Hello again, and welcome to another episode of 'What Is Even Going On Inside My Brain?' Either way, you're back and I'm very thankful for that. I hope you guys enjoy, and thank you to everyone leaving reviews, they really keep me going.
There'll be another note at the end, just for a few more things that I thought should be clarified.

Clay didn't know what he'd been thinking when he'd invited Jane to go to the bar with him when she got off work. They had only known each other for two days, and he couldn't help but feel like he was trying to move too fast with her. He didn't know what he was getting into, not really, but every time she smiled in his direction, his brain short-circuited and he was pretty sure that he had 'Error 404' stamped across his forehead.

Whatever the reasoning had been, he now had to get ready for what was technically their second date, but officially the first. He didn't know what to wear, didn't know which of his t-shirts said 'I like you but I don't really know how to tell you that without you thinking that I'm a creep', and to say that this was probably the hardest he'd thought about his outfit since his junior prom would be an understatement.

He'd yet to hear anything back regarding his job, and he kept trying to convince himself that no news was good news, but it wasn't working. How long could it possibly take to get ahold of his phone records, his gps records, and anything else that the Navy might need to prove that he wasn't the person they were looking for. He'd wracked his brain for days trying to figure out who would've had access to the information that Ash now possessed, but nothing ever came to the front of his brain. It wouldn't have been anyone on Bravo, that was for damn sure. They hated Ash almost as much as Clay did, except they were a lot more vocal about it, whereas Clay had learned from a relatively early age to keep his mouth shut about it. It very well could've been someone on their support crew, but that was a pretty long list of names when you compiled them together from all across the board.

It was no secret that almost every member of the Navy that spent any time in Virginia Beach knew who Ash was, and hated him for what he'd done. Who wouldn't? Clay just didn't understand why everyone hated him in the process.

His phone chimed from where it was laying on his bathroom counter, and he closed his eyes and sighed as he had to stop himself from almost running to see who the message was from. Desperately hoping that it had something to do with his job being reinstated, or maybe Bravo had decided to breach their orders as well and contact him back, he picked up his phone and realized that it was a text from Jane. Boone had a last minute play-date with one of Jane's friends' dogs, and she would be taking him across town for the evening, and she'd meet him at the bar.

The sigh of relief that escaped was mostly unintentional. Clay really needed a little extra time to figure out how he wanted the night to go.

Jane was a really nice person. Kind, genuine, and an all-around animal lover, which was an automatic plus in Clay's book. He worried that he wasn't what she was looking for, if she was really looking at all. Yes, she had agreed to go to the bar with him tonight, but his brain would only tell him that that was an act of pity on her part.

'She found you crying in the woods, you idiot. She's being nice to you because you're vulnerable, she'll come to her senses and leave you like everyone else does," said a voice that definitely didn't sound like Ash, thank you very much.

Clay shook his head again, and sent Jane a text to tell her that he'd see her there, and that was that. He pulled another t-shirt out of his dresser drawer, and decided that this was the one. He didn't remember buying this particular shirt, in fact, he knew he'd seen it but didn't remember ever wearing it. Whatever, it was probably one he'd had for a while. It was a super soft, dark blue shirt, and blue was a safe color to wear for a date. He hoped.

When he'd finished getting ready, he walked out into his living room and sat down on the couch with his phone in his hand. He didn't know what he wanted to do, now that meeting up with Jane had been pushed back a little bit. He could always just head over to the bar a little early, and be there when she got there, save them a table or something.

'She won't come. She won't be seen in public with you. Who would want to?' whispered the voice in his head. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it, but it was hard not to hear a voice that still crawled through your thoughts even if you covered your ears.

Deciding just to head down to the bar, he grabbed his keys and wallet off the hall table, and locked his door behind him. In his car, he turned up the music that was on the radio in an attempt to drown out his thoughts. It had been a long time since the voice had been this bad. Don't get him wrong, it had almost always been there, at least, it had for as far back as he could remember, but as he grew older he got better at drowning it out. When he joined the Navy, it got louder, and it didn't let up. It managed to get even worse when he started his SEAL training, and became almost unbearable when he got to Green Team. For the first few months of being on Bravo, he couldn't even tell if the things being said to him were his team or the voice, but he pushed through and now he was a part of the best team in the Navy. His brothers meant the world to him.

