He looks at the rest of her, twisted into a chair, asleep. Her neck will be in agony when she wakes up. He should move her. When Aaron stirs, her eyes open in a flash. She's half way out of her chair before Aaron catches her hand, "It's alright, Doc."
She looks down at him, arches a brow. He's amused her. Aaron catches the irony. "Sorry, was that supposed to be your line?" She smiles. Aaron can look at that smile all day. But it's not directed at him anymore. She's looking out the dark window on his far side.
"It's raining," she says. He turns to the window, can see the rivulets running down the spotless glass.
"Yeah, it is." It's raining in the desert. Aaron smiles.