AN: To any doctors or pathologists who are reading this...I'm so sorry. I did a ton of research but I'm sure my depiction here is not perfect. Anthrax is nasty stuff, folks. Let's just say the photos alone will give me nightmare fuel for years.


'Out of thin air you appeared in my life
Like a burst of Technicolor in a world of black and white.
When my heart was locked inside a box, you reached inside and now
I see my future when I look into your eyes.'

"Extraordinary Magic" ~ Ben Rector

Being a cop, hospitals are an old nemesis. A double edged sword. Some of Greg's best and worst memories are in hospital waiting rooms.

He's watched more colleagues bleed out on a gurney than he's comfortable admitting.

But then again, he held his son for the first time in a hospital.

Or the time…the time he watched a bomb on the news, thinking their boy was dead only to show up in the hospital emergency room and see Spike sitting there. Trance-like and unresponsive.

Kind of like he is now.

Well, that's not exactly true.

Spike will nod or shake his head. He smiled at Jules and Dean when they told him of their daring driving adventure. They filled him in on everything that had happened, talking away, to keep him distracted from the pain.

He looked at Hartford with a grateful expression when introduced to him. He hadn't fought Sam's arms when they propped him upright in the horse cart and braced him over the worst of the rough ride.

Now there's an experience Greg won't soon forget.

Like a scene out of time, Thomas and Ben had guided their horse-drawn, make shift ambulance through the dense forest to greet the EMTs, where their village met the regular highway.

It made for a peculiar sight: the two Amish men fretting, standing over the gurney with their hats in their hands, while a paramedic strapped an oxygen mask to Spike's face. They'd both shaken Spike's hand, delighted to meet Jules' 'younger brother,' with profuse offers that he was welcome back any time.

Nor will Greg forget hearing those screams, running towards them…only to see Spike backed against a tree like a wild animal.

Aiming his rifle straight at Dean.

And the blood. It was a curtain over Spike's face and sweater. Down his neck. Thumb printed along his ears and the tips of his hair where crimson hands had touched them. Dripping from his palm.

Even with all that, his lips had been blue enough to see from ten feet away.

How absolutely stark terrified his eyes shone when they landed on Greg. Greg couldn't even fathom what he'd witnessed and been victim of since they lost him.

The dead body of Rook Delancy was proof enough of that. Dean and Hartford saw the showdown while running towards the commotion, how Tattoo shot his partner right through the forehead.

Speaking of blood…

Greg shakes himself to the present and looks down at the clothes next to him in a sealed bag, his shirt and Sam's jacket, painted with the remnants of Spike.

They'd made Greg and Sam take a chemical shower, but he still feels it on his skin. The ghost of a past horror.

Doctors advised Thomas to burn the wood of his cart. To eliminate any traces of whatever poison is fighting for Spike's life.

Yet more vials are taken from Spike's arm. Two IV lines, both in his left wrist, feed him a round of heavy duty antibiotics, along with saline for the dehydration.

A biohazard symbol hangs from a clipboard at the end of the hospital bed. Any nurses coming into the post-op room wear masks and gloves taped to their gowns.

"Sergeant?"

Greg jerks at being caught absent minded. It doesn't sound like the first time his name's been said. The doctor gazes at him with concern.

"How's your leg holding up?" he asks.

"Better, Doc, since the painkillers helped. Thank you."

Scott Lightfoot is a young doctor around Spike's age, Native American, and he's still frowning. "Don't you need to sit down?"

"Not until he wakes up," says Greg, quiet but firm. "I want to be the first face he sees."

"That should be soon. We took him off anaesthetic over an hour ago."

Greg places a hand on the observation room glass. "Just tell me, Doc. Whatever it is, I want details. Is he going to make it?"

"Yes," says Lightfoot, and Greg's eyes flick to him in surprise. He's been preparing for a death bed announcement any moment now. "We put him under mainly to suction out the blood and puss from his lungs and esophagus. There are internal sores, abscesses, all along the lining of his trachea and stomach—that's the internal bleeding Officer Braddock felt."

"Prognosis?"

"There are a host of symptoms to deal with: malnutrition, a dizzyingly low oxygen count, heavy bruising on his face where it looks like he was pistol whipped, strained muscles in his shoulders from a nasty fall, low iron—"

"I don't want symptoms, Doc. I want answers."

"I understand." Scott nods with a grimace. "You're his next of kin."

Greg loses his breath for a beat.

He marvels at all the things encapsulated by that one fact, the close bond that a hospital will only ever read as 'next of kin.' It can't even touch the depth of how much Greg loves Spike and the three people asleep in the waiting room.

"Doc, Scott…you owe me a truthful explanation of why he's having these symptoms."

Lightfoot sighs, long and subdued. He shakes his head, his braid bobbing, eyes also on Spike's lax face and lips that have finally started to regain colour. His fingertips have gone from blue to a faint purple.