'You're a burden to them. They don't need you. You're useless to them.'

Time seemed to pass in more of a blur than he appreciated, and before he knew it, he was in the parking lot of the Bulkhead. He'd suggested they come here because it was the only one he frequented, and therefore would be more comfortable in the familiar setting. She agreed, stating that she generally got all of her alcohol from the grocery store because she didn't like drinking alone in public. Clay got it. He didn't either, but he understood that doing so as a woman was more dangerous than it ever should be.

When he got out of his car to make his way inside, he didn't see any familiar faces, but decided that he didn't really mind. There weren't very many people he cared to see right now that would've been frequent fliers anyway. In all honesty, he almost hoped that no one recognized him at all, just so that he could enjoy a relatively nice evening with a girl that he liked. Was that too much to ask?

Well, Clay reasoned, this was his life in question. So, probably.

Walking into the bar, his eyes immediately went to the booth in the corner that Bravo could never fit in all together, but they flocked to it and did their best anyways. It always took drawing the short straw to figure out who was going to sit on the end, who was going to be running drinks for the night. Generally, it ended up being Clay anyways. He tore his eyes away from the booth, turning to scope out a table for two on the other side of the bar. When he found one, he made his way over to it, draping his jacket over the back of one of the chairs and walking up to the bar. After all, he really didn't know how long it was going to take Jane to get there. He ordered his usual, and when the bartender was done he handed it over to Clay. Clay thanked him, moving back over to the table to sit down and wait.

As he waited for Jane to arrive, he couldn't help the thoughts that creeped through his head. A sick combination of all of the things he'd ever believed about himself crawled out from the dark corners he'd shoved them in over the years, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught, even though it never helped like he hoped it would. Cruel words wove themselves around his brain, and he lost all track of what might have been happening in the bar because he could no longer hear anything but the voice of his father, telling him what a useless waste of space he was. What a terrible excuse for a SEAL, a brother, a human he was. His very being narrowed down to what was being said to him in his head, and he didn't realize that someone was talking to him until he felt a feather-like touch on his arm.

His eyes, previously unfocused and glazed, were now on sharp alert, and they swung around to find the owner of the hand on his arm, ready for a fight. Just as he'd tensed every muscle in his body, gearing up for what he thought was to come, his eyes focused on the beautiful face of the girl he'd been obsessed with for the past two days.

Jane was looking at him with worry shining in her eyes and a frown on her lips, and it was then that Clay connected the dots in his brain. He must have zoned out, and he kicked himself for not being completely aware of his surroundings. Jason would probably have his ass for that. He looked into Jane's eyes, and felt his heart speed up. Damn, she was beautiful.

"Clay? Are you okay? Clay, can you hear me?" she asked. Her fingers were hardly brushing his arm now that she appeared to have his attention for the most part.
"Yeah, I'm… I'm okay, I'm fine," he answered, shaking his head to clear it. Jane seemed the opposite of convinced, but she moved her arm, and sat down at the table across from him.
"What happened? You have a flashback?" she asked. Clay didn't know how she would've been able to recognize the signs, but he was grateful that he didn't necessarily have to hide them from her.
"Yeah, I… I'm so sorry. You must think I'm crazy," he rambled. That stupid voice was fucking up his perception of everything around him, and he felt like he was underwater. He watched as Jane reached back out to touch his arm, this time actually laying her hand firmly against his forearm.
"Clay, I don't think you're crazy, okay? If you wanna just get out of here, I understand. It's kinda loud in here anyways," she said, looking him in the eyes sincerely. Clay couldn't keep a smile from breaking out over his face, however small it may have been.
"No, we have a date. I'm fine now," he promised. As he looked into her gorgeous green eyes, he realized, not for the first time, that he had fallen hard and fast for the lovely woman in front of him. "Thank you.

Jane's scrutinizing gaze held his open one for a few more moments, but eventually she smiled and ducked her head, retracting her arm. "You're welcome," she said.

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while, both of them just content to be in each other's presence, before Clay came to his senses.

