Alright, so I've been doing a lot of videogaming recently, and my love for an old series has been officially rekindled. That series is, if you hadn't guessed, Trauma Team. I love the plot, I love the characters...all of it's great. And, of course, playing through some of the missions (and noting the theme the game designers had of invoking the One of Our Own trope except that the characters were actually able to fix each other and help each other out), I got bombarded by somewhere around eight or so possible plot bunnies. This is one of them. And, of course, it involves one of my favorite pairings, NaomixLittle Guy. I have several ideas - this was just the one that got written first.

However, I make no promises that it is in any way or form written well. Being angst, I probably overdid it, and I really think the wording sucks at some points, but I can't think of how to fix it, so...yeah. If any of y'all have suggestions, feel free to fill me in on them.

Anyways, this takes place as a sort of minor AU in Seeking Atonement, with the scene of the Raging Bomber at the airport. Little Guy isn't actually able to shield Naomi, and she ends up getting hurt. Severely. :) Yes, I know it's probably improbable, but that's half the point.

Now, a random comment (since I actually did do some research for this fic and another Trauma Team fic I'm thinking of writing, if looking at the CDC website and WebMD counts as research) on what some of the medical lingo means.

A blast lung is exactly what it sounds like. It's when the force of something such as an explosion literally causes the lung to have adverse reactions. In this case, the reaction was that her lung collapsed, meaning that there was some pocket of air that was in her chest area, causing her lung to no longer be able to expand like it needed to in order to get oxygen to the body as necessary...or something like that. It's late - give me a break for not being able to think medically.

A subdural hematoma is something that results directly from a head injury. The blunt force of impact on the head causes some of the smaller arteries on the outside of the brain to burst, causing internal bleeding and a blood pool which becomes trapped between the victim's brain and their skull, creating immense pressure. It can be treated by drilling a hole into their skull to relieve the pressure or, in extreme cases, actually removing parts of the skull.

I think that's about it for explanations, and with any luck, the rest of the story should make sense now, so...Yeah. Thanks for reading and review if you get a chance. I'll be back later with more things to bother y'all with. Until then, have a great holiday season, all! See you next time - Bookworm

How many times did he have to watch her fall?

Little Guy stood anxiously in the waiting room of Resurgam, running his hands anxiously through his hair, scratching the back of his head. He winced as he did, accidentally probing the still tender area where he'd hit his head on the hard tile of the airport floor. He'd cut himself up a bit in the explosion, but the doctors had examined him and declared him uninjured enough to avoid being hospitalized within the space of just under an hour. Outside of some minor cuts, a nasty bump on his head, and what they were sure would be a hell of a lot of bruises, he had no injuries. No concussions, no internal wounds, not even a piece of glass stuck in his skin.

He'd fared better than most of the others.

He'd fared much better than her.

Little Guy blew out a long sigh of irritation, one that would have drawn attention had the other occupants of the waiting room not been so wrapped up in their own horror stories. The area was full to the point of being choking; full with the sound of receptionists, tapping pens on desks and nurses, scrambling around trying to get to where they needed to be, and loved ones, white knuckled and wringing their hands with fear. The usually clean scent of the hospital was being steadily overridden by the stench of sweat and anxiety, a feeling of incapacitating worry, all brought in by the hordes of panicked people who'd known passengers on that plane.

Of course, Little Guy was bringing his own problems to the cocktail. The agent's blonde hair was messier than usual, and matted with crimson in some spots. His once almost pristine suit was torn from some of the shrapnel that had been flying around, and he smelled like char from where the reek of fire had permeated his clothes. Mostly, though, he smelled like blood.

Her blood.

They'd gone together to the airport, where the Raging Bomber – or Sandra Lieberman, depending on how you looked at it – had been holding the entire plane hostage. In fact, it was the very plane that had held the First Lady, though he hadn't heard if she was even still alive. The woman had obviously been bat-shit insane, but it wasn't until she'd opened her coat and revealed the pulsing bruises of the…virus that she had, whatever it was, that things had truly gone wrong.

