FIC: Stranded in Motion Part Two

[tebtosca]

“Do you need a sling or do you think you can sit on the step without slipping?” Jensen asks, arms securely around Jared’s back as he helps lower Jared into the water of the hydro-therapy tub.

“I can sit,” Jared replies, hissing a bit as the warm water hits his skin, but quickly letting out a breath as the heat starts seeping in and feeling good.

Jensen makes sure he’s steady before climbing down into the water and sliding in along Jared’s side.

It’s four weeks post-surgery and Jensen’s designed a treatment plan along with Dr. Rhodes to help combat Jared’s phantom pain issue. Jared refused medication when he found out it was the same stuff Gen is trying to shove onto him for his other ‘issues’, as she calls them.

Of course, that’s how he ended up in a hot tub with Jensen Ackles at nine o’clock in the morning, and Jared’s regretting his choices just a bit.

A soaking-wet Jensen Ackles, Jared corrects in his mind, trying to ignore the way Jensen’s tank top is clinging to the muscles of his chest as he dips into the water and then bobs back up again to help readjust Jared’s body on the step into a more comfortable position.

Jensen starts running him through a series of exercises, and they are quiet for a while. Jared tries to relax, letting the sensation of the heated water, blissful silence, and the feel of Jensen’s gracefully solid hands manipulating his body help him pretend that he’s somewhere else than this place of injury.

It doesn’t last long, like everything else in Jared’s life.

“So I’ve heard you started working with Misha,” Jensen says. His voice is pitched low, but the spell is already broken. “That’ll be really good for you.”

Jared just hums, closing his eyes and leaning his head back a bit.

“And they’ve assigned you a social worker, that’s even better,” Jensen continues on, not letting Jared’s silence deter him. “Samantha is fantastic, she’ll make sure you are set up and good to go when you leave here.”

Jared jerks at that, involuntarily reacting to the idea that there is anything out there for him after this place. That there is anywhere to go. Anyone to care, to –

“What about that one, on your shoulder. I haven’t seen that one before,” Jared says quickly, interrupting his own thoughts. Jensen’s leaned over and the back of his shirt pulled to the side enough to display part of a tattoo on his shoulder blade.

Jensen looks up at him, righting himself, but never stopping his movements. Jared can tell from his face that he knows that Jared is changing the subject, but Jensen must be used to it by now because he lets him. “That one is a beating heart with a gramophone coming out of it. Got it sophomore year of college.”

“Let me guess – tribute to your grandpa?”

Jensen chuckles. “Not quite. First time I ever fell in love was with a music major. Got a little wistful when we broke up and had it done. Wasn’t much appreciated by him –“

Jared stiffens all over at the pronoun usage, and Jensen must realize he freezes as well and glances up at Jared with mild alarm in his face. Even though he’s still processing this new information, the last thing Jared wants is for Jensen to think he has a problem with Jensen being…that way.

“Yeah, a beating heart is pretty creepy. I understand his alarm,” Jared jokes, and the relief that crashes briefly over Jensen’s face is worth every minute Jared will surely spend thinking about a young Jensen Ackles pining via body ink over his lost love in the future.

“Yeah, we medical types dig anatomical correctness more than your average jazz pianist,” Jensen replies, smile genuine and thankful.

They are just slipping back into that lovely quiet place again when Jared realizes with growing horror that he’s starting to get an erection.

Between Jensen’s hands and the thoughts and Jared being so relaxed, and oh god, Jensen’s going to think that what he just told him is the cause, and then what if he thinks Jared is a pervert and he can’t, oh god, he can’t –

“It’s alright,” Jensen says, soft, like he’s talking to a spooked horse. “It’s a perfectly normal body reaction.”

“Jensen, I –“ Jared chokes out, willing it to go down, to stop embarrassing him, to stop manifesting all these things he’s feeling every time Jensen’s hands touch his skin.

“No need to say a word. It’s a good thing that you’re regaining normal bodily function. I promise you, Jared. You never have to be ashamed with me.”

Jared shudders, realizing then that he was holding all the muscles in his body tight together into a ball of stress. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to thank Jensen or apologize to him or even just make him understand what it feels like to want to do either of those things.

Instead, he stays silent, but lets his body relax back into Jensen’s hands.

