Pain. Pain was the only thing I could think of, the only thing I could feel. It was nothing like I've ever felt before. It was coming from every part of my body. There was no escape to it, nothing I could do to avoid the feeling. I couldn't even open my eyes, or yell out for help. It was just too all consuming. Pain was the only thing I could feel for so long that I wanted to die. I just wanted it to end. This pain, it was too much. I was ready to go to not feel it anymore. I said my peace. Morgan knows how much I love her, I used my final moments to protect her from the blast. My team will get out and get home safely with all of the maps I've put together for them, they will be fine. We completed our mission here. All of the civilians in the bunker are safe and on there way to freedom. I've done my duty, I owe nothing else, I just want this pain to end, I want to be at peace.

But it didn't. The pain continued. As time went on, the searing white hot pain started to lose it's strength. There was no sense of time here, I had no way of measuring how long it has been since the blast in the plant. All I knew was that finally, there was no more pain and I could finally rest. Was this finally the end? Was I about to be reunited with my dad?

My thoughts finally drifted from just pain to what remained. I could start to feel my body again, but everything was so hazy and numb, I couldn't tell what's real. It felt like I was in a fog. But somehow, I managed to open my eyes. Everything was dark. I couldn't really move my head much but I saw someone sitting next to me. When I tried to move my arm, I realized I couldn't. As I tried again, pain broke through the fog in my head and I cried out. The person sitting in the chair snapped up to look at me. Shock was written all over there face as I tried to get my eyes focus on them.

They moved closer to me and that's when I realized it was Major Collins. Her face is wet from tears as she carefully placed her hand on my cheek. Her lips were moving but it was hard to hear what she was saying. It felt like I was underwater because I couldn't understand the words coming out of her mouth. My ears were ringing and I couldn't shake my head to try and clear it. Before I could try and put together any words she pulled my chin to focus on a piece of paper in her hands. You're in a hospital in Germany recovering. It took a little while for me to process the words that were written down. What am I doing in Germany? How did I get here? What is going on? I didn't understand, couldn't understand. All the thinking was too much for my brain and body to handle and before I knew it, I was out again.

Waking up left me with more questions then answers but I couldn't focus on them as the pain was back, overbearing and all encompassing. My thoughts went back to wanting to die. If this is going to be my new reality, I wanted it to end because I couldn't take this pain. The fog in my brain continued. Whenever I felt like I was able to get a few moments of clarity, I tried to reason with myself and said this would only be temporary. I'm in a hospital somewhere so doctors must have me hooked me up to the strongest drugs they have. Then the next thought that would come through my brain were that I couldn't feel my body. Then my thoughts would spiral from there, thinking I was now a quadriplegic or I was going to eventually wake up without limbs. All those thoughts did was make me panic and I tried to push them out of my brain as soon as they arose but it was hard as there was nothing else for me to do. I wouldn't know what actually happened until I was able to be awake for more then a few minutes.

By some miracle, eventually the fog started to lift again. This time things felt more solid, less underwater. I could feel my arms and hands. It took a little bit of trying but I was able to feel my legs and feet. That's good, at least I'm not paralyzed and I came home with all of my limbs still attached and functioning. That's when I opened my eyes again. My vision was clearer this time. Things were foggy but once I blinked a few times, I was able to take in the room. Major Collins was once again sitting in the chair next to my bed.

What shocked me though is that she wasn't in uniform. Right now she is wearing a simple pair of jeans and an Army sweatshirt and a pair of converse which are resting on the edge of my bed. It made me smile to see her comfortable, the always so straight laced Major in street casual clothes was a sight to see. It took a few seconds for me to feel my hands and arms again. Once I shook the numbness out of my hand I use the little bit of strength I had to push her shoes off my bed. Once they dropped to the floor, Annabelle shot upright and found me looking back at her.

"I like your look." I tried to say but it came out so rough and slurred it made me question if I actually said it out loud.

"Easy Daniella, your throat is going to be sore for a while." Major Collins said moving closer to me.

"What happened Annabelle?" I asked looking around the room trying to gage where I am.

"You're in the hospital in Ramstein Germany. It's been ten days since the mission ended. What do you remember?" Major Collins asked. I could vaguely remember waking up in the hospital once before and she showed me a sign that said I was in Germany. She helped me eat a few ice chips as I tried to piece together what I remembered. The ice helped sooth my aching throat but I knew the ache will be there for a while.

"How did I get to Germany? Last I remember, I was in Ukraine." I said slowly and coughed as it still hurt to talk. Before Annabelle could answer the door opened and someone walked over to my bed.

"It's really good to see you awake and alert Staff Sergeant. My name is doctor Shannon Mayfield, you've been in my care since you landed in Poland. If it is okay with you, I would like to run through a few tests to rule some things out." The doctor said. I just nodded at the doctor, who's name I already forgot, and watched her moved away from the bed for a few moments. She came back with gloves on her hands and placed a tablet down onto the nightstand I had no idea was there.

