The first thing he became aware of upon returning to consciousness was the sensation of movement.  

It was a slight rocking motion that, though gentle, caused his stomach to roll.  Bile rose in the back of his throat, threatening to choke him, but he swallowed convulsively, forcing the burning fluid back down.

'I will not throw up.  I will not throw up….'  He repeated the words like a mantra, hoping that sheer force of will would be enough to control his rebellious stomach.

A jumble of sounds assaulted his sensitized ears.  It was almost overwhelming, but he was somehow able to identify a few specific sounds.

A siren.  Its shrill, piercing wail was the first thing he recognized.  'An ambulance,' he thought to himself.  'That would also explain the nausea-inducing sensation of movement.'  He took a moment to congratulate himself on the use of his deductive reasoning skills despite his throbbing headache, before returning his attention to the sounds that surrounded him.

Voices.  There were a woman and a man very close to him, but he didn't recognize either voice.  They were shouting over his head.  Something about vital signs, shock, and IVs.  Stable condition…  Male, mid- to late-twenties…  Unknown identity…

Realizing that they were talking about him, he forced open weighted eyelids only to immediately regret it and quickly re-close them as he became aware of the amount of dirt and debris under his lids.  His eyes instantly began to water.  He tried to lift a hand to wipe the moisture away, but found that both arms had been secured at his sides.

A groan, half from pain and half from frustration, escaped his lips, drawing the attention of his companions.

"Can you hear me?" the woman asked, a sense of urgency reflected in her tone.  

After a couple of tries, he finally got his voice to work well enough that he thought she should be able to understand.  "Y-y-yeah…" he croaked.  His throat was so dry that it was actually painful to speak.

"Can you give me your full name?"

"Gabe," he began, only to be interrupted by a severe coughing fit.  After a series of swift movements, Gabe's mouth and nose was covered by an oxygen mask and the woman was gently stroking his forehead while whispering soothing reassurances into his ear.

"Shhh, it's okay.  Just take deep breaths.  That's it.  Try to relax.  Okay, now, can you tell me your full name?" she questioned again once the coughing had subsided.

"Gabriel Patterson," he answered between wheezing breaths.  He attempted to crack a single eyelid open, but the only sight that greeted him consisted of fuzzy, indistinct shapes punctuated with hazy blotches of shadows and light.

"Well, Gabriel, my name is Kathy.  I'm a paramedic with the Beau Harbor ambulance service.  Can you tell me where you hurt?"

It was as if the words were those of an ancient voodoo ritual.  Gabe was suddenly aware of a large number of aches and pains.  Each one was screaming for attention, vying for supremacy.  He was uncomfortable to say the least, securely strapped to the ambulance gurney, a C-collar around his neck, and debris irritating his eyes.  

Doing his best to ignore what he assumed (or at least hoped) to be minor and temporary annoyances, Gabe mentally catalogued and prioritized his injuries.

"Hard to breathe," he gasped out between labored breaths.  It felt as if there was a tight band around his chest, prohibiting him from properly inflating his lungs.  When he consciously forced himself to breathe deeply, it only succeeded in sparking a new and agonizing round of harsh coughing, which in turn caused him to be short of breath.

Kathy placed a stethoscope to his chest, mumbled something to her partner about a possible Pneumothorax, and told Gabe to try to relax and concentrate on his breathing.

The words didn't register with Gabe's dazed mind as he had poured every ounce of his meager energy into his self-diagnostic.  On top of all the pain, he was cold.  Extremely cold.  And he felt off balance, like he was tilted and, despite the straps securing him, would slide off of the gurney at any moment.

"I feel like I'm standing on my head here," he mumbled to no one in particular.

"That's because you are…sort of."  No further explanation was offered.

After what seemed like only seconds, but was actually probably closer to 20 minutes, the ambulance pulled to a stop and Kathy and her partner expertly unloaded the gurney.

Everything seemed to be happening is lightening speed.  Unable to move his head due to the C-collar, Gabe could only see the fluorescent lights that passed overhead.  Seconds later his gurney stopped and curtains were drawn around it.  A small team of what he assumed were medical personnel suddenly appeared around him.  One thanked and dismissed the paramedics.  

Kathy leaned down towards Gabe and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.  "You're in good hands Gabriel.  You'll be fine."

Before he could thank her, Kathy's blurry image was replaced with that of a man who introduced himself as Dr. Hildebrandt.  Someone called out the time.  It was midnight.

'That can't be right,' Gabe thought.  The last he remembered, it was just after 9pm.  He couldn't bring himself to believe that that much time had passed.

Gabe's vision tunneled, the voices surrounding him grew distant.  He answered everyone's questions as truthfully as he could, but he found that he was unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds.  It was as if he was in a waking dream.  Cuts were stitched.  X-rays were taken.  At some point in time the C-collar was removed, as well as the tattered remains of his clothing, a hospital gown was wrapped around him, and an IV was started.  

A strange numbness had washed over him.  His entire body felt as if it was weighted down with lead.  Though his eyes had been washed out, he had neither the energy nor the desire to open them.  All he wanted, both mentally and physically, was to sleep.

The activity around him had slowed and he had just begun to doze, despite the doctor's many warnings against it, when a familiar voice reached him.

"Listen, I said I wanted to see him and I'm not going to let you or anyone else stand in my way.  Got that?"