The ones that are waiting for him, as always.

==

Sergeant Michael Rosenbaum wakes up a little over five weeks into their hospital stay. His cognitive function comes back slowly but surely, and he’s begun his own recovery.

Jared isn’t there when Rosey’s told about Tommy dying while saving his life. Isn’t there to hear the cries of anguish or to see the tears fall over his cheeks. Others are there, though, and they whisper words of sadness and empathy to each other over rounds, late at night when they don’t know Jared is only pretending to sleep and can hear every syllable.

Jared’s sitting in Rosey’s room now, body pulled into the wheelchair he uses as a life-raft and parked next to his former Team Leader’s bed. Rosey’s lying there, awake, blinking a few times at Jared and then smiling slightly when he recognizes him.

Rosey’s head, usually shaved to shiny-perfection, is covered with patches of peach fuzz over deep, jagged red slashes that will surely scar and leave a reminder of his fate to everyone he meets, including himself in the mirror.

“Padalecki,” Rosey says, his voice hoarse from disuse. “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Rosey,” Jared replies, not knowing what to say now that he’s here. He didn’t know why he had to come see the man, but it was like something was pulling him to this room and he was too tired to keep fighting it.

Tired. Jared is so damn tired.

They sit in silence for a while, and it’s not so bad. Rosey’s breathing is a bit jagged, and the machines beep out a wordless song, but Jared is used to those things by now. It’s the melody of this strange, sheltered new life.

“Did they tell you about Tommy?” Rosey finally asks, and Jared sees that his eyes are squeezed shut tight like he’s holding something in. Jared knows that feeling.

“Yeah, Captain Huffman came last month and told us. Chad and Aldis are here, too. Never get any sleep with those two,” Jared replies, trying for a moment of levity and pleased with himself when the corner of Rosey’s mouth quirks up

“Yeah, I bet,” Rosey replies. He pauses, a long pause, eyes still closed. “I loved him, you know.”

Jared knew, they all did. There are lots of things that people know that they don’t say aloud, but that doesn’t make any of those things less true or less important.

“I know,” Jared says, simply. It doesn’t make it less important to not say it, but sometimes saying it anyway is the right thing to do.

Rosey nods, shudders out a tiny breath.

“Was it worth it? Even now, when it’s gone, when he’s gone?”

Jared has to ask it, a question about an emotion that he’s never had and doesn’t believe he ever will, especially not now. He glances down at his leg and then back up to Rosey, whose eyes are now open and clear.

“Even more now. It’s worth it even more.”




“My mama’s been trying to get her to agree to four babies, but Addie told her she was crazy. You should have seen the look on that old woman’s face,” Aldis nearly cackles, running a finger around the rim of his night-vision goggles to make sure they are secure.

“She should be lucky anyone lets you stick a dick in her,” Chad replies, leaning over and making lewd noises in Aldis’ face.

“Ugh, fucker, you smell like tar,” Aldis says, pushing Chad back. “Bad enough I’m stuck in this tin can with you without you breathing your rank ass tobacco breath on me.”

“You love me, bitch.”

“Like I love a stick of dynamite up my ass.”

“You think of me when you think of your ass. I’m touched, bro.”

“Touched in the head, motherfucker.”

“I fucked your mother, too. Four babies worth, holla atcha new daddy!”

Jared chuckles, trying to ignore the conversation around him as the Humvee starts around a small bend that they didn’t have the vantage of from last night’s run around this village. The goggles send the night sky into an eerie green color, a hazy sort of glow that always reminds Jared of some sort of alternate consciousness that they drift in, men shoved together in a moving box in the middle of the desert.

“Padalecki, slow down a sec so I can get out. Welling’s got something up ahead, we’re going to check it out,” Rosey commands, and Jared nods as he slows the vehicle down enough for their Team Leader to get out and go meet up with the Squad Leader. Vehicle 2 is up ahead, just managing the turn, but something must have been up for Tommy to call for his second in command.

Jared waits for Rosey to clear the area and then starts the vehicle up again, planning to maneuver it up just enough to get into a clearer –

A shockingly white light brightens up the night sky, followed almost at the same time by a deafening sound as the Humvee is thrown into the air. The front half is ripped off like the top of a tuna can, shards of jagged metal lying everywhere like confetti.

