At last your questions shall be answered! Is Sheri okay? How will Brandt react to her not being there? What about Benji and Addie? Find out now in this installment of "Band"-ing Together! ;P *is currently a TV announcer... I guess*

Brandt groaned as he inhaled the pungent sea air into his lungs. Something cold and wet laid on his forehead, strangely easing away the rather strong headache he realized he had after becoming too aware of his emerging consciousness. He sat up quickly, only to have a hand on his chest push him back down gently while his eyes blurred.

"Don't sit up just yet. You'll only make yourself sick." A female voice told him.

That's funny. She sounded a bit like Jane. But Jane was at the hospital, wasn't she? Unless she was released. Which meant it was likely Ethan was there too. Where was he again?

Oh that's right, the warehouse by the bay. Where they rescued Addie and killed off Richmond's goons and…

The explosives. He remembered now. The warehouse crumbling down, running to try and get away, his hand cinched around Sheri's wrist tightly, her pushing him out…

Sheri.

"Sheri…" He winced, sitting up against his teammate's advice. He paid for it with a gradually growing pain in his forehead. "Where's Sheri?"

Jane gave a grim frown and took the ice pack from his aching head. "She didn't make it out… The firemen are searching for any survivors now."

Her statement brought to Brandt's attention the blinding lights from the emergency vehicles as well as the workers walking around in rescue jackets and helmets with clear visors. He felt nausea come onto him in waves matching those of the ocean beside him and swung his legs over the stretcher he had been previously been laying on. Bad idea. The seasickness only get worse while the world spun around him. He hadn't been this disoriented since his junior year in high school, when he was courting the hot nerd with the voluptuous curves in the library. She had smacked him hard over the head with her books and he ended up regaining consciousness in the nurse's office. The principal let him off with a warning for sexual harassment. Thank god for his charismatic nature.

"I should help find her. She shoved me out to make sure I was safe. Time to return the favor." Brandt insisted, getting to his feet and brushing the gut churning feeling away.

"Ethan's already looking with Addie and Benji. He's pretty angry about what happened. I don't think he'll be particularly happy to see you." Jane explained it all with her implications.

"So you're saying he's blaming me for this?" Brandt let out a bitter snort. "If anything it's her fault for pushing me out."

"Brandt—" Carter stopped when she realized how the analyst was reacting to her explanation.

"It's her fault… She's such a hero type." He let out a choked laugh as he covered his face with his hand, sitting on the stretcher. "She'll never learn to stop being Ethan… And just be herself."

"The only way she'll learn how to do that is through you." Jane replied plainly, as if it were an obvious answer.

-l-

Sheri hissed at the explosion of pain gnawing on her leg. She felt a warm liquid seeping and spreading across it, finding it immobile for reasons she didn't want to tell herself. But she was pretty sure something had impaled her through the leg.

"Brilliant." Her laugh was pained. "Feels like hellfire in my veins."

The woman could barely move due to her leg and the giant chunks of concrete stacked above her. It was almost as if she had become trapped under a half-broken house of cards. She sighed in tired frustration. Would anyone find her under here? Beneath all the rubble and wreckage of the shut down warehouse?

Would she even survive to be found? With her leg bleeding out, she could die of blood loss. Or worse, some nasty infection.

"Stop it Sheridan." She told herself, sniffling only to cough from the settling dust and blinking away the tears to no avail. "Don't be so weak. It's pathetic."

It was dark in her cache; night had fallen and not even the moonlight could reach her where she was. She was, quite literally, in too deep. Her thoughts went to Addie and Benji, her little matchmaking project. With luck they've finally admitted everything in the aftermath of a life threatening and dangerous situation. She'd hate for them never to be together, even if it was a short relationship.

Jane must be anxious too. By now, she was probably out of the hospital and got some sort of call from one of the others. She could be out there right now, trying to help in the search for her. Ethan probably came along with her.

Ethan. She wondered how he felt. If he was worried at all or even there. He could've still been injured and stuck in a hospital bed somewhere. Was he even thinking about her right now?

Her mind drifted to someone who would be; Brandt. The two of them had gotten close since the mission's start and continued getting closer. He was someone she had opened her heart to because she trusted him. Now she might never get to see him again. None of them.

She'd never hear him and Benji have their petty little arguments again. Never hear the snarky comments between the two of them that would always make Ethan snap at them to make them behave. Nor Jane's comments on her training or her sisterly handle on things while still being a kick ass lady agent. Never again would she and Addie do just about everything together and laugh about their teammates when they did something so completely foolish.

