Chapter Text
It’s hard to believe that the boy before him is 18.
He doesn’t look it.
Not in the slightest.
He’s naïve in the same way the boys who come straight out into the field always are, a little too keen, far too starry eyed, too kind for the men around him.
And as he sits here, bleeding, dying, it’s even harder to believe that he’s an adult.
He’s so young, so soft, so scared, face screwed up with pain as he clutches at Jack.
They’re fucked.
They’re so fucked.
Jack’s not even sure who triggered the mechanism, but judging from the pieces the men they’d been patrolling with are in, it doesn’t really matter.
They’re half sheltered under some ruined canopy in a now long-evacuated town, but it wouldn’t matter where they were really, because there’s no one coming to save them.
It’d been a simple recon mission, they’re so far away from enemy territory, and yet somehow, somehow, they’d fallen right into their trap. There’s most definitely more IEDs hidden throughout the compound, and Jack can’t believe they’d been so fucking stupid.
He’d been laughing, when it happened.
It feels ironic, and Jack would be lying if he said he hadn’t cursed God out for this cruel trick already, because of course that’d been when they’d heard the click.
When he dared to laugh.
There’s a moment, just a millisecond, half a heartbeat, where the world goes silent.
It’s a fleeting thing, but it stretches out across a lifetime, spanning the distance between the click and what follows.
It’s the kind of thing every soldier prays they only hear once in their lives.
It’s the kind of thing most soldiers only do hear once in their lives.
And Jack knows that he’s not beating the odds.
He doesn’t remember the bang. Doesn’t remember the men around him dying. Doesn’t remember the dull pressure on his leg as he was thrown back against the wall he’s still slumped against.
It was like the world just… turned off. There’d been a, the click, and when he’d opened his eyes again? His life had changed.
Forever.
— — — — —
There’s no moment of wonderment when he regains consciousness, not like there always is in the movies.
There’s no slow resurfacing as he registers the scene before him, no swell and crest of sound returning to him, no time to understand and react.
In fact, he’s surging sideways before his eyes even open, coughing so hard it makes him retch. It’s against every instinct to move, he knows he ought to stay still, to take stock of his injuries and how he’s feeling, but he can’t. The smoke is suffocating, the dust coating the interior of his mouth and nose in its fine grit. There’s sand in his teeth, and the air tastes as thick as smells, acrid with burning metal and plastic, and the sickly sweet residue of gunpowder and the explosive residue.
But beneath it, there’s something darker.
Blood.
He’s been around enough explosions in his life to recognise the ringing following one, he knows he just needs to breathe through it, but with the burning in his chest and the way his hands are starting to go numb, it’s hard to.
His lungs are burning, the tugging sort of pressure of not enough air, but he focuses on slowing his breathing down, sucking air in through his nose and out through his mouth.
It’s all he can do.
At least until the dust settles.
He’s not sure if he loses consciousness again, but when he next opens his eyes, the world around him is no longer a hazy grey.
In fact, there’s someone there.
Jack doesn’t know his name, he’s never met the boy until today, but he’s thin, and young, with a baby face that makes it really hard to believe he’s actually 18.
He’s getting lost in the details, his mind wandering from the shock of the explosion.
He needs to focus, needs to get his head in gear, needs to —
The pain hits.
It’s sudden, and blinding, crashing through the fog in a white hot surge.
“ — hey, hey! Stay with me, please —“
A voice breaks through the ringing in his ears, and suddenly sound floods back in its entirety, fire cracking, debris shifting and grinding, and a voice.
“Stop — stop moving —“ the guy pants, and that’s when Jack spots the blood. “This is going to — to really fucking hurt.”
He tries to sit, but a hand presses firmly against his chest.
“Sir — please stop moving, I got it.”
The face before him swims into focus properly then. He’s lost his helmet, blonde curls sticking up as he focuses on whatever he’s doing. He’s pale, a little peaky, dirt and blood smeared across his cheeks.
There’s blood across his uniform, and all up his sleeves, but it’s clearly not his.
“Where — ?”
“It’s okay Sir,” the boy says quickly, but his voice cracks. “You’re okay. I got it.”
Jack pushes up onto his elbows, and follows his line of site.
For a moment, the two halves of him collide. The rational, sane, doctor part of his brain immediately recognise what’s happened and running through treatment and assessment option.
But then the other half. The human half.
He refuses to understand it. Refuses to acknowledge what he’s seeing.
His right pant leg ends halfway down his calf, and below it? Nothing.
Just blood, a pool of it seeping into the sandy ground, the tatters of his trousers soaked with the stuff.
His world tilts, nausea surging through him.
Traumatic amputation. Below the knee, he’s fairly sure. There’s one tourniquet tied just below the joint, and the kid’s fastening another above it.
“What… time?” Jack rasps out, gaze snapping up to the boy’s face.
The boy blinks, “what?”
“Tourniquet, Private. When?”
“First one like — two minutes ago, this one… uh — thirty seconds, maybe a minute?” The kid yanks at the windlass, and Jack grits his teeth, “A minute. I—I used yours.”
The kid twists the windlass again, and Jack can’t bite back the shout of pain he lets out, fingers flexing against the dirt.
It’s a horrible feeling, having a tourniquet put on, an intense burning sensation that shoots right up his thigh, sending a tingling throb throughout the remainder of his limb.
He’s put so many of these on people, saved so many boys’ lives, but he’s never experienced one himself.
Well.
He has now.
And fuck it hurts.
Which means it’s working.
“Good.” He breathes.
The boy’s shoulders sag in relief, before he looks around again, and Jack sees the way his face crumples. It’s a mess, a devastation of detritus and bodies and rubble, and smoke still filtering up through the wreckage.