Jared screams – or he thinks he does, he can’t hear it. He paws at his head, the helmet half off and the strap cutting off his airstream. He feels wetness everywhere, coming from his ears, down his nose and across the goggles that feel like they are melted onto his face.

He can’t think, just claws at his head until the helmet is off and he can huff in great gasps of air. His goggles won’t come off and everything is still that eerie green, but it’s pure venom now. Danger and pain.

He looks around, screaming again. He can feel his throat working, contracting, knows that some kind of sound is coming out, but there is blood pouring from his ears and he can’t make any of the noise enter his consciousness.

He’s on the ground, dirt packed under him, road not metal. He feels dust in his mouth, coating his tongue and teeth as he tries to spit and get rid of it. There’s too much, so he spits again. There’s something else coating his teeth now, too.

A figure comes into his view, an alien shape, green like the sky, like poison. The figure drops down in front of him, hands pressed to the top of its face, mouth open in a wordless howl that Jared can’t hear.

“Chad!” Jared yells, the figure coming into relief, but the man doesn’t reply, can’t reply, just holds his head.

There are metal shapes between Chad’s green-tinted fingers, emerald blood running down his arms like snakes. His mouth is wide, gaping, teeth stained. A portrait of horror.

Jared tries to reach for him, tries to move his body, but it is sluggish. Frustrated, he starts to drag himself across the dirt, but when he looks down to see why his legs won’t work, he is met with nothing.

Nothing. There’s nothing there.

The pain comes then, searing, unbidden, toxic-green. Jared doesn’t feel the pain. Jared is the pain.

Too stunned to try anymore, Jared’s body seizes up and collapses, face hitting the dirt.

He swallows the dust of the desert like a communion.




Get out.

Just get out.

Get the fuck out.

Door. There’s a door. A door.

Open the door.

Get in.

Just get in.

Get the fuck in.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

No, no, no.

The door. Shut the door. Shut it.

Down, sit down. Sit here. Behind the door.

Shut it out. Keep it out.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe. Breathe.

Dark. Keep the dark. The dark.

Black. Black. Black not green. Black. Dark.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe. Breathe.

Green. Green. Green.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe.

Green, poison, vile, blood, smoke, death.

No.

Green, good, kind, eyes, Jensen’s eyes.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe.

Jensen’s good. Kind. Jensen.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe.

Jensen.

“Breathe, Jared. That’s it, just breathe.”

Jensen? Jared wants to say but he can’t breathe, can’t suck in the right amount of air. His lungs don’t work, his chest is constricting, he’s dying.

He’s dying, he thinks he’s dying, he’s ready to die, he doesn’t want to die.

Jensen’s hands are curved around Jared’s neck. Jensen’s forehead is pressing against Jared’s forehead. Jensen’s eyes are looking into Jared’s eyes. Jensen’s breathing breaths for Jared, breathing together.

“Breathe, Jared,” Jensen says, in and out, in and out.

Jared’s mouth is open but no words come out. Jensen breathes the silent words back into the space between them. Breathes air, in and out, in and out.

Jensen breathes. Jensen breathes until Jared breathes.

“Jensen,” Jared spits out.

Breathes, he breathes. He can breathe. Jared can breathe.

“That’s it, Jared. That’s it,” Jensen coos, smiling, forehead crinkling with it and pressed against Jared so hard that Jared can feel it through his skin.

“Where,” Jared wheezes, pauses. Takes a breath. “Where am I?”

Jensen’s forehead goes away and Jared already misses the pressure of it. He swipes one of his hands over Jared’s face, damp with sweat. “You gave us a bit of a scare there, Jared. Don’t know why you decided to hide out in a storage closet, although it is pretty cozy in here.”

“I…” Jared looks up at Jensen and then around, finally just noticing his surroundings. He realizes he’s sprawled out on the floor in his pajamas, the crutches he usually rejects in favor of the wheelchair lying at his side. Next to him is a shelf full of cleaning supplies and boxes of latex gloves.

“Did something happen?” Jensen asks, sitting back on his haunches but not taking his hands off of Jared. The contract grounds Jared.

