The long day was coming to an end, and for once, the scent of the shower gel filled the petty officer's cabin. There, in a perfect mix of concern and excitement, Trent and Brock stared at their laptop, both holding their breath and waiting for Clay to pick up the Skype call.

The SEALs' tired eyes widened as soon as their friend's baby face popped up before them, and they both instinctively reached out to rub their jaws as to make sure their beards were still on there.

Despite a fine pink color had now taken the place of the white and green Clay was wearing lately on his cheeks, the two soldiers couldn't help but feel it wrong compared with the tanned faces they saw every day on each other.

"Hey brother," Brock spoke first, Cerberus' snout on his lap. "How are you doing there?"

"I'm damn bored, man," Clay said, adjusting his position in bed.

Doing so, a little growl escaped from his mouth, causing Brock and Trent to glance at each other, holding their concern.

This is totally normal, they thought, he is okay; nothing more than sore. He is okay, they kept repeating to themselves.

"So we were not interrupting anything?" Sonny popped up at his teammates' back in his Texan underwear. "You know, like sexy sponge baths or hot nurses' company?" he teased with a mischievous grin cracked on his face.

The guys saw Clay's blue eyes shifting from side to side; gladly enough, he was too focused on reading the transcriptions to notice Sonny's almost naked body pocking on his screen.

"Yeah," Clay cleared his throat. "The sponge thing is overvalued, believe me."

"You only say that because you're not fascinating enough to charm the ladies there, Not-So-Pretty Boy." Sonny scoffed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's just that," Clay chuckled softly, glancing down to his forced-on-bed-rest body.

Then his expression turned serious. "My hands really itch, guys," he sighed. "I'm so sick of holding back."

The three soldier raised their eyebrows and peeked down at the bottom of the screen where Clay's heavily dressed arms were well visible.
They did appreciate him sharing his discomfort with them, but it seemed a little out of character. Every Team guy is used to keep everything inside him till someone is insistent enough to dig words out of him, and this time they barely scratched the surface.

Is it possible he is already at his breaking point? they thought.

"I don't think you should mess up with the bandages there," Trent said, shifting his look from Brock to Sonny and back to the screen.

"Come on, not a real itch." Clay opened his arms, palms facing up-ways, his expression a mix of disappointment and confusion.
"I miss the action, guys!"

"Of course you do," Sonny said while the three of them made eye contact again.

Yeah, of course he does! they thought, Figurative talking. That made much more sense.
No matter how hurt a Team guy was, his hands would always itch for action.

"Hey, don't be jealous, Kid. You'll be back playing in the dirt soon enough," Trent said, throwing a supportive glance at him. "Enjoy your vacation till you can, trust me."

"Yeah..." Clay sighed, then turned to look beyond the laptop.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Bravo Team," a female voice-over reached them.

The SEALs' light eyes met, then, shrugging, they stared at the screen till a slim brunette appeared there.

"Oh, look at that!" Sonny smirked, proudly standing there in his Texas themed underwear. "Good evening lady."

"Don't mind me, soldiers." The nurse wore a marked pink color on her cheeks, and a warm smile illuminated her pretty face. "I only brought my boy here his dinner." She showed them the tray of food.

"Her boy?" Trent held back a laugh. "So he didn't lose his charm after all, right?" He tilted his head, glancing at his two teammates before turning his full attention to the nurse's toned body bending toward the laptop's camera.

They saw the tray in her hands passing by and disappear, probably to be laid down somewhere near the device, but the food was not what drew their attention.
For any soldier deployed in the middle of nowhere for so long, that momentary sight was a much better view than their teammate's beaten appearance.

"Oh, no; please, don't go!" Sonny said, raising his voice for her to hear while she disappeared from the screen. "You're much more interesting than the kid here."

Sonny, Trent and Brock heard the nurse's soft laugh in the distance and watched Clay's eyes escorting her out of the room.

"Oh, come on, Kid! Where were you hiding her?" Sonny said in a serious tone which was in total contrast with the grin that made his face glow. "It's not nice trying to keep her all for yourself, you know? Not nice at all, Boy."

Clay's eyes lightened too, "Who is jealous now?"