Jack can see their Humvee on its side, black smoke billowing up into the sky from the engine block. There’s a twisted rifle a few years away, and a figure slumped beside it.
There’s no movement, other than the two of them, and there’s bits that Jack doesn’t need to see clearly to know what they are.
Just not who.
He closes his eyes, just for a moment. They’d gone out on this patrol, seven men. Seven men who’d started their day fit and able, maybe even exited about the upcoming mission.
Now five of them are dead.
When he opens his eyes, the boy is staring at him, eyes wide, bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“You’re the medic — please —“ he whispers, shoulders trembling. “You gotta tell me if I did it right, please Sir.”
Jack looks down at his leg, at the two tourniquets. He can’t gauge how well placed the lower one is, but they’re the right distance apart, and the one on his thigh is nice and tight, the windlass locked. Jack can’t see, and he doesn’t want to, but he’s fairly sure it’s stopped bleeding.
“You did great Private,” Jack soothes, and it’s odd, because suddenly faced with the boy’s fear, he feels… completely calm. There’s some sort of quiet certainty in how completely fucked they are, how fucked he is, and it makes him laugh.
Bizarrely.
The boy stares at him as if he’s gone mad, and Jack probably has, but he reaches out for him anyway, patting his bony knee.
Neither of them say anything for a moment, then Jack shifts, and the pain surges through him again. He grits his teeth, hissing a sharp breath in as the boy jerks forwards instinctively.
“Easy — Sir —“
His hands settle on Jack’s shoulders, searching his expression worriedly, but Jack swats him away. “Oh relax kid, I’m not going anywhere.”
The boy’s lower lip trembles and he tries to laugh, but it turns into something far closer to a sob.
“I thought you were dead —“ the boy gasps after a moment, his hands folded in his lap as he dips his head. “When it went off I — no one was moving, I checked everyone and you —“ he gestures helplessly.
Jack looks past him, at the crater where the explosive had sat. It’s hard to make the bodies out really, most of them so covered in dust and debris. He can only really make out three intact figures. Or — mostly, really.
He doesn’t let himself think about the other two.
“— you were the only one I could help.” The boy finishes, his shoulders curving as he slumps in on himself, and Christ he’s so fucking young. It’s hard to see him as anything but a child like this, and it makes something worryingly paternal rise in his chest.
Jack reaches out, and the nearest part of the boy before him is his hand, and he takes it from him. He’s cold, and a flicker of worry at that runs through Jack, but the boy doesn’t look unwell, and it’s probably just the adrenaline.
Probably.
Hopefully.
The boy looks up, big blue eyes holding Jack’s green as he hesitates, that lower lip tucked between his teeth again.
Jack sort of wants to dislodge it.
“You saved my life.” He says seriously, giving the boy’s slender fingers a firm squeeze. “The others might be gone, but you did help me. I’m alive because of you, okay?” He smiles, and the corner of the boy’s mouth tugs vaguely upwards. “You’re my Angel, kid. My saviour or whatever.”
He’s no idea if the others are actually dead, but given the lack of any movement around them and the force of the blow… he can only assume they must be. For his own sake, and theirs.
The boy still stares at him, clearly still stunned, before he clumsily nods his head. “I just — I just did what they taught us. The first…” he trails off, gesturing vaguely at Jack’s limb. “It wouldn’t stop bleeding, so I put yours on too.”
“That’s how people stay alive, kid, by doing what you were taught… that’s why we teach it to you.”
That brings a smile out of him, and Jack could weep for what a breath of fresh air it is. He’s a ray of sunshine, this boy, he really is Jack’s Angel.
Jack gives his hand another squeeze, then drops it, and pushes himself in a little closer.
He just leans in, really, unable to do much more with the extensive nature of his injury. “Okay, now. Listen to me.”
The boy leans in, hands on his knees, eyebrows furrowed as he waits. He’s the picture of subservience, and it’s a fucking shame they’re both going to die here, because he’s got such a promising career. Maybe Jack could convince him to go into military medicine if they survived.
“We’re not dead yet, Angel, so we’re going to do what we can do make sure that doesn’t change.”
The boy takes a shaky breath, but he nods. “Yes Sir.”
“You’re gonna help me sit up, then you’re going to look through the wreckage for any kind of med kit or something, okay?”
The boy nods again, and he shuffles forwards immediately, one arm hooking under Jack’s armpit as the other slides around his back. He shifts, adjusting his weight, before he nods.
“Okay Sir, on three, okay?”
Jack nods, and when the boy gets to three, they move together.
It’s instantly agonising, pain shooting up his leg live a live wire, and he grabs onto the boy so tight it has to his hurt. To his credit though, he doesn’t complain, just yelps an instant apology, steadying him as Jack remembers how to breathe.
He squeezes his eyes shut as the worst of it passes, fingertips digging so tight into the boy he’s sure they’ll bruise.
If he lives.
“Not — not your fault.” He manages to grit out after a minute, finally relaxing his grasp as he settles himself in a more comfortable position, no longer slumped against the wall but now properly sitting against it. “Not your fault, kid.”
The devastation has opened up to Jack now that he’s sitting up properly, and he can see the true extent of it all.
The crater is only a matter of feet away from them, a jagged gouge in the sand where the mine had detonated. The ground around it is blackened and charred, scattered with fragments of burning metal and various bits of kit. The Humvee is still burning, although the billowing expanse of smoke has dissipated, now just a lazy coil of something thick and greasy. Something inside of it pops, and the poor boy flinches.
The smell of it all is overpowering now, although the air is clear enough to breathe.
The boy is still holding him upright, even though he doesn’t really need it, and Jack knows they’re both still looking at the figures of the men they stood with.
