He knew he wasn't dead, but he felt like he should be. He could tell he was in the hospital, but also could tell he was on painkillers that basically kept him out of it. Every so often someone came in and out of the room, he could hear machines and monitors beeping, and now and then he could feel the pain meds wearing off. There were times when he tried to focus, and it didn't work well. It just hurt his head. So generally he just laid there, and dreamed.
Some of the images he saw in his drug-induced sleep were terrifying. Bobbie's death. A friend he had seen get hit by a car as a teenager. Visions of the most horrifying creatures he had faced, starring the 117. A hoard of vampires in a frenzy attacking an unconscious agent. There were others too, like the very first mission he went on, to clear out a barn of several Snatchers-some people called them Harpies-and the mayhem that ensued as three other new operatives were killed in the process. Tossing and turning, Brannock suffered through restless hours when he saw these terrible pictures.
But some of his dreams were pleasant. Cotton candy flavored snowcones. A pet dog that he had in one of his foster homes. . .that was the place where the family was the nicest. He saw Rachel's smiling face peering at him over the counter at the diner. Walking on the beach with Thistle, her brown hair blowing in the ocean-scented breeze. Thistle laying in a field next to him, both of them looking up at the moon.
Then there were the visions that were not real, or had not happened. He could feel a werewolf's claws raking his back while he fought another; no one survived a scratch from a were-anything. Rachel popping up on screen in "Deathly Hallows Part 2"; maybe she would have loved that, but it wouldn't happen, he figured. He also pictured one of his foster brothers starting a fire and burning down a tree fort; that he did not recall. Then, another scene entered his haze-filled unconsciousness. He was standing in a room, painted reddish, or pink, he couldn't tell which. The shades were drawn but light leaked through. The picture was fuzzy, and unclear, so he couldn't make out all the details, but it was not a very big room. It did become clear that the walls were in fact pink, and the shades were white. There was a ceiling fan, and a mobile or something hung from the light in the center of it.
Thistle was there, leaning over. He could not see what she was doing because her back was to him, but she was talking or whispering. Maybe she was on the phone? It wasn't clear. But she bent down a bit, stood up and turned towards him, holding something out.
"Here, honey, take Janie. She needs to be changed but I have to get to work", she said. He took the wiggling bundle as Thistle kissed his check and left. He looked down. It was a baby, a baby girl. Was this. . .their baby? He woke, wishing he had seen more.
Later, he drifted back to sleep, his dreams returning. At one point, he stirred, looking up at the doorway, which he could see clearly from the way his bed was facing. His eyes burned, and his head throbbed when he tried to focus on anything. But in the doorway was a figure, and he wondered who might come see him. It was a small figure, obviously female, it looked like Thistle? Tears welled in his eyes, and he reached out to her. "Thistle. . .Thistle, I need to tell you. I need to say. . .I love you" he stammered. A voice responded. A nice voice, but not the one he expected. "Silly. It is me, Katherine your charge nurse. Just checking on you. You need anything?" All he could manage was a weak "Thistle. . ." before returning to sleep.
He knew his body was healing itself, he could feel it when he was more or less awake. But the pain was so severe that he remained on pain medicines. The good news is that this forced him to rest and helped his body rebuild itself. The bad news was that they also resulted in his weird, lucid dreams continuing, most scenes accompanied by hyper-vivid saturated colors and strange, out-of-place music and sounds. At one point, he woke, and it was clearly nighttime, as no light came in through the middle seam of the curtains. Again, Thistle was there, and he called to her. And again, it was not her, but another nurse. Sobbing, he allowed his most recent pain med dosage to take over.
