Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

It didn't take Angus MacGyver long to start responding to them.

By the end of the second day, he actually tried to focus on Wanda. He was too dizzy to do it, but he tried. He started tracking movement a little better as well. By the end of the third day, though he woke in a panic every time, Wanda could calm him enough that the hyperventilation ceased, and though it was clear that he fucking hated that ventilator, he understood that it wasn't suffocating him, and he adjusted to it.

On the fourth day, he actually calmed enough to fall asleep on his own.

Simone collected the sleep data, but didn't bother to review it beyond a cursory glance. He still had too many sedatives and painkillers in his system for it to matter how many REM cycles he was getting. Patients presenting with his injuries typically had long-term sleep impacts if they had any at all, and quite frankly she wasn't exactly sure how his newly rewired brain stem was going to handle things. His readings weren't wildly abnormal, and they'd be much more interesting in the coming weeks, when he was off the ventilator and sedatives.

They had to do some of his physical therapy when he was conscious, mainly because she didn't want him waking to unexpected or unexplained pain. He tolerated it fairly well; he never seemed frightened of either Wanda or her, even if the therapy itself caused him distress. Ventilated and still unable to move anything below the site of the spinal injury due to the shock, he was quite limited in how he was able to express that distress. Mostly it was his breathing patterns, and his eyes.

Outside of a stubborn refusal to cooperate with any type of active cognitive testing, he was actually recovering fairly well.

"If you understand me, blink twice."

He watched her, his blue eyes a little glassy this morning, and after a few seconds, he lazily blinked.

But only once, and not deliberately.

Dr. Parsons didn't alter her expression in the slightest, taking out a pen light. The LED was weak and changed colors on a slow rotation. The purpose of the tool was not to measure pupil dilation – the five cameras in the ceiling were doing that – but simply to attract his attention.

And it worked. As it moved from a green to a cool blue, he focused on it, and she used it to draw his eyes in a slow circle. Tracking was still sluggish, but he resisted blinking while it was moving, as if he was afraid, if he blinked, that it might disappear, or he'd lose track of it.

But after a complete circle, he lost interest. She noted the pen had moved on to warmer tones, oranges and reds, and filed that away for later testing.

"If you can feel this, blink twice for me."

She tapped his right arm on the shoulder, where diagnostic testing had already confirmed he could feel just fine. His sense of body position was likely garbage at this point; between the neurogenic shock and his recovering brainstem he probably couldn't tell if she was touching his shoulder or his kneecap, but she knew he could feel the sensation.

He looked away from her, toward Wanda, who had just approached on his other side.

They kept his privacy curtains drawn to about his elbows, so that he had a level of comfort that no one could sneak up on him. No one could suddenly appear at his side, he could always see them approach. Outside of flinching when they made loud noises, he hadn't really responded strongly to either of them. He tried not to close his eyes when they were around, other than to express pain, or when he simply couldn't keep them open any longer, but he hadn't once blinked twice when asked. She wasn't sure if it was a cognitive issue or he was simply afraid to communicate with them.

He was either aware enough and intact enough to know that they weren't familiar, or he was unable to assemble what he was hearing into comprehensible instructions.

Simone withdrew from his side without a smile, moving to the computer bay. Right now the screen above his bed, in easy view of their patient, was showing a series of hot air balloons slowly crossing a bright blue sky. She increased the frequency of red and orange balloons, waiting until one of the five balloons had drifted off frame and a red one appeared, on the opposite side.

Wanda was near the patient's feet, adjusting the compression sleeves on his legs, and it was hard for him to focus on her without picking up his head – which he had never actually attempted, other than when panicking – and the cameras picked up the exact moment his eyes naturally fell on the screen.

He blinked, a little lazily, and stared at the screen for a moment. His eyes picked out the five balloons, one at a time, including the red one. Even if he was no longer able to discern the color, he could see the outline against the blue sky.

They kept his focus for about seventeen seconds. Then he ceased focusing, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Another blink, just as lazy. Simone glanced at her watch and noted the time.

He'd been alert and actively engaged in his environment almost twenty minutes. Not bad.

And even though he'd given up focusing on the balloons, he was still playing a game with the ventilator. It had been rhythmically steady now for almost ten minutes. Clearly he was keeping an internal metronome, and breathing on a rhythm he'd chosen, rather than one the machine was configured for. She wasn't sure if that was a way to reassure himself that he could still breathe, or it was a conscious decision on his part, he'd calculated when the ventilator would kick in to start a breath, and he was actively choosing to prevent it.