"Okay I'm just going to ask you some basic questions, first, can you tell me your full name and your birthday?" The doctor asked.

"Daniella Maeve Donovan, May 22, 1993." I answered automatically.

"Very good, can you tell me who the current president of the United States is?" Was the next question she had for me.

"Joe Biden." I answer.

"Good, I want you to remember these three words for me, bear, jet, and ball okay. Now I want you to squeeze my hands with yours as hard as you can." The doctor said and all of a sudden, her hands were in mine. It took a few second to realize I could move my hands and then I gave her hands a squeeze. The texture of her gloves wasn't appealing but I just focused on making sure to use my hands.

"Good, now I'm going to poke your feet, I just want you to tell me which one I am poking and where you feel it okay?" The doctor asked and moved down towards my feet. She lifted the blankets and I couldn't help but smile when I saw my feet in the typical hospital socks. The doctor pulled my socks off and I could feel the cold air of the room on my feet.

"Eyes on the ceiling Daniella, no cheating." The doctor said as she pulled something out of her pocket.

"You're no fun." I said but cast my gaze to the ceiling. All of a sudden, I felt pressure on the underside of my foot and I tried not to jump.

"Under my left foot." I said and the feeling disappeared. Before I could think to much about it, I felt pressure on the top of my right foot now.

"On top of my right foot." I said and found the doctors eyes.

"Very good, can you wiggle your toes for me?" The doctor asked and I couldn't help but smile a little and I moved my toes around. The doctor closed her hands on my feet to stop me before she put the socks back on my feet and pulled the blankets back down. When she was done, she pulled her gloves off before throwing them away and picked up her tablet.

"Can you tell me the three words I asked you to remember?" The doctor asked and then looked up at me.

My mind went completely blank. What words? When did she ask me to remember words? I tried to not let the panic show on my face but when I heard the beeping of the heart monitor pick up dramatically, I knew I couldn't lie and get away with it right now.

"I don't remember them." I finally admitted.

"Hey, that's okay, do you remember my name?" She asked and again I was drawing a blank.

"No" I said wanting to escape this conversation.

"It's okay Daniella. You went through a traumatic event and you were put into a medically induced coma to help you recover from that trauma. For now, it seems like it could be effecting your short term memory. While I do think it also has something to do with all of the medications you are on and that you just woke up, we will monitor it and move forward with your treatment plan. I'm going to give you some time to process this and will be back in a little bit to give you some more oversight on how you are medically." The doctor said and then took her leave.

It took a few minutes to process everything the doctor said and the once I did, it took longer for the words to sink in. My mind feels like its in a blender right now trying to figure out what is going on. Finally I looked over to my left and realized Annabelle is still in the room. Her face is expressionless so I can't really tell what she is thinking.

"How did I get here?" I asked her.

"While you were holding off the Russian soldiers, they fired an RPG. It hit close to your position and you were severely injured. You were airlifted to a hospital in Poland for immediate medical attention. Once your condition stabilized enough, you were flown here to Ramstein to receive additional care." Annabelle answered.

"I, I" I started but stopped as too many thoughts raced through my mind. They were all demanding my attention and I was having a hard time focusing on just one.

"Daniella, it's okay, we will talk about this more later, I just want you to rest a little bit now. This past half an hour has been a lot. Everything is okay, you're okay, we got you." Annabelle said and gave my hand a squeeze. I didn't even realize she took my hand. I just held onto her hand tightly for a few seconds before the world tilted and once again I was sleeping.

I couldn't tell how long I was asleep for when I woke up again. The sun was shining brightly through the half closed blinds as I slowly started to wake up. When I looked around the room, Annabella was sitting in the same chair she was last time I saw her, though this time she is wearing her uniform. It must have been a different day. I tried to move my body around a little bit as my chest was sore and uncomfortable but moving just a little bit brought an immense amount of pain through my chest that I couldn't move.

I mumbled out a curse word as I tried to breath through the pain but it wasn't working and I felt like my chest was splitting in half.

"Daniella, look at me, where does it hurt?" When I opened my eyes I saw the doctor from the other day standing in front of me again.

"Chest, chest" I said and tried to point to my chest but I wasn't sure if I was even moving my arms right now.

"I'm giving you some pain medication, it's going to take a minute to kick in so I want you to focus on me because we are going to go over everything else that happened to your body during the explosion." The doctor said and I watched as she handed off a needle to someone behind her. I don't know why that action kick started my brain but once it did, everything started coming flying out of my mouth.

"My team, where's my team? Annabelle where's Morgan? How's Morgan? No." I said and looked down at my hands expecting to see her blood still on them but they were clean. Almost too clean. Did my brain just make that up? No, it wouldn't be that cruel.

