Chapter 11

It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.

Rose Kennedy

"Director Fury, you need to do something!" The SHIELD director leaned against the leather back of his chair, his very comfortable chair that he'd paid a not inconsiderable amount of money to buy and studied the red face of the man in the screen

"Doctor Burns, I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific. There are a lot of things that I need to be doing, not in the least this paper-work that Agent Hooper seems to delight in torturing me with." Said agent glared at him, and thrust another file into his hands.

"You do realize that I can fire you," Director Fury informed the petite brunette, causing her to roll her eyes.

"And that's the day the Helicarrier falls out of the sky," she retorted, piling up the finished papers and strolling out of the office.

"Sir…" whined the doctor and Fury reluctantly turned his attention back to SHIELD's head physician.

"Yes, Burns, what seems to be the problem?"

"It's…that patient, sir," Jim Burns spat out the word as though it was a particularly foul tasting word and the director barely refrained from rolling his eyes.

"You'll have to be more specific. You see, you do run a hospital and hospitals tend to have patients." Burns didn't appear to recognize the tone as sarcasm as he foolishly opened his mouth again and continued to blunder.

"The meta-human the Avengers delivered last week, the surgeon," the well-dressed man ducked out of sight and Fury could hear the rustle of papers, then Burns popped back into frame, clutching a file in his hands, "Dr. Brent Casey." His nose was wrinkled slightly and he held the file the way you'd hold a dead rat.

"Oh, Doctor Casey. How's the man doing?" Fury leaned forward out of curiosity. His antics last week had caused so much chaos in the New York Headquarters that Fury had almost believed Loki had shown up again. After Captain Rogers had gotten everything sorted and explained the problem to the various heads of departments, Fury had sat down with Agent Coulson for a shot of bourbon and a good laugh, as well as to schedule an increase on hostage negotiation training for the non-field agents.

"Oh, health-wise the man is doing quite well," the doctor grumbled, seeming unpleased at this. "He is healing remarkably quickly. The only major injuries he still has are the tension pneumothorax he suffered in his escape and the nerve injury he received to his hand. Both will heal, given sufficient time."

"All right, then what exactly is the problem?" Fury glanced over at the door as it opened and Agent Hill poked her head in, arching her eyebrows questioningly at him. He gestured for her to come in and she stood just out of eyeshot of the complaining doctor.

"The problem is his attitude!" Burns exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air out of disgust. "He refuses to simply remain in his room and heal. He insists on wandering the building and bothering the other patients and doctors. And, of course, due to Agent Coulson's and Captain Rogers' orders, we are unable to restrain him or even lock him in his room."

"Exactly how is he bothering the doctors and patients?" Fury's second-in-command piped up, moving to stand behind his desk. The doctor scowled at her thunderously.

"He argues with the doctors on their prescriptions and contradicts their diagnosis which is causing chaos with the nurses. And then he persists in sitting with the patients for at least an hour, or until we get security to remove him." The physician looked every bit as horrified at this last bit as if Cooper Hall had been accused of dancing through Times Square stark naked.

"And exactly what does he do with these patients?" Maria asked calmly. She'd always been much better at dealing with hysterical department heads than he'd ever been.

"Well," Burns said slowly, pulling out the word obnoxiously, "Sometimes he plays poker with them." Fury blinked at the balding man, then blinked again for good measure.

"Poker?" He asked for clarification and grimaced at the resulting emphatic nod. "And…this is a bad thing?"

"Very bad!" Burns said ardently. "These men should be resting and recovering from the traumas of their injuries, not playing poker and blackjack and whatever other hellish games this man has picked up in his travels."

"So, just to clear things up," Fury said slowly, "You interrupted my schedule just because you want me to stop Doctor Casey from playing poker with my injured agents because you believe it's detrimental to their health?"

"Exactly, sir." The words were accompanied by a pleased nod.

Fury's simmering annoyance was beginning to turn into anger and he had just opened his mouth, fully prepared to tear this idiot a new one, when Maria put her hand on his shoulder.

"Agent Coulson should be returning from the incident in Kuwait," she said calmly. "I'm sure any complaints you have, he would be more than happy to see to."

"Well," Burns said obnoxiously, "I suppose that will have to do."

"Great," Fury growled, and stabbed the off button with more force than was strictly necessary and leaned back again, looking at his second-in-command.

"Can I kill him?" Fury wasn't pleading. He never pleaded. But if he did plead, he'd be pleading right now.

"I'm afraid not," Hill said briskly, although for a second, she looked as though she was contemplating it. "The death of employees by their boss tends to turn up indecent amounts of paperwork."

"Damn," Fury sighed.

Coulson strolled down the hallway of the SHIELD medical center, ignoring the not so subtle stares he was on the receiving end of. Even after four months, the majority of SHIELD agents were still getting used to seeing him around. The stares, of course, were a definite improvement over the first several reactions, which consisted the widespread rumors of zombies and running to find flamethrowers.

