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The rescue of Jonathan Pine

Before I publish my very first fanfiction, I would like to apologize, English is not my native language, so please be patient. I recently learned about the whump, hurt/comfort genre and I am so glad that there are more of us, that I am no longer ashamed to write something myself. And now I will not delay any longer and get to the story, which is situated somewhere between the other lines after the end of episode 6 of the second season:

The forest had a strange ability to absorb even what would otherwise remain as evidence. The sound of gunfire, the smell of burning metal, the voices of people in panic—it all disappeared. All that remained was the humidity, the heavy air, and the leaves slowly returning to their places as if nothing had happened.

From above, the place seemed almost intact. An endless sea of green, rippling slightly in the morning light. Only upon closer inspection could one glimpse the disturbance—darker patches in the soil, an irregular shape that didn’t belong here, and finally two figures that blended into the landscape too well to be seen immediately.

Jonathan Pine lay on his back, his gray-blue T-shirt soaked with sweat and blood, stiff and heavy, stuck to his skin. It was as if the forest was slowly taking him back—not violently, but with a patience that brooked no resistance.

Tavo sat beside him.

He wasn’t guarding him like a soldier would, or with the professionalism of someone who knew exactly what to do. He was sitting there because he couldn’t leave. One hand was pressed against Pine’s side, right where the wound was hidden under the cloth. The pressure had long since lost its effectiveness, but Tavo wouldn’t let go. It was the last thing that made sense.

“Oye…,” he whispered, not sure why he was doing it. “Oye… no te mueras.”

Jonathan didn’t answer. He hadn’t answered in a long time. His breathing was irregular, almost imperceptible, and sometimes it would stop altogether, as if he had decided to leave without warning. Each time Tavo leaned closer, holding his breath, waiting for another one to come.

Sometimes it took so long that Tavo began to believe it wouldn’t come at all.

The sun was slowly creeping higher, and the humidity was almost unbearable. The insects grew louder, the sounds of the forest grew louder, but a strange kind of silence hung around them—not the absence of sound, but rather the feeling that everything important had already been said.

Jonathan stirred once, ever so slightly. It was not a conscious movement, more a reaction of a body that refused to give up without a final resistance. Tavo registered it immediately.

“Esperar…,” he muttered, faster, more urgently. “Por favor.”

He squeezed his hand tighter, as if it could hold something that was slipping through his fingers.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. Hours were indistinguishable in the forest. The only measure was the changes in light and fatigue. At one point, he realized that he could barely see clearly anymore. He had to blink to make out the outline of Pine’s face.

Then he heard something that didn’t belong in the silence.

At first, he didn’t pay attention. The jungle is full of sounds that seem to be something other than what they are. But then it came again. Irregularly. Muffled.

Voices.

He raised his head. He tried to focus on the green in front of him, but all he could see was the movement of leaves. For a moment he thought he was imagining it.

Then the leaves moved differently.

Faster.

Someone was approaching.

—

Sally didn’t look like someone who should be leading a search in the jungle. And yet she went first.

Not because she knew exactly where to go. None of them did. But she had something the others didn’t have—a rejection of the idea that it was too late. And that proved to be reason enough to keep going at that moment.

The tracks were vague. In places they disappeared completely, in others they appeared in hints—a rutted ground, a broken branch, a darker stain that could have been anything. The men Consuelo had found exchanged brief glances and occasionally changed direction without explanation. Sally didn’t ask. She didn’t have time for questions that wouldn’t have an immediate answer.

When they came upon the first real trail of blood, she stopped.

She knelt down without thinking about what she was doing and touched it. It was dark now, dried on the surface.

The car was found a moment later. It was abandoned, open, empty. Everything that had happened in it had already moved elsewhere. All that remained were the tracks—and the direction.

“This way,” one of the men said.

Sally didn’t stop. She just nodded and kept going.

She saw Tavo first, and only then did the moment of recognition come. It wasn’t “there he is.” It was more a moment when her mind refused to accept that the shape in the leaves was indeed the person she was looking for.

Then she started running.

She knelt down beside him so hard that she slipped on the damp leaves. Her hands shook as she reached for his neck, searching for a pulse, a breath, anything to confirm that she wasn’t late.

“Jonathan…”

Nothing for a moment.

Then—a faint, irregular breath.

So faint that anyone else would have missed it.

Not her.

The relief came immediately, but it wasn’t pure. It was sharp, almost painful, because she knew how little it took to lose him again.

“We have to lift him,” she said without looking up.

Someone objected. Something about the condition, the risk.

“Now,” she added.

That was the decision.

As they lifted him, his body slid down without resistance, as if it belonged to someone else. Two of them knelt down, carefully lifting him up. Jonathan's body broke at the waist as he moved, without any control. His head fell back, his arms hanging motionless.

He was heavier than she had expected. Not physically—more in his limpness.

She immediately pressed her hand to his side, exactly where the cloth had become damp again.

"That's good…," she began quietly, almost automatically. "Can you hear me? That's good…"

She didn't know if he could hear her. But she needed to say it.

Tavo walked beside them, uncertain, exhausted, but unwilling to move away. Every now and then something from he mumbled in Spanish, words Sally didn’t understand, but the tone was clear.

The car appeared through the trees like something foreign.

