[Eddie can't remember much of what happened after John pushed the knife into his chest - he vaguely remembers John telling him how to survive it, vaguely remembers hitting his panic button, remembers Cassandra doing something to keep him from bleeding out. But it's all a blur, disorienting and hazy and out-of-focus, and Eddie's mind had retreated from the reality his body was facing, because it's too much like how he'd died at home, it's too much to process, too much...

At some point, he'd fallen unconscious, and when he wakes up, his lashes fluttering, his body aching through the haze of painkillers, he's not sure how long it's been since it happened. It's like he can still feel the knife in his chest, a sharp line of pain cuts through his left pectoral, smoothly through his ribs, reverberating through him with every beat of his heart. Or at least he thinks, at first, that it's a knife. Was it a knife or a bullet? Disoriented, he makes a soft noise in his throat, his fingers curling as his eyes flutter open and he looks around him.

Hospital. The pain in his chest. For just a second, Eddie panics, his fingers closing into a fistful of the blanket over him, his lips parting.]

Iris?

[It's rough, his throat and lips dry, and he looks around, pale blue eyes flicking back and forth too quickly, red around the edges and stinging.]