Chapter 10: Comatose

Five hours later Bex shook Cammie awake. Cammie jumped and Bex pointed to a doctor. He seemed to be looking for someone and when he saw the girls he nodded at them and walked over. K-unit scrambled over to join the group and hear what he had to say.

"Ah. We have the whole group here. Good," the man started off nervously. "I'm not going to give you false hope, it doesn't look great. Alex is in critical condition. We have him on a ventilator system right now though we're hopeful he'll eventually come off that. He had multiple broken bones along with the bullet wound and his lungs are slightly enflamed like he's been drowned and resuscitated a couple of times." At this announcement the girls shot each other dark looks.

"What's going on here gentlemen?" The doctor asked of K-unit, catching the looks the girls were throwing around at each other. Wolf shook his head.

"We can't legally tell you doc," the man replied with a regretful look on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say," Wolf said, digging out his badge and showing the doctor. "Us four are British SAS. I'm sorry doc but you're just going to have to trust us." The man nodded.

"Very well. We put Alex in a room if you want to follow me." The doctor led the way followed closely by the girls and the four soldiers. Ben gasped when he saw Alex. The boy looked like he was hooked up to just about every machine in the hospital. He looked small and broken among them all.

"I'll leave you guys alone. Press the call button if you need anything," the doctor said, backing out of the room and shutting the door. Cammie grabbed a chair and sat next to Alex, grabbing his hand again. Ben sat on the other side and the rest of the group spread out around the room. Bex kept glancing at the door uneasily.

"Waiting for someone?" Ben asked causally, suspecting the answer would be no.

"Umm. . . Not really," Bex answered, blushing. Ben got up and opened the door, then sat back down.

"How did you know?" Bex asked quietly, embarrassed. Ben gave her a flat look.

"I've spent countless hours with the ever paranoid Alex," he answered. "The better question is how could I not have known right away."

"Alex never said anything," Macey mentioned. Ben gave her a wry smile.

"And he's told you everything? Has he told you about his nightmares? Has he mentioned his PTSD? Did he tell you why he refuses to go see a shrink? That's something I'd like to know." Macey shook her head.

"I never even considered. . ." She trailed off.

"I knew," Cammie said quietly. "About the nightmares. I just kind of assumed about the PTSD. I've noticed that he's overly paranoid to the point where it can distract him." Ben looked at her in surprise. "And I have an idea of why he doesn't want to see someone about it," she continued.

"How. . .?" Ben asked, trailing off. "He wouldn't have told you. It's not his style." Cammie half smiled, shaking her head in agreement.

"Nope. Definitely not his style. I had suspected paranoia from jumping on the plane at the last minute. When we got off he told us to go find the agent we were meeting and instead of scanning the crowds, he scanned the buildings. He and Erin checked the hotel for bugs and even when they didn't find anything I could tell he tried to be as vague as possible. We shared a room and he read to try to stay awake. He fell asleep anyway and woke up to a nightmare. He said it was about Jack. . ." She trailed off as Ben glanced down at the name.

"It's always about Jack," Ben murmured in explanation. "He blames himself for her death. Then again, there has to be some lasting psychological affect when someone who looks, talks, and in some ways acts exactly like you, blows up your best friend. She was his only friend at the time."

The room lapsed into silence again. Suddenly, they could hear two pair of footsteps rushing down the hall. The girls jumped to their feet, subconsciously shifting to block Alex. Ben and Wolf shared a look upon noticing this reaction. Ben half smiled, standing up as well, just as a woman entered the room. There was a moment of quiet as she stopped, taking in the occupants of the room, clearly looking for someone in particular. K-unit and the Gallagher girls stared back at her, surprised.

"Mom!" Cammie exclaimed in relief, leaving Alex for a second to hug her mother.

"Cammie!" the woman exclaimed, hugging her daughter tightly. "Oh thank god you're alright!" The second person, a man, hovered in the doorway, hesitant to enter the room and possibly disrupt the mother daughter reunion. He glanced around the room vigilantly, sizing up the strange men accompanying the girls.

"Why is Mr. Solomon here?" Cammie asked as she stepped back from her mom.

"He wanted to make sure everyone was alright. . . And I asked him to come."

"Who are you?" Mr. Solomon asked of the soldiers suspiciously. "Are you from MI6?" Wolf laughed bitterly.

"Never in a million years. You think we would let shit like this happen to him if we were? This is all kinds of messed up MI6 crap." Ben shot Wolf a warning look and the unit leader glared back.

