I'm dying after tonight's episode. In case you're all wondering. The ship of Hannah and McG has sailed, and it is wonderful! ... but seriously, how good was that episode? Hannah in the field was just so damn badass and her lines were so perfect. AND MCG. You hound, you! I tried to play some tribute to the scene in which they met in this chapter (after some quick editing), but the story might stray a tiny bit from what you see on the show.

That said, it's been a great day, and I love this show so much. So I'm going to let this pretty long chapter speak for itself!

*Peace, love, and Jaz*

Hannah would be lying if she said this was the first time she ever crawled in agony on her hands and knees to save herself. Hell, she tried each day to keep memories like this out of her mind, to focus on her job and remain present despite textbook post traumatic stress poking at her like the monster it could be. But, this time she was not alone, and with McGuire not moving and Preach nowhere in eyesight, she knew time was of the essence. It was dark, there were mountains only a couple miles ahead, easy to hide a sniper and take them out. They were not safe. Hopefully Joe's earpiece was still in tact and she could radio for help, or at least get Dalton out here.

"McGuire," she growled, only a couple feet away now, her side aching unimaginably each time she moved in the grit and sand, pieces of metal embedded into the dusty surface. "Damn it, Joe wake up!" She was angry with the situation, angry at herself, and angry that this operation already went so south. She could only hope that the other half of the team was safe. Jaz didn't need this kind of danger or hurt yet. She only returned to the team a couple weeks back.

They'd been emailing back and forth, video chatting when she could escape the men around her. It was her boss's idea, knowing that Hannah had went through hell after her last operation as an operative, and understood the panic, fear, and anguish that the other woman might be feeling. Patricia Campbell also knew that people like Dalton's team did not take well to Army doctors poking and asking questions. There was a reason they were the elite of the elite—they had the ability to compartmentalize and pack things away in a way that not many others could. They didn't show fear, they didn't show their emotions. At least, not the way normal people did.

But, much like her boss thought, Hannah would be different. They had the same security clearance, the same understanding of what it meant to keep your cover no matter what. Regardless, Jaz didn't open immediately. She insisted she was fine, but Hannah knew otherwise. Because she had said the same thing. She struggled for months to emerge from the hell she was inflicted, and it didn't happen overnight. Jaz said her worst fear was that her capture wouldn't be the last terrible thing to happen to the team. The thought made her realize while they might all be their own person, they were a group of five interdependent souls. When her captor brought the pictures of her dead team in that room to her face, she knew it couldn't be true, but it still haunted her. The worst thing that could happen was that someone else got hurt or died trying to save her. She was terrified when she first saw her CO that he would say that.

Then there was the white torture. Hannah couldn't emphasize with that sort of pain, but she could listen. Regardless, too, she was still a woman and the men of her group would never have that in common. Jaz was equal opportunity in a lot of ways, but as Dalton had once said, according to Jaz, he never forgot who she was or how hard she worked to get there.

She realized seconds later the thoughts of Jaz overtook the pain for a moment and she forced herself back to reality. "McG!" she yelled, finally close enough to reach out and grab his shoulder. Much to her relief, he groaned at her touch and shrunk his eyes closed further if that were possible. In the dim light of the fire, she could not see any physical injuries, but that didn't mean they weren't there. "You with me?"

He groaned a second time, but this time his eyes opened and much like herself, it all came flooding back to him. She was impressed how fast the fog cleared from his eyes and how easily he was able to focus on his surroundings. "Fuck, fuck! Where is Preach? What happened?"

"I haven't gotten that far," she admitted, the energy it took to get to the tall medic effectively draining her of the majority of the fight she had left. "I've got a bit of an, uh, issue here."

Preach scrambled to a sitting position, wincing as he did so, only to curse at the sight of Hannah's abdomen. "Shit, Hannah. Don't move." He glanced around him for his medical supplies, always near when they were out. But it was so hard to see, she knew and if it did survive the bombing, it was going to be rough to find. "Can you sit still for a minute? I'm going to look for my pack. Don't move. Don't agitate it anymore."

