Naima was throwing her hands up in the air as Trent walked into the hospital room. She looked more exasperated than Trent had ever seen her and that spoke volumes as Trent remembered a wild and young Ray Perry. "Talk some sense into this fool." She said as she left the room.
"So..." Trent leaned on the doorframe.
"I can't stay here while he dies a town away, Trent." Ray was attempting to sit up and struggling against pain.
Trent stepped into the room and sat in the chair closest to the bed. "He isn't dying today." He didn't move to help Ray out of the bed. "They are going to run more tests today or tomorrow."
"You know what I'm saying." Ray gave up on the futile attempts to sit up and leaned back with a hand on his chest.
"I do. But I will make you a deal." Trent leaned forward. "When the time comes... when it is no longer a maybe, I'll break you out of here myself. Bravo will all be there for him... if you stay here for now."
Ray nodded and glanced down to where he had removed his own IV. "Yeah."
"You gonna let the nurse put that back in or should I?" Trent sat up.
"Can you?" Ray lowered his eyes as Trent stood and opened a drawer to gather the supplies.
"Can I?" Trent made quick work of starting a new IV and hooking the medications and fluid bags back up before turning back to Ray. "You due for pain meds?"
"Think so." Ray winced a bit as he said it and Trent handed him the self administered morphine button to push which he quickly did.
"I'll go find your saint of a wife, you go to sleep." Trent fussed with the blankets making sure Ray was settled before turning to leave.
He made it just down the hall when Naima met him with coffee in her hand. "He agreed to stay."
"I've been fighting with him for hours ober this." She looked exhausted.
"I told him when the time comes I'll spring him myself." Trent leaned into the wall allowing his lower back to rest.
"You look like hell, Trent."
"Feel pretty awful too." He smiled slightly.
"How's Serena?" Naima smiled back at him.
"Good. Busy. Tired." Trent shrugged.
"That will happen." She winked at him.
"You know?" Trent raised an eyebrow.
"Figured it out about a week ago. Congratulations Trent. You'll be a good Daddy. How many scrapped knees have you fixed right up for Emma, Mikey, Jameelah and RJ?" She laughed.
"I hope so. It's a little different when I can hand them back to you after." Trent tilted his head. "But I know she'll be a good mama. Look how she is with Clay. Even Sonny."
"Are you comparing your teammates to children?" Naima laughed.
"Just Clay and Sonny." He leaned forward in laughter before straightening back against the wall.
"You get checked out?" Naima grew concerned.
"It's just bruising." He shook his head.
"Get checked anyway. You're not a lone wolf anymore." She took a step toward Ray's room.
"Yes, Ma'am." Trent nodded before stepping away from the wall and heading downstairs to the walk in clinic.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
"We could get you a wheelchair, probably be easier." Sonny walked beside Clay in the long hospital corridor.
"Spent too much time in one after Manila. I'm fine." Clay struggled down the hallway.
"Okay, Kid." Sonny followed closely.
After what felt like an eternity they finally made it to the Neuro ICU waiting room. Clay dropped into the closest chair while Sonny continued to stand bobbing from one foot to the other. Shifting almost constantly with nervous energy.
"Sonny you're making me seasick." Clay tried to lighten the mood.
"You're a sailor." Sonny moved to the chair beside him and immediately started bouncing his leg. "Hate places like this."
"Think everyone does." Clay sighed beside him. "Jason and Mandy went in already?"
"Think so." Sonny stared at the floor. "Wish Trent came to explain."
"Me too." Clay turned slightly in his chair to look at Sonny. "He'll make sure we all understand before..."
"Yeah." Sonny didn't need him to say more.
They sat in silence for the next half an hour before Jason stepped into the room. "The doc is talking to Mandy. She has no decision-making authority but... yeah they're talking."
"How bad is it, Boss?" Sonny sounded scared in a way neither of them were accustomed to hearing from the Texan.
"It's bad. He's still heavily sedated from the surgery in Germany and the flight. He's got tubes and wires everywhere. Honestly if I didn't know it was him I wouldn't believe it was him." Jason exhaled.
"I can't go in there." Sonny looked around panicked like a child lost in a store looking for their parent.
"Hey." Clay put a hand on Sonny's shoulder as his voice cracked. "I can't either. Can we just go back to Trent's?"
"I think that would be best for now." Jason looked at two of his three youngest members and saw scared children about to lose their brother. "We should know more tomorrow anyway."
Sonny stood to help Clay up when the door opened and Mandy stepped inside. "Hi." She nodded to Clay and Sonny. "So they are going to draw back the sedation before rerunning the tests tomorrow afternoon. The pressure in his brain has subsided some from the drain and less swelling so without so much sedation they will have more accuracy with the EEG."
"The guys are gonna head out. Clay's worn out. But I can stay if you want." Jason spoke for them all.
"Yeah." Mandy turned to Sonny and Clay. "Have Trent call me for an update?"
"Yeah of course." Clay wobbled on his crutches but Sonny reached a hand to his elbow and steadied him.
