Holy update, Batman! Welcome to chapter three! This one's a little shorter than the last one. As I'm writing this out, I'm not splitting it up into chapters, so I just break it up where it feels like there's a good stopping point.

And for anyone at home playing my ghetto Flashpoint trivia game, Robert "Shakes" Boneyman was the name of a member of Team One featured in the original unaired pilot (known then as "Critical Incident").

Again, so many thanks to everyone reading this. I hope you're enjoying the ride as much as I am! And to everyone who has reviewed, I seriously cannot thank you enough. I am so humbled by your kind words. You have no idea how happy you've made me.

[…]

Feeling was the first thing to return to Spike, unfortunately for him. A gentle and vague fuzziness, a sensation of floating gave way to a dull tenderness. At first it was no more than an irritation. It covered his entire body and refused to go away, like a gnat buzzing at your ear that you would repeatedly swat at and miss. Then, sluggishly, the tenderness turned into an aching - his head - god, his arm - his stomach.

The second sense was smell. Something sterile, like alcohol or bleach, mixed with blood. It was nauseating. Or maybe that was the painful throbbing that was making his stomach roll.

Next was sound. It was in and out, muffled, (later he would find out that was partially due to his damaged eardrums), but there were definitely people talking around him, their subdued conversations drifting in and out. He couldn't make out who it was, had no idea whether he'd ever heard those voices before - he couldn't even register what gender they were. But they were low and soft and made him feel safe. They comforted him.

Finally, despite his best efforts, consciousness found its way to Spike. He gave a low, quiet groan as his head swam in a mixture of his injuries and the strongest drugs doctors could provide.

He felt a hand on his own. It was a light touch - wary, hesitant.

"Spike. Hey, come on, buddy. That's it, let's get those eyes open."

His eyes cracked open - a huge mistake. His lids were heavy and uncooperative. The room was too bright white, and it was unclear and spinning and made him feel sick.

Spike stilled for a moment. He took a few deep breaths - as deep as his painfully restricted ribs would allow - and tried again. He blinked his eyes a few times before he got them all the way open and waited for the ceiling tiles to stop moving.

Once he thought he could manage it without throwing up everywhere, Spike shifted his head to the right just the slightest bit. For some reason it didn't surprise him to see Wordy sitting forward in his seat next to him; the man was constantly in father mode.

He smiled hesitantly down at Spike. "There you go. Welcome back. I'm gonna call the doctor - then I'll call the team, okay?"

Spike nodded slightly, almost imperceptively in response. He tried to speak, but found only a scratchy squeak came out of his mouth. He hadn't realized how incredibly dry his throat was.

Wordy seemed to understand and reached for the table. There was a stack of paper cups and a bucket full of ice chips with a scoop in it. He shoveled a good amount into a cup and helped Spike hold it up to his lips with his good right hand. Spike let the cool relief of the ice soothe his parched throat.

Spike swallowed and nodded at his friend, and Wordy replaced the cup on the table before taking his seat again.

"Thank you," Spike said. His voice still sounded incredibly impaired, and he was so groggy.

Wordy smiled down at his drugged up friend. He had been beaten to a pulp, was unconscious for two whole days, looked like hell - and still his first words after waking up were thank you. How very Spike. "You're welcome," Wordy replied warmly.

Spike's brow furrowed slightly and he grunted in discomfort. He reached up to his face where he felt a nasal cannula. Moving upward, he found a few bandages. He hit a tender spot and hissed in pain, retracting his hand. "What…what happen'?" he asked quietly.

Wordy snickered briefly. "Boy, is that a loaded question." This earned him a confused look from Spike. "Look, just know that you're gonna be okay," Wordy assured him sincerely. "The doctor will be in here in a second and he'll explain everything."

Instead of arguing Spike just resigned and let his eyes fall closed again. He knew bits and pieces of what had happened - he remembered being in the truck and he remembered the mob; he could deduce what happened from there, the details were just fuzzy.

And god, had he ever been this tired in his entire life?

Just as Spike felt himself falling back asleep, he heard the door open and close. He somehow forced his eyes open again and saw a short, fat black man wearing a white coat over scrubs. He looked stern and tired until his eyes caught sight of the young officer lying in the bed, eyes barely open. The doctor's face lit up with a broad smile.

"Officer Scarlatti!" he proclaimed jovially, striding over to the foot of the bed. "Good morning."

"Mornin'," Spike slurred, much more subdued than the doctor.