The welling at the corner of her eyes couldn't be stopped this time. An invisible noose hung around her neck as her throat tightened.

"You're not alone, together we stand…" She sang quietly, gulping. "I'll be by your side you know I'll take your hand…"

-l-

Benji and Addie paced around the area together. Looking for any signal of Sheri's survival was proving to be a challenge. Addie's heart was becoming weighted and rising slowly into her throat. If Sheri was dead because she got kidnapped…

A warm hand slipped into hers and Benji's electric blue eyes looked back into her multi-colored ones. "Don't blame yourself, Addie. She put Brandt before herself. I think she knew what she was setting herself up for."

"Sure she did. I don't doubt that. But Benji, if there hadn't been a kidnapping in the first place, whether it had been me or Julia… Wouldn't she still be standing here next to us?"

The sea breeze blew cool air around the two of them, taking place of the frozen silence between them. "I get what you're thinking, but you shouldn't blame yourself. Frankly I blame myself for you getting kidnapped."

"Benji—"

"J-Just listen." The tech insisted, standing in front of the other Brit with his hands placed on her shoulders. "I saw them trying to run off with you and I went after them. I would've caught them too but I let myself get distracted… I let myself be vulnerable and that brought its consequences on me. They got away with you and Ethan and Jane ended up in an accident because I couldn't catch up in time."

Addie watched Benji's head droop in shame as he bit his lip guiltily. He really felt like this was his fault… Like his inexperience was the weakness of himself and the whole team. In a spontaneous moment of compassion, she reached over and embraced him tightly.

"A-Addie?" Benji stammered unsurely. This sudden moment of affection surprised him.

"You may think you're just a novice Benj… But you are one of the most experienced people on the team. You know more than you think you do about things. You have your knowledge and we have ours. We teach you and you teach us back. You just need to have confidence."

He wasn't sure what to say to that. One thing was for sure; Benji no longer felt like the weak link. In fact, he was starting to feel pretty invulnerable to any rejection…

"Adelaide—"

"Shhhh." Addie pulled away and looked to the wreckage in careful concentration.

"What is it?"

"I hear something…" She replied quietly.

She jumped up onto some of the rubble and put an ear close down to the concrete pieces. Her ears picked up an arrangement of notes, a song, that was steadily getting louder and louder…

"I found her. I found her! Ethan! Benji! Guys! Over here!" She stood and flagged down the team and some of the firemen.

They joined her on the mound and picked up on the singing too. "That's definitely Sheri. Keep singing…" Ethan muttered, bending down to clear away what he could of the stone and metal.

Addie soon joined him, then Benji, Brandt, Jane, and the entire rescue crew. Cranes were brought in to move the bigger pieces of the warehouse. "Sheri! If you can hear us, keep singing!" Jane called down the hole they were making.

"Keep singing! We're almost there to find you!" Brandt added, his hands starting to bleed from rushing to move everything away.

A fair-skinned hand reached from below the hole. Ethan grabbed hold of it and looked down, catching sight of Sheri's weary eye. "We've got ya, Sheri. We'll get you out of here."

"I know you will." A confidently quiet voice replied back.

-l-

It was a difficult process, especially getting the metal rigging of the ceiling out of Sheri's leg. She bravely bit back a scream, but couldn't hold back the tears of pain she had. The EMTs doped her up on pain medication and wheeled her stretcher into the ambulance. There, Ethan and Brandt both sat on either side of her.

About fifteen minutes into the hour ride to the hospital, Ethan looked over at Brandt seriously.

"I get that it wasn't your fault." He told the analyst simply. "But if she gets hurt again, I won't hesitate to break you."

"That a blessing from the brother of the lady?" Brandt raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe. But if she ends up getting hurt saving your life again, I will make sure your life's hell."

An aggravated mumble rose from the bed between them. Sheri lifted a hand lazily at her brother, giving him a lackadaisical glare. "You dooo thaaat, and I'llll maaake yooouur life helllle too." She slurred slightly, affected by the morphine that numbed her from the pain in her leg.

Hunt laughed, the brightest sound he had released in a long time and he put his sister's hand down gently.

"Just rest. We'll talk more later." He reassured with a warm grin.

She gladly obliged to his request.

Only one chapter left! Then maybe an epilogue! ;D Please review!

Love to all you out there! xoxo