"There were signs Scarlatti vomited right after being poisoned," says Lightfoot. "It probably saved his life in that it didn't have time to digest in his system. That, and the chemical he'd been given was diluted. Smart move keeping the syringe so we could test it, by the way."

"Diluted?" Greg turns so he's resting an elbow on the window instead and can look the doctor at eye level. "With what?"

"Rat poison. A weak, off the shelf brand that isn't usually fatal in humans."

Greg tries for a professional tone. He really does. Something detached and objective.

In the end, his voice still comes out breathless and choked. "And the other component? I'm not blind. I've seen the labels on his chart. What was the exotic poison?"

Lightfoot looks uneasy—setting off immediate alarms in Greg's gut.

"It's the first time I've treated this," the doctor admits. "I have no idea how someone got their hands on it in these parts. We're a county clinic, for heaven's sake!"

"Doc?" Greg's clamps down on a fraught sound. "Please."

Lightfoot's voice comes out a whisper. "It was the bacteria bacillus anthracis, sergeant."

Greg gapes at him. His brows hitch higher. "Excuse me? Are you telling me someone slipped my officer anthrax?"

The doctor nods. "Pure anthrax too, not the refined stuff some bio terrorists used. This came straight from a manufacturer."

Greg finally takes that chair, nearly collapsing into it with an earthquake in his knees. His head is a gyroscope, its layers twisting in opposite directions.

"Anthrax," he whispers again. "Those bastards injected his water with anthrax."

"We gave him an antitoxin," Lightfoot rushes to add, alarmed by the reaction. "Since Scarlatti never reached the second stage of an anthracis infection, it's working. It'll take time for his body to recover, a few rounds of antitoxins and some real food in small doses, but he's through the worst."

Greg covers his eyes with a shaded hand. Just for a second.

"It's also not contagious unless Scarlatti's bodily fluids are ingested. So you're allowed to visit with him."

Greg gestures to himself. "Thanks for the sweats. I assume you'll burn our clothes?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"It's not right." Greg scrubs at his eyes. "This should never have happened in the first place."

"Sergeant Parker." Doctor Lightfoot kneels next to him. His voice turns sincere. "I'm sorry for what you've all been through. To be honest, I've consulted with the CDC and Officer Scarlatti's case is rare."

"Rare?" Greg peeks out. "Why?"

"Because most people, when poisoned, only get one type of attack—respiratory or GI. Not both at the same time like Michelangelo."

"Spike."

The doctor pauses.

"He likes to be called Spike," Greg explains, voice faint.

"Spike, then." Lightfoot smiles. "The good news about Spike's case is that because the anthrax was combined with rat poison, the two elements combatted each other, rather than fuelled the reaction."

There's a dizzying amount of information to sort through in that, and Greg is as trained as they come, but even he cannot tease that into something helpful.

Lightfoot reads his confusion. "That means the onset of the anthrax's effects was delayed. Since Spike had no food in his stomach to digest, it never reached his colon. In short, sergeant, we caught it in time."

Greg's gaze drifts to Spike.

Both men jolt when they see his eyes blinking open. Those beautiful, warm eyes. A nurse by his bedside throws a thumbs up at Lightfoot.

"He's waking for good this time," the doctor says, already grabbing a pen from his lab coat pocket.

"Do you mind if I have a word with him first? Before the others?"

Lightfoot's eyes soften. "Of course. In fact, a walk might do him good."

Greg manages to find his feet. He tests his balance with the cane and it holds. "Come again? Should he be walking when he's this weak? Not to mention his feet—they're ribbons, Doc."

Lightfoot chuckles a little. He points to a wheelchair in the corner. "I meant a change of scenery—and quiet—is what we in the business call a 'healthy extraction.' Lying there won't circulate his blood levels very well. Sitting upright will."

Greg trails inside after the doctor. He stands back while Lightfoot shines a penlight in Spike's pupils and asks about how the vertigo feels now versus when he went into surgery. Any pain, etc. He's careful to keep his question to the 'yes or no' variety, since Spike still won't talk.

"I'll go inform your team," Lightfoot whispers to Greg. "There's a call button strapped to Scarlatti's wrist if he needs anything."

"Doc?"

Lightfoot turns back.

Greg swallows. "Just…thank you. This has been the week from hell and you've made it a little more bearable."

The doctor gazes at Greg for a moment. His face is solemn now, but with a shine to his eyes, a fire. He bows his head. "You have a unique spirit, Sergeant Parker. I've never met a man quite like you. Or Spike, for that matter."

This gets a smile out of Greg. "That's because there are no men like Spike."

"One of a kind?"

Greg looks at Spike, the way his eyes dart to monitors, all the tech in the room, and the sound of his free breathing for the first time in days. Greg's heart roars with the need to protect it. "Something like that."

"We'll take good care of you both, then."