14 Charades
Walter woke with a groan.
Running his hand over his eyes, he slowly blinked as he tried to remember what had happened. He'd been at the bar, with Sima, trying to buy time for Happy to break into the safe and get the chemicals. Then they had gone up to her room, he'd been forced to kiss her which was oddly enough the worst part of his evening so far, and then-
The alarm. The gun. Blackness.
Focusing on the rumbling of engines beneath him and the familiar yet unpleasant view of a runway next to him, he very quickly realised that his cover was blown.
Fuck.
Tilting his head at the sound of voices, he made brief eye contact with the plane's pilot, before Sima turned around and walked towards him, a gun held loosely in her hands. Trying to straighten up proved futile, and he could tell without looking that the cool metal enclosed around his wrist wasn't a new bracelet. He was trapped then, just as much a prisoner as Leonard.
"Now that our relationship has evolved, maybe you should tell me your real name".
"I've already told you my name, Fatima" Walter replied, but she only smirked and shook her head, "That's not my real name, either".
"Are we going somewhere?"
"I'm going home. And if your associates can follow my directions, so are you".
Fuck.
"I don't have any associates".
"No?" Sima said, pulling his earpiece from her pocket, "While you were sleeping, we made a deal. They bring me the two canisters from my storage facilities, and Leonard gets the third from the CIA lab".
Walter started pulling at his handcuffs, not caring if she saw him because there was no bloody way that Cabe was going to hand over three deadly chemicals and a wanted felon to a terrorist in return for his life. Or, to be more exact, Walter refused to let him make that deal.
"They give me all three chemicals, I let you go. Everybody wins" Sima finished.
Based on the pounding in his ears and irritating drowsiness, she'd given him a concussion when knocking him out. It would undoubtedly make his escape more difficult, but it didn't make it impossible. What was making breakout impossible, were these fucking handcuffs.
"And they're coming here?" Walter asked, giving up on them for now.
She smirked, "You'd better hope so".
Cabe pulled up on the airstrip and jumped out of the jeep without hitting the ignition. The rest of the team followed suit and they surveyed the scene with worried but professional eyes, taking in the lights, the runway, and the plane itself.
"Got it" Happy said, holding up a pair of binoculars, "Tail number: N888C41".
"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Sly asked.
"You got a better one?" Toby shot back.
"It's better than handing over latent chemical weapons to an anti-American agent? Give me a minute".
"If we don't give her what she wants, Walter dies" Cabe said firmly, heart pounding in his chest and his palms sweaty, "We got to do whatever we can to get him off that plane".
He hasn't been this nervous on a job since he was a rookie.
"She's far too cautious" Toby said, "She'll keep him as collateral to get out of American airspace".
Sima appeared at the door of the plane, and he knew there were no other options.
"It's time to get our man".
He walked towards the plane, slowly but surely, mind running a mile a minute trying to come up with a better solution. He knew he couldn't just hand over a chemical weapon like this, knew that it wouldn't just be his badge that he'd lose, but his freedom too. Homeland Security didn't take too kindly to traitors, but it was either betray America or let Walter die.
Cabe had lost far too many people he loved in his short life.
He refused to lose another.
"Welcome aboard" Sima greeted, "Where's Leonard?"
"Uh, we didn't need him" He replied, ignoring her in favour of finding his son, "The CIA gave us the third chemical".
He could have cried in relief when he saw Walter sitting down a few feet away, handcuffed to a chair and a smear of blood on his forehead, but otherwise very much alive.
"There's all three chemicals in the satchel. They're the real thing" He continued, "There's a litmus test in there to prove it".
Cabe slowly walked back towards Walter as she unzipped the bag.
"Let's go, buddy".
He shook his wrist, the metal clinging off the seat.
"Uncuff him!"
"New plan" Sima said, "Once we've landed safely in neutral territory, he'll be released".
Which, of course, they had expected, but it would have been nice if she'd simply let them go. Instead, Cabe does his best to look angry, which wasn't very difficult considering what she'd already done to his kid, and then secretly slipped said-kid one of Happy's tools to pick the handcuff's lock with.
"We had a deal!"
"Yes. And the deal was Leonard was supposed to come with you!" She shot back.
