Sonny pulled into the hospital parking lot at 9:23 am the following morning. It wasn't until almost 10:00 that he actually made it out of his truck. He paced outside Clays room, rubbing his sweaty hands on his pant legs. "Come on Sonny, you can do this. Why are you so nervous? He's your best friend." He kept repeating to himself. After a few more minutes, he finally took a deep breath and entered Clays room.

Blackburn looked up as Sonny walked in, surprise written all over his face. "Sonny. Hey."

"Hey Blackburn. How's uh, how's he doing? Jace said he was doing better."

Eric looked over to a sleeping Clay then back over to Sonny. "Yesterday was pretty eventful for him. It was the first time he was awake for the entire day without ignoring everyone or giving a snarky attitude. He actually started to open up a bit too. Not a lot, but it was a start." Eric filled Sonny in.

"Good. That's real good. How long you think until he wakes up?" Sonny asked.

Blackburn shrugged. "Could be a bit. He uh, had a pretty rough night."

"Rough how?" Sonny asked concerned.

"He refused to take the heavy pain meds last night that have been helping him sleep. Between the pain and the nightmares, he didn't get much sleep. The nurses finally forced him to take the pain meds around 5:00 this morning."

Sonny ran a hand through his hair. "Can't catch a break, can he?" Sonny mumbled to himself. "You mind if I sit with him for a bit? Just the two of us?"

Blackburn lifted both eye brows, not expecting that from Sonny. They had been back stateside for a couple weeks and up until now, he had only seen Sonny at the hospital two other times. Rather than making a big deal out if though, Blackburn stood up, grabbed his paperwork and headed towards the door. "I'll be in the cafeteria trying to get some work done if you need me." Eric said.

Sonny nodded his head than eased himself into the chair next to Clay that Blackburn just vacated. As he sat there waiting for Clay to wake up, he studied every visible part of Clay. Aside from a few new scars on his face and arms and being less muscular and needing to put some weight back on, Clay still looked like Clay. That's something Sonny was grateful for. He knew underneath Clay's hospital gown and blankets there were a lot more scars and injuries, specifically on his back, but he was almost grateful that he couldn't see them right now.

After an hour went by with no signs of Clay waking up, Sonny started getting antsy. Every part of him wanted to wake Clay up, but he knew he knew that wouldn't be a good idea. 'The pain meds should wear off soon enough.' He kept telling himself as he continuously got up, walked around the room and then sat back down.

Once another hour went by, Sonny started trying to come up with ways to accidentally on-purpose wake Clay up. He came up with a bunch of different ways, but when it came down to it, he didn't have the heart to follow through with any of them. Instead, after what felt like his 20th lap around the room, he plopped back down in his chair with a sigh and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. When he looked back down at Clay, he was surprised to see Clay staring back at him.

Sonny didn't know what to say, so he resorted to what he does best. "About damn time sleeping beauty. I was beginning to think you were gonna sleep all day." He let out a nervous chuckle.

Clay didn't respond, instead he just continued to look at Sonny.

Sonny tried to read the expression on Clay's face, but wasn't able to tell if it was pain, annoyance, confusion or maybe a combination of all three.

"Sorry." Sonny said quietly, not exactly sure if he was apologizing for the way he greeted Clay or if it was for taking so long to visit.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to show up. Thought maybe something happened." Clay finally broke his silence.

For once in his life, Sonny didn't a comeback. He didn't know how to respond to Clay. "I.. I'm Sorry." Was all he could come up with.

There was a brief moment of an almost awkward silence between the two before Sonny knew it was up to him to speak up again. "Look Clay, when we lost you, it broke me. Like really broke me. And then finding out you've been alive after all this time going through god only knows what, I didn't know how to process that. I've driven to this damn hospital more times than I can count, but I've never been able to make it out of the lobby." He paused before continuing. "Seeing you in such rough shape, I couldn't do it. Not without feeling guilty as hell."

"Don't." Clay interrupted.

Sonny looked at him a bit confused.

"Don't blame yourself. Please don't blame yourself." Clay was practically begging. "If anything kept me alive over there, it was knowing you guys would come for me if you could, I just had to stay alive long enough for you to do that."

Sonny shook his head, looking away and trying to fight back tears.

Clay took a deep breath and then continued. "I lost track of time over there pretty quick. Had no idea it had even been that long until Khmer told me at the one-year mark." Clay noticed the wince on Sonny's face as he mentioned the year mark. "You know, I wasn't there the whole time. I got away. Was found by some village people somewhere in the jungle. They helped me out a lot, gave me time to heal from some of my injuries and beat the nasty infection I was fighting. I was there quite a while before Khmer and his people found me again."

Sonny's eyes darted back to Clay at that revelation. As he fumbled with a response, one of Clay's nurses walked. "Good morning gentlemen." She smiled. "How are we feeling today?" She directed the question towards Clay.

Clay shrugged. "Getting there." Was the only response he offered. He would never admit that he was still hurting pretty bad, especially not in front of Sonny.

She smiled again. "Good to hear. Now, I know it's your favorite part of the week." She said sarcastically. "But it's time to clean your back. Would you like your friend to step into the hallway until we're finished?"

Clay hesitated, looked at Sonny, then back to the nurse. Shaking his head, he said "No, he can stay."

Sonny was glad to hear Clay was going to let him stay, although he wasn't entirely sure if he was ready to see the worst of Clay's injuries.

The nurse slapped on a pair of sterile gloves then carefully helped Clay sit up and slide his legs over the side of the bed. Sonny couldn't help but notice the strong wince on Clay's face as he moved. She then placed a waterproof mat down to keep the bed dry and untied the back of Clays gown. As the gown fell, Sonny gave a wince of his own.

Clay's back looked a lot worse than he had expected. It had been a little over a month since they had found and rescued him, but due to how deep the whip cut through, the marks on his back were still clear as day. The stitches were mostly gone, only a few remained in the areas that were the deepest. Aside from the heavy scabbing, slight leakage and redness, Sonny noticed the scars from the older whippings. He started getting lost in his thoughts and felt a whole new level of guilt start to surface when a slight whimper escaped Clay's lips when the nurse gently tapped one of the more sensitive spots on his back.

Seeing Clay's eyes clenched shut from the pain, Sonny went and sat in front of him, putting his hands on his knees. "Clay, look at me." He said gently. When Clay's eyes didn't open, he tried again. "Come on Clay."

Clay finally unclenched his eyes and found Sonny's eyes. "There you go. Now just keep gazing at my dashingly good looks and wishing you had half the good look that I was blessed with."

Sonny was pleased with himself when he got a slight smirk and head shake out of Clay. "You know, your bedside manner still sucks even after all this time." Clay informed him.

The two bantered back and forth for the next couple minutes until the nurse finished cleaning and redressing his back. Completely spent, Clay was relieved when she gently lowered him back down and gave him a dose of much needed pain meds even though he didn't ask for it.

Before he knew it, he was fighting to keep his eyes open. Before letting his eyelids close completely, he turned towards Sonny and apologized. "Sorry to cut our little chat short."

"No apologies necessary. Get some sleep. I promise I'll be here when you wake up." Sonny assured Clay. Now that he has finally seen and cleared the air with Clay, he was gonna be there for him as much as he possibly could.