Simone reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out her phone, sending a silent text.

Please come introduce yourself to the patient in Five.

Then she waited.

It didn't take her other nurse, Alec, long to respond. She barely heard the badge reader chirp, and then the door quietly opened, and a tall Caucasian male with straight brown hair entered. Alec wasn't terribly bulky, he was more wiry than muscular, and because of his height he moved with all the grace of a Great Dane puppy. He was by no means intimidating, in either his body language or his voice.

Which made him a perfect nurse for her neurology wing. A white, tall, thin, dark-haired male named Alec, and a black, short, pudgy, silver-haired female named Wanda. Alec was easy-going and mellow, Wanda was exuberant and excitable. Even their names were on opposite ends of the alphabet. Their characteristics made it incredibly easy for patients to tell them apart – and to remember them.

Wanda looked up from where she was re-attaching the air hose to the compression sleeve on the patient's left leg, and she broke out in a welcoming grin. "Hey, Alec! Have you met our new patient?"

The nurse acknowledged Simone with a nod, then made a wide circle around the half-drawn patient curtains, so that he approached from the other side of the room, and gave the patient ample time to see him coming.

"Hey, man, good to see you awake," Alec greeted him, his voice deep and calm. "My name's Alec. I'm going to be helping Wanda and Dr. Parsons."

Wanda's voice hadn't been enough to attract sleepy Angus's attention, but the sound of a male voice instantly had his eyes focusing on the source. His metronomic breathing pattern went right out the window, and ticked up several breaths a minute. There was a similar jump in his heart rate, indicating the presence of adrenaline.

"You've gotten so good at your physical therapy that Alec's going to take over sometimes," Wanda told the patient, sounding happy and relaxed. "That's what he trained for in medical school."

"That's true," Alec agreed, approaching the patient casually on the left side. Whenever possible, they approached MacGyver on his left, which was the longest path from the door to the patient, giving him the longest possible amount of time to respond.

And Angus responded. His heart rate continued to climb, and his next breath on the ventilator was a little unsteady.

Alec did exactly what he was trained to do – he ignored it, and focused instead on the machines, checking vitals in the exact same order that Wanda did. He didn't touch the patient, but he did look at him, giving him an easy smile. "It's nice to meet you."

MacGyver's eyes never left him, tracking every move he made. Once vitals were checked, Alec backed off and joined Wanda at the end of the bed.

And the patient, for the first time, actively shifted his chin down so that he could continue watching them. The super soft, supple tube down his trachea allowed for the change without causing him observable pain.

"We've put him through the wringer this morning, so it's time for him to get some rest," Wanda informed both Alec and Angus. "Can you help me with the patient in Three?"

"Absolutely," Alec agreed immediately, then turned and gave MacGyver a friendly nod. "Get some rest, man. I'll see you later."

He stayed at the patient's feet, and Wanda reclaimed her position near his head, on his left. MacGyver glanced at her while she was in motion, but then focused back on Alec.

"Are you good, handsome?" Wanda asked him in her usual crooning tone. "Are you in any pain? Blink twice for me if you're in pain."

He was barely blinking at all, and he didn't refocus on her.

"I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes, okay?" She gently touched his shoulder.

He flinched.

It wasn't to the same extent that he had the first time he'd woken, when she intentionally startled him, but it was there. He wasn't panicking, though; the cadence of his breathing was up, to match his elevated heart rate, and it was clear he didn't appreciate having to split his attention between the ventilator and the person at the foot of his bed, but whatever he was feeling, he wasn't overwhelmed. He was simply engaged.

He recognized that this was a new person, and his first instinct was not to trust them.

But it was more excitement than he'd had since the panicking episodes of his first few days, and he wasn't able to maintain that energy expenditure for long. As soon as Alec was out of his line of sight, even while Wanda was still in his field of vision, fussing with the patient cart, his heart rate started to slow. He fought to keep himself awake even after both nurses noisily left the room, and Simone remained still as the door closed, suspecting he had long forgotten that he hadn't heard her leave.

He tried to re-establish his previous breathing pattern, and surprised her by taking a slightly deeper breath, as if he knew it would help him calm himself. His eyes fell closed a moment before they flickered back open, like a sleepy toddler fighting the inevitable nap. He focused on the screen above him another moment, counting the five balloons, and then he again closed his eyes.