"I'm Carl Traver - I've been looking out for you these past few days," the doctor continued as he picked up the chart at the footboard and jotted down a few observations. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Wordy stood up and stretched out his back. He pointed over his shoulder and glanced back and forth between Spike and Dr. Traver a few times saying, "I'm gonna go call the others. I'll be back in a minute."

When Wordy shut the door behind himself, he made his way toward the main lobby. He stepped outside into the night air and fished through his jeans pocket for his phone.

They hadn't wanted to leave Spike alone. They didn't want their friend to have to wake up by himself. The rest of the team had just left the hospital a little over fifteen minutes ago to get something to eat. Wordy volunteered to stay behind since he had eaten with Shelley and the girls before he went to the hospital that day.

Wordy pressed number three on his speed dial; Ed answered after the first ring.

"What is it, Wordy?" the man spurted into the phone, his mouth full of fries.

"Hey, Ed, nice to hear from you too," quipped Wordy in response. He took a deep breath, relaxing for the first time in almost three days. "He's back."

Wordy knew he was on speaker when he heard a chorus of cheers followed by Greg shushing all of them.

"How is he?" Jules asked once everyone had settled down.

"He's…" Wordy trailed off, laughing. "He's pretty out of it. But I think he's okay, guys. He doesn't seem to really remember what happened, but that might be the drugs. His doctor's in there explaining everything to him right now."

"Okay, we just paid, Wordy," Greg told him. "We're just around the corner, we'll be there in five minutes."

"Make it two," Sam corrected around the food in his mouth. "I'm driving."

Wordy heard clapping, and then Ed whooped and enthusiastically cried, "Let's go see our boy!"

[…]

There was a knock on Spike's hospital door. Dr. Traver rose from where he had been seated on the side of the bed as the door opened slowly.

Jules peeked into the room tentatively wearing a huge smile on her face. "Is it okay to come in?" she asked, looking around the doctor to see her friend.

As soon as she laid eyes on the bomb tech though, the smile fell from her face. All Jules could think about was how the scene before her just wasn't right. Spike wasn't supposed to be so small, so delicate.

So broken.

Like he was made of glass that had shattered to tiny fragments, and was then glued back together. Like his fragile body was riddled with spider web cracks, the pieces all ill-fitting and absurd.

Spike was stronger than Jules in a lot of ways. It wasn't always obvious - like with Sam or Wordy - but it was there, bubbling just beneath his exterior. His slight stature and sweet face and disarming, lopsided grin belied a sort of vigor most men envied.

This was the same young man, after all, who was set on fire by a drug addict in a psychotic break and was still able to crack jokes at his own expense to put his friend's mind at ease; the same man who forwent any kind of protective bomb gear as he defused an unstable explosive device strapped to a woman and somehow still managed to do his job more efficiently than anyone else could have, and then took the time to actually say, "You're welcome!" in the most sincere way possible when she thanked him for saving her life; the same man who was literally willing to die for his friend who he knew deep down was beyond saving even if he couldn't admit it to himself because Sam was right, there was no room between the trigger and Lou's foot and the statistics for a weight transfer just weren't in their favor but damn it, Spike had to do something because he firmly believed there was always a way.

Because that was the kind of man Spike was.

And yet, as Jules looked down at her friend and teammate lying in the hospital bed, she felt choked up all over again. The person there didn't even look like Spike.

Sam and Wordy joked all the time about how lucky Spike was, about how much good karma he must have had stored up. After all, during his years with the SRU he had never been shot, had never sustained any kind of serious injury.

Now he was just lucky to be alive.

"Come on in," Dr. Traver said as he waved them over and took a step away from the bed. "I was just explaining to Officer Scarlatti his injuries and some of the details of the recovery process. Although, I think I must be pretty boring - he's trying to fall back asleep on me."

Hearing that, Spike's eyes darted open almost comically. "No, no, I'm up, I'm up," he said drowsily.

"Spike, it's okay," Greg said gently, putting a hand out to stop the young man from trying to sit up. "Go to sleep. We'll be here when you wake up."

Spike had never felt more tired in all his life; otherwise he would have put up more of a fight, and the team knew it.