The SEALs all chuckled; it was like they were not three hundred miles apart from each other.

"Come on, Bud, don't make your food get cold; you need to strengthen up," Trent said, making Clay's eyes to shift to his left, away from the laptop.

"I bet that food is another thing we must be jealous of, right?" Brock said, letting Cerberus go wandering around the cabin.

"I'll take the bet and save some of this stuff for you to taste, brother." The face Clay made removing the cloche form the tray said it all.

"Oh, come on," Brock smiled, "even if it's hospital food it can't be worst then the rations they give us here."

Clay huffed, "Oh, you will be surprised."

The three soldiers watched him sniffing some non-identifiable cluster and couldn't hold back a sound laugh at the grimace of disgust that appeared on his face.

"A man has to do what he has to do, right?" Sonny smirked.

Clay glared at him, the fork still in his hand. "I'd prefer to eat the dog food."

In the beckground, Cerberus barked like to defend his possessions, making Brock and the others turn to him. The three soldiers chuckled while Clay stared at the screen eyebrow raised. Apparently, the device did not translated the dog language.

"Eat that," Trent ordered him, turning back to the screen. "You are already losing mass there, do you really want Sonny to be more fit than you?"

"Hey! That's already so!" Sonny contracted his biceps and show them his toned bare chest. "And always have been."

Clay smiled. "No way that's ever happening." He forced himself to take the bite.

"Good Boy," Brock said in the same tone he usually talked to his dog.

"Yeah, okay, you are not staring at me while I choke down this... thing," Clay said, stretching out his dressed arm to end the call.

"Well, we have stuff to do here too, you know, Blondie?" Sonny said with his usual teasing tone. "Hey, enjoy your dinner-"

Clay cracked out another cold glare, while big smiles drew on Brock and Trent's faces.

"Yeah, yeah; see ya, guys..."

"But most important, enjoy the hot chicks you have as nurses there," Sonny smirked.

"I'll do that for ya, brotha." Clay chuckled, but then his tone turned serious once again.

"Be safe out there."

"Of course we-" Sonny started to say, but Clay had already ended the call.

The three SEALs looked at each other, sighing. The elephant was still in the room and sitting uncomfortably on their chests.
Every time they opened their mouth, they could not decide if it was too soon or too late to talk deeply with Clay, and the right moment to share their real thoughts never came.

The light atmosphere in the Petty Officers' cabin quickly turned quiet again, and with the bedtime coming, the empty fourth bunk there kept the holes in their hearts wide open.

... ... ...

In the quiet hospital room the artificial lights well enlightened the tray on the mobile table, but Clay did his best to keep his eyes fixed on the laptop screen. The smell of that so called food was already disturbing enough without adding the sight of its blob.

The flow of words going out of his teammates' mouths appeared rapidly before him, and Clay's eyes continued to shift from the transcriptions to their glowing eyes and back. Their warming expression made him imagine their now supportive now teasing voices. No matter that he could not hear them now, he had that sound recorded so deep in his heart that he could picture it in his mind whenever he needed to.

What he didn't like to imagine was his friends' sunny expressions shifting to all-concerned mode from seeing him struggling. And for sure, he did not want to see that happen now, because right now, he was dealing with some serious head spinning with the smell getting to him the hard way.

"Be safe out there," Clay rushed to say, ending the call before his friends could feel the distress in his voice.

As the screen went black, he rested his head on the pillow, eyes closed.
Using all his strength to keep his breath steady, he felt the cold metal of the fork in his weak grip. Now he had no more excuses for not focusing on his dinner.

Maybe my head is spinning for the lack of calories in my body, he thought, knowing he should definitely eat something, even if it was that something. So, he tightened his grasp on the fork and took a second bite, this time a little more consistent than the first one he tried in front of his teammates moments before.

Clay chomped; the taste was actually better than the smell, but going on eating was not such a pleasant experience anyway.

In the past few days, the SEAL got used to the nausea investing him, and every day more, he felt he could control his unfailing companion better. But still, it was always there, like it was the disturbing buzzing in his ears.

Often, the two things were just a background annoyance, something that every day got more easy to ignore.
Sometimes, one symptom overcame the other, and despite that was more challenging to bear, it still was within his reach.

