Two months later…
"How you feeling, Hammerhead?" Jonas's voice was a siren song in his ear.
"Great, sir. Never been better." And he hadn't.
He felt focused, centered, more connected to the world than he'd ever been before.
The Doc's called it a miracle, his therapist called it gratitude. He called it something else. It didn't have a name yet, but it had a voice. A smooth, silky drawl that always sounded so sad.
He wasn't cleared for active duty yet, but with the permission of his many doctors, therapists, and base CO, Colonel Ryan, he'd been allowed to participate in several training missions.
"Red's, coming up on your six, Bettie Blue," he murmured down the line, eyes focused through his snipers scope.
"You're two miles away, Hammerhead," came Charlie's disbelieving call. "How the hell can you see that far?"
"Good eyesight," came the response. "Move fifty feet to your left and hold."
Charlie didn't question his judgment, following his instructions perfectly and crouching low. "Holding."
Hector was quiet, focused as he tracked the movements of the 'unfriendlies' pacing them as they drew closer and closer to Charlie's position before, without hesitation, they brushed on by.
"Bettie Blue, you are clear to proceed."
"Roger that, Hammerhead. Oscar Miking it."
"Roger."
He tracked the unfriendlies carefully through his peripheral, his muscles tightening as they turned and circled back the way they came.
"Reds, Bettie Blue, coming up fast."
"Give me cover, Hammerhead."
Charlie had walked into the open, with no visible cover, which had probably been their plan all along. Draw him out, and circle back.
Smart, Hector noted, scanning the ridges for a safe haven.
But he was better.
"Twelve feet to your right. There's a small ditch. Think you can fit?"
"Gonna have to," Charlie slung his rifle over his shoulder as he skidded to a halt at the trench, swearing as he took in its dimensions.
Hector hadn't been kidding when he said small. But how in the hell Hector had been able to see this – two miles away and through a scope – was beyond Charlie.
It was one of the many eerie things that had come back with Hector from the dead.
Hector didn't like to talk about it – hell, Charlie didn't even like to think about it – but it was out there for all of them to see.
Something had happened to Hector in those thirty minutes of death, something big and profound and scary enough to make the black man pale.
He was stronger than ever, faster than ever. He could hold his breath longer, see a little farther, and hear even better than before.
He felt stupid for even considering it, but he'd been watching some of those movie previews lately, the ones about vampires, and he'd gotten spooked enough one night to buy a pizza and watched Hector eat it, piece by piece, just to assure himself he wasn't going to wake up with his jugular missing cause his best friend turned vampire had gotten a case of the munchies in the middle of the night.
There was no logical explanation for what had happened to Hector and the whole of the Unit was at the precipice, the point of ponderence when they paused to consider whether or not the answers were worth seeking.
In Hector's mind, in the corner where that voice was a near constant whisper, there was no pause or hesitation. He didn't have anything to think about.
He had to know what had happened to him, had to find some answers because otherwise…
As strong and as fast as he was now, there was no way he could wrestle with that voice, no way he could outrun it …
It was a part of him now, for better or worse.
And he definitely didn't want things to get worse.
He was quiet, which was a great relief to her.
"How you doing, sugar?" The heavily lined face of the Matron hovered over her and she gave the woman a tight smile.
"Fine," she replied, sitting upright and stretching, letting out a relieved sigh when her back cracked.
"You need to talk to the boy," the woman stated. "The two of you can't keep dancing around each other like this."
"We're doing fine, Grandma," she bit out, mildly irritated at the pestering.
"You only think you are," was the other woman's cryptic reply.
She didn't question the older woman. For one, it was unthinkable to question the Matron's wisdom. For another…
She was so goddamned tired. She'd done nothing but rest for these past few weeks and it was wearing thin.
Her nerves were a mess, her calm – the center of balance that kept her sane – was stirring, like the ripples in a pond before the quiet that brought the storm.
She didn't like it and she wanted it to be gone.
Unfortunately, the Matron had offered her random bits of advice and cryptic warnings, but no solid recipe for undoing what had been done.
"Sol," a bear of a man spoke from the doorway, his voice gruff as his gaze jumped from the Matron to the other woman and back again.
"Chai," Soldis greeted, expression softening slightly at the sight of her husband, Achaius. There was something in her face that had the other woman shifting uncomfortably, drawing both of their gazes back towards her.
"Thora is here. She wishes to speak with you." Chai sounded less than pleased with his message and Sol's lips tilted up at the corners at his pout.
It was an odd thing to see a six foot eight wild-haired red head with liberal streaks of grey and an expression that could scare off a grizzly pout.
"Thank you, Chai," the Matron stated, letting her breath out in a small sigh. "Tell her I'll be with her shortly."