Within seconds he was asleep.

Simone let him get settled, then tapped a pen on the edge of the computer desk. The sound was not enough to rouse him.

She left the air balloons to play, curious to see if he would count them again when he woke, and quietly slipped out of the room. Wanda and Alec were a little ways down the hall, chatting, and both looked up as she approached.

"That went better than I thought it would. He was pretty chill, all things considered." Wanda was still rubbing hand sanitizer between her palms.

Alec grunted. "Didn't set off the monitors, anyway. Not sure he likes me."

"I'm not sure he likes anybody," Simone told him. "Let him wake up on his own this time, Wanda, and we'll give him a few minutes to get that panic response under control by himself before you go in. Without Alec. Let's give him a couple hours to forget you, and see how he does then."

It would be the first time Angus woke up in an empty room, and she was interested to see if the lack of other presences around him would agitate him or not. It also gave him a few minutes to explore without eyes on him. It might tell her more about his frame of mind.

He was semi alert, he was tracking motion, he recognized people, recognized a difference between Wanda and Alec . . . but he still didn't respond to their requests. It was getting harder and harder to believe that was because he didn't understand.

If he could tell the difference between people, and he didn't trust a new one, it meant he remembered Wanda. And her. He was capable of building, retaining, and accessing short term memory. Which made his panic response on waking unusual – he should remember that he was in a hospital and that he was vented. But he didn't. Every single time he woke, it was with the exact same panic as the first time. There was some kind of lag between consciousness and accessing short term memory.

More and more that seemed like trauma. He was waking up with the expectation that he was suffocating. Given his injuries, that was understandable, but it also meant that cognitively he was far more intact than he seemed.

His refusal to follow their instructions was absolutely consistent. Either it was a language issue, and he would have to relearn English, or he knew damn well what they were asking him to do, and he was choosing to refuse.

-M-

"Holy shit."

To her credit, Patience Keung didn't respond at all. Her victim, however, cracked an eye open, and his dark face split into a wide grin.

"You are so squeamish," Leo observed teasingly, in his richly accented voice. "Have you not seen a cast before?"

Jack couldn't wipe a disgusted grimace off his face as he took in the two members of his home base tac team. "Jesus, there's gotta be a hundred of 'em!"

The African agent was lying in the bed in Medical, naked from the waist up – and probably also naked from the waist down, but luckily there was a sheet for decency's sake – and dozens of lightly colored, thin needles bristled from his abdomen and chest like porcupine quills. Patience had tucked the sheet between the bright white cast and significantly more tender flesh, and was industriously tapping two inch long needles into Leo's hip.

Jack thought he might actually be sick. However, his agent didn't seem at all concerned. Leo even craned his neck to fully appreciate the view.

"It helps with the pain. I am sure she would be willing to treat you for yours."

God no. No matter how bad his damn ribs still ached, he was never gonna go there. Never. "I'm good," he declared, then swallowed hard, unable to tear his eyes away. "Seriously, it takes that many?" How was Folami even still conscious? If someone had stabbed him with that many needles –

"I'm only halfway done." Pait's voice was brusque and annoyed, but her movements remained fluid, and Leo didn't so much as twitch as the next acupuncture needle went in. "Are you here being treated? I thought you were suspended."

From anyone else using that tone, Jack might have been offended. But it was Patience, and she had a kit with literally thousands of needles right next to her. "Social call," Jack replied quickly, then cleared his throat. "Don't get up." He was actually turning back for the door to the room when something shifted in his sling, and reminded him why he was there in the first place. "I, uh, brought you a snack, but I see you're in the middle of a medieval torture session, so I'll just leave these here." He pulled the plastic bag of freshly cut sugar cane out of the sling and laid it on the table by the door.

Riles had been right. Slings were handy for all kinds of things. Might even catch the barf if he had to watch her put one more needle that close to poor Leo's –

Motion in the doorway forced Jack to put on the brakes, and Saito peered around the frame. Dalton immediately lifted his right hand and made a fist, signaling a full stop.

"You don't wanna come in here, dude, it's not safe-"

The Japanese agent took in the scene without blinking. "Hey Pait, Leo," he greeted, like Jack wasn't there. "Tackling the pain and inflammation at the same time? You're gonna wipe him out doing that."

