A/N: Please be advised that this chapter may contain sensitive material regarding combat scenes from the war in Afghanistan. I tried to make it as objective as possible, devoid of any outlandish judgment. I hope it succeeds in making its point without causing offense or upset.

Chapter 11

So many colors. Flashing lights. A laser light show of blues and reds danced across the dashboard as Spencer came to, dizzily attempting to remember what had happened. Her vision was fuzzy and her brain felt rattled as she tried to make sense of her current position.

She was in a car. If one could call it a car anymore, anyway. Glass was littered in every direction, reflecting the dancing lights in a morbidly beautiful manner.

A searing pain shot through her head at the slightest movement. She absent-mindedly reached upward to her temple, her fingers brushing against several tiny pieces of glass embedded in her skin. Pieces of the window. Or maybe the windshield. She couldn't be sure. Everything came racing back to her in a frenzy…deafening sounds of screeching tires and bending steel.

"Holmes?" she whispered hoarsely, turning her neck towards him. She ignored the debilitating pain that accompanied this simple gesture. The seatbelt crossing his chest had been torn away at some point, leaving only a few strips of fiber hanging from the belt pulley. He was unconscious, slumped over the steering wheel. His figure was illuminated for only a moment as the swirling emergency lights grazed the interior of the car. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his extensive injuries.

Spencer reached out to him, her fingers cautiously brushing the side of his face. She immediately felt a thick moisture and recoiled in surprise. Blood. The sudden smell of bitter rust made her stomach turn. She gagged briefly on a small amount of bile, but nothing more came up.

"Derek," she pleaded again. This time she reached purposefully for his limp hand on the seat beside him, pressing her thumb to his wrist. The thrumming was faint, but his heart was definitely still beating. She felt a small semblance of relief as she realized this. He was alive. They were both alive. That had to count for something.

A new pain startled her, and she looked down to survey the damage. A large shard of glass was lodged in her thigh, emerging hauntingly from a scarlet pool of blood. It had torn straight through her pantyhose, easily, like a knife cutting through hot butter. She touched it for a moment, knowing that removing it could be dire. She had paid enough attention in her AP Anatomy and Physiology class to remember that allowing the femoral artery to bleed openly would kill her in minutes. A surge of panic overtook her, and she found that she suddenly was having a great deal of trouble breathing.

"Door's jammed," an unfamiliar voice uttered. Though Spencer was certain it was coming from right outside the car, it felt far more distant. Like the consistency of a person's speech in a tin-can telephone. The glow of a flashlight swept in through the window, and Spencer's eyes squinted involuntarily.

"Passenger is conscious."

"Help him…please," she murmured, referring to Holmes. When she was not met with a response, she was certain that her small voice had not succeeded in talking over the blaring sirens and the hum of tools being used to cut her door open.

As her consciousness began to fade once more, she was vaguely aware of her seatbelt being sliced away from her body. Strong hands were carefully lifting her from her seat, sending what should have been a blinding pain throughout her entire body. Instead, the numbness appeared to have begun to set in. The pain was present but only distantly so – like the faint tenderness of a bruise that had all-but healed.

The sun was coming up now, she realized. The horizon was painted with a wealth of pinks and purples, but what was more surprising was the deep shade of red. She remembered a poem her father used to tell her as a child.

Red sky at night, what a delight. Red sky at morning, best to take warning.

Before she could even make sense of its significance, the darkness was enveloping her once more.

Fire blazed all around them, flames lapping hungrily at the night sky. It was bitterly cold in the mountains tonight, but Toby's heavy gear sufficed to keep him warm enough. He clutched his M-16 desperately at his hip as he and his comrades moved in toward the downed helicopter, struggling through the adrenaline to adhere to their training.

"The northern valley is clear," Sergeant Wilkes announced, waving them in. On command, Toby rushed into the rubble, tearing away at the shattered pieces of the aircraft. The stench of burning flesh lingered heavily in his nostrils, and he became suddenly aware that this smell would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. He had the distant urge to vomit, but fought it off.