But rarely, it occurred to him the worst case scenario where the buzzing made the dizziness grow, and the dizziness made the nausea stronger, causing, in turn, the buzzing to became more insistent and so on. All that in a circle, leaving him overwhelmed and fighting to breath.

And lucky him, this was one of those times, and is brain was caught in the middle, incapable of properly react.

It didn't matter how much relieve Clay had from chuckling with his friends just a moment before, his body was now telling him it was time to focus back on himself.

Come on, Clay, concentrate, he thought, sniffing, and the smell of the food bothered him again.

With his hearing out of order, it was natural for him to focus more on the other senses, but that didn't mean he was becoming superman; far from that.
On the contrary, it meant the touch on his skin while mending the cuts and burnings he had on was more painful; it meant the light hurting his eyes when the blinds were cut open and the darkness usually surrounding him dissipated; it meant the uncomfortable hospital smell to be more suffocating; it meant the taste of bile filling his mouth much more hard to stand.

Clay laid there, overwhelmed, and maybe the dizziness was a consequence of his compromised equilibrium and maybe the food smell was just the last straw, but one thing was certain, all that together made his task to finish his dinner impossible to outcome.

Fighting hard to control his stomach turning and his head spinning, Clay surrendered and put the fork down. Then he focused on his breath while pushing the call button. He needed some help before the half dinner he chocked down could come back in an even worse form.

Nurse Blake quickly came and took the tray away. Then she gave Clay a bag, just in case, and helped him in a more comfortable position.

Her touch was gentle, her smile warming and her look reassuring. Every little gesture she made was aimed to make Clay feel better, and he sensed that. He sensed it deeply.
No words were needed, especially because talking with him was not much useful considering that he would not be able to read the words on the screen anyway.

Clay forced his eyes to stay open till she finished with him; he needed to see her chocolate-brown eyes and her red lips comforting him. That was everything he had, and he had to make it be enough.

Darkness fell as Corporal Blake turned the lights off, and Clay couldn't tell exactly when she disappeared from his visual field.
Now, with the buzzing settling down, the silence mounted and he started to calm down.

Come on, breathe in- Clay thought, starting inhaling deeply with his nose till his chest refused to go any further.

Out... he slowly let the air leaving his body from his mouth.

He continued like that till the sickness was more bearable, but then all was too quiet and the fear of the loneliness awoke in him. His mind shifted to the call he just had with his teammates, trying to hold on their support.

Why wasn't Ray there? Clay asked himself, before his eyes he had the image of his teammate's silent figure during the first Skype call they had.

He could get why Jason was not with the others this time; he was Master Chief and he must have stuff to do with Blackburn and Mandy, Clay knew. But not seeing Ray hurt him.

Does he hate me that much? he thought, and with that feeling constricting his heart, Clay drifted in the dreamland where nightmares were waiting for him.

... ... ...

The desert night had the whole base shrouded in silence with the dry air getting more easy to breath. In that framework, the low sound of Jason's snorting rocked the sleepless Ray while he kept tossing in his bunk.

Usually, Ray liked that calm; there he could think and even pray, in the best days.

But not this time.

Tonight, that quiet was dreadful and made his thoughts echo loudly in his mind. And unfortunately, there were not encouraging at all.

No. There, in the silence, he could only feel how bad he failed his young teammate.

Ray could still feel the weight of leaving Clay alone with the missionary; of leaving him in peril after the explosion took place. The thought of the hostiles taking control of his young mate and of him alone in the desert, surrounded by threats, ate Ray from the inside.

He could feel the weight of the abandoning; he could feel Clay's loneliness, his sorrow and his fear like they were his own.

Alone, hurt and lost, that was exactly the way Ray still saw Clay whenever they called him via Skype. The guilt was the reason why he couldn't say a word to the kid; everything he could say would just be void, like the void shell he was in that moment.

The rules of engagement were no valid excuses for what he did, and Sonny had every right to remember him the hard way, exactly like when they were in the sick bay waiting for news. There was an essential rule he should have respect. No one is left behind.

Ray knew that, but he still did. He left Clay behind, and now, he was not able to make amends to him. He was not even able to look at him in the eyes.

