Kyser sat in the stiff chair across from the beds containing his three wounded colleagues, his foot in a walking cast and elevated on another nearby chair, exhausted but desperate to stay awake. Simmons was closest to the door with a plastic tube connected to a ventilator shoved down his throat, in a medically-induced coma to try and help combat the swelling in his brain. Wyatt was farthest from the door, his leg elevated, his arm readjusted and in a cast, and a piece of his liver, which had been perforated by the bullet, now removed. Directly in front of the wounded medic was Ramirez. Of the three, he'd lost the most blood, and had two blood bags—one of which claiming Kyser as its source—hanging from his IV pole and feeding into his arm. He'd gone into stage three of hypovolemic shock before they managed to get the bleeding under control. He had a mask over his nose and mouth, desperately trying to feed his oxygen-starved organs. All three of them were still in critical condition. All three of them were still not stable enough to transfer. It was entirely possible that none of them would ever wake up.

Of course, the doctors told him that all three of them would be dead right now if he hadn't acted so quickly, if he hadn't made those tourniquets, if he hadn't kept them awake as long as he had. But that didn't make their lying in those beds, frail and broken, feel like it was any less his fault. If he'd been faster, if he'd been better...if he hadn't left Ramirez alone, then maybe...

"Hey, Kyser," the medic was jolted from his thoughts when he heard his name, and he turned to see Jack standing in the doorway, leaning up against the frame and watching him.

"Hey," Kyser forced a slight smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, we've kind of hit a wall for the time being," Jack admitted with a sigh. "Riley got a little beat up on our last outing, so she's back at Phoenix getting patched up. Then she's gotta charge her laptop, and while she's doing that, she's gonna do some techie stuff and find the assholes we were chasing, and Cage is gonna do her thing with the ones we managed to catch. Mac and I don't have much to do until they get something, so we decided to pop over, see what's going on with you. How're you holding up?"

"Okay," Kyser shrugged. "I've got either a second or third degree sprain; they can't tell for sure right now because all the imaging is being reserved for the life-or-death cases to conserve power. They're not sure how long the generators are going to last. That's why I'm staying here; if the power fails, someone's gotta jump in and keep Simmons breathing manually, and all the staff are busy."

"Well, hopefully, you won't have to worry about that too much," Jack sighed, rubbing his neck.

"Wait, where's Mac?" the medic asked, just realizing that the younger agent wasn't there, despite Jack saying they'd both come to the hospital.

"He's trying to help get the hospital some more sustainable power," Jack shrugged. "What generators Phoenix isn't using have already been lent out to this and other hospitals, so Mac's gonna try and help make up the difference."

"How?"

"Knowing him, he's probably going to build a nuclear reactor out of bubble gum, shoelaces, and belt buckles," Jack rolled his eyes good naturedly, making Kyser laugh.

"Actually, it's solar panels out of glass plates, titanium dioxide, and blueberry juice," Mac corrected, coming in from the hall, his signature half-smile on his face. "Among other things. Won't be as efficient as a silicon cell, but it'll do the trick, in theory. It'll at least be able to power the ventilator, the size I'm making."

"What happened to you?" Kyser frowned at Mac, noting his torn shirt.

"Improvising," Mac shrugged.

"Which reminds me," Jack turned to his partner, "you owe me a new pair of socks."

"Do I want to know?" Kyser raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"A story for another time," Mac promised, then nodded in the direction of their wounded colleagues. "How are they?"

"Not good," the medic shook his head gravely, scratching the bandage on the inside of his left arm, where they'd drawn his blood to give to Ramirez. "None of them are stable, and none of them are guaranteed to wake up again. Simmons has brain swelling; he's in a coma right now, as you can see. Wyatt had a compound fracture to his left arm and now has a couple pins in there, and he's now down half a lobe of his liver. Ramirez was the worst, though. Maybe not in trauma, but...he lost too much blood. He's barely hanging on, and even if he does wake up, the damage might already be done."

"They'll be fine, Kyser," Jack hoped he sounded more certain than he felt, trying to ignore how his stomach was churning at the sight of Simmons, lying nearly lifeless in his hospital bed, a machine breathing for him, a dark, angry bruise consuming half his face. He used to joke that his friend never got hurt because he stole everyone else's luck—hence the reason Jack seemed to be the recipient of all the injuries when they were on missions together. He would have gladly given him what little luck he had left if it would have kept him out of that hospital bed. "They'd be dead right now if it weren't for you."