"Gold team is fine Daniella, they got out of Ukraine shortly after you were airlifted. From what I know, Morgan had surgery to repair some minor damage in her shoulder and she was released from the hospital in Poland a few days later. Alpha, Bravo and Gold team are all here in Germany conducing their debriefings. They are all okay, just like you are." Annabella said and suddenly her head appeared in my field of vision and I was able to calm down a little bit.

"Annabelle, I need to see them." I said wanting to get up and move but I knew that would only cause me more pain and I let out a frustrated groan as I balled up my fist and hit the bed rail.

"You can after the doctor clears you to do so Daniella. Right now you need to calm down and let her do her job to help you." Annabelle said and quickly put her hand over mine to stop me from hitting the bed rail again.

It took another few moments for me to calm down enough to let the tension out of my upper body. But once I did that, the pain returned. It wasn't as white hot as before but it was enough for my irritation to stay with me.

"Are you up for talking about what happened to you Daniella?" The doctor said whose name all of a sudden came to me.

"Shannon Mayfield?" I asked still a bit unsure of myself. Some relief came onto her face as she flashed me a smile.

"That me Daniella, good job. So to start you are on a pretty big cocktail of medications since you have come in. Slowly, we have been trying to reduce some of them in a move to try and move you into the next step of your treatment plan. Before I continue if you have questions at any time or need a break, please tell me and I'll stop and we can continue later, alright?" The doctor asked. I just nodded and focused on her.

"Alright. From the explosion, you were propelled in the air into a beam of the building. The impact broke ribs four through seven on you left side. These breaks pierced your lung and caused it to collapse. We had to preform surgery to repair them and make sure there was no damage to your heart. Ribs eight through ten are fractured, they will heal on there own and didn't need surgery to repair. The bullet that hit your bullet proof vest bruised your sternum. It will be sore to the touch for a while as it heals. Luckily, the right side of your rib cage sustained no injuries. Right now, I do still have you on oxygen to help while your lung heals, you'll feel it in your nose along with the feeding tube. We did also have you on a ventilator while you were in a coma so if your throat feels raw and scratchy, that's why. Do you have any questions from that?" Doctor Mayfield asked. I just shook my head no wanting to her to continue, hoping I'll be able to remember everything she is telling me.

"So moving on from there, you also had multiple pieces of metal, glass and concrete be impaled mostly along your legs and arms from the explosion. The extra layer of clothing you wore that night helped keep the damage to a minimum. Your vest also helped protect your back but you do have some bad bruising all along your back from landing on the layers of concrete. I'm just really thankful you kept your gloves on, without a doubt in my mind, they saved your hands from burns. While in surgery from your chest, we also removed the pieces of shrapnel we found. So if you find random stitches in places, that is why." The doctor continued and I couldn't help but look down at my arms. There were a few random bandages along them and I knew I would find a bunch on my legs when I finally got to look at them.

"As for your head and neck, you probably have some whiplash from the hitting the support beam. We've had your neck in a c-collar for the first few days you came in before taking it off so we could move your neck around to try and avoid causing stiffness. We don't believe you have a concussion, but you might have some hearing issues as your eardrums were blown out from the blast. They will continue to heal over time and I'm fairly confident that you won't have any hearing loss. After our conversation the other day, I did have you go for another MRI to be sure there wasn't anything happening in your brain we missed. The MRI didn't reveal anything new and I still believe the issues with you memory are from the drugs we have you on. The more we reduce them, I'm hoping that issue will resolve on its own. That is all I have for you right now, do you have any questions?" The doctor said wrapping up her explanation.

"How long have I been out?" I asked not remembering if someone already told me.

"It's been twelve days since the explosion. We kept you in a medically induced coma after you came in to give your lung and ribs some time to heal." Doctor Mayfield answered.

"How long until I can go home?" I asked wishing my moms could be here.

"Probably a week, maybe two, it all depends on how you are feeling and the recovery. But now that you are stable, we are going to start to lower your medications some more to move you into the next phase of your recovery." The Mayfield said and gave me a smile.

After she was done, Doctor Mayfield left a list of my injuries on the table in front of me if I needed to look it over again. She didn't have to say it out loud but I knew it was also because of my short term memory issues. I just let it go and started to relax in bed as the pain medication started to work it's way through my system. Just as I was fading into a drug induced sleep, I felt Annabelle let go of my hand. My eyes snapped open and I found Annabelle fixing my blankets a bit before she took a seat in the chair I keep finding her in. Once she got settled I reached my hand out towards her. She gave me a smile as she slipped her hand into mine. If I couldn't have my moms here at a time like this, having Annabelle keeping me sane and together was just as good.

