Dutchy slowly opened his eyes. Everything was blurry. He blinked to clear his vision. Everything was still blurry. He blinked again and brought his hands to his eyes, rubbing at them with his knuckles. His left eye gradually regained normal sight, but his right eye was still blurry, and it felt as though it had sand stuck in it. He thought longingly of the eye drops that Swain kept on hand back on the Hammersley.
He must have been unconscious because he had no idea how he had gotten to his present location. He took in his surroundings and swallowed back a feeling of panic. He was in a besser block room that was perfectly square and just barely large enough for him to stretch out in. There was a tin roof and no windows. He could see daylight through a crack running the entire way around the perimeter of the door and he could also see the outline of multiple locks on the outside of the door. If he were less injured, he'd try to scramble up to the roof and see if there was a way to escape.
His hands were still bound together and the skin on his wrists had rubbed raw and was bleeding. He tried to stand up but collapsed back to his knees before he lay down on the dirt floor. He was surprised by how weak he felt. He told himself that part of his problem was tiredness; he hadn't slept the night before, electing instead to keep watch over the enemy while 2 Dads dozed.
2 Dads had been rushing off into the bush to get help last time Dutchy had seen him. He looked up toward the sky and prayed to a deity he didn't even believe in to let 2 Dads reach the Hammersley and send a rescue party.
His pain level seemed to be rising exponentially with his time spent awake and despite his better judgement he found himself letting his eyes close. He told himself he just needed a quick nap and then he would fully assess his situation.
When he woke up it was night. The room was cold without the sun warming the concrete walls and no light shone through the edge of the door. His first thought was of how thirsty he was. His right eye was still fucked up but he couldn't tell what was wrong with it. His pants were stiff with dried blood but every time he moved a wound from his barbed wire disaster opened up and bled again. He dragged himself to the middle of the room, trying to stay away from the cold concrete walls. He was so cold he had started shivering. He absently reminded himself that shivering wasted calories and he didn't know if there was food in his future, so he really needed to stop shivering. As he drifted back into a cold and nightmare fueled sleep, he didn't realize he had just had his last lucid moment for days.
His consciousness swam toward the fluorescent lights of the ward room and his breathing hitched as he became fully aware of his surroundings. His heart was pounding with panic and his muscles tensed as adrenaline coursed through his body. He didn't know where he was for a few seconds. He could barely see. His right eye was in complete darkness. He felt something resting against his arm and grimaced at the pain in his head as he slightly tilted his head to see what it was.
His gaze lingered on the blonde head resting on the bed near his shoulder. He didn't have the energy yet to think about what it meant-that she was here with him instead of on the bridge where she belonged. If the XO was at his side then he must be in bad shape. He gingerly wiggled his fingers and toes, thankful to have movement in his extremities.
"What's the damage, X?" He asked, his voice a hoarse croak.
Her head jerked up in surprise and she jumped to her feet, leaning over him. "Dutchy! You're awake!" She instinctively checked his forehead for a fever. The back of her hand felt cool against his skin and he wished she would leave her hand on him. "Swain didn't know if you would regain consciousness before we could get you ashore."
He didn't quite have the energy to smile but he couldn't take his good eye off her face. He repeated his question, he needed to know how badly he was hurt. "What's the damage? Am I going to make it?"
She nodded a few times and took her hand away from his forehead. "Yeah. Yeah, you should heal up fine. The damage?" Her eyes gave him a once over and he could tell she was deciding whether to tell him everything. "Your right cornea is scratched. Swain put a patch over it to keep you from using it until we get to the hospital. Your wrists are cut almost to the bone and Swain thinks they're infected." She paused in her litany of his injuries to smile at him. "Isn't that enough? Do you need to know the rest?" She was partly joking because she knew, of course, he would want to know the full extent of what had happened to him.
"Just tell me," He whispered. If he faced losing a kidney, or a limb, or anything else that would make him unfit for duty, he wanted to know now. The X would understand what it meant to him. They were the same: neither of them would be happy on shore.
