Hello all,
Minor author's note. This should have been posted sometime last week but I was a bad, bad evil twin and I forgot. Here is the second of two missing scenes for the anniversary bonus my evil twin and I had planned. The chapter this missing scene refers to is Chapter 6 of Two Years. Enjoy!!
"Did someone come with you Agent?" The doctor asked.
"Yeah, he's out in the waiting room."
"All right. I'll tell him what's happening. I'll be back in a few minutes."
********
He walked into the ER waiting room and looked around, not sure who he might be looking for but Eric Vernacke was not expecting to see . . . "Agent Granger?"
Colby stood and waved a hand. He walked over to the doctor in the extremely loud scrubs and held out his hand "I'm Agent Granger."
"Nice to see you up and about and not trying to take out people with wicked right hooks." Eric said.
Colby blinked and looked at the doctor, confused.
"Oops, shoulda known you wouldn't recall me. Doctor Eric Vernacke." Eric held out a welcoming hand.
Colby shook hands with Dr. Vernacke. "It's a pleasure." He paused, then added "Should I know you?"
"Probably, but it's not important . . . I understand you came in with Agent Gerard today?"
Colby's brow wrinkled for a moment, then he nodded.
"I thought you should know, I'm admitting him for observations. He should be okay to return to work in two days, but until then . . . should I give you the notice to take to his boss?" Eric asked, a lightly teasing note in his voice,.
Colby fought off the urge to grin. "You don't have to do that, I can give you his superior's direct line."
"Good enough." Eric gently led Agent Granger over to a private alcove, away from prying ears in the waiting room. "Look, Granger, do me - and your family - a favor and no more undercover assignments that put you that close to death, all right?" He patted his former patient on the shoulder, then walked away.
Colby stared after the doctor, a faint memory stirring in the very back of his mind, a voice telling him to calm down and...He shook his head. He still got flashes of memory after his rescue off the Chinese freighter that made absolutely no sense. This was one of them.
************
"Mom? It's Colby."
"I know, I saw your phone number on the caller i.d. What's going on? This isn't your normal time to call."
"I ran into a doc at UCLA Medical Center who seemed to know me pretty well and looked a little startled to see me on my feet and still an FBI Agent."
Cat swallowed. "What were you doing at UCLA Medical Center, Baby?"
"Another agent I know decided that he really, really wanted to develop a bleeding ulcer so he didn't have to do the annual reviews. His second in command is cussing his timing."
Cat snorted, then laughed. "A bleeding ulcer, hmm? Those are most definitely not fun. You drove him there?"
"Yup. I happened to come into the bathroom while he was throwing up." Colby slipped his tie off and hung it up on its rack as he talked. "Anyway, the treating physician, Vernacke, I think he said his name was, really acted like he knew me and pulled me aside to advise me about undercover work."
Cat nearly dropped the phone. "He did?" Her voice came out in a whisper.
"Yeah, he did. Of course, I didn't get a chance to tell him I'm not planning on taking on UC work for a while." He paused, then rushed to reassure his mother. "For a long, long while, Mom."
"You better not Colby James Granger!" She sighed, her temper disappearing as quickly as it came. "What did he say?"
Colby grabbed a longneck beer out of the refrigerator, twisted the lid off and took a drink before answering. "Told me to do him, and my family, a favor and stay away from assignments that put me 'that close to death' and then he walked away before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about. Sorry, Mom. I know - I shouldn't cuss."
Cat could only give out a startled laugh. It was either that or cry. "Was he wearing impossibly bright colored scrubs?"
"Yeah, Tie-dyed monstrosities in neon blue, green and fluorescent yellow."
Cat nodded, even though Colby couldn't see her. "Baby, Dr. Vernacke is the ER doctor who worked on you when you were rescued from..." She paused, swallowed, then added "the freighter."
Colby, in the act of setting the beer bottle down on the coffee table, lost his grip on it as he fell back onto the couch. Thankfully, the beer didn't fall over or otherwise spill. "Wha?"
"Dr. Vernacke is one of the reasons you and I are talking today." Cat said, her voice so soft, Colby had a hard time hearing her. "After we arrived, he came up to the ICU and talked to your father and me. He said that he wanted us to know the latest and that your attending physician was still getting up to speed on everything." She swallowed again.
"Oh, no wonder he looked at me like that. . . " Colby pulled in a ragged breath, not because he was reliving the last clear memories of his torture at Lancer's hands, but because he hated putting his mother through that shit again because he had little or no memories of what happened afterwards.
"He told us you were fighter, that you had taken a swing at him..." She bit her lip, not wanting to start crying on the phone.
"Must have done something to trigger the fight or flight reflexes." Colby took a deep draught of his beer, then cleared his throat. "Mom, I didn't want to bring up bad memories for you . . . sorry about that."
Cat took a deep breath and released it, putting the memories back in the past, where they belonged. "It's all right, Baby, there are things you're going to want to know but don't remember. I don't mind telling you about them....The Good Lord puts those we need in our path when we need them and He put Dr. Vernacke in your path when you needed him."
Colby sighed. "I know, Mom. I just hate having these . . . holes in my recall. I feel like Sam Beckett sometimes."
Cat trilled. "If you're Sam, does that make me Al? How am I doing with the Dick and Jane explanations?"
"You're doing just fine, Mom." He glanced over at the clock on his DVD/VCR player. "Crap. Mom, I gotta run. Believe it or not, your baby boy's got a date tonight."
"Really? With who? Have you told me about her? What's her name? What's she look like? Where did you meet her? How many dates has this been?"
