Phoenix 47
Cadet
This is the last update for about a month, because I'll be out of town.
Chapter 3
My mom died while on a mission. She was assassinated by Arvin Sloane. My dad died on a mission too. He was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. One of them damaged his abdominal aorta, so he was a lost cause even though they brought him to a hospital.
God, I am such a doctor.
Anyway, you think that I would have more trepidation about going in as a field doctor. Especially since my parents died in the field. But, actually, I’m ecstatic. I’m beyond ecstatic.
Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe I got my mom and dad’s gene that makes me long for field work.
Plus, I’m not exactly in the field. I’m actually off the field, ready to help people like my mom and my dad who are injured like they were in the field.
This has the potential to be the best day of my life.
Grey awoke the next morning in a safe house in a forest of Sverdlovsk. All the agents and doctors were in one room, men and women together. The night before, when they arrived, Grey quickly learned that there was a race to secure one of the three beds in this particular room. She managed to beat the others to a bed, so she had a wonderful, deep sleep.
“Grey,” Dr. Roberts said, coming in to the room. The chief (Dr. Roberts) and the head of the team (Stryker) each got their own room, “you ready?”
“yeah,” Grey said, sitting up, “I’ve just got to put on my scrubs.”
“Aren’t you already wearing them?” Dr. Roberts asked. Grey looked down and saw the black scrubs and her black long sleeve shirt already on.
“Oh yeah,” she said, groggily, “I kept them on because I didn’t want to lose the bed.”
“Get some coffee Grey,” Dr. Roberts said, rolling his eyes, “I can’t have one of my best doctors sleepy while performing surgery to save the life of injured agents.”
“okay,” Grey said, getting up and putting her black shoes on, “Right to it. Wait. Did you just say I was one of your best…”
“We leave in one hour,” Dr. Roberts interrupted, “So that we can set up the warehouse before tonight when the team raids.”
Grey suddenly felt a fear deep in her stomach. Stryker was going to be on that team. He was going to be leading the team. He could die. Like Vaughn and Sydney. He could be laying in front of her on a table, and not just for a suture.
This is why we keep the personal stuff out of the hospital,the little annoying voice in the back of her mind told her.
****
The medical team had been waiting in the warehouse hospital for more than 13 hours. They’d spent about half that time setting the place up, and the rest of the time waiting around. Grey was sitting on one of the beds, trying to stay awake, when another doctor sidled up.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching her.
“Suturing a mango, in the hope that it will keep me awake and calm my nerves,” she grumbled, trying to keep herself from thinking about Stryker. The other doctor looked for another minute and then left, shaking his head as he saw a variety of sutured tropical fruit sitting on the table beside her.
“Where are they?” Dr. Roberts asked himself impatiently, “They were supposed to be back half an hour ago.”
“Sir,” Grey asked, leaving her own assigned table (and her perfectly sutured mango…where she got a mango in the middle of the wilderness in Sverdlovsk, Russia, we shall never know) and moving up to him, “Do you think everyone is alright?”
“Hard to say,” Dr. Roberts said, “But they at least usually check in…”
At that moment, an explosion erupted, drowning out Dr. Roberts’ voice. Grey and the other doctors rushed to the window as the building the team was raiding went up in flames.
“Oh my god,” Grey said, both in awe and fear. She glanced at the others watching the flames. They were just as in awe as she was.
“Here they come,” Dr. Roberts said, regaining the doctors‘ attention, “Open the door!”
The mission had obviously gone badly. Agents came running into the warehouse, yelling, pulling their own and enemies. Blood and cries of pain were filled the building. Agents pulled their fellow agents in, setting them on tables. It was chaos all around. Grey was relieved when she didn’t see Stryker in the mix of injured.
But Grey did see a woman laying on a table at the back of the warehouse, alone and untended. She had a gaping hole in her chest, and she was bleeding out. Grey instinctively put her hand on it to keep the blood in.
"Gunshot wound to chest," Grey muttered as she wrote on a chart.
“Dr. Bristow, what are you doing?” Roberts yelled at her, across the medical center, “Get over here. We need your help.”
“No,” she yelled back, “We can’t just abandon her.”
“Yes,” he yelled back, “We can. She’s an enemy agent. Come help your own!”
“She’s not only an agent!” Grey yelled again, “She’s a person! She’s a human being! Whose life needs saving!”
