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The first thing that registers through the haze of pain is relief, pure relief at seeing him. Him, not Declan or the others, not the med evac, him.
"Will." It's not any less hoarse or pained than it had been when she had first reached him on the radio, but it sounds so much sweeter to her now as he kneels beside the battered van.
"We'll have you out in a second, Magnus." His hand reaches through the missing window and winds around hers. He's checking her pulse, two fingers pressed against her wrist, but she ignores that. The warmth of his skin against hers is enough to draw a faint smile to her lips.
He's true to his word. With Declan and his crew seeing to Kate and the others, Will and one of the staff members from the Asuncion Sanctuary ease her from the van. Will's stubborn about not letting her to her feet until someone's had a look at her. It takes the threat of a C-collar and board to make her comply as he hovers, keeping watch.
She can't see the others, but she can hear the frenzy that surrounds them, the yelling in mixed languages, the calls for more blood, the grunts and groans of pain, the counts to lift the stretchers from the rubble covered ground.
It's Declan that finally looks her over, hands gently prodding, nimble and efficient in their work. He backs up Will's worried frown with a firm assessment. "You'll need an MRI to check for internal bleeding, but I can't see anything that's imminently troublesome."
She's scrambling to her feet after that, deaf to her own hiss of pain as her rattled body is forced into motion. Will's at her elbow, urging her to take it easy for a moment longer, but she brushes them both aside.
Already Kate is gone, air lifted to the closest medical facility, her dear friend is being loaded into the second chopper headed for Asuncion. She slips into the final seat and presses her eyes shut against the sudden nausea that rises as they take off.
Will calls her from the hospital to let her know Kate's stable enough for surgery. She lets the call go to voicemail, preferring not to have to hear the worry in his voice directly. She’s too worn out to push away the guilt. Her feet itch, normally she would walk the halls, but she's too exhausted for that. Instead she settles into an agitated fiddling with what few possessions she has left in her room at the end of the residential corridor.
It's not long after he calls her that that she's notified he’s taken off and will be landing at the nearby airstrip within the hour. She'd been expecting Declan to be the one to leave Kate. She'd expected him to stay, to stand vigil beside Kate’s broken body. She presses a trembling hand to her eyes and tries not to think about what could be drawing him here instead.
Will looks worn, sleep deprived, and worried by the time he reaches her and she’s not entirely surprised that he begins shoving her bodily toward the medical bay without preamble.
"I should have damn well known you weren't going to listen." He mutters to himself as she protests weakly, stubbornly needing to hold onto whatever solid ground she can find. She may be exhausted, but that only allows for so much, substituting Will’s judgment, his feelings for her own isn’t one of them.
Her bandages are changed and the rest of the dirt cleaned from her skin until she reeks of antiseptic. It’s a tiresome process, one she finds tedious. She has her own shower she says, the argument continuing as Will helps her into a set of scrubs. She has perfectly good clothes, there's no need to molly coddle her. His eyes are sympathetic but she knows he’s not really listening as he pries her trembling hand through a sleeve.
Once she’s dressed he holds her hand insistently, ignoring her white-knuckled grip and dark stare as Jorge closes the gash in her arm with two rows of proper sutures. The MRI comes back clean although there are signs of bruised organs, indications that the pain she's feeling is only going to get worse once the adrenaline wears off.
Will doesn’t comment on that, he knows well enough that she can draw her own conclusions, but he is attempting to talk her into resting when they get the call that Kate's cleared to be airlifted to their facility. It's late and she's barely standing, trembling from the effort it's taken to stay awake this long. She leaves Will to wait in the medical bay, promising to take a break and surprising them both when her brief respite turns into an hour long nap, curled up on a wooden bench in the courtyard.
He wakes her gently with a hand brushed over her hair, an intimate gesture he wouldn't have attempted had she been awake. It’s hardly enough to disturb her but she starts upright as if he'd shouted at her. It’s disorientating, the heavy darkness and the warm light breeze. She knows it’s Will standing there, but the rest comes back to her in pieces.