"How? Leonard's on his way to a federal penitentiary".
Her expression faltered, and she blinked rapidly. Next to him, Walter suddenly straightened up as he realised something.
"She has an emotional connection with him. She knows you could have gotten the chemicals without Leonard, she only wants him here because she loves him".
Sima pointed a gun at him.
Cabe resisted the urge to tackle her.
"You uncuff my man" He said, forcibly calm, "And I'll work out a deal for you for Leonard".
"You are a liar!"
Sima swung the weapon at him and then paused for a moment before smirking.
"You take someone I care about… I think I'll return the favour".
*BANG* *BANG*
Walter froze in shock.
Next to him, where Cabe had been standing, was a blank space.
Sima smirked at him, before walking past and grabbing the agent by the ankle, hauling his body towards the front of the plane, and then rolling it down the stairs. With that done, she shut the plane door and ordered the pilot to take off. Turning back to him, she briefly frowned.
"I tried to avoid anything important, but… well, if I'm being honest, then you bleeding out would actually save me a lot of trouble".
She disappeared into the cockpit, and Walter tried desperately to focus on what she'd just said.
Cabe hadn't been bleeding when she dragged him past, but he didn't appear to have been conscious either. Statistically speaking, there was a high probability that the agent was not severely injured, whether that be a result of a flesh wound, the bullet missing altogether, or the very quick ambulance response time that the team would ensure for him. So. Cabe was fine.
But Sima hadn't been talking about Cabe.
Walter found himself slowly looking down as her words started to click into place.
Fact One: She threatened to hurt someone Cabe cared about.
Fact Two: She had fired the gun twice, not once.
Fact Three: She didn't say 'him bleeding out' or 'your acquaintance bleeding out', she said… she said 'you'.
He noticed the ever-widening red stain on his shirt at the exact same time the pain kicked in.
"Cabe! Cabe, are you all right?!"
He slowly groaned and rolled over, already feeling the bruises he'd have tomorrow from being thrown down the plane's stairway.
"Cabe?" Toby asked frantically, "Cabe!"
He raised his head and pulled apart his suit, revealing the bullet-proof material hiding underneath.
"Damn glad she gave you this shirt".
They all let out a sigh of relief as he sat up, thankfully completely bullet-free.
"We saw two muzzle flashes" Sly cut in, and Cabe felt his heart stutter.
"I know. She, uh… She said she wanted to take away someone I cared about".
They all froze.
"Cabe" Toby started, very very quietly, "Cabe what does that mean?"
"... I think she shot Walter".
"What?!"
"It- It all happened too fast, but… but there were two gunshots, and only one of those hit me and there was- there was a burst of blood but- but that wasn't me either so..."
Paige looked close to tears.
"But she wouldn't- she wouldn't shoot him, right? He's her- her collateral. Toby said it himself; she's too cautious not to have a backup. She can't shoot him because- because she needs him alive!"
Toby swallowed thickly, face grim.
"Plenty of ways to shoot someone without killing them".
Cabe hauled himself to his feet and firmly shoved his panic to the back of his mind.
"We don't know how bad it is, but right now, it doesn't matter. We gotta figure out how to stop that plane, or Walter's as good as dead anyway".
Happy looked around and suddenly grinned, "I got an idea".
The explosion was easy enough to cause, despite the piercing pain in his shoulder. Walter did his best to ignore it as he grabbed the alcohol, the gas canister and the lighter. Setting it up took a matter of seconds, waiting for Sima to come out of the cockpit took even less, and then suddenly- BOOM.
Crouched down behind the seat, he wasn't too affected by the subsequent flames, but he still felt his arms burn and the edges of his shirt singe from the pure unadulterated heat that came as a result. Sima was instantly thrown back against the wall, and based on the sudden lurch of the plane, the pilot had been flung forward too.
Standing back up, Walter blocked out the sticky red liquid that ran down his arm in disturbingly hot rivulets, and made his way to the cockpit. The door was locked, of course, because with his current luck, why the fuck wouldn't it be?! He couldn't force it open, either, not with only one arm and a very limited time frame. Turning back, he stepped over Sima and tried to think.
