John shifted in the uncomfortable chair, trying to find a position that didn't make his back scream after ten minutes, but it was near impossible. What was it with hospitals? Did they just delight in torturing the poor familes that had nothing else to do but sit around and wait for their loved one to wake up? Was it not hard enough already? Did he not feel useless enough without having to feel like the chairs hated him too? Virgil had said that it was probably to encourage the family to go home and rest when they needed it too, but there was no way on earth that he was leaving until she was awake and could order him to do so, and no chair was good to change his mind.

He hadn't left her side in more than six hours, was still sitting in his IR blues, refusing to leave even to get changed, even though he knew she wasn't about to wake up any time soon. The nurse caring for her had told him she was being kept under sedation until at least the next day, giving her body a chance to rest up and start the healing process as quickly and easily as it could. But that didn't stop him from staring at her, tracking every little movement she made, watching her chest intently, needing to be sure it was still moving up and down, watching the heart monitor beep in a comfortingly steady rhythm. He needed to be there, to see the signs that she was alive as well as having the knowledge in his head.

It made his heart ache deep in his chest to see her lying there like that, so still and so obviously hurt. He was used to seeing injuries both on the people they rescued and sometimes on his own brothers. But this was different, this was his wife, he was supposed to keep her safe. She hardly ever went out on a rescue with them and when she did they did all they could to keep her fully protected. Knowing that they all lived such dangerous lives made the thought of her doing something as simple as driving her car home and getting hurt almost too unbelievable. God, how he wished it wasn't true. How he wished he could wake himself up, to open his eyes and roll over to find her whole and healthy beside him. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, to bury his nose in her hair and breathe in the scent that was uniquely hers, to know she was safe. To know that the whole thing had been a far too realistic bad dream.

He reached out a hand to gently brush the hair away from her bruised cheek, his fingers barely skimming her skin, feeling like any small touch would inadvertently cause her any more pain.

He recalled the doctor's words, the matter of fact way that he had rattled off her list of injuries, just as they themselves would in the same situation. He didn't know if that was the doctor's attempt at making them feel better, to treat them as he would any other emergency professional, or if that was just his way, but it hadn't helped. All it had done was make him feel like she was being treated as just another accident victim, just another patient that he'd fixed up and could now forget about, getting on with his day. John knew he shouldn't be blaming the man for his attitude, it was one he and his brothers had learned to adopt themselves, it was that or let each and every rescue haunt them. They never meant to be dismissive or impersonal but sometimes they had to. But, just because he understood it didn't mean he had to like seeing it from the other side.

But Dr Cooper didn't know his wife, he didn't know just how incredibly special she was, how she held them all together when times got tough. Dr Cooper might be able to walk out of the hospital when his shift ended and not think about her again, but John couldn't forget, he couldn't just move on and neither could she.

His eyes travelled the length of her body for what felt like the millionth time, unable to stop himself from cataloguing the damage all over again. The list scrolled through his mind like he was reading a report, unable to not see and hear it all over again.

A broken nose and black eyes from the air bag and a cut to her head. Three cracked ribs and a punctured lung on the side of impact. A broken ankle from the impact of her car hitting the one in front and a fractured wrist from where she had pushed Alan back in his seat. A fractured pelvis was also on the list, along with a ruptured spleen and a number of lesions including to her liver, likely caused by both the impact, the snapback of the seatbelt, and the intricate metal work armour that had adorned her corset, all of which had crumpled on impact, causing blunt force trauma to the entire area.

Dr Cooper, the first doctor who had come to find them in the relatives room, had been very happy with her surgery, saying it had gone much smoother than he had expected. All of her broken bones had been clean enough to allow his team to perform a laser fusion, cutting her recovery time by half. The spleen had been salvageable, the rupture nowhere near as bad as it could have been. And, once they had sucked the air out of her chest cavity, her lung had reinflated, the insertion of a chest drain keeping it that way so that it had time to seal properly. That, along with some deep lacerations from shrapnel and heavy bruising, had been the extent of her life threatening injuries. She had, the doctor said, been extremely lucky.

The relief they had all felt at that news had been tangible, the anxiety and worry in the room dialling down almost instantly. Celia and Grandma had dissolved into tears as they clung to each other's hands, Gordon had shared a high five with Adam, while Virgil and Scott had caught Alan in the middle of a big bro hug.

