AN: MmKay...Just going to outright say it: I fail. At life. Epically. I cannot even begin to tell you all how sorry I am that this fic hasn't been updated in a year. It's ridiculous. I barely believe it myself. I should have updated this a long time ago. And if it weren't for a faithful reviewer who got my butt in gear this past week, I wouldn't even have remembered this fic existed. So thank you, and I really hope you enjoy this much-belated chapter. I promise to keep this story going! I know where I'm taking it, now.

Chapter Three:

A long, silent moment passes between the two men, JD watching the older expectantly and Perry standing in utter shock.

"Trying to catch flies, Per?" The younger asks softly, offering a weak smile.

He's spent the day looking at patients. Carla hasn't allowed anyone who has more than a cold or the flu to see him. Mostly it has been to indulge him. Sitting in a bed all day is not JD's idea of being useful¾and was actually really boring once he'd seen all the skit's the children made for him in his absence (twice) and he didn't have a certain someone to keep him company. Plus, with Perry gone they have been severely lacking on the medical home front, and JD will be damned if he's going to deprive people of medical services.

Nonetheless, the day is barely half-way through, and he is already exhausted.

Perry's jaw snaps shut, and he swallows hard, trying to remember how to form words. He takes a breath. Nothing comes out, and JD's smile widens.

"I'm going to assume the shock is from seeing me and not from your trip," he says gently, taking hold of the man's arm, leading him towards the examination table, and seating him on it. JD sets his cane aside, standing in front of Perry and taking out a pen light. "Carla told me you had an on-set of pneumonia from your last mission." His tone is conversational as he shines the light into each of the other man's eyes. "Have you been experiencing any tightness in your chest? Any light-headedness?"

Perry gathers enough energy to nod once, aware that he should be talking, listing symptoms to make JD's job easier. But his voice is stuck to the back of his throat, refusing any cooperation whatsoever.

JD returns the gesture with a nod of his own, grasping the stethoscope around his neck and swinging it around to his front. "Think you can slip out of those wet clothes?"

Perry nods again, removing his poncho, his soaked jacket, and his shirt, then switching out his dripping jeans for a dry pair of scrubs bottoms.

"All right." JD smiles warmly, breathing onto the chest-piece of his stethoscope before placing it against Perry's chest and listening intently. "Breathe in." The words are just above a whisper, and the older man complies as if in a trance. "Breathe out." JD's facial expression doesn't change, but his eyes cloud somewhat. He switches the stethoscope to the other side of Perry's chest. "Breathe in…Breathe out."

With a nod, he carefully limps his way around the table. Perry cranes his neck, his eyes following the younger man. "Relax, Perry." JD chuckles, placing a warm hand on the man's shoulder and repeating the procedure before replacing the stethoscope around his neck.

"There still seems to be some fluid in your lungs," he explains, making his way back around the table, "but it doesn't sound bad. You've been taking your antibiotics?" The older man nods dumbly, and JD sighs, placing his hands palms-down on either side of Perry's form. "You're really just going to sit there?"

The older doctor swallows. "Until I figure out whether this is a dream or not, yea, I'm just gonna sit here."

"Mm," JD hums with understanding. "I see your dilemma." He grabs his cane and slowly begins to turn towards the curtain opening. "This could take a while. I'll just go see some other patients, and when you've decided¾"

"Carol," Perry says sharply, taking hold of the young man's arm and halting him in his tracks, "don't you dare."

JD turns back with an overly-curious look. "You sure, Per? What if I am just a dream?"

Perry frowns and pulls the other towards him until they are nearly flush against each other. "JD¾"

"Or a phantom?" The young doctor continues playfully, cocking his head to one side. "Maybe I'm a figment of your imagination.

"Don't even joke about something like that." The Irishman warns.

"Perry," JD gasps with mock-revelation, "what if I'm a ghost? Or a zombie? Or both?"

"A zombie ghost?" Perry huffs in frustration with a shake of his head.

"Or," JD says pointedly, bringing a finger up as one of his eyebrows arches in thought, "a ghost zombie."

The older man's lips purse. "I knew there would be brain damage."

JD smiles, his arms wrapping around Perry's broad shoulders. "Does this mean you aren't dreaming?"

Perry surges forward, catching JD's mouth clumsily with his own and fisting the fabric of the young man's scrubs. The older doctor moans, his legs wrapping around JD's and squeezing their deprived forms together. Reluctantly breaking the kiss, he leans his forehead against the other's, shivering as JD's cool breath ghosts along his jawline.

"Definitely not dreaming," Perry pants, a silly grin spreading his lips apart.

