They wait, because now there is nothing left to do but wait. After the constant rush of the day the absence of some disaster dogging close at their heels feels almost unsettling, and Adam shifts uncomfortably on his makeshift seat. Amir wakes up a few more times as McG checks his pulse and BP but he doesn't say much, just blinks slowly with hooded eyes. Adam gets the sense any energy he'd used to push himself onward has been tapped out and his tank is empty. He can relate. The sun sinks slowly down behind the buildings of Derna in the distance, shadows lengthening along the walls like eerie figures, slowly engulfing them all. After it gets too dark too see Preach switches on a portable lamp, setting it on a box near the middle of the room. Adam squints at the glare, wincing a little at the bright fluorescence that suddenly bathes the room, throwing his teams faces into harsh relief.
He checks his watch, the glowing neon green numbers flashing methodically as the minutes tick by. It's almost ten now. The exfil point is 20 minutes away from where they're hunkering down, so they'll need to leave soon. As if on cue Jaz lifts her head from where she's been fiddling with something for the last half hour or so.
"I've got an idea,"
She says, holding up one of their standard issue flare guns. Adam sighs and shakes his head.
"It won't stay up long enough for them to land, we need something stationary that'll light the runway."
Jaz shakes her head though, the slightest hint of a grin on her face.
"No, we're not going to shoot them off, look,"
As she speaks she slides the flare out of the barrel of the gun and holding it out flat in the palm of her hand. Adam starts to understand where she's going with this.
"Between the four of us we must have at least a dozen of these cartridges. We set them up along the edge of the road, like so" she bends over and places it on the floor next to her foot, fuse pointing towards the ceiling, "And then light the suckers up. If we time it right they should burn long enough to guide the pilot in."
Adam nods slowly, and then glances over to Preach.
"Think it'll work?"
Preach runs a hand thoughtfully down his chin, brows furrowed.
"Yeah," he says after a long moment, "I don't see why not. The powder should burn just fine whether it's in the gun or not."
"How are we going to ignite them though? The firing cap is useless if the flare isn't in the gun."
McG asks from where he's still sitting by Amir's shoulder. Preach shrugs,
"We cut the top off and light them manually. We'll just have to be careful to not lose a finger."
In other circumstances Adam might have tried to make a joke about that, but right now he doesn't have the energy or the heart so he just nods again.
"Alright, lets start consolidating all the cartridges. I'm going to update command."
As the rest of the team start to rifle through their packs and gather the flares he steps just outside of the room, tapping his comms.
"Command, this is Mortem One."
Patricia replies almost immediately,
"Adam, what is it?"
There's an edge to her voice that suggests she's expecting more bad news, so he hurries on.
"We've got a plan to guide our ride in. Going to use flare cartridges to light up the runway for them. What's the ETA?"
There's a quick moment of silence and then Noah's in his ear.
"The plane lifted off from Ramstein at 1900 hours, it just left Italian air space now so it should be right on time."
"Alright. We'll be ready."
He taps his comms again and takes a deep breath, walking back into the room.
"Listen up, we've got just over an hour till our ride out of here shows, let's start packing up. We'll need time to set up for them at the exfil point."
Everyone nods, shifting smoothly into motion. Preach moves to the other room to collect the Extratough and comm gear still spread out on the table. McG quietly and efficiently gets Amir ready to move again. Left with little to do Adam moves past Amir and McG to crouch beside Jaz, easily falling into sync with her as she works to pack up their gear. Her mouth is a fine line across her face, and she doesn't look at him.
"You alright?"
He asks after a few moments of tense silence. She nearly starts, gaze darting towards him and then away, eyes flashing dark with something he can't recognize.
"I'm fine."
She says shortly, in a tone that invites no further discussion. He can nearly see the walls falling into place in her expression. Adam is not so easily dissuaded though, and he pushes forward.
"Jaz…"
He says with a sigh, but before he can even finish his sentence she cuts him off, finally abandoning the pretense of packing and turning to look him dead in the eyes.
"What do you want me to say, Top? That I'm not fine? That I can't even look at Amir without wanting to hit someone? That I'm scared shitless? How does that help anyone in this room right now, how does that get Amir out of here in one piece?"
Her voice rises with every question, until she's almost shouting, but not quite because angry or not they're still in hostile territory. McG looks over at them, brow furrowed, and Amir shifts in his doze like even he's heard. Adam rocks back on his heels, a little taken aback by the venom in Jaz's voice. It's not directed at him, not really, but it still stings a little. He doesn't say anything, and Jaz deflates a little, turning back to the pack in her hands.
"I'm not fine, but I'll be better once we get the hell out of this country. Okay?"
And Adam recognizes her words for the apology they are, and knows they'll have to be enough, for now.
"Okay."
He says, and hope she hears the apology in his. Reaching out he puts a hand on her shoulder, lets it linger for a second. She leans in a little, pressing against his palm and she's warm and solid under his fingers. When he pulls his hand away it feels suddenly cool, and he clenches and unclenches his fist as he stands.
"Top, we're ready to move."
McG says quietly from behind him.
"Yeah. Yeah, okay let's do this."
As Adam helps McG to carry Amir's stretcher down the stairs and to the truck he thinks that this is so close to being over, so close to being done. But the thing is, Adam knows, that even once they make it on the plane and get Amir home and wash the sand out of their hair and the blood off their hands, it isn't over. Because Amir might be alive, but he's not okay. That much has been made clear. And the truth is Adam doesn't know what to do about that. Adam knows a lot of things, he knows how to kill somebody with his bare hands a hundred and one different ways, knows how to sink a bullet center mass from a 50 meters away, he knows how to stop an arterial bleed and apply a tourniquet and he knows exactly how long it takes for a man to bleed to death but he doesn't know how to help Amir. It grates more then he'd like. Because he should know, he should be better then this. He will be better then this. For Amir, but for Jaz and McG and Preach too.
Shockingly, after the shit show that has been this entire mission the extraction goes off without a hitch. They show up to the exfil point with time to spare, McG staying with a still dozing Amir while the rest of them set up the flare cartridges along the stretch of abandoned highway. It almost feels anticlimactic when the plane touches down smoothly on the dark tarmac, the flickering eerie red of the flares reflecting back against the metal of its body. Like releasing a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. It's not until he's in the cramped back of the C-12, Amir lying next to his feet that he let's himself truly relax though. As soon as he hits the seat it's like every strings been cut, whole body slumping limp in the web seat. He doesn't think he could move if he tried.
He feels something knock against his boot, and looks down to see Amir's eyes cracked open.
"You got me, Top. You got me."
He says quietly, cracked lips barely moving, and Dalton feels something immense welling up in his chest, something bigger then he dares to feel right now.
"Yeah," he says roughly, clearing his throat. "Of course we did. We're a team, if we leave somebody behind, we get them back."
From the hatch he hears Jaz's voice counting out as she pulls herself into the plane.
"Six." She says, clear and loud and echoing around the small space with finality. "Everyone's on."
Everyone's on. And the truth is that Adam's a liar, because sometimes you don't get people back. Sometimes they die or they disappear or they come back missing something. But not this time, not Amir. Not if he can help it. And as his team crowds around them, hands reaching out to aid and to comfort, for the first time since he watched Amir get pushed into that jeep so many weeks ago he feels whole. He feels home.