Where My Demons Hide

He thought after the whole Iran situation the universe would maybe let them rest a bit. Get in and out of their ops and sort of… well, survive. The universe was not kind, and his thought was incredibly naïve and ridiculous if he were honest. After the bombing on the beach, after Elijah's death, after Jaz… they deserved a damn break. The punches kept rolling though, and in the pitch black shitland that this desert was, the universe laughed once more. His medical pack was on fire in the Humvee… well, what was left of it, at least. And Hannah was already ashen and shivering. How the woman managed to get to him despite this was nothing short of a miracle.

He didn't have any supplies. He literally could not pack her wound, couldn't give her any pain medication… hell, his earpiece was even gone, which really solidified how fucked they were. A few feet away, he saw the body of their driver unmoving, and limped his way to the man, closing his eyes as his fingers confirmed the man was dead.

Fuck.

Where was Preach?

He knew better than to call out in the dark, aware that the mountains were great hiding places for insurgents to keep tabs on the American soldiers. They didn't know this was a Special Forces group; they simply saw the uniform and took aim.

"Anything?" Hannah asked, as he came back over to her. He helped her lie down on her better side, trying to inspect her wound in the minimal light.

"Driver's dead. I don't see Preach. It's possible he got thrown. I don't have anything to help you." He was honest, at least. Following many unusual medical supplies in the past, he could use just about anything in times of distress. Except, the only thing he had now was the clothes on his back, and a watch on his wrist. Fantastic, he could count down the minutes until Hannah bled out in front of him. Which, he reasoned was happening internally, considering the low amount of blood dripping from the wound. Her pulse was thready, and her skin clammy, all bad signs for her condition. It would only deteriorate in the cooler temperatures. The question at this point was how fast.

"It still hurts like a bitch, which I guess is a good sign," she said, the humor not going far enough.

She was right, that said. If she was still in agony that meant her body hadn't gone into shock yet, or was trying to save the energy she had left. Agony unfortunately was a good thing.

"I'm going to take another look around. Go a bit further." He got up from the crouched position, his back screaming in protest (and his head swimming, which made him think he probably had a concussion—but when the driver over there was missing a few body parts and pulse less, he supposed he could take that), wondering just how far he could go without endangering them both. Thankfully, the two of them still had their weapons. He motioned to hers. "Fire that if anyone comes at you."

She gave him a careful smile, "It isn't my first rodeo, Joe. Go. Look for Preach."

"The team will be looking for us," he told her, as if she didn't know that. Usually it would be her doing so, which seemed ironic. "So I hear Noah likes you a lot, so he probably won't leave you out here too long."

Hannah gave him another smile, this one a little less guarded. "He's not my type."

"Noted," he smirked, and he took off, keeping focused as best he could. He would be lying if the smells weren't starting to get to him, the general environment casting shadow-like memories around his peripheral vision. It was a night like this when he lost one of his first soldiers years back, when he'd only been deployed for a couple months and he was as green as the grass back home. There'd been no saving him. It was an IED blast, and the damage to the 18 year old soldier's body had been severe. He stayed with them to the very end, though, talking as McG shot the strongest of pain medication into his veins, and attempted to get him into the MEDEVAC. They were hoping for a miracle, but in the air, he went down and never came back up.

Around him now, he tried to find anything that would tell him where his fellow serviceman had gone. The flames were dying out in the Humvee now, thankfully, as it was a huge target for their already compromised safety. The temporary feeling of relief flooded him when he was able to confirm there was not remains of a body inside. Preach was out there, but the question was to where. Could the team have another one of them captured? Jaz nearly gutted him; he couldn't take the man who was like a father figure to him, too.

He got closer to the Humvee, knowing that his medical pack was somewhat flame retardant, trying to find a way to see if anything was salvageable inside. If he could at least get an IV into the woman hurting a few feet away, maybe grab some morphine, this could be a bit better. There was so much he wanted to do and needed to do, but he felt helpless against it all. He hated that feeling.

"McG!" Hannah's weak call sent him jogging back over, seeing her panicked eyes staring at him.

"What's u—?"