"I'm so sorry, I seem to have left all my manners in the parking lot," he laughed. "Would you like for me to go and get you a drink?"
"Yeah that'd be great. Whatever you're having is fine," she agreed.

Clay nodded, and went back up to the bar to get her drink and a refill on his own. He grimaced to himself when he knew his back was to her. How could he be so stupid, to lose control of his mind like that in such a public space? Jane was a godsend, but how long would it be before she figured out that he was too much to handle? How long would she put up with his crazy ass before she ran for the hills?

The barkeep got him two new drinks, and he smiled before walking back over to the table. Jane smiled at him, and he couldn't help but grin back. As he was walking back to her, her expression suddenly turned to concern, and then to shock. She opened her mouth, screaming to him.

"Clay, watch out!" she yelled.

Clay didn't even have time to turn his head before it was snapped sideways, a set of knuckles making an imprint on the side of his jawbone. He could hear an uproar, but he honestly couldn't tell if that was on the inside or the outside of his spinning head. He hit the ground with more dead weight than he would ever admit to, but it was only a second or two before he was coming back up, eyes struggling to focus on the dumbass that thought it was a good idea to jump a SEAL.

He really hoped that he was just seeing triples.

In front of him stood six guys that were built like Mack trucks. Clay knew that he was jacked, the Navy wouldn't let a Tier One SEAL be anything but. But these guys? They looked like they stepped off the premises of a radioactive testing site. They were huge. And they were all staring at him.

Clay was never really one for diplomacy or negotiations, but even he knew that there was no way that he could take on six of these guys at once. One of them? Sure. Two of them? Maybe, with a little luck. Not six. At this point, it was talk or get his ass beat.

"Look guys, this is a relatively nice establishment, let's not get rowdy in here," he reasoned. As the guys looked at him with nothing but hatred shining in his eyes, he knew that they probably weren't going to listen to reason.
"You sold information to Ash Spenser. You're a dead man," said one of them. Clay closed his eyes ever so briefly. So, no logic on this one. He opened his mouth to try again, but the guy who spoke took a step towards him, and he knew that nothing he said would change the outcome, what was about to happen. Get his ass beat it was, then.

The first swing– well, it was technically the second, but Clay didn't count cheap shots – headed right for his face, and it was the first, and only, punch that he managed to dodge. After that, well, all hell broke loose.

Two of the guys turned towards the crowd, probably to make sure that no one came to Clay's defense, and another grabbed Jane when she tried to run to him. Clay got in a few good swings of his own, but against three guys, it didn't take him long to overshoot his punch, and be taken to the ground by one of theirs. When he hit the ground, the only thing he could think about was Jane. He couldn't see her anymore, presumably because of the sheer body mass of the guys currently beating the shit out of him. He covered his head with his arms, leaving his ribs vulnerable, but he could hear Trent's voice in his head, telling him that his ribs were not a larger priority than his head.

Punch after punch, even a kick or two landed, and he could feel the pain setting in, could feel his consciousness slipping away from him. Shit. None of his emergency contacts were nearby, and they weren't allowed to see him anyways. How would he ever get the chance to explain himself if he died on the floor of a bar. He hated the fact that he almost longed for it. If he died right now, at least there wouldn't be any more questions about his loyalties, about his father. He wouldn't have to hear the voice in his head telling him that he deserved every hit he was getting, simply because of who he was. Simply because of who his father was.

A gap appeared between the guys that were clearly trying to pulverize his insides, and he could see Jane, could see her being held back by one of his attackers. He knew he couldn't get to her, couldn't defend her like he wanted to so desperately.

'You got her into this mess. She isn't safe around you, no one is,' the voice taunted.

Clay closed his eyes, but his vision had already gone black.

~SEAL Team~

As much as he loved Naima, Ray would never be able to understand how she spent so much time in hospitals and hadn't lost her mind.

Jason had stormed through the doors of the emergency room fifteen minutes beforehand, and everything had gone downhill from there. The nurses were immediately on full alert, but he reasoned that five burly guys in various stages of military dress would do that. Nobody had any answers because some of their filing system was down, so until they could prove that Jason actually was Clay's emergency contact, no one was allowed to tell them anything anyways. Ray understood why they had their systems in place. That didn't mean that he had to like it.

