He was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, because only in his dreams would he ever feel those long, strong fingers working the knots out of his back. Only in his dreams would he feel the solid body spoon behind him and loving arms snake around him to pull him in tightly, and only in his dreams would he feel the brush of soft lips on the back of his neck and the wash of the even, warm breath of a lover peacefully sleeping behind him. Yes, he knew he was dreaming, and he fought it when his dream started to fade and he began to wake. He lost that battle though, and woke to the smell of hospital antiseptic and the low beeping of equipment. There was a sharp twinge in his shoulder and he remembered being shot and he knew it would hurt like hell once the morphine wore off. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't alone in the room. He felt a strong hand on his and a coarse thumb gently stroking the inside of his wrist, feeling the beating pulse there. He raised his eyes and met haunted ones staring back at him, there were dark circles under them and deep, deep worry lines that he knew that he had caused. The eyes staring back at him were not the eyes of a worried teammate, or even a worried friend, no, they were the eyes of a scared lover, of someone terrified of losing him. His throat was too dry to talk, not that he would have been able to speak around the sudden lump in his throat anyway, so he let his lover know that he finally got it the only way he could, and with as much effort as he would have sworn it would have taken to move a mountain, he turned his hand over and let his own coarse thumb do some gentle stroking of its own.

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the end.