Chapter 7: The Aftermath
Brock woke with a start, eyes flashing around the room frantically as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. His gaze landed on Jason just as the older man leaned forward to soothe him with an outstretched hand.
"You're safe, Brock. You're back on base, remember?"
It took several seconds for Brock to nod his head affirmatively, a haunted look remaining in his eyes even as he settled back into his pillow. "Right." He'd been having a wild nightmare based somewhere in reality but warped by the drugs in his system. Violent hands, screams of pain, feelings of abandonment and defeat. He'd been in a haze since Trent had shot him full of morphine in the field sometime late last night.
"You okay?" Jason asked softly, and Brock recognized it as the gentle tone he used when one of his kids was upset.
"No," he replied, looking down at his left arm wrapped in a hard cast. It was one of many injuries he'd brought back with him, both physical and mental. "I don't think I am."
"That's okay." Bravo One reached a hand out in comfort but pulled back as Brock flinched involuntarily. "It's okay to not be okay after what you went through." Brock nodded, eyes starting to nervously flit around the room as he avoided eye contact. "We're gonna get you home and you'll have all the time you need to recover and process what happened."
"How's Metal?" Brock asked, moving the subject away from himself.
Jason scoffed, giving the other man a look. "You know Metal. They tried to admit him and he told them to fuck off. Never mind the bullet hole in his shoulder. He's been camped out in Yaz's room since she got out of surgery."
Brock's gaze shot up to meet Jason's finally at the comment. "She okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," Jason replied with a sigh as he looked down at his hands. "She's out of the woods and they're weaning her off the sedatives. Hopefully, she'll be awake in the next day or two."
Nodding, Brock averted his gaze back to the blanket covering him. "And everyone else? Everyone is okay? Ray?" He was shifting through his memories, trying to remember how the rest of the team had been the last time he saw them.
"Ray was pretty banged up from the ambush, but he's alright. Looks better than you do right now." The comment was said with a grin, an attempt to lighten the mood.
"How bad is it, Doc?" Brock asked reluctantly, feeling himself retreat back into his mind. That's how he always dealt with things - quietly, on his own, in the solitude of his inner sanctum.
"Broken arm, fingers, obviously. Grade two concussion, broken ribs, broken nose. Some pretty nasty cuts." Jason could see he was losing the younger man, so he reached for his hand and ignored the flinch. "Hey, look at me." It took a second, but Brock eventually met his gaze. "Bravo team is here for you every step of the way. You're not alone in this."
The words were full of sincerity and genuine love, and Brock appreciated them. He just wasn't sure how much the bulk of Bravo team would really be able to help him with this. "I know," was all he replied, wanting to appease his team leader. His eyes began to droop as the emotional exhaustion hit him, but he tried to snap back to attention. He wasn't ready to face the demons that waited for him in his dreams.
Jason seemed to catch on to his battle and leaned back into his chair with crossed arms. "Did I ever tell you about my first spin-up to Argentina?"
And so they sat, Jason telling stories that Brock half-acknowledged as he tried, and eventually failed, to stay awake.
Feiyaz became aware of herself slowly as she recognized the pain coming from the vast majority of her body. She tried to open her eyes but couldn't manage it, and she forced down the panic welling inside her. Where was she? Why couldn't she see? What happened?
Vague memories of being tortured drifted to the forefront of her mind.
Had they blindfolded her? Blinded her?
She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself. Starting with her other senses, she began to gather information.
Cold was the first thing she felt, which was new. It had been stiflingly hot and humid throughout their captivity, so they had either moved her to a new part of the compound, maybe underground, or she had been rescued.
Or she was dead.
The sounds seemed abnormally loud to her ears. There was a steady beeping somewhere behind her on the left. Muffled chatter came from the right, but she couldn't make out any of it. Probably meant she wasn't dead though.
The smells that hit her nose were harsh - chemical cleaners, antiseptic, bleach. Medical, a hospital? That might be wishful thinking.
Another faint smell mingled in there, something spicy and woodsy that didn't seem to fit in the environment, but she couldn't place it.