“I had a dream,” Jared whispers. Nightmare, not a dream. Say the word, Jared. Say the fucking word.

“Do you have these dreams a lot?”

I’m so scared. I’ve always been scared. I’ll always be scared.

“Jensen,” is what Jared says instead, and Jensen seems to get it. Jensen always seems to get it.

“How about we get you up and back to your room before Loretta starts blaming Chad for you being gone,” Jensen says, smiling, and it earns him a shaky laugh out of Jared.

“Chad probably deserves it,” Jared replies, letting Jensen lift him up under his armpits and brace him up against the wall so Jensen can retrieve the crutches. He get Jared situated on them, and Jared makes a few tentative steps forward towards the door.

“You’re getting better on those things. Been holding out on me?” Jensen asks, no condemnation in his voice, but Jared’s face heats up anyway. He knows he relies on the wheelchair too much, but it’s easier that way and sometimes Jared wants to hang on to easy.

Jared doesn’t answer, and Jensen lets it go, following alongside Jared as he crutches back towards the room he fled.

==

“Maybe I’ll just stay here,” Jared insists, running his hands through the ever-longer tangle of chestnut hair on his head.

Danneel’s hands are immediately on her hips. Red scrubs today, with green Christmas trees on them. Her auburn hair is in a long braid down her back and she has mascara on for once. “Nope! I told my daughter that there was a dimpled puppy dog named Jared in the hospital and she’s so excited about it that if you don’t come you’ll break her heart.”

Jared’s cheeks pinken at the description. “I’m not a puppy dog.”

Danneel leans forward and pinches his cheeks before he can pull away. “Ah, look at those big puppy eyes. Don’t you try and deny it.”

Jared laughs, and knocks her hands away. “Who do you think you are, Loretta?”

“Hey, Loretta does not get dibs on those cheeks, Mister,” Danneel replies, with a wink.

“But I don’t have anything to give…” Jared trails off, realizing how stupid his sudden thought is.

“Give what?” she prods.

“I don’t have anything to give Jensen. Um, you know, for Christmas. A present. Um, for that.” His face is absolutely on fire now and he tries to ignore the knowing looks she’s giving him.

“Well, we can solve that one easy enough, no?” She heads over to the door and shouts “Os!” out into the hallway. Osric comes jogging in a second later and follows her back to Jared’s bed.

“Jared needs a present for someone special,” Danneel says, emphasizing the last words. Osric raises his eyebrows in understanding and Jared is left wondering exactly what the hell he has missed here.

“I’ll run downstairs to the gift shop and see what I can find,” Osric offers with a grin, before taking off again.

“What just happened?” Jared asks, a little dazed, but Danneel just waves him off.

“You are coming to the Christmas party, no excuses. I’m going to send Alona in to fix that hair of yours and get you into something presentable, and then you are going to come downstairs to the lounge and help me laugh at Dr. Morgan in his Santa costume.”

Jared laughs, an honest, delighted laugh. It feels kind of good. “This I have to see.”

Danneel grins. “It’s definitely a sight.” She leans down and squeezes his forearm, before departing. Alona comes in and starts fussing with his hair and he just lets her. It’s weird to even have this much hair, but her fingers feel kind of nice and the worsening fog that has been creeping over his brain lately seems lifted just a bit.

Osric comes back just as Alona is helping him into a simple but clean pair of pants and brushing invisible lint off his t-shirt.

“Okay, bear with me,” Osric starts, hiding something behind his back.

“Bear with you about what?” Jared asks, a little tentatively because Osric’s face looks too amused.

Osric whips out something from its hiding place and thrusts it into Jared’s space. “No, really, bear with me. Get it?”

Jared looks down at what he’s holding, which turns out to be a small brown teddy bear wearing a pale blue doctor’s coat. “Oh my god, that joke was worse than one of Chad’s.”

“Hey, at least it didn’t have the words ‘bitch’ or ‘diddly-do’ in it,” Osric pouts, before tossing the teddy bear into Jared’s lap and saluting Alona. With a grin, he jogs back out the way he came.

“He’s right, you know,” Alona says. “Nothing is worse than Chad.”

“I heard that, bitches!” comes Chad’s voice from across the room.

Jared just laughs.