Now, as the part of Bravo that wasn't currently being treated somewhere in the hospital took up almost an entire waiting room, and they had nothing to do but, you guessed it: wait. They had tried calling Clay's phone back, hoping to get ahold of the woman they'd talked to before, but all they'd been able to manage was Clay's voicemail. They had received the pictures of Clay's chart, much to Trent's appreciation and almost immediate subsequent distress. He had poured over it multiple times, but none of the rest of them could read the medical mumbo-jumbo, so they pretty much left Trent to that.

They hadn't heard anything else, and the updates that Jason had asked for– *cough* demanded *cough*– had never come through. Ray suspected that Clay's phone had died, but only because he was probably the only one that remembered how little their younger brother actually remembered to charge his phone. Sonny was currently pacing the length of the waiting room so hard that Ray thought he might wear a groove in it, and they'd only been in there for fifteen minutes. Trent and Brock were sitting in adjoined chairs, looking over Clay's chart, Trent trying to explain some of the things that were listed on it to Brock. Jason, predictably, was sitting in the chair that was the closest to the door, bouncing his leg hard enough to rattle the potted plant on the table next to him.

Fifteen. Fucking. Minutes.

When Ray had called Naima on the plane to ask her if she'd heard anything about Clay, the answer had been no, but she had promised to try to find something out for them. She had been about as lucky as they had. It was almost as though someone in the hospital didn't want them to find Clay, and seeing as how there was an active investigation into the attack against him in a bar, Ray figured that may very well be the case.

Looking at his watch gave him almost as much satisfaction as watching his teammates fidget, so he decided to get up and stretch his legs. He signaled to Jason that he was going to the other hall to grab a snack, and then he shook his head on the way out of the waiting room as he pondered where Bravo had fucked up so badly that they had– and knew! –the hand signals for a trip to the vending machine. They were on the second floor of the emergency room, where Clay had presumably been since being brought to the hospital, and while it wasn't exactly quiet, it wasn't bustling with activity either. He didn't know why they couldn't see Clay, but he did know that sooner or later they would see him. No one kept Bravo away from one of their own for long.

As he approached the vending machine, he saw a young woman standing in front of it, trying and failing to make the machine take a dollar bill. Ray knew that these things could be a pain in the ass, so he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and stepped up to help her.

"This one always gives me trouble, too. Here ya go," he said, extending his hand towards her holding a dollar bill of his own. She smiled at him gratefully, taking the bill from him and swapping it with the one she was holding instead.
"Thank you, I've been trying to get this stupid thing to work for almost ten minutes, and that was the only dollar bill I had left," she replied.

She turned back around to the machine, and this time, the bill took. A small pack of chocolate chip cookies came cascading down from behind the glass, and she reached in to grab them.

"Yeah, this one's temperamental. For future reference though, the one on the first floor has way better options, and generally takes every bill you try to feed it," Ray laughed. The woman laughed as well.
"I thought about it, but I didn't want to go too far. My, uh, friend is supposed to be almost done with the doctor. We're trying to find some people he knows, but no luck on that front yet. Anyways, thanks," she said. Ray inclined his head, and then he stepped up to the vending machine.

His animal crackers had just hit the bottom of the tray when his mind caught up with him.

He looked around the hallway, but the woman was definitely gone. He all but ran to the nurse's station around the corner, and he saw her turn into a corridor on the other side. He didn't want to be caught running in the hospital, lest one of the only level heads on Bravo be thrown out, but his gut was telling him to follow her, and after years of being in the field, after years of being Jason's 2IC, he knew to trust his gut. So, he did the only reasonable thing he could think of at the time.

He started speed-walking.

When he rounded the corridor, there was a door at the very end that was closing when he set his sights on it, and he knew better than to ignore what was in plain sight. He kept up his pace, coming to the end of the hallway in less time than it probably should have taken him, and he only hesitated a moment before he knocked on the door. The woman must not have had the chance to sit down, because it opened in only a few seconds.

Even if those seconds did feel sort of like an eternity.

The door opened, and when she looked at Ray, curiosity turned into recognition, and recognition turned into confusion.

