You wake up to hear yelling.

"There's nothing wrong with my goddamn legs, Doc!"

"What he needs is rest, not visitors! And like it or not, you're also injured!"

You wonder what is or isn't wrong with Grif's legs. You wonder, belatedly, where you are. Everything is blurry, but you're too tired to reach over and grab your glasses. The ceiling doesn't look like the ceiling of the bunks. It looks decidedly less solid.

You pass out.

"How did we get stuck doing this again?"

Grif shrugged. "I'm probably the most expendable one here. I don't try, and I don't care. You just happened to stick around."

You frowned at the minefield in front of you. "Great."

"It's easy," Grif said, mimicking your sergeant. "All you gotta do is stroll across and shoot everybody inside."

"Yeah, fuck you too," you snapped. You squeezed your eyes shut and tentatively took a step forward.

Not exploded. You let out your breath and breath in once more. One step, one breath.

"You can go faster, you know," Grif piped up behind you.

"Shut up, Grif." You picked up the pace, just a little bit. 'You can do this,' you thought to yourself. 'No biggie. Just keep walk-'

"Shush now, don't you worry," somebody says.

"Where's Grif?" you ask him. It is of the utmost importance that you know where Grif is. You don't know where he is, and you hear loud beeping. It's getting faster, and faster, and faster-

"Shhh. Only dreams now."

You still can't see. When you lift your arm to look for your glasses, you see a tube sticking out of it.

"That's new," you murmur aloud. You look around for your glasses, but all you see are different monitors and screens. You can't see anything, and it's starting to bug you.

"Simmons!"

You turn your head towards the sound, and you can see the fuzzy outline of a person. Grif slowly comes into focus as you squint.

"Here, I brought you something." Cool metal slides on your face, and the world slides into focus. "I figured you'd have an extra pair."

You frown. "Extra? What happened to the first one?"

Grif's face tightens. You see bright lights behind your eyelids and you hear a deafening roar. For the first time, you notice that Grif's right sleeve is looser than it should be. For the first time, you realize that you can't feel anything past your left knee.

For some reason, you can't feel anything.

"It's not fair," you tell him. "When I enlisted, I wanted to die. But then I found you, and I wanted to stay here, no matter what. But now..." You know that since your limbs have effectively been lopped off, there's no use for you and Grif in the battlefield anymore. You'll get awarded a medal and shipped off back home.

Back home, with a deadbeat dad who never wanted you and no way to take care of yourself.

"I don't know what I want, Grif," you say, but it comes out as a whisper.

Grif sits down next to you, and he holds your hand in his. His dark thumb brushes over the pale skin of the back of your hand. "Do you know what I want, Simmons?

"I want to go home. I want to show you what a real beach is like. I want to show you real waves, and warm sand. I want you to nag at me for not putting on sunblock, and I want to see you stick out like a sore thumb on the beach with your pale skin and your fucking awesome freckles. I want to go home, Simmons, and I want to take you with me." He presses the back of your hand to his lips, and you can feel his lips moving when he asks you, "What do you say?"