==

Jared’s had three cups of fruit punch and has watched Chad unknowingly grind up on Zablah the night janitor for the past twenty minutes by the time he decides he wants to go back to bed. He’s starting to feel ridiculous, parked in the corner of the lounge, decked out in streamers and plastic reindeer, and he really needs to pee before he manages to wet himself and become even more mortified by the situation.

He starts steering himself towards the side exit, staying along the wall so that no one will notice him. He’s just about there when Dr. Morgan, dressed in full-out Santa Claus regalia, comes ho-ho-hoing his way into the room. The other corner explodes with excitement, as a horde of kids belonging to patients and staff alike run over to Dr. Morgan and start pulling him down to the floor to climb all over him.

Jared’s watching in amazement at the spectacle and is distracted enough to not notice a little girl bound right into him and climb onto his lap before he even knows to stop her.

Thankfully, she’s careful with his injury, and shifts herself around at just the right angle to throw her arms around his neck. “Hi, Jared!”

Jared, dumbfounded, looks at the little creature invading his space. She’s young, maybe six or seven, with bright red hair tied into two pigtails and a spray of freckles across her cheeks. She smiles wide, and he sees one tooth missing.

“I’m Amy. Mama said you looked like my puppy and you totally do!”

“Mama?” Jared says, and follows Amy’s gaze over to Danneel, who is standing against the far wall laughing even as she mouths “I’m sorry” towards him.

“Where’s your robot leg?” Amy asks, and Jared doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just shakes his head until she continues. “Your robot leg, you know! My daddy has two of them and they are pretty cool. He takes them off sometimes and I put them on my knees but they don’t fit because I’m too little.”

It dawns on Jared that not only is she talking about her father’s prosthetics, but that also means that Danneel is married to a double amputee. He looks over at her, and she’s smiling fondly at the two of them now, no longer laughing.

“Is your daddy a soldier, Amy?” Jared asks, readjusting the little girl a little bit on his lap so he can look her in the face better.

She nods happily. “Yes, he has a uniform and he came to my school and talked to my friends and showed them his robot legs, too. Are you a soldier, Jared?”

He looks at her, not knowing what to answer. Jared’s been a soldier his whole life, really, in a way. And yet, he’s never really figured out what he’s been fighting for, or against.

“I think I’m just a guy now, Amy.”

Amy leans over and presses a kiss to his cheek before climbing down off his lap. “You’re still cool to me,” she says, smiling that bright gap-toothed smile before she joins the crowd running after Dr. Morgan and his bag of treats.

Jared touches the patch of skin where the tiny little mouth just was, and feels something weird welling up in his chest. Before he can give it much thought, he continues rolling himself to the side exit.

“Oh no, you are not allowed to leave when I just got here.”

Jared halfway through the doorway but steers sideways when he hears Jensen’s voice. Something else is building in his chest now, something different and terrifying.

“Merry Christmas, Jared,” Jensen says. His hair is gelled, he’s freshly shaven, and he’s wearing the most ridiculous red and white sweater with “Merry Christmas, Ya Filthy Animal” written in block letters.

He’s so stupidly beautiful and Jared wants to flee as much as he wants to stay right here in front of Jensen forever.

“I have something for you-”

“I got you a present-“

They laugh as they speak in unison, saying the same thing.

“You first,” Jared says, watching as Jensen pulls out a small brown teddy bear wearing an army uniform from behind his back and places it gently in Jared’s lap.

Jared starts laughing and Jensen’s face gets that worried crinkled forehead expression of his. “Oh god, it’s dumb, right? I’m so sorry, I mean, it was in the gift shop and it was last minute and I thought it was cute, and—“

Jared shuts him up by reaching over to the bag hanging from the handle of the wheelchair and handing over his own gift shop Dr. Teddy. Jensen’s face softens, and he reaches up to take it. He holds it to his chest and closes his eyes for a moment, and Jared doesn’t know what to do but sit there and stare up at him.

Jared doesn’t have to do anything, because one second he’s just sitting there and the next second Jensen’s leaning down over him and pressing his mouth to Jared’s mouth.

It’s Jared’s second kiss.

He’s twenty two years old, with one shortened limb and no-longer shorn hair that still manages to stick up. His nose is still pointy and he still has moles on his face and bruises on the inside that never really began to fade but maybe one day will.

