A/N: Sorry for the longish absence, but business was a frenzy. By way of compensation, you're getting an extra-long chapter today, my lovely readers. Many thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favourited.

This chapter is a tag for episode 2x13, "Dead Reckoning", but has tiny spoilers for 2x12, "Prisoner's Dilemma", too. Though I hope you'll like my take on this, I highly recommend RadioShack84's "Begin Again" and "UXO" – they are my personal favourites for 2x13 "Dead Reckoning" fanfiction-wise.

Disclaimer: As always, I don't own anything you recognise from the show.

Safe Now

John felt himself crashing. It was an adrenaline dump of epic proportions, the likes of which he could hardly remember. The closer the taxi carried him to his apartment building, the more he doubted he could even make it to the front door, let alone up to his floor. What had started as a relatively harmless case of the shakes on the rooftop had now escalated into a barely containable physical chain reaction. He tried to remain calm, to focus on controlling his breathing, but it was almost impossible. His whole body was in uproar and he was absolutely certain it wouldn't end pretty.

The taxi driver kept shooting him worried glances. Five minutes into the drive he had even offered to call an ambulance, giving John a faint idea of how bad he was looking. At long last they arrived at John's address. The man who had spent the whole day in a bomb vest paid the cabbie and pulled himself from the car with a Herculean effort. Standing on the pavement he hesitated for a second, partly to wait for the taxi to drive off, but mostly because he wasn't sure his legs would cooperate.

As it turned out, they didn't. When John finally ventured a step towards the front door, his knees gave out. He fully expected to end up in a heap on the ground any second and tried to remember what to do in order to soften the impact, but the impact never came. His fall was broken halfway when two muscular arms caught him around his midsection and carefully lowered him until he came to sit on the cold concrete.

"Easy, John," a reassuring, familiar deep voice came from somewhere over his head.

"Ben?" he asked, or at least tried to, but all that came out was a breathless gasp.

"Easy, John," Dr Al-Khalil repeated. "Just breathe."

John found himself propped up against the wall of his apartment building; exactly when his best friend had pulled him away from the middle of the pavement, he did not know. Breathing was hard with the fierce tremors that ran through his body in relentless waves. Practised hands patted him down for major injuries, and finding none, pushed his head down between his knees. Warm, firm fingers settled on the back of his neck, and a second hand wrapped around his left wrist, calloused fingertips taking his racing pulse.

"What happened, John?" The soothing baritone of his best friend was very close to his ear, while the rest of the street sounds became a little more muffled, telling John that Ben was at least partially shielding him with his body.

"Kidnapped," he wheezed. "Bomb vest."

"What?" The sharp exhale was not a question but rather an incredulous acknowledgement of horrors beyond imagining.

A gentle upward tug on his elbows prompted John to try and find his feet under him, so he did. "C'mon, I'll get you inside," Ben said, pulling one of John's arm across his shoulders and half dragging, half carrying him across the street and up to Hannah's apartment.

"Where are we going?" John slurred, mostly out of it.

"Home," his best friend replied, pulling the man closer. "We're going home."

*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*

Dumbfounded, Hannah stared at the two men in the hallway outside her apartment. A pointed look and a curt shake of the head by Ben kept her from asking what was going on, but she wasn't sure she would have even if her tongue had cooperated with her speech centre. While she was still racking her brain for something to say, Ben had already pushed past her and manoeuvred John into the spacious bathroom. "Get me your med kit, and we'll need two litres of Ringer's lactate, some fresh clothes, and a pot of tea, please."

The please was only perfunctory and probably owing to their relationship, Hannah thought as she scurried off to get what the other doctor needed. In reality, this was an order from a senior to a junior doctor. It was also a temporary dismissal, made clear by the bathroom door quietly shutting behind her. She heard the water in the shower being turned on, followed by the sound of retching and the toilet flushing only moments later. The soothing timbre of Benjamin's voice carried down the hall where she was picking up the requested items from the medicine cabinet and a chest of drawers in her bedroom

When she knocked on the bathroom door after a few minutes, Ben cracked the door open and grabbed the clothes and her doctor's bag with an apologetic look.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Hannah whispered.

"Yeah, in a minute. Can you get your bed ready for him? He needs to lie down properly."

"Sure. Call me if you need me?"

Ben gave her a small smile and a gentle peck on the lips. "Always."

Hannah just barely managed to change the sheets on her bed when she heard Ben calling from the bathroom. Standing in the doorframe, she took a moment to process the sight before her. The shivering, half-naked form huddled on the floor was only held up by the wall and his best friend crouching next to him.

"Can you give me a hand with the I.V.?" Ben requested in an even voice, never once taking his eyes of John or his hands off his shoulders.

Hannah studied her brother for a few more seconds, taking in the bruises and gashes around his torso and face, as well as the bloodshot eyes and the sickly pallor of his skin. Then she slightly shook her head. "Let's get him lying down first before he keels over."