When they opened it, everything sped up for a moment.

“Back,” Sally said.

She helped them load him, but once he was inside, she changed her movement.

She sat in the back seat and pulled him close to her.

This time it wasn’t just about transporting him.

Jonathan’s body slid halfway across her. She caught his shoulders with one hand, and with the other she immediately found the wound in his side and pressed it.

His head fell onto her shoulder.

He was hot.

And unnaturally heavy at the same time.

“Go,” she said.

The car sped away faster than necessary. No one commented.

—

The place they’d brought him to wasn’t a hospital. It was a place where people were treated when they couldn’t go anywhere else.

The doctor didn’t ask lingering questions. One glance was enough.

“On the table.”

Jonathan’s body shifted again, this time under the harsh light that revealed more than anyone would want to see.

The transition wasn’t smooth.

The light hit him too quickly, too hard. His eyelids fluttered slightly, and for a moment it seemed he would stay where he was—somewhere between consciousness and emptiness. Then his breath hitched and came back more forcefully.

His eyes opened slowly.

They didn’t focus right away. His gaze remained fragmented, wandering around the light above him, unfamiliar shapes that made no sense. For a moment, a tension rose within him, instinctive, unnamed.

He didn’t know where he was.

He didn’t know what had happened.

He moved—barely perceptibly. An attempt his body immediately rejected. The pain came with a delay, but all the more acute. His breath caught, hanging somewhere between inhale and exhale.

“No,” Sally said quietly but firmly.

She was there before he knew it. A hand on his shoulder, the other carefully around his arm, as if holding him together.

“Calm down. Don’t move.”

Her voice was low, focused, without panic. She didn’t wait for an answer.

Jonathan looked at her.

This time his gaze caught.

Not immediately—first just an outline, the light behind her, then the shape of a face. It took a moment for it to connect. Not like a memory, more like the recognition of something familiar in a space that otherwise made no sense.

The tension in his expression eased slightly.

Not completely. But enough to stop him from fighting.

His eyelids grew heavy, but they didn’t close yet.

Sally remained calm. “It’s good,” she said more quietly. “I’m here.”

She didn’t know how much of it she he was aware of. But she saw the change.

That was enough.

—

“Hold him,” the doctor said emotionlessly, already focused on her work.

Jonathan’s T-shirt was caked with blood. The scissors had cut through the fabric from the neck down, the metal catching briefly on the dried layer before it broke through. There was a soft crack as the fabric separated from the skin.

Sally instinctively gripped his hand a little tighter.

The wound was exposed beneath the fabric.

“It’s going to hurt,” the doctor said calmly, without it being clear to whom she was speaking.

Then there was no room for anything but work.

Her hands began to move quickly and precisely.

Jonathan’s body responded before he could realize it. His muscles tensed, his fingers tightened slightly around Sally’s hand. His breathing quickened, lost its rhythm.

“Hold it,” the doctor repeated, more sharply this time.

Sally leaned toward him.

“That’s good…,” she whispered, almost in his ear. “Just a moment… hold on.”

She didn’t know if he could hear her. But his gaze shifted in her direction again for a moment, as if trying to catch something familiar in the chaos of light and pain.

Then his eyelids finally closed.

His body gradually relaxed, the tension disintegrating into exhaustion.

But he was still there.

And that was enough for now.

—

The night came quietly.

Jonathan lay on the narrow bed, the bandages pulled tight, his body exhausted to the point where even breathing felt like an effort. His chest rose and fell irregularly, occasionally pausing for a moment before he forced himself to continue again.

Sally sat beside him, unable to remember the last time she had closed her eyes. Time had become a matter of watching his breathing, of silently counting the seconds between each breath, of the small changes that could signal improvement—or the end.

Her hand rested on his forearm, just lightly, to feel that he was still there.

“Don’t do this to me…” she whispered once, when his breath had momentarily disappeared. She didn’t know if she was talking to him or to herself.

Tavo sat nearby, his back to the wall, quieter than before. He looked smaller, withdrawn, as if trying to take up as little space as possible.

“¿Va a vivir?” he asked quietly.

Sally was silent for a moment before answering.

“Yes,” she finally said. “He has to.”

Jonathan had moved slightly several times during the night. They weren’t conscious reactions, more like echoes of a body that refused to give up. Once he furrowed his brows slightly, another time his breathing quickened for a moment, as if responding to a voice that had reached him from a great distance.

The first time it happened, Sally leaned toward him.

“I’m here,” she said softly. “You’re safe now.”

She wasn’t sure if it was true. But at that moment it was the only sentence she could give him.

The room remained silent, the light dim, the night long. And somewhere in between those moments that had no name or meaning, the man who had all the reasons to give it up. And the woman who wouldn't let him.

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All My Sons matinee show, 20/12/2025.

Absolutely astounding performance from every single person on that stage, holy shit. I want to work opposite Bryan Cranston so bad one day, he was phenomenal. Paapa Essiedu brought such an incredible raw energy to his role. And my beloved Tom Glynn Carney, in his one act, fucking owned the whole stage. I don't often get star struck any more but he brushed right by me for his audience entrance and I'm still shook.

10/10 would recommend going to see this while it's still on!

#all my sons #tom glynn carney #bryan cranston #paapa essiedu #marianne jean baptiste #hayley squires