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“Optimus, I really think you should wait; he’s still—”
“Which room, Jazz?”
“If you’d just listen to me, boss man, he—”
“Room.”
Jazz hesitated as Optimus paused, turning his undivided attention to his second in command. Optimus prided himself on his patience, but Ratchet had been missing for over a week, and now that he had been found, Optimus needed to be by his side. Jazz was the third in line to try to prevent this. Elita first, then Prowl, and now him. And Optimus did not have time for him.
“Nineteen eighty-six.”
“Thank you.”
Optimus began moving in the direction of his medic's room, hell-bent on seeing him with his own optics to confirm his well-being.
“OP, we don’t know what happened yet,” Jazz called after him, undeterred by the Prime’s disregard of him. “He may want time before seeing you!”
Optimus didn’t dignify that with a response. He was outside the room in under five minutes, where he watched in dawning horror as at least three medics moved in and out at various rapid paces. The only medic who was unmoving was a familiar face, sitting on the bench across from where Ratchet was being treated.
“First Aid?”
There was a second of lag before Aid’s helm snapped towards Optimus, standing in an instant. Despite his attempt to hide it, the Prime caught the shine of tears in his visor before he could wipe them away.
“S-sir.”
“What happened?”
Optimus knew that question sounded much more like a threat than he would’ve liked, but another medic had joined the three, and he needed answers. Aid had gone missing at the same time as Ratchet, and that wasn’t a coincidence. His soldiers provided no clues—nothing but the tale of the remnants of a dead mech, a lab covered in energon, and two medics; one conscious and one not. And most importantly, an absent perpetrator.
“He—he killed Ambulon, Primus—”
“Who killed him?”
“Ratchet tried, h-he tried as best he could, but—”
“First Aid.”
Optimus took Aid’s shoulders in his servos, forcing him to turn away from the door to Ratchet’s room. The bot looked so young, choking on terror and half-finished sentences. His servos trembled, and someone's energon was sprayed all over his front. He just shook his helm, staring past Optimus, visor locked in a hundred-klik stare.
“First Aid, please, I need to know who did this to you all.”
With those words, Aid’s focus returned to the Prime, reaching up to take one of the servos on his shoulder in his own. Shame bled past his mask and leaked into his voice as he stammered out the name.
“P-Pharma.”
Optimus reared back. He was expecting a high-ranking Decepticon, maybe a battalion or neutral squad looking for some credits—but an Autobot? Not only that, one of the Autobots’ best medics: a medic Ratchet trained and forged into something great. Aid didn’t let go, holding tight as the Prime took a step away.
If it were any other mech, Optimus wouldn’t have believed them. But First Aid shook in his servos, and a mech in the state he was in would struggle to deceive a Prime.
“Optimus—Optimus, he took him apart,” Aid whispered, the tremors growing worse and his focus lost. “He—he took his s-spark and head o-off his frame, oh Primus—”
Optimus couldn’t react as Aid freed himself from his grip and ran to a waste basket, removing his mask for the first time in the Prime’s presence and purging. Optimus just stood there, frozen, optics drifting to that fourth medic running in and out of the room.
He was being pulled apart, and I didn’t even know he was gone.
Ratchet had been taken in the middle of a multi-week battle. Optimus hardly had time to vent, much less do a helm count. Once it was over (a stalemate, because every damn battle was a stalemate now), one of the field medics had mentioned how no one had seen the CMO in at least three days. Optimus spent two days with a familiar dread that Ratchet lay with the many corpses, but after a thorough check, he was not amongst them.
By the time Optimus had sent soldiers to find him, he had already been in the hands of his captor for five days. It took six more to find him. He was in that monster’s clutches for eleven days and ten nights.
He couldn’t wait any longer.
He left Aid to recover and moved towards the door. One of the medics made an attempt to stop him before realizing who he was, then stepped aside to allow his passage. Optimus entered with blurred vision and ringing audials, both desperate and terrified to see what had happened to his most beloved friend while Optimus wasn’t looking. He stepped to the wall furthest from the berth, allowing room for the doctors to come in and out easily, keeping his optics off the mech they were working on. He wanted to see. He didn’t want to see. Was he still venting? Everything was too loud and too quiet and no one was scoffing or laughing and the medical suite felt empty without him working in it.
He needed to see him.
