Cade POV
Crosshairs carried a sleeping Jamie upstairs while Hound and I helped J.R. to the medbay. The pain medication is wearing off, making walking painful, but she refused to be carried.

The pain became unbearable by the time J.R. laid in bed. Crosshairs rushed into the room.
"I thought so, crud," he says as he walks towards the bed. J.R. tried to find a comfortable position.
"I know it hurts, but you need to stay still. Moving around makes the pain worse."
Crosshairs moves J.R. onto his lap and hugged her. I watched the tears roll down her face telling us how much pain she's in. I'd rather not use sedation drugs or sleep aid, but we need to be careful.
"Crosshairs, let go, I don't feel good."
I couldn't believe how fast Hound got the trash bin.
"That's not good," Hound frets as J.R. threw up.
As much as J.R. would rather not have an audience, I walk over to see what she's throwing up to make sure it's not blood.
"It's because she's in a lot of pain," I tell Crosshairs and Hound before starting the infusion and sitting on the other chair. Hound does his best to help Crosshairs keep J.R. from crying. Drift joins the challenge five minutes later. The tricky part is J.R. hates how much Crosshairs has been taking care of her; now, three bots are around her, trying to keep her from crying, which might cause her stress level to rise. Add J.R. threw up again. Damn it; I'd rather not have to use drugs to get her to sleep.

Ten minutes pass before they tell me to go to bed. I'd rather stay in case this turns into a serious situation even if they can handle it. Crosshairs gets J.R. to lie on the bed with him though we need to keep the head of the bed at a 45° angle so he can't lay next to her. Instead, he lays on the bed first, and J.R. lays on him. By now, the medication is kicking in, though not enough to make the pain stop. J.R. is going to have a hard time dealing with this for six to eight weeks.

Crosshairs POV
An hour passes before the pain goes away, and J.R. is asleep. Cade goes to his room, and Hound goes to Jayce's. Bumblebee is already sitting in Jamie's room.
"J.R. will not like dealing with this for weeks," Drift points out as he covered her and me with a blanket. I'm not moving even if she's asleep and on drugs.
"Neither is Jayce. It's another fucking challenge."
I watched the tears roll down Drift's face as he sat on the chair. I know what he's thinking; we've been thinking about it a lot lately.
A few seconds pass before he runs out of the room.
Damn, Drift, is something else bothering you?

Four hours pass before J.R. wakes up in pain and not happy about it.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she mumbled, thinking I wouldn't hear it.
"Oh no, you're not peeing the bed, even if I wasn't laying on it."
"I don't want to move; it hurts so bad," she cries.
"I'd have to move you to change the bedding."
I send a text to the other bots. Drift is in the room in under a minute.
"It took an hour before the pain fades, you can't wait that long," Drift points out.
Sure, J.R. can hold it for an hour, but that's not good for humans to do.
Drift finds notes on the drug we've been using, hoping there's something we can do. Unfortunately, even if we did an injection, it would take an hour to kick in. Either option, J.R. will be in pain for an hour, but she's quiet as we lay here...for now. Her pain is our priority.

Everything is fine for twenty minutes, but the pain gets worse even though J.R. isn't moving.
"Crosshairs...she just..." Drift tries to tell me J.R. just peed without upsetting J.R. I think she's in too much pain to realize what she did or that she's now wet
Might be a good thing since she's still laying on me.
"We can't leave her like this for forty minutes," I sigh.
Drift knew what I was saying we should do.
"Alright, this will help," he says as he injects the sleep aide drug. We waited twenty minutes before she fell asleep.
We moved her to the other bed before I left to get clothes.

Drift POV
It was either let J.R. deal with pain as we help her to the bathroom and her crying once we got her back to bed or let her urinate, resulting in Crosshairs and I having to clean and change her. It's better for her healing lung to do this plus we hate hearing her cry from being in so much pain. I wait for Crosshairs to cone back with clothes and soap from the bathroom. I filled an emesis basin with soap and warm water
"We lucked out; she has several shirts and pants that are the same color."
We move her back to the other bed, and hopefully, she won't know we had to bathe her."
"Damn."
We both couldn't believe how bad her chest looked.
"No wonder she's in so much pain," I comment.
Her chest is red and swollen. Jamie was able to remove the scars from the surgery and the cut J.R. gave herself.
"We'll have to wait until the infusion finishes to change her shirt."
We still bathed her chest and abdomen before putting on clean underwear, pants, and socks before changing the bedding.
"Might as well wait for the infusion to finish," Crosshairs suggests.
The infusion would be complete in twenty minutes. Once J.R. is taken care of, Crosshairs tells me to go back to Jamie's room. Instead, I go to Jayce's room, knowing what I will walk in on; I hate that I'm right. Another night when I'm glad lack of sleep won't affect me.

