AN: Hey guys! So if you haven't already guessed, Clay and Sonny are definitely my top two favorites. Of course, I love all the characters but they've been my top two since the beginning. That also means that everything that's going on between and the storylines surrounding them on the show currently hurts me. But we don't need to get into all that. All of that was to say that in this one-shot, everything team-wise will be normal. I won't say anything else in case some of you aren't caught up on season 3, but if you are you know what I mean!

Also, I know I said that I had planned for theses stories to be the characters getting more minor injuries, but this idea popped into my head about halfway through writing the chapter, and I couldn't help myself and had to tweak the story a little! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Stubborn

Clay had been called a lot of things in his lifetime. Some good, some bad, and some that could be taken either way. The one that was the most common was stubborn. He chose to take it as a compliment most of the time, no matter which way it was meant. But this time, maybe his team was right when they meant it in a negative way. Clay's philosophy has always been that being in the service requires you to push your body past its limits, especially when he thought something was just minor. But maybe Trent is right, maybe after this, he would start listening to his body a little more.

Clay did his best to stifle the groan of pain as he sat up in bed, but it was no use. He was sore. He was honestly more than sore, as even the slightest movement sent shocks of pain through the left side of his abdomen. But he'd be damned if he was gonna let the guys see how much pain he was in. He slowly climbed down the ladder with a hand pressed tightly to his side. Trent walked across the small space of the cabin towards him to do what had become a daily routine in the last few days.

"Alright, let's see how you're healing up!" Trent said.

"Do we really have to do this every morning? They're still broken, just like they were yesterday." Clay muttered with annoyance as he wiped the sleep crust out of his eyes.

"Yea, we do because you sleep like your possessed and I have to make sure none of the bones shifted! Not to mention the 30 some cuts and little chunks of flesh your missing from all that debris." The medic said, giving him a look that almost looked like a stern father. Clay sighed, knowing he was right, and carefully pulled his t-shirt off and held his arms out from his side so that Trent could unwrap the bandage that was wound tightly around his chest. As he stood there, his mind traveled back to the week before, when the injury had happened.

"Been trapped on the base so long I almost missed these cursed roads out here!" Sonny quipped as he spits his toothpick out the window of the van they were riding in on their way to the target building.

"Dude, it's been like six days!" Ray replied with a laugh.

"That's still too long!"

"Yea, well that gun of yours better not have any issues! You only cleaned it like 15 times!" Clay said, rolling his eyes with a smirk at his teammate. Just as Sonny was about to respond, Brock saw a vehicle approaching them.

"Havoc, this is five, do you have ISR on us?" Brock asked, slowing the van down slightly. Everyone suddenly felt the air change at the tone of Brock's voice.

"Affirmative Bravo five, we see the truck approaching. Appears to be carrying at least eight fighting aged males with a gun mounted on the back." Davis answered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. In the next second, Brock swerved sharply to the right as the ground around their van was peppered with bullets. The men spilled out of the van and ducked behind it for cover.

"Where'd these guys come from?!" Jason yelled.

"We're about 10 mikes away from the town! Someone tipped them off, and now we're sitting ducks!" Clay yelled back. The road they were on was narrow and dusty, with a small rundown shack about a foot off the roadside.

"One this is Havoc, ISR is showing what appears to be another truckload of the enemy approaching your position!" Commander said, his mind spinning as he tried to figure out how he was going to get his team safely back to base so they could figure out who had tipped off their target.

"Copy Havoc. There are some remnants of a building to our right! We're gonna make our move there and try to hold these guys off while you get us some backup! We gotta get rid of this first load before the second truck gets here and they overtake us!" Jason yelled over the sound of his men returning fire from behind the cover of the van that was already full of holes. Clay had been the last to get out of the van and had just barely made it around the back opposite his team as the bullets started to fly. He hadn't had any time to move, so he was stuck ducking down behind the left tail light while the rest of the guys were pinned against the right side of the van. He used the muzzle of his rifle to clear out the remaining glass from one of the windows before cautiously lifting himself up in the window so that he would have a clear sight to pick off the rest of the targets.

"I got these last guys, I'll cover you! Move!" Clay said, motioning for his team to head for the cover of the building.