Of course they had all asked if they could see her, but as she was in the recovery room there was a strict two visitor limit. As her husband, and next of kin, John had taken the first shift along with Celia, who had only just left after Adam had insisted she go to the hotel they had booked nearby and get some rest.

He'd carried that sense of relief with him as they had followed Dr Copper down corridor after corridor until they reached the high dependency unit where they had the recovery rooms. She was in the middle room, sandwiched between a man in his 50's who was recovering from a heart transplant and a lady in her 70's who had just had surgery on her twisted bowel, both of which he'd overheard the nurses talking about just from sitting in her room for the last six hours. He'd held the door open for Celia and was about to follow in after her, when Dr Cooper had stopped him, taking him aside, taking him to a smaller room where another doctor waited to greet him.

He dropped his head into his hands, his mind whirling, replaying the doctor's words over and over again. Like some twisted ear worm that he couldn't get out of his head, the words spinning around and around, refusing to give him any peace.

"Son?"

John jumped, the sound of the door opening too soft to register over the beeps and whooshes of the machinery that was keeping Selene comfortably asleep while her body healed.

"Dad? What are you doing here? I thought you all headed to a hotel." The sight of his father standing in the doorway was enough to snap him out of the thoughts he'd found himself locked in. He sat up a little straighter, physically pulling himself together as he tried to mentally do the same. He didn't want his dad to know the direction his thoughts had been taking, but the sympathetic look on his face told John that that ship had probably already sailed.

"I decided to come back, I thought you might need the company."

"Then pull up a chair." John gestured to the spare chair that Celia had occupied. "They're uncomfortable, there appears to be a strange hump on the back rest that will rearrange your spine, and the wipe clean plastic makes your butt sweat, but if you can deal with that you're welcome to it." There, that sounded normal enough, didn't it? A forced out joke and a small smile could do wonders for his ability to fake it.

"Wow, that's an offer I can't refuse, since you made them sound so appealing," Jeff chuckled quietly, settling down gingerly in the chair. "Is there any news?" He nodded in Selene's direction even though it was unnecessary.

"Not really." John sighed. "You know how hospitals are, they tell you the bare minimum at a time and slowly drip feed you the rest of the information as and when they feel like it. All I know is that they are keeping her sedated for at least a day, they want to give her a chance to get a head start on her healing. Everything is looking positive, the doctors said that her injuries, while severe and obviously life threatening, were caught and operated on in time. She should make a good recovery." Even as he said the words the omission stuck in his throat and he had to push past the lump that formed to get them out.

"A good recovery?"

John should have known that his dad wouldn't miss the careful way he had worded his answer.

"Not a full recovery?" Jeff pushed gently. Not that he'd expected his son to be dancing on the ceiling, his wife was still injured and she had a long way to go in her recovery, but he should have been acting far more relieved than he was. Even though he had spent a long time away from his family, missing out on the day to day things and the memories that had been created, Jeff still knew them well enough to know when they were hiding things from him. Call it fatherly intuition, call it a keen observation, call it anything you wanted, but he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that something was going on that John hadn't told them about. And he wasn't leaving until he knew what that something was

John slipped back into the silence he'd been in before Jeff had interrupted him, just sitting there like a statue, staring at a point on the wall above Selene's head, showing no intention of answering the question. That was fine, he could wait, all that mattered was that John knew he was there for when he did find the words.

They sat there for over an hour, the only interruption being a nurse who came in to check Selene's drips and offer them both a cup of tea. John didn't know what it was about the British and their unshakable belief that a cup of tea could make everything magically better, but it was doing nothing for him. He'd drunk two coffees from Virgil and had barely tasted them, they hadn't even registered. Neither had the three cups of tea that the nurses had brought in every few hours for him and Celia. Celia has taken them gratefully, sipping them and sighing with relief and proclaiming how it was just what she needed. To him they had been hot and wet but they had done absolutely nothing to make things better as was claimed.

"Maybe you have to be British for it to work?" he mused aloud.

"For what to work, son?" Jeff asked, making John jump, having obviously forgotten he wasn't alone.