"We're SAS," Ben explained, turning back to the newcomers. "I'm actually Alex's guardian as well. We were sent to rescue him and your girls."

"Who is he?" the other man asked in both wonder and distrust.

"Someone who's saved life as we know it many times over!" Wolf shot back defensively.

"Wolf, take a walk," Ben demanded. "You're not helping and you need to go cool off."

"Don't order me around Ben!" Wolf snarled. "I'm the unit leader here, not you!"

"And as your unit member, I'm asking you to please go take a walk before you say or do something you'll regret. You're stressed and I get it. A walk will help." The other occupants in the room watched the exchange curiously. Wolf threw Ben a death glare that would have cowed just about anyone else but Ben held his gaze evenly. Finally, Wolf spun on his heel and left, mumbling threats under his breath. Ben waited until he was out of earshot before speaking again.

"I'm sorry about him. He's under a lot of stress and he can get very defensive of Alex."

"So, is he telling the truth?" Mrs. Morgan asked.

"About Cub?" Eagle jumped in. "Yeah, kid's a fricken genius!"

"Cub?" She asked.

"Mom, he's talking about Alex. He trained with them for a week." Both adults raised their eyebrows in surprise.

"He was SAS?" Mr. Soloman asked. "He's just a kid! How old is he?"

"He's not just a kid," Ben stated seriously. "He hasn't been just a kid for a long while. He's seen things that even some veteran soldiers haven't seen."

"How old is he?" Mr. Solomon repeated. Ben's jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth in anger for a moment.

"Seventeen," he answered quietly. "He's been doing this since he was 14." Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Solomon looked surprised.

"You've been letting him do this since he was 14?" Mr. Solomon asked incredulously. "Some guardian you are!"

"Hey!" Snake jumped in as Eagle's head snapped in Mr. Solomon's direction too. "That's way too far. Cub didn't get into this because of us. He got into this because his uncle was killed doing it and MI6 blackmailed him into taking his place."

"Some government you guys have over there then huh?" Mr. Solomon shot back. "Who could do this to a kid?"

"You'd be surprised at the things you don't know," Ben smiled wryly, the light never reaching his eyes. "The CIA has borrowed him more than once."

"The CIA?" Mrs. Morgan replied, looking frightened. The three SAS men nodded.

"Yeah. Then they tried to train their own version of child spies but it's not really something you can teach. It takes a special breed to be spies. It's 90% instinct. All of theirs failed within the first mission or two," Ben announced. Mrs. Morgan looked horrified. Even Snake and Eagle were looking at Ben in surprise.

"I didn't know the CIA went that far off the deep end," Snake commented. Then he shook his head. "I believe it though." Ben shrugged.

"It's true." Mr. Solomon looked like he wanted to object but their conversation was momentarily halted by the arrival of Alex's doctor. Wolf, having seen him in the hallway, wasn't far behind. Everyone waited in tense silence as the man checked Alex's vitals and looked over his bandages for signs that they needed to be changed.

"So, what's the verdict doc?" Wolf asked nervously.

"He's stable for now. I'll be in here every four or five hours to check on him."

"When's he expected to wake up?" Wolf asked. The doctor shrugged.

"It's hard to say. He could wake up in a few hours or he could never wake up. It all depends."

"He might not wake up?" Ben asked. Wolf put a hand on his shoulder in reassurance.

"What are his chances?" Snake asked.

"Currently, about 70%, but every day that he fails to regain consciousness that percentage will fall. Please alert me or one of the nurses if anything in his condition changes." The SAS men nodded, realizing for the first time just how much trouble Alex was actually in. The room lapsed into silence as the doctor left.

"Cub, you better fucking wake up," Wolf whispered as he comfortingly rubbed the back of Alex's hand, his voice breaking. It was the first time anyone outside of the unit had ever seen the normally gruff man break down.

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry it's been so long. I haven't had a lot of time to write. College is hard. Also, I've had this chapter written since about Thanksgiving but I thought my next chapter was going to be my last one and I wanted to wait and see how long that one was going to be in case I had to combine it with this one. As it turns out, it's a lot longer than I thought it was going to be so, not to get your hopes up or anything, but I might end up with two chapters after this one. Anyway, thanks for being patient with me. I almost have the next chapter written so hopefully I can get it up within the next month or so at the latest. Thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited this story and managed to stick with it this far. You have no idea how much it means to me.