He knows the answer, but he can’t help himself, the instinctive doctor urge to ask again, to make sure they’re not missing something. “And the others..?” He’d get up and check himself, but he can’t, for obvious reasons.
The boy’s breathing hitches, and he drops his gaze to the sand. There’s an expression on his face that Jack knows far too well, and he’s too young to be wearing it, all the men he’s fought alongside, they’ve all been too young for it.
“Private?” Jack asks, when the boy doesn’t answer.
There’s another pause, and then he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly.
“I checked…” he whispers, voice wavering. “I did, I… — there was no saving them, Sir.”
Jack nods once.
He trusts the boy’s verdict, and given the force of the blow, he’s really not surprised they’re dead.
It’s ridiculous that they’re still alive, really.
“Yeah.”
Neither of them speak again for a minute, just surveying the scene.
The Humvee still burns, throwing heat across the sand, crackling and popping in the same gentle manner as a log fire would, now that the fuel and combustibles have burnt away.
Still, when something clangs, the boy startles again, just like he did earlier.
Jack watches him out of the corner of his eye.
Dust coats his face and hair, but his cheeks are streaked pink where sweat has carved lines through it, and Jack can see the mousy blonde of his curls through the sheen of filth. There’s blood all across his front and his arms, Jack’s blood, and suddenly the boy seems acutely aware of it.
He wipes his palms nervously on his pants, finally shifting from where he’s been propping Jack up.
He doesn’t speak though.
Neither does Jack.
They’re a hell of a long way away from the garrison, a hell of a long way from any kind of help. He’s not sure whether the other man is actually injured, but between the two of them they’ve got a traumatic amputation, and that’s something enough really.
Besides, even if there was a rescue mission to be made, they’ve got no idea if there are any other land mines, any other threats beyond the one they’ve already identified.
He turns to the boy then, clapping a hand on his knee.
“You hurt, kid?”
He blinks, and a bead of sweat drips off the point of his nose. “What?”
“You hit your head? You in pain?”
He shakes his head quickly. “No, no. Just — my ears are ringing.
Jack nods. “Yeah. That’ll pass.”
He shifts his weight, and the tourniquet bites deeper into his thigh. It’s agonising, the kind of burning pins and needles around the tissue, and the distinctive absence below. He can’t think about it, can’t focus on it. Pain is good, pain means he’s not bleeding out.
He looks over at the Humvee, fingertips digging into the side of the boy’s knee.
“Hey — Angel? You think you can see the radio anywhere?”
It’s a last ditch effort, something easily traceable by the enemy, but fuck if it might just be their one hope of salvation.
The boy follows his eyes, then shakes his head.
“… think we left it inside.”
They watch as flames curl along the metal frame of the vehicle, and Jack sighs.
“Figures.”
The wind changed then, pushing a wave of caustic smoke over them. The boy coughs, pulling his sleeve over his mouth. It won’t do anything to help, Jack’s long learnt that, but he doesn’t stop the boy from trying.
In fact, he shifts so he can lean against him, conserving what little strength he has. It’s weird, how things do simplistic take so much energy suddenly now that he’s injured, the adrenaline that had kept him conscious at first now having faded away to a dull pulsing in his fingertips.
Actually.
There’s something more than that.
He feels it before his brain ticks over into understanding it, a sudden sort of drifting sensation, like the world has tilted on its axis.
Jack blinks, and the desert horizon wavers.
“…huh.”
The boy shifts behind him, face twisting in concern. “What?”
Jack doesn’t answer immediately though. His ears are still ringing, but it’s less than it was earlier, easier ignore. That’s not what’s bothering him though. No, it’s a dull sort of pressure building behind his eyes, and a deep pulsating throb at the base of his skull.
He lifts a hand towards his head, brushing his fingers through sweat-sticky curls.
And then he stops.
There’s something sticky at the back of his head.
He withdraws his hand, but he already knows what he’s going to see.
And he does. His fingers come back smeared with dark red blood, not just a daub, but a slick wet coating, no doubt from a still actively bleeding wound.
Shit.
“Well.” He mumbles, and the boy next to him shifts worriedly.
“Are you okay?”
Jack groans, rubbing the non-bloodied fingers over his temple as he winces. “Must’ve hit it on the wall — or been caught by some shrapnel or something.”
“Let me have a look?” The other man probes tenderly, but Jack shakes his head.
No point wasting what nonexistent supplies they have.
“ ‘s not ideal, but don’t worry. Doubt I’m at risk of bleeding out from there.”
Jack looks at him, and realises with a chilling swell of horror that the boy’s face is no longer in focus, drifting slightly out of alignment as his features warp.
It’s like a picture frame nudged sideways, and the edges of his vision tinges suddenly vignette.
The boy notices, of course.
His Angel.
“Hey — hey,” he says quickly, grabbing Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Jack shakes his head, but it makes him nauseous, suddenly. “I’m here.” It comes out a little slurred, and the kid swears.
It sounds unnatural, coming from him, but it makes Jack smile a little.
“Okay — okay Sir — um —“ he shifts, tugging over his coat from where it was draped, and he folds it into a sort of pillow. “Let me put this behind your head, and I’ll uh…”
He looks around frantically, and he spots the med kit that had sat slung over Jack’s shoulder.
Or rather — what’s left of it.
The canvas bag has been shredded by the explosion, its contents strewn in varying forms of damage and disarray. None of it useful.
In the slightest.
Not now.
He scrambles towards it anyway, boots kicking up little clouds of dust, and Jack squeezes his eyes shut, breathing through the nausea as he listens to the scuffling of the boy.
“Hey, kid?” He calls out, and he heard the scuffling stop.
“I’m here — Sir?” The tentative reply comes back, and Jack nods.