With great difficulty, Gabe turned his head just in time to see the heavy, ivory-colored curtains that surrounded his bed part to admit a disheveled looking Mackenzie. 

"Gabe?"  Mac tentatively approached and took his lax hand in both of her own.  "How are you doing?" she asked in a voice far softer than anything he had ever heard from her.

"Peachy."  Though the frail delivery caused the intended humor to fall flat, the sarcasm still brought a smile to both of their lips.  "Judson?"

"He's in surgery right now.  He has a shattered wrist and they had to go put some pins in to hold everything in its proper place until it heals.  Don't worry about him.  He'll be fine."

"Excuse me, Miss," Dr. Hildebrandt interrupted.  "Are you a relative?"

"Yes," Mac lied simply and smoothly.  "How is he?" she asked, tilting her head to indicate her friend.

"Well, his breathing difficulties have subsided and we were able to rule out a Pneumothorax.  He does have a couple of cracked ribs and has been complaining of severe back pain.  We're going to take him down to X-ray for a CAT scan…"

Once again, Gabe's world faded out.  The knowledge that his friends were alright helped to calm him.  That combined with the soothing sound of Mac's voice as she talked with Dr. Hildebrandt, lulled Gabe until he was on the verge of sleep.

"Talk to me, Gabe," the doctor called out to his patient.

"What do ya wanna know?"  The slurred words escaped young man's mouth before the doctor's request had even registered with his conscious mind.

Mac chuckled.  "Careful, Doc, because, trust me, he'll tell ya."

Mac had managed to keep Gabe awake by engaging him in some small talk until he was taken for the CAT scan and then to a room where he was finally allowed to sleep.

The night had been a restless one.  The slightest move elicited another gasp or moan of pain from Gabe, but thanks to the Morphine pump that had been added to his IV, he was blissfully unaware of anything until morning.

~*~  ~*~  ~*~  ~*~

Bright, cheerful sunshine streaming in through the window roused Gabe at 7:00 am the next morning.  He tried to shift his body slightly in the bed, but a sharp, stabbing pain between his shoulder blades halted the movement.  He hissed in pain.

"Hey Gabe, don't try to move, Okay?"

Gabe's eyes snapped open upon hearing Judson's voice.  He found the older man lying in the next bed with his swollen and heavily bandaged left hand elevated on several pillows.  There was a small line of stitches on a cut on his forehead just below his hairline, and every area of visible skin was covered in cuts and bruises.  

"Judson?"  The single word conveyed Gabe's worry for the other man.

"I'm fine.  It's just a broken wrist and a few cuts and bruises.  It's nothing a couple of months in a cast and 40 or so stitches won't fix," he tried to joke about his condition.  "What about you?  How do you feel?"

Though he knew that Judson was trying to downplay his own injuries, Gabe could see that the explorer would indeed be alright.  "Actually, I feel like I've been run over by a heard of elephants.  What the heck happened?"

"You don't remember?" Mac questioned as she hobbled into the room on crutches.  Her right leg was bandaged at the knee and foot and, like Judson, she was covered with bruises and cuts.  Her right hand was also loosely wrapped.  Gabe assumed there was a relatively nasty cut under those bandages.  "Restaurant…big explosion…" she trailed off.

Gabe's brow creased in confusion.  He attempted to shift his position on the bed again, only to be rewarded with another stab of pain in his back.

"Just lie still, will ya?" Judson scolded.  "You have three fractures in your back."

"WHAT?!?" the young man shrieked.

"Just take it easy, Gabe," Mac soothed as she approached to sit on the edge of his bed.  "It's not as bad as it sounds."

"What do you mean 'not as bad as it sounds'?"  Gabe's voice held a combination of fear and anger.

"Let's just start from the beginning.  Do you remember going out to dinner last night?" Judson questioned.  "It was late and no one wanted to have to cook."

Wide-eyed, Gabe nodded his head.

"There was an explosion at the restaurant.  It had a gas leak in the kitchen."

Mac took over the story.  "You were walking back from the restroom when it happened and were thrown across the room by the force of the explosion.  We," she waved a finger between herself and Judson, "were injured when the ceiling collapsed on us."

Seeing that his young friend was still too stunned to speak, Judson continued.  "You have three compression fractures in your back between your shoulder blades.  Mac has already grilled your doctor to get all of the information.  At some point in time, probably when you landed, a lot of pressure was put on your vertebrae," he made a pinching motion with the fingers of his good hand, "and the bones cracked."

"It's painful and your movements are really going to be restricted for a while," Mac added, "but the breaks aren't anywhere near the spinal cord or any nerves so if you take it easy, you'll be fine.  In fact, you should be up and around by the time Judson is."  

Gabe's mind was reeling.  Explosion…  He and his friends injured…  BROKEN BACK!!!  He just couldn't wrap his mind around it all.

"Look, you're beat," Mac said.  "Why don't you try to get some rest?  We'll talk about all of this later when you're not so doped up on Morphine."  She stood, kissed Gabe on the cheek, and then slowly hobbled across the room to Judson's bed.  She produced a deck of cards from one of her pockets and began to shuffle them; all the while she and Judson sent covert glances across to their friend.

Mere seconds later, the allure of sleep once again tugged at Gabe's consciousness.  He was still confused and worried, not to mention in pain, but he knew that with the help of his friends – friends far closer than his own family would ever be – he could make it through anything.

The End