Bright. Everything. Too bright. Eyelids, heavy. Too much light. Dentist? No, he's not at the dentist.
Memories? Yes, shattering pain, mud, blood, lots of blood… Normandy. Got that.
He's dead.
Check death status: legs? No response. Fingers? Nothing.
Light, too light.
Heaven smells like tea, and he drifts away again.
Voice. Female. Familiar. Humming. Soft. Close.
"Mom?" Croaky, agitated, not good.
"Shh, you're safe Will, but you need to sleep." Soothing.
Cold hand on forehead.
Sleep.
His sleep is punctuated by times when he is barely conscious. His brain is a big pile of mush, but he can hear a voice, humming, sometimes two voices, speaking a language he does not understand. There are detonations too, but he doesn't have the energy to worry, so he sleeps. Gradually, he can feel again, and there is pain, although he is not able to get where exactly the pain comes from. But with the pain comes the feeling of a hand on his scalp and he focuses on that. He sleeps.
Until one day, he suddenly realises who he is, and that he must be alive, or at least he hopes so, for the pain is so excruciating at times that it would be cruel to be dead and still feel it. He recognizes the hand who lovingly pads the sweat off his forehead, although he is still too weak to feel shy when she bathes his mess of a body with soap and clean pieces of fabric. And so, he sleeps.
He finally gets his eyes to open. And it is night-time, but there's a small light on next to him and he sees her now. Magnus. She's reading from a small book which might or might not be a Bible, and her face is ashen, the dark circles under her eyes are a disgusting shade of blue, and she looks so much older than usual that he wonders for a second how long he's actually been out.
"You look dreadful."
His own voice surprises him. Does the sound really come from his body? It does not sound like him.
But she raises her head and God, her smile is all worth it.
"Pot meets kettle." She answers as she places a hand under his head to get a few drops of water into his mouth.
And with that, he sleeps.
His stomach is growling next time he comes to his senses.
"I'm starving." He croaks between parched lips.
Magnus is immediately by his side, checking his temperature the only way she can – placing her palm against his forehead, as she has been doing time and time again lately.
"Good, that's very good news. You'd better not hope for a fancy meal though. We only have a few eggs and a ration of chocolate."
She still looks exhausted, but he notices some improvement. Her face is back to its natural shade, as far as he can tell.
"I was rather hoping for a protein bar." He says, and it takes a couple of seconds for Helen to figure he's joking, and she shakes her head with a smile.
"Welcome back." She whispers, her eyes glinting with what he can only guess is relief.
Which reminds him he has escaped death, and so he checks his body.
Everything seems to be there, but there's a bandage to his stomach.
"About that," he begins, focusing again on Helen, "what happened?"
She bites her lip.
"Frag grenade." She states. "You were lucky to sustain mainly superficial injuries here and there, but a piece of shrapnel got lodged into your abdomen. Blood loss could have been fatal. It's a small miracle we have compatible blood types." She explains, sitting on the bed beside him.
Well, that explains why she looked so drained when he first woke up.
"And you remembered my blood type from like a century back?" He asks, raising his eyebrows.
Her smile is full of mischief as she answers:
"Of course not. I stole your medical records back in Lancashire." She chides.
He huffs.
"Of course."
He is not even surprised. She's the queen of risky plans doubled with a cunning thief.
They remain silent for a few seconds, and it suddenly bugs him.
"I'm not going to turn into a vampire, am I?" He wonders.
That would be a bummer. He cannot picture himself as Tesla's mignon.
She flashes him a reassuring smile.
"No, you're not. Although your healing process may benefit from my leucocytes. Which, considering the damage, cannot be a bad thing."
He nods.
"How long ago did you get your anti-tetanus booster?" She suddenly asks.
"Err, pff…" He tries to remember, and it comes to his mind that revealing such a piece of intel could get her to pinpoint the moment he stepped back into the past.
"Can't tell you that. But I'm covered."
"Good. I'm sorry to say it was an emergency operation and I'm afraid there was some mud involved and no time to thoroughly disinfect my tools."
The more the words flow out of her and the more Will feels nauseated and he has to raise his hand to stop her.
"Yeah yeah, got that. I'm alive, let's not dwell on the details."
Her lips twitch and she pats his hand.
"So what's the plan now?"
There's a shadow crossing her face and he is almost sure she has no idea what's next. Still, she rises from the bed with conviction and her composure is back in a heartbeat.
"I believe the first step is getting some eggs into you." She declares very seriously. "Fried or boiled?" She enquires from the doorstep.
And that does nothing to answer his doubts that they will manage to get themselves out of Normandy, but still, the mere fact that he's going to see Magnus cook something from scratch, be it fried egg, makes it worth the torment his body has to endure.