Reese woke slowly to a warm, comfortable bed, a heavily bandaged shoulder, his right arm immobilized across his chest, and the sound of low-voiced arguing.

He felt wrung out and utterly drained, the warmth of the covers an invitation to snuggle down and forget his duty. But Fanning the arsehole was still out there and John owed him one. Maybe right between the eyes.

Slowly he opened his own eyes. Even that much movement made the ache in his shoulder increased from a dull throb to something more significant, like a jackhammer. Reese contemplated getting to his feet. A thought that ran through his head in a fleeting manner, but found that his body disagreed most profoundly. He blinked carefully, and slowly that which was blurry came into focus.

Sam Shaw sitting in a high-backed chair, her heavily bandaged ankle resting on a pillow atop a small ottoman, she was dressed in something soft and fluffy, a cream colored robe, which clearly had fleecy pyjamas beneath it, and Reese's startled brain was attempting to work out why she was sitting next to his bed. Opposite Harold Finch in the second high-backed chair. Finch had an open laptop on the table between them, and was typing into it.

"…. I can assure you Miz Shaw, that we can leave this one to Henry and Leon. Henry has surprisingly turned out to be very capable."

"I don't care how capable he is, he's just an untrained civilian." Sam sounded pissed off.

Reese was just trying to interpret the import of this discussion, when he moved. The pain grenade that went off in his shoulder wrung a startled, agonized groan from his lips, and the attention of his two companions was instantly focused on him.

"Mr Reese?" Harold moved from his seat then, "how are you feeling?" He gently stroked a hand over Reese's forehead.

"Like s… Hell, Harold." The waves of pain had receded from tsunami level to mere rollers. Reese unclenched his jaw, but kept his eyes screwed shut.

"I am not surprised." Finch's voice was gentle and soothing, and the hand which stroked his hair back from his forehead was still there. Grounding Reese a little. Because damn that hurt worse than waking up after being shot by Mark's sniper.

There was a number in danger. John Reese did not have the luxury of lying around waiting for his shoulder wound to heal itself.

Finch seemed to anticipate Reese's next move, the comforting hand transferred itself from John's head, to his undamaged shoulder. "John…" Finch's voice was stern, "you have a hole in your shoulder, you lost a lot of blood, and you cannot undo Megan's handiwork. Don't even think of trying to move."

He was going to do it. Reese tensed his muscles and then fell back into the pillows with a groan as his damaged shoulder screamed at him.

He lay there a full minute, eyes screwed closed, heard the soft snort, opened them and glared at Shaw.

"You. Are. An Idiot." She gave him a glare of her own. "What use do you think you will be? Only got one useable arm. Weak from blood loss." She sighed, grumpily. "Then there's the fact that Henry and I held your heavy ass up for two hours, so that you didn't slip into the water and drown. Let me tell you, your ass is really heavy, especially when you passed out."

Reese unclenched his jaw a little. "Henry's an untrained civilian." He reminded her. Shaw shrugged. "Maybe so, but since you two rescued him from a fate worse than death." She frowned, and tilted her head to one side, "Or was it actually death?" She reached over to the bowl of fruit on the table next to her, selected a peach, "anyway, he seems to have acquired some mad skills in the eighteen months since you…"

"Henry's an analyst. And…"

"He's got two functioning arms, and he rescued you, remember."

John tried to regulate his breathing a little. Movement was a really bad idea, but he was still going to try.

He moved.

His first attempt had hurt. This was full on agony. Reese subsided. He hated being sidelined, but the reality was that he wasn't going to be going anywhere.

He slumped back, into the soft, fluffy pillows that Finch had somehow managed to rearrange into the perfect position while John was attempting escape.

He closed his eyes. A hand, Shaw's, patted his. He opened an eye. "What." She frowned.

It was on the tip of Reese's tongue to say it, Shaw was finally warming up, but he had a hole in his shoulder, and discretion was the better part of valour.