It had been, by all accounts, a normal day at Metro-General Hospital. Normal meaning stab wounds, gunshot victims and severe allergic reactions. One man with a broken nose had tried to mug an old lady and met her shopping bag full of tinned cat food. Typical Manhattan stuff. A normal day.
Doctor Christine Palmer liked normal. One normal days there was routine. The work was challenging but not impossible. She could help people and save lives. Give good news to worried families. Normal was good. Not normal… well, she had experience with that too.
Today, at the end of her long shift, the doctor was content. She had completed patient checks and finished paperwork. Now she thought longingly of a hot bath and takeaway in the fridge. The fastest way home would be through a little used back door. She headed that way, wondering if the bath or Chinese would come first. She was so fixated on this dilemma that Christine didn't pay much attention to the hallway. The sudden slam of a door caused her to shriek and look up.
At the end of the hall, one of the doors leading outside had been thrown open. Standing in the doorway were two figures. One leaned heavily on the other. The second had evidently used a shoulder to thrust the door open and was now almost dragging the first figure along. Christine recovered from the shock. "Hey, you can't come in that-" she began, then stopped.
The first figure was young and male. His grey hoodie was splotchy with blood. He was almost certainly not fully conscious and propped against the other. The second figure was female with a very determined expression.
"Oh my god," Christine muttered. "What happened?"
"Gunshot victim," the other woman said. Christine rushed forward and grabbed the young man, as he slid further towards the ground. "He needs help, fast."
"Okay," Christine said. "We can take him down the hall, get to the nurse's station and-"
"No," the other interrupted. "No, no one else can be involved." His head lolled. Christine was about to protest, but the determination of this woman made her hesitate.
"There's an empty room over here," Christine said, and started walking. The man was heavy and not cooperating. The other woman seemed rather paranoid. She looked over her shoulder, and down the hall. No one else was in sight. The three of them managed to reach the door, open it and get inside. "One of the smaller operating rooms," Christine said. "We shouldn't be disturbed here." The two of them managed to lift the man up and onto the table.
She looked at the patient. The light was better in this room than the hall. The extent of the injuries became more clear. He was fully unconscious now, but breathing. His head had numerous abrasions. More worrying was the main injury, a bullet wound in the shoulder. Someone had used what looked like a bandanna to slow the blood loss. "Oh my god," Christine said again. She looked up at the woman, who was gathering supplies. Christine thought she was familiar, but couldn't place her. "This could be serious, he really needs more hel-"
"No."
Christine was frustrated. "So you drag in a man with a bullet wound through the back door and insist he get little help while you seem to be prepping? What is going on here?"
She hesitated. "He's… special."
"What do you mean, special?" asked Christine, while examining him. He looked ordinary enough. Caucasian, average height and build. Totally normal.
The other woman spoke faster now. "I was walking home it all happened. From what I can tell, there was a store robbery in progress. I saw this guy appear from down the street and run towards the store. There were three men in black who opened fire. One bullet hit this guy and he fell. The shooters jumped in a car and took off. I picked this guy up and brought him here."
"Did you call the police?" Christine asked.
"No," said the other woman. "This guy was bleeding badly and losing consciousness."
"And do you often get caught up in this sort of thing?" Christine asked, still trying to judge the severity of the wound.
The other woman looked Christine in the eyes. Why was she so familiar? "That's basically a normal Friday night at this point."
Christine tried to focus. "So he's special. How?"
The other woman seemed unsure of how to respond. "I heard multiple shots fired. At least a dozen. Yet… only one actually hit this guy. The rest just… stopped. Right in front of him. In mid-air. He held up his hands and the bullets fell to the ground. Except for one."
Christine paused, holding a scalpel. "He stopped bullets in the air?"
The other woman nodded. "I don't know how. He wasn't holding anything."
Christine looked down at the patient. The story was crazy, and yet she had heard crazier. She took a breath. "Okay. So. He has abilities, you think? Something that can stop a bullet? Telekinesis, maybe? Control of metal?"
"Yes, and that's why it should be kept quiet." She seemed to wait for Christine to probe further. "That's it, you accept everything I said?"
The doctor just smiled. "I've had weirder in an operating room. Can you hand me that gauze?" She kept working. "You have experience with surgery?"
"I've been known to dabble in it," the other woman said. "That, and I used to be a nurse in this hospital."
No wonder she looked familiar. "You did? I'm Christine Palmer." She would have offered a handshake but for the blood.
"I know," the other woman said. "I've seen you around here. I'm Claire."
"Claire Temple?" Suddenly it all made sense. "Yeah, I remember you. We crossed paths sometimes in ER. Then you left the hospital and it was all very hush-hush."
"That's another story," Claire said. She was assisting Christine now. The bleeding had mostly stopped. "So," Claire said, "you've seen stranger things?" There was perhaps a hint of competitiveness in her tone.
Christine wasn't sure how much she should give away. But she knew Claire Temple, vaguely, and by all accounts she was an excellent nurse. She decided to trust this woman who had shown up dragging a half-dead gunshot victim. "Well," she began, "I once had to extract a Barbie from a place no doll should ever bravely go."
"I've pulled a blind man out of a dumpster," Claire replied. "After he was beat up and left for dead."
"Interesting," Christine said. She could play ball. "A bald woman centuries old fell from the sky and wound up on the table."
"Not bad. I was attacked by undead ninjas in this very hospital," Claire fired back.
"The astral form of my ex-lover appeared while I operated on his physical body so that he could fight the astral form of a cultist trying to bring never-ending darkness to earth."
"I had to push a needle through the eye of a man with bulletproof skin, and later gave him an acid bath." Claire responded.
Christine looked up and made eye contact. "A tie, then?"
Claire nodded. "Lets just try and save this guy."
In the end, it wasn't a normal day for Doctor Christine Palmer. But in the end, she managed to save another life. She and Claire agreed to stay in touch. Who could know what would happen in the future. Maybe, just maybe, they would need to team up again…