"No way! There's too many of them! We're not leaving you high and dry while we run!" Sonny yelled back.

"It's better than us all getting stuck here! Only a matter of time till they launch something at this van blow us all to high heaven! I've got a better angle on them anyway! I'll be right behind you! Go!" Clay said back.

"He's right! We'll get to cover and slow the next truck down while he gets rid of these last few. Let's move!" Jason said. He shot Clay a stern look that made it known that he wasn't happy with the situation, and then nodded for him to start the cover fire. Clay nodded back and watched as his team moved quickly out from behind the van. He picked off the remaining men in the truck and was only a few feet behind his team, running to catch up with them on their sprint towards the small shack on the side of the road. Just as he passed the cab of the truck that was now full of dead enemies, he heard a frantic scream in his earpiece.

"Grenade! Six MOVE!" Jason screamed when he spotted a small green projectile thrown from the bed of the truck that was bearing down on them. They dove behind the cover of the wall, only to quickly pop back up and fire into the newest arrival of enemies in the truck. Fear gripped them as they watched rocks, dirt, and dust fly into the air as the grenade went off, sending Clay flying. Spenser felt that all-too-familiar feeling of weightlessness as the shockwave lifted him off the ground and tossed him to the left, slamming him against the side of the truck. His eyes went wide as he felt all the air forced out of his lungs as he hit the ground. The commotion in his ear was hard to hear over the ringing but in the next second he felt himself once again being lifted off the ground, but this time it was by a strong arm that scooped under his right shoulder and wrapped around his waist with a hand grabbing his tac belt, hauling him back to his feet. Then he was moving again. He tried desperately to get his bearings, but he couldn't get the world to stop spinning a million miles an hour. Almost as quickly as he had started moving again, he suddenly stopped and was dropped down behind a wall. Thankfully, his senses started working normally again, just as Trent's face came into view.

"Doesn't look like there are any major wounds other than the shrapnel!" Trent said after quickly scanning Clay's body with his eyes. He ran his hands down both legs and arms, feeling for any deformities or stickiness that would indicate bleeding. When he found none, he moved to Clay's torso, placing his hands under each armpit. He hadn't even moved his hands yet when Clay let out a cry of pain from the pressure on his left side. The medic stopped immediately.

"Tell me what hurts!" he yelled over the sound of gunfire still going off around them as the rest of Bravo continued to eliminate the men who had them pinned in the building.

"Havoc this is One, we need that exfil now! Six is down!" Jason said, stealing a glance at the corner of the shelter where Trent was working Clay over.

"5 mikes out! How bad?" Eric asked the worry lines on his forehead wrinkling again.

"Not sure, got thrown by a grenade. We're a little busy to ask at the moment! Four's got him!" Jason replied.

"R..ribs!" Clay managed to force the word out.

"Both sides or just one?"

"L...left. Just … left!" he answered, leaning his head back against the wall and squeezing his eyes shut. Before Trent could do anything more, the sound of screeching breaks sounded from the road. Their exfil had arrived. Trent helped Clay stand and guided him towards the vehicle as the pain made Clay dizzy and unsteady on his feet.

"Dammit Clay! Why're you so stubborn?! Could've gotten yourself killed!" Sonny asked angrily as Clay sat back against the seat and Trent stripped him of his vest so that he could get a better look at his left side.

"Worked… didn't it?" Clay answered through gritted teeth. If looks could kill, he'd be deeper than six feet from the eyes inside the van. The thing that made it worse was that they knew he was right.

"Alright, everything looks good with the ribs. I gotta clean and redress the bandages on the shrapnel wounds." Trent said. Sonny and Brock finally started to stir in their bunks and move around the cabin. Sonny finally rounded the corner and finally got a glimpse of Clay's abdomen.

"Damn Blondie! You bruise like a peach!" Sonny said after a whistle.

"Yea, well you would too if you got thrown against the side of a truck!" Clay answered, hissing in pain when Trent rubbed some antiseptic on the cuts even though a few of them were already starting to scab over.

"I guess so. Did Mandy say anything about the leak?" Sonny asked, his voice quieting at the sentence.