His optics were on him before his frame gave permission for him to look up. Before his helm could process what he was seeing. No—no, he was processing it. It just didn’t make sense. First Aid said—
Ratchet was whole. Wonderfully, completely whole.
From a distance, it looked as though nothing had happened to him. Certainly not enough to explain the urgency of the doctors around his recharging form. He looked like he normally did—like he hadn’t slept in a month, but that was as normal as he could be. Optimus scanned him over from his perspective, but he seemed fine. There was a shake in his vents and his face was pinched, but he hardly seemed in pieces.
He was moving forward before he knew it, looming over the doctors as they barked orders to each other. He followed their gazes, trying to see what they did. He had almost given up by the time he spotted them, hidden under his heavy plating and armor.
Thin lines in his protoform, at his joints. His neck, his elbows, his knees. Darkened mesh where it should be even-colored. It was clean and neat, imperceptible from a distance, but glaring up close. His stupor ended once a medic shoved him back, uninterested in his status or relation to the mech on the berth.
“Sir, you shouldn’t be here,” they said, servo on his chest.
“He- is he—”
“He will be fine, but we need to make sure he stays that way, so you need to leave.”
Optimus tore his optics off his medic and set them onto this medic, who stared him down with a gaze so fierce it could have been mistaken for Ratchet’s. Their contest only lasted for a moment before Optimus removed himself from the room, sparing one last look for Ratchet as he went. Something was wrong; if he could just place it—
He only realized it once he was out the door and back in the hall.
Optimus had never seen Ratchet in so much pain that it showed on his face before.
The joors ticked by in agonizing slowness. Optimus couldn’t be bothered to lift his helm.
He had taken a seat on the bench across his medic’s room, hunched over with his servos intertwined as he waited for something to change. First Aid had been taken to another room a while ago, where no doubt a medic and psychiatrist waited to tend to him. Since then, several of his lieutenants had come by—trying to convince him to leave, or asking how he was doing, or just sitting with him for a bit in silence before they inevitably had better things to do (those were his best lieutenants, and they knew it). The rush of medics had ebbed; only one remained to care for the CMO, the one who had ushered him out when he had first arrived. They were calm, which gave Optimus hope, but he knew better than to rely on the attitude of the medics. Ratchet seldom let his anxieties show on his face. The hall had slowed to a standstill, leaving Optimus alone with his sinking guilt. How could he not have noticed? In his youth, he used to notice every time Ratchet left the room, then counted down the nanokliks until his return. Now, apparently, Optimus could go without hearing his voice for days on end. When had that changed? When had they changed?
When had he forgotten Ratchet’s favorite color?
“Sir?”
His helm snapped up, a whirlwind of emotions pooling into his tanks. The medic stood in the open doorway, watching him.
“He’s awake. You can see him now.”
They were already walking down the hall by the time Optimus dragged the ‘thank you’ from his throat. The door remained open.
Optimus didn’t know why he was hesitating. Just joors ago, he was practically clawing his way into the room, ready to trample well-meaning medics just to get in—and now he couldn’t get his pedes to move? He was, in every sense of the word, a coward.
He’s alone in there.
And then he was moving, guilt be damned.
Optimus entered in a single sweeping step, and promptly witnessed Ratchet attempting to break out.
“Ratchet, get back in the berth.”
“I’m fine! Where’s Aid, I need to—” Ratchet hissed in pain, cutting himself off as he tried to rip his IV out. The Prime crossed the room in a second, taking Ratchet’s arm as gingerly as he dared to prevent such action.
“Ratchet—”
“No, you don’t understand, I need—”
“Old friend, please.”
The crack in his even tone surprised them both, stunning Ratchet into stillness. It only lasted a second, however, before he muffled a cry and stumbled.
Optimus was there in an instant, throwing an arm under his chest to hold him up. Ratchet didn’t resist the hold as he regained his composure. He was trembling in Optimus’ servos, venting hard while regaining his balance.
“Please get back in the berth,” he said, as soft as he could. Ratchet threw a glare his way, but did not fight as Optimus moved him back onto the cot. His plating creaked as he shifted back into a recline, slow and steady.
“There,” he said once he was done, “happy?”
Optimus hummed, drawing his servos away like they were burning. Ratchet watched him as he took a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it to his berthside, taking a seat with a long-suffering sigh. The medic pressed his optics closed, grunting as another wave of pain appeared to strike without warning.