"Kay," Spike muttered, waving his good hand lazily and allowing his eyes to close heavily again. "But promise me you guys'll go home an' go ta bed. Dr. Tay - ah… Dr. What's's-Face-Guy-Over-There told me you haven't left 'im alone since I got here. So shut up an' go home. You all look worse'n I do." Spike squinted at Greg. "Boss, you look awful. Just…terrible." Everyone laughed at his expense and Greg looked mildly offended, but he really couldn't blame Spike. The younger man's words were slurring together because Dr. Traver raised the dosage on the morphine drip once he woke up. He was out in a matter of seconds.

The doctor turned to the team and sighed, smiling brightly. "He's doing great," he assured them. "He'll be sort of in and out these first few days, but he'll become more coherent once we start weaning him off the pain medication. Also, Officer Scarlatti consented for me to explain his injuries to you."

Although they could guess most of Spike's visible injuries, his doctor legally couldn't divulge the details without his patient's consent.

"Now," the doctor continued, sitting at the foot of Spike's bed, "some of these may sound quite extensive, but I assure you, your friend is on his way to recovery."

Sam mentally steeled himself, and shooting a quick glance to Wordy, he knew the older man was doing the same. Out of the entire team, they were they only two who really saw up close how damaged Spike really was that day (Greg had explained how he had been banished to a corner of the ambulance and couldn't see much of anything while the EMTs worked to keep Spike breathing and regulate his blood pressure). Upon seeing Spike in the hospital for the first time, Sam had to admit that all bandaged up he didn't really look all that bad - worse for wear, but still.

But Sam knew what ugly scars were hiding under those bandages.

"Okay, where to begin…" Dr. Traver muttered to himself, flipping through a few pages in the chart he held. His sighed and folded his arms, trapping the chart flat against his chest. "Okay. First of all, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Constable Scarlatti suffered from a fairly severe grade three concussion. His brain swelled against his skull, but it luckily didn't get to the point that we had to relieve the pressure manually. That being said, he did sustain two minor skull fractures that were repaired with steel plating. Those should heal up with no problem. We'll want to monitor him for awhile - certain side effects often present themselves with serious concussions, such as migraines, vertigo, tinnitus - but right now everything looks good and I'm not concerned about that. He also has a few broken ribs - which wouldn't have been a big deal either, but one of the ribs punctured a lung." Sam suppressed a grimace. "Again, this will heal given some time, but until then Constable Scarlatti will need assistance breathing. Besides that there are some minor bruises, cuts, and burns - some of these were agitated by the pepper spray, but infection didn't set in, and I'm not concerned. Um…some stitches, a blown eardrum…" The doctor looked up at the team a bit more grimly as he continued. "Now, the injury I'm most worried about is the arm. His left arm was broken in two separate places. One is a clean crack in the wrist - not necessarily a problem - but the other is what we call an open fracture. That's when a break is delivered with such force that the bone actually snaps and protrudes from the skin. These don't usually heal so cleanly. We've got steel rods in place to guide the bones as they heal, but even then, there's a chance they could heal incorrectly."

When Dr. Traver didn't elaborate, Greg took it upon himself to speak up. "How do you mean, Doctor?" He didn't mean for his words to come out with a slight tremor.

"With a break like this, the biggest risk is nerve damage."

Everyone let the words hang heavily in the sterile room. The words were frightening; they were career ending words.

"See," Traver continued, picking over his words carefully, "when the bone breaks free of the skin, it tears everything in its way - ligaments, muscle - and nerves. And there's no way of telling how extensive the damage is until we asses that in physical therapy."

There was still something else, something vital being left unsaid. Had Traver known what the SRU did when they weren't hiding behind huge guns or defusing bombs - had he known how well they were trained to read and profile people - he would have known there was no avoiding this.

"What aren't you saying?"

It was Jules who ventured to ask. And as Traver looked at the faces of the people he had come to know over the past few days as they sat tirelessly keeping vigil over a fallen friend, he resigned.

"I'm saying, Officers," Traver spoke heavily, "that it's going to be a long time before Constable Scarlatti returns to work. If he is able to return at all."

[…]

Yay, chapter three. Thanks so much for reading. You make me happier than a bird with a French fry. Here's another chance to earn points in the Flashpoint trivia game - anyone know where I borrowed the names Carl and Traver?

I'll leave you all with a fun story. I'm re-watching Flashpoint with my mom, who's never seen the show before. Every time I visit we watch a couple episodes, and we're just about to finish season two. And for whatever reason, my mom started calling Wordy "Dirty Wordy." Yeah, I don't know. I asked her about it and she just gave me this dry look, raised her eyebrows, and said, "Dirty Wordy, the Entry Specialist."

She's a laugh and a half.