DISCLAIMER: I do not own Falling Skies or the characters... if I did, then I'd be rich. :D Anyway. No slash or other romance, just pure angst and possible violence. Actually, make that probable, because I write violence a lot. Season 2 ish I'd suppose. Anyway. Read & Review... CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK'S EPISODE. This is blood and more blood... Before Jimmy's death. AU. Very. Read, review... may update... may lose interest... xD Yay! Update! Thanks for the review!

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HAL POV

When I came back to consciousness, I was aware of a throbbing pain in my leg, but it as much more tolerable than the previous pain I had felt passing out. Which meant that it wasn't just a dream, and this had actually happened. Karen shot me. Part of me knew that it wasn't her... that it couldn't be her... it was all the harness... but I still saw her face and her eyes, and the distant, cold look in them. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I had to know where I was at least.

Opening my eyes, I recognized the medical truck immediately. I was covered in a blanket, and passed out in a chair beside me was my father. I looked downright exhausted, so it was good to see him asleep. I didn't want to wake him so I carefully pulled the blanket away from my leg to take a look. Around my knee and all the way down to my ankle wrapped bandages that were different shades of pink and red. I lay my head back down, re-covering my leg with the blanket. I closed my eyes but found that I couldn't go back to sleep, so I lay twitching and irritated, trying to ignore the new flares in my leg. I wondered how long it would take for the wounds to heal so I can back on patrol.

"Oh, you're awake!" a familiar voice jolted my eyes back open. I saw Anne coming in, and strangely, Lourdes wasn't with her. She walked up to me, laying her palm on my forehead. My dad snapped awake immediately.

"Hal? How are you feeling?" He asked, worried eyes fixed on me.

The first time I tried to answer, no sound came out, so I tried again. This time, I managed to answer, though my voice was weak and raspy. "Alright," I lied. Truly, I felt the opposite. I was weak and shaky, my body slow and sluggish to respond, my leg throbbing sharply, and a dull ache settled in my head, probably from blood loss. And neither of them believed me.

"Right... I have to change the bandages. They've blood through," Anne said, moving around with a thick wrap of bandages - which were always in strong supply whenever they scavenged - and moved the blanket away.

I felt a claw of pain raking down my leg as she undid the previous bandages and tossed them away. I could see the damage. Three holes, closed with stitches, were still dripping blood like a leaky faucet. I felt a chill go over me at the sight of my own raw, inflamed flesh, thick with bruising. I lay my head back, shutting my eyes.

Grimacing in pain, I felt my dad's hand squeezing mine as my body gave an involuntary shudder of pain.

"Sorry... all done," Anne said softly, and I opened my eyes. In the doorway was a familiar face.

"Hey, Ben," I called out,but it was still little more than a whisper because my voice was so weak. I don't know why. Perhaps I had thrown it out screaming. I tried not to remember that pain. Though when I did, this one was pretty minimal.

"Matt's been worried sick about you. He came here and sat for hours every day to wait for you to wake up," Ben said, walking slowly over to me, his eyes guarded.

I felt rather touched, and also guilty. Matt didn't need anything else to worry about - especially not me.

"Days?" I asked, latching on to the word. Had I been out for days? It certainly didn't feel it. It felt more like I had been out for a few hours, because I was still exhausted.

"Two days. It's morning now," Ben replied.

"Oh..." I wondered what had happened in those couple of days. Apparently not that much because we were all still sitting here. If we had moved... we were in a bus, not a room, so I wouldn't know anything till I went outside.

"Anything happened?" I asked, desperate for news.

"Been quiet recently," Ben began looking half-interested at pictures on a wall, avoiding my gaze.

BEN POV

What was wrong with me? How hard was it to say "I'm worried about you too?" Every time I tried to get the words out, it felt like my throat was closed and my chest tight. I had only walked in to see how he was doing and was surprised to find him awake. I found it hard to believe my big brother was injured. He looked so pale and small against the stretcher, shivering slightly and gazing at me with partially aware brown eyes. And that voice! The weak, tired, quiet sound. How could that be Hal? I could hardly hear him, and the rasping reminded me of when I was sick with a cold and lost my voice from coughing.

I didn't want to tell him about all the ... problems... happening. The fact that Pope had gone up to me and told me it was my fault, because I told the "skitters" they were going to be there. And the fact that he didn't even care if my brother lived or died. My hands shook with anger. I wanted to kill Pope. No one else seemed to be so hostile. In fact, most actually cared. Though many, only cared enough to hope he'd live to fight again. No one cared really, if he never fully recovered. Anne had even warned that he might not ever get full use of his leg back. The damage was extensive, and they didn't have the tools or skills required to repair it. It was up to his body to fix it or not, depending on how hard it could work. But I wasn't sure. Humans were so frail. Bullets could shatter bones, and there was no way to heal from that, right?

Hal refused to be useless. He refused to just sit around and wait. I could tell, even in his current state, by the way he was twitching irritably on the table, that he just wanted to get up and do something. He had always been restless like that. I just hoped he could heal.

Weeks, maybe months. What would have happened by then? Would we all still be alive?

And I only wished I could say those few words, or at least talk to him, but I was still frozen in shock, trying to understand the latest turn of events.