“Do you need anything?” Optimus asked, giving the IV a once-over to make sure it was still delivering medication.
“I’m fine. Stop asking.”
Optimus nodded, hanging his helm. A weighted silence fell over the room. The Prime half expected Ratchet to pull out one of his blades and cut it. The sudden stillness of the air did nothing to placate the desire to shy away from yet another one of his failures.
A soft announcement he couldn’t quite make out rang over the PA in the hall, reminding him the world hadn’t ended quite yet. He had time to make up for it.
“Why are you still here?”
Raising his helm, he stared at Ratchet incredulously. He had turned away from him, leaving the Prime clueless as to the look on his face. He couldn’t imagine how wide his own optics were opened with those words—quick, sharp words that his processor couldn’t quite grasp.
“D-do you want me to go?”
“You have more important things to do than worry over an old medic.”
“No, I don’t.”
Ratchet swerved back to him, indignation clear on his face. He scanned Optimus for any sign of deception, but there was none to be found. Optimus, with all his processing power, could think of nothing more important than sitting in this horrible chair in room nineteen eighty-six.
After a few moments more, the rage bled out of him, and he finally allowed his frame to sag into the white fabric. For the first time in Optimus’ life, he saw tears slip down his medic’s faceplates. He’d heard sobs behind closed doors, seen the remnants of sorrow in energon-shot optics—but never had he been allowed to witness Ratchet’s agony directly. He wasn’t thinking when he dug his servo between his medic’s helm and fabric, cupping his face and wiping the tears away.
“I-I couldn’t—there was nothing I could—”
Optimus found himself hushing Ratchet, attempting to silence the voices no doubt ringing in his helm. He had seen the pictures. No medic could have saved the dead mech he saw; he was certain of it. There was truly nothing more to be done. It blew him away that Ratchet had been torn apart, and he still could think only of the mech he couldn’t save. It was devastating and sparkwarming at the same time.
The room remained quiet for some time, save for Ratchet’s muted sobs. He let Optimus’ servo stay where it was and let his cracks show. It was a display foreign to him. Ratchet was kind and caring in a way few bots were, but he was stubborn to a fault and rarely allowed his pain, physical or otherwise, to be seen by others. Optimus felt like an intruder in his medic’s psyche.
“He won’t get away with this,” Optimus swore, his voice heavy with the weight of a command. Elita One had been one of the mechs to come by when he was waiting in the hall, and he trusted her implicitly to follow his whispered orders. (“Find Pharma. Kill him if you must. If you don’t, bring him to me and I will.”)
Optimus was a forgiving mech. He made sure the Autobots had no squad even remotely similar to the DJD, and he was more than welcoming to former Decepticons desperate to change their ways. But he knew himself well enough to know that the moment his optics fell upon Pharma’s frame, he would not stop swinging until the mech was dead and gone.
The Prime could not heal Ratchet’s wounds—but he could end the monster who made them. That would have to be enough.
By the time Ratchet had collected himself, there was a knock on the door. Optimus swiftly removed his servo from his medic’s cheek and straightened himself as First Aid entered. Even through the visor, the relief on his face was palpable.
“Primus, Ratchet—” he was on him in an instant, wrapping his arms around Ratchet’s neck while still hovering, taking care not to agitate any of his injuries. The medic reached up and pulled his student closer, burying his helm into his shoulder and releasing a shaky sigh.
“You okay, kid?”
“Damn it, Ratch, I’m fine! It’s not me—” he cut himself off, exventing and holding on just a little bit tighter. Once again, the Prime felt like this wasn’t something he should be privy to and stood.
“Please stay, Optimus,” he said, not looking up.
And so he did. The two doctors talked for a while, quiet mutterings of apologies and sympathies. The dead mech, Ambulon, was one they would both be mourning for many years to come. Optimus couldn’t say he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting him, but from the soft stories and shared laughter they exchanged over his life, the Prime was confident he would have enjoyed his company.
The two must have told each other ‘it wasn’t your fault’ over a dozen times, with neither of them believing a word of it. It seemed Ratchet not only passed on his medical knowledge to his students, but his stubborn guilt as well.
