Emily stopping by almost daily had become the norm. So he was not surprised when there was a knock at the door around 4 p.m..

"Coming!" he called out and reached for his crutches, but before he had even managed to get his leg down from where he had it propped up, the door unlocked and both Trent and Sonny stood in the opening.

"Thought we'd make it easy for you…" Sonny drawled as he dangled the key he had used to unlock the door with from between his fingers.

"Oh, okay…" Metal nodded, "Come in, sit down."

"You know, if I didn't have this much self-esteem, I might have taken that look on your face badly…" Trent smirked, "Expecting someone else?"

Full Metal shrugged, "Don't really know… Don't have any confirmed plans."

"-But you were thinking we'd be someone else?" Sonny fished, "Maybe a short, brunette, nurse?"

The guilty look on his face was all the confirmation the Texan needed.

"Wait, you?" Trent's eyebrows inched closer together, "You've met someone?"

"How blind-drunk were you a couple of weeks ago?" Sonny twisted around to glance at Trent, "That scary SOB over there spent almost the entire night getting to know that nurse we talked to at the hospital over there better…"

"Really?"

Sonny nodded.

"How is she here? Shouldn't she still be at the other side of the world?"

"Apparently the hospital here is the sister-hospital of the one I was brought to there…" Metal shrugged, "And she works a few months here, and a few months there…"

"Really? What are the odds?"

"Pretty damn low." Metal admitted, "But, crazier things has happened."

"Yeah, like Sonny having a girlfriend?" Trent offered, earning himself a hard push from the Texan at his side.

Metal gestured for them to come closer, "Come on, find somewhere to sit down."

"So, how have you been?" Trent asked as he sat down in the armchair. Sonny went for the opposite end of the couch.

"Good." He answered, "That night out was a bit much, but other than that… Good."

"Too much hobbling around?"

He nodded, "Yeah, I… I barely managed to move around here the next couple of days."

"Ouch…" Trent sympathized.

"Well, you should've seen our trusty medic the next day…" Sonny chuckled, "He looked like someone had dug him up the night before and given him the Frankenstein treatment."

"Yeah?"

Trent nodded a little, "Yeah, think I was about half past dead…"

"-And I missed it…" Metal chuckled and leaned forward to adjust how his leg was propped up on a pillow on the table.

Sonny nodded.

Trent just shook his head, "So this girl of yours…"

"Look at him, trying to change the topic…" Sonny smirked, "Give it up Sawyer."

Metal chuckled, "Emily? She's… Too good for me. Any way I look at it."

"-And here I was, thinking we would roast Trent for a little while longer…" Sonny sighed, "Alright-alright…"

Trent shook his head a little before he looked at Metal, "Too good for you? Can't be…"

"She's…" Metal chuckled a bit, "She's… Amazing."

"Well, I've never claimed that you're a man of many words, but…" Sonny shrugged, "You've gotta be able to do better than that…"

"What can I say?" Metal shook his head, "Ever met someone who feels like pure light and warmth?"

That was a statement uncharacteristic enough to draw laughter from the two other men.

"No, I mean it!" Metal sighed and swatted at Trent who was closest to him, "It's impossible not to relax and feel all warm and safe when she's around.

"Well, anyway… She's gotta be made of something else, or just love scary stuff." Sonny smirked, "Working at a hospital in the middle of IED central -AND- falling for you… Girl probably has more reasons to have PTSD than all of Bravo team combined."

Trent chuckled, while Metal fixed Sonny with an almost lethal glare.

"See what I mean? Scary!" Sonny asked Trent, pointing at Full Metal, "The guy's got a busted leg which looks like a hybrid between a twig and a porcupine, and I still want to run and hide when he gives me that look."

Metal couldn't help but chuckle, "Twig and porcupine… Pretty damn spot on…"

Sonny nodded and glanced over at Metal's leg, "Any progress wit the leg?"

"Had X-rays done last week…" he shrugged, "Thigh and knee are looking good. Gonna get the top part of this contraption taken off some time next week."

"And the rest of the leg?" Trent pressed.

"Most of it is looking a lot better than last time."

"But?"

Metal folded his hands at the back of his head and sighed, "The open one I had down by my ankle, that's not healing like it should…"

"Non-union, or? Delayed?" Trent asked.