Those feelings, the guilt, the regret, the shame, all that were the reason why, when Trent told him they were going to call Clay earlier that night, he didn't reach them in their cabin.

And now the silence of the night made that weight grow heavier and there was no prayer that could alleviate his pain.

... ... ...

The sun was high in the sky, and the heat reverberating from the desert soil was breathtaking. Clay looked around, only sand for miles and miles surrounding him.
Then he looked closer, this time, his Team was there.

Right in the middle of nowhere, the guys were quietly talking to each other; he could hear their voices now. They were planning some kind of action.
But then the voices started to get lighter and lighter while a soft buzzing slowly started to take control of Clay's brain.

He pursed his lips trying to reach his teammates' ears, but no sound came out of his mouth. Then he tried to approach them.

A sensation of cold invested Clay as they didn't even notice his presence. Bravo's looks passed through him while their voices got more and more distant.
He felt like he was shifting away from the reality.

He was a ghost.

Clay wanted to scream, but he felt his throat closing and took his hands to it. "I'm here, guys!" he tried, but no one could hear him.

While the ringing in his ears became louder, Clay saw his teammates getting away. They were leaving him behind.

"I'm right here, guys!" Clay tried again, but again, nothing. No one noticed him.

The buzzing was now unbearable, and Clay fell on his knees, his hands on his ears. His head was spinning so hard that he wasn't even able to tell the difference between the hot tract of land and the infinite blue sky anymore.

The thing that took him back to reality was the earth starting to shake. A crack opened in the soil, between him and his Team, and he felt the land collapsing beneath him and the sand starting to swallow him.

Clay tried to scream and reach out for his teammates, but again they seemed to pay no attention to his presence.

"Help!" he kept crying, stretching out to reach his friends. "Help me, guys!" Forcing his voice out of his throat was painful, but not as much as it was his Team ignoring him like that.

At some point, Ray noticed him and approached the edge of the drop off. But he just stood there, arms crossed.

Silent.

"Help me!" Clay cried once again, but Ray kept standing still, deadly silent with his dark eyes glaring at him.
Clay desperately tried to reach out for his mate, to stretch his hand as much as he could to touch him, but again, no reaction from Ray nor anyone else of the Bravos.

The earth kept shaking beneath Clay's feet, the sand collapsing on him. The heat was suffocating, and he had dust in his mouth and nose. And Ray and the rest of the Team were still and soundless on the edge, looking like they didn't care.

He was breathless, swallowed by the sand and cooked by the sun. That silence hurt his soul.

Clay's eyes abruptly popped open, his pupils dilating to see through the darkness, and his body suddenly cracked in a painful gasp. His hair was matted on his forehead, sweat running down his back. His muscles were paralyzed, but his body was shaking hard.
He could not take the air in, and his brain was too clouded to even think of trying to say something. Clay panted, his heart clenching at every little gasp; his chest was burning like hell, his throat was closed and dry as the desert.

He felt like the nightmare he had was real, with the distance between him and his Team too wide to fill.

Clay was weak and powerless, slowly drowning in silence and loneliness. And he couldn't do better than wait there, holding his breath in his shaking body while his mind tried to rationalize the dream.

... ... ...

Another day passed, the sun rapidly hiding behind the dunes and the air cooling down. After the last mission, Bravo Team was scrolling down the dirt from their uniform and silently putting their equipments in order in their barrack when Blackburn reached them.

Under normal circumstances, they would be chilling and cracking jokes; after all, their last assignment went exactly as planned: in; action; out. Just like that. And then they came back to their routine.

But this time the routine was cracked, and they were quiet; too quiet. Their minds were lost and their thoughts too heavy to be shared.

No, that was not normal circumstances; the weight of being a man down for an entire week was growing too heavy. Clay was so far away from them and all alone. Suffering.

They knew he was in good hands, and every time they video-called him, they saw his conditions improving. But still, they were not able to talk to him as often as they would, or the way they would, and they knew he was suffering the loneliness while, instead, they were all together.

"Good job out there," Blackburn stopped right outside the door as the place was already crowded enough. "I have some good news for you, guys, Charlie team is on its way here. Our flight home is tomorrow morning."