Optimus did not know why he was still here. When they said their goodbyes (because a nurse had called for Aid four times and a fifth would not be tolerated), Aid bowed his helm in his direction as a thank you. Stunned, the Prime said nothing in reply as he left the room, leaving the two friends alone. Of all mechs, First Aid should be furious with him. Pits, he was still expecting Ratchet to start yelling at him any second. He had failed them when they needed him most, too distracted bringing a battle to a damn draw. No ground lost or gained, nothing changing but the countless lives they had sacrificed for that ground.
And whilst nothing changed, Ratchet and First Aid’s lives did. He could hear it in their voices, see it in their optics. These eleven days would reshape them, for better or for worse. And Optimus didn’t know they were gone until some stranger had told him so.
It wasn’t just his students. Ratchet’s propensity for guilt had begun to suffocate Optimus, as well.
Ratchet watched the door for a spell, dissociating or grieving or something. Optimus didn’t dare speak or raise his helm. Eventually, Ratchet reclined, sighing with a wince.
“I knew something was off.”
The Prime looked up, watching Ratchet’s gaze turn vacant as he stared up at the ceiling. “But he was brilliant. He was so brilliant that when I saw the signs, I turned away. We needed someone brilliant.”
Optimus shifted forward, hanging on every word. His medic held out his servo without shifting his attention, and Prime took it in both of his own.
“Is this how you felt?” his stare finally moving to meet his leader’s, a fine shine dancing over his widened optics. He shook his helm ever so slightly, his disbelief warring with his own memory. “Watching him become something you couldn’t recognize.”
Suddenly, Optimus was back in the grandest halls of Iacon, chasing after a mech he used to understand like his spark was his own, desperate to find any hint of him left in the ruby-tinted glow. And the worst part was he was still there, it was still him, and the crushing realization that maybe that was always him left the archivist without air and without hope. Suddenly, Orion was thinking that maybe he did recognize him, and that was a notion far more terrifying than the idea that the friend before him was a changed mech who knew of no solution but war.
Optimus squeezed his servo just a bit tighter.
“I pray to Primus you never feel as I do, Ratchet,” he whispered, adding to his personal graveyard of derelictions. “His betrayal was a burden no one should be forced to bear.”
Ratchet searched for something on his face before relenting with grim acceptance and allowing his optics to drift back to the ceiling. He drew his servo from the Prime’s grasp and laid it over his chest. Something told Optimus that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. A beat and a shaking exvent later, he spoke with a finality that chilled Optimus to the protoform.
“No more students.”
Optimus wanted to argue. Ratchet’s expertise was a blessing, and the entirety of the Autobots benefited from that expertise being shared with other medics. Ratchet had reared dozens by now, and most lived to carry out their duties. None could match him, but they could come close, and that was really all they needed. A future without a generation of medics educated by Ratchet was a grim one. Not to mention the thought of Ratchet never teaching again was as personally devastating as it was professional. To watch the medic teach and see the mechs grow under his tutelage was a gift. His soft smile when he watched them graduate, become better and brighter, and save lives almost as well as he could was reward enough to the Prime.
But Optimus also understood. He spent years after the meeting static, loathsome at the idea of ever trusting again. He refused to talk to anyone but the mechs he knew, the bots he thought he could trust, but then again, what did he know? He stalled becoming an official Prime as long as he could, unwilling to risk the chance that Megatronus might return to Orion, only to find him in his place. Besides, Optimus didn’t want to fight with Ratchet. Not while he lay in a hospital berth, beaten and betrayed. So he nodded, focusing on the ground beneath him.
“And don’t ask me.”
Optimus looked up, a quizzical expression crossing his face before he could stamp it out. Ratchet noticed it, then turned away again.
“Please don’t- don’t ask me what he did,” he whispered, soft as a breeze but punching like a gunshot.
Optimus wasn’t going to. Aid had let enough slip—he assumed the more he learned, the more he’d want Pharma’s helm on a spike. But there was something in the way his medic’s voice cracked, the way he shied away from him, that made Optimus want to know every detail so he could have someone inflict the same pain on him he had inflicted on Ratchet. Optimus Prime was not supposed to hate, but there was no other word to describe his vengeful desire.
He was unconscious of his servos’ movements, as they flexed in and out as though to squeeze an invisible throat.
“Of course.”
