The next time he came to, everything was dark and quiet again.
The pounding of rain drops on the metal roof had decreased somewhat, but the constant dripping coming off the eaves was enough to let him know that the bad weather hadn't moved out of the region quite yet.
At one point, somebody had covered him up with a blanket and strangely enough, his clothes were no longer wet, not even from sweating.
Realizing that his body wasn't shaking violently for a change, Steve took a risk and opened his eyes to look around.
Unable to make out much with his vision blurry, he blinked a few times, then drew in a deep breath, hoping to revitalize his sore body.
The sound was enough to stir the figure bedded down next to him, and he heard some rummaging, before a flashlight was turned on.
"Would you look at that bright and shiny face."
Mike's voice sounded hoarse, as if he'd spent days on end awake. Lying in a cot across from his and facing him, the Lieutenant was wrapped up tightly in blankets, only a few scratches on his cheek serving as a reminder of their involuntary detour through the brush-infested creek bed.
Steve tried to smile but found it to cause the mother of all headaches and decided to grimace instead.
"How's everything feeling?"
Careful not to move the glow of the flashlight near his eyes, Mike reached over to untie his wrists that were held together by raggedy green bandages and fastened to the frame of the wooden cot.
"Did I die and didn't make the cut, so they sent me back?"
Surprised at his own sore throat, Steve finally remembered the escapade of his encounter with the stranger in the woods. He waited until Mike was done untying his hands, before pointing his chin at their surroundings.
"Where are we?"
"In a cabin. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night."
Nonchalantly as ever, the Lieutenant smiled broadly, trying to hide the deep grooves of worry on his forehead to no avail.
"How did we get here? What is all this?"
Trying to raise his head enough to see his injured leg sprawled out off to the side and covered with bandaging materials, Steve swallowed the remnants of the bitter taste in his mouth, wincing at the pain the motion caused in his throat.
"Luck brought us here, mostly. Spare me the long explanation tonight; but let's just say we got to meet the real Apothecary out here. I am not sure who the guy is posing for him back in San Francisco."
Keeping his hand on top of Steve's wrists as if to remind him of his presence, Mike pursed his lips, his busy mind torn between their case and utter and total exhaustion.
"He's not a friendly guy, Michael…not by any stretch of the imagination…", he reminded his partner, feeling the remnants of another slight tremor run through his body, that wasn't lost on the Lieutenant either.
Squeezing his wrists gently, Mike nodded, fighting an internal battle on what to tell him and what to wait on. Eventually, he drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment, before releasing it along with all the stress that was eating up his soul that night.
"Let's just say we didn't meet under the best of circumstances. I will fill you in tomorrow morning. But it's 2am right now and after today, we both need a good nights' sleep. This time around, you really do look like something the cat dragged in, Buddyboy."
