"Sir, we've got one on foot, south-east of our position."

Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes leaned forwards to look out of the helicopter's front wind shield. The desert sand, was sculpted into smooth and flawless mountains below them. He shouted into his own mike.

"Hostile?"

"Can't tell yet sir."

"Fly over, low. Might get some intel into what the hell happened back there."

"Yes, Sir." Rhodes' pilot Stutchbury (and goddamnit, he hated not flying his own choppers any more) issued a string of code through the radio to the following chopper, and twisted the craft down low over the top of a dune. Rhodes suddenly spotted what the sharp eyed co-pilot had seen – the straggling line of indentations in the soft sand. Footprints, and fresh ones too. It sometimes took only minutes for the wind to erase anything in the desert.

The helicopter topped the low rise of sand, the horizon suddenly unfolding out above them. And there! A dark figure against the sand, tiny against the vastness of the desert wasteland.

Stutchbury had disbelief in his voice. "He's…he's waving, sir!"

Jim could already see that. The figure, wearing some sort of cloth turban fell to its knees waving frantically, as if actually pleased to see two USAF choppers fly over.

He'd known too many men, good men, friends, become MIA to have any realistic expectation of ever seeing Tony Stark again. But even despite himself, a tiny glimmer reignited itself in the ashes of Rhodes' hopes.

Rhodes made a snap decision, that wasn't really a decision at all.

"Take us down."

He was out of the chopper and across the sand before the blades had barely begun to slow.

And there…unbelievably, impossibly, knelt the man they'd all given up for dead.

Tony Stark. Filthy, blood spattered and bearded, but gloriously alive, and shouting himself hoarse. Rhodes soldier's eyes evaluated it all as he ran; the filthy green undershirt with a round logo, black torn trousers, a dark cloth wrapped round his head to fight off the beating sun. Cuts and burns on his face, one arm held tightly against his chest from a shoulder stained with blood like rust, exhaustion in every line of his too thin body.

Jim reached the man, held out his hands, and suddenly didn't know what to do. How do you greet someone you thought was worse than dead?

He'd replayed that last conversation with Stark so many times in his head, the words just popped into his mouth, somehow making their way out past the inane grin stretching his face to breaking point.

"So how was the fun-vee?"

The harsh rasping laugh, only half-gasps of sound, was enough to convince Rhodes this was no desert mirage and he dropped to one knee, pulling his long lost friend close. He felt Tony grasp his own arms like a drowning man, and the pair just knelt there in the burning sand, as Tony made a terrible sound, a desperate laugh that was more like crying but without the tears.

Jim gave Tony an extra squeeze and couldn't help but add "Next time, you ride with me, okay?"

He thought at first Tony was nodding agreement into his shoulder, but quickly realised the exhausted man was trembling, hard. The determination that had kept him going this far was used up and his energy seemed to have gone with it.

Likely heat stroke and dehydration, on top of everything else.

"Sir?" Rhodes glanced over his shoulder and saw three of the airmen standing around, bemused.

"Bateson, lend a hand here. This man is an American citizen and a very good friend. You have heard of Tony Stark, right?"

The amazement quickly skimmed across the airman's face, and he quickly moved forward and grasped Tony's other arm, to try and help get the man to his feet. Stark, who had closed his eyes, gave a slight grunt of pain, and Bateson cringed under his CO's glare.

"Sorry, sir…"

He quickly readjusting his grip away from Stark's injured shoulder, just as one of the other airmen gave a warning shout and raised his gun. It was only as Bateson jumped back as if he'd been burned, did Rhodes realise his error.

It wasn't a logo on Tony's shirt at all.

"What the hell…" He couldn't help falling back a little, the reaction was as automatic as the guns the airmen were training on them. There was a device, some sort of round metal machine, attached right in the centre of Tony's upper torso.

Protocols from a hundred case studies flashed through Rhodes' mind, but not a single one had prepared him for the sight of his friend with a bomb implanted in his chest.

"Tony –"

Stark opened his eyes and gave him a blank look. "I need it," he rasped. "No! Don't- don't touch it."

Rhodes withdrew his hand.

"Stark, this damn thing is glowing! What the hell is it? Is it safe?"

