Author's Note: Hello, hello, hello. Got another tale here. Someone asked if I could write something where Jaz is sick too, and while I admit I'm not usually too great at fulfilling requests (my brain can't always build around an existing idea), I thought I'd at least give this one a go (though I'm sorry she's not exactly sick!). As a warning, there's some pretty strong language peppered lightly in here, so be warned! You're all gems. Live your best lives. And thanks for stopping by.

Chapter One

There always seemed to be trouble. And this time wasn't any different.

Adam ran through the rubble, his boots landing on loose bricks and broken cement. His eyes followed Jaz in front of him, watching her footing as she skillfully traversed the rough terrain.

"ETA on pickup?" Adam asked breathlessly, glancing back at their pursuers.

"We can't get through," Preach reported, a hint of frustration in his voice. "Even if we could, it would probably take us at least fifteen minutes to get the Humvee through all the mess."

Hell, fifteen minutes at a time like this might as well be eternity. Adam looked at Jaz again. His only regret was that she wasn't with the rest of the team. Admittedly, he'd needed her sharp eye as much as he needed his own bird's-eye view. But that was then. After explosives rained down on the town, he'd immediately wished he'd been on that rooftop alone.

"Command, how far out is air strike?"

"Thirty seconds," Noah answered sharply. "You have to get out of there."

Adam's heart stuttered. There wasn't anything he could do. He stared at Jaz's back. Yes, she knew what she signed up for.

But wasn't his job to keep them all safe from the worst of it?

Still, he was only human. He couldn't control all the pieces. He couldn't control this. So he had to do what he could.

"Preach, reroute to safety." He was huffing now, half because he was running and half because he had to face the inevitable. "Jaz, we have to run faster."

"Got it," she replied curtly, pushing her speed. She knew what was awaiting them. They'd been through it before. But being upset about it wouldn't change anything. So they just had to keep going. They had to make their own way out of this.

Behind them, they could hear their pursuers keeping up a steady pace. With a little extra speed, they could create enough space to get out of danger.

But they only had thirty seconds to do it.

Less than that now.

"Go faster," Adam urged, pushing a hand against Jaz's back. She sprinted harder.

"Ten seconds."

"Get out of there, man." Adam could hear the controlled panic in McG's voice, with Preach and Amir's breathing drifting over the comms.

"Five seconds."

Shit, they hadn't planned for local insurgents with explosives. Fuck, they hadn't planned for this.

Adam could only do his best. In something like this, he could only do his best.

And with just one second left on the clock, he put everything he had into Jaz's back.

He pushed her. If only to put her a couple yards further away from the air strike.

A couple yards was all he could give her.

It was all he could give.

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There was steady ringing first. Constant and solid. The high-pitched squeal sang through her ears. For a moment, she heard nothing else. Then her hearing slowly came back, along with the headache—and the allover pain of flying several feet in the air before reuniting with the earth.

Jaz squeezed her eyes shut as she slowly focused on her surroundings. The ringing faded, making way for the sound of crumbling building and crackling fires.

At the first sign of trouble, the townspeople had run, and for whatever reason, the insurgents only had eyes for her and Top. So the crowd had plenty of opportunity to get away.

That explained the otherwise eerie silence. The insurgents probably hadn't made it through the air strike. And if they had, they were probably deeply unconscious. But . . .

Top.

Her eyes snapped open, blood immediately dripping into her eye. She swiped at the crimson, breathing heavily. Her head was killing her now, but it didn't matter.

Pushing herself up, she felt a sting at her leg and stopped. She looked down at her calf. The cut was deep. Her pantleg was savagely ripped, revealing the bleeding mess beneath. She must've hit the rubble hard in the blast. And strangely, it didn't hurt. At least not yet.

Because all she could think was that Top was behind her.

She looked up, eyes trailing the dusty wreckage of the town, her leg forgotten. At first, she didn't see anything. She wiped away more blood from her eye, narrowing her gaze to focus. Everything was tilting a bit and blurry, but she wouldn't give up. She kept looking.

Wait . . . was that . . . ?

She stopped, squinting further.

Hair. It was dusty and nearly blended in with the rubble, but it was absolutely a person. It had to be Top.

Gritting her teeth, she crawled her way to him. Her leg was steadily starting to hurt now, the sting burning up her leg. As she moved, she swallowed grunts of pain. Blood was falling into her eye again, and her hair stuck to the wet red.

