Well, here it is, the end of this story. It's been a great experience for me writing this, and I've been so please with all the feedback, both delighted and constructive! I appreciate everyone who has read, favorited, or reviewed my story! This chapter will be a bit shorter because it's the epilogue, but please read my authors' note at the end because while it's the end of this story, I'm definitely going to write more work in this universe.

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The darkness is peaceful, and I want to stay. No schedules, no pain, no stupidly complicated relationships. Just silence.

Is this what it's like to be deaf? Well, no, probably more like deaf and blind. It's so calm.

Then a flicker disturbs me. Light, sound, someone's hand being pulled out of mine, though not without a struggle. That jars me, and I float to the edge of the blackness, feeling the wrongness of the separation. Whoever it is, we can't get split up. We can't.

Wait, I know who it is. It's Clint. We can't let go of each other or we can't communicate. I need to keep hanging onto his hand.

That realization propels me just over the border into the world of light and sound and pain. My fingers twitch, forming Clint's name, over and over, a silent plea to have him come back to me.

"Look!...Moving…still a chance…get her in there, stat!...losing…too long…take a chance….nothing to lose." The words are meaningless. Swirling around in a chaos of senseless sound. Until a hand slides into mine, a hand shaking with pain and maybe fear too, a hand covered in blood and rough with an I.V. pressed into the skin, but familiar.

Stay. Stay. Stay. The words spelled over and over again into my palm are an anchor. Until the largest wave of darkness comes and I'm swept back into oblivion.

My dreams are disjointed in the dark, swirls of color and light, familiar faces and faceless shapes, home, college dorms, friends, family, distant bright circus tents, a boy in a purple tunic with a bow-Clint, that's his name, yes, flying, falling, fire and dark… but the one constant is that hand in mine. When it disappears, all the light goes too. And the darkness is all-consuming.

"Beep. Beep. Beep."

I blink, feeling like there's a fifty-pound weight on each of my eyes, and gravel in my throat. When I finally get up the strength to actually open my eyes for longer than three seconds, the greeny-white ceiling of a sterile room swirls into focus. The annoying beeps are coming from a rather disturbingly large array of machines around me, and the reason my hand feels so warm is that Clint is sitting next to me in a chair, with his own I.V. and ridiculous-looking hospital gown, holding my hand.

"Henley? You awake?"

"Uh huh." I try to say, because it's all I feel capable of articulating, but even that comes out as a strangled gurgle around the breathing tube stuck down my throat. After a moment of raw panic at the feeling of being choked, I rationalize and switch to halting, painful signing.

What happened?

You were out for a week and a half. You passed out right before our evac came, and they said you crashed three times on the way to medical. You had massive internal bleeding, a collapsed and punctured lung, and several shattered ribs, and rather ironically you had some lacerations from your own knives because they broke on impact and cut through your uniform. But you were in a coma until yesterday. Head injury side effects. Also, your hip was dislocated, but that's not really life-threatening.

I wish he hadn't told me that because now I'm conscious of the dull, throbbing ache that radiates through my entire leg and halfway up my side.

Darn it, Clint, you had to make me think about it; that hip hurts more than any of the rest.

It won't when you have to go to Phys. Therapy.

Don't talk about it. My hand is getting tired. You have to go too, you know. How's the side?

Better. Not currently a human pincushion.

That's good. I'm starting to get exhausted, so I lay back and close my eyes. We're okay. We're all okay.

The next few times I wake up are fairly the same. Some days Clint is there, some days he's not, sometimes Bobbi or May or Kate show up to check on me. Phil is there more often than not, and one night I even wake up to the slightly terrifying sight of Nick Fury standing over in a corner, watching me with his one eye. It's a little disturbing, but I guess that's just what happens when you work for super-secret government agencies and end up in the hospital.

My parents and sister come from time to time, and the first day Phil has to be there because apparently the 'official' story is that this is the result of a car accident. I wonder what they told them when I disappeared in training all those weeks. Granted, I've never been that close since I moved out but they didn't seem freaked out when I talked to them later so there must have been some cover story. Just another thing I'm going to have to get used to.

One day the breathing tube is gone, and then there's the day when the doctor says I can start drinking liquids again. I'm so grateful I could almost cry because my throat feels like the Gobi desert from that breathing tube and the ice chips I could have were doing absolutely nothing.

Clint, who happens to be in the room, leaves and returns with a glass of water, as well as a slightly mischievous look that if I were a little more focused on anything but a cool drink I would know to be wary of. Instead, I practically snatch the cup from him, as best I can with still-healing ribs, and take a sip.

Something bumps against my lip and I wrinkle my brows in confusion and look down. There, floating on top of the water, is a single green grape. He hasn't forgotten the dang blueberries, still.

Clint must have seen the second I realized the joke, because he's grinning like a madman. Looks like grapes do float.

I stifle a laugh that threatens to make my broken ribs explode in agony. Yep, we're going to be just fine.

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I hope everyone enjoyed this little wild ride! I certainly did. After I edit this one ever the next couple weeks, a lot of it based on your comments (yes, you have great influence and I appreciate all the feedback so very much) I'm going to be doing a new story! However, I have several forms it could take, so I will let you all decide what you want to see.

Option one: Another story like this one, maybe more chapters, about the continuing adventures of Nightshade and Hawkeye.

Option two: A collection of oneshots about these two.

Option three: a backstory on Clint from his circus days.

I also write for a few fandoms other than Avengers so if someone has something they would like to see in Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Mortal Instruments, or Mission Impossible, give me a heads up and I will do my best to write it. I don't do anything over a T-rating right now, too.

Okay, well, sorry about all my rambling. I hope to hear from you and also to have some new material going up soon, preferably by October 1st! Thanks to all you guys and hope your week is as awesome as mine has been!