Wunderkind

1.13-Large Blade

WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER

MARCH 2011

Jack moves his casted arm carefully, trying not to aggravate the annoying itch that could pop up any second. He's stiff from falling asleep in the cheap plastic hospital chair, and his wrist aches, but he can't leave the bed where his partner is lying, too pale, too still, too quiet. Sarah's never been quiet in her life. She's almost gotten them busted during stakeouts way too many times. He won't complain about the amount of times she's pretended they're a couple making out in the car to give them a cover story, though.

He's spent too much time in hospitals lately. He was here for a day, then in Dallas for three, before Pops's old ticker finally gave out. Sarah hasn't even woken up so he can thank her for getting him there to see his old man before it was too late.

It shoulda been me who took fire. Who broke cover first. But Sarah was never one to be any too careful with her own safety.

He just got in from Texas yesterday; the funeral was at the ranch, up on the Graveyard Knoll. Everyone picked up a handful of dirt to place in the coffin when the preacher finished his sermon; Pops is going to be buried in a military cemetery in Cali, beside his Vietnam buddy, Ty. But he wanted to be buried in good old Texas soil anyway. There's still a smudge of reddish dust on his cast from where he unthinkingly tried to wipe his hands together to brush off the dirt.

Jack leans over, brushing back a strand of Sarah's dark hair. The left side of her scalp is bald, shaved off so the bullet wound creasing her skull, the one that sent her into this coma, could be treated. He took a picture, because when she wakes up he's gonna tell her she looks like an emo teen.

The door opens, but all he sees is the top of a head of dark hair, over the edge of the bed. Matilda Webber, his and Sarah's handler.

Matty walks softly around to Jack's side of the bed, and puts a hand on his knee. Her face is creased with sadness. "I'm sorry about your father, Jack. And about Sarah."

"Thank you." He doesn't really know how to reply to that. He's never been good with sympathy. When you come from farm country stock, you know life is hard and unfair and uncontrollable. Death is like a drought or a rainstorm during hay season or a tornado ripping across the plains. No one can predict it or stop it. It happens, and you pick up the pieces of what's left and keep going. Because you can't afford to wallow in grief. Life is too short for that.

He's already made some stupid dead dad jokes in the airport, because Pops would have wanted it that way. He doesn't dare make one with Matty, but if Sarah was awake... Pops was always saying weird stuff like that. He even wanted his tombstone to say, 'He was a pretty good dancer.' Momma had laughed her head off when he said that at the kitchen table, and insisted hers was going to say 'He said he was a pretty good dancer'.

Matty glances from him to the quiet figure in the bed. "Jack, I realize you're on personal and medical leave..."

"I'm not leaving until she wakes up."

"And I respect that. But Jack, I wanted you to know now, you're being reassigned once you return from leave."

"They can't do that to me!" Jack momentarily lets go of Sarah's hand and stands halfway out of the chair.

"Agent Adler will be in PT for months. Jack, your fracture will heal long before Adler is field ready."

"All due respect, Matty, you can't split us up." He's been working with Sarah two years now, since he got out of the Army and out of the Sandbox.