“Be careful, okay Angel?”
He hears the scuffling resume, before the boy calls out. “Keep talking to me — please?”
It’s a good idea, especially with the buzzing that’s vaguely started to take over his senses, but he focuses on the sound of the kid doing whatever he’s doing.
“What do ya wanna know?”
“Uhhhh — where were you born Sir?” He calls, then swears.
Jack doesn’t comment, doesn’t ask, just breaths through the rolling waves nausea. “Boston, didn’t grow up there though.”
There’s a crashing thud, and he jerks up, despite how the motion makes his head pound, but he’s rewarded by the sight of the boy looking sheepish as he holds up the reasonably intact bag he’s been rifling through. “I’m okay!”
Jack sighs, pressing a hand over his eyes as he reclines back against the wall and the pillow the kid has fashioned for him.
“Keep talking to me Sir. Do you uh — you got anyone to go home to?”
That’s a good question.
A very good question. Because he does. He really does.
He has the love of his life, the one person in the entire world that he’s supposed to be living for, fighting for.
And he is. He is. He always will.
Except the person who occupies the forefront of his mind right now… isn’t who it’s supposed to be. And it should be. But it’s not.
It’s this kid, his Angel, doing what he can to save the two of them.
“Yeah. Yeah I do. Mikey, he’s my —“ and what a crime, what a genuine fucking travesty that even in what are surely to be the last few minutes or hours of his life, Jack can’t admit the truth of the object of his affection? It’s not like this kid is going to care, and it’s not like Jack would even if he did, and yet something stops him from confessing, from admitting the truth. “He’s my best friend,” it is true, really, because Robby is his best friend, but he’s more than that too. He’s his boyfriend, partner, fiancé, because Jack hadn’t been able to let the hope that maybe one day they might be able to get married be anything other than something tangible and real. He’s the one person who’s been in his corner forever, who’s lived and loved and grown at his side.
Fuck.
He’s going to die, and he’s never going to get to marry his stupid fucking wonder of a fiancé. He’s never going to get to remind him of how much he loves him, how much he needs him.
“Tell me more about him, Sir.”
“Shit, he’s a doctor. Works at Cook County General in Illinois. Emergency medicine, just like me.” He shakes his head. “We went to med school together, did our intern years together, then I did my residency and joined the military to be a doctor here.” Jack sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Stupid fucking idea. I swore I’d come back to him.”
“You are.” Comes the kid’s immediate reply, and Jack can hear that he’s stopped whatever he’s doing. “You’re gonna go back to him alive, Sir.”
Oh the ignorance of youth.
Jack doesn’t correct him though, doesn't dare steal the fuel of the boy’s fire, because the truth is, is it’s the only thing keeping either of them going. No matter what, they’re going to die out here.
Or maybe just Jack is.
But someone is going to die.
Jack thinks about Mike again.
He’s surprised his thoughts didn’t turn to him as soon as he realised the gravity of the situation, but he’d been focusing so much on the kid that it’d been hard to think of anything else.
Let alone anyone else.
He knows his partner though, knows he’d understand.
It feels weird, thinking about him now, really. Jack’s not sure why though.
Maybe because there’s a sort of him that always believed he’d come back, who had allowed himself to be naïve and imagine a life where he comes home safe and unharmed, and falls back into daily life with the man he loves the most.
They got a few good years together, from med school through their first few years of residency. Until Jack had decided… what? What had he even decided? That leaving the love of his life was a fair trade for this? For dying?
The appeal of military medicine is gone, and he can’t even begin to think of what it ever looked like to begin with, because he regrets it now. Regrets ever leaving Michael Robinavitch behind.
He can hear the kid shoving aside debris as he hunts for… whatever it is he’s looking for.
“Sir? C’mon tell me something else, please.”
Jack groans. “Like what?”
“Uh — favourite food?” His voice sounds a little closer suddenly, but Jack’s not sure whether that’s because he genuinely is or if he’s gotten to the point he’s started to hallucinate.
Jack really hopes it’s not the latter.
“This is ridiculous.” He mumbles, before he can help himself, but he can practically hear the kid’s immediate frown as he calls back,
“Please Sir? Please.” It’s tinged just the wrong side of panic, and Jack opens his eyes again.
“Smoked brisket. Mike’s grandmother’s brisket.”
The kid doesn’t reply though, because he suddenly cries out, excited.
“Sir!”
Jack opens his eyes, and the boy is clambering out of the wreckage of the Humvee, holding something red in his soot covered hand.
A flare.
It’s something, it's something, a chance, a fleeting chance that maybe they’re not going to die here, and Jack pushes himself up against the pain.
“Shit — good work Private. Angel.”
The kid clutches it tightly as he picks his footing back to Jack’s side, but for all his excitement at the slightest increase in their chances of rescue, the buzzing is growing louder.
It’s accompanied, now, by a rhythmic sort of pounding, right behind both of his eyes, and his chin dips towards his chest before he can catch himself.
“Kid…?”
The boy swears, and Jack hears him stumble before he crashes down onto his knees at his side, grabbing at his arms and shoulders. “No — no, please don’t go to sleep Sir, please, I found a flare, I can save us.”
Jack huffs tiredly, but he forces his eyes open again.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
He squints at the kid as he fumbles the flare in his filthy hands, turning it over as he finds the striker cap. He’s very obviously never lit one before, only ever been shown how to use it in basic training, and he fumbles with it as he tries to strike the cap.
“C’mon… c’mon,” he grumbles under his breath, fingers clumsy with the flare as he fails to light it again.
Jack watches him, watches him fail, and he shakes his head. “Twist the cap off fully, kid, then strike it against the ignition.”