"Ok," She nodded at him and gently pressed down the edge of the bandage on his eye where it was peeling away from his skin. "Well, you're starved and dehydrated and you lost a lot of blood when they ripped you out of the barbed wire. Significant bruising to your torso. 2 Dads told us you weren't this badly off when he left you so they must have worked you over before moving you to the second camp. It took us days to find you because the first camp had been abandoned and then the second camp had also been abandoned—a rival gang drove them out but apparently didn't realize you were there. So when they also moved to a different location you got left behind." She paused and he could see her grappling over how much was too much to tell him in his weakened state.
"But you found me." He reassured her. "I'm going to recover from this." He said it with more conviction than he felt because the longer she talked to him the more time he had to dwell on his pain and he was now certain he had a few cracked ribs.
She continued, "It was touch and go, for a while. We didn't know if we'd find you, and then we didn't know if you'd make it back to the ship. Your pulse was so weak." Her voice trailed off and he saw her blink back tears.
A sudden memory of that cold building where he had almost died filled his mind and he flinched.
"Dutchy?" the X brought her hand to his face to comfort him, resting her palm along his cheek.
Her touch was suddenly the most important thing to him and he felt anxious that she might leave. He hadn't seen the sun or felt the touch of another human in days. And now here she was, the figure from his fevered dreams, backlit by overhead lighting that made her hair shine as if she herself were the sun. He wanted nothing more than to bask in her warmth.
He clumsily raised his hands from his sides and caught her wrist. She slid her hands into his and he intertwined their fingers, letting their hands rest on his chest. He felt the warmth of her skin against his bare chest and wished he could pull her into an embrace. Even in his current state he realized that wasn't something that could happen. He couldn't hug his boss. He sighed and then groaned as the sigh caused a stabbing pain in his side.
"Are you ok?" He heard the worry in her voice but he couldn't reassure her yet because he was focusing on shallow breathing to avoid causing himself more pain. "You're on the highest dose of pain-killers that Swain thinks is safe. And the CO has us at full speed so we should make port in a few hours. Swain will be back soon to check on you. We had arranged a chopper to airlift you out but it would've taken too long."
Dutchy's brain was foggy. He was overwhelmed by the feel of her hands in his. He was so relieved to be rescued he could cry. It had seemed that he would die cold and alone and hungry and that he would never know the touch of this woman he had pined over for far too long.
He closed his good eye against the blinding lights-they were giving him a migraine. Or, possibly his head injury was the thing giving him a migraine but the lighting wasn't helping. He felt the X moving and opened his eye again to see her settling into the chair next to him while still keeping her hands wrapped in his.
"I thought I would never see you again," He told her.
"We were worried about you, too." She gave him a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. Her face was more tired than he had ever seen it and her eyes were filled with worry.
He gave a small shake of his head. "That's not what I mean. I didn't want to die without seeing you again. I wanted to stay alive long enough to hold your hand." It sounded stupid, but that was the one simple act he had become focused on while he was imprisoned.
"Oh," She gave a small noise and he watched as she blushed. His bottom lip split as he gave her a small smile and he could tell it was bleeding. He loved the way she looked when she blushed. He always had. In his current post-near-death state, he couldn't think too far into the future, he only thought of the present. And at present, he was still alive and she was alive, and they were holding hands, and it didn't make sense to keep pretending he didn't like her.
"You're bleeding," She pointed out as she rose to get something to wipe away the blood.
"Don't worry about it." He tried to keep hold of her hands but she had already pulled away. He swallowed back the fear that rose in his throat at the feeling of being alone again. His head was pounding, his eye ached, his torso was a source of sharp pain from his rib injuries and he could feel every bruise and open wound. If he wasn't able to have her touch, then he needed more morphine to make it the next few hours until he was in hospital. "Could you ask Swain for more pain meds?" He let his arms rest beside his sides again, trying to ignore the sudden anxiety he felt.
She was back at his side and leaned over him to dab at the blood on his lip. "Dutchy?" If he weren't still so dehydrated he would cry. As much as his physical injuries hurt, the idea that she didn't feel anything more than professional responsibility for him hurt just as much. "You want me to go fetch Swain?" She rested her hand on his shoulder and he changed his mind. He didn't want her leaving his side.
"No, it's fine. Just...don't let me go, Kate." Dutchy reached for her hand again and she willingly wrapped her small hand around his.
"I won't," She promised him, leaning down to gently kiss his forehead.
He felt feverish. As exhaustion overtook him and he sank into sleep, he briefly wondered if he had imagined the feel of her lips on his forehead.