Six hours later

Jamie POV
Crosshairs had to put J.R. on oxygen overnight. Normally, this shouldn't be happening, but it's not a concern right now; it just makes things more uncomfortable for her. I still check to ensure there are no abnormal sounds and do an x-ray; everything looks good.
"What are we going to do about the pain?" Crosshairs asks, "It's hard to keep her pain free, and it's not great watching how uncomfortable she is while waiting for the pain medication to kick in."
"Nothing without risking her developing an addiction," I tell him before starting to tear up.
"It's ok," he says as he hugs me; I let myself cry.
"Jamie, I'm ok," J.R. says, muffled by the mask.
Crud, I woke her up. Sure, she's ok now. The pain medication is blocking the pain. We're close enough to the bed that she can reach for my hand, pulling me closer and taking the mask off.
"You're getting too stressed for nothing. I hate to do this. Crosshairs, can you get Drift to come here?"
Crosshairs texts Drift as I sit at the front of the bed. J.R. puts the oxygen mask back on. Her oxygen level is a little low.
"What's going on?" Drift asks as he walks towards the bed.
"She's getting too stressed and needs to be taken away from here for a while," Crosshairs explains.
"No!"
"Hey, hey, it's alright. J.R. is recovering, and Crosshairs stays with her. Cade's here if there's a problem. Come on, let's go get breakfast."
He extended his hand.
"Go with him, Jamie," J.R. demands. She took off the mask to sound stern.
I take Drift's hand, and we leave the room.

We went upstairs to my room. Drift sits on the bed and puts me on his lap.
"Can't have you crying while we're out."
"Jamie?" Jayce exclaimed as she walked in, "it's ok."

Drift POV
I don't know if Jayce knows why Jamie is crying or is just trying to get her to stop.
"Come on; we're supposed to be going to breakfast."
I got Jamie to take a shower.
"What has her upset now?" Jayce asks.
"She's having a hard time with J.R.'s injuries again. I saw J.R. is on oxygen again."
"She's beating herself over not being able to heal J.R. Think that's causing most of her stress if J.R. is healing well. She doesn't even know everything that's been going on."
"I've been trying to keep her stress level low. Think seeing J.R. on oxygen again added to her stress. I'm taking her out to breakfast; you want to come?"
"You're not considering it a date?"
"Not anymore, and I don't mind. You both could use some time away from the base."
"Ok."
With that, we leave Jamie's room. She went to her room to get ready, and I went back to the medbay to get the details about J.R.

Crosshairs and I talked in the hallway while J.R. is distracted with her tablet.
"I was sleeping on the other bed, woken up by an alarm. J.R.'s oxygen level dropped to 80%. I put her in oxygen and watched her closely for an hour before thinking she was fine. I watched Jamie check on J.R. she wasn't concerned but upset she couldn't heal J.R."
"Damn, I hope she doesn't have permanent damage. Hopefully, time with Jamie is what Jayce needs. I feel like she's started recovering mentally with the shit that's been going in, though I'd rather all this shit not happen."
"You know she could just be distracted?"
"Yes," I sighed before going to the couch, waiting for Jamie and Jayce. Crosshairs goes back into the medbay.

I don't like how Jayce will only eat food in front of Jamie if we can't hide that she's been drinking nutrition drinks instead of eating. J.R. sends me a text before we leave.

J.R.: can you keep the two of them out all day? They need to stop worrying about me, and maybe it'll help Jayce recover spending time with Jamie.
Drift: places I could take them won't be open for another two hours, and you know Jayce will be exhausted soon.
J.R.: ok ️
Drift: I know you are tired of seeing Jayce struggle and Jamie stressing out about your injuries; we all are, but it's going to take time.

I worry J.R. Is now crying. Crosshairs will not be pleased if that's what's happening.

Once we returned to the base, the two girls went to their rooms. Normal for Jayce at this point but odd for Jamie, at least she'd tell me she's going to do some recording. I go to the medbay anyway. Walking in and seeing J.R. asleep should be a good sight, but I worry about what happened before she fell asleep and if drugs had to be used.
"She fell asleep soon after she texted you," Crosshairs informs me.
"She wanted us to stay out longer."
"Maybe we should revisit the plan we had before J.R. got injured. She could be right about Jayce needing to spend time with Jamie to start recovering."
"You know they will do nothing without her?"
"J.R. can be convincing."
With J.R. asleep, we went upstairs to see what the other two are doing. Jamie was about to record videos.

"I do this almost every day," she points out as a reason not to say anything.
"Fine," I sulk and kissed her forehead before going to Jayce's room.
Jayce is in her room, laying on her side, facing the wall.
"She was stressing while we were out even though she didn't appear stressed," I sighed, frustrated.
"It's going to take time. Maybe have her watch T.V. with Jamie, and J.R. if she's up to it," Crosshairs suggested, whispering.

I left the room and went downstairs to the medbay, not caring if Crosshairs is following me or not.

Even though Jamie checked on J.R. two hours ago, I still listen to her lungs. Everything sounds good, but her oxygen level is still low. That's all we need for J.R. to need another surgery. Don't think Jamie and Jayce will like it if the chest tube needs to be put back in.

J.R. starts twitching in her sleep as tears roll down her face.
"J.R., wake up, you're ok."
Good, she woke up and is calm.
"Jayce-," she starts.
"Both girls are ok. You know we're keeping them safe."
She pulled the mask off her face, "she's leaving and-."
"I know Jayce has said she wants to go home, but she hasn't tried, has she?"
"This will not end well. The longer this drags on, the worse Jayce gets, and Jamie is getting stressed. I know you guys are delaying the dreaded conversation telling Jamie Jayce has to stop going on adventures with us."
I don't know what to say; I put the mask back on her face, sat down on the chair, and held her hand.