It takes her a moment to orient herself, something that she can see worries him enough to push deep frowning creases up around his eyes. He’s worried, but she watches him brush it away without comment, lips pressed shut as he helps her to her feet.
There’s a silent wince there, invisible shards of glass digging into her joints, embedded in her spine and the soft skin of her feet. She aches, but she’s been through worse, whatever’s worrying him, it’s not her.
“Kate,” he swallows and shakes his head. “They need you in there.”
They both watch Kate die, twice she flatlines, Will stepping away from the blood and the gore as she works to bring her back. He seems so lost standing there, staring hopefully at the thin green line on the monitor.
His lips move silently as she works, pleading or praying she’s not sure but she’s glad he’s there. She’s still optimistic, she has to be, but hope and faith are beyond her now, cold realism and years of practice keeping her fingers moving and her mind sharp.
Will sighs, gaze narrowing for a moment and she wonders if he’s silently begging to save them all. This year has been a long one, trying and exhausting. Kate may be falling to pieces but she’s not the only one who needs saving. Will must know that. He’s too perceptive not to, and yet he stands there by her side, not begging or pleading, but hoping. She should see it as frivolous- this faith in something he can’t control, she’s no god- but he has faith in her and that more than anything keeps her standing.
The hours slip by and Kate stabilizes for the last time. There’s a rhythm to her work now, to the hum and the beeping of the machines. Will breathes a sight of relief and she smiles.
There are still rows of sutures to be made and miles of bandages to wind but with Kate out of the woods, Will steps away, ushering Declan into the room. He doesn’t make it far, stopping to collapse into a chair in the observation bay. He’s there but he’s not hovering. He’s not quite watching either, he’s too exhausted for that, but he stays.
That worries her, his refusal to leave as she breathes in the sharp smell of antiseptic and squints into blinding white lights. She knows the adrenaline is wearing off; she’s crumbling. She’s stubborn but there’s only so long before shear willpower isn’t enough. Will knows this and it irks her. He'd stayed to keep an eye on her but left so that Declan could take over, drive her out. She knows they both have that right, but it makes her stomach twist nonetheless.
She sways for a second, hand shaking and Declan brushes her aside: two hands on her shoulders and an order to get some rest.
They head back to Old City as soon as Declan clears her to fly. It’s a ridiculous notion, needing his permission to fly her own bloody plane, but one look in the mirror reminds her that the entire world can see how fragile she is, a power suit and a pair of heels can only hide so much.
The day after they land, she calls a staff meeting. Kate’s still unconscious, being monitored, watched over by one of them constantly. Her chair sits empty, but the rest of them are there, already back to work.
Will spends the most time beside Kate’s bed, sitting vigil with whatever volume he’s pulled from the library’s shelves. At first she thinks this, the constant waiting, the watching, is the reason for the dark weary look in his eyes but later one evening, when he shows up in her office, she realizes the look is for her.
He stands back silently, behind the row of chairs before her desk, fingers dancing nervously against the wood.
“I can’t make you get some rest.” He laments as he leaves and she breathes out in sad relief.
She knows this is the worst he’s ever seen her. Worse than those terrifying days when even she thought the radiation poisoning would be her end. Her bruises and abrasions are healing, and she’s able to move more freely, but her eyes are ringed in deep black, her gaze somewhat distracted, watching the light shift in only ways she can see.
Bolivia happens, another string of bad luck that fortunately turns out well despite the fact she comes home feeling edgy, her bones shivering under her skin. Will’s no worse for wear with the regime she’s devised but she still feels as if the water, that cursed, water has ripped something from her.
Will is as close to a model patient as she ever has, generally patient and good humored, but the bumps in his withdrawal, the peaks and the valleys, have worn away at this. He still smiles when she arrives, but when she shows up the second time- conscious of the fading pink lines on her face she had just covered over- he frowns.
He’s been complaining to Henry she knows, although Henry won’t breathe a word about what. It’s not his place he’d said firmly and she had let it drop, curious but wondering if perhaps it would be better not to know. She'd turned Will away, she’s not had a partner in anything since James and while he knows that, she knows her reject must hurt all the same. It had stung her, twisting a knot in her stomach. He smiles and she tries not to think of what lurks behind it.
