A/N: Yeah! The touchy, feely, fixer-upper chapter! Well...that's how it starts, anyway, then it just goes downhill from there... Will the whump never stop? Ha! This is me we're talking about. :)
Forgot to thank my betas! Yup, you read that right, more than one now. Ais, of course, stay beautiful, babe. Mary, you're on as much crack as I am on a regular basis and I love you for that. Jess, welcome to insanity, glad you're enjoying the ride. And Telly, my dear, graduated from reviewer to beta just 'cause she's so freakin' awesome and now gets the benefits of first reads. Love you guys!
Max cocks one eyebrow at the black smoke filling the sky above the trees. "I'll get you next time, Clay," he mumbles, then cocks his head. "Huh. Well that was a very 'Inspector Gadget' thing to say."
He shrugs his shoulders and heads towards a small rock outcropping, climbing to the top as he pulls a Sat phone from inside his jacket. After dialing in, he taps his foot impatiently while he waits. "Finally," he says when someone picks up the other end. "I had a bit of a mishap… Well I wouldn't be calling you if I didn't need a ride, now would I?... The lab; or what used to be the lab before someone blew it up… Seriously? I've been coming out here for how long and you don't know where it is?" He rolls his eyes at whatever his contact is saying. "Follow along now, it's very simple. You fly over the border, hang a left at the river, and look for the BIG CLOUD OF SMOKE. For Christ's sake, did I not just tell you the lab blew up? It's a better sign than a Vegas billboard!... Yes… Thank you."
With that he hangs up and makes himself comfortable on the rocks, sighing as he swings his legs back and forth over the edge. It was going to be a long couple of hours…
~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~
"You sure?" Pooch asks as Clay points out an old, dilapidated farmhouse off to the side of the road.
"It's the first shelter we've seen in miles," the Colonel responds.
"Yeah, which means it'll be the first place they look if they're coming for us," the driver counters.
Clay sneaks a quick look in the rearview mirror at the three in the back seat, none of them looking anywhere near healthy. "We need to stop," he says quietly.
Pooch says no more as he turns down the overgrown driveway. Once they're closer to the homestead they realize that the mass of greenery off to the side is actually a barn completely covered in vines, and partially crushed in by a fallen tree. It's just intact enough for Pooch to slip the car inside it, hiding it from view of searching eyes that might come from overhead.
With the ceiling on the barn so low and unstable, it makes getting the injured out of the car a slow, awkward process. Clay moves around to try to help Aisha but she practically snarls at him and waves him off, informing him in no lady-like terms that she can make it to the house on her own, thank you very much. He steadies her as she climbs out anyway, to which she doesn't complain.
"I'll see what I can do inside. Get your boys," she nearly whispers to him before she pulls away. She reaches back into the car to grab one of the packs Pooch had moved there while he had been toying with his scientist friend, then sets off towards the house.
"How 'bout you, Colonel?" Pooch asks. "You wanna head on in with her? I can get these two."
Clay shakes his head. "Take Cougar. I can handle Jensen."
With a nod, Pooch leans in and slips the sniper's arm over his shoulder. Cougar winces, breathing heavily as he is pulled from the vehicle. He tries to take back his own weight once Pooch has him on his feet, but the driver holds to him fast. "Take it easy man, I gotcha. We're gonna get you all patched up."
Cougar nods and looks back as Clay eases Jensen back over his shoulder. The Colonel stumbles on his first step, but catches his footing and grits his teeth as he steadies himself out. He looks up at the concerned gazes on his teammates' faces.
"I won't drop him," he grunts, and just to prove it maneuvers his way past them. He limps badly on his injured leg, but they can see that he is maintaining a strong hold on their unconscious friend. With a nod from Cougar they set out after him, all of them dutifully ignoring the blood trail that each one of them is leaving behind.
~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~
Once inside, they realize how long the dust-covered farmhouse has been abandoned. It's far from being a suitable place to set up a makeshift hospital, but they know how to work with what they have. Pooch makes a couple extra trips back to the car to get the remaining packs and to search the area for more water, knowing the little they have in their canteens isn't going to be enough. He finds an old well ("Thank you, God."), and hauls a bucket inside just in time to see Clay start in on Cougar. They have the sniper laid out on what was probably once a kitchen table and the only piece of sturdy furniture still left in the place, its surface covered in a few of the rain ponchos that had been in the bottom of the bags.
"How bad?" Pooch asks as he sets the bucket down, dumping some of the sterilization tablets into it.
