A/N: The chapter title is thanks to a classmate of mine.
Where I have a STRONG fascination of all things skeletal, he loves anesthesia. Particularly morphine.
(Not like he wants to try it out himself, but he loves administering it.)

And during our last clinical rotation we met in the med room, I was sent in there to grab some pills and he was standing there with syringes and a shit eating grin. Doing his best paraphrased powerranger immitation: "It's MORPHINE TIME!"

Too many hours later, he had been carried out to the waiting chopper. This time on an actual stretcher which made the journey slightly less excruciating. The paramedics or whatever had given him more morphine, or fentanyl or something. He didn't complain, he didn't have to be able to protect himself, or ration his auto-injectors. After that, he didn't remember much before he woke from surgery.

He was relieved to see that some sort of shape continued where his leg was supposed to go. At least he hadn't joined the 'some-assembly-required' squad yet. But he didn't like that the pain was constant, even though he had just woken up, nor did he want to settle with the amount of pain he was experiencing.

He managed to get the attention of one of the post-op/ICU nurses.

"Hey there…" she smiled at him, "Anything I can help you with?"

"Can I get something for the pain?" any other circumstance and he would have played the tough-strong-SEALoperator card, maybe offer up a pick-up line, but the pain was close to breaking him. "Or am I maxed out?"

"You're in pain?"

"Yeah." He nodded, "Lots. Solid 8, at least."

"I'll go check." The nurse nodded, "Just a moment."

He nodded.

A few moments later, she came back with two syringes filled with clear liquid. One of them had a red cap on the end and a sticker taped on it. The other one had a white, shorter, cap. "How does a dose of IV morphine sound?"

"All for it!"

The nurse offered up a gentle smile as she stepped closer and unscrewed one of the caps on the three-way valve. Then she took the cap off the syringe with white cap and twisted it on the valve.

"Just have to flush the line first." she informed as she opened up the valve and started flushing the line, "Feel any pressure or pain when I do this?"

"No, just feels cold."

"That's okay." The nurse nodded, "But your skin feels a little cold, do you freeze or are you staying warm enough?"

"Not much. Probably just the blood loss."

She nodded, "Do you want me to find an extra blanket for you?"

"Could you?"

She nodded, "I'll do that once I'm done with this."

He nodded.

When about half of the saline inside the syringe was gone, she twisted the valve again and removed the saline syringe and placed it on the bedside table. Then she reached for the morphine syringe, twisted the red cap off and twisted it onto the port. Then she opened the valve and slowly started to push the morphine a little by little.

"So, Scott. It was a pretty impressive injury you came in with…"

He huffed a laugh, "Yeah. Apparently, I don't do anything half-assed."

"No, I wouldn't say…" the nurse winked, "Can I ask how you managed it?"

"Haven't had time to read up on me yet?"

"No." she admitted, "Shift started five minutes ago. You managed to catch me before I even got over to the nurse's station."

"Sorry."

"Don't be…" She chuckled as she gave the plunger another little push before letting it rest a little, repeating the push and pause cycle every 15 to 30 seconds.

He nodded a little, "Well, I'm a soldier. Had a close call with an RPG. And a concrete wall fell on my leg."

"Ouch…"

He nodded, "Ouch is right. So, you're not from around here. Your American is way too perfect for that."

She chuckled, "No, but my parents are both from this area. Moved to the states before I was born, and I grew up in Colorado."

"Colorado's a nice place. What made you decide to move halfway across the world?"

"I moved here because I was guaranteed to get experience with trauma cases. I've been here for eleven years now, because this has just the right pace for me."

"Must be a pretty high pace."

She nodded, "I work both here in post op, and in the ER. So, it's fast paced some of the time at least."

He nodded.

"How's your pain now?"

"Better." he nodded, "Still not good, but I'm not about to break down because of it."

"That's good." She smiled, "Scale from 1 to 10?"

"5…" he shrugged a little, "Can ignore it, but can't really relax."

"We'll go for a couple more milligrams then."

"Thank you."

"Must've scared your team mates a bit, huh?"

He shrugged a bit, "Yeah, guess so…"

"So, are you looking forward to go home for a spell, or?"

He shook his head, "No. I'm too damaged for home-life. I need the action and adrenaline to function."

"Like many other career military…"

"Hey, haven't decided on making a career out of it yet…" he smirked.

"No?" she raised her eyebrows, "You're not exactly fresh out of high school."

"Just a bad joke which runs in my team." He shrugged, "Many of us has been in for 15-20 years."

She chuckled a bit, "So, about that pain…"

"Still notice it, but it's okay." He shrugged.

"Annoying?"

"A little." He admitted, "Call it a 3 or something."

She nodded, "Feel like you can relax?"

"Yeah. I don't feel tense anymore."

"That's good." She gave the plunger a little push, the last quarter of a milliliter up to the next whole number, "Think we'll call this good, and then you just let me know if you need more?"

He nodded, "Thank you."

"No problem." She smiled back, as she twisted the valve shut, picked up the red cap and unscrewed the syringe of morphine, replaced the red cap, placed the syringe on the table and picked up the saline one to flush the line. She hooked it on, opened the valve, flushed the line, shut the valve, discarded the empty saline flush and put on a new cap on the three way valve. "I'll go write the morphine into our charting program, you need anything you use the call cord, okay? And I'll be by with that blanket in a couple of minutes."

"Copy that." He nodded.