"Top," she called out, her voice ravaged by dust and possibly some slight trauma to her throat. She stretched a hand out to roughly shake his shoulder. Bricks and bits of building had fallen on top of him, and she painfully moved closer to quickly clear them away while continuing to shake him awake.

"Come on, Top," she muttered hoarsely. She could feel his hands on her back still, as if they'd burned their shape onto her skin. That was the last thing she remembered. Him pushing her. To get her further away.

And she also remembered the vehement No! that ran through her mind.

Jaz pressed two fingers against the soft spot of his neck, checking for a pulse.

She held her breath.

Then she felt the steady thump thump of a heartbeat.

He was alive. Even if he wasn't awake. She allowed herself a sigh.

"Wake up, Top. You can't leave me here alone."

Jaz continued to knock debris off him, but some chunks were too heavy to move at that angle, and others were out of reach. And really, the agony in her leg wasn't doing her any favors.

Huffing, she reached for her comm to see if it'd survived the blast.

But it wasn't there.

Must've been knocked out during her fall.

She looked for Adam's, finding his fit snugly in his ear, though a bit splattered with blood. Taking a deep breath, she pried it from his ear, fitting it into hers.

"Command?" she tried. "Preach?" Only static answered.

So her comm was lost. His was damaged. With Adam Dalton, the excitement never ended.

Frustrated, she clawed the comm out and threw it into the dust and debris.

Looking at her leg again, she could only hope the GPS trackers were still working. Even if walking was an option, it was going to be a slow journey. Damn, she felt weak. The world was spinning, and she could only hope to blink away the pain in her head. It didn't help. Neither did the blazing sunlight above her. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, allowing herself a soft whimper for the pounding in her leg.

"Come on, Top." She pushed herself up a little and gave him another shake. "Adam. You have to wake up." She thought back to Preach's coma and panicked a little. All those anxious days and nights . . . she couldn't do that again. And damn, her leg hurt so much. That just seemed to make all of this worse.

Tears pricked at her eyes. "I'm going to kick your ass if you don't wake up."

Silence.

Then a soft cough.

A little movement.

Bloody and bruised fingers wiggled and tightened. His head moved with a groan.

Relief flooded her chest, giving her a moment of reprieve. She sent a small prayer of thanks up to whomever was listening.

"Top, you with me?" She was so tired. So, so tired, and she'd only just woken up.

"D'we m'k' it?"

"What?"

With a little trouble, Adam lifted his head a bit, his eyes still closed. "Did w'make it?"

"Something like that," she replied, glancing around the crumbled ruins. Her leg was aching spectacularly now, throbbing in time with her headache. She gritted her teeth, breathing slowly to try and work through it and blinking harshly.

Sluggishly, he flexed his muscles and delicately moved his limbs. "Y'okay?"

Despite the pain, she smirked at his question, swiping another hand across her bloody brow. "Yeah, I'm okay."

Adam finally managed to open his eyes and look up at her, blinking against the sun. "Y're bleedin'."

"So are you," she challenged, looking at the scrape across his jawline and the blood in his hair. "You good?"

Adam didn't respond, instead trying to push himself up off the floor. Or at least . . . the rubble beneath him. He let out another groan as he turned himself onto his back, getting the remaining bricks off him in the process.

With a deeper cough, he moved to sit up, wincing as he pressed an arm against his torso, his hand splayed out over his chest.

"You okay, Top?" she asked, eyes already tracing the purpling on his fingers. There had to be at least a couple fractures in there.

"Think so," he answered hoarsely, coughing more of the dust out of his lungs. He blinked some more, looking down at her leg. "Your leg . . ."

Jaz reacted quickly. "Looks worse than it is." That could've been true, but she wasn't so sure. It was pretty deep. And yet, she didn't think it was deep enough to be immediately life-threatening. Still hurt like a bitch.

At the sight of her leg, Adam seemed to suddenly move faster, his battered torso forgotten as he dug in his cargo pockets for bandages. "Let's get it fixed up." He was started to speak more clearly now, though his voice was as abused as hers.

In all his movement, a little crimson caught her eye. She dropped her gaze to his abdomen, freezing in her tracks.

"Top."

He looked at her. "What?"

"You're hurt."

Confused, he looked down, his brow furrowing further at the bloodstain on his shirt.

Shrapnel was sticking out of him.