"Caught him just in the side," Clay mutters as he finishes sterilizing the wound. "Bullet left a pretty deep channel."
"Just a graze," Cougar argues in a hiss.
Pooch leans over to take a closer look. "Right, if by 'graze' you mean 'Grand Canyon.'"
Cougar shakes his head, brushing off the concern. "Jensen?"
Pooch turns to where they've laid out the hacker on the floor, Clay's jacket tucked neatly under his head. Aisha sits beside him with a canteen and a torn strip of cloth doing her best to clean the blood from his face. She makes eye contact with Pooch and shakes her head – there's nothing they can do for him but try to keep him comfortable and hope he snaps out of it on his own.
"He'll be fine," Pooch tells the sniper, hearing the uncertainty in his own voice. Cougar doesn't question him on it, though, just goes back to focusing on the ceiling as Clay stitches him up.
Without looking away from his work, the Colonel asks Pooch quietly, "You want to take over for me here? She's too stubborn to ask for help… And then I want to look at your head."
"Trust me, I'll live," Pooch smiles as he takes the needle, letting Clay move off to tend to the other serious injury.
As he approaches she glances up at him and then stiffly begins to pull her shirt off. "Make it fast. I need to fix your leg after this," she says with a grin as he gingerly lowers himself to the floor.
He smiles back. "Sounds like a deal."
~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~L~
As night falls they remain in the heavy darkness of the lonely farmhouse, all too aware that even the light from a single small flame could draw unwanted attention. Clay sits back against the wall at Jensen's side, Aisha curled up asleep with her head on his lap. He glances up to the table where Pooch has made himself comfortable but seems to be hovering just on the outer edge of actual sleep. Cougar, his body unable to fight off the effects of blood loss any longer, lies in a state almost as deeply unconscious as the still-unresponsive hacker.
Or, at least he was unresponsive.
Clay leans forward as he thinks he hears the tiniest of whispers coming from the tech's mouth. Aisha stirs against his leg but doesn't wake, evidence of her own losing battle with her injury. He carefully slides out from beneath her so he can press his ear almost to Jensen's lips. A frown settles on his face as he listens to a prattle of multi-lingual nonsense streaming from the hacker. It seems like just a string of unrelated words, some Clay can recognize, most he can't even identify the language. It goes on for several minutes before it stops as abruptly as it began.
"Jensen?" Clay whispers, reaching out a hand to touch Jake's shoulder.
In a flash of movement the Colonel finds his wrist locked in a vice-like grip, the tech using his hold as leverage to pull himself partway off the ground. He stays that way for a bit, simply staring intently at Clay's questioning look.
"Jensen, are you with me?" the Colonel tries again, not wanting to move for fear of what the unpredictable soldier might do.
"Jensen, are you with me?" Jake mimics, coming eerily close to pulling off Clay's voice.
Pooch sits up slowly. "Clay?"
Jensen is on his feet before the Colonel can even think to react, rushing towards the table. "Pooch, move!" Clay orders, and the transport specialist complies instantly, rolling off the piece of furniture just as Jake slams into it. Both table and hacker go crashing to the ground where he lies still, almost panting.
"What the fuck?" Aisha mutters as she sits up. Cougar grunts in pain as he pushes himself against the wall beside her.
"Hey J, you all right man?" Pooch asks tentatively as he slowly gets to his feet.
There's a long silence before they hear Jake shuffling just slightly, their eyes not quite adjusted to the dark enough to see what he's doing. Pooch takes a few cautious steps forward before he freezes as the tech starts up another whispering mantra. It rises in volume just enough so that they all can hear him as he repeats the phrase over and over again like a broken record.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Clay staggers to his feet and limps over to Jensen, motioning for Pooch to stay where he is. As he gets closer, Jake's form becomes more visible and the Colonel nearly falters when he sees the new condition his man is in. Still whispering, the tech is huddled up on his knees in a fetal position, his hands interlocked behind his head and his face hidden between his arms. He rocks slightly back and forth with each repetition of the apology until Clay is practically hovering over him; then he freezes.
"Pozhaluĭsta, ne trogaĭte," Jake whimpers.
"What'd he say?" Pooch asks.
Aisha uses the wall behind her to help balance her as she stands. "It's Russian. He said 'Please don't touch.'"
Jensen turns his head slightly so that he's peering up at the Colonel. In the moonlight filtering through the window, Clay can just catch the glimmer of a tear and the question behind the tech's eyes. "One day?" Clay confirms, his voice tight.
Jake nods almost imperceptibly before he collapses onto his side, falling still once again.