A.N. And here we are, still going! Sorry (not sorry) for the cliffie last chapter :) Thank you all for reading and reviewing! Guess who's back in this chapter?! Finally...

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The return to consciousness was not a slow and gradual process that welcomed Sam back to the waking world with warm, open arms. Consciousness returned all at once; from one moment to the next there was nothing, and then there was everything. Pain. Panic. Fear. All of it consumed Sam and sent his heartbeat skyrocketing. He could feel it pulsing not only in his chest, where it belonged, but pounding in his head as well, localized on the left side, wrapping around his brain and squeezing.

Pain.

The pain clung to his muscles, burrowed in his heart and danced along the side of his head.

Panic.

The panic tore at his mind and whispered of his failings.

Fear.

The fear sat on his chest, pressing down and making it harder and harder to breathe.

As he gasped for air, he became aware of a few things outside of the pain, panic and fear gripping him: sounds. He heard a beep that was so rapid it almost seemed like a drone to his confused ears. He heard a screech and a thud, like something was shoved across a linoleum floor so hard that it fell. A rapid staccato like feet slapping the ground at a run, followed by a soft curse.

What's beeping? There's nothing that would be making that sound in the square. Floor? What floor? There's no linoleum floor for a chair to scrape across. Concrete, you're on blazing hot concrete. So, what made that sound? Shriek, footsteps.

And it all came crashing back. The reason for the pain, panic and fear.

The hot concrete sitting beneath his skin. The sniper's gaze wandering, searching for a target. Everyone thought they were safe, but Sam knew, knew there was another shooter. It suddenly all made sense. What had felt so off about the shooting in the first place, the voice whispering in the back of his head, about the angles and the time it took for the shooter to kill as many as he had.

Footsteps. Shriek.

Libby!

She was trying to get up to go get help, her footsteps were pounding on the ground, and she didn't know. Didn't know that there was an eye in the sky just waiting for her to set foot out from behind their shelter. And Sam hadn't been able to tell her, he had failed. And his failure was about to cost Libby her life.

But maybe…

He flung a hand out blindly, desperately reaching for the back of her shirt, her arm, her hand, anything.

A sharp inhale greeted his ears, followed by rustling, as if someone had just taken a rapid step backwards. "Whoa there, Sam," a muffled, surprised voice echoed into his muddled brain. "Easy, calm down, that is not a good idea."

His hand was still searching desperately in open air, when all of a sudden it was encircled in a strong, two-handed embrace.

"You have every right to slug me—next time I won't even dodge—but I'd appreciate it if you waited until you weren't at risk of pulling your stitches and undoing all of the doctors' hard work."

Sam froze, confused by this voice, as it belonged to someone who was not in the square with them. He squeezed his hand, testing if the other person was actually there. The two-handed grip tightened in response.

"That's it, Sam. You with me this time?"

No, no, Sam was not with this person who shouldn't even be there. He needed to get to Libby before she got shot.

He tried to extricate his hand from the person's grasp, but the person's grip only tightened.

The beeping that Sam had been hearing since waking up, which had slowed ever so slightly when the new voice spoke up, suddenly started to increase in tempo again.

He pulled harder, wincing as he felt a responding pull in his chest that felt wrong. But he ignored it, it didn't matter. Only Libby mattered.

"Shit," the person muttered, "where's the damn doctor." More loudly, the person continued, "Sam, Sam! Relax! It's okay! Libby is okay, and so is Ben Gaskill! They got the second shooter, it's over, you did your job!"

Sam stopped trying to pull his hand from the person's grasp.

It's over? Libby's okay? That can't be right. There wasn't enough time. Just moments ago I was reaching to stop her from…

"You were shot again when you saved Ben, and you're in the hospital now, so please, please calm down," the person pleaded.

I'm in the hospital? No, I'm on concrete… But even as Sam thought it, he became aware of the fact that what he felt beneath him was not the hard, unforgiving concrete he last remembered, but a soft material that gave and shifted under him. A bed, his brain supplied as he slowly became more aware of his surroundings. A hospital bed.

The beeping that was slowly decreasing in speed was a heart monitor. My heart monitor.

His first interpretation of the shriek of a chair on linoleum floor had been correct, no doubt due to the person standing up too quickly and knocking the chair over, followed by the footsteps as they raced to his bedside.

"That's it, just breathe and relax, buddy, just breathe."

The voice which had held a hint of panic in it before, now started to level out as the person saw Sam respond.

"Think you can open your eyes for me?"

Sam had been wondering the same thing. While his other senses had done a wonderful job ascertaining what was going on and where he was—that is, after the person had clued him in—it was disconcerting being quite literally in the dark. Then again, he wasn't sure he wanted to face the person who still gripped his hand. He didn't exactly know why, but he got the sense he'd done something wrong, something to make the other person mad. But Sam was not one to run away from a problem; plus, he wanted to know if his eyes even could still open, because he was dubious.