"As you wish," he tilted his head forward respectfully, flashing her a small grin from under his beard before leaving.
The other woman got up to leave as well.
"Where do you think you're going?" The Matron's tone was disapproving as was her expression, but she was just too tired to give a crap.
"Work," she replied, shrugging into her jacket and reaching for her messenger bag. "I've taken too much time off these last couple of weeks. I have to go back today or I risk losing my job."
"Your job." There was a flat inflection to the words that made the Matron's opinion of her line of work abundantly clear.
"Yes, by which I make my livelihood."
"You don't have to work," the Matron reminded her, tone laced with disapproval and worry.
"I want to work," she replied, expression softening slightly. "It helps me."
"You don't need help," the Matron replied stiffly. "You're fine the way you are."
Her smile grew tight and brittle as she adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulders.
"I'll see you soon," she promised, leaning forward to brush a kiss across the older woman's cheek.
"Daughter," the Matron's tone had her pausing, hand on the door, to turn and glance behind her.
"Tread carefully," was the warning. "You do not know what you have done."
"No," she agreed after a pause, expression contemplative and no small amount confused and hurt as she gazed at the other woman. "But you do. Why won't you tell me?"
"It is not my place to tell," came the response. "And it is not your place to know. Not yet."
"When it's time for me to know, then, come and find me," she couldn't quite mask her anger so she kept her eyes away from the Matron as she spoke.
The Matron said nothing and she took that as her cue to leave, exiting the warehouse with a chill in her soul not even the warmth of the afternoon sun could erase.
Given the givens – namely their line of work – accidents were bound to happen.
Given the givens, Hector figured it was fitting that, this time, it wasn't him on the receiving end.
"Who puts a rusty nail in the middle of an empty field?" Charlie questioned nobody in particular as he stared glumly down at his bleeding foot.
"Rednecks," came Mack's drawling reply as he flipped through a magazine. Charlie had stepped on the nail, Hector had recovered the nail, and Mack was here to fill out a report about the nail.
The Army at it's finest, Hector thought with no small amount of bemusement as he watched the pretty little belleza tend to Charlie's wound.
She was tiny, a red-head, with wide blue eyes and dimples and so totally his brother's type, Hector could almost predict, down to the second, what was going to happen the second Charlie snapped out of his nail-induced haze and clued in on her longer-than-necessary touches and looks.
It was amusing to watch as Charlie turned on the charm. By thirty seconds she was laughing softly, by ninety she was running a hand down his arm, and by the time she was finished with his foot, she had given him her home number, cell number, and, given half the chance, she would have donated her panties to Charlie's growing collection as well.
"Every fucking time," Mack murmured, voice laced with equal parts amusement and disgust as he flipped another page in his magazine.
"What can I say?" Charlie held up his hands with a wide grin of masculine pride. "The ladies love me."
Even Hector had to snort at that, his gaze connecting with his brother's, lips quirking in an upward smile, before drifting over the rest of the room.
The hospital was busier than usual so she got conscripted into the cause, working with live bodies instead of dead ones.
It was a pleasant change, to be honest. Given what had happened the last time she'd touched a dead person, it was almost relieving to hear the annoying chatter of a private, first class, who'd stuck her finger too close to some part of a running jeep engine and received a nice deep cut for the transgression.
"Purple," the private was saying with a decisive nod as she frowned at her. "I'm going to paint it purple."
"Excellent," she murmured, careful to keep sarcasm out of her tone and failing spectacularly. "That will go great with the beige carpeting."
"You think?" The Private – whose name she'd never bothered to check – had one of those personalities that was undoubtedly hyper annoying when the individual was healthy. And since she was doped up on pain killers, the annoyance level had nearly skyrocketed, leaving her even more frustrated than she had already been.
"You're being mean," the Private pouted and she gritted her teeth, yanking on the needle hard enough to draw a startled yelp from the other woman and draw the attention of several of her colleagues.
"Here," one of the doctors offered, frazzled as he pushed the curtains back and shoved a file towards her. "Take this one. All the dirty works been done, they just need to fill out the forms."
"This isn't my job," she replied, blinking once.
"It is today. Curtain E," came the jittery reply even as he smoothly inserted himself into her seat, grabbing the needle and picking up where she'd left off.
Taking this as the hint that it was, she opened the file and scanned the paperwork as she walked towards her destination.
Grey, Charles. Incident Resulting in Injury Report…
It made for rather dry reading. Basically the guy had stepped on a nail in the middle of an empty field.
"Who puts a rusty nail in the middle of an empty field?"
It was a tingling feeling that traveled up and down his spine and had him shifting even straighter as his gaze restlessly traveled the room.
Charlie's nurse had returned with some mild prescription painkillers and Charlie had immediately started to flirt outrageously while Mack rolled his eyes in the background and waited for whoever had the incident reports to arrive so they could escape this hell.