"Was something wrong? Did I forget my change?" she asked. Ray's brain seemed to be a bit off the upkeep, because he really couldn't think of a way to phrase his question that didn't make him sound like a total creep, so he gave it what he thought was a relatively good try.
"Listen, I know that I'm going to sound like a crazy person, but your 'friend' wouldn't happen to be Clay Spenser, would it?" he responded.

He watched the woman's eyes widen, before she stepped out into the hall with him and closed the door behind her.

"How did you… Are you one of Clay's teammates? Please say yes, I really need to know what's going on here, and Clay's too far out of it to tell me much of anything," she begged.
"Okay, one of those things at a time," Ray told her, settling a hand on her shoulder. "Yes, I am one of Clay's teammates, and yes, the rest of our team is in a waiting room on the other side of those halls. We've been trying to find out where they were keeping Clay for almost half an hour, and no one was giving us any answers. I don't know what he may or may not have told you, but I promise all of those answers are going to come a lot faster if you let me get the rest of Bravo."

All the woman– Jane, his brain supplied –did was nod, and duck back into Clay's room. Ray let out a sigh of relief; he really didn't know it was going to be that easy. He walked back down the maze of halls, trying to remember the way he'd come when he'd followed Jane down the hallway. Jason was going to be so pissed that Clay was so close to him the whole time and no one would tell them that. He put a lid on his own anger, knowing that he was likely to have to put a lid on the other guys' as well, and he finally made it back to the waiting room. He took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

"Damn, Ray, it really take you that long to get a fucking candy bar?" Sonny asked him gruffly. God really seemed to be working through Sonny Quinn to test his patience for the past couple of days, and he had a feeling that it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
"Even better," he told them. "I found Clay." Better to rip the bandage off right out of the gate. They all seemed to stare at him with various expressions of doubt and amazement before Jason almost ripped the uncomfortable hospital waiting chair to pieces trying to get out of it.
"Where?" was all he said. It was all he needed to say.

Leading the way back down the hallway was something of a feat, as Ray was relatively sure that five men in getups such as they were in was no doubt bound to arouse suspicion, but he couldn't help but feel a small sense of pride. Even back home, this far away from their mission field, they moved like a well-oiled machine. Seeing the combined looks of unadulterated anger and pure hurt muddled together on his team leader and best friend's face was something he could hardly stand, though.

In almost everything they did, Ray and Jason deferred to one another. In all aspects of their lives, they were hardly ever not in each other's back pockets, and even when they complained and fussed like they always had, they wouldn't have it any other way. That meant that Ray could read Jason's body language almost as well as Jason could read his. They were brothers, that was that.

Seeing Jason as worked up as he was, it twisted a part of his heart that he reserved for his family and his brothers. In Devgru, everyone knew that you didn't touch Bravo. Everyone knew that you didn't mess with anything that Jason Hayes held dear. Everyone knew that Clay was off limits. Everyone. Just. Knew. But someone had royally fucked up in spreading that message around, because someone had attacked Clay in a bar. They had surprised him, jumped him, and beaten him to a pulp. They didn't even know who this fucker was, but Ray bet that they would by the end of the week.

It didn't take them as long as he'd originally thought it would to get back to Clay's room, and when Ray knocked, the door opened almost automatically. When Jane stepped out, she took one look at the sheer size of the men standing in front of her, she gaped at them comically. Once again, she stepped out into the hallway with them, pulling the door shut behind her.

"You must be Clay's teammates. I'm Jane. Which one of you is Jason?" she spoke quickly. She eyed them up and down, giving them all the once-over she must have known they were giving her.
"That would be me. Is Clay in there? Is he okay?" Jason answered. Jane nodded, but her face pinched in an expression of doubt.
"Yeah, the doctors are saying that he should be okay. He's been asking for you guys the whole time. Well, the whole time he's been conscious, at least. He got his head bashed pretty hard."
"What kind of prognosis are they giving him for his internal injuries?" Trent asked.
"They're saying that there's no internal bleeding that they can tell, but that a lot of his organs are bruised. Mainly his kidneys, so they've been really trying to keep an eye on that," said Jane. For a moment, Bravo and Jane stood together in the hall, letting the information about Clay soak in. "Listen, he's not really with it right now. They're having to keep the lights pretty dim because when they turn them up, he gets combative. I don't know why they didn't let you guys come back here sooner, but he's been a wreck, and whoever you are, he needs you."