"Good to know," JD sighs, planting a kiss on Perry's cheekbone, his ear, the back of his jaw, the side of his neck. He breathes in Perry's heady scent, reveling in the sensation of the man's taut muscles against his cheek and closing his eyes in content. "Miss me?" The words are almost a whisper, holding an exhaustion beyond anything that the older man has ever heard.

Perry carefully guides JD onto the examination table, stretching out beside him and watching his young lover fall asleep. "More than you'll ever know," he admits, wearily following after the other.

0 o 0 o 0

//He regains consciousness face-down in a sea of rubble and flame. It's quiet. The fire licking around him doesn't make so much as a crackle. His body aches; his muscles are heavy. It's smoky, dark. He can barely breathe.

But he has to move¾he knows he does. He has to move because something has gone horribly wrong. Oh, God, what happened? They were running, he and the others; running because something was supposed to happen, something big. Running…and then nothing…and then silence, pain, heaviness.

He slides his hands across the ground, shards of metal and rock and glass slicing his skin. He pushes himself up, falling back against the ground once, twice. Something jagged splits his temple. Red flows into his left eye. He grits his teeth and tries again, managing to flip onto his side.

His head flops backward awkwardly, and he sees blurs rushing by.

No, not blurs. He raises his head, twists his neck to watch through one eye. People.

People running. People crying. People bleeding.

A ringing starts in his ears, and, soon, sounds begin to waft through the barrier.

Screaming. Shouting. Dying.

His unblocked eye sifts through the wreckage lazily, hazily. Fire rages around them, orange and looming and hot. People scramble for exits, some of them missing arms or legs, some with half their faces burned to a blackened crisp; all covered in dirt and soot and blood, all choking on the smoke billowing towards the exposed night sky, all afraid and panicking.

And then his gaze falls on the figure next to him, a figure half-buried and lying too still for his liking. He reaches out, smudges the soot caking the young man's cheek¾soot as dark as his hair¾and pushes on a dislocated arm until the figure lies on his back, his head lolling lifelessly and his wide, dead eyes staring right through him.

"JD?" he croaks, and he gasps as the memories flood his mind.

The bomb¾it had been his idea, his fault. JD is lying here because of him. The bomb went off too early. It didn't make sense. They had calculated enough time. There was supposed to have been enough time! There should have been enough time!

"JD!"//

0 o 0 o 0

Perry wakes alone. He's shaking. He can still see JD's cold, blue eyes, can still feel his dead stare. Of course, the explosion hadn't happened that way. They had been further from the wreckage. Perry had found JD conscious and bleeding. And the young man had died and had been revived in his arms.

But this dream plagues him almost every night¾the dream that questions what could have happened, what might have happened, what still can happen.

"How long has she been missing?" JD's voice wafts into the curtained-off space, hushed and serious.

"A week." Carla. Her tone is strained, tired.

JD sighs. "They'll be expecting Perry to go after her."

"Why do they want Coxie?" Dan asks bluntly, a wet chomping following his words. Damn gum-chewer. Pop.

A short silence causes Perry's stomach to roll.

JD whispers, "They know."

The Irishman is standing and purposefully making his way across the floor before he can stop himself, swiping the curtains aside and startling the group standing just beyond the flimsy barrier.

"They can't know," he says, his voice wavering as the feeling of dread in his stomach tightens. "I didn't tell them anything. They can't know."

"They do." JD nods absently, turning from Carla and Dan and beginning to pace. The two step back, watching him with worry. The young man isn't prone to this type of behavior unless he's strategizing¾something that has helped him become the man that the country respects, that the country needs. "They want you." He offers Perry a brief glance. "Which means they want me." A peculiar look takes the young doctor's face, and Perry begins to shake his head.

"JD, don't even think¾"

"They won't be expecting me."

"And they don't have to. You're not going."

"They don't even know what I look like."

"All the more reason to keep you here. We can get Jordan ourselves."

JD shakes his head, his eyebrows furrowing as he frowns. "They'll have her somewhere we can't get to her."

"They had me somewhere like that," Perry argues, gesturing towards Dan. "These nimrods got me out just fine."

"They were expecting that," the young man states, matter-of-fact. "Just like they'll be expecting you…and not me."

Perry growls, but Dan steps between the two men before the older doctor can make a move toward the other. "Little brother." Pop. "Why don't you take a minute and think about this."

"I've already made my decision," JD says, his tone dripping with finality. He takes a step backward and turns, heading towards the main area.

"JD¾" Perry starts after him, but Dan grabs his arm. The doctor wrenches away from him, fixing a glare on the other Dorian.

"Coxie…" Dan's jaw is rigid. There are no popping noises.

"You're just going to let him do this?" Perry seethes, looking between Dan and Carla. "You're going to let him walk into their hands? The very hands we've spent months keeping him from?"

Pop. "You gonna stop him?"

