“Hard-on, you need to do a better job of watching your six,” Cowboy yells from the end of the line.

I know I‘ve been distracted since the last call with the girls, but I miss them. The thought of having a family, white picket fence, the whole nine yards with the girls is more than I could have ever imagined. I’m startled by my thoughts as shots begin to buzz past my face.

“Shit, I thought this was supposed to be an easy patrol!” LT yells from the back. “Take cover and keep your asses alive.”

I take off running toward the closest rock formation when I suddenly feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train, four shots to my vest mean bruised ribs and massive bruising, but I’ll live. I’m almost to formation when a buzz comes in by my ear and my neck burns. I dive behind a boulder, and that’s when I see the trail of blood.

“Damn, that’s gonna leave a mark,” the world starts spinning as I look at my teammates.

Bullets are flying as we trade gunfire with our enemies. I turn to my right to see where I’m bleeding from, but am met with nothing but blood. Fuck.

“Cowboy!” I yell while almost choking on my own blood. I spit it out on the ground as I gasp for air.

“Don’t you dare die on me fucker,” Cowboy is by my side, ready to work, I catch the worry in his eyes.

“Damn it, Amber told me not to get shot.” I try to chuckle, but only manage to convulse from blood loss.

“Logan…”

“Don’t you fucking dare! I’m not doing this shit again. I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE!” Logan yells out into the world.

“Take care of… girls for me… Promise me.” I look him dead in the eye as my teeth chatter, fear taking hold of me.

“Charlie, if you don’t shut the fuck up.” I can feel the pain in Logan’s eyes down to my bones.

The last thing I hear before closing my eyes is Logan screaming my name.

I awake with a start, and everything hurts.

“FUUUUUCCCCK,” I groan.

“Well, look who’s finally decided to join the land of the living,” someone says to my right.

“I would turn my head, but the thought of moving makes me want to puke.”

I hear a tinkle of laughter. “Well, you were through one hell of an ordeal. It’s no wonder you’re in so much pain.”

I crack open my eyes to see a slip of a girl in a blue nurse’s uniform, I’m obviously not dead because I wouldn’t hurt this badly. Maybe if I lay on the old charm, she can hook me up with some pain medication. I open my mouth to ask where I am when I suddenly hear yelling coming from the hall.

“The only thing I told this motherfucker to do was not get shot!”

“What the hell, Dr. Feel Good? You were told to do one thing! One Thing! If you don’t get away from me, I’m going to drop kick the family jewels!”

Oh shit, Logan’s in trouble. Fuck, wait, that means I’m in trouble…

“Shit! Any chance you have anything over there that will knock me back out?”

“Sorry, Tiger. You’re on your own with this one.” The nurse gives me a wink before heading out of the room. She isn’t even able to make it out the door before Avery and Amber come storming in.

“What the hell is your problem, Soldier Boy? Did you forget how to duck?” Avery saunters in, eyes ablaze.

“I guess I missed that class during training,” I barely have time to wink before Amber jumps on me full force.

“God damn it!” I yell that hurts something fierce.

“Amber, you need to be careful! He has bruised ribs from bullets hitting his vest as well as the neck wound,” Logan says leaning on the door frame.

“You called us in the middle of the night, scared the shit out of us, for a damn flesh wound?” Amber turns in my lap, glaring at Logan.

“It was a little more than a flesh wound, Sugar.” I lay a kiss on her head.

“He damn near bled to death in the field, a bullet nicked his artery, even a centimeter to the left and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him from bleeding out.”

“Uh huh, and you neglected to tell us that he was still breathing, that’s an important piece of information,” Amber mumbles from her position buried in my chest. This hurts like a son of a bitch, but I wouldn’t have her sitting anywhere else.

“You didn’t give me a chance! I got out that Charlie was shot and you hung up. I figured it was more important to get him here and patched up than worry about calling you back.”

“Dr. Feel good, your lucky Kit Kat loves you, or I would kill you right now,” Avery says as tears begin to trickle down her cheeks.

“Come here, Sugar.” I open my other arm and watch her make her way toward the other side of the bed. Both girls are now cuddled into my side, right where they belong.

“Next time you decide to be all heroic, don’t. If anything happens to you, I’ll bring you back so I can kill you myself,” Avery says, looking directly into my eyes.

“Sugar, I’m not going anywhere. At least not on purpose.”

“As much as I love having both of you close, this shit hurts! Logan get me some drugs!” Avery and I quickly climb out of Logan’s lap but remain seated on the edge of his bed.

Logan takes off in search of a nurse and some pain medication. It doesn’t take long for a nurse to come back with a syringe of medication for Charlie.

“Now that that is taken care of tell me about the nicknames, Sugar.” Charlie tries to get comfortable in the bed.

Knowing that this is going to be hard on her, I reach for Avery’s hand and give it a squeeze.

Avery lets out a sigh, starts picking at the blanket.

“It was a thing that I did with my dad. He disappeared when I was fifteen.”

Reaching for her, Charlie puts his hand on her knee.

“I’m so sorry, babe. What happened?”

Letting out a humorless laugh to cover a sob, she looks up with tears in her eyes.

“I wish I knew.”

“Fuck. Come here.” Pulling her toward him, she settles against his side being careful not to put any pressure on his ribs.