She was holding her hand to her side, where a deep purple bruise had formed. She knew it was a bad sign. He knew it meant they only had a couple hours before it was too late to do anything. McG growled, kicking a piece of metal as far as he could. With renewed passion, he stalked over to the Humvee, mainly just sparking embers at that point and picked up a longer piece of broken metal, figuring he could use it to get the charred pack his way. Angling it inside the mangled vehicle, he poked the sturdy medpack, getting it as far as the door nearest him before a spark made him back up. It sent what looked like firecrackers into the sky, then neon sparklers that looked like fireflies as they blinked in and out.

He wasn't stupid. He knew the Humvee wouldn't stay out like this. The vehicles held more gas than a normal car, and the back of the truck was still mainly intact. Probably why he and Hannah weren't dead. His heart plummeted at the thought of Preach in the front, the passenger door where he would've (hopefully) escaped suffering great damage as well.

Focus, he reminded himself. He couldn't get lost in his thoughts right now. Time was running out and he needed the medical pack if Hannah was going to survive much longer without a hospital's medical attention. He gripped the piece of metal and poked it in a second time, the Humvee making a lurching noise that made his ears ring. More sparks lit the dark area.

"Come on, just a bit…" Hallelujah, he thought as he was able to get the bag out. It was pretty damaged on the surface, but there was great relief in his chest when he got it open and most of the things inside were still usable. He looked up at the sky, not usually one for religion or praying, but figured someone was looking out for them that day. "Eli, if it's you… thank you." Elijah had been gone almost a year, but no one forgot about the man who died in Jaz's arms. If there was something beyond this life, he knew the man hadn't stopped watching them.

He raced back over to Hannah, tearing an IV bag with his teeth to get it set up, while rummaging through the kit to find the morphine. She watched him with weary eyes, not sure if this silence was normal for the woman, or if it was a sign that she was fading. McG didn't know too much about her, like he thought earlier that day. She'd only joined the team shortly after Amir joined theirs and her history was nothing but gray to him.

"You with me still?"

"Yeah," she said softly.

"The pain will be better in a second," he assured her, putting on gloves and working the attachments into the large bag. A bag of fluids was one of those things that shouldn't do much, but always did.

"I'm no stranger to pain, it's alright." She didn't elude further than the comment, and he didn't want to ask.

"Can you give me your right arm?" he asked, the one further from the embedded piece of metal, and the one that he could reach without having to aggravate her side any more than it already was. Judging by where the thin piece was located, it looked as if it could've nicked some of her intestines, perhaps her appendix, but it was thankfully low enough that it wasn't going to get to her more major organs. His thought was that it would at least be repairable, as long as he got her there in time.

Hannah gave him the arm and he set up the IV, first putting the pain meds in. Within minutes, the woman had visibly relaxed, the medication doing its job as he stood above her, holding the bag of saline so that it would enter her body in the correct manner.

"Once this goes in, we're gonna move." He knew it would hurt like hell regardless, even with the meds, but they were sitting ducks in the open like this. He saw a small area of rocks and brush a few feet away; it would at least give them some cover if insurgents came to inspect the burning car. And enough time for him to fire off a couple of shots with an advantage. Worst case scenarios, of course, but at least he would be prepared. And they were three for three with worst case these days, anyway.

"Are you hurt?" she whispered.

He knew there was adrenaline pumping through his body, but other than what he thought as some serious bruising and maybe a mild concussion, he didn't believe so. He had minor lacerations and shrapnel wounds, nothing that would require immediate attention, especially not when she was in such dire needs.

"I'm alright," he said honestly. "Just banged up. You're my main concern."

"Ah, so you can be chivalrous," she teased.

He smirked, knowing it was the pain medication talking, as Hannah had not ever been this flirtatious previously and laughed. He normally would've quipped a reply in seconds, loving that sort of attention, but it was not the time. "You are taking well to that morphine."

"When I got back home after the cartel, they gave me it in the hospital. Was one of the best highs I ever felt."

