Hurray for suddenly being the slowest poster ever! Sorry about the wait, everyone! Here is the next installment, and after a few slower chapters I think it was about time for something new, don't you? Let me know what you think when you leave your review at the end!

Chapter Sixteen

"Mickey-"

"Don't even start with me, Lee…"

"You need-"

"I don't need to do anything."

The look of frustration that he wore was one that was usually reserved for when he bantered with Barney. And that was exactly what Lee felt like he was doing in that moment as Mikayla stubbornly avoided his eye and refused to budge from her place against the wall. For almost an hour now he had been trying to reason with the girl, attempting to convince her that remaining within the hospital walls really wasn't doing her any good. She needed to get outside into the fresh air. She needed to focus on the recovery of her own body from the ordeal that she had suffered at Church's hands. The last place she needed to be was hovering by the bedside of a man who hadn't woken up since he had first arrived in the hospital. But despite his constant badgering, that was exactly where the young woman had placed herself.

"Have you even-"

"Can you just stop?" Mickey asked as her eyes darted over toward the man. But after a moment, her gaze softened a little. "Look…I know you mean well, Lee. I know you're worried. But this is something I have to do."

Lee frowned darkly, folding his arms over his chest. "You know that Barney would hate having you hover like this."

"And he'd appreciate it more if it were someone else?"

She certainly had him there, the man thought to himself. He'd known Barney Ross long enough to know that he really wouldn't appreciate anyone lurking about the way that they were…and unfortunately, he was also aware of the fact that it wasn't just Mickey. The team was still concerned about the fact that there had been no real change in his recovery since they had brought him in, and without a solid lead to follow in terms of hunting down Church, they were left to sit around the hangar and wait. But you could only clean the weapons so many times before the pressure of waiting started to get to you.

The team had started making rotation changes almost hourly just so that they could occupy a little more of this free time they had on their hands, which had annoyed the hospital staff at least once or twice in the past twenty-four hours. They tended not to appreciate having so many people around all the time, especially when they were asking for frequent updates on the same patient and always being given the same answer.

Lee bit the tip of his tongue for a moment, debating his next question. "And what if he doesn't wake up, Mick?"

A sudden chill rushed through the room in that moment. All movement seemed to cease, and indeed it almost felt as if time were standing still. The look that crossed Mikayla's face was something between horror and heartache, and Lee regretted asking as soon as his eyes found hers. Not too long ago she had lost her mother. And though the relationship with her father was almost non-existent, he could only imagine how painful it must have been to contemplate his death as well. Yet there was a terrifying sense of reality in it. Barney might never wake up. Church might have succeeded in the slow and painful death that he had clearly desired for the man to suffer.

So what if he won?

Her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came through. Then came the heavier breaths that told him her heart was racing madly in her chest. Fingers tightened as she held her arms a little more closely to her chest, a sure sign of anxiety. Lee crossed the distance rather quickly then and set his hands on either one of her shoulders, giving her a bit of a squeeze to help her regain her focus.

"Mickey…look at me…"

Her dark head turned with a snap as wide eyes stared at him. "It would be my fault," she managed to whisper.

Lee shook his head firmly, wanting to banish that notion before it settled in too deeply. "No," came his steady tone. "Church did this, Mickey."

"But he came after me. I must have slipped up somehow on another job, because nobody should ever have been able to connect me to Barney. Nobody. I used Mom's name, I got rid of the birth certificate with his name on it…I did everything I could think of-"

"Mikayla, you need to stop this. You're doing yourself more harm than good by letting Church get inside your head. And if he knew that you were alive then that would be exactly what he wanted. To torture you from a distance."

There was enough sense in his words for Mikayla to register them, but it seemed that the young woman was still battling with her own conscience. There had to be something that she had done in order to lead Church to Barney. Some tiny slip up that she hadn't thought of, a minor detail that only a desperate man would be able to see and use to his advantage. For that was what Church was, she realized, a desperate man. Why else would he continue this relentless pursuit of getting revenge on another human being? And what the hell was the problem to begin with?

The situation brought forth more questions than answers, which did little to soothe her already agitated frame of mind.

With a heavy sigh, Mikayla leaned forward until her head rested upon Lee's chest. Her shoulders slumped forward as the feeling of exhaustion began to make its way into her body, finally getting the control that it had wanted for the last several days.

