+18 - eps 22-27 - A case takes Russell and Brock to the brink of death. It'll be up to Gillian and the team to rescue them before they're killed by a white supremacist militia. And in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the threat of a bio attack fo...
"Tell me, would you kill to save a life Tell me, would you kill to prove you're right Crash, crash, burn, let it all burn This hurricane's chasing us all underground." Jared Leto, Hurricane
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That was what it felt like: a cloud. Everything was vague and distant, no direct physical sensations, a bright light outside his closed eyes. Nothing he wanted to fight. After the desperation and the stunning pain, this was bliss. There was something in between, though. Blurry hints, not enough to make full memories. But they seemed to call him. They were comforting in this cloudy nothingness he was lost in now. Somewhere out there, surgeons surely worked on him, to try to fix the mess sweet Captain Victor and his friend had made of him. Maybe he would never wake up again. But it didn't matter, as long as this thread of his conscious could drift back to those lost pieces of memories.
Gentle yet firm arms around him. Gillian's. Holding him up, keeping him close. The cool touch of her lips on his burning forehead. They murmured words he didn't quite understand back then, but they lingered in that corner of his mind where he lazily roamed now. Let me help you. I'm not going anywhere. Hang on. Don't die. He'd felt her heart hammering her chest. She was scared. For him. They were in danger but she wouldn't leave. He couldn't protect her. She protected him this time. Her arms were warm and safe. The only reason why he'd struggled to keep breathing. Because she'd asked him to. And he knew she'd find a way to get him the help he needed to survive.
Later on, during the endless idle hours of convalescence, he'd muse lengthily about it. The kind of trust implied by his instinctive response—I just need to keep breathing, she'll figure out the rest. He'd never trusted anyone that way, to the extent of relying his survival on someone else like this. And at the same time, feeling compelled to stay alive because this someone needed him to.
For the moment, he rested on the lingering feeling of her arms wrapped around him, her heart beating so close, her warmth and her voice. And a Rolling Stone's classic he hadn't heard in over a decade.
"Wild horses couldn't take me away..."
He let go.
He wasn't happy when his body decided to crawl out from the anesthesia into a muffled state of morphine. The annoying feeling of the soft cast on his nose digging into the swelling of his face, especially the tense bags all around his eyes. The first dumb moves of his tongue met the tube taped to his mouth. Around it, he found unexpected holes, pointing out missing or broken teeth. His torso was caged in a tight dressing which made breathing uncomfortable. His feet were strange things at the end of his legs, bagged in more bandages soaked in something wet, slippery, which cooled down the burning of his soles.
Noises. Hurried footsteps fading away. The smell of flowers near his head mixed with antiseptics all around.
Brock opened his eyes, at least what little the swelling allowed him. A blur of shadows and lights. He didn't try to turn his head, and closed his eyes again. Moving his hands was mission impossible. Maybe he got to stir slightly his fingers, but he wasn't sure. One of them felt like trapped in a press. There was something taped to the back of that hand. An IV, he guessed.
More footsteps, this time coming closer. He waited until they reached his bed, then opened his eyes again, to let them know he was awake. Faces were but a blur.
"Mr. Brockner? Can you hear me, Mr. Brockner?"
The voice was muffled. A woman. Mister? Not Gillian. Where was she? He blinked slowly.
A soft murmur of clothes. The footsteps rounded his bed. The voice sounded closer.
"This is going to tickle," the woman said.
She pulled the tape off from his face. Yes, it tickled. But having that tube removed from his mouth was nice. He breathed in, whishing the bandage around his torso wasn't so tight.
"Get some rest, Mr. Brockner. Doctor Hernandez will be here in a minute."
He hoped it would be a long minute, because the last thing he felt like was having anyone bothering him. But the hospital staff didn't think so, it seemed, and buzzed around him for a while, checking him, talking to him, talking among themselves. He was grateful when they went away and silence surrounded him again. So he was free to slide once more into those comforting sensations.
Next time he found himself awake, the light around had waned to a soft yellow glow. So it was night, but he had no way to know what night, or how many days after his first glimpse back to consciousness. Not like he cared. His body felt just the same as before. Only... There was a light weight on the bed, near his elbow. And his hand... Something warm covered it. He managed to turn his head and push his eyes a little open. Only enough to have a glimpse of the dark head resting on a folded arm on his bed, by his elbow. He didn't need to see any clearer. He closed his eyes and his constricted chest was able to let out what felt like a sigh. He couldn't turn his hand up, but he was able to fold his fingers to touch Gillian's against his palm.
