Author's Note: Fans of this story, rejoice! I was finally able to recover the chapters of this that I lost months and months ago when my computer crashed. I've done little editing since I want to keep the tone consistent to when I wrote it. You have OfficiallyWhelmedSpitfire aka Chelle to thank for my finally posting the rest of this. She sent me a very enthusiastic PM requesting I post the rest of this, despite how long its been and it's lack of an ending. I wouldn't have done this without her encouragement. No worries though, I've included a summary of the last few chapters I never got to write which I hope serve as a satisfying ending regardless.

You've waited long enough. So enjoy.

Wally

The pain is unbearable.

I'm gritting my jaw so hard, I'm just waiting for it to pop loose from my head altogether. I breathe through my teeth, scream through my teeth when my legs spasm. I want to curl up into the fetal position but my legs jerk horribly at any motion. I can't decide which hurts more, my calf or my knee.

I can't figure out how I'm still bearing it.

I lie on my side, holding my legs at the wounds, but I'm really watching myself curling and trying to keep my shit together from the other side of the room. I thought out-of-body experiences were a Hollywood gimmick until now since my job usually doesn't allow me the luxury of a psychotic break.

It feels like hours before I can manage anything that isn't violent swearing.

How…how long have I been here like this? I peer over at myself across the room, hoping if I try to analyze the present anomaly it'll keep me from feeling the extent of the pain.

I remind myself, if the pain gets too bad, you'll go under, you'll go under. You'll go under and it'll be just like sleeping and you won't feel it anymore.

But I don't go under, and my legs just keep burning hurting burning even though I'm on the other side of the room and the air is just too damn hot…

Reality hits me with a jolt: I have to stop the bleeding.

Snapping back to myself—which feels even more surreal than leaving—I force my training to override my instinct, become my instinct.

I have to stop the bleeding. No ifs or buts about it. I can seriously die from this if I keep lying in my pitiful agony.

I gingerly squeeze my target practice knee to see how bad it is. I can't look. I know I'll throw up. Or I'll pass out just at the sight of it.

"AAARRRRRRGGHH!"

Yeah, pretty damn bad. I let go of it and with the one hand, use a combination of timid writhing and my teeth to attempt to take off my button up shirt. One tourniquet's better than no tourniquet at all.

The pain makes my eyes tear and makes my hearing very hollow, but I still notice the bang of the door shutting in some far off place that might as well be the moon. Then everything is blonde.

"Don't scream," Artemis says with no-nonsense. She quickly grabs my wrist before I can answer and pulls my arm back, starting to take my shirt off. Typically, I would be fighting against or encouraging this from Artemis, or any girl, yet I'm so off my game right now it's not even funny.

So I clamp my eyes shut and grit my teeth even harder as I let her move me to get the other half out from under my dead weight. I feel I should say something funny, something to lighten the mood, but absolutely nothing comes to mind right now except more screaming, which I think I may have promised her not to do.

I hear the dull ripping of the shirt as I resume clutching at my legs, bracing myself for the pain that's sure to come once she starts binding them. If the pain gets too bad, you'll go under. If the pain gets too bad…

Nothing happens though. Except that she unexpectedly puts a hand in my hair.

"Didyoudoitalready?" I mutter, trying to be funny—secretly hoping she actually might have already, that I really did go under and missed it all. I open an eye to see her looking down on me…sympathetically? Apologetically? I honest to God have no idea how either emotion looks on her face.

Artemis has shreds of my favorite blue shirt draped over her shoulder, the one attached to the arm in the sling, but she holds out a rolled up ball of fabric to my face.

"Bite down on this," is her solemn instruction.

I'm scared. I don't think I've ever been this scared.

I've had bones broken before, of course. Also, not the first time I bleed so badly. (Running into tree branches at the speed of sound does more damage than you'd think.) But I've always gone straight to a hospital. I've always had the Justice League or Uncle Barry or my mom to stitch me up and send me off for recovery, good as new.

This was just me and Artemis. Artemis whose nursing skills I knew approximately zero about, unless you counted knowing how to put together a sling. And I REALLY doubted our ability to get pain-killers or antibiotics or stitches out of our kidnappers. If she didn't know what to do…if she did this wrong…

The sympathy evaporates from her face when she sees the blood draining from mine. In its place is the steely determination I recognize. "Bite down on this or you're going to split your teeth, Wally."

She knows what she's doing. And I trust her, not because I don't have another choice—because I don't, and I know it. I trust her because this I know this is Artemis and she is physically incapable of doing anything half-assed, even keeping me alive.

"If I…" I struggle to get out, "if I…start screaming…you have my permission to…toknockmeout. Kay?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her swallow hard.

"Okay," she says, "Bite." Her voice sounds hollow. But everything sounds hollow to me.

I nod and take the fabric in my teeth. I clamp down on it hard, taking a deep breath and holding it, bracing myself.

Despite what I said, she doesn't club me when the pain reaches its breaking point again.