Mandy smiled at the simple love in the interaction that neither would ever acknowledge. "Ready to head back?" She spoke to Jason quietly.
"Yeah." He lied and followed her from the room.
"Room 3." Mandy spoke to herself as much as to Jason stopping at the sliding glass door. Inside the room felt like a bubble about to burst. A world ending, swallowed into a black hole. An ending that leads to a beginning no one wants to live through. She sat on Brock's left side but didn't reach out to touch him. Jason moved to sit on the right but couldn't bring himself to look at his number five, choosing instead to watch Mandy.
"When Alana died, you made it easier." Jason watched her control her microexpressions, watched her as she held herself together just barely.
"Thank you for saying that. I don't think anything or anyone will make this easier though, Jason." Mandy held eye contact.
"I'm not saying I or anything will. Just saying I'm here. No matter what happens I'm here." Jason leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Trent slowly made his way down the hallway to his apartment carrying a pharmacy bag and three pizzas. Standing outside his own door he didn't bother with his keys instead he just gently kicked it three times. He instantly heard movement on the other side before Sonny swung the door open and took the pizza from him.
"Thanks, Son." Trent stepped inside and relocked the door. "Hungry?" He looked to Clay on his couch who looked half asleep.
"Yeah." Clay reached for his crutches.
"Stay. We'll eat in here." Trent tossed the bag on the coffee table and followed Sonny. "Where's Rena?"
"Napping." Sonny smiled at him while opening the top box.
"Feed the kid?" Trent stepped to their bedroom.
"Of course." Sonny reached for two plates.
Trent opened the door to what was once only his bedroom and stepped inside silently moving to the bed where she was sleeping. "Hey, beautiful. You wanna wake up and eat?" He leaned his weight onto the bed.
Serena rolled over to face him. "Hey, you only call me beautiful when we fuck." She smiled seductively at him.
"That's not true." Trent pouted slightly.
"It is but that's okay." She smiled at him. "And yeah I'm starving."
"I really only call you beautiful during sex?" Trent looked at her sadly. "Because I think it every single time I look at you."
"Trent, I love it when you say it while you're inside me and love that you call me Rena when you're not." She sat up and touched his right arm.
"Yeah?" He looked unsure.
"Yeah... but if you don't feed me soon... don't call me anything okay?" She laughed lightly.
"Okay." Trent slowly stood up. "Hope pizza's okay."
"Sounds amazing." Serena laughed and walked into the kitchen.
They ate quietly for a few minutes before Sonny looked to Serena. "Quinn is a nice unisex name."
Trent tried not to choke on his pizza. "With the amount of headaches you've given me?"
"Spenser is too." Clay laughed.
"Yeah, no." Trent sipped at a soda.
"We'll see." Serena smiled at all of them. "What's in the bag?" Serena pointed to the bag Trent had mistakenly left in plain sight.
"It's nothing." He spoke and then filled his mouth with pizza.
"Nah, it's definitely something." Sonny turned more toward him.
"What's up, brother?" Clay spoke with sincerity and care.
"It's an anti-inflammatory. My back has been acting up. Stopped at the clinic after convincing Ray to stay put." Trent took another sip of his soda.
"I'm sorry." Clay set his plate aside as guilt washed over him.
"Not your fault. Just getting old." Trent looked at him knowing Clay too well.
"So me shoving you into a wall as hard as I could didn't aggravate your back and lead to a trip to the infirmary?" Clay reached for his crutches fumbling and knocking one to the floor and out of his own reach. "Fuck."
"Clay." Trent sat forward as Sonny reached for the crutch. "Look at me..." Trent's heart broke when blue eyes met his. "You're faster than me. I wouldn't have made it to Ray if I had tried and I was going to try but you did. You made it and held pressure while bleeding yourself so don't you dare feel guilty about my back being sore."
Serena felt her heart beat faster understanding how close she had come to being a widow, their child an orphan. It was like a weight falling from the sky. She wanted to run away as much as Clay.
"We'd be burying both Ray and Trent if you hadn't done what ya did, Kid." Sonny held the crutch out of reach as Clay deflated. Sonny's thoughts filled with multiple funerals instead of the one he didn't think he could bear. "Now eat your damn pizza."
Trent leaned back into the cushions of the couch and let his hand rest on Serena's tensed leg. "You okay?"
"I'm not sure." She looked up at him.
"I'm sorry." Trent whispered it.
"I knew who you were when I fell in love with you, it's probably part of the reason I fell." She ran her hand down the back of his neck.
Trent was about to speak when his phone rang. He fished it from his jeans pocket and glanced at the screen before answering. "Boss?" Every eye in the room was on him. "Okay, calm down." Trent stood rapidly and put a hand to his lower back. "I'm on my way." He ended the call.
"Trent?" Sonny stood.
"I have to go." He took a step toward the door.
"Take your meds with you." Clay leaned forward grabbing the pharmacy bag and tossing it to Trent.
"He's triggering the vent." Trent was out the door before any of them could even ask him what that meant.