"Oh, sorry, I was just thinking out loud, that's all. Ignore me." John shifted in his seat, wishing he could join her in the bed. He recalled the one and only time they had been in this kind of situation. It was nowhere near as dramatic, he had simply neglected to take care of himself and the needs of his body and passed out from a mixture of dehydration and exhaustion. It wasn't his finest moment, but waking up to Selene's worried face and later having her admit for the first time that she loved him had more than made up for it. From that moment she had inserted herself firmly into his life and had never left. She had sat up in bed next to him all night, checking on him, making sure he was drinking every time he had stirred, and acting as his human pillow for as long as he had needed her.

He'd give anything to be able to take her place right now, to be the one suffering so that she didn't have to. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, his fingers curling into fists as he battled to push down the pain that bloomed in his heart when he thought of the conversation they'd have to have when she woke up. There was no way that he couldn't tell her, not now that he has been given the information. He almost wished the Doctor hadn't told him, wished that he had left him in blissful ignorance for a little longer, at least until she was awake so she could tell them together.

"John?"

His dad's voice was soft, coaxing and he wanted nothing more than to share the burden that had been heaped on him, to share the knowledge that he shouldn't even have. Hadn't she suffered enough in her life? Hadn't she had enough to deal with? Nathaniel had broken her down, trying to take away every shred of belief and self respect she had had for herself and she had fought back valiantly. But he knew his wife, he knew how she took things to heart, how she would try to shoulder the blame even when there was no fault to be found.

"Son, please talk to me."

God, he wanted nothing more than to do that very thing, to blurt it all out to his dad and have him fix it. That's what parents were there for, that's what they were supposed to do, to take the pain away and make it all better for their children. But nothing was going to take this away. It was selfish of him, he knew that, to be thinking about himself and his needs but holding it in was too much, it was too hard. He wasn't as strong as he let people believe. He took his strength from those around him as much as he gave it to others, and his rock, his strength needed him far more than he needed her.

"She'd hate to see you like this," Jeff told him, his tone gentle but firm, as if he were reading John's mind. "You know she would. You know the moment she wakes up she's going to need you but all she will be focusing on is you. If you ask me, she'd want you to do whatever you needed to do to get through this so you can be there for her, and that includes not shutting people out."

John nodded, gratefully accepting the wisdom in his father's words as the permission they were. He was right, Selene had a one track mind when it came to him and the family. They were her priority, even over herself. She'd proved that by the way she had thought of Alan first even as a car was barrelling towards them. She'd wake up and her immediate thought would be to make sure everyone else was alright. Selene would want him to do everything he could to keep himself as sane and grounded as possible. She was a big believer in talking about the things that were bothering you, and if she couldn't be there to listen she would have pushed him to talk to someone else.

He shifted in his chair, reaching for her hand. He needed to feel it warm and solid in his, needed to feel her pulse under his fingers, needed to feel that connection they had. Just that simple act of reaching out and touching her, made a world of difference. He was able to suck in a full breath for what felt like the first time that day. He could do this. He could trust his father not to say anything to anyone until they felt the time was right, but right now he needed to talk. He needed his dad.

"Earlier, when I said she should make a good recovery," John started, fighting past the lump in his throat to get the words out. "The doctor took me aside…" He paused again, realising that the hand that was not holding Selene's was trembling. If he couldn't do this with her asleep, how would he ever be able to tell her when she woke up?

"Just take your time, there's no rush. I'm not going anywhere," Jeff promised. John glanced up from his contemplation of his hand to meet the gentle eyes of his father.

"Dr Jennings, a gynaecological surgeon who works alongside Dr Cooper, said that the impact did some damage… internally."

Jeff knew he had to tread carefully, like one would when approaching a stray cat or a baby rabbit, gently and mindful of their space. He didn't want to hurry or push too much, his son had never responded well to that. John wasn't really one to talk about his feelings if he could help it and they certainly hadn't talked that deeply since his rescue from the Oort cloud, but he knew from experience that if John was going to talk, he had to do so in his own good time. Demanding anything of any of his boys had never worked out well for anyone, let alone with John. He might be the quietest but that didn't mean he was weak, the stubborn Tracy gene ran through him like the ore of a rock, nothing would move him if he'd made up his mind to stay. No, the gently gently approach was needed here.

"I thought that first one said that they had managed to patch her up real good?" That was light enough, Jeff thought, just enough to push him to continue but not to be demanding information.