Between the two doctors they managed to manoeuvre John to Hannah's bedroom and on her bed, elevating his legs and covering him with warmed blankets. Hannah sat down on the edge of the bed and gently inspected John's arms. "What's his BP?" she asked quietly when she didn't find a decent vein right away.

"90 over 60. We need to get that I.V. going now."

"No shit, Sherlock," Hannah mumbled, turning John's left wrist a little more into the light. "Hm, this might work." She donned a pair of gloves and tightened a tourniquet on her brother's arm, then waited for the vein to fill enough to slip in the needle while she disinfected the puncture site.

John's hands were shaking miserably – no, strike that. The whole man was a trembling heap of misery. Never in her life had Hannah seen her brother like this. Angry dark bruises mottled his torso, cheekbone, and jaw. A deep gash over his left eye looked poorly tended to, his eyes were bloodshot and glazed over like he hadn't slept in days, and the general pallor of his usually tan skin, along with the dehydration and a few days' worth of stubble on his face, made him look like the proverbial death warmed over.

Hannah quickly placed the I.V., taking extra care to keep the procedure painless. Then, while Ben was in the kitchen to fetch the tea and most likely give her a few minutes in private with her brother, she carefully ran her hands over John's injuries. Upon closer examination she noticed, almost hidden under the bruising from a seatbelt that had probably saved his life in an accident, another set of bruises along his ribs. Some of them looked like shoe prints.

"It looks worse than it is," John rasped in an attempt to reassure his younger sister, his throat sore from dehydration and vomiting.

"Bullshit," Hannah snorted, but the annoyance was largely to cover up the heavy lump in her throat. She discarded her gloves and started to apply bruise cream to the extensive pattern of haematomas on his chest. As she very tenderly worked her way along his ribs, she felt the man holding himself very rigidly.

"John, you need to breathe," she reminded him with a slight squeeze to his less-injured shoulder.

He tried to comply, but the tight feeling in his chest wouldn't let up.

"John?" Hannah asked, noticing his struggle. "Are you having trouble breathing?" She quickly got out her stethoscope and listened to his heart and lungs.

"I think I cracked a rib or two," her brother admitted, sounding decidedly short of breath now.

"All right. I don't want you to sit up just yet until your blood pressure stabilises a little, but I'll help you turn on your side. That'll make breathing a bit easier." Hannah was fully in doctor mode now. "Okay. From the bruising alone I'd say it's your left side. Is that also where the pain is worst?"

John nodded, already trying to move, but Hannah stopped him. "Wait. It'll be less painful if you relax as much as you can and let me do all the work."

Knowing she was right, John fought his natural inclination towards stubborn independence and instead tried to do as his sister had suggested. Less painful sounded pretty good right about now. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on letting as much tension out of his stiff muscles as possible.

A moment later, he felt his sister's hands expertly rearrange his limbs before she rolled him to a recovery position of sorts. Breathing became easier almost instantly and he let out a sigh of relief. A few pillows placed in strategic spots cushioned and bolstered his tortured body, and with the soft, warm blankets once more tucked around his frame, heavenly warmth finally began to spread through his overtaxed system. "Thank you," he breathed, reaching for his sister's hand before she could pull it away.

Gentle fingers squeezed back, and then the bed dipped beside his head. John felt Hannah settle against the headboard in a sitting position, long legs finding a place along the edge of the mattress. The fabric of her cashmere cardigan was soft against his cheek and without really being aware of it, he snuggled his face deeper into the silky warmth.

"Just sleep. You're safe now," John heard his sister's voice saying somewhere very close to his ear, her breath briefly whispering over his cheek before a tender kiss was planted on his temple. Delicate fingers carding soothingly through his hair were the last thing he felt before, at long last after those harrowing last few days, he fell asleep.

*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*

Unbeknown to the siblings, Ben had watched the whole scene from the doorway. As relieved as he was that his best friend had finally found some rest, his heart ached with the knowledge of what he had been through.

So far, Hannah hadn't asked any questions about what had happened, though obviously she had seen and accurately interpreted her brother's injuries. Although John hadn't explicitly asked him to keep them secret, Ben debated the wisdom of letting Hannah know the gory details. Did she really have to know that another human being had been so evil and cruel to put her brother in a bomb vest, with no plans whatsoever of letting him get out of there alive? Then again, she had to be prepared for the nightmares and violent or terrified outbursts that were to be expected from the former Special Forces soldier.

"Are you waiting for me to ask?" Hannah's quiet voice tore him from his considerations.

Ben entered the bedroom and set down two mugs of tea on the bedside table. "How did you know I was here?"

"Your cologne," she replied with a smile, reaching for one of the mugs and taking a sip.

The other doctor pulled a chair to the bed and sat down. "What do you want to know?" he said, resigned to the fact that trying to delay the inevitable was useless with Hannah.

"I can see he was beaten up and in a serious car accident within the past forty-eight hours, but neither would cause an adrenaline dump of this extent," the female doctor stated matter-of-factly.

