Adam irritably kicks aside a few pieces of cardboard leaning against the stucco wall of the building. McG is back by the jeep with Amir, and Preach and Jaz are clearing the condos. It's unlikely there's anything in there to clear, or that anyone managed to follow them her, but it's always better to be safe then sorry; the last thing they need right now is a surprise. With Jaz and McG and Preach all busy that leaves Adam to look for the tarp they'd used to cover up the Humvee earlier that McG had hidden when they'd moved out. He'd said it was behind the dumpsters, but Adam had checked pretty thoroughly behind the dumpsters and found nothing. He pokes around a little more, and tries not too think about the whole reason he's back here looking for a tarp in the first place. The reason being that he doesn't feel tactically comfortable setting up camp on the first floor, while also knowing there's no way in hell Amir is walking up four flights of stairs. McG's not too keen on the idea of carrying him, so they need to make a stretcher. Hence, the tarp, which is currently very stubbornly refusing to appear.
In his ear Jaz informs him that the second floor is clear, which means he has about a minute before they finish. He pauses, just for a moment, reaching up to press a finger into the bridge of his nose trying to alleviate the headache he's pretty sure he's had since the moment Patricia called to tell them Amir was being moved. This whole thing has been a shit show from start to finish, and what Adam just can't stop circling around is the question of whether any of it even had to happen. Not the attempt to infil an unsurveilled hostile compound in broad daylight or his team getting their asses lit up barreling through a desert or almost being blown to hell in a crappy gas station. Not Amir laying in the back of a dirty truck slowly bleeding to death. He closes his eyes, wincing as the sound of Amir's desperate cries ring in his ears. His conversation with McG from earlier echoes in his head. Three weeks, he hears himself say and wishes he hadn't. He tells himself what McG had told him then, Amir is strong, he's been through worse, he'll pull through. But three weeks, his treacherous mind whispers. Three weeks. They were supposed to have his back, supposed to make sure this exact situation never happened, and sometimes there's nothing you can do but he can't but feel like they failed him.
The thing is, Adam thinks, he's been doing a pretty good job of keeping calm. Keeping steady. He knows the team looks to him as a fixed point amidst the chaos, that he has to keep a good face on for them. Seeing him panic would only unanchor the rest of them. But hell, he's feeling anything but calm inside. He feels fear and anger and guilt, but no calm. Because this was not how this was supposed to go and yes they're always reacting to a fluid situation but usually their fluid situations don't look like this. Don't look like staring down the barrel of losing another teammate.
It's just, he didn't think they'd have to go through all of this again, not so soon. Not after Istanbul, not after Elijah. And he knows that in their line of work there's always going to be instability, but this feels like too much. Feels like wave after wave against a wall that's starting to crumble. It's just, he was the one who said the words. He was the one who turned to his team and looked them in the eyes and said leave him and right or wrong he's going to carry that a long time. It's just, it's just, it's just so many things and Adam feels weary with it.
From around the corner he hears McG call his name and drops his hand, opening his eyes.
"30 seconds."
He calls back, shaking himself off, and resumes his search. After a little more investigation he finds the tarp, neatly folded, behind a stack of unused chairs in the corner. Jogging back to the jeep he tosses it to McG, who's standing by the tailgate looking tense. He's been looking tensex an awful lot lately. McG catches it with both hands, giving Adam a short nod.
"Hey Amir," he says with forced cheerfulness as he starts to shake out the tarp, "Your ride's here."
Amir shifts listlessly where he's laid out in the back of the jeep, out of the sun, and doesn't reply. He looks like a ghost, skin white and chalky and dried out. His eyes aren't quite closed, a thin crescent of brown still visible beneath his lids, but it doesn't look like he's seeing anything.
"Alright, building is clear. Heading back down to you."
Jaz crackles in Adam's ear. He taps his comms,
"Copy that."
He says as he kneels beside McG to help him lay the tarp out. Folding it in half a few times till it's about the size of a stretcher they each take on of the long sides and roll it a few times, creating a sort of handle. As they finish Jaz and Preach emerge from the front door of the building, posting up beside them.
"Alright," He says, pushing himself back to his feet, "Let's get him upstairs."
McG climbs back into the truck, getting behind Amir's shoulders as Preach starts to slide him out by the legs. Jaz stands beside him, hands resting on the stock of her gun. She sniffs, looks up at the slowly sinking sun.