"One more night," she begged him softly. "One more night of watching him and if he doesn't wake up, I'll get myself a hotel room and sleep. I promise."

The older man shook his head a little, slipping his arms around her body in a supportive manner lest her knees give out beneath her. "The hangar will be a safer place for you," he grumbled. "You'll be comfortable enough and the team can keep an eye on you."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"I'm not asking, Mickey."

Another heavy sigh fell from the lips of the brunette as she slowly lifted her head from his shoulder, narrowing her gaze at him with a bit of a smirk. "And you say my old man is stubborn."

Lee huffed a little. "He is. And damn it, I know that's where you bloody well get it from too."

Understanding that there was very little room left for argument with Lee, Mickey slowly nodded. "Fine," she told him. "After tonight I will go back to the hangar and I will stay there until something happens, okay?"

The old man nodded firmly. Though he didn't say anything outright, he had this awful feeling that they were still not out of the woods yet. Church hadn't made a move to suggest that he knew that Barney was alive, but that didn't do anything to set Lee at ease. The man had previously worked for the CIA and had had access to an unknown amount of information and resources during that time. There was no way for them to possibly know what other aces might be up the man's sleeve if he were really that serious about getting revenge on Barney. Hell, they still didn't yet understand what the whole thing was about. Everything had been settled after they had secured the plutonium…or so he had thought.

So what the hell was the problem now?

Silence fell into the room at that moment as the two settled into their own thoughts, Lee watching Mickey and she in turn watching the unconscious form of Barney Ross who still hadn't moved on the hospital bed. The endless waiting game was beginning to wear on them all. Nobody was sleeping or eating properly. They were searching for something to do that would keep their hands busy and allow them to channel whatever anger they held onto. In truth, the team was a mess. But without a way in which to try and fix it, they knew that this was the reality of their current situation. They just had to be patient and wait it out. Sooner or later Church would show his hand. And then they would be ready.

"Lee."

Both heads turned toward the doorway, where Smilee stood with his arms folded tightly over his broad chest. "You might want to head back. Drummer thinks he might have something for us. They're just waiting for you."

He turned rather quickly for the door, pausing only long enough to mutter something that Mickey couldn't make out before he turned the corner and vanished, leaving her alone in the room with John Smilee for the second time in less than fourty-eight hours. The brunette watched him for a moment, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

"Weren't you just here?"

Smilee shrugged in response. "I volunteered. I thought it was a little more important that Doc be there with Lee and the others when Drummer showed up."

"Do you know what he found?" Mickey asked, perhaps a little too quickly.

But the young man just shook his head as he wandered a few steps into the room. "Not a clue. I figure they'll let me know soon enough." His eyes then turned to Barney, and he nodded his head toward the old man. "How is he?"

"Same as before," she told him quietly.

Blue eyes flickered from Barney to Mikayla, whose gaze had returned to her father's motionless form. There was no mistaking the weary look that she wore, Smilee thought to himself. The lines under her eyes betrayed how little she had slept since they had first brought him in, and the lack of colour in her cheeks certainly said that she hadn't left his side to venture outside in that time either. And again the lad found himself wondering if this show of dedication was genuine or if it stemmed from many years of pent up guilt over how they had initially parted ways. There was a part of his brain that was absolutely dying to know.

"He should blame me, you know…"

Smilee blinked at her, a little confused by the sudden statement before he managed to gather his wits about him again. "He won't."

"But he should," the young woman insisted softly. "I've been sitting here for days trying to come up with just how Church managed to locate me like that. I did everything I could possibly do in order to hide who I was…and he still found me…."

"You're going to give yourself a headache if you keep it up," he told her bluntly. "Don't forget, the dude used to work for the CIA."

"That still doesn't explain-"

"Look," Smilee said sharply, cutting her off as he came to stand in front of her, looking down at her slightly smaller frame. "We can't change it, okay? He did it…end of story. Right now we need to focus on finding the son of a bitch so that he doesn't hurt anyone else."

Mickey blinked at him, initially startled by the way in which he approached her before the anger began to settle into the depths of her dark brown eyes. "Then what are you doing here? You should be out there with the team, looking for Church."

Smilee rolled his eyes. "You know exactly why I'm here. Because Lee doesn't want you left alone in case Church manages to figure out that both you and Barney are here."