Ratchet remained still. Optimus had no idea what compelled him, but he stood up and sat on the edge of the berth, careful to telegraph his movements before laying a servo on his medic’s shoulder. He faced away from Ratchet, staring at an empty wall, afraid this may have been a step too close.
“I—”
Primus, when was the last time Optimus couldn’t find the words? In his mind, he had started a dozen sentences, ranging from begging for forgiveness to swearing to wipe Pharma’s name from every reference in history. None of that was what he needed to say. Empty platitudes did nothing for Ratchet. And the truth was what he needed to say—what he was desperate to say—revealed too much.
I should never have left your side.
A life without you is one I couldn’t bear living.
I love you and Primus, you can never, ever, know.
I missed you dearly, old friend. I pray one day you will forgive me for letting this happen.
Wrapt in his own misery, Optimus didn’t notice Ratchet’s expression until his servo moved to cover his own. Angry shock, almost fury, burned in his optics.
“You did not ‘let’ anything happen.”
Optimus felt a terror creep into his circuits. He couldn’t have said it aloud. It was too much; it gave him away. He felt Ratchet clutch his servo a little tighter.
“There was nothing you could have done that would have changed anything.”
“Ratchet, I—”
“He was desperate,” Ratchet continued, unmarred by Optimus’ shift to face him and his attempt at explanation. “He would have found a way to take me no matter what it took. There was nothing you could have done.”
And what could he say to that? He could argue and lose, or surrender and still lose.
But Ratchet was wrong. His brilliant, unimaginably clever medic was wrong. If he had been there, if he had even noticed—something would have been different. He wouldn’t be tearing his optics away from the even slices just under his joints, wondering if Pharma had even bothered to turn off his pain receptors. He could have done something.
“I know you don’t believe me, so I’m just going to keep saying it until you do,” he said, sitting up. The Prime attempted to ease him back down, but true to his nature, Ratchet was unrelenting.
Releasing his servo, he took Optimus’ face in both of his palms, forcing him to stare straight at him.
“I blame you for nothing.”
A truth.
“I will be okay.”
A lie.
“I’m still here.”
A truth.
“There was nothing you could have done.”
… A truth.
Ratchet, steady as ever, brushed a digit over his cheek, almost as though—
Oh. Optimus Prime was crying.
It wasn’t dramatic or crippling. He wasn’t even making a sound. All it was was a few stray tears running away from him, recklessly leaving him to fend for himself. Optimus wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t caught his own reflection in his medic’s optics. When had they drawn so close that Optimus could make his own face out? He didn’t know, and he knew deep down he didn’t care.
He practically collapsed into Ratchet’s hold, turning into the touch as he guided the Prime’s helm onto his shoulder. The silent weeping continued as he placed his servo over his finials, brushing softly like a mech comforting a sparkling. Optimus didn’t know where to put his own servos, trembling as they were. The silence was warm, then. A wave of relief that hadn’t quite hit the Prime yet had finally crashed into its target. Ratchet was here. Ratchet was alive.
Six days of not knowing. Six days of wondering if Optimus Prime was truly going to be alone forever.
And now the warmth.
All that remained of them was raked over the finials of a long-gone Prime, bowing at the altar of his doctor. Of his greatest and oldest friend.
They both knew, he realized. They both could do nothing, he realized as well. And no matter how desperately they both wanted to forget the last eleven days, they both understood that they would remain with them for the span of their lifetimes.
The Prime granted himself a small indulgence after several hours of simply holding his medic to ensure his pulse still thrummed. Ratchet sent a message to his attending medic to not disturb them that night, that they may return in the morning, but not a moment sooner. And with that confirmation, Optimus slotted himself next to the medic on the berth that could barely fit both of them. The sheets under them were awful, cheap things to be discarded when the patient leaves, and the berth itself was nothing but a slab. The Prime had been accustomed to recharging on the ground in wartime, but on any other night, he would likely take the ground over whatever this sorry excuse for a cot was.
But not tonight. Not when today was going to be the last chance in Primus knew how many years that Optimus could hold his medic close to his chest, and remind himself how to recognize when Ratchet left a room. Ratchet drifted quickly, the painkillers working wonders, and Optimus could put his arm under his helm and watch him sleep, ready to wake him before the nightmares grew memorable.