"They did, well as best they could, but it's what will likely happen as she heals that's the problem." John tried to recall exactly what the doctor had told him, but now, when he needed it the most, his brain was failing him, his inner voice drowned out by the sound of his own sadness and fear. It had been as if he were hearing the words from the end of a long tunnel, like he knew what they had meant, he had comprehended them, but they still hadn't made total sense. It felt abstract, like it should be happening to someone else but at the same time all too real.

He had to take a moment, his fingers tightening around Selene's. If she had been awake she would have told him to breathe, that breathing was the simplest of things but something that people always forgot to do. In through the nose for the count of five, hold for the count of five, release through the mouth to the count of six. Slow and easy. He did it again, feeling his heart slow a little of its frantic thumping. Once more and some of the brain fog cleared, allowing him to focus enough to form the words needed. Try not to think of it as Sel, he instructed, think of it as someone else. Facts are facts, just get them out so you can see them clearly. He could do this, he had to.

"Dr Jennings said that the seat belt, as well as the corset she was wearing, caused a lot of blunt force trauma to her abdomen. That was how she fractured her pelvis, ruptured her spleen and lacerated her liver." This was easier, just stating the facts as if he were writing out a report at the end of a rescue. It helped him distance himself from it somehow, it allowed him to see the situation in the abstract, as if it were happening to someone other than his wife.

"To fix those they had to perform invasive surgery, surgery that will result in quite a significant healing process. It's during this process that adhesions form, commonly known as scar tissue. It's the body's way of ensuring that all the internal organs are anchored into place where they should be."

Jeff nodded, showing he was following along but declined to say anything, allowing John the time he so obviously needed.

"Apparently the abdominal area of a female is especially sensitive and adhesions, specifically around the reproductive organs…" John trailed off, his International Rescue calm deserting him. "Dr Jennings said that she couldn't give us an official diagnosis but she'd seen this situation a hundred times before over the course of her career and the results were always the same. She said that she felt I should know, since we were married."

Jeff's eyes slid shut as he sucked in a steadying breath. It was becoming clearer now, the picture forming in his head as his son continued his heartbreaking speech, further confirming his fears.

"She said that it's most common for the adhesions to form around the delicate structures of the reproductive tract. A successful pregnancy requires a fertilised egg, and the presence of adhesions can prevent the sperm from even reaching it. Not only can they prevent fertilisation of the egg, but they can cause a condition known as blocked fallopian tubes. The adhesions wrap around or even fill the tubes and the eggs can have trouble making it to the uterus or can result in more serious conditions such as ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal to the mother."

"Oh, son," Jeff murmured, but he wasn't sure John even heard him, that or he chose to ignore it as he ploughed on as if he were reciting from a medical textbook.

"The doctor said that an ultrasound, once the swelling has gone down and her healing is well on its way, could tell us more. She said that it wasn't a foregone conclusion but, in her professional opinion, with the amount of damage she sustained, adhesions will form, it's a natural part of the healing process, and they will make a natural conception highly unlikely, not impossible, but not to be expected or counted on without medical help."

Jeff shifted in his chair, wishing that he was sitting on the same side of the bed as his son was, but also knowing that it might be for the best that he wasn't. John was holding himself together admirably, but if Jeff had been closer he might not have.

Jeff hadn't known his daughter-in-law as long as he would have liked, but in the time he had he had never failed to be impressed by her fearless attitude. She had taken him on when he'd been at his worst, she never hesitated to call any of them out on their crap, himself included, and she had survived. He'd sensed the strength in her from the moment he'd met her and, after hearing the story of her past relationship, he had been even more awed by her resilience and ability to overcome.

"She's strong," he started, wanting to say something, anything to make John feel better. "She'll handle this the same way she does everything else, bravely and with unflappable optimism." So, it would be a setback for her, no woman liked to be told that they couldn't have children, but he doubted that would concern her too much. Selene had always been extremely vocal about the fact that she didn't want children. Hell, one of the first times they had spoken she'd told him not to get his hopes up about grandkids from them and that he'd have to start bugging one of his other kids to start the next family football team.

Jeff opened his mouth to say just that but something stopped him. Some instinct that he knew not to ignore told him to hold it in and give his son time. He closed his mouth again, holding back the words he's been about to say, his focus shifting to John.