Bravo looked around at each other for an answer to the question in all of their heads, but no one had it. This wasn't the way that things were supposed to be when they left on a mission that was only going to take them a little more than a week. Clay was supposed to be safe. But the only things they had heard about that had happened while they were gone were the opposite.

Ash had come to Clay's apartment, that much they knew from Clay's voicemail. He hadn't exactly elaborated why Ash had paid him a visit, but knowing what they knew about the older Spenser, it couldn't have been anything good, especially not with the turmoil of his new book. None of them knew exactly how he'd come to know the young woman in front of them, but clearly there had to be something going on because she had spent at least the last fifteen and a half hours keeping vigil at his bedside. As much as Ray knew that Jason would want to stand here and interrogate Jane, he knew that their brother needed them, whether he was fully conscious or not.

Jane seemed to sense the same thing because it didn't take her long to turn on her heel and lead them back into the small room that currently housed Clay away from the world. Away from them. Ray winced when he saw Clay's face, the mottled bruising already black and purple covered most of his features, and if they didn't already know what he'd looked like before, it would be hard to see now.

One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, and the bruising that surrounded it only shadowed his face further. His lip was split in what looked to be two separate places, and his nose had obviously needed some attention because there was currently a splint on that as well. The thing that made Ray the most upset was the utter lack of substantial defensive wounds on his hands. He knew Clay, knew that he wouldn't just give up without something being seriously wrong.

"Did they catch the guy that beat him up?" he blurted, not even having time for his brain to catch up to his mouth before he realized what he'd said. Jane looked at him like he'd spontaneously grown another eyeball, before she shook her head and closed her eyes.
"Two of them, yeah. The others got away, but the police assured me that they're tracing every lead they've got," she sighed. It was Ray's turn to be incredulous.
"Exactly how many of them were there?" he asked.
"Six."

Ray thought he might have to step out, which probably would have been a good decision if he thought he could be away from Clay any longer than he already had been. Six people had ganged up on their little brother, and had beaten him into oblivion. It was no wonder Clay didn't really have any defensive wounds; even if Clay thought himself to be the biggest hotshot there was, even he knew he couldn't take six guys at once.

"You're telling me that six guys beat up an unarmed man for no damn reason?" Sonny asked. Ray could practically hear the Texan's knuckles pop as he flexed his fists.
"Well, technically only three of them were beating him up. Two of them were watching those guys' backs, and the other one was… Well, I guess the best way to explain it is that he was holding me back. Probably a good thing, too. I think if he hadn't I probably would've broken both of my hands and maybe also my foot," Jane replied. Ray hadn't known the woman for very long, but he really didn't have any doubts that her description of things would absolutely have happened.

Six guys had jumped Clay in a bar, and they had a formation planned for how to do it. Quick and efficient, even if it was dumb as hell to do it in the first place. Ray had a feeling that this was far more than a randomized bar fight. The question remained: who had done it, and what was the reason?

"Okay, well, thank you for staying with him, but you can go now," Jason addressed Jane. Ray sighed. Leave it to Jason to let his emotional constipation get in the way of solving far bigger problems than a strange woman who clearly cared pretty deeply for their boy.
"Yeah, I know you're Clay's boss, but you definitely aren't mine. I'm not going anywhere until Clay himself tells me to, and clearly that won't be happening for a little while. So why don't you come down off of your high horse and figure out where you're gonna sit, 'cause the recliner in the corner is mine," Jane bit back. He didn't know how much he trusted this woman, but at least she had the mouth and the courage to stand up for herself to Jason. Maybe not the brains, but the mouth and the courage, definitely.

Jason stared at her, his left eye twitching in a way that Ray had seen far to many times pointed at the members of his team when they were doing something particularly stupid, and even though he had no power over Jane or anything she did, Ray wouldn't put it past Jason to tell her to run hills anyways.