He blinked at the words, repeating them in his head over and over. After the cartel, she said. He knew vague details about her time before, having mentioned on the line during their last trip to Mexico she was familiar with the cartel, but not enough; not what they did to hurt her, seemingly. That said, he knew how ruthless and brutal they were. He was unsure of how to answer. Hannah's reaction to the meds seemed to make her forthcoming and casual about her past, and he didn't want to accidentally talk her into revealing things that she wasn't ready for.

"Well," he said after a moment, "Morphine is great."

"Spoken like a drug addict," she giggled, cringing when the metal shifted in her.

He took the bag from one hand to the other, trying to see if she irritated it further. It just looked red and swollen at the site. "Almost done. Stay still." She obliged and he carefully slid the medical equipment out of the way, glancing around him to double check they were still alone. "Alright, we're going to do this slowly and carefully. If there is anything, and I mean anything that hurts, you tell me. We'll figure it out."

"My knight in shining… camo?" another giggle erupted from her lips.

McGuire smiled, "I'm hardly a knight."

"Mm," she purred, as he arched his back so that he could lift her without disturbing the area. "What do they say about military men? Heroes wear dog tags, not capes." The woman paused, frowning at the words. He scolded himself for thinking about how cute she looked with furrowed brows. Not the time, you Neanderthal. "Wait, that doesn't sound right. It's something like that."

He chuckled, knowing she would not be focused on what he was about to do. "Keep talking, Han, we'll be done in a minute." All the drugs in the world could not hide the pain of being dragged across rough terrain and Hannah bit down on her lip when he began to drag her until they were safe. She never cried out, tough as nails obviously. He didn't expect less. His superior, Deputy Director Campbell was much like his CO. She knew exactly how to pick them. If Hannah Rivera was working for her, she was the best. He set her down behind a particularly large boulder, double checking the area a final time before deeming it as safe as they would get. Hannah's breathing came in short, sporadic breaths for nearly a minute, sending his gut into overdrive. Only when he was about to ask her if she was alright, did it calm. She glanced up at him. "Are you okay?"

"I mean, I'm in the middle of a desert with a piece of metal sticking out of my side, with a whole bunch of angry extremists who wouldn't mind me dead. I'm great, how are you?"

He laughed again, "That is something I would say if the tables were turned."

He sat beside her and she gave him a soft, but pained smile. "So I hear, we might have a lot in common."

"How so?" he asked curiously.

Hannah gave a shy giggle and shrugged. "A little birdie might've said so."

"A birdie, huh?"

Hannah shook her head. "Nah. She's not a birdie. Maybe a … hmm? What animal would you call Jaz. I'm thinking some sort of panther."

"I'm not sure. Jaz said we have a lot in common?" He rolled his eyes. "What would Jazzy know."

"Jazzy?" she questioned.

He nodded, "She's the little sister I never had."

"She's a badass."

"She is," he agreed. "I was nervous that after Iran we might not get her back. I mean, I know we got her back, but I mean back, like back. I'm not so elegantly worded. You get the idea."

"She's a tough kid," Hannah murmured, looking up at the sky. "She respects you."

"Is that what she said?" he snorted. "Remind me to get that in writing."

"She does," she deadpanned. "She says you're a pain in the ass and headstrong, but when it comes down to it, you're loyal and you've got a heart that would do anything for those around you." He couldn't help the smile that spread, knowing for Jaz to say it she must've been really vulnerable. "You know, you don't have to be the player all the time, Joe. You've got a lot of great things to show the world. Anyone who only sees the brooding and handsome medic needs to look deeper."

He was surprised by the comments, and his expression evidently gave it away.

"I know that sounds odd, but I'm on the other end of that phone, in case you forgot. I hear just about everything that goes on. I can also see when someone is using bravado to hide what they truly feel." She shifted, cringing a second time in the last few minutes. "I know, because I've done it. It's easier to put up a wall."

"I don't put up any walls."

Hannah closed her eyes, shaking her head. "It's just you and me here. You don't have to lie. There's no team going to tease you. Joe, I've read your file. I know what you've been through."

He was annoyed by that comment, "No one told you to look through my file."

She held up her hands. "It wasn't right, I know that. But I was curious."