Optimus received a comm from Elita about seven hours later. Pharma was dead. He wished it made him feel better—wished when he told Ratchet after he woke that he would be relieved rather than as devastated as Optimus knew he would be in reality. After all, Pharma was brilliant, a loyal Autobot, and now he was dead. Optimus also wished he felt more torn up about essentially ordering a hit, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be the better mech right now.
He was gone before the sun rose. Gone before he and Ratchet could consider doing something stupid and reckless that would get them both killed before the end of the year, but damn it if it wouldn’t be the best year of both of their lives.
He was going before his processor could ponder if he could one day fall asleep in Ratchet’s arms, on a peaceful Cybertron or a ship somewhere far away from the wartorn one.
When he passed Jazz on his way out, his SIC gave him a sorrowful look—an apology and an accusation wrapped in one glance. Jazz was so much damn smarter than anyone ever gave him credit for.
“Watch over him,” he ordered.
“Sure you don’t wanna be the one doing that?”
Optimus stopped without turning around, where Jazz undoubtedly stared him down.
“You know I can’t.”
A beat later, and he continued his march out of the hospital, hearing a muttered “says fraggin’ who?” behind him. But with no further comment nor an attempt to interrupt his stride, the Prime stepped into open air and released a shaky sigh.
Cybertron was never still anymore. It raged, like Primus himself felt a personal slight from his creations. It burned, it broke, it bled. Every day, it felt like another energon well dried up, or another city was razed to the ground.
The Prime could hear gunfire in the distance. Echoing, even in the momentary official stalemate. He was drawn to it—a glutton for punishment. He wanted to go; he needed to go. It was his duty.
His duty, which left his medic in the clutches of his torturer. The fate of a Prime was a cruel one. Alpha Trion minced no words: “The savior of many must become the forsaker of the few”.
He hated it. He hated leaving behind the ones he cared about the most in a pointless attempt to save everyone else. He hated having to leave before the sun rose. He hated Megatron and his aimless war and Pharma and his despicable actions and himself for hating mechs when he was supposed to care for everyone.
He wanted to be selfish, and for once, not feel like a failure for doing so.
Optimus didn’t know when he had wrapped his arms around himself, holding on so tight he wondered if he was denting. He wanted to hold him. He wanted to be the mech Ratchet ran to in the middle of the night when he awoke with images of Pharma plaguing him, and wanted to protect him with all the force he used to protect the Allspark.
He wanted to remember his favorite color again—what kind of music he liked, what books he loved to read. But at some point, he had forgotten—to make room for all the war plans and battle tactics that demanded space in his processor.
He wanted to love him, openly and without restraint.
But Optimus had forgotten what it felt like to count down the seconds waiting for his medic to return to him. How could he claim to love him, having lost that?
Optimus crouched down, pressing both servos to his face. An unbecoming display, but damn it if he cared in the moment. He tried to remember. He forced out tactics and memories of negotiations and the mounds of frames he had picked through, thanking Primus every time he saw no white or orange.
And suddenly, it was back, like a flash of lightning had struck him.
“It’s not orange? Really?” Orion asked, doubtful.
“I’m telling you it’s blue,” Ratchet said, laughing as they strolled through the Iacon Gardens on their way to their respective jobs. “I just like it more.”
“Then why…?” Orion gestured to Ratchet’s paint job, a mix of dark greys, oranges, and whites.
“Eh, it looks better on you.”
The archivist paused, waiting for him to realize. Ratchet did a second later, optics widening.
“Oh?” Orion grinned, crossing his arms and raising his optical ridge up and down.
“Shut up.”
He, in fact, did not shut up and teased him about it the whole way there. He could tell that Ratchet was really struggling to pretend to be mad.
“Blue,” he found himself whispering, optics fluttering open with the realization. “He likes my blue.”
He still couldn’t remember the music or the feeling of his absence—but he knew the color. His color, one of the few things about the archivist that hadn’t changed. Optimus gave up on crouching and allowed himself to collapse onto his knees, staring up at the ash coating the sky as it flickered with the color of energon, reflecting the explosions that ignited underneath it.
He had to go. They needed him.
He stood begrudgingly, glancing back at the hospital behind him like Ratchet would follow him out of there any second now. When he didn’t, the Prime simply transformed and began driving in the direction of the shots—hoping to clear the air enough for at least some sunlight to poke through the gaps and wake the medic gently.
One day, he thought.
One day, I’ll stay until the sun rises.