Behind Jack, Patience gave a quiet grunt of acknowledgement. "Doesn't matter, he's not going anywhere," she said sourly. "It's either this or I have to clean up all the trick shots he misses."

Now that she said that, it occurred to Jack that there should have been a print of flowers or the Taj Mahal or some shit hanging above the table in Observation Three, and a quick glance found the pictureframe was now on the floor, wedged between the back of the table and the wall. He wasn't entirely sure it was still in one piece. The small trash can near the sink was still in its place, and several crumped wads of paper lay around it, as well as –

Jack backed up a step, half to let Saito into the room, and half to get a better look. It was a large, translucent white square. Then he glanced up at the ceiling, and quickly located the light fixture that no longer had a plexiglass cover.

Saito had followed his gaze, and gave an appreciative whistle. "He did that with a paper wad?"

"My partner has many talents," Patience replied flatly, and Jack couldn't help a low chuckle.

"I heard that," he murmured without thinking.

Leo picked up his head again, maintaining his light tone, though his eyes were more intent. "How is MacGyver? Also in need of acupuncture?"

It was Jack's turn to sound sour. "Wouldn't know. All we get is video. No audio, no updates."

Initially the video feed hadn't even been hi-res; Riley had somehow been able to switch the camera to full HD, which let them get screen grabs and zoom in, but even she couldn't turn on audio without tipping them off. And tipping them off was not something any of them were willing to do.

These guys weren't fucking around. Jack had reached out to a few of his buddies at the CIA and the only thing he could get out of them was that this was essentially a black site for US operatives. It was the place you put the operators that you couldn't put in prison, but you couldn't put 'em down either. Spies who no longer had the capacity to keep secrets, but had the physical capability to spill 'em.

The sheer volume of beyond top secret information that had to be in that facility was mind-blowing. He could probably walk in there with a bag of M&Ms and a few lollipops and walk out with the real story on who offed Kennedy, grassy knoll be damned.

And that was where the powers that be at Phoenix had decided to put Mac, while they tried to figure out how messed up he was. And even though it was a facility that housed US government agents, no actual US government agency that Jack could identify had any more clout with it than Phoenix did. This place shared information on their terms, and there was very little Webber could do to modify their standard operating procedures. He didn't want to know what negotiating that one little video feed had cost.

"Does he look well?" Leo inquired, his tone still light.

Jack shrugged, and leaned against the table as Saito fully entered Observation Three. "Spends most of his time sleepin'. He's still got the tube in, so he can't talk, and doesn't move around much." He didn't see a need to tell them that when he was moving around, it was because his doctors had decided to yank his damn arm all over creation, and you could tell from his eyes that he wasn't enjoying it.

"One of his nurses is an X-Man," Saito added, coming fully into the room to watch Patience work. "Black chick, long white hair."

"Hospital full of superheroes?" Folami seemed to mull it over. "It would take such a thing to keep MacGyver someplace he did not want to be."

And that was god's honest truth.

"Dunno about superheroes, but he's not breakin' out anytime soon." Riley was still working on getting schematics, if it came down to it, but the Talbots had spent no small amount of time reassuring all of them that Mac was in great hands. That he wasn't moving around because of the neurogenic shock. That he was sleeping not because he was being drugged, but because he was recovering, and his brain and his body desperately needed the rest. That even if they'd had Mac in Observation One, just two doors down, he would be doing the exact same things.

The difference is that he'd be doing the exact same things knowing his family was right there with him, instead of some stranger in a wig.

"At least he's resting," Patience observed, studying her partner's skin a moment before selecting the next location for more needles. "You could take a page from his book." The last was almost certainly directed at her partner.

In Folami's defense, he'd come through his second surgery well, and the nerve damage they'd feared had been avoided. The South African was utilizing alternatives to narcotics simply because it had been three weeks and he was getting tired of being laid up and fuzzy-headed. Jack had been there before. It wasn't fun.

Mac was probably thinking the exact same damn thing. Hell, he couldn't even talk, couldn't ask questions, couldn't play with anything . . . he had to be half out of his mind by now. And those docs didn't know it, and to hear Bozer tell it, didn't care.

"Yeah, I tried to tell my partner that, and instead he came down here to get medically cleared for the field." Saito glanced at the table, then helped himself to the bag of sugar canes. "Guess Carter'll have to sign off on that, seeing as Dalton here's suspended."

