Title: Home Run - Chapter 2

Author: roomtable202

Fandom: The Unit

Disclaimer: This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

For a long, undefined, time Bob Brown floated on a sea of pain, sweetness and confusion in equal parts. He had no idea where he was and no idea how he'd gotten there. His last real memory was of Grey's cold hands fumbling around with the upper part of his pants and jabbing the promised shot in his behind. From then, the world grew gradually calmer and he got lost in a midst of hazy dreams populated with a strange mix up of memories of his own past mingled with the wildest of fantasies. His arms stunk and his legs were numb, his eyes blurry and grainy and, though slightly disorientated, he was experimenting the first taste of his new emerging reality.

He made a pained effort to listen but heard nothing except his own teeth chattering and the enormous sound of rushing water. He crawled up and lay back against the nearest tree, shivering. He noticed blood on the rock where he had rested his hand and discovered that his fingers were bleeding. There was no pain, for his hands were completely numb, but the wool of his gloves had worn away as well as the skin from his fingers. Bob Brown was not the squeamish kind but he had to sum up all of his will to dare and look at his legs, where he remembered suffering most of the damage. All he could see was that his legs were thickly shrouded in the black silky tissue of their standard parachutes. Then, the pain surged back as sharp and merciless as he dared to remember.

"Bet- Betty... Betty Blu-blue...? (...) Betty... Blue.."

He didn't know when, but soon was lost again in a whirlpool of daydreaming confusion. When he awoke again to reality, he was lying on his back, and his mind feeling as clear as ever was. He felt the biting cold of the wind against his face and he seemed to remember being in the woods, trying to get back to any potential extraction point but that vicious pain, almost familiar now, took him in full again, and crunched any other thought that was not to get rid of it at any cost.

"Focus on a wee crack on the wall and do not listen to their voices. That would be fatal. Focus on a wee crack, on anything little, not moving, and let your mind drift". The voice of his old training sergeant instructing him on how to resist an interrogatory came resolute to his mind.

"Focus on a wee leaf on that tree and don't think", he told himself.

All the shades of green swirled over his head, in a semi haze, tiny sunrays trespassing through that massive greenery like gold needles aiming at his eyes. He tried several times to feign their relentless attack in an effort to distract his mind, until he got tired and he let go trying, the faint whirling sound of the wind against his ears, comforting him somehow. If it wasn't for he was hurting so much, to stay still forever like this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Focus! Focus! It's no time to be gone. No! Not now!"

Where was Grey? Had he left him fly solo in his condition? Every group of people has someone they don't like or want to work with, even in a group as reduced as theirs. Brown always resented Grey not being completely at ease with him, but in the unit everyone had a solid sense of loyalty to each other that made no distinctions and he had always counted on Grey's total commitment. His eyelids drooped and they wanted to stay glued together.

It was difficult to tell whether it was the morphine or that unbearable pain what took him to such a point where he didn't know whether he was going to be able to survive or not on his own. In a while, he was fast disappearing again into his own world where the same thoughts rolled over and over in his mind. Pain, dad, Kim, pain, Serena and Teddy playing, pain, Grey, pain. His world was brought down to those distinct subjects and as he lay in his self imposed darkness, his eyes closed against the world, his unthinking mind took over on Grey again and brought up the first thing it grabbed onto.

"There is, at least, this difference between you and me, Bob: I do not act here by a sense of revenge. It might even be because I've got a kick out of it, but no for personal reasons."

"You are onto me since Day One."

"I don't care much about you, dude; live and let live, I have no complaints... but I care about Hector and I care about Mack and Jonas, and the Unit. You came out of the nothing. Nobody I know in all my years in the army heard about you and you were supposed to have done two tours in Iraq and three careers. You, a highly trained sniper... the rock stars in every platoon."

"Why not to ask me, then?"

"And what's the point in asking "You CIA, Brown?" when you could lie so professionally just as any of us". At this point, Bob giggled softly and dismissed the argument by slightly inclining his head left while looking at Grey's furled eyebrows.

Next time Bob Brown regained hold of himself, he was leaning half seated against a rock, although he didn't remember how or when he got into that position. He was thirsty and he felt the urge to stand up and get close to the faint sound of rushing water near him. He collected all his strength and pushed himself upright. He just had the time to take half a step forward before his injured left leg gave way beneath him, and he fell to the ground. Pushing himself upwards again, he tried to crawl over to prove himself he could make it by his own. His grip slithered away and his body toppled sideways, to crumple on the ground again. Without thinking, he raised his hands to rub his leg and gasped in pain at the realization that he had broken now two of his fingers.

Out of his self assumed shame for his failure, he dismissed the searing pain through his body and tried to get to his knees. He managed only to lift the upper part of his body a little way from the ground and he inched forward towards his former position against the rock.