It's Rosalia, she'd said. Rosalia will kill everyone! Me, you, everyone here will die! And then she'd started laughing, a psychotic laugh that made him want to cover his ears. His curiosity as to what she was going on about was nothing in comparison to his urge to just get away. Unwillingly, he'd stepped back a couple feet. He'd been almost scared by her.

But Naomi wasn't. She'd stepped forward, closer to the bomber. Her blue eyes had been curious, perplexed, her eyebrows furrowed lightly with interest. She'd stepped forward, only a foot or two, but it had been enough. Enough that when the bomb trigger had fallen from her hand, she'd been about eight feet closer to the explosion than he was.

It made a difference.

Because eight feet was about seven too close. He'd tried, but he'd had nowhere near enough time to reach her before the blast did as the trigger hit the floor.

Both of them had been knocked back. He'd hit the ground and his head, and embers had reached him in flurries, and even some of the shrapnel had cut up his arms when he'd covered his head with them. Eight feet closer, Naomi had been knocked to the floor too – knocked there by the force of the shockwave from the bomb, hitting her head hard against the ground.

It had been nearly fifteen seconds before he'd actually been able to get to her. By then, she hadn't even started to stir - the first sign that she had been hurt worse than him.

The second was the fact that when he got there, only one side of her chest was rising like it was supposed to.

He'd seen things like this enough times when the two of them had been Navel and Mozomi, agents of Delphi who had operated on actual patients, before he'd been drafted into the FBI and she'd become a forensic investigator and the whole idea of the past became a moot point. There had been plenty of bomb explosions that they'd dealt with the repercussions of, and things worse than that. But never once had he imagined that he would be seeing those kinds of injuries on her.

Crimson was starting to pool under her head from where she'd hit it – the skin of her head had been split open in a wide gash that was starting to pulse blood as he scrambled to try and do something, anything.

Not that there'd been anything he actually could do.

Instead, he'd been reduced to sitting there, trying to reach through a fog of confusion and remember the medical skills that had started to rust over in his mind and recall how to do first aid on a collapsed lung. When that had failed, he'd ended up sitting there, alternating between incomprehensibly begging her to stay alive and cursing out his own cowardice, his eternally slow reflexes, Sandra Lieberman, and everything that had led to this.

A brown haired spitfire of a paramedic had taken her away to help her after only about fifteen minutes. The team had arrived at the hospital in a matter of about ten more minutes. She'd been in intensive care for the past two hours since.

A doctor had come out once to tell him what was going on. A blast lung, collapsed by the force of the explosion, along with a subdural hematoma had put her life in even more danger than her self-inflicted infection. The man, a diagnostician who'd called himself Gabe, had told him that they had their best surgeons on it now, and that if all went well, she'd survive.

If. If the attempt to drill a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure of the blood trapped between the bone and her brain went as it was supposed to.

If her condition didn't add extra complications.

If they were able to keep her breathing long enough to fix her lung and get rid of the air pocket that had made it collapse.

If.

"If" wasn't good enough. Nothing was. But there was nothing else to turn to, so the blonde agent just sat there, waiting, dealing with "if" and hoping that it would save her.

Not that hope had been of much service as of late.

The next four hours passed with more of the same. More waiting. More thinking. More worrying. People began to leave the hospital, though they were quickly replaced. Little Guy never moved. He just sat there, watching for the diagnostician to come out and tell him she would be alright. That was when he'd be able to relax. Not until then.

After the four hours, the man did.

"Hey," he called, walking over to the tall, thin blonde. "Hey, what was your name again? Short Thing?"

"Little Guy," the agent corrected, looking down at him.

"Fitting nickname," Gabe muttered under his breath.

Little Guy ignored the sarcasm. "Miss Kimishima, will she be alright?" he pressed.

"Yeah," the green haired man said. "She'll be fine. She just got out of surgery, and we think she'll be waking up within a couple of hours or so. She'll have to have a short little rehab for the finer functions, and we'll have to watch her for the next couple of months just to be sure, but Naomi will make it. Like I told you she would."

