Kelly mutters in the helicopter bay, strapped down to a stretcher. Scotty, similarly trussed up, turns his head towards him, eyelids dragged down by morphine. He told them not to go overboard with the dose for just this eventuality, and here he is, needing to be alert, and having to fight sleep. Kelly's lips move, forming incomprehensible, slurred words.
"It's all right, Kel," Scotty raps out, as firmly as he can over the roar of the engine. "Settle down. We'll be there soon."
"…Johnny…"
Scotty's gut twists. Of course, he thinks, looking hopelessly up at the curved interior of the aircraft. Too much to hope for that Kelly should forget for a single minute. "I said, settle down!" he shouts, mad at the world, at Fate, at himself.
He's met with complete silence. When he turns his head again, Kelly's profile is set, face etched into tight lines, teeth gritted in agony, silent tears running down from his squeezed-shut eyes to soak into the hair at his temples.
Scotty knows he's not weeping from the pain of his broken bones.
"Aw…" It's awkward as anything, fumbling with straps with one hand, but he manages to loosen one of the bands around his chest, turning half on his side to reach for Kelly. "Kel, man, I don't…"
But there's nothing, no reaction. Kelly's gone inside, into that place where Scotty can't reach him. When Kel's in there, Scotty has to clown around forever just to get Kelly to look at the world outside again. Sometimes, he's scared that Kel will leave him forever and go and hide in there, alone with his own thoughts, his own pain, his own spiral of darkness, hide out where Scotty can never get to him again; leave him, leave him stuck searching the streets of Mexico, like a madman, while the poison eats away at Kelly and…
…huh. Wrong nightmare. The drugs must be working overtime. And Kelly's still lying there, lost inside himself, fists clenched. "Kelly," Scotty coaxes. No yelling; the angry tone already drove him inside, and he should know better than to use that tone when the man's taken a hit like that, when he's so fragile… "Kelly," he says again, as soft as he can and still be heard over the engines. Drat, he can't make any jokes, not about this, not when he, Scotty, is mourning Chung as well; he didn't know him like Kel did, but he was a good man, a cool cat, a fine agent. What on earth can he say?
He looks at the tears still slipping down into Kelly's hair. "He's worth it," Scotty says, suddenly.
The cryptic statement earns him, thank God, a blink, a slide of the weary, dead eyes towards him.
"Yeah," Scotty nods, like he's replying to something Kelly said. "You go ahead and cry for him. Cat like that, what, he ain't worth our tears? Sure he is. He deserves all the tears we can cry for him and then some. So you go ahead and cry." He lowers his tone conspiratorially. "I won't rat on ya."
The hoarse laugh that explodes from Kelly's cracked throat is a victory, and Scotty counts it as such even when it morphs into a sob in the same instant. He reaches out and closes his good hand around Kelly's cold one – God, so cold – and holds Kelly's hand tight as he cries. His partner shakes so hard with sobs it's gotta be hurting him, but there isn't a thing he can do but hold onto Kel's hand, and murmur permission.
He counts it as a victory when the cold fingers grip back.