The light in the room was dim and the air thick. Sarah was fanning herself down with a folded sheet of card as she fiddled with one of the drips on his arm. Luckily she had been able to keep the drips going into the same arm, so his left one with the bruised hand would be free to move around. It was a small detail but it would make him feel more comfortable; it had been one of the first questions Heller had asked her of when he first arrived.
She smiled warmly at Kim, seeing the worry in her eyes again. Each time she left the room she had to see him before she could believe he really was here. She had convinced herself he was never coming home again and was often cautiously scared she had dreamed the whole journey back home. She visibly relaxed when she saw him in the bed still, looking increasingly better without the packs on ice on his face, he almost looked normal now, despite the bruising and flushed face from the cold ice.
"How did it go," Sarah asked, genuinely interested and worried about Kim as well as her patient.
"Oh… it went," she said with a slight smirk, embarrassed by her inability to ignore her emotions.
Sarah's laugh filled the room as Jack began to shuffle in the bed, kicking his good leg up into the quilt slightly as though feeling trapped by it.
"Hey," Sarah said moving over to him so he would see her when he woke up. Kim moved on his other side and repeated the gesture, patting his arm slightly as she tried to encourage him to wake up. A small smile drifted over his face as he started to stretch as best he could, eyes still closed.
It felt weird. The laughter had filtered through his ears and he had wondered if it was Chow laughing at him some more. He couldn't feel the pain anymore though, not the same agony that had ran through every inch of his body in China. He could feel some pain but it was dulled, and of his leg he felt nothing. His mind seemed thick again, as though he was trying to look out to something through the fog. He felt slow.
His arm ached slightly, but he wasn't on the floor anymore. He felt something soft, a bed maybe? This was wrong, they didn't want to look after him they wanted to kill him. He drowsily smiled as he remembered Kim was there, he could hear her, she was okay. He opened his eyes and looked around the room, feeling safer instantly.
There were no bare concrete walls of uniformed guards surrounding him. He terracotta walls and oak furniture reminded him of where he was. He turned his head to the side as he tried to wake himself up more, remembering everything which had happened. He smiled as he saw Kim sat talking to him, after a few seconds the words began to be herd in his mind.
He tried to lift his head but was too weak. It didn't matter, he couldn't feel too much pain anyway, he just wanted to look himself down. He was still in a bad way, his presence here illustrated that. He hadn't thought about the burden he would be to Kim here, he just wanted to get out of that damn hospital as fast as possible. Strange faces coming and going worried him too much, and other than Kim's he had no where to go. He couldn't look after himself right now!
He looked around still dazed as Sarah quietly asked Kim to leave the room so she could examine him. He saw the lines leading into his arms and wondered if they had him on more drugs today, everything hadn't seemed so slow and heavy earlier.
Once Kim had left Jack spoke up, Sarah already waiting to hear the same words he had muttered every day when he was conscious.
"My leg?" he asked, confident but still apprehensive. He seemed to fear the operations had been a dream, he needed visual confirmation that his leg was indeed there.
Sarah nodded before moving over and helping him sit up slightly so he could see the cast. He smiled and closed his eyes for a moment before she told him to stay up, she needed to give him a quick once over. He nodded and stayed quiet as she began her tasks. He stayed silent throughout, withdrawn; Sarah could only wonder about the thoughts on his mind and the emotions running through him. She only knew a few of the details of what had happened, and they alone were more than she or any other civilian would like to know.
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