He nods, then twists the cap off, doing as he’s told.
For a long second, nothing happens.
Then, suddenly, the flare catches with a violent hiss and bright red flame bursts to life, spitting and sparking as thick crimson smoke billows up into the dust-coloured sky.
It startled the boy, at first, but he scrambled upright again and holds the flare high. It’s a good clear day, excellent visibility despite the persistent haze of dust and sand, so anyone within miles should be able to see it… providing there actually is anyone within miles.
That’s what scares him. Because there isn’t supposed to be. There isn’t supposed to be anyone nearby. No one who’s supposed to see their SOS.
Once he’s sure the signal has progressed appropriately, the kid puts it somewhere safe and turns back to Jack’s side again, his attention narrowing in on him.
“You still with me, Sir?”
Jack blinks up at him, then smiles grimly. “Unfortunately.”
The kid frowns, and he shakes his head. “Don’t say that.”
He’s hovering kind of awkwardly as he looks down at Jack, shifting his weight from leg to leg, and it’s beyond obvious that he’s unsure what he’s exactly supposed to do now he’s found a flare and put a tourniquet on Jack’s leg. His search has already shown that any form of medical treatment is impossible with their complete absence of any supplies, and really there’s nothing else either of them can do now, aside from wait.
His gaze keeps flickering to the mess of Jack’s right leg, then to the matted blood in his head, then his expression with that desperate searching look Jack has seen too many times before. He’s obviously terrified, but he’s doing so well, he’s being so brave. So strong for how devastatingly young he is.
“Sir? How are you feeling?” He asks after a moment, voice a gentle whisper of a breath. “Can I…? Is there anything I…?”
Jack shakes his head.
“Sit down, kid.”
“Sir—?”
“Sit.”
It takes a moment, but he does, dropping down onto the sand again. He’s clumsy with it this time though, his knees giving way. It’s different from before, this sudden sort of collapse as he sinks down, and it’s clear from his expression he wasn’t quite expecting his body not to do what he wanted it to.
Jack pushes himself up despite the pain, ignoring the way his head swims as he manages to get pretty much upright, and he frowns, scanning the boy before him.
It’s a rare occasion, that he’s able to silence his doctor brain, but he’s finding it hard to make it work fully with the blood loss and the head injury, his thoughts hazy and a little jumbled as he takes stock of the boy before him.
“I’m fine,” he says, waving a dismissive hand as he forces a small smile. “I’m fine Sir.”
Jack doesn’t believe him. Not in the slightest.
“—I’m just tired,” he carries on, and he rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm, leaving a smear of dirt where the dust and blood on his hands mingles with the layer of sweat still coating his skin, and it really doesn’t help his point.
There’s nothing obvious, there really isn’t, but there’s something tugging at Jack’s senses, activating his suspicions as he stares at the boy before him. Something is wrong, it’s just… not clear as to what.
The blood that covers him is his, and there's no obvious damage to his uniform.
Jack continues to study him for a moment, studying those dirty cheeks. Suddenly, he doesn’t quite look the same as he did before. His breathing has slowed, no longer quite as panicked as he was, his shoulders sagging and his hands trembling, not with frantic urgency anymore but with the dull exhaustion that came from an adrenaline crash.
And he’s going to crash, Jack’s sure of it.
His gaze drifts to the boy’s bare arms, at the smattering of thin red lines where he’s been sliced by shrapnel. Some have clotted already, some are oozing down his wrists, and there’s more on his cheek and neck, and one across the bridge of his nose.
They’re not catastrophic injuries, not in the slightest, and Jack’s not worried about them. No. What he’s worried about, is the way the boy is sitting.
“Angel,” he says softly, catching his attention.
“Mmh?” He looks up, tilting his head as he blinks those big blue eyes at Jack.
“You sure you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
He speaks a little too quickly, dismissive of Jack’s concern, but Jack can’t tell if it’s because he’s genuinely not sure or if he’s trying to hide something.
Jack frowns, reaching up to brush a thumb over his cheekbone. “You check?”
The kid shakes his head. “I feel okay.”
“You sure you didn’t hit your head or anything?”
Jack’s already asked him, but he needs to make sure he’s not missing something, needs to make sure the boy really is okay.
One of them has to make it out of here alive, after all.
“No, I didn’t. I went forward when the explosion happened. Didn’t lose consciousness or anything.”
“You sure you’re not in any pain anywhere?”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t really seem to have even considered the option that he might be hurt, and Jack can see it in his eyes as he mentally takes stock of his body.
But he shakes his head.
“I’m fine, Sir.”
“Do you think you can take a deep breath in for me, Angel?”
The question obviously takes him by surprise, because he frowns before he nods, pink lower lip poking out as he processes the request.
He breaths in, shoulders rolling back, and suddenly his breath catches,
He tries again, but it’s short and shallow, uneven as he clearly struggles to fill his lungs. A hand unconsciously flies up to his ribs, pressing against his side.
Jack feels a cold bolt of dread slide down his spine, and he shifts, holding the boy’s gaze.
“Private?”
The boy looks, and Jack can see the first fleeting glimpses of panic in his eyes as the reality sets in. He can’t breathe, not fully, not deeply, and Jack’s sure the pain is starting to set in now that he’s finally noticed what his body’s been compensating for this whole time.
“You might not be as fine as you think, kid, but it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m a doctor, remember?”
The flare hisses behind them, but the boy’s panic doesn’t ease, his hand still splayed out across his ribs.
Shit.
“Hey — Angel, hey?” Jack reaches out, grabbing the boy’s shoulder as he forces him to look at him again. “Slow that breathing down for me, okay? Nice and steady.”