Perry scowls. He doesn't have an answer.

0 o 0 o 0

JD counts his steps as he limps along the curtain-wall from one end of his quarters¾their quarters, he reminds himself, and he's somewhat disconcerted that he has to¾to the other.

One. Two.

Three. Four.

Turn.

One. Two.

Three. Four.

Turn.

Four stiff strides exactly¾not too long, not too short. The rubber nub on the bottom of his cane thuds dully against the concrete in time with his boots.

Thud. Clomp.

Thud. Clomp.

Turn.

One. Two.

Three. Four.

Turn.

Jordan is missing. And the people that have her will stop at nothing to get him. They know about Perry. They know about them.

They know. They know.

They know. They know.

Turn.

If Perry goes instead of JD, they can use the older man against him. They can get information by making JD watch while his husband is tortured. They'll get everything they need. They'll kill Perry. And then they'll kill JD publicly so that the country knows just how powerful they really are.

Dead. Dead.

Dead. Dead.

Turn.

JD knows that if they kill Perry, he will not put up a fight. The country will see his weakness, his surrender, and everything he and the others have fought for will be gone. The people he has protected will lose faith. The war will escalate. The deaths will multiply.

Lost. Lost.

Lost. Lost.

Turn.

JD's legs are weak. Sweat sprouts in beads on his face. His hands are shaking, and he loses his grip on the cane, falling to his knees with a muffled whimper.

I can't. I can't.

I can't. I can't.

Who made him a God-damn leader? Who stood up and pointed at him with a long, boney finger and said, "You have to"? Who the hell had the right to lay this burden on him?

Who? Who?

Who? Who?

One day he's minding his own business, helping patients, paying off medical school loans. One day he's just another face amongst the swarming masses. One day he has friends and family and a future and a life. And then the next day it's gone. All of it. Because he's the guy that has to stand up and say, "No." He's the guy that has to tell people to fight and have faith when he has none himself. He's the guy that the country turns to when all other heroes have failed.

Fallen. Fallen.

Fallen. Fallen.

One day he is JD, and the next he is a savior.

JD's lungs seize, and his breathing falters as he fists his scrubs top. He closes his eyes, gritting his teeth. Tears tremble on his eyelashes and glide down his sallow cheeks. He waits for the hurting to be over.

Perry calls these his "sorrow moments." He says that JD gives hope to people and takes their worries, their fears¾their sorrow. Those feelings build and build until, finally, JD has to release them in a burst of hurt and tears.

He falls forward, one hand smacking against the floor harshly to keep himself from plummeting. He hangs his head, the moans and whimpers sticking to the back of his throat with a practiced concentration. No one should hear this. No one should see this. Perry is the only person who has seen him at his weakest, who has held him as his penance rips through him in silence.

"Perry," he gasps. And then there are arms around him, soothing fingers wiping away tears and stringing through his hair. He leans into the warm, familiar body gratefully, his breaths expelling in staccatoed gusts.

"I'm here," Perry's deep voice murmurs into his ear. "I'm here, JD. You're fine. You're okay."

The words wash over him, and he lets himself sink deeper and deeper into their comfort.

In a few minutes, JD will wash the dried tears from his face. He will change into fresh clothes and pack what little he will need for his trip. He will make preparations in private and give his friends and followers false hope of his return.

In a few minutes, JD will be John Michael Dorian-Cox, martyr of a country who will forever remember his name, and he will set off to meet his fate.

But for now¾for one precious moment¾he is JD, doe-eyed-co-chief-resident extraordinaire from the days before the fighting and the hiding and the running.

And he is afraid.

0 o 0 o 0

"Sir!"

General James Hollock looks up as a flustered soldier stumbles into his office, frowning as a growl begins to form in the depths of his throat. He's been filling out forms for hours, organizing them alphabetically and filing them for future editing, re-alphabetizing, and re-filing. Papers lie in piles on his desk, two extra chairs that face his desk, the floor, and a long table that stands flush against the wall to his right.

These are just the A's.

The expression on the soldier's face stops him, however, and he nods uncertainly, consenting to the interruption.

"We have a situation," the soldier blurts, panting and swallowing hard.

"Well, out with it," Hollock demands after a moment of silence, a tremendous headache thundering in his skull.

The soldier's eyes widen, and he takes a few more breaths to compose himself. Hollock opens his mouth to tell the young man to stop wasting his time, but, finally, the soldier complies.

"Sir, John Dorian has just surrendered."

AN: Yea, I'm working on it. I promise. Seriously, though! No more crazy-late updates! I just found out that I only have three unfinished fics on my site, which gives me incentive to get them done. I can do it! Yea! Okay, enough of that. I'll see you all in the next chapter. Later, Gators! Catch you on the flip side.