Maybe he was just reacting to being in a hospital again. It'd only been a couple of weeks, after all, since he'd been released after his near-death experience. Psychological trauma should have left him with a healthy dislike of this place.
But he'd felt nothing but a twinge when he'd helped Charlie through the door – even now the hustle and the bustle were barely bothering him.
No, it was something else. Something deeper, more…primal.
An atavistic awareness that had him restless and agitated as his gaze swept the left side of the room once more.
She approached from the right, frazzled and out of focus. That feeling in the back of her head in that place where he resided had jumped so suddenly she felt almost disoriented by its affects.
There was something with him, something odd and off and confusing.
The feeling reminded her of what she'd always imagined a caged tiger felt like when it was being watched in the zoo.
Stalked, a feeling unnatural to a predator.
He was feeling stalked which made her feel the same in turn.
Her gaze shifted nervously to the side as she reached the curtain, doing a quick scan of her surroundings before reaching up to pull the cloth back.
An electric chill traveled down his spine and the hair on the back of his neck was rising, causing his fingers to twitch. If he still had his weapon, it would be out and pointed at this point.
"Hector?" Mack's question had him shifting, turning towards the other man, face calm but eyes stormier than the seas.
"You need some air, man?"
Normally Hector would say no. He never needed air – he was the rock, the anchor. Solid and unbending, always feeling the right inside his gut and drawing strength from it.
But today…
"I'll be outside," he accepted Mack's out with a nod, heading towards the exit without bothering to glance behind. If he had, he would have caught sight of the worried expression Charlie was sending his way.
If he had, he would have caught sight of the woman who had changed his entire world.
But he didn't.
She was brusque with the injured soldier, but he didn't seem to notice and neither did his squadmate, the both of them sending continuous glances towards the door, expressions worried.
"Do you need anything else?" The one in charge, Master Sergeant Gerhardt, asked, frown heavy as he spared her the briefest looks before focusing on the door.
"No, Sir," she replied, accepting the pen and the signed paperwork back from him before nodding to the hovering orderly. "Corporal Hanson will take it from here. You have a nice day now."
"You, too," came the distracted reply, the two groups – her and them – separating to their own corners.
"Finished already?" Hector hadn't gone far, just a few paces from the door and easily spotted as Charlie and Mack exited.
"We had an expedient paper pusher," was Mack's honest and yet still sarcastic reply.
"An oxymoron if I ever heard one," Hector's lips twitched and Charlie smiled, relieved to see the other man relaxing again.
"You okay, man?" Both Charlie and Mack stared at him with that look they had when confronted with a situation they weren't entirely sure what to do with and had yet to devise a battle strategy to handle.
"Fine," Hector replied with a quick smile. "Never been better. Just needed some air."
"You sure?" Mack was asking for more than one reason – if Hector was feeling the mental pressure and wasn't up to handling it he had no business trying to get back into the game.
"I'm fine," Hector reassured, feeling a brief flash of irritation that had him blinking in surprise.
He never got irritated. He'd never had problems with people – even the stupid ones. And Mack was far from stupid, so why did Hector suddenly want to snap at him?
He was frowning over that when Charlie started to hobble forward and nearly took a header into the asphalt.
"Jesus," Mack growled, exasperated as he righted the other man. "We just got out of the hospital. Quit trying to make a return trip."
"Ah come on, Sarge," Hector's lips quirked upward in a smile he didn't feel but forced himself to show anyways. "Charlie's just trying to get back to his beautiful nurse friend, Sheila, was it?"
"Estella," Charlie corrected, good-humor picking up at the teasing.
"Estella," Mack's eyebrows arched as he helped Charlie stabilize before starting forward once more. "I don't know, man, she looked like she could eat you alive."
"Come on, Mack," Hector grinned at the married man. "That's part of her charm."
Mack was shaking his head even as Charlie chortled at the entendre.
"Just you wait," Mack promised. "One of these days the two of you are gonna meet a woman who knocks you down a peg or two and then we'll see who's laughing."
Prophecy, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he shrugged it away as he smiled as Charlie joked.
He had other things he wanted to focus on right now.
She jerked at the spine-tingling feeling of something big coming into big. It was just the seed, the beginning, but the pins-and-needles feeling covered over half her body already.
"Not good," she murmured, peering worriedly towards the door, rubbing her arms as the feeling gradually started to fade.
Not good at all.
A/N: I'm not sure where I'm going with this yet, but I can give you some basic facts.
Fact 1: There's a reason the girl hasn't been given a name yet.
Fact 2: When the guys figure out who she is, the readers will be introduced to her.
Fact 3: While the military will play a key role, the Supernatural is even bigger.
Fact 4: She isn't human.