"Mom!" Colby laughed. "First date, I don't know for certain, David set me up but if you want . . . I'll tell you all about the date when I call on Sunday."
Cat laughed. "Too many questions for you, Mr. G-Man? All right, tell me all about it on Sunday. I love you, Baby. I'm glad you called."
"Me too. Give Dad my love and I promise, I'll call Sunday at our usual time. Love ya, Mom. Bye."
******************
It took Colby a couple of days to find out what Dr. Vernacke's schedule was and then two more days on top of that to get the time to get over there but finally, Wednesday afternoon, just before the good doctor's shift was to begin, Colby was able to escape from the office for an hour or so.
"Has Dr. Vernacke arrived yet?" Colby asked the registration clerk.
The clerk, a petite woman with dark, curly hair, eyed him for a long moment. Colby flashed her a smile and showed his i.d. "I'm a former patient of his."
The clerk nodded and looked at chart tapped on the wall next to her. She picked up the phone and paged the doctor. A few minutes later, Dr. Vernacke appeared at the desk, wearing brilliant orange, green and yellow scrubs.
"Agent Granger?" He asked.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Vernacke." Colby said, holding out his hand. "Can I borrow you for a moment. It won't take long."
Dr. Vernacke shook hands with Colby, then nodded. "My shift is just starting so I've got a couple of minutes."
Colby walked away from the registration desk and over to a corner of the waiting room away from the rest of the people. "I just wanted to say thank you, in person."
Dr. Vernacke's eyebrows went up.
"What you said when I was here with Agent Gerard a couple of days ago stuck in my head and I called my folks to see if they remembered anything about you." A faint blush colored Colby's face. "My mother remembers you quite well. She told me you're one of the reasons I'm still here."
Dr. Vernacke nodded.
"And she wanted to know if you were still wearing those brilliantly colored scrubs."
Dr. Vernacke laughed. "Guilty. It's something I picked up from my mentor."
Colby nodded. "She also told me how you came up to the ICU and updated them while my doctor was still getting up to speed on things." He paused. "Thank you for helping them and me. And trust me, doc, I have no intention of doing any more undercover work for a long time, if ever."
He held out his hand again and the two shook hands. "I won't keep you any longer." He turned to leave but...didn't. Out of the corner of his eye he spied someone, someone he thought he knew. He wasn't sure what triggered it, but his hand landed on the grip of his sidearm before Colby knew what he was doing, then he took a closer look at the man walking down the hall toward him. A little older, a little darker hair but . . . 'Nah, I watched him get shot. Don told me the sonofabitch is dead. That is NOT Mason Lancer.' He relaxed his grip and forced himself to breathe normally. He tried to suppress the shiver that raced up and down his spine as the look-a-like passed him.
"Agent Granger?" Dr. Vernacke asked him. "Something wrong?"
"I'm all right." Colby tried to bravado his way through his fear. "Just seeing things, people, I know are long dead. Dealing with ghosts."
Dr. Vernacke frowned for a moment, looked at Colby, then down the hallway at the retreating figure and something clicked. "Doug!" He called after the man. "Come here for a moment."
Colby had to fight his instincts, he wanted to shoot the man now coming back toward him, or take flight in the opposite direction. 'Damn it, I never run from trouble, what the hell don't I recall about Lancer's little interrogation sessions?'
The man turned and came back up the hallway to the two other men. "Eric? What's going on?"
Laying a light hand on Colby's shoulder, Dr. Vernacke held out the other to the man who had stopped in front of them. "Special Agent Colby Granger meet Dr. Douglas Greider, ER doctor."
Colby smiled and held his hand out in greeting, hoping the man didn't notice that his palm had begun to sweat. "Doctor Greider."
Dr. Greider returned the handshake, ignoring the fact that the agent's hand was shaking. His forehead wrinkled for a moment as he looked at Colby and then it cleared. "You're not the FBI Agent from that Chinese freighter last year...are you?"
"Uh, yes sir."
Dr. Greider's face broke out into a huge smile. "I'll be damned. I saw you when you first came in but I handed you off to Dr. Vernacke. Apparently, I look a little too much like the man who..." He stopped talking. "I'm glad to see you doing so well. What brings you by?"
The smile broke the dam of rising panic in Colby's chest, Lancer never smiled like he meant it - this man wasn't even cut of the same cloth, and he felt his shoulders relaxing. "I found out recently that Doc Vernacke here was one of the folks that saved my life and came by to thank him. I should probably thank you as well, Dr. Greider."
Dr. Greider's smile grew even wider. "Well, thank you. Working in the ER, we usually don't get to see what happens if we get them out of here." He gestured around them. "You're not going to do any more undercover work, are you?"
Colby let out a laugh. "Not like that, my mother would kill me if I did, but--" He shrugged. The requirements of the Job were never clear before they became required so it was entirely possible he'd end up doing a few more undercover assignments in the future.
Dr. Greider nodded. "I understand. I never met your mother but I heard about her, a force of nature that one. How is she? And your dad?"
"They're good. And you're not the first to call Mom that . . . I'm pretty sure that was Dad, while he was arresting her for the first time." He smiled like a Cheshire cat. "Anyway, I've got to get back to the office before my team comes hunting for me--" Just then his cell phone rang and he pulled it out to look at the display. "Crap. Busted. Hope you both have an uneventful shift." Colby said as way of goodbye, and then answered his phone. "Granger. Yeah, I know, David. I had to take a personal hour, all right? No, I didn't forget. Double shot Red Eye with a splash of cinnamon and caramel and real half and half creamer."
Dr. Greider snorted and Dr. Vernacke said, loud enough to be heard "That stuff will kill you."
THE END