The emergence of Jones and Diana on his visual field was what brought back Peter from the lethargy in which he was engulfed. The male agent handed him the keys of his car and Peter smiled for the first time in a long time. He could always count on his team, even in those small details that he even had no time to think of yet, as the fact that his car had been left at the scene and he had not even remembered its existence until this minute. Diana handed him a cup of coffee, sat down beside him on a chair in the waiting room and for a long time nobody said anything, another small gesture by which Peter was immensely grateful. But he knew they were as concerned as he was, with their lips tightened and frowns who spoke of the questions they did not know how to do. And what was worse, he didn't even have the answers.

"He is in surgery right now; it's all that doctors have said so far." He finally informed to his team. They were good kids; they deserved at least some response.

"But ... " Diana didn't dare to finish the question

"It's bad."- Peter didn't dare to finish the answer either. How to explain the moments of terror he had felt in the ambulance while Neal was choking on his own blood? When his heart had stopped beating and they had to revive him not once, but twice? His own mind was still struggling to understand the concept that Neal's lungs had basically blow up with the explosion and he had survived only thanks to a piece of metal shrapnel that had let the air out of his chest as help arrived. And that was only the most urgent concern, who knows how much hidden damage the bomb had provoked that was still on his body, who knows from what pain and fear Neal had asked Peter to protect him with such desperate hold onto his hand.

People always talk about the long hours waiting for someone to get out of surgery, but now, barely 24 hours later he could barely remember any of it and for what it's worth, it could have been 15 minutes or a couple of hours. Perhaps it had helped that the EMT had already called the hospital in advanced and the operation room was ready when the ambulance arrived and that they were received by an army of medics that worked on him all at the same time; or maybe it was that Peter had been on a daze, briefly interrupted by the arriving of his colleagues and his wife. On the other hand the head surgeon had explained to him that there wasn't much more to do by the moment than to stabilize Neal and that nothing that were not life threatening at the moment would be addressed later when he were stronger.

Stabilize. Peter was strongly starting to hate that word. And what was life threatening anyways? It's not that he could not understand the importance of breathing and keeping his heart beating, but doctors seemed to disregard that some of those things that they had left for later were as much of Neal's life like his heart. Peter had needed his entire FBI Agent mask when the doctor had called him to explain Neal's situation. They had been able to keep Neal's lung from collapsing completely, which by itself had been a whole battle, but the explosion had also affected all organs filled with air. While his intestines looked ok enough, his eardrums had ruptured and at least one of them would require surgery for repair. The burns of his face and hands were superficial for the most part, but the corneas had been burnt too and a specialist would take care of them as soon as possible. If that were not enough, Neal had landed hard on his back, no bones broken but a massive bruising and a brain a little swollen. When the doctor left with a hand shake and reassuring words Peter collapsed on the chair like if someone had kicked him on the gut. The thought of Neal laying on the ground, not only confused and in pain, but also deaf and blind… that thought had been so overwhelming that Peter had needed to go to the bathroom and retch for a whole minute before washing his face, comb his hair with the fingers and prepare Agent Burke to share the information with those gathered in the waiting room.

Peter had been told that Neal would be kept on an induced coma by the time being, the extent of the trauma too much to bear for the young man's body on his own. It was unnerving for the agent, for whom nothing would be right until his consultant talked to him and he saw him fidgeting with the switches and knobs of the machinery surrounding him. Doctors kept talking about taking one step at the time, to concentrate on vital functions, on blood results, on odd numbers, on gray shadows on films that only medics could see and basically on things that could be summarized on acronyms like EEG, ECG, MRI, USG, BP, HR and BR. They kept saying him to be optimistic, that this or that was improving or at least stable, but for Peter all of it was meaningless without Neal being… Neal. Like if the conman could be described on a few numbers and letters!

They would not let him stay with Neal on ICU. He could see him through the glass window, though, and from time to time a gentle nurse would let him in to hold his hands for a few minutes before they needed to clean something o change something or draw a sample or to take him somewhere to a test. Those short moments would relax him to no end, even when the sight of Neal with a tube getting out of his throat, even with the noise of the ventilator breathing for him, even with all the other tubes and wires and even with the bandage covering his eyes because Peter could now understand the importance of the physical contact to which his partner had desperately cling to and would himself close his eyes and rely on it for assurance. Sometimes he could feel, even through the bandages, a slight twitch of Neal's fingers. Perhaps induced coma or not, concussion or not his friend was there, somewhere, and he needed to let him know he was at his side.

*************************
For the most part, it was hard to tell if he was awake or not. If anything, there was more or less pain and the dreams would become more or less weird.

There was this dream that would repeat once and again where he was in a storm in the middle of the ocean, for most of time he was submerged in black waters, thick as petroleum and he couldn't move in the dense substance, too heavy for his arms and legs to swim on. He felt himself drowning, desperate for oxygen that wouldn't reach his lungs. In his nightmare he knew he couldn't breathe, but he never died, trapped in this eternal purgatory.

Sometimes he was able to reach the surface, but swimming was barely enough to keep his body out of the sea spray, the giant waves throwing his body against black rocks that shattered his bones and made Neal cry in pain, cries that nobody could ever hear under the lightning and thunder of the storm. But then, on those rare and terrorizing moments the lighting would draw a silhouette against the blackness. A shore, an island, a ship, Neal didn't know, but there was something to swim to.

"Honey" Elizabeth hugged Peter from behind and rested her chin against his shoulder. This was the first time she had came to the ICU floor and for a while couldn't say anything else, she needed some minutes to regroup after the sight of Neal's body. This wasn't going to be easy. "Hon, Peter, you need to rest, you have barely slept on the past two days."

"But…"

"He needs you, I know" Elle looked at him directly at the eyes "But he will need you even more when he awakes"

"What if he wakes up and he's alone?"

"He won't. The doctor told us they are going to keep him heavily sedated for at least 48 more hours. Use that time, charge your batteries, sleep, take a long bath and eat properly."

Peter looked for a long time at the figure lying in the bed on the other side of the glass. "He was so terrified…"

Elizabeth gently guided him to a chair and kneeled in front of him.

"Honey, everybody has a duty here. Nurses and doctors will make sure he heals; Clinton and Diana are already planning how to catch the bastard that did this; you will take care of Neal and I, I will take care of you." She stood up, with Peter's hand into hers. "Peter, you already heard the doctor, they had barely started to treat him; he doesn't need you to waste on the first three days"

"I guess you are right" Peter stood up and hugged his wife. "I'm going to say good-bye and then I'm leaving"

"It's ok, Hon."

"But I'm still coming to check on him first thing in the morning"

"Of course you are."

"I know, I know, it's a marathon, not a sprint"