Grey kept her hand on the wound. Roberts turned from her angrily, but let her continue and sent others to tend to the agents. The woman had a deep wound in her abdomen, not to mention multiple burns. Grey started to inspect the woman‘s wound, but the woman agent flatlined before Grey could do anything else. Grey moved her hand and started massaging the chest.
“Come on,” she goaded, pushing the woman’s chest, “Come on. Code blue!”
No code team came. No one came to help Grey. She was in the middle of Russia, in a warehouse made to be a hospital, wondering how the hell she got herself into this kind of situation, longing for the sterile white halls of a real hospital with code teams ready to come no matter what. Grey pounded the woman’s chest, still massaging as she searched for any drug…anything…to get this woman’s heart beating again.
“Seriously?” Grey shouted, annoyed, “Is there no dopamine around here?”
No one answered. Grey was left massaging a heart while reaching around looking for drugs.
“Grey,” Roberts said, coming to her after a few minutes and pulling her hands off the wound, “She’s gone. She’s gone.”
“No,” Grey yelled, hysterical, “There has to be something. She can’t die. I was supposed to save her. Get a defibrillator here now! ”
“Grey,” Roberts said, pulling her away from the woman, “Let go. You have to.”
She struggled with Roberts, trying to get back to the woman, when the dull beep stopped. The machine had turned off. Grey froze, paralyzed, staring at the woman on the table.
“Call it doctor,” Roberts said to her.
Grey was rooted to the spot, silent and in shock. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t even cry. She could only stare at the dead woman in front of her.
“Call it Dr. Bristow,” Roberts said quietly.
Grey jerked herself out of his arms and shook her head, regaining her composure.
“Time of death,” she said, “1:54 AM.”
***
Grey closed the hotel room door behind her and leaned against it, exhausted. She tossed her keys on the table, trying to keep the tears back. She couldn’t cry in front of all those agents, especially since it was about 3 am and they were all asleep. On the beds. And the couches. And the chairs.
She was stuck with sleeping on the floor.
“This day sucks,” she muttered to herself, as she grabbed a wad of her clothes to use as a pillow. She settled on the floor and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.
The woman’s face was still stuck in her mind. She’d had blue eyes and blonde hair. She had been beautiful.
Who was she? Was she just an enemy spy? Was this her choice? Or was she roped into this job like I was? Did she have a family? Was she a mother, a wife? Did she have friends? Did she love someone like I love Stryker? Who will never see her again?
Grey opened her eyes immediately. The questions bore mercilessly in her mind. Before she could even begin to blame herself, the door to the adjacent room opened, and a figure walked in.
“Hey Grey,” Stryker whispered, kneeling beside her. She sat up, pushing her long hair back with her hands.
“You’re still awake?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t coming onto her. Because she wouldn’t be able to resist it. Especially not right now, when she was so weak.
“Yeah,” he said, “I have a separate room. Team leader’s privilege. Take it. I’ll sleep in here.”
“I know all about your separate room, Stryker,” Grey snapped, “And no, I‘m not taking it. That’s your room.”
“You need a real bed,” Stryker said, lifting her up by her arms and leading her to the adjacent room, “Just don’t break anything. Cause you’ll have to pay for it. Good night.”
He closed the door quietly. Grey turned and fell onto the bed, tossing and writhing until she was comfortable under the covers.
Then she cried. She cried for the agents that died. She cried for the enemy agents that died. She cried for her and Stryker.
Stryker must have heard her, because he came in. She felt the bed shift from his weight sitting on it.
“Grey,” he said, putting his arm over her, “Are you okay?”
“A woman died,” she said, suppressing her sobs, but her ragged tear cracked voice wasn‘t something she could hide, “My patient. Before I could even get a chance to help her.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, sounding truly sorry.
“She was an enemy agent. And Dr. Roberts was yelling at me because I helped her. It’s like, he and no one on the med team sees the difference between enemy and human. We’re all people, and we all need the same treatment, medical or whatever, no matter what.”
“Okay.”
“And the looks I was getting from people. Like I was a traitor for trying to help her. They don’t understand. I learned to help everyone; they learned to help everyone that was on their side.”
“Look Grey. You did what you believed was right. What most believe is right. That makes you better than any doctor on that team.”
“god, I hate this job,” she said, wiping her tears.