He tries, but it doesn’t work, and after a moment Jack reaches out and takes the hand not clasped to the boy’s ribs, and he places it over his own heart.
“Feel my breathing, okay kid? Copy me.”
He breathes in slowly, deeply, letting the kid feel the way his rib cage expands as he fills his lungs, before he slowly breathes out. It’s clumsy and irregular at first, but after a couple of minutes the kid manages to steady out his breathing, gaze fixed on Jack’s chest as he copies him.
Good.
Even once the fear seems to have passed, he doesn’t move, stays with his hand over Jack’s heart.
“You’re okay, kid, you’re gonna be okay.”
They sit there, and Jack’s not sure how long for. He closes his eyes at some point (not that he remembers doing it), and for a short while, everything feels… okay.
It’s not, obviously, but it’s as okay as things can be right now, and that’s some sort of reassurance at least.
When he finally opens his eyes again, the boy is still sitting above him, looking vaguely into the distance, not focused on anything.
There’s something wrong.
There’s a greyish tinge to those sallow cheeks now that Jack looks at him again, and as Jack pushes himself up, he can see the hypoxic blueish tinge to those thin lips as clear as day.
Shit.
“Angel, hey, you gotta lie down,” he shifts, ignoring the searing pain that shoots up his leg as the mangled remnants of his limb drag against the rubble. “Here —“
It’s an awkward position, the way Jack slips a hand around his back, the other coming up to support his head as he lowers the boy down, but given the way he sags almost immediately, it’s the right thing to do.
“Here — here you are, take some deep breaths for me. You feeling dizzy?”
The boy blinks at him, and that slight haziness he’d had to him earlier is gone, those bright blue eyes now dim as he clearly struggles to focus on Jack.
Shit.
Shit.
Jack shifts him as best as he can, and as he pulls back to adjust his head, he sees it.
His hands are both covered in blood, crimson seeping into the sleeves of his uniform where they’d been pressed against the boy’s back.
Jack swears, and his gentleness with the boy from only a second ago is gone as he yanks him onto his side, rucking up the back of his shirt as he tries to find the source of the blood.
It’s not hard to locate, not really. All the blood has to have come from somewhere on his back, but it’s not pretty.
There’s a deep gash tearing through from right about his lumbar spine up and round to the side of his ribs, weeping deep crimson blood. It separates as he thumbs the ragged edges, and Jack pulls away immediately. There’s no telling how deep it is, and he really doesn’t want to poke about and find out, not without any kind of medical supplies.
Fuck.
It’s a small victory that he’s not actively at risk of completely exsanguinating, given that the blood is venous and not arterial, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t bleeding internally, somewhere Jack can’t see.
He rips his jacket off instinctively, folding it up as he wedges it under the boy’s back against the wound, before he rolls him back under his back. His own body weight will put better pressure on the wound than Jack can, and hopefully it should staunch some of the bleeding.
He’s really not hopeful though.
Because he looks even worse now, lips fully blue as he blinks blearily up at Jack.
He’s going to die, that much is clear, but it’s wrong, it’s so wrong, he’s so obviously a child and it’s not fair that he should die like this, so early on in his life.
“ ‘m I screwed?” He asks, voice small, and Jack shakes his head fiercely.
The adrenaline coursing through him now that he’s realised the boy’s condition has stabilised him, a bit, the world no longer swaying as he zeroes in on the kid in front of him.
“No. No you’re not. Not if I can do anything about it.”
“I didn’t… didn’t even feel it… I didn’t…” his voice peters out, and he really is pale, skin cold and clammy.
“You feeling dizzy?”
The boy nods, and his jaw clenches, and when Jack opens his mouth again, the boy tries to focus on him, but it clearly takes effort.
“Okay. Okay. C‘mon Angel, ‘s your turn to keep talking.” He whispers, reaching a hand down to brush the worst of the dust off of his pale cheek. “Where’d you grow up? What’s home?”
The boy coughs, but his head continues to loll against the ground, muscles too weak suddenly to even try and hold his head up. He’s really not got long.
“Dennis —“ he croaks, “call me Dennis.”
Jack nods, swallowing back the prickling feeling in the back of his throat. “Okay Dennis. Nice to meet ya. You can call me Jack. Now keep talking, okay?”
The boy — Dennis tries to nod, but it doesn’t work, so he squeezes Jack’s hand.
“I’m — I’m from Nebraska.”
Jack nods again, and he can’t stop himself from continuing to stroke his face, brushing back the grit and dust from those curls and soft cheeks. Dennis hasn’t even started growing facial hair, not properly, and it makes Jack’s heart ache as he stares down at him.
“Nebraska, huh? Whereabouts? Anywhere I’d know?”
Dennis tries to shake his head, the corners of his lips curving up as he squeezes Jack’s hand again. “Nah… ‘s a tiny town called Broken — Broken Bow… no one lives there—“ he takes a deep shuddering breath. “I grew up on a farm.”
Jack laughs at that. Of course he had, of course he had. Dennis looks the type, midwestern farm boy, and he tells him as such.
Dennis smiles, but it’s clear he’s losing strength fast now, his fingers weak around Jack’s.
Honestly, Jack’s not doing all that well himself. He’s shaking, he realises, the kind of whole body shakes that he’s seen time and time again in dying men.
Who in their right mind would send the medic out on a recon mission?
He’s a military doctor, he’s not an active combat soldier, he shouldn’t be here.
There’s no reason why he should be here, and he should have questioned it earlier, should have questioned it sooner, but he’d gone, he’d put himself in this ridiculous position and now he's going to die.
And leave his troops without a doctor.
Without anyone to protect them.
What a fucking idiot.
He’s sweating, he realises suddenly, cold and overwhelming, already soaking through his uniform.
