Getting another update done today because I am very busy tomorrow - huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! (And thanks to Roxanne for making me publish this before I go to bed.)
It was easy enough getting back into the building – the hard part was stowing away on the truck, but the team had been observing the matters of the staff for weeks and Wylie only had one close call as he closed himself in. When the truck reached the FWTC, he went the same way he'd entered the building from the previous day, slipping with ease down the same hallways until he found the secret one. Ducking behind the boxes when a woman left the room he was headed toward and went into the other one, the one with the drawn blinds, Wylie waited until the coast was clear and then crept up to the door of the room where he swore he'd seen her. He pushed it quietly open and slipped inside.
His legs were shaking as turned to regard the woman in the bed. Now that there was nothing but air between him and the woman in the bed, he knew it was her. The face was pale and the form of her body under the blanket seemed so much smaller than he remembered. But it was her. Somehow. Somehow it was her.
Wylie took a step forward, drawing the door shut behind him, then realized he was uncertain about what to do.
He stepped into the room. There was a filing cabinet next to the door. Quietly, the woman still unmoving on the bed, he opened the top door, drawing out the sole file inside. He flipped the file open and the information at the top drained the color from his face.
Vega, Michelle
Transfer Austin 02.04.15.
Severe GSW, abdomen
Primary surgeon: U. Westing
Wylie's head shot up, staring over at the bed again. He was shaking, yes, he was pale, yes, but all the common sense in the world was telling him this was some sort of misdirect. He must be crazy. He should have gone to see her in the hospital room. Maybe then he could have accepted that she was gone and move on, not practically hallucinating her in a top secret medical facility.
But that was her. Wylie's brain was winning the battle over his logic. He knew what she looked like, and that woman in the bed was her.
Make sure she's actually alive.
It seemed like such a bizarre thought, but...this was someone whose funeral Wylie had attended. He'd shoveled dirt onto her coffin. He had multiple colleagues that had seen her body in the hospital. He'd seen her blood on Cho's shirt.
And yet somehow, she was here – or her body was anyway – in this tiny, out of the way hospital room in this quiet little hallway that didn't appear on any maps, in this hospital that had been begging the question what is it you do here?
He stepped closer, still hesitant, so many feelings swirling around inside of him, the most prominent being cautious uncertainty. There has to be more than this. She can't just be here, alive. I went to her funeral. Cho handed her relatives the flag. I heard the dirt thud against her coffin. Maybe someone stole her body? What sort of a sick bastard would do that?
Then something he had not heard upon entering the room – a monitor set up behind the hospital bed, connected to the woman laying on it, was giving off slow, steady beeping sounds.
And she had a heartbeat.
And, as there was no respirator over her nose and mouth, she was breathing on her own.
What sort of a game is this?
Wylie was standing over the bed now, staring down at her. This was her. Somehow. His hands were shaking, something was still telling him not to believe it, but this was her. And he could see her, slowly but surely, moving as she breathed.
His mouth was dry, and when he spoke it only came out in a whisper, the volume accurately representing his level of confidence in the question. "Michelle?"
And then her eyes opened. Wylie nearly jumped backward, he hadn't really expected her to respond. And then she responded in a different way – as he backed up, startled, unsure, her eyes followed him. Her head tipped in his direction. Then her own mouth opened, just slightly, but her voice sounded more like her than his own had done him justice moments ago despite her clear disbelief. "Wylie?"
He lost it, staggering backward a step, tears running down his cheeks. His face contorted and he found it impossible to breathe through his nose. "M...M-M..."
It was her.
When he finally managed to formulate a word it wasn't the one he'd been trying to say. "How?"
"Wylie," she said, awkwardly shifting her weight so she was more upright. "Wylie, Wylie Wylie!" her voice was quiet but frantic. "Wylie. Calm down, they'll hear you!"
His eyes strayed toward the door and then shot back to the bed. "What?"
"Wylie, if they hear you they'll take you away!" She reached out her hand. "Come here, come here!"
He knew he was walking because the space between him and the bed was getting smaller. His hand came out in front of him, shaking, only stabilizing when her hand closed around his fingers, preventing the motion.
"Wylie, listen to me," she said.
"You're...you're..." Wylie sucked in a deep breath. "You're alive."
"Yes," she said. "But no one can know. You have to keep this quiet, Wylie. This place doesn't exist. Not to the world."
"What is this place?" Wylie asked, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. "And who are 'they' that will take me away? I don't understand what's happening here."
"Well I'm assuming that you weren't given a visitor pass," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"No, but..."
"They don't let people in here. It's top secret. If they find you in here they will make you leave and they will make for certain that you won't come back. Or tell anyone."
Wylie put his other hand over hers. It was shaking as much as the other one. He had so many questions. "But how did..."
"How doesn't matter, okay?" she said, adding her free hand to their pile. "Can it just not matter, Wylie?"
Wylie wanted to agree with her, but "Vega, I...I went to your funeral. I helped bury you."
"I know," she said.
"You know?"
"I mean, I assumed." She coughed. "Listen to me. There's..."
"Hey! You!"
Both of them jumped, turning wild-eyed to face the two men standing in the now open door, guns drawn, pointed at Wylie. "Step away, sir," the taller one commanded.
"I..." Wylie's hands shot up above his head. "What the Hell is going on here?"