“You’re not in the worst part of it,” Stryker said, and for the first time, Grey noticed his eyes water. The tears never fell. They were rooted in his deep blue eyes.
“What happened, Stryker?” she asked.
“We were ambushed. Somebody had leaked information to let them know we were coming. In layman’s terms…”
“A mole,” Grey interrupted.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Stryker asked, rolling his eyes.
“What?” Grey asked.
“The whole, interrupting me with the answer thing.”
“Oh. It’s a doctor thing,” Grey shrugged.
“Anyway, so now we get to hunt the mole and…it’s just, it’s exhausting.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each contemplating how to make each other feel better.
“I have a question,” he said looking at her for approval. She nodded.
“how does someone like you end up here at CIA Med Services?” he asked.
“Question I’ve been asking myself since the day I decided to work here. And honestly, I don’t know. It just felt right to be here. After that, I found out that my grandpa and mom and dad were all CIA agents. So no wonder it felt right; must have been genetic.”
“do you wish…Do you wish that you were somewhere else?” he asked.
“Every single freaking day,” she said.
“Really? Do you even wish you weren’t here with me?” he asked.
“Well…If I left, I’d take you with me.”
He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t try to come on to her. He simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. They both laid back down. She wrapped her hand into his, interlocking fingers. He was so warm, so protective. As she drifted off to sleep, comforted by Stryker, she couldn’t help but recall the very first night when she was planning for this man to be a one night stand, not someone that she could spend her entire life with.
And having someone to love for an entire lifetime, that is so much better.
APO
Dixon picked up the phone. This was the call he was not prepared to make. He had been dreading it all day long.
“Hello?” a female voice answered over the phone.
“It’s Dixon,” he said, trying to keep his tears back, “I need your help.”
“With what?” she asked, with a sigh.
“It’s Jack,” he said, “I need you to talk with him. He refuses to get a surgery that will save his life.”
“He’s stubborn,” she said, “Like his daughter. Like his wife.”
“Like his granddaughter,” Dixon said.
“How is she doing?” she asked, curiosity in her voice.
“Good. Very, very good.”
There was a pause on the phone.
“I’ll talk to him,“ she agreed, “Take the phone to him. I can convince him to do it.”
“Thank you,” Dixon said, “Grey will appreciate it.”
Chapter 3
My mom died while on a mission. She was assassinated by Arvin Sloane. My dad died on a mission too. He was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. One of them damaged his abdominal aorta, so he was a lost cause even though they brought him to a hospital.
God, I am such a doctor.
Anyway, you think that I would have more trepidation about going in as a field doctor. Especially since my parents died in the field. But, actually, I’m ecstatic. I’m beyond ecstatic.
Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe I got my mom and dad’s gene that makes me long for field work.
Plus, I’m not exactly in the field. I’m actually off the field, ready to help people like my mom and my dad who are injured like they were in the field.
This has the potential to be the best day of my life.
Grey awoke the next morning in a safe house in a forest of Sverdlovsk. All the agents and doctors were in one room, men and women together. The night before, when they arrived, Grey quickly learned that there was a race to secure one of the three beds in this particular room. She managed to beat the others to a bed, so she had a wonderful, deep sleep.
“Grey,” Dr. Roberts said, coming in to the room. The chief (Dr. Roberts) and the head of the team (Stryker) each got their own room, “you ready?”
“yeah,” Grey said, sitting up, “I’ve just got to put on my scrubs.”
“Aren’t you already wearing them?” Dr. Roberts asked. Grey looked down and saw the black scrubs and her black long sleeve shirt already on.
“Oh yeah,” she said, groggily, “I kept them on because I didn’t want to lose the bed.”
“Get some coffee Grey,” Dr. Roberts said, rolling his eyes, “I can’t have one of my best doctors sleepy while performing surgery to save the life of injured agents.”
“okay,” Grey said, getting up and putting her black shoes on, “Right to it. Wait. Did you just say I was one of your best…”
“We leave in one hour,” Dr. Roberts interrupted, “So that we can set up the warehouse before tonight when the team raids.”
Grey suddenly felt a fear deep in her stomach. Stryker was going to be on that team. He was going to be leading the team. He could die. Like Vaughn and Sydney. He could be laying in front of her on a table, and not just for a suture.
This is why we keep the personal stuff out of the hospital,the little annoying voice in the back of her mind told her.