It took all of her strength to move her fingers enough to feel the rough fabric that seemed to be covering her. A blanket? Not a very thick blanket if the cold was any indication.
She could sense a heavy presence to her right but couldn't will her eyes open to see who it was. That must be the source of the unknown smell, cologne or body wash maybe.
The haziness in her brain made it hard to focus, and she struggled to remain conscious as she tried to put the pieces together.
Maybe at a medical facility. Probably not dead. Someone was definitely watching her.
If only she could muster up the energy to open her damn eyes…
She must have been fidgeting because she felt a large, calloused hand cover her own gently. "Sleep easy, Yaz," a deep voice said quietly. "I got your six."
Oh… well that was nice.
Feiyaz tried to match the voice to an owner, but her mind was dragging her back under and she fell into another dreamless sleep.
The next time she woke up, her eyes were open before her brain had registered she was no longer sleeping. Her blurry vision cleared after a few heavy blinks, and she saw feet propped up on the end of her bed. Rolling her head slowly to the right, she followed the feet up to the legs and torso to see Full Metal sitting in a chair contently reading a book. She blinked another few times, trying to decide if she was still dreaming.
She must have been staring hard enough for him to feel it as the SEAL snapped his gaze up to her face. Putting the book down in his lap, he removed his feet from the bed and sat up.
"You awake this time?" he asked softly, which caused her brows to furrow.
"I don't know, am I?" she questioned with a scratchy croak.
Metal huffed a laugh. "I reckon so."
Her eyes shifted around the small room, taking in the details that confirmed she was in a military hospital. "Are we at the base?"
"Yeah, thanks to you." She frowned at the reply, not remembering any circumstances that would have led to them coming home. So caught up in trying to figure out her thoughts, she didn't see the wave of guilt pass over Metal's face. "I'll go get the doc."
Feiyaz opened her mouth to ask more questions, but he was up from his seat and out the door in a hurry. With a sigh, she relaxed back into her pillow and tried to keep her eyes from closing again. There was already so much missing time, she needed to stay awake and fill in some blanks dammit.
She lay there alone for several minutes, trying to piece together how she had gotten from point A to point B with her fuzzy memories. Wandering too far back in the timeline reminded her of what had happened at the compound and she pushed that away, not wanting to acknowledge the trauma just yet.
As luck would have it, the doctor arrived to make her acknowledge it anyways.
"Good afternoon, Petty Officer Amani," the man said as he entered the room, tablet in hand. "I'm Doctor Ross. How are you feeling?"
Feiyaz frowned and tilted her head to the side as she gave herself an assessment. She could tell things were injured, but there was a certain haze over her mind and body that prevented her from determining what the injuries actually were. "Like I'm on heavy drugs," she finally replied, voice rough with disuse.
He smirked and looked down at her digital chart. "That you are. Morphine is a soldier's best friend, right?"
Humming in passive agreement, she looked at him in confusion. "How long have I been out?" The clock on the wall told her the time, but not what day it was nor what day they had been rescued. She had no clue how long they had even been held captive.
So many questions, so many blanks.
"Three days, give or take. We kept you sedated for a day after the surgery to let your body heal, then took you off those and let nature take its course."
She had stopped focusing halfway through his statement. "Surgery? What happened?"
He sighed, flipping through the chart for information. "You came in with some extensive injuries. Multiple lacerations, fractured orbital bone, broken ribs and fingers, damage to the larynx and kidneys, fractured pelvis. They also found internal bleeding in the lower abdomen due to blunt force trauma from the assault, which they had to go in to surgically repair." The doctor looked up from the tablet, expression neutral. "With a little time, you should make a full recovery, though there is some chance that scar tissue will affect your fertility. You'll want to see a specialist about that if you try for kids."
She blinked. Kids? She hadn't really given it much thought considering her line of work and lack of romantic connections. Still, it was a shock to the system to hear she might have trouble conceiving if the time came.