He continued to dig through the rocks and debris of the mountainside, pulling away what was left of helicopter door. The sight took a moment to digest, but there it was: lo and behold, the Air Force commander of their partnered unit lay face up, coughing profusely in the noxious smoke.

"I have a survivor!" Toby cried. He fell to his knees, assessing the captain's condition. With morbid realization, he noticed that the officer was holding despondently onto the cauterized stump that was once his left hand. His breathing was rough and ragged, but he was undoubtedly alive.

"Hold on, we're going to get you out of here," Toby coached quietly as he pulled the ointment and bandages from his emergency medical kit. To his surprise, the commander chuckled softly.

"I've never missed a landing before, you know."

Toby offered a weak smile to the captain as he began to dress his wounds. "Yeah, well," he began bitterly, "I imagine it's hard to ace a landing when you're being bombarded by enemy fire."

The trained unit medic was now on his knees beside Toby, unearthing more sophisticated first aid materials. He was calling out orders to Toby to hand him various pieces of equipment, which he was only vaguely aware of. Somehow, his body was instinctively following command nonetheless. It was like a reflex. His mind could make no sense of the words, but he was on autopilot.

The medic was injecting the commander with some kind of painkiller out of a syringe. The calming effect must have been nearly instantaneous, for the captain exhaled heavily in relief.

"We're gonna get you back to base, okay?" Toby offered. The smoke from the crash was burning his retinas, but he tried as best he could to ignore the disturbance.

"You're a good soldier, Cavanaugh," the commander declared hoarsely, providing a half-hearted salute. Toby smiled sadly before saluting back.

"Get down!"

Again, Toby's body seemed to be quicker to respond than his brain. His face was in the dirt in a split second just as a bullet went whizzing overhead. The attackers had returned – or had been hiding in waiting all along.

"Enemy gunfire, 8:00!"

Toby crawled desperately towards his M-16, using the rubble as cover. The medic was working in a panicked frenzy now to subdue the captain for travel. Their position was practically providing the enemy with easy target practice.

"Get him behind the boulder! Go!" Toby commanded. The medic was already two steps ahead of him, and was surreptitiously pulling the captain away from open fire. Toby and two of his team were on foot, heading in the direction of the source of attack. The mountainous terrain was proving difficult to navigate, for Toby found himself being nearly tripped up by loose rocks as he ran.

Just as he, Wilkes, and Jergens reached the line of trees, another round of gunfire began. They dashed expertly behind the foliage to evade. From the sounds of it, there was only a single shooter in the woods.

"Around back," Jergens suggested, jerking his head towards the thickening forest. Toby and Wilkes were close behind him when it happened. A memory that Toby would never forget, for as long as he would live.

Wilkes was bludgeoned in the back of the head by the butt of the enemy's rifle. He fell almost immediately to his knees in a half-conscious daze. The attacker pointed the barrel of the gun straight into the back of Wilkes' neck, prepared to shoot him execution style.

"Wadarezha!" he cried wildly. "Mah shora! Ka ne daz kawam!"

Jergens immediately dropped his weapon, holding his hands upward in surrender style. The look of distaste on his face was unmistakable.

The enemy looked at Toby now incredulously, a dangerous glint in his eye. "Salaayee ta bendaaz!"

Toby was frozen in fear. He knew that the vermin wanted him to disarm himself. Wilkes was looking at him pointedly, as if to give silent command to attack in spite of his fate. Toby had the distinct feeling that the enemy was bluffing – if his gun had any remaining ammo, he would have certainly unloaded by now.

The attacker continued to shout at him in Pashto. Words he could not translate fast enough. And suddenly, as the man grew more frustrated, he made his decision.

He couldn't tell anyone to this day exactly how it panned out. But with a swift somersault in the direction of his sergeant, Toby somehow provided distraction enough. The man was firing blindly in Toby's direction. So much for bluffing. He had obviously not had extensive training with his firearm, however, and was burning bullets carelessly as he continued to miss. Jergens had retrieved his own gun. He was raising it to eye level, taking aim…

BOOM.