Maybe.

Jensen pulls back, a panicked look on his face. “I’m sorry, Jared, that was inappropriate and I would never do anything to–“

“I liked it.”

Jared’s second kiss is nothing like his first kiss, and right now, in this moment, that’s the only thing in the world he needs to know.

“You liked it?” Jensen repeats, slowly, like he’s trying to confirm what Jared just said to him.

Jared’s smiling then, a real smile, the best kind of smile, his Jensen smile. “I really did.”

Jensen’s turning red now, practically matching his sweater, but the corners of his mouth are tilting up to match the little starbursts around his eyes. “It was the mistletoe. Loretta puts it in all the doorways to try and catch Dr. Morgan.”

Jared’s grinning now, and he didn’t even know the muscles in his cheeks worked like this.

“Does it work?”

Jensen grins back.

“Every time.”




==

Aldis gets transferred to a rehab hospital closer to his family home in Dallas nine weeks into their stay. He had his cast made of his prosthesis done two weeks earlier, and is the star patient of the ward, walking easily on crutches and adapting well in his occupational therapy sessions with Misha.

Jared would be jealous but that’s an emotion that he got trained out of himself at a young age. It never did much good anyway.

The prosthetics specialist had tried to come to see him the same day, but Jared still refused. He doesn’t know why exactly. It’s not apathy, not laziness. Maybe he’s scared, but that’s not ground-breaking for any of them.

Sometimes, at night, when the ward is quiet and the lights are low and there’s only the sound of Chad snoring to keep him company, he’ll admit to himself that the broken outside of his body keeps him grounded. It reminds him, in the darker moments, that the inside is the same. The mirror is ugly, but it’s the mirror he’s looked into his entire life.

They all try so hard, this group around him. Loretta with her kind smile, and Danneel with her yellow scrubs with the black bumblebees. Misha with his fake kitchen and Samantha with her home visit plans and Gen with her prescription pad that says “we can make you feel better, Jared, let us make you feel better.”

And Jensen.

Jared feels. He feels too much. He feels things that he doesn’t think he deserves to feel and it’s okay. It’s okay and it’s not okay, but it’s what he has to work with.

Two days after Aldis leaves is when the screaming starts.

It’s early, the sun just starting to rise from the low light in the room. Jared’s finally gotten to sleep, a real sleep, after hours of staring at the ceiling.

Jared’s just managed to get himself sitting up when he sees where the commotion is coming from.

It’s Chad, fallen off his bed, sitting on the cold tile with his back against the wall under the window. He’s clawed his eye coverings off and is pressing his fingers against the red scarred patches where his eyes used to be. His mouth is open, face a rictus mask, and the sound that is emanating from him is unlike any sound Jared’s heard in his life.

Jared realizes, with stunning clarity, that this is the sound that he would have heard that night if the blast hadn’t wrecked his ear drums, if blood hadn’t been streaming from his orifices and down into the dust.

Chad screams and screams and Jared wants to turn it off, all of it. His ears and his brain and the memory and the smell.

Danneel comes running in, shouting something behind her as she does. She looks half-asleep herself, hair half pulled up into a bun like she heard the noise while fixing it and came running anyway.

She drops to her knees in front of Chad, who is still screaming like a wild thing, the only thing moving on him is the fingers pressing into lost hidden places. There’s urine draining out from underneath him, from where he’s pissed his pants in some invisible terror, and Danneel smoothly moves to avoid it.

“Hey there, handsome,” she starts, voice soft, that tone they must train into all of them the minute they step into the building. She puts her hands out towards him, going slowly to see if he’s likely to strike her. He doesn’t, staying in the same frozen position as she reaches out and places her own palms around his fists. Carefully, she pulls his fingers one-by-one away from the exposed wounds and holds his hands in her own.

The screaming stops then, changing over in a split second to great, heaving, hiccupping sobs.

“I can’t see, Sarge. I can’t see. I can’t see anything, why can’t I see?”

“Chad, it’s Danneel, you are with me now, okay? You are back at the hospital with us, and you are safe. You are safe, Chad.” She puts his hands on her own cheeks, moves his fingers around until he has touched every one of her features. “You are with me, Chad. You are with us now. We have you, Chad. We have you.”