A bitter laugh sounded in Mikayla's throat, this time startling Smilee a little. "Don't play the fool, Smilee. You're here to make sure that I don't figure it out first and go running off to get revenge on Church for what he's done to me and my father."

"Huh…"

The look that Smilee gave her in that instant was a curious one. He leaned back a little bit and observed her, tilting his head slightly as if he were trying to see her from a new angle. And Mickey didn't like it. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, her arms coming up to fold across her own chest as if they alone would provide some kind of protective barrier between herself and him. For several long moments he didn't speak. And then the lingering silence became too much for Mickey to handle.

"What?"

Smilee shrugged. "That's just the first time I think I've heard you refer to Barney as being your father…that's all."

Mickey looked at him as if he had just slapped her across the face. Her eyes grew a little wide and her mouth was slightly agape, staring at him with a look of disbelief. It had been such a subconscious thing, to refer to Barney Ross as her father like that. As if all those years of pent up hatred and anger had suddenly vanished and were no longer real.

She couldn't remember the last time she had really called him that and meant it. It would have been long before their falling out, she had decided, and that was a number of years ago. So why now? Why after all that had happened did she suddenly find herself creating that connection again? With the absence of a father in her life for so many years, one would think that allowing him back in would have been nigh on impossible. And yet there she was, standing in the hospital room with someone who was little better than a stranger…and he had called her out on something she had sworn she would never again dabble in.

Family.

The brunette caught herself and quickly closed her mouth, dropping her eyes away from his face to instead stare at the floor. Already she could feel her cheeks beginning to burn for reasons she didn't understand, a frustrating thing for a woman who was so used to keeping her emotions under wraps. Emotions made you vulnerable in the field and put your life on the line, as well as anyone else you might have been working with at the time. They were dangerous things to play with and so Mickey had done her utmost to bury them as deeply as she could. Her anger would serve her better than her sadness or her heartbreak. It was why she hadn't cried when she had lost her mother. Because the emotional vulnerability on her next job might have earned her a space in the cemetery beside her.

"Can I get you something to eat?"

Dark eyes quickly lifted again at his question, searching his face for a moment before her tongue finally caught up with the rest of her and decided to work. "Um…sure, yeah…"

He offered her a bit of a smile, the one corner of his mouth turning upward. But was it amusement that made him look at her like that or something else? "How does a roast beef sandwich sound?"

"Sounds pretty delicious right now," Mickey confessed.

"Okay." Smilee nodded at her, taking a step toward the door. "I'll be right back with it, okay? Don't go anywhere while I'm gone…and don't do anything stupid. Lee will kill me if anything happens to you while I'm here…even if it's your own fault."

She laughed softly. "Noted."

Blue eyes watched her for another long moment before he finally turned and left the room in search of food. Now it was only her and Barney, and Mikayla suddenly felt drawn to move herself across the room to sit at his side once more. Only this time, she didn't sit in the chair that she had been in before. She crossed the distance with light footsteps and took his larger hand in her own, lifting it slightly so that she could settle on the edge of the mattress. She brought his hand to rest in her lap, gingerly holding it with her two smaller ones.

He certainly wasn't as young as she had remembered him being. As her eyes roamed his hand she could see the telltale signs of age and abuse, even with all of the decoration that he had placed on his skin with the tattoos. She could still tell that he had broken it several times and likely never seen a medical professional to have it set again. No, she quickly told herself, that wasn't entirely true. A memory stirred of at least one occasion where Barney Ross had been aided properly…because her mother had been the one to tend to his hand.

Mickey had been only about eight years old at the time, and she had been curious to know what had happened to his hand. Why had her mother needed to fix it? Without batting an eye, Barney had told her that it had been an accident. He and Lee had been messing around with the punching bag and thought they would see who was tougher, so they had taken the gloves off. He didn't tell her it was broken. Just that it was sore and he would need to rest it for a few days. And being the naïve child that she was, she had believed him without question.

Now she knew better.

"Lee's never going to forgive you if you don't wake up," she whispered softly.

There was no response, not that she had been expecting one. A small sigh fluttered past her lips as Mikayla sat there, her eyes closing to try and fight off the feeling of weariness that was beginning to make itself known once more. Lifting a hand away from his she began to rub at her eyes, attempting to get them to focus again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. She gave her head a bit of a shake. But still the tears that had begun to build would not disappear.

