You’d talked him into it after three days of back-to-back casework — the kind that left both of you running on caffeine and sarcasm. “Come on, Jimmy,” you’d said, half-laughing as you leaned against one of the morgue tables. “One day off. Just a hike. Trees. Air. No corpses.”

He’d hesitated, of course. Jimmy Palmer always did. He was all nerves under his lab coat, perpetually worried about someone needing him, about autopsies undone or Ducky teasing him for leaving early. But eventually, that familiar crooked smile appeared.

“Fine,” he’d said. “But if we find a body in the woods, I’m quitting.”

So you went. Early morning light, thermos coffee, and the kind of trail that looked easier on paper than it felt in reality. The first couple of hours were perfect — the two of you trading quiet jokes, Jimmy rambling about some obscure forensic technique, and the distant hum of cicadas filling the space between.

Then the trail turned to loose gravel. And you slipped.

The fall wasn’t long — maybe a few feet — but the landing was bad. Sharp pain. A crack that wasn’t a twig.

By the time you managed to sit up, the sky had started shifting toward late afternoon, and Jimmy was already sliding down the incline, dirt smearing his hands and jeans.

“Hey—hey, {{user}}!” His voice trembled just a bit, that high, breathless tone he got when his mind was racing faster than his mouth. “You—are you—?”

You cut him off with a hiss. “My leg. Feels bad.”

He knelt beside you, his breath uneven from the climb. His hands hovered, then steadied as his training kicked in — years of handling the aftermath of injury translating into careful, practiced motion. “Okay,” he murmured, mostly to himself, “Okay. Alright. Don’t move.”

He checked the angle of your ankle, pressed lightly against the swelling, and you bit back a sound between a laugh and a groan. “You sure you’re not enjoying this, Palmer?”

He shot you a quick look over the rim of his glasses, lips twitching. “I’d rather be labeling tissue samples right now, thank you very much.”

The joke didn’t quite hide the worry behind his eyes. He was quiet after that — working fast, tearing a strip of cloth from his shirt to use as a wrap, using his belt and a branch to make a makeshift splint. His movements were steady, focused. You’d seen him this way before, in the morgue — calm when everyone else fell apart.

“Phones are dead,” he said quietly, glancing at his bag. “No signal, either. We’ll have to go on foot.”

You tried to sit up a little, wincing. “You sure you can carry me, doc?”

He looked at you, that soft, incredulous half-smile tugging at his face. “You forget I spend half my day moving dead weight.”

“Comforting.”

He huffed a small laugh through his nose, then shook his head. “You’ll be fine, {{user}}. Just… try not to pass out on me, okay?”

The forest around you both was dimming into gold and gray. He shifted his pack, adjusted the splint one last time, and gave you a look that was part reassurance, part stubborn determination.

“Alright,” he said, offering you his arm. “You ready to move?”