The hole he'd blown in the side of the plane was his only way out. Grabbing the bag of chemicals, he made his way over and glanced down at the runway below.
Big mistake.
Between the concussion, the blood loss, and his sudden not-so-surprising fear of heights, Walter immediately felt dizzy, and he had to firmly shut his eyes for a moment to prevent himself from toppling over.
Okay, so, he couldn't stop the plane, and he definitely couldn't jump. The speed that they were currently going at was more than enough to kill him, and it wasn't as if he had anything soft to land on either. What he needed now, was his brilliant and incredible team to come up with something that was quite frankly ridiculous.
Seeing two headlines flash in the distance, he couldn't help but grin.
He knew he could always count on them.
"Oh my God" Sly moaned as the airstairs raced towards the plane.
Toby had to agree. Whatever the hell Happy had done to jumpstart this thing had obviously overridden its max speed too, and now they were hurtling down the runway like a racing car. Pulling up next to the plane, he tried to catch sight of Walter, knowing that the airstairs couldn't maintain this speed forever.
"Hey!"
Toby grinned as he appeared at the huge hole in the side of the plane. The younger man was clearly conscious and thankfully still standing. Anything more than that, Toby could worry about once they got him back home, safe and sound.
"Walter!"
"Hey!" He waved again, holding up the bag for them to see.
"Jump! We'll catch you!" He yelled back.
Walter shook his head, "If the chemicals blow up, they will combine and aerosol, and kill people for miles!"
Talking was always a good sign, and making sense was even better, but Toby could see the dark patches on his shirt from here, and that, most assuredly, was not.
"Get ready!"
"Walter, no!" Sly yelled, "Do not throw me deadly chemicals!"
"One, two, three!"
He flung the bag in the air, and it sailed over their heads. Spinning around, Slyvester tried to grab the handle, and tumbled down the stairs. Toby paused, listening for any sign of life before-
"Oh God!"
He grinned, "Nice catch, Sly!"
The man groaned and decided to stay sitting. Turning back to the plane, Toby gestured at the burning engine.
"Hey, man, if that fire hits the fuel tank, the whole plane's gonna blow… you got to jump, Walter!"
"I know! Hold on!"
"We got you, buddy, come on!" Toby called back, before suddenly freezing as a shadow appeared behind him, "Walter!"
His warning was too late, and even as he watched, the woman grabbed his friend's arm and yanked him back into the plane.
Walter stumbled back as Sima pushed him down the aisle of the plane, before grunting as a solid punch struck him across the face and didn't that just do wonders for his concussion? She immediately followed it with another hit, before grabbing his head and jerking her knee into his stomach. He fell, and Sima grabbed his shirt collar before shoving him towards the exposed wires sparking at the side of the plane.
Was this day ever going to fucking end?!
Hitting back, he managed to get one of his legs free and promptly brought it up to her side. Her sudden distraction was enough for him to push her away, and he stumbled back as the sparks got far too close for his liking.
Staggering back to his feet and shaking his head from the dizziness, Walter couldn't help but groan as she pulled a sharp blade from her pocket because seriously?!
She lunged at him again but he managed to sidestep. Jerking away from the knife, he tripped, falling back against the plane's seats and in that brief moment of weakness, she threw herself at him. Sima brought the knife down directly above his heart, and with his exhaustion, concussion, and actual fucking bullet wound, he didn't react quick enough.
Grabbing her wrists, he just barely managed to wrench her hands down as the blade got closer and closer and-
Walter screamed.
A flash of burning white-hot heat seared across his chest and a spray of startling red burst in front of him. Adrenaline and fear and all-consuming pain made his hands keep moving, and what felt like a lifetime later, he shoved the metal blade into the plug socket next to him.
There was a split second of sparks, another of sudden numbness, and finally a horrifying agony that finally jump-started his brain into survival mode. Walter leapt back from the twitching woman on the ground, her hands still wrapped around the knife lodged in the electric socket. He tried not to think too hard about the after-effects of electrocution or how deep the gash in his stomach was or the bruises and cuts Sima had left on his face or if he'd torn the bullet wound in his shoulder or how his concussion was probably a million times worse now or-
Don't think.
Act.