Seeing them like this, Charlie’s body broken and bruised, Avery’s heart scared, it heals the crack in my soul that I got when Logan called.

I don’t think I have ever been more scared in my entire life than I was when we got that phone call. Just hearing Avery scream my name across the parking lot had me believing the worst. Katie immediately jumped into action, got us to the airport and on a plane within two hours.

I spent the entire plane ride going over every worse case scenario. Charlie missing a limb, in a coma, any number of things, all of which lead to us losing Charlie. I don’t think either of us could handle that.

Logan’s chuckle brings me back to the present, I know it's not his fault, but I want to hurt him. Damn, Logan is lucky that Katie loves him so much or I would sick Avery on him. Charlie must sense Avery and my murderous intent.

“You two behave, for all I know this asshole saved my life.”

“No, Newb saved your life actually,” Logan chimes in.

“He did what?!” we all shout in unison.

“Damn it, I was really counting on hating that fucker for the rest of his life,” I mumble under my breath

“His life?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah, I’m too pretty to hold on to all that hate. In your line of work, I figure there is a pretty good chance I’ll outlive him. So, for the rest of his life…”

“That’s fucked up,” Logan says to me before continuing on with the story.

“Yup, when the gunfire started he had your six. Made sure you and he only had some minor bruising, although he wasn’t able to stop you from taking a bullet, it would have been a hell of a lot worse if not for him.” Logan nods his head toward Charlie’s neck all bandaged up, with a little blood seeping through. Probably from the cuddle session with us.

“Now that we know he isn’t dying, Dr. Feel Good you have a prego to call. We kind of left her with a mess to clean up.” Avery places a kiss on Charlie’s cheek.

“Welcome to the family, Dr. Feel Good.” I let out a full belly laugh at Logan’s new nickname.

We sit with Charlie for a little longer until it’s obvious he’s fighting sleep.

“Alright Charlie, we’ll let you rest. We aren’t going anywhere until you’re ready to go with us. Katie set us up someplace on base here so we won’t be far.” Amber places a kiss on my head and turns toward the door.

I give his hand a squeeze and a forced smile before turning to follow Amber. “Sugar, don’t you worry. I’ll be out of this bed in no time,” he says with a wink while blowing both of us a kiss. I barely make it out of the door before the tears begin to fall.

Gut-wrenching sobs try to escape my mouth, but I cover them with my hands. Amber is waiting for me at the end of the hall in the small waiting room where we met Logan. She also has tears streaming down her cheeks, but her arms are spread wide open, ready to support me through the pain. I barely make it to her before I collapse into her arms, the sobs breaking free from my mouth. We both sink to the floor, finally able to release the fear that has trapped us since Logan called.

“We almost lost him,” Amber whispers.

“I don’t think I could have survived. I need him, I need him just as much as I need you,” I respond before placing a searing kiss on her lips. She quickly responds with the same passion, pouring all the fear she’s feeling into this kiss the same as I am. Our tounges battle for dominance as I grip her hair, pulling her in closer.

We hear a throat clearing and immediately remember where we are.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to know if Charlie was okay.” A male voice sounds from the doorway.

We both move like we’re in slow motion, not releasing our grasp on each other, but turn our heads, so we’re touching cheek to cheek.

“Hey, he’s resting now, but he’s his usual pain in the ass self. Just in a lot of pain,” Amber says while slowly releasing the hold she has on my hair.

As I continue to untangle myself from her grasp, I finally notice who our new companion is, “Newb?”

I’m immediately flooded with so many different emotions that I’m unable to process them all at once, but one is at the forefront of them all. I quickly stand, flinging myself into his arms. His training and instinct are the only things that keep me from falling on my ass.

The tears begin to fall again. I bury my face into the crook of his neck as I repeat “Thank you,” in a continuous loop over and over again. I feel him moving, walking in the direction of Charlie’s room and then taking a seat. He begins to rub soothing circles along my back. I have no idea how long this goes on, but I eventually calm down and am able to compose myself enough to look Newb in the eyes.

“Thank you for saving Charlie. He means the world to me, to us,” I croak, trying desperately not to cry all over again.

“Danny. Avery, please call me Danny. I honestly hate my call sign.”

Amber and I both giggle, I fight the urge to continue to call him Newb just to piss him off. He did save Charlie’s life, after all, I can give him one day, but tomorrow it’s on.

I quickly climb out of his lap, “I’m sorry about all the waterworks,” nodding my head over my shoulder toward Amber, “she’s the emotional one.”

We all have a good laugh, breaking the tension.

“Thanks for the update. If you could let him know I stopped by, they’re shipping me back out to the team tomorrow so I won't be able to stop by.”

“We sure will, thank you again, for everything.” Amber grabs his hand giving it a squeeze before he turns to head toward the elevators.

Amber wraps her arms around my waist as we both watch Danny make his way to the elevator, giving us a wave before he enters and the doors close behind him.

Amber looks up at me with a smirk. “I’m so telling Charlie you came on to Newb.”

“How many spankings do you think that would earn me?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure we can keep count for when he gets better.” Amber sashays toward the elevators.

“You always know how to make me feel better.”

We both laugh as I follow her to call Katie and finally get some sleep.