"That's what the doctors tell me," Kyser sighed, rubbing his tired eyes with one hand.

"They're right," Mac's voice was insistent. "Kyser, a situation like that...none of you should have made it out of there alive, but here you all are. Yeah, some of you are a little worse for wear, but the fact that any of you made it is a miracle, and the fact that these three still have a fighting chance is because of you."

Kyser didn't seem convinced, and he opened his mouth to say as much, but cut himself off when the emergency lights flickered. Instead, a curse fell off his lips and he jumped clumsily to his feet, ignoring both his crutches and Mac and Jack's protests, limping over to Simmons' side and grabbing the self-inflating bag next to the bed, ready to attach it and take over when the machine failed. Sure enough, even the emergency lights turned off, and with them went the ventilator, so Kyser quickly disconnected the machine and attached the bag, squeezing it evenly and steadily to keep his colleague's lungs inflating.

"You got an ETA on those solar panels?" Kyser asked, suddenly wide awake.

"Another...fifteen minutes for it to set, twenty-five minutes for assembly, ten for installation, and then...well, they need the sun to work, Kyser..." Mac gestured to the darkness outside the window. Sunrise wasn't for another hour and a half. "I've come up with a battery to keep it working after that, but we need the sun first."

"Do what you can," Kyser nodded, his eyes fixed on Simmons as Jack stepped out into the hall, trying to find out what happened. "I'll keep him alive as long as you need."

"Excuse me!" Jack grabbed one of the nurses rushing past. "What happened? Did the generator give out?"

"It shouldn't have, but it did," the nurse confirmed with a nod, looking a little impatient to get back to work. "A quarter of the building has lost power entirely; the other generators are keeping the rest of it lit but not for much longer."

"How many patients do you have in this wing that need power?" Mac asked.

"Four, including him," the nurse nodded in Simmons' direction. "The rest got transferred out of the city. Now I've gotta go see what I can do to help; someone will be back to help you in a few minutes."

With this, he rushed off, leaving Mac and Jack in the hallway.

"How many of those panels can you rig up?" Jack asked his partner once they were alone, save for the hospital staff rushing about.

"Five," Mac replied, looking distressed.

"Okay, that's good; we've got one left over," Jack nodded.

"Yeah, except I was only able to rig up capacitors—batteries—for three of them," his partner told him grimly. "Which means once the sun goes down, one of these people is gonna be out of luck."

"We'll take the gimp one," Kyser called from inside the room.

"Kyser, no," Jack began, turning towards his long-time friend, but the medic cut him off.

"Would you rather it go to some innocent civilian?" he challenged, glancing up at him while keeping his steady rhythm with the self-inflating bag. "The staff and I can keep Simmons alive at night until he's ready to move. He'd say the same thing, and you know it."

"Kyser—" Again, Kyser interrupted him, his eyes and tone leaving no room for argument.

"Stop wasting time fighting me on this, Dalton," he growled. "Go see what you can do to help out the other patients, and Mac, see if there's anything you can do to fix that generator. Go!"

Jack's jaw twitched, some part of him wanting to snap back at him, but instead, he set his teeth and dipped his head, grabbing Mac's arm and pulling him out of the room. They had work to do.


As Charlie sat onboard the private plane carrying him, four of the men who'd brought him there, his father, and Tiago to their next destination, he kept his eyes glued to the table between him and the seat across from him, still trying to get the image of Derek falling dead right in front of him out of his head. His cuffed hands were shaking on the tabletop, and his heart was beating far too fast. He was both hyper aware of the conversations going on around him and unable to pick out even a word that was said. The side of his face was throbbing painfully, though the cut on his cheekbone had stopped bleeding. The murder kept replaying in his head on a loop; regardless of what he'd done to him, the man was dead, and Charlie couldn't help but feel responsible. If he'd just gone along with Derek's story, he likely still would have been alive. A man was dead, and that was his fault. And to make matters worse, he was trapped with the killer himself. He'd been afraid of Asmara the whole time, knowing what he'd done and what he was capable of, but seeing him in action had been more than he'd bargained for. He needed to start picking his battles very carefully; one wrong move, and he'd be the one with the bullet in his brain. If his stupid plan didn't work—and it admittedly was not looking good—then he was done for. For the first time, he started to realize exactly how much danger he was really in; until that moment, he'd been certain he'd get out of there quickly. Now, he wasn't so sure.