It was the second time someone had unnecessarily brought that up, and Jack gave the other agent a mildly reproachful look. In return, Saito offered him a stick of sugar cane. He shook his head once.

"You would let him eat my gift? You would let him take food from the mouth of a cripple?" Leo's voice was thick with disapproval.

"Only cripples that damage company infrastructure," Jack assured him, and after another long moment of pretending not to give a shit, Saito crossed over to his colleague's bed, handing the other agent a stick. Leo tucked it into his cheek and chewed happily. Patience just shook her head and kept at it.

"So you guys are headed back to Europe?" Jack asked, once Saito sealed the bag and returned it to the table. The Japanese agent nodded.

"Yeah. Second time we gotta bail before we get to make sure Mac's in one piece." He exhaled. "Unless there's a reason to stick around."

Jack glanced at him, and the other agent gave nothing away, chewing on the stick of sugar cane. Like it was just an innocent comment.

Or a blood oath that he would return if they had to get Mac out of that damn fortress.

"Yeah, well, there might be," another voice announced, and every head swiveled to find Riley, standing just inside the doorway. She was in the same clothes she'd been in since yesterday afternoon, her bag hanging from a drooping shoulder, and she was frowning.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Hey, Riles. What's up?"

She gave Leo and Pait a nod, then crooked her finger at Jack, and he immediately obeyed, not at all surprised to find that Saito also followed him out of the room. Riley didn't look surprised either. Annoyed, maybe, but not surprised.

"I'm not telling you this, because you're suspended –"

Jack shot her a look. "Et tutu?"

" – but Turkish intelligence just lost their traitor."

Everything else fell away as the words registered. The traitor in Turkish intelligence was the asswipe that had drugged and grabbed his little girl. The one intentionally left in play to root out any remaining Aydin loyalists. Jack took a step closer to Riley, keeping his voice low. "They what now?"

Her scowl deepened. "You heard me. Matty's keeping it quiet, for now, but . . ." She trailed off, and glanced at Saito. "You guys might end up with an assignment."

"It would be our pleasure," Saito answered coolly.

Riley gave him a small, almost shy smile, but it morphed into sarcasm before Jack was really sure he'd seen it. "I mean, only if you're finally off babysitting detail."

The Japanese agent raised his eyebrows innocently and looked towards Jack.

Dalton made a show of mulling it over. "Did she make you when you were tailing her the other day?"

Riley's playful little smirk melted into something close to outrage, and the look she gave Saito made Jack chuckle.

"If Si's been tailin' you, Riley, it ain't 'cause I asked him to. I'm suspended, remember?"

Whatever was going on there, Jack didn't want to push. They'd been home for over a week, but Riley hadn't indicated she was ready to talk just yet. He knew the debriefing had been hard on her, knew it by the circles under her eyes and the way she carried herself, like she had on eighty pounds of invisible armor. They'd vegged out in the doc's office watching Mac's feed a few times, and they had plenty to talk about, but never about whatever was eating her.

Saito had been with her from the second she got herself off that boat until just a few days before they landed stateside. He was with her when it all hit, which was exactly where Jack had wanted so badly to be. He was glad she'd had someone there she trusted, they both trusted, and it was pretty clear that the friendship that had started in Greece was all the deeper for it.

But he couldn't help a little pang of jealousy, that Saito might know more about what his girl went through than he did.

And if they were sleeping together, he'd fucking kill him.

"Well, he said he'd stop when you were able to reclaim your usual overprotective duties, but . . ." Riley looked Jack up and down, clearly unimpressed. "You're still a little banged up there, old man."

He puffed out his chest – and pretended that it didn't hurt. "I'll have you know I can be overprotective left-handed and one-legged." Which Mac knew – sadly - from experience.

Her expression closed down a little. "Let's not demonstrate."

"Amen," Saito added. "You're enough of a terror just with the sling. I meant to ask, how's that collarbone?"

He turned and gave the shorter man a look, demonstrating that he now had full range of motion of his neck. "Comin' along. That Turk gives you and John any problems, you let me know."

Saito snorted. "If we get that op, it'll be tied up with a pretty little bow before you even get off your . . . suspension."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Jack growled in exasperation, while Riley started laughing.

-M-

As expected, he woke up in a blind panic. In this case, it was a situation of his own making. His persistent reflexive gasp caused the ventilator to feed him more air than he wanted, and he choked. After that, it was a legitimate struggle to find a balance between his body's needs and what the machine was providing.