All the soreness went away in a flesh, and the seals' tired eyes lightened up.

"It was about damn time!" Sonny said, clapping his hands. "The last week seemed to never end."

"Wait, you said home?" Ray raised an eyebrow. "We're not going home, we're going to Germany; to Clay." He needed to see him in person, he needed to explain, even if he didn't know how.

"Come on Ray, you know that we can't just fly there full force," Blackburn said, arms crossed. "The hospital has rules."

"We promised him, we can't leave him there alone any longer," Ray moved toward the door, but stopped there, feeling his tone was getting too loud.
"We owe him," he sighed.

"That's why two of us are heading there while the rest go home." Blackburn glanced at Trent and Sonny.

"Wait, why them?" Ray protested. He needed to go see Clay; he had so many things to say to him, and the commander could not keep him from doing that.

"You have children, Ray, and they need their father," Trent said, rational, then glanced to Sonny. "We don't." He shurgged.

Ray thought about Naima and the two little creatures she had to raise on her own for the last two months. He knew his family needed him, but Clay was his family too, and he promised him to never let him down again.

I'm sure they will understand if... he stopped, hearing his son's cry in his ears and his daughter lightening eyes before him, with his wife's supportive look and kind smile in his heart.
No, I can't abandon them too, he thought, feeling like he already let down too many people.

"I haven't got any children either," Brock stepped up, wanting to be on the list.

"What about the fur baby there," Trent made him glance at Cerberus. "You can't fly him to Germany with you."

Brock sighed.

"Don't worry guys," Trent continued. "We'll take good care of the kid. I'm the one who took him on the shoulders saving his ass in the first place after all, right?"

"You wouldn't do a single step if it wasn't for us covering your asses, you know that!" Brock rolled his eyes.

"That's right," Sonny chuckled, "and that's why, my friend" -he put his arm around Trent's shoulders- "you are lucky enough to have me on your side during the entire flight to Germany."

Trent huffed, a trip alone with Sonny must not be such a treat for him.

"And so is Clay, having me push his sore body out of that damn hospital bed and all the way back home with us," Sonny continued. "You can count on that."

"Hey, why don't we call him and tell him you are coming?" Brock said, glancing at the laptop on the table.

"Wait no," Sonny stopped him. "We can call him, but I wanna see his face when we'll stand in front of him at the hospital."

"Yeah, because you think that waking up to those ugly faces will gave him any joy?" Brock scoffed.

"Hey, come on Ray," Jason put a hand on his friend's shoulder, seeing him darkening despite the now relaxed atmosphere. "None of that was your fault, and the Kid knows it. You don't have to rush to his side, things will be just fine."

Ray shook his head, gritting his teeth.

"We'll see him when he comes back home." Saying those words cost Jason a lot. The desire of reunite with the young soldier was strong in his heart, but what was growing stronger was the nostalgia of his children and the sense of responsibility toward them.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. He is in good hands." Ray said, glancing at his teammates still chuckling in the barrack.

They have his back, he won't be alone anymore, he thought. I have to trust my Team. The last time we did not trust one of our own this happened... At that thought, Ray couldn't help but shiver. All that happened because trust lacked between them, because they put Clay in the condition to need to prove himself to them. And when things went sideways they just left him there.

That relaxed atmosphere felt wrong to Ray, the void talk on Skype with Clay, the jokes and the attempts to act tough and suck it up in front of each other were all in vain. There was something that needed to be said, mistakes that needed to be forgiven, and all that void talking was not enough to patch the tear in their hearts.

... ... ...

Author's Note:
Looking back to when I started writing the story, this chapter was supposed to be the last one. Well, now it's not. I guess the story went more deep than I first thought it would, and scenes kept adding themselves into the mix.

The most challenging part for me here was once again trying to capture the Team dynamic, and especially Sonny's character was the most hard to portray right.
The dream sequence instead, just came to me and flew so naturally out from thoughts to paper. Bless the inspiration strike.

This show is so much rich of details and emotions that makes me want to improve and go more deep, more detailed and more true. I hope one day I'll get there, in the meantime, I'll keep trying.