****
The medical team had been waiting in the warehouse hospital for more than 13 hours. They’d spent about half that time setting the place up, and the rest of the time waiting around. Grey was sitting on one of the beds, trying to stay awake, when another doctor sidled up.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching her.
“Suturing a mango, in the hope that it will keep me awake and calm my nerves,” she grumbled, trying to keep herself from thinking about Stryker. The other doctor looked for another minute and then left, shaking his head as he saw a variety of sutured tropical fruit sitting on the table beside her.
“Where are they?” Dr. Roberts asked himself impatiently, “They were supposed to be back half an hour ago.”
“Sir,” Grey asked, leaving her own assigned table (and her perfectly sutured mango…where she got a mango in the middle of the wilderness in Sverdlovsk, Russia, we shall never know) and moving up to him, “Do you think everyone is alright?”
“Hard to say,” Dr. Roberts said, “But they at least usually check in…”
At that moment, an explosion erupted, drowning out Dr. Roberts’ voice. Grey and the other doctors rushed to the window as the building the team was raiding went up in flames.
“Oh my god,” Grey said, both in awe and fear. She glanced at the others watching the flames. They were just as in awe as she was.
“Here they come,” Dr. Roberts said, regaining the doctors‘ attention, “Open the door!”
The mission had obviously gone badly. Agents came running into the warehouse, yelling, pulling their own and enemies. Blood and cries of pain were filled the building. Agents pulled their fellow agents in, setting them on tables. It was chaos all around. Grey was relieved when she didn’t see Stryker in the mix of injured.
But Grey did see a woman laying on a table at the back of the warehouse, alone and untended. She had a gaping hole in her chest, and she was bleeding out. Grey instinctively put her hand on it to keep the blood in.
"Gunshot wound to chest," Grey muttered as she wrote on a chart.
“Dr. Bristow, what are you doing?” Roberts yelled at her, across the medical center, “Get over here. We need your help.”
“No,” she yelled back, “We can’t just abandon her.”
“Yes,” he yelled back, “We can. She’s an enemy agent. Come help your own!”
“She’s not only an agent!” Grey yelled again, “She’s a person! She’s a human being! Whose life needs saving!”
Grey kept her hand on the wound. Roberts turned from her angrily, but let her continue and sent others to tend to the agents. The woman had a deep wound in her abdomen, not to mention multiple burns. Grey started to inspect the woman‘s wound, but the woman agent flatlined before Grey could do anything else. Grey moved her hand and started massaging the chest.
“Come on,” she goaded, pushing the woman’s chest, “Come on. Code blue!”
No code team came. No one came to help Grey. She was in the middle of Russia, in a warehouse made to be a hospital, wondering how the hell she got herself into this kind of situation, longing for the sterile white halls of a real hospital with code teams ready to come no matter what. Grey pounded the woman’s chest, still massaging as she searched for any drug…anything…to get this woman’s heart beating again.
“Seriously?” Grey shouted, annoyed, “Is there no dopamine around here?”
No one answered. Grey was left massaging a heart while reaching around looking for drugs.
“Grey,” Roberts said, coming to her after a few minutes and pulling her hands off the wound, “She’s gone. She’s gone.”
“No,” Grey yelled, hysterical, “There has to be something. She can’t die. I was supposed to save her. Get a defibrillator here now! ”
“Grey,” Roberts said, pulling her away from the woman, “Let go. You have to.”
She struggled with Roberts, trying to get back to the woman, when the dull beep stopped. The machine had turned off. Grey froze, paralyzed, staring at the woman on the table.
“Call it doctor,” Roberts said to her.
Grey was rooted to the spot, silent and in shock. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t even cry. She could only stare at the dead woman in front of her.
“Call it Dr. Bristow,” Roberts said quietly.
Grey jerked herself out of his arms and shook her head, regaining her composure.
“Time of death,” she said, “1:54 AM.”
***
Grey closed the hotel room door behind her and leaned against it, exhausted. She tossed her keys on the table, trying to keep the tears back. She couldn’t cry in front of all those agents, especially since it was about 3 am and they were all asleep. On the beds. And the couches. And the chairs.
She was stuck with sleeping on the floor.
“This day sucks,” she muttered to herself, as she grabbed a wad of her clothes to use as a pillow. She settled on the floor and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.
The woman’s face was still stuck in her mind. She’d had blue eyes and blonde hair. She had been beautiful.
