Carlos comes home from work in a world of hurt. He got fucking shot. Of course, he had on his bulletproof vest, so it didn’t really reach him, but before he even left work he was sporting a nasty bruise from the impact. The suspect had shit aim, hitting Carlos’ lower stomach when he had been aiming for his chest, and shot himself by Carlos’ partner the moment he fired. 

“Hey babe,” he calls when he walks in the front door. TK is already here, reheating last night’s leftovers for a snack in the kitchen. The sight brings a smile to his face, even if it quickly gets replaced with a wince when he tries to stretch his sore muscles. “How was work?”

“Good. You okay?”

There’s no sense in hiding it. “I got shot.”

“What?”

In an instant, TK is on him, guiding him to the couch and frantically looking him over for bandages. “Where? What happened?”

“I had on my vest, I’m okay. It hit my torso.”

TK bites his lip and looks at Carlos. There’s real fear and concern in his eyes, making Carlos’ chest ache for him. He doesn’t like scaring or worrying TK. “Let me take a look? Just so I stop worrying?”

“Okay.”

Carlos unbuttons his shirt and shrugs out of it, expecting TK to see the dark bruise and be satisfied, but instead TK freezes. Gentle, cold hands flutter against his skin, not even really pressing in. 

“Carlos, you need to go to the hospital.”

“What?”

“Come on, get in the car, I’m taking you right now.”

He looks down and sees that the once relatively small bruise now takes up most of his right side in a dark purpley-red stain. Oh. Internal bleeding, he thinks, must be the culprit. The bullet ruptured something even if it didn’t puncture skin. He slowly stands up and allows TK to hold him upright while he walks him to the car. It really does hurt. 

No one comments on the way Judd limps, something for which he is eternally grateful. He doesn’t like thinking about the accident any more than he has to, especially when it comes to his own injuries rather than those of his fallen brothers. Unfortunately, however, between the broken leg and dislocated joints, he has lasting damage. 

It’s not bad, he reasons. He passed his recertification test with flying colors. He survives.

But on some days, the pain is awful. He can’t walk straight because of how badly it hurts, and he wants nothing more than to lay down with some ice while watching shitty TV with Grace. Instead, he gets 24 hour shifts and no ability to treat his pain without alerting his team to the fact that something is wrong. 

He plops down on the rec room couch and leans down to massage his aching leg when someone clears their throat. He looks up to see Marjan holding out an ice pack to him with an understanding, sad smile. 

“My wrist sometimes bothers me really badly too,” she says. “You’re not weak for hurting.”

She knows she miscalculated the moment she hits the water. It’s murkier than Marjan thought, making it that much harder to see well enough to rescue the people trapped in their car. She blows bubbles through her nose, slow and steady, as she works to pull open the door on the driver’s side. She can see Mateo’s silhouette through the windows, attempting the same, with much more success than her. He manages, with a crowbar, to pry open the door and reach the passenger. Up they go to the surface. Marjan gives up on her side and swims around to his, making her way over the center console to reach the driver. 

She wishes she could tell him it’ll be okay.

Instead she pulls his heavy body out of the car and tries to get him out, but she hits her head pretty hard on the door frame on her attempt to escape. Immediately she’s woozy and can faintly see a dark cloud in front of her. That’s not good. She tries to swim up but she’s suddenly forgot which direction to go. The person in her arms is struggling. She lets go of them and they vanish, something which she understands is bad but can’t process right now. Her chest aches. Her lungs burn.

She forgets why she’s holding her breath and inhales, only to get a lungful of water. Instantly she panics, trying to cough and struggling. It hurts. She can’t get any oxygen and her vision is going black and she doesn’t know where she is anymore. She’s dying. She watches the dark cloud in front of her move and shift. It grows bigger. Marjan shuts her eyes. 

Then she feels a strong arm around her waist. 

She loses consciousness.

When Marjan comes to, only a couple minutes later, it’s to turn to the side and hack up dirty water, her chest heaving and her breathing painful as she expels the water from her lungs. Nothing has ever hurt this much. She can’t seem to catch her breath and her head is killing her. Once she finishes coughing, she finds herself cradled against a warm chest, strong pale arms around her. Judd. Nancy leans forward to fix an oxygen mask over her face and cups her jaw gently.

“Scared us for a minute there, Marj.”

By all means, it shouldn’t have happened. They all freeze when it happens. The suspect is on the ground in a heartbeat, pinned by Officer Reyes, but by then the damage is done. The bullet, lodged in Nancy’s belly, has torn through enough of her to be gushing blood. She sinks to her knees. Then collapses.

“Nancy!” 

TK and Tommy kneel on either side of her while Marjan can only watch. The blood is pooling around Nancy’s body already, soaking the paramedics’ uniforms’ knees. It reaches out with dark fingers toward Marjan’s boots and she instinctively steps back, out of the way, and watches them struggle. 

“Firefighter, get blood from the ambulance!” Tommy orders.