Tony took a deep breath, but his voice was scarcely a mumble. "It's better than the car battery. I made it."

Jim knew he didn't have long to process that incomprehensible reply. He could feel the scorching heat burning against his back, saw Tony screw up his eyes against the light, but he had to know before he let that damn thing anywhere near an airbase.

"You made it? And that's meant to convince me its safe? Tony, you make weapons…"

Stark seemed to stiffen and pulled away weakly.

"Not any more." He met Rhodes eyes for the first time. "It's safe, it's not a bomb. Please Rhodey. I just…wanna go home…"

And there was no way Jim could deny him that.

"Bateson!"

Stark was quickly settled and strapped as comfortably as possible in the back of the small chopper. Rhodes shouted a quick order to Stutchbury, and turned back to his friend as the chopper's engine choked into life. He snatched up a canteen from a gear store and sat next to Stark, holding the water out to him. When Tony couldn't grasp it on his own, Rhodes gently wrapped his friend's blackened fingers around the bottle.

Addams and King, the two young airmen with the medical training, quickly moved over and together, the three of them started unstowed the emergency gear, as Tony made a decent attempt at draining the water in record time.

King moved over to Stark and reached out a hand to the bottle.

"Not too much in one go, sir. You'll make yourself sick."

If Rhodes had expected a snarky reply, or at the very least a Stark-patented death glare he was sadly mistaken. Tony didn't seem to even have the energy to flip the man off, and just let the medic lift the bottle from his hand without comment. Addams unfolded a blanket and wrapped it around Tony's shaking shoulders in one smooth movement.

It's just the exhaustion, Rhodes told himself, but he couldn't stop the swell of anxiety when Stark didn't react to anything, but continued to stare blankly into his hands as if that incredible brain of his had just shut down.

"Just give him a once over!" He shouted into Addams' ear, over the deafening noise of the blades. The man nodded and went to join his mate. Rhodes left Stark in their capable hands and moved carefully to the cockpit.

Stutchbury quickly handed Rhodes back a radio, shouting over his shoulder without turning his eyes from the controls. "Thought this was a radio call you might want to make yourself, sir…"

Jim took the radio with a smile. Stutchbury had been there at the clearup from the ambush, and had seen how hard it was for Rhodes to make that radio call. The one where he had to admit his own defensive convoy had been bombed to hell, and with it, any chance of seeing Tony Stark alive again.

"Base, this is Colossus."

"Colossus this is Base. We read you, over."

"Base, we are inbound, ETA 55 minutes, over."

"What's your SITREP?"

"Base, we have picked up a rather interesting package." Rhodes couldn't help but pause for a second to savour the moment. "We have Tony Stark. I say again, we have found Tony Stark. His is alive, walking wounded only."

The airman at the other end broke radio protocol, disbelief clear in his voice. "You serious, sir?" Rhodes thought he could hear cheering in the background.

"Base, yes, I'm serious. Have a med team standing by. Oh, and I want Lt. Franks standing by when we land."

The airman at the other end of the radio made no comment at the request for the on base explosives expert. Rhodes didn't want to take any more chances that Stark was so out of it, he couldn't recognise a bomb.

"Colossus, will do. Congratulations, sir. Base out."

Tony Stark felt oddly disconnected.

Someone was moving about him in the fog, asking him questions but there was a louder sound, a sort of roaring like a waterfall in his ears, and he was hot and cold at the same time. His head was pounding with a painful intensity. It was like someone had pumped freezing fibreglass into his skull.

Every second in those caves (and he still wasn't sure how many there had been) had seemed like a sequence from some horrible nightmare, but he could never have doubted it was real. The sweat and dirt, the gut wrenching fear and the mind numbing boredom. The feel of wires under his fingers still so hot from the soldering iron they burned. The thrill of the idea taking shape and the companionship of making it happen; the sickness and horror of the shrapnel and the car battery and that room with the barrels of water in. The way the cell they slept in was always too cold but the work area always too hot. Yinsen's blood soaking into the rice sacking. The armoured suit, the explosion. His ridiculous, impossible escape. All nightmarish, but yes, undeniably real.

But this odd disconnected feeling, this was more like falling asleep again. Had Rhodey really arrived in a helicopter, like some desert-camo clad guardian angel?

