"You can barely breathe without wincing. You have multiple rib fractures and?—"
"I can stand. I can shoot. That's all I need." I override his objection with the flat certainty of someone who's made the decision and won't be swayed. "She goes into that situation, and I go with her. Non-negotiable."
CJ studies me for a long moment, and I can see him reading things in my face I didn't mean to show. "You're compromised," he says finally.
I don't deny it. Can't deny it, not after taking multiple rounds to keep her alive, not after seeing her face in those last seconds before I blacked out. "I'll die before I let something happen to her."
"Doc Summers has to clear you. You've got two hours before transport. Hope you heal fast." CJ sighs, recognizing a lost argument when he sees one. "The medic will fit you with a compression wrap for your ribs, load you up with enough painkillers to function. But if you can't perform—if Doc Summers doesn't clear you—I'm pulling you. Understood?"
"Understood."
He heads for the door, then pauses. "Caro stayed with you the whole flight back. Wouldn't let go of your hand. Fought the medics when they tried to move her aside." His expression is unreadable. "Thought you should know."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone with the pain and the drugs and the memory of Carolina’s hand in mine, her voice fierce and desperate:You don't get to die on me.
I close my eyes and focus on breathing through the pain, building a wall between the agony in my chest and the clarity I'll need to function.
I've operated through worse—a compound fracture in Mosul, shrapnel in my back in Kandahar, and three broken ribs in Syria.
Pain is just information, and information can be managed, compartmentalized, and filed away until the mission's done.
The door opens again. I expect a medic. Instead it's Carolina.
She's cleaned up since the extraction—fresh clothes that someone must have provided, her hair braided neatly again, the blood and dirt washed away. But her eyes are red-rimmed, and she moves to my bedside with an urgency that says she ran here the moment they let her.
"Hey," I say, inadequate but all I've got.
"You're an idiot." Her voice shakes. "A noble, stupid, heroic idiot."
"Probably."
She pulls a chair close to the bed and sits heavily, like her legs won't hold her anymore. For a long moment, she looks at me, processing everything—the ambush, the impacts to my vest, how close it came to going completely sideways. Then her hand reaches out and finds mine, fingers threading through mine, and the touch grounds something in me I didn't realize was floating.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For what you did. For getting me out."
"That's what?—"
"If you say 'that's what Guardians do' one more time, I'm going to hit you." But there's no heat in it, just exhaustion and relief and something else I can't quite name. "You took bullets for me. Multiple impacts that could have killed you. That's not just doing your job—that's... that's something else."
"You're worth it. The mission is worth it. I'd do it again." I turn my hand in hers so I can squeeze gently.
"I know." Her thumb brushes across my knuckles. "That's what scares me."
We sit in silence for a moment, her hand in mine, the weight of everything unspoken hanging between us. I'm aware of the clock ticking down, of the device waiting at Camp Cielo Azul, of the fact that in a few hours she'll be the one in danger while I try to keep her alive.
But right now, in this quiet moment, there's just this—her hand in mine, both of us breathing, both of us alive when we came too close to the alternative.
"I'm coming with you," I say finally. "To the device site. CJ tried to bench me, but I shut that down."
"Morrison, your ribs?—"
"Will hold together long enough. I've operated through worse." I meet her eyes. "You're going to be vulnerable while you work on that device. Greer's people already tried to kill you once. I'm not letting you face the next attempt without me there."
She looks like she wants to argue, but something in my expression stops her. Instead, she leans forward, resting her forehead against our joined hands, and I feel her shoulders shake with a breath that might be a laugh or a sob.
"Okay," she whispers. "Okay. We do this together."
"Together," I agree, and ignore the way my chest tightens at the word—emotional, not physical.
