He slowly opened his eyes, fluttering them a little, getting himself comfortable with the idea of being awake. There was a heavy blanket over him, it must have been a comforter or something of the like. Looking at it, he detected something and so he breathed in, someone had made sure the thick comforter smelled like flowers of some sort. Blinking again, he realized it easily could have just been a dryer sheet it had rubbed up against, or the detergent they used. Batting his eyes, he realized something was odd, there was a large pillow up against his back. It was thick and at least six feet long, when he pushed against it he noticed it pushed back into him.

He looked out, there was another such pillow right in front of him. His vision was a bit blurry still, but he blinked a few times and it seemed to get better. Several seconds were spent reminding himself that he had been shot, that they had put him under and he had been on a lot of drugs likely. Maybe he was still doped up on painkillers. He did feel pretty slow, quite relaxed actually. The air was fairly cold and it pushed down on his face, which made the comforter even more cozy to be under. Trying to get himself onto his back seemed to strain him, it was a slow and awkward thing. It didn't hurt, it the pacing and angle of it, made it seem it should have.

Her presence was quickly made aware to him, his head turned as he laid on his back, and there she was at the foot of the bed. On either side of him were these thick, wide pillows, and before him was her. Her hair was short, she was watching him, and he could see her breath. There wasn't that much more that he could make out, even what she was wearing or how pretty others would think she was, it was a mystery to him. Regardless, all he could see was her and after waking up from what seemed like a heavy sleep, she definitely had his attention.

"You should be able to move reasonably in a bit." She started, watching him still with her eyes, "Not a lot of food in you, and you are still on relaxants. We had you under the knife for awhile, but as far as I know you are making a full recovery."
"Who are you?" Was what came out of his mouth "Where am I?"
"I am in charge of seeing to your welfare. You are in one of our best healthcare facilities, a naval base on an island a few hours by plane from when you were before."
"So I am not home, nor am I deployed?"
"You are in Benefactor territory, we take care of our those who look after our interests."

His eyebrows instantly narrowed, as his eyes remained locked on her, straining to hold his neck up.

"So you are one of them? The people who keep sending the money and supplies? You're one of those people?"
"Yes, we are 'those people'."
Her hands came up and some number of fingers moved up from her hands, the two of them. Considering her tone, likely it was finger quotes. Breathing out deeply, he let his head go back into the pillow and tried to relax his neck into the soft surface. He could hear her shivering, it seemed oddly louder then he thought it should, in fact she likely hadn't been speaking very loudly at all. "Are you a nurse?"
"My position is 'Morale and Welfare Specialist'. I have been the one tossing and turning you over, it's been rather hard to take care of you at times, but I do it without complaint or worry."
"Does that include my…"
"Yes, don't worry about it. I didn't think much of it at the time, it was just another part of the process of making sure you got better."
"I've been out more than a day or two, haven't I?"
"Excuse me… I have an answer, but I don't exactly know why you needed my care in the first place. Do you know what happened to you?"
"It was a really bad ambush, we lost some people, there was a lot of tangos on all sides. I remember really burning through the ammo, having to use my buddy's gun as I dragged him to safety, his rifle tucked under my arm to shoot."
"So it was quite an act of valor right?"
"I guess it was, it was really terrible, I guess I am glad to be alive."
"According to reports and what the others said, your fraction of a company faced four or more companies worth of insurgents. If it keeps checking out, you will certainly have more than one medal from us, not to mention what your fellow believers would award you."
"Well then, I guess I did good. Hopefully all of this means we made some strong progress in the conflict, getting closer to winning."
"Yeah, but you got shot more than once. You can certainly go back, but your recovery process is going to be longer than others who would have more visible wounds.
"Oh, well shit. I guess I should be glad I was able to get to good medical care in the first place, let alone the kind that can be long enough to really help me heal."
"Hey um, this is just something I have to do to be without worry, but do you got a minute or so to put things in perspective?"
"I'm stuck in this bed, I can't go anywhere. I think I got hours, Hun."
"Sometimes people walk out of here with scars and if they don't take a few moments early on to think about what they almost lost, rather then what they did lose; it can make them fairly sad for about a month or so."
"Okay, so I should just think about how lucky I am. It was pretty rough out there, I did say I am pretty lucky. You said there might be a scar right?"
"Likely three or four, I didn't count how many there were that were very visible."
"Okay, that sounds like I was really under the knife for awhile… Hum, I don't feel too bad, it's not like I lost an arm or a few fingers, at least I sure fucking hope not."
"No, it's likely you could go home and unless you were naked, no one would ever know."
"Well, that doesn't sound so bad. I don't see what the problem is, unless it's something really horrible I can't figure out now?"
"Well uh, your liver was kinda badly damaged, so we had to get you a new one. Do you feel any different?"
His eyes had been locked on the ceiling for awhile now, but every now and then he would move them around, despite that it all was too blurry.
"Not really, it's just a liver. If anything I wish my vision wasn't so blurry…. Did something happen to my vision?"
"You are going to need some kind of corrective lenses now, glasses. No worries, there is plenty of versions, so overall you just will have to pick out a pair that look good on you. The only other thing… is that one of your lungs and part of your heart had to be replaced too, and the available stock was pretty much mechanical."
"I don't care that much, it's only part of each organ anyways and I still feel pretty normal. Is that really it?"
"Well, we got some of our blood running around in you, because a lot of yours poured out. When you got to the medical platoon with your people, you were on the highest amount of safe caffeine, maybe even over. Our record shows you also had amphetamines in your system, you had been two entire days front to back without sleep, and you were very very sore. You went into shock several times, we had to restart your heart a few times when we picked you up, and you almost died a few times on the operating table."
"Don't remember it, care less about it then a bad dream. I just think I am really lucky, I'm glad things worked out." "There is something else I guess I need to tell you…"
"What?"
"Well, your body is pretty much as far as you care, in the same condition it was before the battle. Despite that, it's a miracle you are still alive and are recovering this well, we literally thought you would be braindead several times. I am so fucking glad that you woke up partially almost two days ago, I really really thought you were not going to make it."
"Shit, that sounds really bad. I must have been out what, months, years maybe?"
"You were out of it for about a month."
"Is that the bad news? Is this all of it?"
"I swear to you, that's all of it."
"I still don't really care, this is a very comfortable bed."