"Not that we've heard. We'd probably be the last to know anyway." Brock said. Just as he said it, their buzzers started going off and they all looked down towards it.

"Speak of the devil!" Sonny said and pulled on his boots. Clay clenched his teeth against the pain as Trent re-wrapped the compression bandage around his ribs to hold them in place. He pulled on a shirt and followed his team out the door.

Base Command Center…

The team crowded around their usual table in the front of the command center, looking towards Mandy, Eric, and Davis standing in the front.

"Clay, how are you feeling?" Davis asked, seeing the almost imperceptible wince from the youngest as he sat down in a chair at the table.

"Fine. Trent's taking good care of me. What do we have?" He deflected, just as she expected.

"Another chance at our target. We received intel on where our HVT ran to hide after the last opp was blown, so we have another chance to move on him. You guys will do a roof infill and then a car exfil." Davis said, and then filled in a few more of the details. They talked through the opp and got everything ready. It was only about noon, and although they sometimes did daytime opps while on deployment, this guy had gotten away from them once and they weren't going to let it happen this time. They were waiting for nightfall, which meant at least a few hours of nothing to do but wait. The team filed out of the command to go find ways to keep themselves busy for the next few hours.

After about an hour of cleaning and prepping his kit, Clay was going stir crazy. It had been about a week and a half since his dance with a grenade, and he was tired of "limited activity" as Trent called it. He was tired of trying to do things and having one of the guys tell him not to, or telling him he needed to take it easy. He had certainly had worse. He was sick of sitting around when he felt fine. Other than the soreness, of course. But that was nothing. He walked out into the common area, put his headphones in, and grabbed a set of weights.

He had been getting after it for a few minutes, ignoring the stinging in his shoulder. He was almost done his last circuit, so immersed in his workout that he didn't sense the footsteps coming towards him. Not until a face appeared over him, and a hand reached to grab the bar he was holding. He sat up and pulled his headphone off with a confused and annoyed look on his face.

"I didn't know you hit your head on the truck too! What the heck are you doing?!" Jason said, setting the bar back on the rack. Clay looked around at the guys who were crowded around him, all with looks of annoyance, but not surprise.

"What does it look like? I'm tired of just sitting around! Half you guys were doing the same thing!" He snapped back, looking to where Brock was wiping his face with a towel after a run with Cerberus.

"Yea, but we don't have stitches in our shoulder!" Jason answered.

"And now you don't either." Trent said, rolling his eyes as he moved closer. Clay followed his eyes down to his left shoulder and cursed under his breath when he saw the blood staining the sleeve of his t-shirt.

"Take your shirt off, I gotta close you back up. Full Metal, throw me my bag." Trent said, his no-nonsense tone coming back as he pulled another bench up behind Clay. Clay did as he was told.

"How did you not know you were ripping stitches out? You can't tell me it didn't hurt. Your tough, but you still have pain receptors." Ray asked.

"It just stung a little. Not any more than it normally does." Clay replied, trying to keep himself from flinching when Trent stuck the needle into the skin on his shoulder blade.

"I can't decide if your stubborn or just stupid." Sonny said as he grabbed the weights and started working out himself.

"There's a difference?" Jason muttered, earning snickers from the rest of them and an eye roll from Clay.

A few hours later…

The sky was finally dark as nightfall reached the base. The team headed towards the tac room to grab their kits and weapons. Clay ignored the looks he got when he left the bunks and joined his team.

"What do you think you're doing?" Sonny asked finally breaking the silence.

"Same thing you are, going after our target." Clay replied nonchalantly.

"Dude, you've got six broken ribs!" Jason said.

"I'm aware. But it's been a week, and I'm tired of sitting around! I'm fine!" he answered.

"You need to start listening to your body! I really don't feel like having to stitch you up again, and you can't lie and tell me your ribs aren't sore!" Trent said, tired of constantly having to repeat himself. And it wasn't just with Clay, the kid was just typically the worst with it.

"You won't! I'll be fine! And besides, we need everyone to make sure this guy doesn't get away from us again and you don't have time to fill anyone else in on the mission." Clay said. The room went quiet apart from the sound of them packing their gear.