The young man visibly flinched back when his father sat down across from him, pulling his hands away and pressing himself into the seat, not looking up.

"Charlie, I've told you, you don't have to be afraid," Asmara's voice was gentle, but it just made his son's stomach churn. Asmara let out a sigh, then pulled a set of keys from his pocket and reached across the small table, grabbing his son's right forearm and pulling his hands closer, not unaware that the young man's breathing became audibly louder when he did so. With an almost sad smirk, the terrorist unlocked the handcuffs binding his wrists together and let go of his arm. Charlie yanked his hands back immediately, his head down.

"Charlie, I want you to look at me," the young captive's jaw twitched when he heard his father's smooth, soothing voice. He didn't move, rubbing his wrists under the table. When Asmara spoke again, his voice was still soothing, but there was an undeniable warning in it as well, "Charlie. Look at me."

Asmara's son closed his eyes for a moment, taking a quick deep breath before slowly lifting his head, forcing himself to meet his father's eyes, reminding himself that he needed to pick his battles. The sight of the older man made his stomach lurch, but he swallowed hard and held his gaze, not even bothering to hide his fear this time. Asmara gave him a somewhat kind smile.

"I know that what happened on the tarmac must have scared you," he began, and Charlie fought the urge to scoff at him incredulously, "but I can assure you that you are perfectly safe with me. You're my son; I would never hurt you, nor would I let anyone else hurt you. I know you don't understand, now, but one day you will; all of this was and is necessary."

"For what?" the disbelief in Charlie's voice was obvious.

"For fixing a broken system," Selam replied simply, as if that explained everything. Charlie bit down on his tongue to keep from saying anything else, knowing whatever he said would just make him angry. Asmara studied him for a moment, then let out a sigh.

"Wait here," he ordered, as if the boy had much choice. Charlie watched him stand up and move towards the front end of the plane, vanishing from his sight only to return a few moments later with a paper towel, a glass of water, and what appeared to be a washcloth acting as a little pouch—for ice, most likely, the boy realized. His father resumed his seat in front of him, dipped the paper towel in the water, and leaned forward. Charlie flinched back, but Selam followed him, reaching out and gently grabbing his jaw, starting to wipe the blood away.

"You know, Charlie, I don't want you to be afraid of me," Asmara told him quietly. "I'd so prefer if we could get along. I want to get to know you. You are my son, after all, and I've missed out on so much of your life...haven't been there to help you, to guide you...I wish you'd stop fighting me."

"And I wish you'd let me go," Charlie's voice trembled when he spoke, unable to stop himself, and the fact that he'd spoken at all seemed to surprise the older man, "but we don't always get what we want."

Asmara gave a small laugh, though it didn't reach his eyes, and released his grip on his son's jaw. Charlie felt ice snake down his spine as those eyes bored right into him.

"You're making it very hard for me to believe I can save you, Charlie," he told the boy dangerously. "I've been nothing but kind to you, and—"

Choosing battles be damned; he couldn't let that one slide.

"Kind?" he interrupted his father with fury flaring in his chest, overpowering his fear. Even for his own survival, he couldn't play along with that. Not after everything that had happened, everything the older man had put him through. "Kind? Is that what you think you've been? Let's recap this, shall we? I'll even be nice and keep it to since I've known you even existed: In that time, in just four months, you came to my house, tried to murder my mother and two other people, and could have easily killed me and my little sister in the process. Then, you tried to blow up the LA Convention Center, potentially killing thousands of innocent people. You tried to kill Jack Dalton, the man who saved me and my mom and my sister from you when you came and shot at us in our home. Because of you, my family had to go into hiding, and I haven't seen or spoken to them since. Then you came and found me at school, broke into the apartment I share with my girlfriend—and I don't even want to think about what could have happened if she came home before me—attacked me, knocked me out, and kidnapped me, took me away from everything good I had left in my life. You said you weren't going to hurt me, and you did. You said no one else would hurt me, and they did. What on Earth did you expect was going to happen? That you'd do all that to me and I'd just run up and hug you like we've been family this whole time? No. Being part of someone's family is a privilege, not a right. You just so happening to share DNA with me doesn't make you my dad. Where were you when I was learning how to ride a bike? When I was afraid of the monsters under my bed? When I won my school spelling bee? When I learned how to drive? When I won my cross-country regional competition only to fall and break my arm half way through nationals? When I got into Stanford?"

