A/N: Okay, this update took me a while… I hope it's worth the wait!

I still don't own the characters, I really begin to wonder why…

Chapter 18

Apart from the already familiar noises of the medical equipment, the room was just as quiet as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. Brandt wasn't entirely sure how many days exactly it had been since every day was just the same and he didn't bother looking up the date. Actually he was a bit afraid of looking it up as every additional second of waiting took a portion of his hope away. It must have been quite a while, he reckoned.

Brandt had been released from hospital quite fast as his injuries proved to be not particularly serious. Ever since that day he had been spending most of his time with Benji. Most of the time Jane and Ethan were with him. Occasionally they would leave, though, having to settle down everything related to their latest mission. And it was a mess. Inspector Thompson complained about the sheer amount of paperwork he had to go through despite most of the information being secret and taken care of by the "FBI" agents he acquired. Brandt barely listened to his friends whenever they mentioned all that in conversations. He was just grateful to them for leaving him out of this.

Sometimes he would pop into Mike's room to see how the guy was doing and say hi. It felt a bit awkward as he didn't even quite know him. But at the same time it felt right. Every time Mike would ask how Benji was doing. Every time he got the same reply and just nodded gently, the quiet hope shining in his eyes.

"So you work with Benji?" Mike asked one day, making Brandt take an uneasy pause. He remembered Mike saying that a while ago but back then he hadn't paid much attention to anything.

"Yes…" he answered uncertainly, mentally preparing himself to be assumed to be an IT expert which he certainly wasn't. However, instead of asking any more questions, Mike just nodded.

"I knew Benji couldn't be just an IT expert," he stated. Noticing Brandt's confused look, he added: "I know he isn't. And I won't tell anyone who you are, don't worry. Although I don't actually know that much".

"What made you think he couldn't be just an IT expert?" the former analyst decided that changing the topic would be the best tactic in such a situation.

"That's just too small for him," Mike managed to smile with the corners of his lips. "No matter how much he loves technology, he never liked just sitting indoors all day. He has always needed some action".

"Well, he sometimes reconsiders that," Brandt smiled against his will, remembering Benji's "I'm on the computer" in Dubai. To be fair, it did seem just too crazy even to Ethan…

"The doctors say I might be able to get up soon…" Mike's voice suddenly ended the flashback. Who could think that a flashback from the time the world was on the brink of a nuclear war with everything (primarily the clock) working against you, could be a happy memory?... "… so that I might come and see him".

Brandt hadn't seen Mike in the past two days, as his worry for the former technician multiplied. He was still unconscious. To Brandt it looked like nothing had changed at all. The doctors would say a lot of complicated stuff which was meant to sound like something good but all the three agents could see was their friend still lying there and not showing any visible signs of life.

Now Jane and Ethan had left again, and Brandt was sitting in silence, looking at Benji's motionless form. He tried to think of something to say but he had already told his friend all the stories he could possibly remember. He didn't even have the strength for fear or despair any more. It was all dull and quiet. As if the time had stopped at some point.

The door opened, letting in Mike who stumbled in, still wearing his hospital pajamas. He exchanged nods with Brandt, turned his gaze to Benji and swallowed, his eyes wide and welling up. Brandt looked down. He must have had the same reaction when he had first come there. It was quite an unsettling sight. Now the ex-analyst was slightly worried by the fact that it didn't affect him that much anymore.

"How is it going?" Mike finally asked in a small voice, sitting down on a chair to the opposite side of the bed.

"Same as always," Brandt smirked bitterly.

Mike sighed. He looked at Benji, then at Brandt hesitantly. He opened his mouth to say something but decided against it and looked back at the former technician instead.

"Hi," he said, and his voice wrecked on that single short word. "I just came to say… So that you know that I am alright".

He felt Brandt's questioning gaze on him but ignored it.

"Nothing of what happened there is your fault, Benji. You know I never blamed you, right? Everything is fine now," he made a pause to calm his breathing and swallow the lump in his throat while Brandt was still staring at him. He had no idea what Mike was talking about but somehow he felt that all that time (it had to be like a couple of months already) it was something he wanted to hear. Despite knowing that Benji never blamed him for that goddamned gunshot he needed to hear that from the tech himself. But the English agent never got to say that.

"Well, actually, not everything is fine," Mike went on, his voice shaking even worse now. "The only thing that is not fine is you. I know you need to take your time but you're taking too long. And I know you don't like missing out like this".

Mike looked at the clock on the wall and sighed. He looked completely exhausted.

"I need to go," he sighed weakly. "But I'll be back soon so you'd better be up when I come to visit you next time".

He got up, crossed the room, gave Brandt one more nod and left, shutting the door quietly.

"Did you hear that?" the analyst managed to speak at last. "I don't really know what your friend there wanted to say but it sounded like he had a point…" He thought he noticed Benji's eyelids move slightly and held his breath. "Benji?"

The tech's eyelids shifted a bit and his eyes half-opened for a second before closing again. Brandt gripped his hand and couldn't stop a silly smile (which must have looked a lot like one of Benji's famous grins) as he felt his friend squeezing it weakly.