"He's got a point Jase." Ray said after a few minutes. Jason sighed and looked at Trent, who shrugged in response. He knew the kid was right, but he also knew he was still in pain. The medic knew each of his teammates inside in out and could see through all their masks.

"Fine. But stay close, and don't do anything stupid!" Jason said, and they finished getting ready.

On target…

The team moved along the dark streets with their nods down guiding the way. Clay tried his best not to stiffen his muscles as he could feel the eyes of his teammates on him, glancing over for every now and then to check on him. He had ignored their looks on they ride in when the potholes had jostled his ribs around and drawn a wince or two from him. They moved swiftly into the house from the street after setting breaching charges on the door.

"Havoc this is one, passing mustang. Moving to Ferrari." Jason said.

"Copy one. ISR is clear." Davis said.

Soon enough, they made sure everyone was set and then burst into the room where their target and his men were sitting around a table. Bravo had the element of surprise giving them the upper hand as they rushed in with their guns at the ready. Just when they thought they had the situation under control, one of the men pulled a sawed-off shotgun out from under the table and fired a single round. He was quickly dropped by Sonny, but not before the shell found its mark. Clay's grunt was louder than expected as he stumbled backward from the impact of the round.

"Clay! Clay you good?!" Full Metal was the first one to watch the youngest drop, and the closest to him when he did. Metal cursed out loud when he saw where the round was lodged.

"Shit! It's in the left side of his vest!" he said. When there was no response to the question, he shoved his hand underneath the vest to check for blood. There wasn't any, but that did nothing to ease the concern. If anything it was made worse by the pained cry the movement elicited from Clay. The rest of the guys quickly finished tying up the men so Trent could come to his aid.

After doing a quick exam, he feared that he knew exactly what had happened.

"The round hit the broken ribs. I can't tell if it knocked anything loose or not, but there's a good chance of it." Trent said, confirming what they were all thinking.

"Havoc, this is one. Passed Bugatti. Alert doctors on base, we're gonna need an x-ray room open as soon as we get back. Six took a shotgun round to the vest." Jason said, all the while watching closely over Clay and Trent.

"Talk to me Spense, can you feel anything moving inside?" Trent said while they waited for a response from command.

"D…. don't… know. Jus...h..hurts!" Clay said through shaky breaths, which quickly caught Trent's attention. At least three of the original breaks had been close to his left lung, which is what was worrying him the most at the moment.

"Trent, we gotta go. Can we move him?" Jason asked.

"Carefully, but yes. We're gonna have to pull him straight up. He can't bend his torso at all because if I'm right and one of his ribs isn't attached anymore one wrong move and that things stuck in an organ." Trent said, worry growing in each of the team at his words. Jason nodded, and he and the rest of the guys slowly and gently pulled Clay to his feet while ensuring his back was straight the entire time. After a few more groans of pain from the kid, Trent pulled open a syringe with his teeth and jammed it into Clay's leg. They moved to exfil as cautiously as possible and headed back to base.

Base hospital about an hour later…

"I should've known he wasn't ready." Jason said when he heard the sound of Ray's footsteps coming towards him. It had been about an hour since they had arrived back at base and Clay had been rushed off for x-rays and then surgery, fulfilling all of their fears.

"Don't do that. You know better. Besides, the decision wasn't solely yours. And just so you know Trent is kicking himself even harder than you are right now. I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told him. There was no way he wasn't going with. The kid's too stubborn to admit when he's hurting. Dare I say it, but I think Manila may have made him listen to his body even less cause after something like that, everything else seems like nothing. This isn't on you." Ray said. Jason sighed. He knew he was right about everything, as usual.

"That's what scares me the most. I used to be exactly like him, and look at me now. It isn't a good route." Jason replied. Just as Ray was about to answer, his phone buzzed with a text from Sonny.

The kid just got out of surgery, gonna be fine. He's got 4 new pins holding 2 of the ribs together after the shot broke them in another place. No damage to any of the organs tho.

"Give him some credit. He's resilient." Ray said after they both read the text and were instantly filled with relief.

"Sounds to me like a nicer way of calling him stubborn!" Jason replied as they started their walk towards the hospital to check on their boy.