The obnoxious ringing of his phone shook him from his superficial slumber. He shot up in bed, feeling around his body to ensure that all parts were in tact. He had fallen victim to a cold sweat, chills racing up and down his spine. He dazedly looked around to see that the faint light of morning was pouring through the spaces of the curtained window, and he wondered absent-mindedly who would call him at this hour from this unrecognizable number. He grabbed the phone exasperatedly, flopping back down to his pillow.

"Hello?" he muttered.

"Hello, is Toby Cavanaugh available?"

"Speaking." He rubbed his face tiredly, attempting to make himself more alert. The recurrent nightmare of his experience overseas left him feeling more exhausted than he had before he had lied down.

"This is Dr. Tate from U of M hospital."

This simple statement sufficed to wake him the rest of the way. He sat up in bed immediately, breath hitched in his throat. Before he could entirely decipher what this phone call meant, the doctor continued.

"Your number was listed under I.C.E. for a…" The pause the followed might as well have lasted for several hours, when in reality it was only a moment. "Spencer Hastings."

The circulation of his blood stopped. The nightmare he had had before was nothing compared to the feeling of despair that immediately enveloped him now. An involuntary shiver ran through him as the feeling in his fingers seemed to disappear. A guttural instinct told him to hang up and immediately go to her, but he fought with his rational brain to hear the rest.

"She's my fiancé," he confirmed fearfully. "What happened? Is she okay?"

"She was brought in thirty minutes ago with injuries sustained in a car crash."

The caller had barely gotten the sentence out before Toby was on his feet, yanking his pants on with one hand.

"How is she?" he demanded, willing his wildly beating heart to calm.

"She's stable."

Those words alone provided a semblance of relief. She was alive. That was the most important part.

"She has a variety of injuries, but all of them have proven manageable. We had to give her a blood transfusion. Her body is taking it well."

"Good," Toby breathed. He was at a loss for any additional words. At least she was okay, for all intents and purposes. Relieving as it was, it did not suffice to eliminate the panic he felt. He wanted to be by her side, nonetheless. She would need him. And if he was being honest with himself, he needed to see with his own two eyes that her heart was indeed beating.

"She was the passenger in the vehicle that was struck. It's registered to a Derek Holmes," the doctor continued.

"Yeah…yeah, he's my best friend," Toby agreed slowly. The cold fist around his heart tightened once more. He was now pulling a shirt over his head desperately, practically throwing everything off the nightstand to locate his truck keys.

"I'm afraid Derek is in critical."

Tears sprung immediately to the corners of Toby's eyes. A series of questions were racing through his mind, but for the life of him, he could not concentrate long enough to pick one.

"I'll be right there," he said simply instead. He shoved his phone haphazardly into his jeans pocket, finally locating his keys on the floor. He began to chant to himself in his head: they were alive. They were alive. First and foremost, this was good news. This silver lining alone would have to provide him some hope. It was the only notion that kept his confidence from buckling – kept him from collapsing into a piteous heap on the floor. He had to stay calm. He simply had to.

He pulled the door open violently, taking the stairs two at a time all the way to the first floor, completing the process of buttoning his pants as he went. Hanna was just waking up, stretching sleepily on the couch.

"Toby?" she asked quietly. There was a look of confusion on her face. He was sure she had several questions about whether he and Spencer forgave her – if they were still mad – but she asked the most pressing one first. "What's the matter?"

Pulling his coat on proved to be far more difficult than it should have been, but he had all but lost the feeling in his hands. He numbly grasped onto it, shoving his arms through.

"What's wrong?" she demanded more fervently, kicking her blanket away in a mild panic. "Where are you going?"

What was he supposed to tell her? Her sleepy blue eyes probed his face worriedly, looking entirely young and innocent from her peaceful slumber. His eyes were burning now as he gulped heavily, steeling himself for the task at hand.

"Spencer and Holmes were in an accident," he said. The words felt foreign in his mouth, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.

Hanna blanched, but was on her feet in an instant, grabbing her own coat. If she wanted answers, she didn't ask for them. She sympathized with his urgency and matched his haste, silent tears seeping from her eyes.

Toby grabbed her hand supportively, pulling her alongside him to the car.