With what felt like a monumental effort, suddenly his world was flooded with light. Bright white ceiling tiles captured his fuzzy field of vision first. Wrestling his unfocused gaze, he dropped it downwards, glancing over the far wall where some sort of medical charts were posted. Pulling it closer, he focused on the two hands holding his, before finally tracing the person's arm back to their face and meeting eyes with the person he'd recognized by voice the first moment they spoke.

"Ed," he greeted. He'd meant for it to come out at a regular decibel level, but it ended up barely a whisper, his throat screaming a protest.

"Hey Samo, nice to see you again." The other man's face split into a grin, but there were still tight lines around his eyes, speaking to some sort of distress that Sam did not have the mental capacity to identify.

"Li-libby," he breathed out, chest tightening painfully both because it felt like he was still learning how to breathe again and the wrongness he'd first felt when he'd tried pulling his hand from Ed's was still there.

"Yeah, she's okay, I promise. Just has a broken arm, she was never shot."

Sam closed his eyes in relief, before blinking them slowly back open. "Sh-shoot—?" He frowned in frustration, unable to get his raw throat or tongue to properly form his question.

Luckily Ed seemed to understand. "Shooter? We got him, both of them in fact. They didn't hurt anyone else." Ed stopped, then amended, "Well, they didn't hurt anyone else besides you when you stopped Ben Gaskill from getting up, which without a doubt saved his life, though I'm sorry you paid such a high price."

Sam sighed in relief.

"You know, you were right about the buildings. Spot on, in fact, because there was one in each of them. That was a work of art, Sam."

The pride and appreciation in Ed's voice registered in Sam's ear, but it sounded wrong. Because he knew Ed wasn't supposed to be proud of him; the last time he remembered Ed's voice it had been laced with anger.

"Just lucky," Sam dismissed, certain Ed only felt obligated to praise him because he was injured.

Ed's gaze darkened.

There, that makes more sense. Anger.

But the next words out of Ed's mouth held no trace of anger towards Sam, only concern. "How are you doing, Sam? Think you can stay awake a little longer this time? I know the doctors will be here any minute and they really want to talk to you, but in the meantime, can you tell me how you're feeling? Are you in pain?"

How am I feeling? Sam was thrown by the question. His muddled brain kept clinging to the fact that Ed shouldn't care, shouldn't be asking something like that, though he still couldn't remember why. So instead of answering Ed's spoken question, he gave the other man what he thought he wanted to hear, but was too polite to ask for. "I'm sorry, Ed."

Ed's grip on his hand tightened and Sam didn't understand what that meant, nor did he understand why his team lead followed it up with a firm order, "Hey, stop that."

Sam shook his head. "No, Ed, I'm sorry." His voice still came out scratchy and broken.

Ed closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Sam, I swear to god if you apologize one more time… Sam, you have nothing to apologize for; you're the one who should be apologized to, over and over again. And I will, I swear I will, I'll apologize again and again. You're probably not even going to remember this, but I'm sorry for what I did. It was shitty. I leapt to assumptions I had no reason to leap to given how much you've given to the team, and I can't even begin to express how sorry I am. But that's all I'm going to say until I know you'll remember it. And then I'll say it again, and as many times as I need to."

Sam still didn't understand what all was going on, but he did know his time in the waking world was coming to an end. He'd deal with what all of this meant later.

His eyes slipped closed despite Ed's pleas for him to keep them open, to stay awake just a little longer as rapid footsteps echoed down the hall, but while it was in Sam's nature to help people who asked something of him, he could not grant Ed this.

The last thing he heard was, "Okay, Sam, get some more rest. We'll be waiting for you when you're ready. Take your time." A pause, then, "Oh and Dezzie's doing okay, too."

And Sam was gone.

What Sam didn't know as the waiting arms of black oblivion enfolded him, was that this was not the first time he'd awakened since the incident in the square, nor was it the second. He didn't know that he'd woken up no less than five times before, jolting awake with a racing heartbeat each time, panicking and fearing for Libby's life. He didn't know that the reason Ed had grabbed his hand and not let go, was because the second time when he'd awakened, he'd struggled so hard he'd ripped his I.V. out. He didn't know that after that time, Libby had had to leave, unable to see him in such distress, wracked with guilt that her pleas had caused him to wake up before he was ready. He didn't know that the tight lines around Ed's eyes spoke to his worry that Sam's memory might be affected by the head wound, and might never recover, as he had yet to remember anything that occurred after it. He didn't know that the anger and darkening of Ed's expression was directed entirely inward, that Ed was so frustrated at himself for the number he'd done on his teammate that Sam's initial reaction to someone recognizing his hard work was to brush it off. That even after trying six different ways, Ed still couldn't convince Sam he'd done well. He didn't know that Ed's tightening grip on his hand was because the man was frustrated and sad that Sam's instinct was to apologize, when he clearly didn't even really know what was going on or what he was apologizing for.

Sam knew none of this, but Ed did. And it did nothing to quell his worry.

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A.N.2. I'm mean, I know... It's not as nice of a cliff hanger as last chapter's... But Sam's back!