Little Guy sighed in relief. "Can I go see her?"

"That's what I was coming out here to tell you. They said you're free to come back if you – hey!" Before he'd even managed to finish speaking, Gabe was cut off by Little Guy rushing past him "You don't even know where her room is!" he pointed out, following the FBI agent through the mob of people.

"Then show me," Little Guy demanded.

"Yes, sir," Gabe muttered, getting ahead of him and leading the way. When they arrived, Little Guy could only look through the window glass at Naomi, pale on the hospital bed, heart beeping steadily, both sides of her chest rising now. She was alive, for now. She would live long enough to die of her own unnatural causes.

"There's someone else," he announced, turning to Gabe. "A little girl, Alyssa Breslin. She was brought in here a few days ago from a bombing as well. If she's awake, Miss Kimishima will want to see her," he said.

Gabe raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Little Guy didn't ask. "She's a lot younger, and was closer to the bomb, too," he pointed out. "She may not be awake yet, but we can check."

"Good," Little Guy said, following him to the eight year old's room. Thankfully, she was awake. More than awake, she was functioning and talking at almost her normal speed. When Gabe had left the two of them to their own devices, the FBI agent had explained to the girl what happened to her friend, and had comforted her by saying the white haired woman would be okay.

Shakily, he'd helped her stand. Then the two of them had then gone back to Naomi's room, to watch and to wait.

It had been nearly three more hours when she finally stirred, shifting in the bed with a low groan. The fact that she was making any movements at all was enough for him. Hell, the fact that she was alive was enough for him.

"Naomi?" Alyssa asked, moving from where she'd been sitting and playing with Little Guy's hand.

The white haired woman made some small noise of recognition. "Alyssa?" she mumbled sleepily, sitting up with a mostly concealed grimace.

"Naomi!" the little girl cried in elation, rushing forward to hug the older woman. He watched Naomi return Alyssa's embrace, standing awkwardly in the back of the room.

"See, we match now," Alyssa said. "We've both got bandages!" Naomi could have smiled at that, but she didn't. She knew what the bandages were from, what had placed them there, knew that there were people who wouldn't ever even live to see bandages because the bomb blasts had killed them instantly. Alyssa, to a point, was still blessedly innocent.

"Yes," she murmured. "I suppose we do."

Little Guy cleared his throat awkwardly. "They say you're going to be fit to leave the hospital in a few days, Miss Kimishima," he said. "The doctors expect that you'll make a full recovery within the next couple of months."

Naomi nodded, processing the information. "Alright," she replied. "Thank you, Little Guy." He knew the thoughts that had to be running through her mind in that instant. He knew that she was probably thinking that she wouldn't get the chance to make a full recovery. Knew that there were other doctors, doctors from several months ago, doctors who said she wouldn't outlast the year. He knew that she had to be thinking that she'd dodged this bullet, but there was another one that had been making its way towards her for much longer that she had no hope of escaping.

He knew it all too well. All of it. And above all, he knew that there was nothing he could do to save her, that her fate was the one bullet he couldn't possibly take for her.

And it killed him.

So while Little Guy had no doubt that that was what she was thinking about was the many ways in which she was still not saved, he was thankful that she didn't voice her thoughts this time. He wasn't sure he could handle speaking of it. Instead, she just nodded again, and he gave a small, quick smile that she almost returned.

Then, he shifted back into the familiar rhythm of not being the one Naomi was focused on. She always had so many other things to worry about, she never had time to be concerned with him and his follies, or his obviously unreciprocated interest in her. As he watched her for a moment, he found that it didn't hurt too much, and that he was almost relieved. She couldn't ignore him if she wasn't breathing. This was a sign that she was, for now, alright. That for at least this moment, she was still fighting on and staying alive.

Being ignored was a familiar pain. It was a pain he could handle. He would always handle it, for her sake, for this moment and all the moments afterwards. He didn't mind being unnoticed, if she was still around to be the one not noticing him.

He could take being invisible, as long as it meant that she was still alive.