"Rotting in a prison that your mother and your good buddy Jack Dalton put me in," Selam replied, his voice a low warning growl, and while the look on his face did scare his son, it didn't scare him enough to make him back down.

"Serving a sentence for treason and murder," Charlie growled right back, his intensity matching his father's. In fact, his anger and frustration had him looking more like the man across from him than he ever had, and not in the way Asmara had hoped he would. Still, the young man kept his voice down, well aware that the other conversations were starting to die down and they were drawing a few curious, uneasy looks. "What happened to you was your own fault; don't blame your victims for the outcome. That's called being a coward. My dad taught me to own my actions, good and bad. Yet another lesson I'm glad to have learned that I clearly wouldn't have learned from you. If you're going to treat me like a prisoner, keep me handcuffed and hit me, fine; just don't pretend like you're treating me like your son, then. You can't have it both ways."

By this point, looking at the rage building in his father's expression—rage like he'd seen in him right before he shot a man right before his eyes—Charlie knew he was in trouble, but his anger would not subside, even as his fear grew to match it. He knew that if he didn't stop and redirect that anger—both his and his father's—he could very well end up like Derek. Thinking fast, he gave a disgusted smirk and leaned back in his seat.

"See?" he gestured emphatically towards the man across from him, hiding his trembling behind flourishes. "Exactly my point. You keep telling me that you don't want to hurt me, that you want to get to know me, that you want me to trust you, that you understand why I'm so frustrated and angry and scared—that it's because my mom lied to me about you. And yet, here you are, with that look on your face, about to prove my point again. You hurt me before, and you're about to hurt me again. And you'll call it discipline, but we both know it's not; it's just you being exactly who everyone told me you were. You can knock me around all you want, but it won't get me on your side. It'll just prove me and everybody else right."

By that time, everyone else's conversations were continuing only for show, every set of eyes onboard locked on him in shock. No one—perhaps least of all Charlie himself—had expected that from him. Asmara glared at him furiously, though his words appeared to be giving the man pause. Charlie kept his poker face, his hands tight fists to hide their shaking as they rested on the tabletop, trying to mask how hard his heart was pounding, even with all of his pent-up anger and frustration starting to give way to terror once more. Still, he knew that some of that fear was visible in his eyes. Just as Charlie hoped he would, Asmara was just staring at him, debating between kicking his ass and consequently proving him right, or proving him wrong by not doing anything to him and consequently letting him get off with a warning for speaking to him that way. Either way, the terrorist was giving him some kind of victory, which Charlie knew he'd want to avoid at all costs. The young man hardly dared to breathe, his bravado quickly fading. He honestly didn't care which option is father chose—though he obviously had a preference—as long as the little dilema he'd presented him with kept the man from even considering the third option: making Charlie's the next body to be dumped carelessly on the tarmac.

It felt like they sat there for an eternity, staring at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. All the conversation, even the fake conversation, had ceased, or maybe Charlie just couldn't hear it over the pounding in his ears. He held his father's gaze, knowing he couldn't be the one to break first. Finally, Asmara gave a smirk and a laugh, the sound chilling his son to the bone.

"You're right," the terrorist allowed finally, sounding good-natured although his eyes were dangerous. "You're absolutely right."

"What?" Charlie was not expecting that response.

"You heard me," Selam grinned at him, and Charlie felt all the air leave his lungs, his shoulders tightening in preparation. "I've treated you like my son every chance I got, and you've done nothing to act like my son. And you're right; you can't have it both ways. If you insist on acting like a prisoner, who am I to behave otherwise?"