"I don't think you know how this works. He's our teammate, my subordinate, and what I say goes," Jason growled.
"I don't know how much of anything regarding this team works, seeing as how I've only known Clay for a whopping two– well, it's actually been three now –days! But what I do know, is that I sure as hell don't take orders from you. I've been here, I will continue to be here, and there's not a damn thing you can do about that," Jane whispered angrily. Clearly she was trying hard to keep the volume to minimum for Clay's sake, and while he appreciated it, Ray didn't think it would matter how loud she was if Jason started pouring smoke out of his ears.

For all the effort Jason was putting into not exploding, Ray thought he was doing a pretty good job. He just watched in relative silence as Jane walked over to the recliner she had claimed and sat down, throwing her legs up over the side of it and staring at Jason defiantly. Ray almost believed he was going to have to lunge between them if Jason decided to let the long and almost useless mission and his worry for Clay get the best of him, but everyone let out the breath they'd been holding when the door swung open quietly and a doctor walked through, followed by Brock. When Ray looked at Brock questioningly, the younger man shrugged.

"I thought it would make everyone feel better to hear what he had to say," he explained. Ray mentally applauded their K-9 handler for his intuition, and tried to tune in to what the doctor was saying to Trent and Jason, but found that he couldn't.

He walked over to stand next to Sonny at Clay's bedside, knowing that he was struggling pretty hard with the whole ordeal. If there was anything to be said about the relationship between Sonny and Clay, it was that they were the most unlikely brothers he'd ever seen. They were polar opposites, and yet so much alike that it hurt. When Clay first came onto Bravo, Sonny hated him, and Ray supposes that he wasn't entirely in the wrong. Clay's attitude had a penchant for being standoffish, and he and Sonny clashed instantly. Even still, it would take a blind person to not be able to see that they were both thick as thieves when they managed to get over the hurdle that was their attitudes and opinions. They were brothers, the same as the rest of them were, but they had invested time into each other that could never be replaced by anything else. Ray had a habit of being able to read his teammates like a book, and this time, reading Sonny was no different.

Sonny was staring down at his younger brother, and he had his hand gently resting over Clay's. It was no secret that Sonny was almost identical to his boss in the lengths he went to hide his emotions from the rest of the world, but right now he didn't seem to care. The pain in his eyes was obvious, and he gently caressed the back of Clay's knuckles with his thumb. Ray knew Sonny would talk when he was ready, but he didn't think that would be anytime soon.

Before he knew it, the door had opened and closed again, and Jason had the full run-down of Clay's injuries. Ray didn't bother listening, if there was something he desperately needed to know that he hadn't heard already, the others would fill him in. He did, however, raise his eyebrows at the nurse that brought in a stack of five more padded hospital chairs. When he glanced over to Brock, the man just shrugged again.

They spread the chairs out in a semblance of order around the room, and they all sat down to wait. They didn't know how long it would take, but Ray already knew that none of them would be leaving until Clay woke up, likely not even after that without formal orders. It felt creepy, all of them sitting around and staring at the unconscious man in the bed, but he felt a sense of peace in the process. They were back with Clay, and they wouldn't be leaving him again.

In what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only four hours, the heart monitor that Clay was hooked up to began to pick up its pace, and everyone who may have been lounging or half asleep was now fully awake and on alert. Clay's eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut, began to flutter, before he opened it and squinted even in the dim light. Jason, who had been sitting at the head of Clay's bed opposite to the side that Jane was on, was on his feet in an instant, and he took the hand that Sonny wasn't still holding onto in his own.

"Clay? Clay, can you hear me?" he asked. Clay seemed to look around until his sight landed on his team leader, and he blinked owlishly at him.
"Jase?" he responded, voice groggy and slightly slurred. Jason seemed to let out a sigh of relief at the recognition he found in Clay's voice.
"Yeah, kid, it's me. We're all here, it's okay." Jason was fighting the emotion in his voice, and he was losing. Knowing how hard the past week had been on his friend, Ray honestly couldn't blame him.
"Jase," Clay tried again, clearing his throat as best he could. "Jase… Wasn't me. I didn't do it, I swear. Wasn't me," he pleaded. His heart rate was rising, and the monitor was bound to go off any moment. Ray didn't think there was room for anyone else in here, and if a team of doctors and nurses barged their way in to check on their patient, some or all of them might be kicked out. That couldn't happen.

As he stepped closer to Clay's bedside, intent on using his Calming Aura™ to soothe Clay, Sonny beat him to it.