"He's going to be okay, right?"
She asks, quiet. And Adam gets the sense she's asking about more then just if Amir's going to live. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and holds it. He can't lie to her, he can't promise that Amir's going to make it, out of this desert or once they get him home. And he thinks she knows that, too. But he thinks about what Preach said to him, back when they were standing in that gully looking out over the desert, and he thinks about how Amir smiled even when he could barely breathe and he lets out the air from his nose.
"He's got us, Jaz. And that's a lot more then he's had before."
Is what he says, and he hopes it's enough. Jaz's elbow bumps his gently, and he's grateful for it. Preach and McG have gotten Amir out of the jeep and he and Jaz move forward to help them get him into the stretcher. As they settle him in and each take a corner to lift Adam looks at his still pale face and thinks don't you dare die, don't you dare do that.
Because if Amir dies, he knows exactly what will happen. McG will blame himself, and Jaz, she hasn't gotten over Elijah yet and losing another teammate like this is going to mess her up good. Preach, for all his steadiness, will be shaken, and Adam. Well, Adam doesn't want to find out what he'd do if Amir died.
_
Amir's heavy. McG figures he should know this by now, considering all the time he's spent today carrying the guy around today, but rucking him up four flights of stairs is worse. He almost says so, almost makes a joke about him needing to lose a few pounds, but the words die on the tip of his tongue. The joke's only funny if the other guy is around to fight back. Instead he tightens his grip on his corner of the make-shift stretcher and hikes it higher on his shoulder. He'll make it later, and Amir will laugh and Adam will glare and Jaz might even kick him in the shin. Except then he thinks about how when he cut his shirt open earlier he could nearly count Amir's ribs underneath his skin and decides it's not a funny joke at all.
They bring Amir to the same room they'd holed up in earlier, pool table still standing lonely in the middle of the floor. As they transfer Amir out of the stretcher to the table McG notices the tracks from when they'd dragged it over from the corner are still marked into the ground. Top seems to notice them as well, staring at the two clean lines in the grime with a strange look in his eyes. After a second Preach touches his shoulder and says gently,
"Adam, it's just dust."
Top shakes himself, running a hand across his face, and when McG glances at him again the look is gone, professionalism back in place like a shied.
"Alright, Jaz, move the car around back." He barks, "Preach, let's work on getting contact with command set up. McG, you do what you need to do."
McG doesn't need the reminder, he's already moving. Reaching into his pack he pulls out the blood bag and transfusion kit he'd stolen from the clinic. He hears everyone leave the room behind him, but ignores them. He's hung blood a thousand times, and he let's himself retreat into the anonymity and familiarity of the exercise and forget exactly who's lying on the table in front of him. When he's finished he snaps off his gloves, carefully wrapping them inside each other and discarding them beside his chair. He takes Amir's vitals, nothing's changed much and he's not surprised. He'll check again when the transfusions been going a little longer.
As he's zipping his bag back up Preach and Top walk in, Jaz following a few beats behind them. There's something on Top's face that looks almost like hope, but McG doesn't let himself read too much into it. It's much clearer to see Preach is pleased though, and he lets that buoy him. As Top clears his throat Jaz slips past McG and around the table, taking up a position near Amir's head, eyes focused forward. Top claps his hands together,
"Alright, listen up guys, we've got an exfil plan in place. We're lucky the Libyan government is too busy trying to hold itself together to be running a comprehensive radar of it's air space, it gives us room to get a small plane in here, a C-12. It'll be flying out of Ramstein Air Base. We still need to need to be careful about visual contact, so it's going to be arriving at approximately 2300 tonight-"
"Where's it going to land?"
Jaz asks, a little sharp, arms folded across her chest. Top meets her gaze evenly.
"Noah went over some SAT intelligence and found an abandoned highway construction project 20 klicks south-west of our position that should provide a long enough strip for the plane to make it's landing."
McG raises an eyebrow.
"In the pitch dark? What the hell kind of crack pilots are they spitting out of Europe."
Top gives both of them a look, and McG snaps his mouth closed.
"If you two would let me finish, you'd know the answers to these questions. Yes, McG, it'll be dark, which means we're gonna need to find some way to light the runway for the pilots as they make their descent. We've got-" he pauses, glancing at his wrist, "six hours to figure that out. Preach, what are you thinking?"