“Keep talking to me Angel, what you gonna do when you get out of here?”
Dennis sighs, looking past Jack and up at the sky. “I wanted to be a doctor.” He whispers, voice thin. “I — want to be a doctor.”
Jesus, if Jack was a weaker man, that might be enough to make him cry, but he swallows back the lump in his throat. “A doctor? Shit kid, you’re coming for my brand.” He strokes his face again. “You’re gonna be a great doctor, ‘mkay? You’re gonna pull through and you’re going to go to medical school and you’re going to be the best doctor ever. Okay?”
And it’s such a bitter lie to tell, but it’s one Jack’s told a thousand times now, it comes like second nature, a false reassurance.
Dennis seems to believe him though, although maybe he’s just putting it on for Jack’s sake.
“How’s that breathing doing?” He asks after a moment. Dennis has been breathing short and shallow since he laid him down, and Jack had assumed that was because of the pain, but his lips are fully blue now, and he's got a nasty feeling that that’s not the case. “Take a deep breath for me.”
Dennis tries, he really tries, but as his face screws up in pain, Jack hears exactly what he hadn’t wanted to. There’s a wet, bubbling sort of gurgle as Dennis tries to fill his lungs, and Jack knows.
He’s going to die.
There’s nothing Jack can do now.
“You’re okay, don’t worry about it,” he soothes, “just keep breathing, okay? Don’t go dying on me.”
Dennis’ gaze fixes on him, but his eyes are unfocused, hazy and vacant.
For a moment, he just watches Jack, and there’s something Jack can’t quite read in his expression, before he coughs weakly.
There’s a small foam of blood that rises in the corner of his mouth, but Jack’s quick to wipe it away.
“Sir…? … Jack…?”
“Yeah kid?”
A little more blood oozes out of the corner of Dennis’ mouth.
“Will… will you pray with me?”
The question catches Jack off guard. Not because it’s the first time he’s been asked, it’s really not. Many a time he’s been in this position, reassuring a dying man, holding his hand, letting him pray as he makes his passing as comfortable as possible.
It’s just the first time his own life has been at stake at the same time.
Because faith has always been something other people leant on, in Jack’s life. His belief in the power of medicine, in understanding the measurements of the human body and the science behind it, that’s what’s always carried him through. Not just in field operating theatres and disaster zones, but even back in his residency, in the ER, in his paediatric rotations, in oncology and epigenetics and everywhere fucking tragic and devastating. Science is what’s kept him and his patients going.
Not god.
Jack fell out with the old man upstairs a long time ago, so he doesn’t pray when they ask him to, but he listens, he gives them the space they need to talk to their god.
But something about the way Dennis is staring up at him now, pale and trembling in the sand… Jack clears his throat.
“…yeah.” He says softly. “Alright kid.”
Dennis nods weakly, his gaze turning up to the sky again, to where the red smoke still trails across the wind, and he clumsily drags the hand holding Jack’s up to his chest.
“Okay.” He whispers.
“Our Father… who art in heaven…” his words come out a little slurred, but it’s clear he’s putting all his energy into it.
“Hallowed…” he pauses, brow furrowing. “Hallowed be thy name… on earth, as it is—“
He trails off, “as it is…”
“As it is in heaven.” Jack finishes for him, voice gruff. “C’mon kid.”
That seems to wake him up a little, and he nods. “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive — forgive us for our trespasses, as we forgive those who —“ he coughs, and it’s more than an oozing of blood this time, and it smears against pale skin as Jack wipes it away yet again.
“Keep going.”
“Those who trespass against us… lead us — not into temptation, but deliver… deliver us from evil, for thine… is…” he loses his words, blinking hazily up at the sky for a moment. “The Kingdom… the power and the glory… forever and ever…”
He heaves a ragged breath in.
“Amen.”
Their voices overlap, and when Dennis looks again him again, there’s something akin to warmth there as he fumbles to squeeze his hand.
He moves onto his Hail Mary, but Jack glances towards the horizon instead.
There’s something in the wind, the faintest sort of distant thumping.
He frowns.
It sounds like… like helicopter rotors.
It’s so faint that it’s hard to distinguish from the ringing in his ears, but it’s a distinctive noise.
He squints at the sky.
There’s nothing there.
Just the pale desert horizon, and the trail of smoke from the flare and the remnants of the Humvee.
“Figures.” He whispers under his breath.
He’s hallucinating. With the head injury and the blood loss, he’s not exactly surprised by it, but it means that his estimation of hours probably isn’t quite accurate. Not anymore.
Minutes, really.
Below him, Dennis’ voice is almost imperceptible as he prays, gaze fixed upwards now. “Even though I walk… through The Valley of the… of the shadow… shadow of death…”
He trails off, breathing suddenly picking up. His chest is barely moving anymore, lungs fighting for whatever short, right pulls of air they can get.
“Dennis.” Jack says, and the kid barely reacts. “Dennis.”
Jack forces himself closer, propping himself up above Dennis’ thin frame despite the violent protests from his legs and head, and he ignores the way the world spins as he shakes him, just gently.
“C’mon kid, fuck.”
“Jus’… hurts a lil’…” Dennis slurs.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. Just stay with me Angel, okay?”
Dennis tries to nod, but his body doesn’t respond now.
“You’re alright,” Jack repeats firmly. “You’re okay. Look at me. Look at me.”
Dennis’ eyes drift back to his, but he’s barely there. He’s as white as a sheet now, and dripping in sweat, soaking through the thin material of his uniform and dripping into the sand below him.
It’s not a good sign.
“Hey. Focus on my voice, okay?”
Dennis’ breath hitches, and he squeezes Jack’s hand with what little strength he has.
“ ‘m… trying.” He rasps.
