The next morning came before any of them knew it. None of them had expected Clay and Sonny to get the ok to fly so soon, so when the doctors informed them they were clear, they were elated.
Clay and Sonny were each wheeled onto the plane and tightly secured in the rightful area. Clay was still in an induced coma, so they weren't worried about him waking up midflight. Sonny on the other hand was only under sedation, so in order to prevent him from also waking up, they placed him under a stronger sedation that would keep him out for the duration of the flight.
As the plane touched down on American soil, they had a medical crew already waiting for them to transport them to the hospital.
Jason, Ray, and Eric allowed the medical crew to gather Clay and Sonny and then followed behind them as they were each placed in an ambulance.
To their total surprise, which shouldn't have been a surprise at all, Trent, Brock, Cerb and Lisa were already at the ambulances waiting.
Jason ad never been so excited to see them, especially Trent. He grabbed Trent and gave him a huge bear hug. "God am I glad to see you!" He practically sobbed.
It totally threw Trent off guard to see his team leader, who was usually so calm and unemotional, an emotional wreck. It was at that point that Trent realized things were worse than they originally thought. As far as they knew, Sonny drowned and had to be resuscitated, and Clay scraped his arm and was having a little trouble breathing. Other than that, things seemed to be kept hush hush. "How bad is it?" Trent asked after Jason finally let go.
"Its bad Trent, it's real bad. Sonny developed pneumonia, they've been keeping a super close eye on him to make sure it doesn't get any worse. If it does they said he might need to be intubated." Lisa gasped at the word intubated. That's one word she never wanted to hear in the same sentence with Sonny's name. She didn't want to hear it with any of their names. "They're doing whatever they can to prevent that from happening though. He woke once, acknowledged me in the room and then started coughing uncontrollably until the nurse gave him something to knock him out. Clay's a little worse." Jason said before he was cut off.
"I'm sorry, did you just say worse? What the hell happened?" Brock asked. Sonny sounded like he was in pretty rough shape, how could Clay be worse. He had a scraped arm and a little trouble breathing.
Jason looked over at Brock. "It's a long story. I'll explain everything at the hospital." Jason sighed.
Ray and Eric had each jumped in an ambulance with Sonny and Clay as they took off for the hospital. Jason elected to drive over with the rest of the team, now that they were all finally reunited.
"They already have a room ready for them. I don't know if they were expecting them in the condition they're in, but they know they're coming." Davis added.
It was a quick car ride to the hospital. As soon as they walked in, they saw Ray and Eric sitting in the waiting room. "What are you doing down here? I thought they had a room ready for them." Jason asked.
"They wanted to run some tests to see if the flight had any effects on them." Eric commented.
"How long is that gonna take? Are they going to be in the same room?" Jason questioned.
"No idea. They said they'd come get us when they were done. As far as I know they saved a room in the ICU for both of them." Blackburn responded.
"ICU!?" Lisa, Brock and Sonny all questioned at the same time.
"Ok. What the hell happened?" Trent demanded.]
Jason sat down and the others followed suit. He looked at Eric and Ray and once he realized they were waiting for him to give the explanation, he opened his mouth. "Long story short – Clay was thrown against a rock by a rogue wave, scraped his arm up pretty good. He convinced us he was fine. He looked fine, except for his arm. We completed the mission, during the swim back he started falling behind about halfway to the sub. We dropped back, allowed him to be the first one back on the sub so he could get checked out. Ray and I were next. We instantly went and checked on Clay. They cleaned his arm up and put him on oxygen to help him breathe. They thought it could have been a bruised lung from the impact with the rock."
"That had to be a pretty damn hard hit. Is that what it was?" Trent interrupted.
"I'm getting there." Jason replied. "Anyway. I went to go check on Sonny, turns out the locking mechanism on the torpedo tubes locked. Sonny was stuck. Captain wouldn't let us cut him out cause a NK sub was nearby. He was running low on air so I sent Blackburn to go get Ray and Clay so they could say their goodbyes. Clay lost his shit, grabbed the grinder that was going to be used to cut Sonny out and before he could turn it on was tackled to the ground by one of the sub guys. That's when things got significantly worse for Clay. Minutes later we got the all clear to cut Sonny out. We had to resuscitate him. Brought him to the room Clay was being taken care of it. Once we entered the room, Clay was thrashing around, panicking, in pain, unable to breathe, coughing up spots of blood AND handcuffed to the bed post. They had to give him some sort of medication to calm him down so that he didn't cause any more damage to himself."