Curious about what exactly?

There was something about someone other than his team knowing what he's been through that bothered him deeply, but he didn't have the heart to argue with her when he knew it would only add adrenaline into the equation.

So he didn't answer.

Hannah smiled, "Remember when we met for the first time in person?"

Where was she going with this?

He arched a brow, "Yes. It was like a month ago."

She chuckled, "And you came up to me like you were ready to take on a challenge. Put your hand out, said your first name, and the team all rolled their eyes." He smirked at the memory, knowing when he first saw her that he was interested. She was polite, but didn't take the bait. Hannah was a smart woman after all, an operative herself, so she knew how to handle things. He was, to her, probably just a pigheaded man. Which, in her defense, he could be. There wasn't much to look forward to when not on mission, so forgive him if he enjoyed his time by well, enjoying women. There wasn't a law against it, and as long as they were able and consenting, he was all over that. Mama McGuire didn't raise a fool.

"What?"

He said it out loud. Oh, for fuck's sake, he just said that last thought out loud.

"Your mom is your only family in your profile."

Back to the profile. Great. "Single mom. Raised me. Don't know how she survived that."

"How did she take to you getting into the Army?"

He sighed, remembering that fight. There'd been a lot of tears, a lot of anger in that conversation. He was supposed to be a nurse like her. It seemed too boring, too routine. Why not throw in some bombs, angry people with guns, and an unknown terrain to make things interesting? Younger McGuire craved that rush. This McGuire wouldn't lie; he was growing tired of it. He loved his team; he loved being a more realistic version of Captain America. But the heroics were far and in between all the hell.

He once heard one of the Army shrinks say that even the toughest eggs could crack. At the time, he thought the analogy was stupid. Eggs were in a soft shell; of course they would crack. The human brain on the other hand was a complex, diverse piece of his entire being. But as they got slammed over and over again by hard operations, he wondered what would happen next time something like this went down.

How long did duct tape fix a leaky faucet?

"Not well," Hannah realized, bringing him back into the present. He had to stop bringing in his thoughts; zoning out in a war zone was more than dangerous.

He nodded, "She wanted me safe. You can't blame her for that."

Hannah was quiet for a moment, "My parents almost got one of those letters when the DIA found me nearly dead. I can't imagine what would've went through their heads. They didn't know what I did for a living, at least not in reality. They knew I work for the government, but in their minds, I've been an analyst all this time."

"My mom just thinks I'm stationed in Turkey for a few years. She doesn't know anything other than that." He thought about his mom getting that sort of letter. She only had him and he was so fucking far. He had one of them, and it said everything he could never say, but he wished that it never got delivered. This desert waiting game was making him question otherwise. He was hoping that if they laid low long enough, that someone would come looking—the good guys, obviously. But it'd been nearly a half hour since he dragged Hannah behind that rock and no one was coming. It came to fruition that this wasn't working. The deep bruise on Hannah's side was getting darker, and he could see her hiding the wince again. The meds were already wearing off—a seriously bad sign.

But what could he do? If someone came after them and he was looking for his team, she would never be able to defend herself. If he stayed there much longer, he wouldn't have to worry about that anyway. She'd be dead.

Weighing his options, Hannah made the decision for him, as if she read his mind. "You need to go looking for Preach at the very least. If the team is out there, they're looking. They'll see the heat signatures. Our mics have to be somewhere in this damn desert."

He closed his eyes. "You okay?"

Hannah gave him a weak smile, "You and I both know whatever answer I give you what the truth is." She took a shaky deep breath. "But, I want to live. And the only way that is happening is if we do something."

"I don't want to leave you a sitting duck."

"Go," she said, nodding. "Go."

So, he got up. The fire was looming near the Humvee again, threatening a secondary explosion. The flickering embers sent him back… drip, drip, drip…

Faces slammed his memory. People he couldn't save.

Not.

Now.

For fuck's sake, he needed to focus on the mission. Dalton would say so.

He gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, seeing Hannah's concern from below him. He nodded once, then took off with his gun raised toward the direction in which they were originally headed.