Wanda was watching over her shoulder, ready to intervene if the patient required it, and they watched his stats skyrocket. "Oh, this is a bad one," the nurse murmured sympathetically, and Simone glanced over her shoulder.

"Picking favorites? That's not like you."

The other woman batted her eyes and wrapped a lock of bleached-platinum hair around a thick finger. "I ain't playin', he really is a handsome fella."

Young. He was young. But certainly not the youngest patient they'd had, by nearly a decade. "I'm going to remind you you said that when he's being a giant pain in your ass."

"Mm-hmm, I know you will," Wanda agreed readily. "An' something tells me that time will be upon us before too much longer."

The two women watched him fight for air.

As before, there was a delay between full consciousness and short term memory kicking in. His eyes were wide and wild, but at some point what they were seeing finally registered. He turned his head a little, in the direction of the ventilator, and he put forth a decent effort at trying to slow himself down. At first his technique only triggered the ventilator to engage, and after a few fruitless attempts he then tried to hold his breath, which resulted in the ventilator letting loose with an obnoxious blockage alarm. It was hard to tell whether or not he'd done it on purpose.

Wanda agreed. "Did he just intentionally try to set that off?"

If so, it appeared he did not like waking up alone. "Go." It was important that he trusted that when an alarm went off, one of them would come running.

And she did. Wanda entered the patient room with all the urgency an alarm like that deserved, and his head rolled in her direction as she hurried to the bedside. She hit the alarm, knowing the noise would only increase his distress, and calmed him using the same technique as she had before. Simone timed the encounter, which despite the added time he'd spent already conscious, took roughly the same amount of time to resolve. Letting him wake up naturally didn't seem to reduce the panic response, and once he was panicking, it took roughly the same amount of time for him to find a rhythm with the ventilator. It was like he wasn't learning – or didn't remember – how he had resolved the problem before.

Or, the problem was more than just physical, and he actually required an outside distraction to break the panic cycle.

Once she had him calmed, Wanda went about her normal vitals check and picked up the usual routine. The routine was important. The routine was what allowed him to begin trusting what he was seeing and hearing, as well as building a stable relationship with his caregivers. If he knew what to expect, and they were consistent, there was less fear of the unknown, and increased illusion of control. Setting and then meeting his expectations was key. Then they could start intelligently messing with him, and gauging his responses.

Once his eyes started shifting to the screen above the bed, and he started playing his metronome game with the ventilator, Simone picked up her tablet and clacked her way down the hall.

Those pumps weren't going to break themselves in, after all. But she had to admit, Mr. Power of Attorney's recommendation really had worked. Five minutes tucked under a heat lamp and a pair of trouser socks had made them almost bearable. Hell, once she got through a day in them and got those socks off, they might actually be halfway decent. And they announced her presence as she entered the room, she even took a few extra steps to give him time to connect the sound of footsteps with the eventual appearance of another person. Sure enough, when she came around the curtain, his eyes were there, watching for her.

He was approaching normal levels of alertness for an injured, drugged patient. Whatever disconnect between consciousness and memory, it was pretty clear his brainstem could handle the 'awake' function pretty readily. The seamless cooperation of the other sections of his brain would simply take time.

Wanda continued prattling at him as Simone completed her tasks in the routine. After watching his eyes a moment and testing his muscle tone, she inquired when his last dose of pain medication had been – and received an answer that she already knew – before she put his shoulder through gentle stretching exercises. Wanda used the rubber ball to try to distract him, which worked about as well as it usually did.

Meaning it didn't. Having a penetrative chest wound manipulated, at pretty much any phase of the healing process, sucked. Involuntary tears were a common outcome of this process, and Simone kept an eye on his stats as she worked the damaged muscles in his back and chest.

"You're doing well," she told him, unsurprised to find that despite the tears he tried to watch her. And despite the fact that it hurt, and that pain was part of his routine, he never showed apprehension when she or Wanda approached him. It was possible that he simply didn't remember, and every time they hurt him was like the first time to him, but he clearly recognized them in comparison to Alec. Angus was capable of making and accessing memories, so why was the ventilator such a struggle?

There was also the insinuation, if he remembered them and wasn't afraid of them, that he understood, at some level, that the pain they were inflicting was nothing to fear. For him to realize that physical therapy was good for him would mean higher functions were active and working. And if that was true, even if his short term memory was impacted, he understood a lot more than he was letting on.