“You look tired.” He reaches up, fingers brushing her cheek as she sits turned toward him on the bed.
She ignores the comment tugging his other hand into her lap, swiping at his elbow with an alcohol swab.
“I hate this, you know.” He continues the conversation without her and she nods once, briefly, not considering she might want to ask for clarification.
He winces almost imperceptibly as the needle breaks his skin, but it’s there and then it’s gone and she folds his arm up, fingertips lingering against his skin for a moment before she stands, setting the syringe back on the tray she'd carried in. When she turns back to him, smoothing out her skirt, he’s still watching her, not expectantly but with a measure of curiosity, innocent and open.
“Feeling better?” She knows that he is- his bruises are healing, and despite the fact he’s still seated in bed there’s evidence that he had been up, unpacking, occupying himself- but she wants to hear it from him.
He pats the bed, where she’d been seated, and she cautiously moves to retake her seat. Despite having no reason to, she does want to stay even if there is something flickering electric through the air the closer she gets to him.
“I’m fine.” His fingers brush her cheek again and she draws her bottom lip in to keep from wincing. She’s not looking at him, she’s watching the door, stubbornly turned away, at least that’s how she hopes he sees it because she’s slowly leaning into his touch, one muscle at a time releasing, shifting her closer. “Look at me, Magnus. Please.”
She does as she’s told, it seems impossible not to, but she also tries to slip to her feet, his hand sliding from her face to tug at her wrist. He doesn’t pull hard but she stumbles back, sitting hard against the bed, hand flying out to catch her. Her hand presses against the side of his thigh, her face turned toward his, as she retakes her seat with a startled gasp.
She’s not meeting his eye, there’s danger in that, so she studies his mouth instead, the tiny shifts that take him from startled to surprised, to pleased. He’s not quite smiling but the potential is there.
“You’re horrible at following directions.”
She smiles weakly at that because he’s not exactly wrong. She was fond of pushing back, particularly when it came to him. It had been unsettling in the beginning, this newfound stubbornness- the sudden weight she put behind someone else’s opinion- but after almost four years and the hundred and thirteen in between she’s come to appreciate that.
“I’m sorry.” She’s not sure what she’s apologizing for but it seems fitting now to say the words she had wanted so desperately for him to believe before. She was sorry. She should have never asked this of him, and yet she had.
The corners of his mouth turn down and she leans back to look at him expecting to see anger or frustration. Instead, he shakes his head and echoes, “you’re sorry.”
“Yes,” she’s not sure where the conviction comes from, but Will doesn’t seem surprised by it, his hand returning to her face, resting along her jaw, gently pressing her closer.
“It’s all right.” He says, his reply confusing her more than her own admission had. What? She wants to ask but instead she leans forward brushing her lips against his cheek, the corner of his smile under her more tentative one. Her thank you for whatever clemency it is he had granted her.
She hadn’t meant anything more by it, but as he leans to close the space between them she wonders if there isn’t more to it than that.
She feels his lips brush hers, just as lopsided as before, and then more firmly, the pressure sparking something within her, a lit fuse too close to a powder keg. She leans into him, the first of her tears falling silently, as she presses her face into the side of his neck.
She’s weary of showing this much emotion, of opening herself up, but the damage is already done. There’s no chance he’ll let her leave, not without an explanation and while she could pull away and leaving him sitting here bitter, she’s not willing to do that to him.
There had been a time when she wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but suddenly she’s buried in the fatigue that’s haunted her since Argentina. Her limbs are lead sinkers pulling her toward the bottom, toward him. It takes all her straight not to cling to him, but instead allow him to wrap his arms around her, cradle her against him, not quite holding her, but comforting her all the same.
“It’s all right.” He says again and she lets the words sit echoing in her ears. It hurts she wants to say, but like whatever ‘it’ is that’s all right, she’s not sure what ‘it’ is: everything, nothing. She shudders and curls her fingers toward her palms, still resisting.