As he spoke, he picked the handcuffs up off the tabletop and replaced them tightly around Charlie's wrists—tight enough to make him grimace and suppress a whimper—grabbing his arm when he tried to pull away. His eyes, so much like his son's in shape and shade, were shooting daggers at the boy, anger blazing in their dark brown depths. Charlie hardly dared breathe, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.

Sure enough, with no warning, Selam got to his feet, stepping out into the middle of the aisle of the spacious private plane, still gripping Charlie's arm and then yanking him out of his seat, not caring when the young man cried out and fell to the floor. On the contrary—once he was down, Selam seemed intent to keep him there, kicking him with all his strength over and over again as Charlie tried to curl up to protect his organs, a task that proved to be near impossible with his father maintaining a death grip on his right forearm, stretching his bound hands up above his head. It took everything in him not to fight back, knowing that doing so would just make it worse. Yes, he knew it would hurt, but it was better than being dead.

It felt like hours before Selam finally ceased his assault. By that time, Charlie was gasping desperately for air but unable to get any, his diaphragm spasming. His father knelt down beside him, still not releasing his grip on his arm, and Charlie tried to shift away from him, but Asmara just growled and yanked him closer, making the young man give a strangled yelp.

"I suggest you apologize, Charlie," Asmara hissed, his voice low as his son cowered away from him, trying to breathe evenly. When the boy didn't answer, Asmara got impatient and punched him—hard—across the face, making him give a broken cry of pain. Selam grabbed his jaw and turned his head, forcing their eyes to meet. "I said, I suggest you apologize."

"I'm sorry," Charlie forced the words past his lips, still just trying to breathe. "Please...please, I'm sorry..."

Asmara chuckled, releasing his jaw only to pat him twice on the cheek. Charlie finally got his diaphragm working properly again, and his breaths were ragged and full of terror.

"Apology accepted," the terrorist grinned down at him. "Now, when you don't feel like being my prisoner anymore, and want to go back to being my son, you let me know. Until then, enjoy the ride."

With this, he finally let go of the boy's arm—the skin was already starting to bruise—and stood up, cleaning up the table they'd been sitting at as Charlie coughed and groaned on the floor, spitting out blood and carefully wiping at his eyes. Selam glanced at him, then turned to his men, who were all still silently watching them.

"Tiago," his voice was sharp and made his son flinch on the ground as Tiago looked up from his crossword expectantly. Charlie, his ears ringing and barely able to keep his eyes open, heard his father say something in Portuguese, his words followed by him walking away and Tiago getting up. Mac's former tormentor came over to where Charlie was lying, grabbing his left arm near his shoulder and pulling him upright even as Charlie tried to get away. Tiago hardly seemed to notice his struggles, hauling him to his feet and shoving him into one of the set of two seats behind the pair he and Selam had been sitting in before their fight. He fastened the younger man's seatbelt low and tight across his lap, then took the seat across from him. There was no table between them, this time, and Charlie's heart leapt into his throat when he saw the man pull out his gun, letting it rest casually in his lap. Tiago's eyes settled on him, cold and uncaring, and Charlie squirmed under his gaze for several minutes before he set his jaw and resigned himself to looking out the window, watching them slice through the clouds and looking down at the vague land below, thinking about his situation and his options.

To say he was screwed was an understatement. However much he hated it, Asmara thinking of him as his son, trying to gain his trust, had given him some level of protection, but that was gone, now. He didn't like the odds of Phoenix finding him again—not with this big of a move. He just hoped that Amy would come through for him, that his stupid plan wasn't as stupid as he was starting to think it was. He realized that he probably hadn't been missing for nearly as long as he thought he'd been, so there was still a chance that it could work. And, frankly, if it didn't, he was as good as dead, because he knew that, even to save his life, he couldn't go along with whatever Selam was planning. He was running out of time.

If he didn't get found soon, he probably never would.


I wanted this to be longer, but I'm well aware that I'm taking forever, so here it is. Sorry again, guys; I'm gearing up for graduation and trying to get a lot of stuff done in an uncomfortably short time. But I'm still writing every chance I get. And after next week, I won't have any more labs, so I'll only have class once a day in the morning and I'll be able to write after that. Bonus: My one and only final is on the 2nd day of finals, which means I have a week between then and graduation when I have nothing but time.