Ben nodded and opened his mouth to reply when he found he couldn't get the words out. The reality of what had happened to his best friend sucker-punched him, and suddenly he felt the inexplicable urge to reassure himself that John was indeed still alive. He leaned forward, carefully wrapping his fingers around the still joined hands of the two siblings and taking a moment to consciously feel the pulse in John's wrist. Not quite able to swallow past the tightness in his throat, he whispered: "Someone kidnapped him and strapped a bomb to his chest, threatening to detonate it if he didn't do what they wanted."

All colour drained from Hannah's face, giving way to a look of stark terror. "What?" Her eyes darted back and forth between her brother and the man she loved, plainly mirroring her inability to wrap her head around this piece of information.

Soon enough, her need to know the facts won out and, after a deep, deliberate breath she asked: "How do you know?"

"He told me." Now the truth was out and the situation was under control, Ben found it easier to speak. "I was just crossing the street when a taxi stopped in front of his building and he got out looking ready to collapse. Took me a few attempts, but he finally told me what I suspect is just the Reader's Digest version of the whole story."

"And how did he get out of the bomb vest?" Relief was winning out fast in the melee of Hannah's warring emotions.

"Finch of all people disarmed the thing." A small smile crossed both doctors' faces at the thought before their eyes again fell on the sleeping man who had been through so much.

"Will he be all right?" Hannah whispered.

John stirred slightly in his sleep, a pained expression etching deep lines in his face. Ben got up, took a syringe and a vial from Hannah's kit and added a mild analgesic to John's I.V. After correctly disposing of the needle, he returned to his place by the bed. "In time, probably," he replied quietly. "But whatever happens, he won't have to get through it alone."

*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*

Three a.m. found the two doctors exhausted but their charge finally in a deep, restful sleep. John had been plagued by nightmares, waking up terrified and disoriented. On one occasion he had done so calling out for Joss, so Hannah suspected she had somehow been involved in at least part of the traumatic experiences of the past few days.

In the end, since physical contact seemed to be the only successful remedy to John's subconscious agitation and anxiety, Ben and Hannah had resorted to effectively sandwiching him between them.

"That seems to have done the trick," Hannah yawned, pulling her own blanket a little higher and placing her hand back on her brother's head.

"If you tell anyone I've been spooning with my best friend, you're on horse dung duty for the next ten years," Ben grumbled good-naturedly.

Hannah giggled quietly. "You know what? If that means I'll still be with you in ten years' time, I just might."

Ben smiled and slipped his hand into his pocket. "There are easier ways to ensure that," he said gently.

It took a minute until the meaning of his words trickled all the way through Hannah's tired brain, but when it did, all thoughts of sleep were forgotten. Turning towards Benjamin as far as she could without disturbing her brother, she looked at him with wide, glistening eyes.

"Our date night didn't turn out exactly the way I had planned," he continued, "but that doesn't mean I don't get to do what I came here for." He sat up, pulled a small, dark blue box from his pocket and opened it to reveal a beautiful, delicate ring made of white gold and set with five small diamonds.

"I think we've come a long way in the last year," he said earnestly. "I think both of us have healed a lot, especially with John's coming back. I know you are the only woman I want to spend my life with, and I love you with all I am and have. So I am asking you again: will you marry me?"

*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*

When John woke up from his finally dreamless sleep, everything was quiet. Bright sunlight was filtering through the blinds and he felt safe, calm, and rested. The I.V. was gone from his forearm, and so was most of the pain in his body.

He turned onto his back and briefly wondered if the memory of not being alone in the bed was real or a remnant of one of his dreams. The smell of fresh coffee wafted through the open bedroom door, and when he listened carefully, he could hear the shower running in the bathroom down the hall. Too comfortable to move, he just lay there, content to watch the sunbeams paint patterns on the cream-coloured walls.

His sister's voice startled him out of his reverie. "Look who's awake!" She put her coffee mug on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?" she asked with a tender smile, taking his hand and squeezing it slightly.

"Much better. Thank you." John's eyes locked onto Hannah's, trying to convey everything he could not put into words. "Thank you."

He gently ran his thumb across her knuckles and paused when it caught on something. Turning his head slightly, John lifted Hannah's left hand to his eye level and studied it intently. "That wasn't there when I last saw you," he commented drily, his lips curling up in the smile she loved so much.

Hannah's radiant face said it all. "You were right," she smiled.

"Oh, come here, you!" John laughed and pulled her down against his chest in a tight hug, happily disregarding his protesting ribs.

Soon enough Ben joined the siblings, obediently flopping down on the other side of the bed to get a hug from his future brother-in-law, too. Once more sandwiched between the two people he loved most, John suddenly did a double take. He sat up as quickly as his sore body allowed and stared at his best friend with a look of mock horror. "Did you spoon with me last night?"

Ben scrambled away until he was perched on the very edge of the mattress and glared at John as best he could with the broad grin on his face. "You wanna share horse dung duty with your sister for the next ten years?"

A/N 2: Thank you for reading. Thoughts? - Review!