The doctor had started talking again while she mulled his last statement and she shook her head to rejoin him. "-additional musculature damage so once they get you back home, the doctors there will likely want to run some scans to see how extensive that might be. The swelling in your shoulder is particularly concerning, but they'll know more after a CT."
What? Her eyes grew heavy with exhaustion and the fog in her brain had her struggling to understand what she was hearing.
He continued, seemingly unconcerned that his patient was barely conscious at this point. "Since you're stable, we'll try to get you on the next plane home, hopefully tomorrow, and likely with a light sedative so you can sleep. Any questions?"
She blinked. A thousand questions swirled in her mind but she didn't have the energy to ask any of them, so she simply shook her head. The doctor said a brisque farewell and was out the door a second later, leaving his patient to fall into a frustrated doze.
For the next fifteen hours, Feiyaz drifted in and out of sleep as the world continued on around her. The chair next to her seemed to become a second home for Sonny, who always greeted her with a rowdy cheer every time she opened her eyes. When he wasn't there, it was Jason, and she appreciated his quieter demeanor as the increased pain meds left her hazy and confused.
When she woke to find herself tied down some time later, she was startled into full consciousness and tried to sit up with a groan. Trent immediately noticed her stirring and got up from the bench seat nearby.
"Woah, easy, Yaz. Calm down." He placed gentle hands on her shoulders to keep her from struggling. "You're on the plane headed home. You're just strapped down in case of turbulence. See?" Trent nodded his head towards the lower half of her body, which she now noticed was secured to the stretcher she was laying in. Glancing around, the stark gray metal walls confirmed what he was saying. She couldn't see anyone else from where she was positioned by a stack of cargo crates, likely to give her some privacy. Trent seemed to sense her unasked question. "The whole team is here. We're all headed home."
"Brock?" came out as a squeak more than a fully-formed word. She had seen Metal, or at least she thought that was real, but nobody had mentioned Bravo Five.
Trent nodded with a smile. "Yeah, Brock is right behind you, sleeping." He motioned over her head to a second stretcher she couldn't see. "He's on the same sedatives you are. Seems like you're ready for another dose."
Feiyaz scrunched her brow, not wanting to sleep again so soon. But everything hurt and her mind continued to be fuzzy. Sleeping would be so much easier, so she nodded her acceptance. Trent administered a top-up dose into the IV stuck in the back of her hand. She drifted off as he brushed a curl of hair from her face gently.
He stood there watching her until she had settled into another deep sleep, then sighed and moved to check on Brock. There wouldn't be much sleep for the medic himself on this flight as his two patients would require the majority of his attention. With all well, he went to head back to the bench seat when he noticed three of his team members were also awake. Wandering over to the other side of the plane, he sat next to Full Metal and across from Jason and Ray, who were sitting in silence.
"How are they doing?" Ray asked, concern in his voice.
"Yaz woke up freaking out about the restraints, but she settled and I gave her another dose to get her to sleep. Brock has been out like a light since we took off."
Jason sighed and ran his hands wearily over his face. "It'll be good to get them home. I'm worried about both of them. Brock seems completely checked out from reality, and I'm afraid when Yaz can finally stay awake long enough to remember what happened, she's going to meltdown."
"They've been through a lot," Ray said gently, then corrected himself as he looked at Metal. "You all have been. And we'll be here to provide support and comfort however you guys need as you start to deal with what went down."
"I'm good," Metal said definitively, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed as his head rested on metal hull behind him. "They got it harder than I did. It's them you need to worry about."
The other three shared a look, knowing Metal would never admit to them if he was struggling. He wasn't a big talker on a good day and seemed to take even the most brutal situations in stride with his dark sense of humor. That endless strength was something they had all come to admire from the leader of men, though they were sure he had his own hidden problems to deal with.
Behind closed eyes, Metal pushed down the concerning thoughts of Brock, Feiyaz, and the desert. That was how he survived fifteen deployments and countless spin-ups, he pushed it down and ignored what happened. No point dwelling on the past, it wouldn't change anything.
Just move on, he kept telling himself.
But in his dreams a few hours later, the demons would claw their way to the surface and refuse to be ignored.