“It’s so dark. Mom, it’s dark. I can’t see.” Chad’s mumbling now, slumping to the side until he’s curled up in a ball. Danneel holds his hands, keeping contact, until Loretta comes rushing in with a syringe that she hands over. Danneel injects it right into Chad’s bicep and then sits back on her heels, handing the now-empty syringe back to Loretta. The medicine eventually works, and they lift Chad up and put him back into bed.

“It had to happen sooner or later,” Jared hears Loretta whispering to Danneel, who just nods, before they move out of the room.

After the commotion, Jared just sits there and stares at Chad’s unmoving form.

Chad, probably the best friend Jared’s ever had. Chad, the loudest, brightest, happiest sonovabitch Jared knows. Chad, a broken toy soldier just like Jared.

Just like Jared.

Jared can feel tears running down his cheeks. He hasn’t cried in weeks but he’s crying now. Now when he realizes that there’s someone else out there just like him, that he’s not alone in this, that even someone as loud and bright and happy as Chad can reach the point where they can’t be loud and bright and happy anymore.

Jared cries until he can’t cry anymore. Chad never stirs.

==

“You’re tall,” Gen says, slightly startled. She’s standing in the doorway, looking up at Jared.

He’s never used his crutches to come to her before. Just the chair, his real crutch. This is the first time that’s he’s stood in front of her. This is also the first time that he’s knocked first.

“I’m ready.”

His words are simple and she cocks her head.

“What are you ready for, Jared?”

He doesn’t really know what comes next, but he knows he finally wants to try.

“I’m ready to be helped.”

Gen smiles up at him, and holds the door open so he can come inside and begin.

==

Ten weeks into his stay in the hospital, Jared gets the cast done for his prosthetic device. The specialist, a veteran named Tahmoh, gets introduced to Jared during a session with Jensen. He’s an old friend of Jensen’s, a member of his brother Josh’s unit in Iraq. They’d grieved together after Josh’s passing, and grown close, working together after Tahmoh left the service and went into developing better prosthetic devices for the particular traumatic injuries seen during the current wars.

Jared’s almost ashamed that it took him this long to agree to this, especially after meeting Tahmoh and realizing how genuine and supportive he is of Jared’s recovery. But like Gen would tell him, there’s no use being ashamed of not being ready. Everyone is different, but no one is worse. Jared’s starting to get that now, day-by-day. It’s a process, but one that he’s finally willing to start actively participating in.

Jensen’s there every step of the way, literally and figuratively. There’s a lot that goes into fitting the device, even though the first prosthetic is only going to last him about six months until he gets a more permanent one. Tahmoh comes twice a week for the next four weeks, perfecting the fit.

It hurts, and it’s exhausting. There are days that Jared doesn’t want to get out of bed, but he does anyway because he knows at the end of the hallway will be Jensen, and with him and through him the promise of a life that will be different, but better than before.

The first time Tahmoh presents the completed Ottobock X-3 C-leg to Jared, it’s terrifying. He holds the long piece of engineering, sleek metal and hard plastic, a machine built to order to give him the chance to walk, to run, to be someone new.

Tahmoh teaches him how to attach it. Jared does nothing but sit there with it, getting used to the weight, to the way it curves around the socket of his lost limb, forming a new one.

It’s another two weeks before Jared attempts what he’s about to attempt. Two weeks of daily therapy, of learning how to put it on and how to clean it and how to limp along the parallel bars with Jensen and a sling holding him up. The first time he puts his body weight on it, he feels like he’s going to collapse.

But he doesn’t collapse. And he’s here now. Standing.

Tahmoh’s hands are on his waist from behind, steadying Jared’s body. He wobbles, unsteady on new, foreign feet. He’s a newborn, in every way imaginable, and suddenly all those same possibilities are before him.

Tahmoh takes his hands slowly off of Jared’s body. Jared’s standing, all by himself. He’s standing.

Breathe, Jared. Breathe.

Jared looks up at what is waiting for him a few feet away. Jensen smiles, just for him.

Jared takes the first step towards his future, knowing Jensen will be there to catch him when he falls.

EPILOGUE