McG glances at Preach whose brows are furrowed.
"We're just about flat out of gas, Top. Definitely not enough to make it 20 klicks."
He says quietly. Top sighs, looking down.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Jaz, you and I will head back to the city, see if we can get our hands on some more fuel. Preach keep comms open with command, see if they have any more updates for us."
Everybody disperses to carry out their tasks and so McG is left alone with Amir again. At first he checks there's no air trapped in the IV tube, that the line hasn't crimped anywhere, that the valve in his chest is still clear. Amir's pulse is better and his blood pressure's up, there's even a little color returning to his face. When he's satisfied Amir's doing as well as he can be McG pulls up a chair and takes a seat next his friend. It's evening now, and soft yellow light filters through the plastic sheeting hanging over the windows and dyes the walls of the room golden. It's almost beautiful, in an obtuse sort of way. With nothing else left to do, he settles in to wait.
He's half a second away from dozing off when he hears the faint sound of cloth catching against felt. At first he doesn't think much of it, Amir's shifted a few times before without waking up, but when it happens again he sits up straight. He's greeted with the sight of open hazel eyes and a pinched forehead as Amir tries to push himself up. Lunging forward McG carefully lowers him back down, and doesn't say anything about the lack of resistance to his gentle touch.
"Hey, don't try and sit up alright."
He says, as he moves to take Amir's vitals for what feels like the hundredth time today. Amir lets him, eyes roaming around the room.
"Where are we?"
He slurs, frowning a little. McG notes the slur and files it away, but considering that Amir's pulse is steady and he's conscious and talking he's not too worried.
"Just outside of Derna. And yes, before you ask, you are lying on a pool table. How are you feeling?"
Amir looks at the IV depositing blood into his arm and back to McG.
"Better. Less…blurry. Pretty tired."
McG nods,
"Yeah, blood loss'll do that too you. Don't let Jaz hear you say that though, she's gonna start bitching about you sleeping on the job again."
That gets a laugh out of Amir, even if it's small and sounds a little like it hurts. It fades quickly though, as he takes a deep breath, not looking at McG.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry again." He says slowly, licking his cracked lips. "For before, in the car."
McG just waves him off, grinning.
"Aw come on, I already told you its no big deal. Barely even feel it anymore."
Amir shakes his head though, and doesn't smile. When he finally meets McG's gaze his eyes are shadowed, almost embarrassed.
"No, not for that- I mean, yes for that, but also…. I'm sorry I lost control. You shouldn't have seen…" he trails off, looking away again. After a long moment he clears his throat and continues. "I'm sorry, it was an unprofessional lapse of control and it won't happen again."
McG sits stunned, unsure what to say, unsure if he even heard Amir right. He knows Amir's all about repressing his feelings and shit but this is a whole new level of crazy.
"Amir, Jesus Christ man, you don't need to apologize for that. You were…" you were obviously having a full blown post traumatic flashback after massive trauma he thinks, but doesn't say, because he doesn't think it's what Amir wants or needs to hear right now. "You don't need to apologize."
He finishes instead lamely. Amir's eyes are already closed again though, breathing evening out once more. McG runs a hand down his face, feeling a little sick. He thinks about how long it took Jaz to get right after Istanbul, thinks about how even after she was cleared for duty it was months before she felt like Jaz again. Thinks about three weeks and three years and decides that once they get home they're all going to need to start checking themselves more around Amir because he is obviously not okay. And they'd let him get away with it. Let him lull them all into complacency, into pretending they didn't see the cracks because he played horseshoe with them and cooked them toast that wasn't toast and his favorite western movie was Blazing fucking Saddles.
There's obviously something Amir's not telling them, too, beyond just what happened during his years undercover. Something bigger then that, something deeper, something older. He's sure Top's aware of it, there's no way he would've let Amir on the team if he wasn't. And he thinks Jaz knows something too, can see it in the way she looks at Amir sometimes when she thinks no ones watching. Something changed between the two of them after Paris, some sort of mutual understanding. And it's not like he blames the guy, he's got shit he's not exactly eager to spill his guts about. They all do. He just hopes that one day Amir feels like he can talk to him, and he's ready to wait for that day. In the mean time, he's going make sure they all stop turning a blind eye because it's easier that way, Amir deserves better then that from them, all of them.