"Fucking assholes." Brock mumbled under his breath.
"Tell me about it." Jason replied. "It took some work, but we finally managed to convince the captain to turn the other way and forget about the incident with Clay. I really thought they were going to press charges against him. I didn't know what I was gonna do."
"Yeah, but you don't have to worry about that now, they didn't press charges and that's all that matters." Lisa added.
"Yeah. I guess so. Anyway. We made it to the ship where they could actually receive real medical attention. Sonny developed pneumonia, had a fever, couldn't catch his breath, inflamed airway. They sedated him and placed him on antibiotics and oxygen. Woke up just that one time and now here we are. Clay though, he had three cracked ribs, two broken ribs, a lacerated and punctured lung, bruised 15% of his lung, developed a pneumothorax, had to have emergency surgery to repair it all and they inserted a chest tube while they were in there. They placed him in an induced coma and have him on a ventilator to allow his lungs to heal."
"What?" slipped out of Lisa's mouth, covering her mouth with her hand.
"I needed you Trent. It was so hard having to trust all those doctors without you. You know us more than anyone. The smallest little things that happened, freaked me out." Jason admitted.
"I'm sorry. You know I would have been there in a heartbeat if I could have been." Trent replied.
"Well it won't ever happen again, that I can assure you. If one guy goes, the whole team goes. No more sending half the team while the other half stays behind." Blackburn assured them.
"I just. I need to know they're going to be ok." Jason mumbled.
"I haven't seen either one of them yet, and they both sound pretty banged up, but you gotta remember who were talking about Jason. It's Sonny and Clay. They're both fighters and you know they'll both fight like hell to get through this." Trent stated.
"I know, I know. It's just… the whole mission was a shitshow. One bad thing after the next. What if it's not over?" Jason wondered.
"You can't think like that Jason. You're home. They made it here alive. You have to believe that everything's going to be ok." Lisa said.
Before the conversation could go any further a nurse entered the room to speak to them. She gave them the update that the flight didn't seem to have taken a toll on either one of them and that they were both currently resting in their room.
Room. That word stuck out to Jason. Room as in one room. "Same room?" Jason asked needing to hear it out loud.
"Yes sir." The nurse smiled and winked. "We know how close you team guys are." It was true. They were no strangers to team guys coming in and out of the hospital.
"Can we see them?" Eric asked.
"Of course, follow me." They all stood up and followed the nurse down the hall. She entered the last room on the right, which was clearly a larger room than some of the others they had passed.
Brock had taken Cerb off the leash once they entered the room. They only reason he was even allowed in was because he was a well-trained working dog. He carefully sniffed around the room, reassuring himself the place was safe and then put his front feet up on Sonny's bed, sniffed Sonny, then walked over to Clay's bed a did the same thing. After 'declaring the room safe' Cerb carefully jumped up on Clay's bed and curled up on the foot of the bed.
"Looks like your dog has a new human." Trent joked.
"He's had a soft spot for Clay since the day the kid joined the team. At least I know he'll be well taken care if anything ever happens to me." Brock replied.
"Don't talk like that. Especially not here, not now." Lisa hit him on the arm.
Trent walked over to Sonny and then over to Clay, doing his own 'exam' of his two teammates. He didn't like that either one of them were in this situation, but he was confident they would both pull through.
After getting a good look at both guys, he pulled up a chair and sat down.
One by one, the rest of the spread out throughout the room and did the same. They had a long couple of days ahead them, but as long as they were all there together, they knew they would be able to get through it.
Alright, you guys spoke. Seems like shorter and more often was the poplar decision so here's the next chapter. I'm getting ready to head to the vet now, but will give an update on the pup with the next chapter. Anyway, hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'm so happy you all love the story!