AN: first of all I would like to say thank you to my sole reviewer, sneakysnakes, I have taken into account your suggestions making this possibly the only ever oneshot with three (or more) chapters. I have a big exam tomorrow so probably no updates, but hey, you're getting this today aren't you? I essentially wrote this on the bus after a friend of mine rang me from the hospital and I was like :o inspiration! Please, please please review this guys

Lily x

The next thing I remember is being dragged from the rather pleasant drug addled dreams that morphine brings, by someone pushing on my bad shoulder. I opened my eyes. Obviously, since I couldn't see anything I'd made a mistake and in fact my eyes were not open, so I tried again. I remember being quite disappointed to learn that I, in fact, couldn't open my eyes. Luckily, the bloke who'd apparently woken me up had stayed in the room and was now pulling painfully at my arm and talking to himself. I bit back the string of expletives this latest torture had provoked and choked out

'Who the bloody hell are you?' apparently strong medication makes me powerfully eloquent.

'Oh.' He said snatching his hands away from my arm 'I thought you were still out of it.'

'You shook my shoulders.'

'Yes, but you didn't respond!'

'well, who are you anyway?'

'I'm your Doctor. My name is Lt. Philip…' and he said something that sounded like chummly-cook. I later found out that it was spelt 'Chumfanleigh-coke' which seems like an upper-class way of complicating something that doesn't need to be complicated. I say upper class because, had he not bled out into the Afghani sand six months later aged just twenty five, my doctor would have been none other than the Lord Earl of Leicester.

But anyway, I was pissed off at having been pulled from a very nice sleep for no good reason other than my Doctor's self-importance and even more so that he was obviously the newbie so I was a bit more sharp than intended.

'And what, pray, is wrong with my eyes Doctor?'

'Oh, we've just put a bit of padding on those to stop anything happening to them.'

'Like what?'

'oh nothing, nothing…' he said sounding flustered.

'Lieutenant, you do know I was a doctor don't you?'

There was a pause and some riffling of paper before he coughed

'I apologise, Captain.'

'Good. Now. What's wrong with my eyes?'

He sighed 'you appear to have collided with something face first, the force pushed your nasal bones along with some… other stuff into the back of your skull. Bone and debris from the crash appears to have scratched up your corneas quite badly, but not too deep. You went into emergency surgery at 3 this morning and came out at 9 also this morning. Just for a bit of perspective it's now 10 at night.'

'Six hours?'

He coughed again and I heard him shuffle about before continuing quietly 'Your face was not the priority. We removed two bullets from your shoulder, one from a Taliban gun, the other from a British. Your shoulder joint was completely shot away, along with a lot of bone. That was the Afghan bullet, we think you would have been alright if it was just that but…'

'But what?'

'They think the sniper's gun went off in the crash. A bullet hit you in the shoulder and grazed the sub-clavicle artery. You're lucky not to be dead but as it is, you flat lined twice and seizured… well it's a lot. You've lost nearly four pints of blood.'

I sat in silence, stunned. Last night I had never thought about how much blood I was losing but the memory of Jenny replacing the cloths on my back every 2 minutes proved it. I had never seriously thought that I would come this close to dying. Worse I couldn't believe how well this young surgeon was taking it.

'I'm sorry you had to see that.' I whispered.

'all part of the job, sir.' His self-confidence was gone and he seemed slightly unsure now. I remember hearing him walk quietly out before turning and addressing me shakily

'You said you were a doctor sir…'

I smiled ruefully 'You've just read the symptoms Doctor. What's your diagnosis?'

A few days later I was wallowing in my own misery (that happened quite a lot) when I heard two people enter my room. One of these was a plastic surgeon that my own Doctor seemed highly in awe of. From what I'd heard about him he was a pretentious dick but each to their own. The other one was a nurse who squealed a lot and made my head ache about once an hour. The well-regarded doctor burst in and announced

'I'm going to see about taking it out of the back of your head.'

Which is the weirdest greeting anyone has ever given me including 'I said can you get me a pen?' Over the past five days I had been into theatre 7 times, met 3 different anaesthetists, none of whom I liked and fallen in love with just about every nurse in the damn place, all of which was making me feel rather woozy, hence my reply;

'Aren't you going to take me to dinner first?'

He laughed once as if he was doing me a favour and got on with the examination. After he had poked my sore face about fifteen times, removed my eye pads and interrogated me about my holiday the previous year, he straightened up and said

'I am going to model your new nose on Martin Freeman. What do you think of him nurse?'

Typically, the girl squealed and replied

'Oh he's Gorgeous, sir!' painfully enthusiastic at the idea.

'There you see!' said the surgeon sounding proud of himself 'and you, Captain, shall have his Gorgeous nose! The girls'll be queuing up to get at your nose!'

Back in the hospital under the pleasant wooziness of repeated sedation that sounded like very exciting news. Sitting here in London it becomes clear that the man was a fucking fruit bat. I think it was the bombing.

That's really all I remember about the accident until I was honourably discharged and sent home, apart from one incident that will always stick in my memory. Just before I was taken in for the twelfth round of surgery, I remember chatting to the perky American duty nurse as she prepared the anaesthetist's equipment, and what she was talking about was the surgeon who was going to perform the operation, to remove a fragment of splintered bone and some infected tissue from part of my shoulder.

'I mean he really is wonderful.' She gushed 'Just last week he saved a poor man's leg when all the other doctors said there was no use they'd have to amputate!' she smiled at me widely, and the pads on my eyes having been taken off the previous day I could see her fairly clearly. Although I remember wishing at the time that I couldn't. 'But don't worry, he does this sorta thing all the time, it's a piece of cake!' I groaned as they strapped the mask on my face and was not surprised later when they told me it was unsuccessful.

AN: again here's the part where I beg for reviews. Literally I don't care if fifty of you tell me to go and drown myself just review! And tell me if you want more.

Lily x