Toby couldn't hold back a huge sigh of relief as Walter reappeared at the hold in the plane, and not the crazy terrorist. His relief was short-lived, however, when he saw how much worse that the younger man looked. It took him a precious few seconds to ignore his worry and fear and focus on logic and facts instead. Namely, that if their resident idiot didn't jump now, then the plane would crash with him still in it.
"Walter!" He yelled, "Jump!"
"Okay!" He shouted back, climbing out onto the edge of the plane.
Toby's heart was pounding in his chest. The younger man was in no fit state to even be walking, let alone performing complicated aeroplane gymnastics with fire and chemicals involved. Walter's shirt blew up in the wind, and the amount of blood staining pale skin horrified him.
"Be careful!" Sly had obviously seen it too, then.
Walter climbed onto the wing of the plane and half stumbled, half ran towards them. He paused for a moment, and for a split second Toby was terrified that he was about to collapse, before suddenly straightening up again and judging the distance between them.
"Okay, okay!"
Sly held out his hand, "Walter!"
There was a brief moment where everything seemed to slow down. Walter leapt off the wing of the plane, hovered in mid-air, and then started falling towards them too far, too far away to reach, too far away to catch, too far away-
His right hand grabbed onto the airstair's rail.
Toby could hear the resulting pop over the noise of the plane's engine.
"Get me up!"
Both Toby and Sly rushed into action, grabbing his arms, his legs, his clothes, whatever the hell they could to drag him underneath the rail and onto the platform. Happy immediately slammed on the breaks, and the plane rushed off into the darkness ahead of them. Grabbing Walter by the back of his shirt, Toby hauled him up until he could throw both arms over the railings, finally, finally, secure and stable and safe.
"You're alright" He grinned, hand wrapped around his waist, "You're alright".
The airstairs slowly came to a stop, and thankfully, so did the plane. They could hear sirens in the distance; no doubt Cabe had sent for an ambulance as well as a fire brigade and Homeland, and the bright lights of the runway lit up their surroundings in the otherwise dark night.
Walter took a moment to simply breathe, beyond grateful for the entire fucking disaster to finally be over, before reluctantly admitting to himself that he might just possibly maybe perchance need a doctor.
His head was reeling both from the concussion and Sima's blows, and blood was dripping into his left eye and leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. His left shoulder was strangely numb despite the wet heat surrounding it, but his right shoulder was oddly tingly. Both arms were burnt from the exposed wires on the plane, and his skin still felt staticky after the electric shock. The slash across his stomach didn't feel too good either, and he knew that the way his shirt was sticking to his chest was most definitely not a good sign.
Even as his brain processed what had happened, his grip on the safety railing started to fail.
"... Hey, Toby?"
He turned to him with a smile, "Yea, 197?"
"... I think I'm gonna pass out now".
He didn't even remember hitting the floor.
Cabe watched as the airstairs raced back towards them and felt something uneasy twist in his gut. The plane had stopped, they wouldn't be returning if they didn't have Walter, and the chemicals were safely back in their control. So why did Sylvester look so panicked?
"Ambulance!"
He felt his heart stutter.
"Ambulance, now!" Sly yelled again, missing his jack and clearly upset and panicked and scared and-
And where the hell was Walter?!
The airstairs screeched to a stop a few meters away, Happy immediately jumping out and running around to the steps. Cabe wasted no time in following her, even as the paramedics around him gave each other confused looks. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Toby's anxious face appeared at the top.
"Happy, get them to bring a stretcher and then get back here pronto. Sly, deal with that bag of chemicals; you should probably ask the Homeland guys. Cabe, I'm gonna need your help, and I'm gonna need it now!"
They all burst into action.
Racing past Sylvester to get to the top of the stairs, he felt a sickening jolt at the sight before him.
Walter was lying on the metal floor of the platform, motionless. Toby knelt next to him, elbow deep in blood. Both hands were pressing Sly's suit jacket to the younger man's stomach, but even as Cabe watched, the puddle of blood beneath him continued to spread. Walter's shirt, once pale blue in colour, was now red, so so red that it almost looked black in places like the fabric had absorbed so much blood that it no longer had any room to hold more. Walter was still, far far too still, legs twisted awkwardly, arms limp at his side, and his right shoulder looking completely wrong somehow. His skin was red, terrifyingly red, but even underneath all the blood, Cabe could see burnt flesh and raised blisters.