“You’re doing great, you’re fine, just keep breathing nice and slow for me.”
Dennis laughs, something weak and helpless that turns into a cough almost immediately, and his head lolls to the side as he spits out the mouthful of blood it brings up.
“Doesn’t — doesn’t feel fine.” He gasps, and it’s ridiculous because they’re both dying but he’s teasing him.
Jack huffs, and he gives Dennis’ hand a sharp squeeze.
It’s fruitless, really, to keep trying to reassure him. But he keeps at it anyway, because he has to, even though Jack’s own body is really starting to betray him now.
He has to be strong for the kid.
He uses his free hand to tilt Dennis’ head back, and his fingers tremble as he positions him to keep his airway open. It’s the best he can do with the strength he’s got, and he knows it won’t help.
The ground beneath him feels like it’s rolling, rising and surging with every breath, and Jack’s grimly aware of the fact that his vision has started to fade out at the edges, the very boy before him turning fuzzy.
Dennis’ breathing is too fast now, rapid and uneven, his body fighting for what little oxygen it can get.
His eyes are closed.
“You still with me, Angel?” He grits out, and those eyelids flutter.
“Still… here…”
Jack forces a thin smile.
“Good lad.”
His arms are shaking now with the effort of keeping himself upright, and he swallows hard against the rising tide of nausea again.
When he looks back down, Dennis’ eyes are closed, and the shallow rise and fall of his chest had stopped.
“Kid?”
Dennis doesn’t answer.
He’s too still, the kind of still that makes Jack’s heart kick up in his chest and he twists, grabbing his shoulder and shaking.
He’s gone completely slack, and his head lolls as he’s loved, the arm that had been pressed so tightly against his ribs now sliding limply across the sand.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
For a brief, terrifying second, Jack fears it’s happened, that he was too late, but he presses two fingers against his carotid all the same and —
There.
He’s still got a pulse.
It’s weak and thready and irregular, and Jack knows he’ll have completely lost his radials by now, but his heart is still beating, even if he’s not breathing.
Except…
Dennis’ chest rises, almost imperceptibly, a breath so shallow it’s almost invisible.
He’s breathing.
He’s still breathing.
Jack exhales shakily, and the dread is just as palpable as the relief as he stares at the boy before him.
He’s still alive but he’s fading fast, and really what is there that Jack can do beyond prolong his suffering?
The dizziness hits again then, and his vision fades a little more, hand now shaking where it still rests against Dennis’ neck.
He’s going into shock.
He knows it, knows his body is reaching its limit. He tries to sit up straighter, and the world tilts sideways so violently that he almost falls, a hand stretching out to catch himself.
Shit.
“…damn it,” he mutters, gritting his teeth as he tries to breathe through it.
He can’t stay upright any longer.
Gingerly, he lowers himself down onto the sand next to where Dennis lies, and the movement sends another sharp pulse of pain through his leg but it barely registers now.
He’s dying. What does it matter?
The ringing in his ears has stopped now, and it’s incredible how silent the desert can be. Just a vast expanse of sand, wind whistling through the ruins of the buildings they’re surrounded by. The Humvee is still popping and crackling away as it burns, and the hissing spitting sound of the flare accompanies it in a sick sort of cacophony.
He can’t hear Dennis breathing anymore.
Jack turns to look at him, looks at the profile of the boy before him. He’s perfectly still, skin deathly pale, curls plastered against his skin, still streaked with dust and sand and ash and blood, just like every man who’s died out in the field.
Not perfect, like the bodies lucky enough to end up in caskets are, but real, human. Alive but also not.
Jack Abbot has spent his entire life fixing people. Closing wounds, restarting hearts, resetting limbs, saving people’s lives day in and day out.
It’d been hard enough, before he joined the military, but at least he’d been able to say that he’d saved more lives than he hadn’t.
Now?
Now he’s lost far more men than he’s saved, and the fact that Dennis is just another name on the list is so fucking awful.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair.
Jack can’t bear to look at Dennis any longer, so he looks up at the sky instead, intertwining his fingers with Dennis’ cold, limp ones.
There’s nothing left that he can do.
Not for him.
Not for Dennis.
Not for Michael, back home, so blissfully unaware as he waits for him.
His breath catches, and then, quietly, awkwardly, he speaks.
“God…” It feels weird, the words uncomfortable and awkward as he stares up at the sky. “I don’t… really know how this works.” His voice drops to a whisper, “but if you’re listening…”
Jack turns back towards Dennis, and he brings their hands up to his chest. Dennis’ arm drags awkwardly, a dead weight, but Jack settles their hands on his chest, then, after a moment, drags them up so he can press a kiss to Dennis’ cold knuckles.
“Please… please don’t take the kid. Take me instead.”
The wind rustles softly across the sand and the flare fizzles out finally.
But no one answers, no one reaches out to save them.
Jack’s eyes close finally, his body too heavy to move anymore. The world narrowing to a dull pulse.
The pulsing seems to be getting louder, actually.
The wind stirs, sand dusting over his cheeks.
The pulsing sounds like a sort of whirring now, and the wind picks up a little more, morphing into something familiar.
Jack can’t help it.
He lets out a weak breath, something that might be a laugh.
“Yeah right. Yeah fucking right.” He breathes, fingers flexing around Dennis’.
His mind is being kind, that’s all it is, there’s no one coming. There’s no one here to save them.
He’s cold now, cold and shaky, everything a leaden weight as he goes lax against the sand. The darkness is pressing in now, swallowing everything up as he sinks into the blissful embrace of unconsciousness.
Above him, a rotor roars, but it’s too late.
The comforting warmth of sleep takes him, wrapping around him like a warm blanket as he slips away.