When he wakes it's dark again.
His heart races, eyes searching around his surroundings, finding himself alone and in the dark, prone.
Nothing has changed since the last couple times he came back to awareness. He is still trapped, helpless. His team never came for him, their voices and their aid a figment of his imagination. A cruel trick, borne out of his desperation. It would have been something out of a movie, his team sweeping in to Dave the day, but in reality he is still lying here alone and is going to die under this beam.
A machine chirps, registering his heart rate spike. The sound is startling, completely out of place with his perceived environment but so familiar that he instantly recognizes it. The plastic cannula blowing air gently into his nose reminds him to breathe so he does and as he takes a deep breath, and realizes he can breath easier, with only a fully ache from his ribs. His body is lighter and floatier than expected and finally his brain starts to catch on to the fact that he is out of the rubble. That maybe he actually got his wish to wake up in a soft bed under medical supervision and the appropriate medications.
It's such a stark contrast from the last things he remembers. Fleeting memories that are vividly dark and confusing, filled with overwhelming heaviness and pain that dominate everything. They are also laden with strong feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and fear that he is still having trouble letting go of even now.
He tries to focus on the present instead, to reassure himself that he is alive with the sensations he is feeling now and hearing now instead of the ones he remembers. The feel of the crisp sheets against his bruised chest, the beeping of the machines and the blinking lights, the antiseptic smell and the distant voices somewhere beyond this room.
It all screams hospital.
Even still he's not convinced. It's hard to be certain of anything when you are most definitely high on a cocktail of drugs. Everything has a slightly shimmery feel to it, like its happening from a distance and not necessarily to him, even though it is. He isn't sure that his tenuous hold on reality won't warp at any second and he won't be back pinned on the cold floor. The last vestiges of the panic he woke up are being fueled by the opiates leading to a constant feeling that something is about to go wrong, that the other shoe is going to drop any second.
Shoes….right.
Feet…..legs...
Right.
The heart rate monitor squawks again, registering his unease.
He has so far avoided looking anywhere but straight up. Most of his body feels tingly and numb and even if he tried he couldn't tell if he had 5 legs or no legs attached.
He will have to look eventually, but he's not ready to go there yet. He needs a minute before he sees what's down there, or not down there.
Another shaky breath and he makes an attempt to move for the first time, starting small with his head tilting slightly to the left so his eyes can track the tubes running up into the many machines. He tries to read the displays in vain, to get an idea of his vitals, but his head injury and the drugs make the numbers jump and twitch before his eyes. He blinks and looks away, feeling the nausea swirl down deep in his stomach.
He keeps them shut for a minute until his stomach settles, swallowing hard a few times before he re-opens and continues his inspection of the room. He expands his view past the machinery and along the side of the room, slowly and carefully scanning until he reaches a still figure in a chair.
Top
He breathes a sigh of relief. Finding someone else in this room helps ground things, make them more real. He isn't alone anymore.
Adam, in particular, projects an aura of calmness, even when sleeping. Its a security blanket McG isn't ashamed to admit he needs right now.
Dalton seems to sense the change in the room. He comes to awareness quickly under the scrutiny, eyes opening without any other body movement to give away the change He surveys the room purposely, almost suspiciously, a habit borne of too many years in too many dangerous situations.
Quickly though his expression softens, a smile gracing his face when he finds he is not the only one awake in the room. He's on his feet and at the side of the bed in a step.
A hand finds McG's shoulder, gentle pressure that's finally something tangible to hold on to
"Good to have you back McG, how are you doing?"
Dalton doesn't seem to expect a response to his question, which is good because McG doesn't know if he knows the answer. Instead Adam holds out a cup and straw from the side of the bed and McG focuses on sipping at it tentatively, no desire to have it come back up again.
The cool water is so welcome against his dry throat but after a few sips he settles back , exhausted just from the coordination required for that simple task.
"That's it, you're alright"
Somehow Top knows what he needs to hear.
It slowly starts to sink in.
He's alright.
But he still isn't quite ready to accept things are a-ok quite yet.
It's silent for a while as he decides what is still worrying him, what he needs to know now. Foggy thoughts and fears cloud his brain, and it takes a moment for him to sort through and settle on his biggest concern. And then another moment while he convinces his mouth to form the words he wants them to.
"Team?" It comes out slightly slurred, and barely a question but its mostly clear so he is calling it a win..
Dalton's head comes up from where he's resumed his seat, clearly not expecting further conversation or a prolonged bout of consciousness.
He smiles ruefully and answers without hesitation
"They're fine. I sent them to get some rest. Jaz was about two seconds away from threatening a nurse because she thought you needed more pillows. Amir was joking, or maybe not joking, about stealing some scrubs to try and get some intel on your condition for us. Preach on the other hand went to get some food that I apparently need."
The affectionate exasperation behind Adam's words and the familiar antics of his team settle warmly in his chests and for the first time since he wakes he can feel some of the anxiety dissipate.
It's tempting to leave it there.
But it also bolsters him and he is determined to get the information he needs. To have all the facts before he has to wake up unsure again.
"Legs?"
He studies the ceiling as he asks so he doesn't have to see Top's reaction. Doesn't want to see the pity.
It's Top though so he probably should have known better. Because there is no long pause, no beating around the bush, just straight facts that come quickly and clearly.
"You've got some broken bones, and the muscles underneath were pretty damaged. It's gonna be a long haul and you're not going to be running any marathons any time soon, but they think it will heal up pretty good eventually"
"Attached" It comes out like a croak, emotion his clogging his throat.
Dalton chuckles, "Yeah McG, they are attached"
He looks slightly bemused as if he is questioning just how strong of drugs the medic is enjoying. But he hasn't been privy to the fears that have been plaguing McG since he woke under the beam, unable to see, move or feel his lower extremities. He doesn't know that skin, and bone and muscle could have easily given way under that much weight falling from that kind of height.