"We need to get him to ground level" Toby said, "So I need your help to carry him. There are no spinal injuries, so if we're quick, it should be okay".
And- fuck, if no spinal injuries was the highlight of his condition, then-
"Cabe!" He snapped, "We need to move him. Now!"
He quickly took hold of Walter's legs, and after firmly tying the jacket in a tight knot around the younger man's waist, Toby awkwardly slid both arms beneath his back. At Cabe's confused look, his jaw clenched.
"Both shoulders are fucked. I can't risk moving his arms".
Cabe saw red, red as red as the blood squelching beneath his shoes and staining his son's clothes and skin and face, and he briefly considered marching back to that plane himself just to shoot Sima in the fucking face.
Happy jogged back up the stairs, out of breath.
"Paramedics are waiting below. What do you need me for?"
"When we lift him, his arms are going to fall" Toby explained, "You need to stop that from happening. The more his shoulders move, the worse his injuries are gonna get. Got it?"
She nodded briskly, for once not bothering to shoot back a snappy comment, and that more than anything solidified the danger of their current situation in Cabe's mind. Carefully taking hold of both of Walter's arms, she kept them pressed close to his side before nodding at them. Toby glanced over at him, and he nodded two.
"Ready? On three. One, two, lift!"
Walter woke up slowly and softly and with plenty of time to adjust.
First, was his sense of smell. There was not a whole lot to smell, but there was something clean about the not-smell, something almost clinical. Then, there were sounds. An annoying beeping next to him, the occasional sigh or squeak of rubber shoes on linoleum. After that, touch. He was lying down on a relatively comfy surface but the fabric beneath his fingers was rough to touch. Finally, sight. Opening his eyes, he had to blink a few times to adjust to the light. It wasn't bright, in fact, it was only just light enough to see in, but it felt like he'd been in perpetual darkness for quite some time, and now his brain was trying to remember what to do with this new sensation.
His mouth was dry, his throat was sore, and there was a bone-deep ache in his muscles, but other than that, he felt pleasantly warm and drowsy.
"Walter?"
He blinked again and slowly turned to find Cabe sitting in a plastic chair next to him. It gave him a strange sense of Deja Vu, and with that came-
Chemicals. Sima. Plane. Nothing.
He could almost hear the gears turning in his head as his brain tried to process his surroundings.
"... Are we dead?"
His voice was hoarse and quiet, but Cabe heard him all the same.
"Not yet".
"She…" He tried to remember, "She... shot you".
"Bulletproof shirt" He said simply, smirking, "She shot you, too".
He gave a lopsided smile.
"Non-bulletproof shirt".
Which, actually-
Walter glanced down and frowned. His right arm was in a sling across his chest, and he could feel numerous bandages covering his left. Cabe followed his gaze and sighed.
"Can't do anything halfway, can you? Both arms are outta commission; you won't be doing any coding for a while, I'm afraid".
... He'd have to see about that.
Looking back up, Walter glanced around the otherwise empty room.
"The team?"
"All safe and sound" Cabe reassured, "We're taking shifts staying with you so there's time to eat and sleep. Happy should be here in about half an hour".
He frowned, "Shifts? How long... How long was I out?"
"About two days".
It took him a painfully long minute to process that information but when he did, he immediately struggled to sit up.
"Woah, woah woah! Take it easy, there, son" Cabe quickly reached forward to push him back down, but Walter shook his head, "No. No, I- I can't! There's- There's the chemicals and- and Sima to- to deal with and- and Leonard and-"
"-and it's all been taken care of" He finished firmly, "Everything's been worked out, son. There's nothing left for you to do except get better".
"But... But-"
"No buts. It's all been dealt with already".
Walter slowly sank back into the bed and couldn't suppress a yawn. Despite having been asleep for two days, he couldn't ever remember feeling this exhausted.
Cabe smiled and patted his hand.
"Go back to sleep, son. You'll be alright when you wake up... We'll make sure of it".