Who was she? Was she just an enemy spy? Was this her choice? Or was she roped into this job like I was? Did she have a family? Was she a mother, a wife? Did she have friends? Did she love someone like I love Stryker? Who will never see her again?
Grey opened her eyes immediately. The questions bore mercilessly in her mind. Before she could even begin to blame herself, the door to the adjacent room opened, and a figure walked in.
“Hey Grey,” Stryker whispered, kneeling beside her. She sat up, pushing her long hair back with her hands.
“You’re still awake?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t coming onto her. Because she wouldn’t be able to resist it. Especially not right now, when she was so weak.
“Yeah,” he said, “I have a separate room. Team leader’s privilege. Take it. I’ll sleep in here.”
“I know all about your separate room, Stryker,” Grey snapped, “And no, I‘m not taking it. That’s your room.”
“You need a real bed,” Stryker said, lifting her up by her arms and leading her to the adjacent room, “Just don’t break anything. Cause you’ll have to pay for it. Good night.”
He closed the door quietly. Grey turned and fell onto the bed, tossing and writhing until she was comfortable under the covers.
Then she cried. She cried for the agents that died. She cried for the enemy agents that died. She cried for her and Stryker.
Stryker must have heard her, because he came in. She felt the bed shift from his weight sitting on it.
“Grey,” he said, putting his arm over her, “Are you okay?”
“A woman died,” she said, suppressing her sobs, but her ragged tear cracked voice wasn‘t something she could hide, “My patient. Before I could even get a chance to help her.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, sounding truly sorry.
“She was an enemy agent. And Dr. Roberts was yelling at me because I helped her. It’s like, he and no one on the med team sees the difference between enemy and human. We’re all people, and we all need the same treatment, medical or whatever, no matter what.”
“Okay.”
“And the looks I was getting from people. Like I was a traitor for trying to help her. They don’t understand. I learned to help everyone; they learned to help everyone that was on their side.”
“Look Grey. You did what you believed was right. What most believe is right. That makes you better than any doctor on that team.”
“god, I hate this job,” she said, wiping her tears.
“You’re not in the worst part of it,” Stryker said, and for the first time, Grey noticed his eyes water. The tears never fell. They were rooted in his deep blue eyes.
“What happened, Stryker?” she asked.
“We were ambushed. Somebody had leaked information to let them know we were coming. In layman’s terms…”
“A mole,” Grey interrupted.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Stryker asked, rolling his eyes.
“What?” Grey asked.
“The whole, interrupting me with the answer thing.”
“Oh. It’s a doctor thing,” Grey shrugged.
“Anyway, so now we get to hunt the mole and…it’s just, it’s exhausting.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each contemplating how to make each other feel better.
“I have a question,” he said looking at her for approval. She nodded.
“how does someone like you end up here at CIA Med Services?” he asked.
“Question I’ve been asking myself since the day I decided to work here. And honestly, I don’t know. It just felt right to be here. After that, I found out that my grandpa and mom and dad were all CIA agents. So no wonder it felt right; must have been genetic.”
“do you wish…Do you wish that you were somewhere else?” he asked.
“Every single freaking day,” she said.
“Really? Do you even wish you weren’t here with me?” he asked.
“Well…If I left, I’d take you with me.”
He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t try to come on to her. He simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. They both laid back down. She wrapped her hand into his, interlocking fingers. He was so warm, so protective. As she drifted off to sleep, comforted by Stryker, she couldn’t help but recall the very first night when she was planning for this man to be a one night stand, not someone that she could spend her entire life with.
And having someone to love for an entire lifetime, that is so much better.
APO
Dixon picked up the phone. This was the call he was not prepared to make. He had been dreading it all day long.
“Hello?” a female voice answered over the phone.
“It’s Dixon,” he said, trying to keep his tears back, “I need your help.”
“With what?” she asked, with a sigh.
“It’s Jack,” he said, “I need you to talk with him. He refuses to get a surgery that will save his life.”
“He’s stubborn,” she said, “Like his daughter. Like his wife.”
“Like his granddaughter,” Dixon said.
“How is she doing?” she asked, curiosity in her voice.
“Good. Very, very good.”
There was a pause on the phone.
“I’ll talk to him,“ she agreed, “Take the phone to him. I can convince him to do it.”
“Thank you,” Dixon said, “Grey will appreciate it.”