Time to figure out if his refusal to communicate was a language problem, or a trust problem.

She released his right arm and circled him, trading places with Wanda before picking up his left hand and gently stretching his palm and fingers. As before, his eyes shifted as he watched. She intentionally held the hand high enough that he could see the limb itself, could see her manipulating his fingers. He gave no indication of pain.

"Can you feel anything?" she asked him. "Blink once for no, twice for yes."

All in all his hand was quite unremarkable, no longer even bruised, and he seemed to come to the same conclusion, because after a few moments he shifted his eyes to Wanda, who was unwrapping a syringe with his daily dose of antibiotics. He'd blinked when his eyes moved, but it was clearly not a deliberate attempt to communicate, and Simone continued gently manipulating his hand with a little sigh.

"He's probably getting tired of those hot air balloons. Remind me to change up the scenery a little, maybe some football."

His eyes shifted from Wanda and his IV line to the flatpanel above the bed, where hot air balloons were floating peacefully across the screen. A screen that neither of them had glanced at or gestured towards.

"Gotcha," Simone told him wryly.

Her patient didn't immediately look away – possibly trying to play it off, possibly not - and she set his hand back down gently on the bed. "Nice try, but too little, too late."

For another moment he didn't do anything at all, and Wanda clucked her tongue in reprimand as she injected the antibiotics. His eyes closed with something like resignation.

Simone carefully modulated her voice. "I understand that you don't trust me, but the fact is, that tube's not coming out anytime soon. The only thing you're accomplishing by refusing to communicate is delaying your own recovery. In exchange for your cooperation, I will give you an update on your condition. If we have a deal, blink twice." She intentionally used an adult vocabulary and multi-syllabic words, speaking to him as an equal instead of a child. Just because he recognized 'hot air balloon' didn't mean he was capable of grasping complicated language or ideas.

He left his eyes closed for several moments, clearly thinking it over. When they opened again, they focused on her face in the closest thing to a calculating look she'd seen yet. He stared at her for several seconds, deliberately communicating his reluctance, and then he blinked twice, in rapid succession.

Eureka.

"Good," she approved. "I'll go first." He'd capitulated, after all, and offering him information before she'd gotten what she wanted gave him the opportunity to simply take it and cease cooperating. She needed to know if she had an honest man or a cheat on her hands.

"You were injured, your chest and lung were punctured." There was no reason to give him any more detail than that, not if she wanted his memories unmolested. "You're being treated for those injuries in a hospital. That's why you have pain, and you're on a ventilator. It helps you to breathe until your lung has healed enough to work on its own. Do you understand?" She got an immediate, rapid double blink. It was a good sign.

"A side effect of those injuries is something called neurogenic shock. It's a type of shock that affects the brain and spinal column, and it impairs the ability of signals to move between your brain and the rest of your body." He was watching her intently, but his breathing pattern didn't stutter, so she continued. "You're experiencing a partial and temporary paralysis. The shock will lessen with time, and sensation will return to your body. Until then, we're treating you with physical therapy to keep your body healthy until you can move around on your own again."

He took the news like a champ, and while he finally blinked, it didn't look as if he was trying to communicate anything with it.

"While you were recovering, your wounds became infected, and made you very, very sick. That infection is under control now. You still have a fever, and you probably feel disoriented, dizzy, or light-headed. It might be hard to focus, remember things, or think clearly. That's a residual effect of the shock and the infection. You're still very weak. Blink twice if you understand."

There was no way to tell a partially cogent patient that they might have brain damage, and then expect that not to affect cognitive testing. For now, if he was cogent enough to be frightened by his inability to concentrate or to think, he could rationalize it to the drugs and his exhaustion.

He blinked twice, again deliberately, with very little pause. It didn't appear that he was greatly upset by any of the information, but the heart monitor ticked up just a few beats per minute. Low-level anxiety, maybe.

"I know that you feel very tired, and that may be frustrating. That's normal. Your body just fought off a major infection, and it has a lot of healing to do. You're going to need a lot of sleep. But I am very happy with your progress so far, and you should be too." It never hurt to throw in some encouragement. She wanted to be a source of authority, not comfort – that was Wanda's role – but it was her honest diagnosis. If he was capable of understanding the information at this point in his recovery, he was in better shape than she expected.

Simone gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn't flinch. "Now, let's try this again. Can you feel this?"