"We never told anyone," John said softly, his fingers tightening around hers briefly before he turned pain-filled eyes to his father. "Sel stopped taking her contraceptives three months ago. We weren't actively trying, not to the point of tracking or measuring anything, but the idea was there. We'd talked about it, just as we do with anything important, and we'd made the decision together that another Tracy in the world might not be too terrible. In fact, we thought it might be quite nice." His lips curved into a sad little smile, one that quickly faded as the reality of the situation hit him hard. "Everything in our relationship has happened when it was supposed to and we figured this would be the same, that it would happen when the time was right. Now it seems like there won't be a time at all. It's ironic if you think about it, we met because of an accident that could have killed her and now our future has been wiped out the same way."

John's eyes seemed to be pleading with him to give him some kind of wisdom, some guidance or a promise that everything would be alright, but also knowing that not even his father could promise anything of the sort. He turned away, looking back down at his wife resting peacefully in the stark white sheets of her hospital bed.

"How am I going to tell her?" John asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Jeff watched the way his thumb unconsciously stroked back and forth across the back of her hand, avoiding the cannula that took up most of the room, as if needing to give her comfort even when she wasn't aware of it.

"She never thought she was good enough to be a mother and now she won't even get the chance to prove herself wrong."

She looked so much smaller, surrounded as she was by machines and the harsh lights of the room. They were all so used to her being larger than life, loud and proud, dominating a room without even trying. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't talking, or maybe just the knowledge that she was injured, that something as mundane as a car accident had taken her down. She was such a fighter, so determined to face everything head on. There should be no doubt that this would be the same.

"Son?" Jeff waited until John looked at him again before continuing. "She will get through this. You will get through this. You will find a way to tell her because you are her husband and you know her better than any doctor ever could. Sure, you could let them tell her, but I know you won't because it's not in your nature to back off when the going gets tough. And believe me, it's going to be a rough ride, I won't lie to you and pretend that it won't, but I know that she'd much rather hear it from you than anyone else."

John didn't look entirely convinced and Jeff couldn't blame him. They were all tired, but the stress of the last 12 hours were weighing even more heavily on him. Jeff had lost his wife without having to go through the uncertainty of waiting or not knowing if she would be alright. He hadn't had to sit waiting for news, pinning all his hopes on some unknown doctor that literally held his wife's life in his hands. But John had, and he was still going through it. Jeff couldn't begin to imagine how his son was feeling, having bounced from abject fear, to elation at the news that she would survive, and back down to despair. How could it feel, knowing that just one moment either way could have made such a difference? That in the space of a few hours their future plans lay in ruins.

Jeff wanted to say something, anything to make it better, to ease the hurt and pain that he felt radiating out from his son. He wanted to wrap him up in a tight hug like he had when he was a child and to rock the pain away. He knew that nothing he could say or do would make a difference, but he couldn't stop himself from reaching across to cover John's hand with his own.

"I believe in you both," Jeff continued. "I see the love between you, more than I've seen in such a long time, as long as you have each other you'll both get through this. But me believing in you isn't enough, you need to do the hard work, not me. This sort of thing can make or break a couple, it's up to the pair of you to make sure that it doesn't."

John nodded, taking strength in the feel of his father's strong hand resting on his own. He wasn't alone, they weren't alone. They had a big, loving family around them that would do all they could to help.

"I won't lose her. Not at all and definitely not like this. Not from a stupid accident or what might or might not come after."

"No, you won't. This is not an ending, your future doesn't depend on the presence of children, it depends on your love for each other."

They weren't facing this alone. They would face it together, as they faced everything, as a family. They had money, they had the privilege of being able to afford the best doctors in the world. They would have access to the best treatment, the opportunity to explore every single option out there. This didn't have to be the end, not if they didn't want it to be. They would have options, they might have ways of making it happen. But above all they had time. The accident hadn't robbed them of that. The most important thing in his world was still right there with him, she was still breathing, her heart was still beating and if it was beating that meant she was fighting.

He took another deep breath and held it, but this time it did its job, calming his mind enough that when he next spoke he was able to speak truthfully, honestly.

"You're right, we have each other, and that's all we need."

This time, when John tore his eyes away from his wife, the pain that Jeff had seen in his eyes was masked by something else, determination.