"Special Agent Coulson!" And speaking of wanting to run off and find a flamethrower…

Coulson turned to face the head physician of SHIELD and carefully withheld his wince as the fluorescent lighting reflected off of the bald spot Burns had struggled to hide with a poorly done comb-over.

"Dr. Burns," Coulson answered politely, shaking the man's offered hand, subtly wiping the transferred sweat onto his black suit pants.

"I see Fury has finally sent someone to take care of our problem," Burns said, a self-satisfied smile on his pudgy face.

"Director Fury," Coulson stressed the "director" and couldn't the small smile that graced his lips as the smirk slid off the doctor's face, "is extremely busy and is unable to address every minor problem every department head runs to him about. As such, he has assigned me to look at the Hall case and take the appropriate steps."

"Oh, well…" the physician stumbled with his words, then caught himself, stopping halfway down the hallway. "Thank you very much, Special Agent Coulson. I am sure the other faculty and the patients appreciate your swift actions just as much as I do." Leaving it at that, he turned on the heel of his black dress shoes and strolled down the hall, his pressed lab coat flowing behind him dramatically, as Coulson was sure it was meant to.

Shaking his head at the doctor's behavior, Coulson paused outside of door 221 and rapped sharply on it.

"No, Burns, I didn't steal your stupid Darjeeling tea," an irritated voice called over the familiar creak of a hospital bed. Taking that as an invitation, Coulson opened the door.

Lying on the bed, one arm dangling off the edge and the other placed over his eyes, was a sight much improved from the previous time Coulson had stepped into this room.

The last time Coulson had set eyes on Brent Casey, he had been nearly comatose in Steve Rogers' arms when they had finally stepped out of the doctors' lounge they had been holed up in, his bloodshot eyes flicking around with paranoid fear in them, even after Rogers' multiple reassurances.

After hearing the Captain's explanation of the doctor's actions, and being not unused to the effects of PTSD, Coulson had immediately decided that no charges would be filed and every step would be taken to ensure that Casey never felt threatened while in SHIELD's charge.

Casey glanced up when the door shut, his eyes squinted in annoyance, which changed as soon as he saw who his visitor was.

"Hey, Coulson!" He said, sitting up, cross-legged, on his bed, leaning back on his good hand, a crooked smile flashing. "Thought you were in Syria or somewhere like that."

"Somewhere like that," Coulson agreed, pulling up an uncomfortable chair next to the bed and sitting in it. "You know, I'm a bit surprised to find you in your room. From what I gathered, you've been out in the halls at all hours terrorizing the staff."

Casey laughed lowly, his hand stabilizing his chest, rubbing the lingering pain away. "If by staff, you mean Burns, then your information is fairly reliable. But ever since he took away my wheels, I've been grounded."

Coulson frowned. "He removed your access to a wheelchair?

"I know, right?" Casey shook his head, "I mean, I only ran over his foot once."

"Casey…"

"All right, twice, but only because I needed to back up after running over it the first time."

"Dr. Burns contacted the director and made a formal complaint that you are disrupting the healing environment of the ward," Coulson said, cocking an eyebrow at the lounging man.

"I'm bored," Casey said earnestly, not quite whining, but coming very, very close to it. "I'm used to getting woken by mortar shells, or attack sirens, of living 30 hour days filled with adrenaline and coffee. Sitting here, twiddling my thumbs is driving me crazy. Come on, you've gotta sympathize, you had an even longer recovery time than me." As soon as the last sentence slipped out, a guilty expression filled Casey's face and he looked as though he would like nothing better than to press a rewind button.

"That was supposed to be confidential," Coulson said, quirking an eyebrow.

"Hey, people talk," Casey said, holding his hands out as though to placate him, "especially when it's about a man who came back from the dead with a huge hole in his heart."

"I assure you," Coulson said dryly, "While I may have needed my heart restarted at one point, I didn't exactly 'come back from the dead.' They make it sound like something out of Night of the Living Dead." The last sentence was muttered under his breath, but Casey caught it and laughed.

"Don't worry," he said solemnly, raising his right hand in solemn vow, "I promise that if you're a zombie, I won't let you eat me."

"That's very kind of you," Coulson said, raising an eyebrow, "But we're supposed to be discussing you, not me and my previous injury."

Casey shrugged. "Hey, I'm about to the point where I feel confident enough to sign myself out, so I'll be out of what little hair Burns has left pretty soon. End of your problems."

"And then what will you do?"

Casey looked startled, as though he'd either not thought about it, or hadn't expected Coulson to ask. "I'll probably…well, what I mean is…there's motels…"

"That's what I thought." Coulson spoke over Casey's words and the rest of his feeble sentence trailed off, leaving him looking slightly embarrassed.

Leaning forward Coulson hooked his fingers together again. "Dr. Casey, I have a proposition for you."

Yay! Finally got to 11!

On a personal note, guess who's finally a college freshman?! That's right, this girl!

Hugs, kisses, and cookies :)