Marjan obeys and comes back with two bags of the stuff, cold in her hands. Tommy connects it to the IV port quickly inserted in Nancy’s hand. “Hold that bag and squeeze. Don’t stop.” Marjan nods and squeezes the bag. From this close she can see how ashy Nancy’s face has gotten. They’ve cut open her uniform to reveal the gushing mess of her abdomen. TK is pressing down on it really hard. Nancy isn’t crying in pain. Her eyes are open, unseeing, staring up at Marjan. It’s like she’s asking why Marjan let this happen to her. 

“TK, start compressions,” Tommy orders. 

They’re losing her. 

Marjan squeezes the blood bag harder, but it isn’t enough. 

After ten minutes of compressions on the wet asphalt, TK leans back, sweating and crying, and shakes his head. “It’s been ten minutes, Cap.”

“I’m calling it.”

It’s been days. Too many days. TK can faintly tell from the different clothes his captors wear and his own sense of time to tell that it’s been at least a week since he was grabbed from the back of the ambulance and brought here to take care of some kid who got shot in a bank robbery. They’re not smart, his captors, but there’s nothing he can do about that. They take shifts guarding him with a gun and keep him tied up when he’s not checking on their friend. 

He’s given up asking them to just let him go, he won’t tell anyone. They’ve made it clear that when they no longer need him, they’re going to kill him. TK, frighteningly, has accepted this. It’s been a week and no one has found him. He knows his odds. He’s not coming out the other side of this. They haven’t fed him, they barely give him water. He’s weak. 

TK knows he’s dying.

He stumbles when they send him to the patient again, and his hands are shaking something terrible when he peels back the bandage to reveal that the wound is still heavily infected. At this point, it’s in the man’s blood. There’s no saving him without a hospital and. even then, the chances are slim. TK can do nothing for him. He says as much in a resigned voice. 

“Do something!”

“I can’t.” 

He bows his head as the cold barrel of a gun prods against his skull. He’s made his peace. 

The building begins to shake as they pick their way though the unstable structure. They’re trying to get to a trapped woman who’s been impaled and severely burned, which is how TK found himself going back into a burning building despite being a paramedic, but before they can even get close to her, the building quakes and trembles. TK has just enough time to call out for his father before the wall collapses inward, landing heavily on his back. 

“Shit,” he wheezes, and spits out a little blood. Not good. “Dad, are you okay?”

“Better than you,” Owen responds.

TK manages to turn to look at him, and sees that his father’s leg is trapped beneath a beam. It looks broken and bloody. Compound fracture. He needs help before he loses that leg. TK means to say so, but all he can do is cough wetly. It feels like he’s being crushed. 

“This is Captain Strand, there was an interior wall collapse. TK and I are both pinned down, we can’t reach each other and we didn’t get to the patient. We need immediate assistance in an unstable area.”

“Are you injured?” Tommy asks over the radio. TK can’t move to grab his own radio and respond. 

“My leg is trapped under a beam, looks like a compound fracture. TK is pinned under the wall, he’s in bad shape. He’s coughing up blood. I can’t reach him.”

“Dad,” TK hisses. “I can’t breathe.”

Owen looks at him with wide eyes. “TK can’t breathe. We need help in here.”

“Help is coming Cap,” Judd says. “But it’s slow going. This building ain’t stable.”

“You’re telling me.”

TK shuts his eyes. He knows he should stay awake but he’s quickly getting more and more tired. He can’t breathe. He hurts. The pull of unconsciousness is tugging at him.

“TK, you’ve gotta keep your eyes open for me,” Owen orders. “Don’t sleep on me.”

Since we all love whumping our favorite characters, here's an injury/whump bingo (inspired by BTHB). Included are characters and whump scenarios! Feel free to use, just tag as #LSWB so we can all see (and/or @milkymarjan and/or #userglow for me to reblog) and please credit me for the bingo card! This is free for writers, artists, editors, etc to use.

Mateo shouldn’t be afraid of snakes. He grew up in Texas, after all. He supposes he’s not alone, since everyone in the damn station hates the things, especially Judd, but as the most experienced and least afraid, he winds up kneeling in front of the firetruck, staring down a rattlesnake hidden under it. How it got here doesn’t matter. Just that it did. 

“I hate snakes.”

“Me too,” Marjan says, standing on top of the work bench. Nancy is beside her, holding her arm for reassurance. “Please get rid of it, Mateo.”

Mateo sighs and reaches for their makeshift snake hook, prepared to pick the thing up so he can toss it outside. Unfortunately, he startles the thing, making it lunge for him. He’s not fast enough to evade it, and winds up with the rattlesnake’s fangs buried in his forearm. 

“Shit.”

He has about five seconds before it starts to burn, the pain spreading up his arm and into his chest. It hurts. It really hurts. He doesn’t think he’s ever been in this much pain. He’s vaguely aware of Owen stepping on the thing to kill it and pulling its fangs from Mateo’s body, but mostly he’s getting really dizzy and really scared. 

Is he going to die?

“You’re not going to die, Chavez.”

He doesn’t know when the paramedics knelt beside him, but now he’s staring up at Tommy’s blurry face while someone puts an IV in his arm. Hands grab all around his body and lift him onto a soft gurney. 

“Going to the hospital?” he mumbles.