"Well, it had started showing some regrowth, but…" Full Metal shook his head, "The surgeon still thought it might be best to put in a graft, said we were going to give it a couple more weeks and decide then…"

"So, the waiting game got a fifth quarter?" Sonny asked.

"Feels like it…" Metal nodded.

"Excited about getting some of that frame off?" Trent shot in.

"Yeah…." Metal smirked, "Excited about maybe fitting into something other than shorts and extremely oversized cargo pants."

"Yeah, maybe just oversized cargo pants will do?" Sonny mused, "Pants are still going to struggle with fitting around your lower leg."

"Mhm…" he nodded and placed a hand over the two circles closest to his hip, "But so far, getting things around these two things has been the hardest…"

"Gonna be weird moving your knee again, huh?"

"Sure is. Probably won't be much fun the first couple of weeks."

"It won't…" Trent reassured, "I remember when I was finally allowed to move my elbow again… I don't know how many times I almost wished they had just cut the damn thing off right below my shoulder."

"Well, my goal is to get better range of motion in my knee than you have in that elbow…"

"What are you talking about? My range of motion is just fine…"

"Yeah? Then extend BOTH your arms in front of you and try to tell us there's no difference between them…" Sonny leaned forward to better look at Trent.

"I didn't claim it was perfect, I claimed it was just fine. It's nothing that keeps me out of duty." Trent shot back, but still extended his arms in front of him, "I know very well that my right arm doesn't go all the way straight, but who cares? I can still do everything this job requires of us, that's good enough for me."

Metal chuckled, "Well, that's the thing… I don't think I would be able to do much if my knee didn't extend the last few degrees."

"Probably right about that…" Trent shrugged.

After about two hours of the guys being there, there was another knock at his door.

"I'll get it!" Sonny said and got up before Metal even had a chance of getting his leg down from the pillow.

"It's probably Emily…" Metal smirked as he continued lifting his leg down from the table.

"Yeah, and I'll get the door." Sonny said as he signed for Metal to stay put, "I'll have the door open before you're even up…"

Metal helped his leg back on the pillow as Sonny opened the door.

"Hello miss…" he grinned.

"Oh, hey…" Emily stalled, then looked past Sonny to see that he wasn't the only visitor there. She made eye contact with Metal, "I could come back tomorrow…"

"No-no-no!" Metal shook his head, "Come on in, these won't bite."

She chuckled, "You sure?"

"They would have to answer to me if they did…" Metal nodded.

"He's right, ma'am." Sonny reassured.

Emily smirked and stepped inside, nodded towards Sonny and towards Trent, before she went to sit down beside Full Metal.

Metal let his left arm drape across the back of the couch as Emily sat down next to him, a content smile on his lips.

She tucked her legs up under herself and leaned in next to him. He leaned a bit closer to her as well.

"So, how have you been today?"

He shrugged, "Better. Not that much pain."

"Good…" she smiled.

"And your day?"

"SLOW…" she sighed, "But that's good for everyone else… So…"

"Emergency room today?" he mused.

"Yeah." She nodded, then she looked towards the two soldiers she didn't know quite as well, "And you two? Having a good day?"

They both nodded.

Trent couldn't help but sneak glances at one of his best friends and the woman beside him.

He couldn't remember the last time he had seen Full Metal this at peace with just sitting around. It was no secret that the other man's comfort zone was where most people wet themselves out of fear, and that down-time usually brought a restless and snappy version of the greying soldier.

But Metal looked like he was just enjoying himself.

He was pretty sure Metal was getting into that part of his recovery where he wasn't in too much pain to be restless at times, if not all the time.

Trent had been there when Metal was with Kiara. But even back then the man had never been able to settle down like this. Not without knowing that the next OP was just around the corner. He had no doubt that Emily was good for Full Metal.

He focused on his coffee for a while, he didn't want either of them to notice that he was staring.

While Sonny was busy telling one of his infamous Texas-tall-tales, he allowed himself to take a good long look at the fresh couple. He didn't know Emily well enough to know how she acted around other people, but she seemed incredibly comfortable with Metal's arm draped over her shoulder, like she belonged just there. He knew Metal though, and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen the other man so genuinely happy just to exist in a moment.

He hoped that it would last. That he one day would be able to see his friend kiss her in front of a full church, or at a courthouse, or some equivalent. He wished that for Full Metal.