But it didn't.
Somehow it didn't.
Now he looks eagerly and sees there are leg-like shapes under the blanket. It doesn't' drop off sharply and go flat after his hips like what he imagined.
Instead there are weird shapes and protrusions sticking out that tell him there are probably some screws and plates attached. So he might set off an alarm or two at airport security from now on, its a small price to pay.
He knows better than to try and move them quite yet. Not in any rush to revisit the pain from the last time they were disturbed. But there is hope that they might move again, support him to walk again, allow him to fight again. There is hope.
Overwhelmingly relieved he lets his head drop back heavily against the pillow. Neck suddenly too tired to control it's descent. The small change in elevation makes things spin for a moment and he closes his eyes against the rotation of the room.
They shoot back open almost of their own accord a moment later when another one of his panicked thoughts surfaces.
"Kidneys?"
He is the king of one word questions. Thankfully Dalton is very good at reading between the lines. Sometimes too good. Normally McG finds it uncanny when Top answers a question you hadn't asked yet or responds to something you didn't intend to voice. Today he will take it and be exceedingly grateful that he doesn't have to explain in more detail what he is looking for.
"Well this one was a bit over my head, there was a lot of stuff about creatine and gromular filtration or something like that. They eventually took pity on us and tried to dumb it down, said you were going to need some extra dialysis for a while but that they don't think the damage is permanent. No one is going to have to fork over a kidney quite yet"
"Glomerular Filtration" the correction comes out automatically, half mumbled even as his energy wanes and his eyes began to blink heavily.
"What?"
McG didn't blame Dalton for being confused. It was quite the graduation from one word questions to multisyllabic medical jargon. Concussions worked in mysterious ways.
He didn't bother trying to explain, just murmuring a simple "not that bad then" and letting himself sink deeper into the soft mattress.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Dalton can't help but give the half asleep man an incredulous look.
Not that bad then.
It sure hadn't felt like it from their side of things.
He doubted the medic was lucid enough to really appreciate how close they had come to losing him. How bad it had gotten once he passed out. There had been plenty of time to relive the nightmarish journey in while he waited for McG to wake. His mind had played it over and over, questioning every decision and insisting that there was something more he could have done.
They'd known it wasn't going to be pretty when the beam came off. It had been physically painful for all of them to see McG suffer like that. Dalton had been a few seconds away from choking him out in desperation, anything to make the intolerable pain stop. Thankfully McG's body had done it for him, giving the man a reprieve in unconsciousness.
He'd falsely thought they were past the worst once they got him on the helicopter safely en route to the professionals who could help him.
Only 30 minutes to the nearest facility.
Only 25 minutes.
Only 20 minutes out.
He begins to think they are going to make it.
Rookie Move. ...of course life doesn't work like that.
Even with McG's warning about crush syndrome they still weren't prepared for his sudden decline.
One second he was stable, the next his blood pressure dropped off the charts. Seconds later he vomited suddenly without regaining consciousness and it was only preaches quick grab and turn that managed to keep it from choking him. Just as they caught their breath he seized, jerking uncontrollably under their hands for the longest minute they'd ever experienced.
They'd been powerless to do anything for him other than squeeze the last bag of saline, trying to hurry the fluids in faster. Dalton had tried to take comfort in the gentle fog of the oxygen mask that reassured him McG was still breathing. Trying to stay calm and believe that the man would pull through even as his vital tanked and his pulse became more and more erratic under his fingers. He had to pull through.
The doctors had praised their quick thinking with the tourniquets, thanked them for getting him to the hospital as quickly as they had. That the team had done all they could do for their teammate. But it hadn't felt like it. In the moment it had felt like they hadn't known what to do. There was a big difference.
It felt like they had let him down. He always had their back when things went sour and they couldn't return the favour.
The team had been gutted, stricken silent with concern and guilt.
He could picture Jaz's white knuckled grip on McG's limp hand. As if if she held on tight enough he wouldn't go anywhere. The vibration under his butt betrayed Amir's nerves as his leg bounced so hard and fast it shook the whole bench seat. Preach, to his left, whispered prayers under his breath, it was comforting even if he couldn't make out the exact words Adam could barely hear them over the rotor noise.
Normally Dalton hated seeing a team member in the hospital. All of them hated being in there, that went without saying. They all had developed their own unique ways of coercing McG not to make them go, to take care of them at base when needed. For example it was a well known fact that McG could be bribed with food. Jaz in particular was shameless, not afraid to use her femininity when it suited her. He swore she had flirted her way out of the last overnight hospital stay with a few batted eyelashes.
In this situation though, he had never been so happy to turn over care to the professionals. To happily relinquish control of the situation knowing full well that McG needed more care than they could give and deserved better care than they were capable of.
Stitches, sure they could have handled that.
Broken bones. Piece of cake.
Hell even bullet wounds he was more familiar with those than he would like to be.
This … this had been entirely out of their league.
And when the doctors had rushed him away they had been left with all the all too familiar question of whether they would ever see their teammate again. Ten times worse was that if they didn't, they would always have wondered if there was something they could have done differently.
Only in the last few hours had the doctors stopped frowning when ever they looked at the ECG printouts. The room had quieted, the machine alarms ringing less often. Nurses returning less and less frequently for vital checks. It was only then that he had managed to convince the team to go get some sleep. That he tried to convince himself the worst was over and that his medic and friend was going to be alright.
Not that bad then.
He begs to differ. But as he watches McG drift off again he settles for a simple response
"New rule...the medic isn't allowed to get hurt. Ever."
He doubts McG is going to remember this, but that's ok. He has a few teammates that will happily remind him.