Perhaps it was delusion, from oxygen deficiency. He remembered vaguely one time they'd held him under the water too long, and he'd had a long conversation with his mother about why he never remembered Pepper's birthday, before waking up on the cold floor of the cell vomiting water all over the cement as Yinsen held him up.

Or maybe he was dying. Maybe the car battery had finally given out and shards of metal were slowly slicing his heart to ribbons inside his ribcage. Maybe Yinsen would try and save him, pull out the dead electromagnet and push his hand inside Tony's chest like he did before, wiggle his bloody fingers into the holes in his heart …

A warm hand suddenly pushed against the sensitive skin of his chest, and the panic was visceral and unstoppable.

Rhodes heard Tony's yell even over the noise of the chopper, and was halfway into the back of the craft before he'd really registered what he'd heard. His heart sank as he realised he'd been unconsciously waiting for this from the moment he'd seen the look in his friend's eyes back on that sand dune.

Stark fought furiously against the two medics, eyes wide and unseeing with panic. Rhodes darted over just as Addams was knocked onto his ass by Tony's fist. Jim didn't hesitate but quickly pushed King aside too, and grasped his friend's wrist and uninjured shoulder firmly against his struggles, silently thanking every god he could think of that they'd strapped Stark in, and the man couldn't leap straight out of the open-sided chopper.

"Tony! Tony, it's Jim. Just calm down, we've got you. No-one's gonna hurt you okay? Tony? They're just trying to help…"

He didn't know if it was the calm familiar voice or the firm hold that finally got through, but Tony suddenly froze, eyes down-cast and breathing heavy.

Rhodes slowly released the man's wrist, but kept a grounding touch on Tony's shoulder. Behind him, he heard King helping Addams to his feet.

He returned his attention to Tony, and noticed the green undershirt had been completely cut away. They must have been trying to remove the device.

"Tony? You alright?"

Stark wrapped his arms protectively around his chest. Still breathing hard, his eyes flicked up and met Rhodes' for a second. The emotions that Jim saw in that bare glance were so unutterably alien on Stark's face, he wasn't sure he could even put a name to them. Panic, yes definitely. Guilt? Fear? Shame?

"Yeah…" Tony's quiet voice was barely audible above the roar of the chopper, and Rhodey watched as Tony unconsciously pressed his hand over the device over his heart. Rhodes realised it was the first thing the man had said since they'd got him onto the chopper.

Rhodes picked up the blanket which had slipped down Tony's back and wrapped it around his friends shoulders again. After a moment's hesitation, the Colonel carefully tucked the ends in across Tony's chest and arms, trying to avoid staring at the gruesome criss-cross of a tiny healed scars in his flesh. Stark wobbled his head in what might have been thanks but said nothing more, closing his eyes. Rhodes gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder and stood, drawing off the medics to one side, despite the noise of the chopper. They looked uncertain, barely more than kids.

"Well?"

King spoke first. "We didn't really get a chance for a good look, sir. If we could…"

Rhodes felt an anger he knew was driven by fear. "Is he going to keel over in the next forty minutes before we get back to base?"

The two medics exchanged glances.

"No, sir?" Addams offered, sounding more like a question than a fact.

"But," King ventured, the more professional of the two, "he's severely dehydrated and malnourished. The sooner we get some fluids into him the less chance they'll be of later complications. We should bind his arm too to stop him doing any more ligament damage."

They all glanced over at Stark, who looked like he'd fallen asleep against the hard metal bulkhead.

Rhodes sighed. "Alright, start an IV if you can. Just, don't touch that...thing, okay?"

As he watched the medics work on the dozing Tony, Jim began to wonder just what they'd do if maybe his friend was too broken to be fixed. There was one thing he knew for certain in this whole affair; and that was that no-one in the world could come back from three months imprisonment at the hands of terrorists unchanged. Rhodes was going to have to finally come to terms with the fact that the Tony Stark he knew from before was probably gone forever. Maybe those three months of silent grief hadn't been the surrender of hope, but instead mourning for the man Tony had been and couldn't be again, because Jim couldn't really see how whatever Tony had experienced out there in the desert could possibly make him into something better.

FINI