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"Not as sorry as I am, kid."

Eyes shot up in an instant as the low rumble of his words sounded in her ears, the tears spilling down her cheeks unnoticed. He was still battered and bruised with one of his eyes swollen to the point that he couldn't really open it. But the other was open slightly more. He was looking at her. He was awake.

Mikayla breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she scooted closer to him, pressing her hip into his side as she wiggled her way up the bed to look at her father a little more closely. "Christ, you scared me."

The drugs were still heavy in his system, so Barney seemed to be a little unfocused as he tried to look at her, his fingers weakly squeezing her own as his head tilted toward the outstretched hand that brushed against his cheek. "We'll call it even then."

Swallowing the lump that was beginning to form in her throat, Mickey ducked her head a little. "How do you feel?"

"Heavy," was his immediate response. "And tired."

She nodded. "I don't doubt it. You've been through a lot…the team is really worried about you."

When Barney didn't respond, Mickey quickly jumped on the silence. "Why don't you get some rest, okay?" she murmured softly as she brushed her fingers against his forehead and down the one side of his face. "We can talk later, when you're feeling up to it."

It was obvious that their small conversation had been too much for him to handle, and the old man had fallen back into a restful sleep. Or so she hoped. It was entirely possible that his body had just fought for one last moment, but that was a notion she refused to entertain. The fact that he had been awake, if only for a moment, was enough to assure her that he was on the path to recovery.

When she heard the footsteps approaching the door, she could hardly contain herself. "Smilee, I think he's going to be okay. He woke up for a second and-"

But the words stopped when she turned her head and saw the look on Smilee's face, noting that he was no longer alone. Gunner and Doc had come into the room and now flanked either side of the bed, with a few nurses already in the hallway arguing with Drummer. The scene had poor Mickey scrambling to try and figure out what was happening as she watched them, feeling Doc's gentle hands pry her away from Barney so that he could start talking to Gunner about how they were going to be moving him.

She staggered over toward the doorway, looking at Smilee with wide eyes. "What's going on?"

"Church." He spat the man's name as if it were a poison itself. "Drummer thinks that he might have found him, and if he's right then Church knows exactly where Barney is and that the two of you didn't die in the explosion."

"But, how-"

"I don't know," the man confessed quietly.

An arm snaked its way around her waist and gently pulled her to the side as the nurses hurried into the room, already beginning to communicate with Doc about how they were going to move him without causing him more harm. Mickey found herself held against Smilee's chest, her hands pressed against the warmth of his front as she tried to make herself as small as possible. It didn't occur to her where she was, or the fact that he still maintained a grip on her. So she didn't try to move away as she normally would have.

Smilee looked toward Barney for a moment before letting his eyes drift back down to the woman he still held in his protective embrace. "Drummer has a safe house where we can go, with a hospital nearby for Barney to be treated at. He'll have to go in under a different name…but he thinks it might buy us some time until we can get a better handle on where Church is."

"The team?"

"They're getting ready to leave. Luna's back at the hangar with everyone else. She and Caesar will make sure we have everything we need."

Mickey nodded slowly. "And us?"

Smilee looked at her for a moment before responding. "We go with Barney. We'll be able to meet them at the safe house."

"We're going to the hospital with him," she decided.

"Mickey-"

"Don't," she pleaded softly. "Don't…please? He was awake Smilee. I swear, for just a few moments he was awake and talking to me. He's making progress, and I'll be damned if I leave him now when Church is standing on the threshold as a threat again."

He seemed to regard her for several long moments before he breathed a heavy sigh. "Fine." His grip around her tightened a little bit, his eyes firmly locked on hers. "But you aren't to leave my side until we get there…understood?"

Mickey nodded in agreement. Without another word, Smilee had started to steer her out of the room and down toward the van that awaited them. Tool was already there, eyeing the two of them carefully before he allowed Smilee to tuck her into the back corner, wrapping her warmly in the sweater that he had been wearing before he stepped out again and waited for the nurses to help bring Barney downstairs. It was going to be a long journey, he knew. The threat from Church was all too real, and he didn't like it for a single instant. At least she had agreed to stick close, he thought to himself. That had to count for something.

The last thing they needed was for Mickey to pull a fast one on them, like her old man had, and go after Church herself.