"We know that, Bam Bam. We knew that the whole time. Don't you go thinkin' we could ever believe something like that about you. Take a breath, 'fore the nurses come barrelin' in here," he said softly, gently. Ray didn't even really know that Sonny was capable of using his voice in such a quiet manner, but damn was he grateful for the change from sulky, exhausting asshole that Ray'd been dealing with for days.

Clay tried moving his head to get a better look at Sonny, but when moving his head only put him in more pain, he gave up and the fight drained out of him. That is, at least, until his one good– well, open –eye lit up with something he seemed to remember.

"Jane! Where's Jane? If they hurt her, I swear to God," he exclaimed, almost launching himself up off the bed.

Jane, who'd been silent as she let the guys have their reunion, made herself known by walking around the bed so Clay would be able to see her without turning his head. Clay stopped struggling when he caught sight of her and relaxed a little bit.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Tell me they didn't hurt you," he begged her. Ray watched as she laid a hand against his chest to steady him further. Oh yeah, there was definitely something going on there.
"I'm fine, Clay. Trust me, that asshole that was holding me didn't leave that bar pain free," she promised. Clay smiled at her like she'd hung the moon and the stars, and Ray couldn't help but wonder exactly what had brought this about in the time they'd been gone.

Surely Clay wasn't stupid enough to just pick up a random girl. Surely if said girl was so random, she wouldn't still be waiting around in the hospital for him. Ray shook his head. What the fuck?

Clay settled back down into the bed and the monitor went mostly back to normal. He looked around the room as best he could without moving his head too much, and when he got glimpses of all the guys sitting around his bed, he calmed considerably. Ray thought they might actually start to get some answers about what was going on exactly, until Clay seemed to pick up some of his own underlying confusion.

"I thought you guys weren't supposed to be near me. Please don't tell me that y'all are gonna get in trouble for being here," he said.
Ray supposed it was his turn to speak up, so he did. "We were supposed to be able to tell you when we landed, I guess they thought we could surprise you. They cleared your name, Clay. Everything's okay on that front."

The younger man let out a sigh of relief, and Ray smiled at him when he saw the small grin that graced Clay's face. It was good to be back with Clay again, even if they had to do it while surrounding a freakishly small hospital bed.

Ray hoped that the sense of normalcy was just getting started, and that there wouldn't be an end to it anytime soon. Too much to ask for? Probably. But a man could hope.

As the guys and Jane managed to return to their seats, without too much tripping over one another, an awkward silence settled over the room. It was Jason who asked the question that had been on all of their minds.

"So, about these asshats in the bar…" he started. Ray closed his eyes and resisted the urge to groan. They couldn't get one moment? Even still, he knew that something needed to be done, and if it was going to be done by the book in any sense of the word, Ray needed to be involved. Well, maybe he could entrust his level-headedness to Brock… Nope, when he looked at the K-9 handler, all he saw was the barely concealed glint of murder shining in his eyes. Dammit. No rest for the weary, he supposed. Well, then there was only one thing left to do, he supposed.

Start cataloging all the ways they could hunt down the fuckers that did this, and all the ways they could make them hurt without actually being arrested for any of it.

It was going to be a long night.

Is this update way overdue? Yes, it is, and I'm aware of that fact. I'm sorry that they keep getting further and further apart, but I'm trying out a new schedule for updating that I'm hoping will work better with my ever busy schedule of life. I would have posted this on Thursday, but I wanted to make sure it was in tip-top shape, and give you guys content that was actually worth reading.
Would they have kept Clay in the emergency room for that long? I don't know, but just go with me on this one.
I hope that the progression of this chapter makes at least a little bit of sense. I kept trying to find a good place to end it and that place didn't come around for a very long time, so if it doesn't make sense, just pretend for me, okay?
I'm planning on there being at least two more chapters for this story, so at least we're nearing the end. I want to give you guys some more backstory for Jane, because
it occurs to me now and then that only I know what I'm talking about when I write some of these things, and I want them to make more sense for everyone.
That was a long ass endnote, but once again, if anyone sees a problem with anything just let me know and I'll try to fix it. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and (hopefully) the next chapter can find you by next week.