The doctor knew damn well that he could, and after a moment's hesitation, he blinked twice. "Good. How about this?" She squeezed his bicep firmly. This time he seemed to really think about it, but gave her a double blink. "Good. How about this?" She lifted his left hand and bent his arm ninety degrees at the elbow. His eyes traveled to the limb in question, which he could clearly see she was manipulating, but after a long pause, he gave one deliberate blink.

No.

"That's okay. I'd be surprised if you could," she told him honestly. "Anything now?" She pinched his thumb, hard. One blink.

Now they were getting somewhere. "You probably can't feel the rest of your body. That's normal, and it will fade with time. When it does, you may experience some pain. It's important that you're honest about that pain, so that we know if you're healing properly or not. Do you understand?"

This time his eyes flicked to Wanda, but he gave two blinks.

Parsons wasn't sure if that meant he wasn't a fan of the pain meds, or he was simply acknowledging that she was doing most of his pain management. "Are you in pain now?"

An immediate, single blink. That answered that. He didn't want them to put him under. Not that she could blame him – and not that they needed to. He was far too weak to stay awake for more than a half hour at a time, meds or not. But there was no way in hell his current drug regiment had already calmed all the pain she'd caused by stretching torn muscles.

"I need you to be honest with me," she repeated, in a slightly harder voice. "Are you currently experiencing any pain?"

His eyes shifted back to her, and the blink was emphatic. Just the one.

"I find that hard to believe," Simone said with a frown. She didn't want to drug him against his will, now that he was finally expressing it, but she wasn't happy he was lying, and there was no good way to tease the reason out of him. He didn't like the way the pain meds made him feel? He was uncomfortable with the idea of falling asleep? They gave him nightmares? Or was it something more simple than that? Perhaps he just didn't like the idea of being injected with chemicals of any kind?

"Nurse Wanda will check in with you, and she will ask you that same question. When you start to feel pain, tell her. It is much more difficult, and takes much more medicine, to treat increasing pain than it does to manage a low level of existing pain. Zero pain is not a reasonable expectation, but we do not want a situation where pain keeps you from getting the rest you need to heal. Do you agree?"

His eyelids flickered as he caught the difference in what she asked – understanding versus agreement. Good. He seemed to think about it, then gave a somewhat reluctant double blink.

And that was probably the best she was going to get. "Good. Nurse Wanda is going to continue your physical therapy. Are you comfortable with Nurse Alec assisting her?" Let's test that memory, Ol' Blue Eyes.

He looked back at Wanda, who smiled encouragingly, and gave two blinks. Then his eyes seemed to turn inwards, thoughtfully.

"Okay. Wanda, I'll send Alec in when I'm finished here."

"Thank you, Dr. Parsons," she replied cheerfully. "I'm sure handsome here will appreciate us finishing up so he can get some rest."

It was another signal to him that they knew he was tired, even though he'd just woken from a five hour nap. He was adjusting well to the six hour sleep cycle, and she saw no reason to change it. With Alec as an accepted substitute, they could more easily staff the routine, and it fit well with her other patients. Sooner or later MacGyver was going to catch on that they never used his name, and she needed to think of a way to get him to confirm he remembered it without indicating the correct answer to him. If he truly actually understood what she'd just told him, she was inclined to think he knew exactly who he was. Just like he knew they weren't familiar, and he didn't want to communicate with them – even when he was experiencing pain.

Jesus, the things they did to spies. That he would wake up disoriented, ventilated, and paralyzed, and still be concerned with giving something away to the enemy was, at least academically speaking, utterly unacceptable. She needed his trust, or this was going to be a much longer process than it had to be.

At the very least, it was time to change up his stimulation. Maybe a nice, soothing rain shower, and then abstract shapes. That would tell her if he was having difficulty with any of the color spectrum, and give her an idea how well he could really see. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff was going to have to wait until he was off the ventilator, and he could move a little. Taste, touch, smell . . . all she could assess at this point was vision and hearing.

And try to get to the root of that panic on waking response.

-M-

Not much to see here. Except Mac, of course. Who I know none of you really care about, seeing as he hasn't really been in the last twelve chapters. He's awake, but he's staying put in that facility, whether his family back at the Phoenix like it or not. Jack's rattling around during his suspension slash recuperation time, but he's clearly getting restless – and he's still worried about Riley. And Mac's doctor is able to out-clever her patient – for now.