***

Sleep came a bit easier now that I knew everyone was safe. It helped me relax and not stress about the what ifs that started to float around my mind. Even though the doctor started to reduce my medications, I would only be awake for a few hours at a time. Most of the time Annabelle was sitting in the chair with me but other times it was empty. Half of the time I thought seeing her was a hallucinations but a few squeezes of my hand proved that theory wrong.

Things started to become clearer again about a three days after the doctor gave me the run down about everything that happened. The reduced medications finally making a difference in how I felt and the fog in my brain really started to lift. When Doctor Mayfield saw my memory was improving with the reduced drugs, she told me that they are going to remove the chest tube. Now that my lung has had time to really heal from the surgery and damage it took, this was just one step in the road to getting home. Doctor Mayfield had me drugged up a bit while they took the chest tube out. Even though I didn't feel any pain, there was an uncomfortable tug when the tube was finally freed from my chest. After some more stitches, Doctor Mayfield left me be for the rest of the day so the stitches had time to settle.

The next morning I was woken up by a knock on the door. When I was finally able to wake up enough, Rob was standing in the doorway. I was kind of shocked to see him standing there, fully convinced that he would have been sent home already. After a few moments of staring Rob moved into the room and sat on the edge of my bed.

"It's really nice to see you awake." Rob said with tears in his eyes as I gripped onto his hand hard.

"I thought you would have went home already. I know it's been a while since the mission." I said gripping onto his hand even harder, still not believing he was actually here right now.

"We wouldn't leave you behind, ever. When Collins brought it up, I wouldn't even entertain the thought, even threw out a warning that I would disobey orders and stay." Rob said and I couldn't help the chuckle that left my throat, even though it caused my chest to seize in pain. I was able to breath through it and after a few moments of quiet between us I knew I needed to bring up what happened. Annabelle wouldn't tell me anything, but I needed to know.

"What happened after the explosion? How did you guys get out?" I asked.

"Emmett called command and the helicopter pilots came back and pulled you out. If they didn't come back, you wouldn't have survived the drive. You were barely breathing by the time they came back. The rest of us got back to the alamo and drove out. We kind of floored it most of the drive until we got to Cosima's father's farm. We stopped for a day to decompress before continuing out of Ukraine." Rob said recounting his version of events with tears in his eyes.

"The convoy? Did they manage to get out?" I asked still trying to piece together the rest of the loose ends.

"Yes, they got to Poland not long after we did. Everyone is being looked after." Rob said and I was able to breath a little easier.

"Morgan?" I asked about the final piece missing still wanting to know what happened. I remember the blood on my hands, I've seen flashes of her falling backwards, but I don't have the whole picture yet.

"Morgan forced herself onto the helicopter with you and Emmett. From what I heard, she had surgery to repair a bit of damage to her shoulder. Emmett stayed with her afterwards when they wouldn't let any of us in to see you. She was released from the hospital in Poland after you were transferred here. Your doctor wanted to have access to better care then what was available in Poland, so once you were stable enough after the first surgery, they flew you here. Collins has been with you the whole time." Rob answered.

"So you don't know where she is right now?" I asked concerned.

"She is here in Germany, on base with the rest of the team." Rob clarified.

Before he could say anything else, there was a knocked on the door before it opened. Doctor Mayfield walked in with one of the nurses that is always by her side. When she saw Rob she asked if he could leave because they are going to remove the feeding tube from my nose and test my memory some more. Rob could only nod before getting up from my bed and planting a kiss to the top of my head before taking his leave. Doctor Mayfield and her nurse, Alexis, whose name I caught from checking her badge, walked me through what they were going to do before they did it. The feeding tube coming out almost made me throw up. From there they check on the stitches in my chest before going over how they would start bringing me real food to eat again. Though it will start off with little things to get my stomach used to eating real food again I was looking forward to eating some other then MRE's for the first time in close to three months.

After that conversation we moved onto the the schedule she wanted to start me on for PT. Starting tomorrow, I would be doing two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each targeting different groups of muscles to help get me ready to stand and walk again after being stuck in bed for almost three weeks. At the end of her speech, Doctor Mayfield left print outs of everything she went over with me today so I could look it over again later if I forget. With nothing else going on for a while, it didn't take me long to slip into another nap.

a/n: I basically just rewrote this whole chapter after reading an article from buzzfeed about what happens to people in comas and it doubled it word count, so thanks buzzfeed. Though I am not a doctor by any means, I tried to research to make this somewhat medically accurate.

But now because of this, I had to fix chapter 41-43 as I already had them written. so I actually lied, I wrote 45 and still have a bit more I wanted to include in this work before finishing it off. it won't be more then 50 that I know for sure, but there might be two more chapters? I don't know, we shall see.

also, side note, I made Daniella a year older, so she's 29. I'll go back into the beginning and fix that continuity error later.

song on the side is called Numb by Pale Waves. I've been wanting to use this song in this book since it came out and thought it would fit nicely in with this chapter.