Slate did his best to hide the hammering in his skull from Mustang. If his friend knew how much pain he was in, he’d drag his ass to the base hospital. But the only place Slate wanted to be was in his own bed.
The RPG that had taken out the house, that was meant to kill his entire team, had somehow miraculously only done half its job. He had no idea what happened to the boy he’d tried to save. Mustang and Midas said they hadn’t seen him when they’d dug Slate out of the rubble. His helmet had been crushed by the collapse, forced off his head at some point, but he’d somehow ridden the debris when the house exploded, instead of being killed.
Jag and Pid had carried his passed-out ass back to the extraction point, and when he woke up, he was lying on a table in the base hospital. The doctors hadn’t been happy in the least when he’d insisted on getting up. And they really hadn’t been thrilled when he’d insisted Mustang get clearance for him to go home to recuperate.
He’d been lucky, and Slate knew it. Hell, everyone knew it. He’d felt like shit but wanted to get the hell out of the country. He was trying to keep his pain from his teammates, though Slate had a feeling they knew exactly how awful he felt. Every muscle in his body hurt. His head throbbed. He was nauseous. His torso was covered in dark purple bruises, but miraculously the scans hadn’t shown any internal bleeding.
It was a fucking miracle he hadn’t been crushed beneath the rubble of that brick building.
Pid said the RPG hadn’t made a direct impact. In fact, whoever was operating it had almost missed the house altogether. It had skimmed the far side of the building, making the bricks kind of collapse in on themselves rather than shooting in all directions.
He was sitting between Jag and Pid on the plane, and Slate could feel their worried gazes on him. It was taking all his concentration to stay conscious.
Vaguely, he realized the plane was descending. They would land within minutes. In the back of his fuzzy brain, it occurred to him that he could probably get cell reception even though they weren’t on the ground yet. He pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.
A minute or two later, Slate hung up and closed his eyes just as the plane touched down.
“You good?” Jag asked from next to him.
“Yeah,” Slate said softly, even though the pressure in his head was threatening to make him barf all over his lap at any second.
“Are you sure you made the right decision?”
Slate couldn’t think straight. What decision was Jag talking about? But instead of asking, he just slurred, “Yeah.”
His friend harumphed, obviously not pleased with his answer. Slate didn’t care. All he could think about was lying down. He had to get off the plane, walk to Mustang’s car, and hopefully get to his bed before doing something that would make Mustang drive him straight to the emergency room.
Finally, an hour later, Slate gingerly sat on the side of his bed. The trip home had been hell. And without Mustang there to help him into his house, he never would’ve made it.
“You need to go to the hospital, Slate,” he said quietly now, obviously knowing how badly his friend’s head hurt.
“No. I just need to lay down,” Slate told him. “Can you help me find the pills the doc gave me for pain?” he asked. He’d taken one before he’d gotten on the plane, and it had promptly knocked him out for most of the flight. Slate didn’t like how the medicine made him feel, but at this point, he’d prefer to be unconscious than endure the pain he was going through at the moment.
Mustang was right. He probably should’ve gone to the hospital, but he was home now, and he wasn’t going anywhere. If he still felt this terrible tomorrow, he’d concede and go.
His friend left the room and came back with Slate’s duffle bag. “You care if Elodie comes over?” Mustang asked as he dug into a side pocket of the bag.
“No.”
Slate barely knew what Mustang was talking about. The throbbing in his head seemed to match his heartbeat. He felt as if he was a hundred and twenty years old. His muscles hurt. His joints hurt. Hell, his fucking bones hurt.
“Here,” Mustang said. “Give me your hand.”
Slate held it out and closed his eyes.
“Give me a second to get some water,” Mustang said, but Slate ignored him. He popped the two pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry. Then he slowly shifted his body up and onto his mattress, and sighed in relief as he finally lay flat on his back.
“Shit,” Mustang swore, but Slate didn’t open his eyes.
He felt his friend working on unlacing his boots, but he didn’t have the strength to thank him as he removed them.
“If you don’t look like you’re two seconds from turning into a fucking zombie in the morning, I’m dragging your ass to the hospital whether you like it or not,” Mustang said in a low tone.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Mustang asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll be in here waking your ass up on the hour, every hour, so don’t bite my head off when I do it.”
“I won’t,” Slate whispered.
He heard fabric rustling and figured Mustang was headed for the door.
“Mustang?” Slate said before his friend left. “Thank you. Not just for tonight, but for getting me out of there.”
“You would’ve done the same for me,” his team leader said.
“Damn straight. SEALs don’t leave a SEAL behind,” Slate said.
“Exactly. See you in an hour.”
Slate wasn’t looking forward to being woken up repeatedly, but knew it had to be done. For now, he forgot about everything but closing his eyes and letting the medicine he’d taken do its job.
The next morning, Slate was better. Marginally.
Mustang had done exactly as he promised, had woken Slate up once an hour throughout the night. It meant both men were exhausted the next morning, since neither got any uninterrupted sleep.
Slate slept off and on throughout the day on Saturday, barely aware of the comings and goings of Mustang and Elodie. He ate whenever Elodie stuffed something in his hand, drank when Mustang ordered him to, but generally slept through the day, and again Saturday night.
By the time Sunday came around, Slate was feeling much more like himself. He refused the pill Elodie tried to convince him to take that morning and forced himself to get up, shower, and put on some clean clothes.
The last forty-eight hours were pretty much a blur. Slate barely remembered arriving at his house and had no recollection of any conversations he might’ve had with Elodie or Mustang.
He slowly wandered out of his room, noticing that it was past noon. The sun was bright in the sky, and he wasn’t all that surprised to see Mustang sitting on his couch.
He was surprised to see Midas and Aleck there as well. Elodie was nowhere to be seen. She could be up on his rooftop deck, but Slate doubted it.
“Hey,” he said as he entered his living room.
“Holy hell, you look like shit,” Midas said.
“Thanks a lot,” Slate said. “Thought I’d go for a ten-mile run this morning, you know, to stretch my muscles.”
His friends stared at him in disbelief.
“Shit, I’m kidding. Jeez,” he said with a small shake of his head. Slate wandered into his kitchen and realized he was starving. He didn’t remember when or what he last ate, all he knew was that he would eat just about anything right that second.