POCKET CHANGE 3: HIDE and SEEK
by Sharon R.

Chapter Fourteen

Morris dropped a stack of charts in front of Carter who was studying the board at Admit. "I need to run these by you for discharge."

"Already?"

"Losers, all of them," he moaned as he straightened his tie and flicked dust from his shoulder. "And if we had anybody decent working in psych, I'd get consults on all of them for hypochondria."

Carter flipped open the charts and glanced through three of them as Morris flippantly rambled on. "Ah, Morris,… where are the labs?"

"Waste of my Saturday time."

"Dr. Morris, what are the five most common complaints patients present with in an ER?"

"Huh?"

"Abdominal pains and cramps, chest pain, fever, headache, shortness of breath," Pratt rattled off as he put two of his own patient charts in front of Carter.

"Thanks," Carter gave him, "but I was hoping Morris would know."

"High hopes get you nowhere, Carter," Pratt announced as he took an apple from a bowl of fruit left by a grateful patient, then more than happily found something else to do away from the Morris debacle.

"I don't suppose you know that these same symptoms are those most at risk for misdiagnosis, the causes which would be…?"

Morris, eyebrows raised cockily waiting for Carter to finish the sentence, put his hands out fishing for the answer which he had no desire to hear anyway.

"… would be….?" Carter sighed and shook his head in disgust. "Myocardial infarction, acute abdominal problems, and meningitis. Oh my God… Morris you are a lawsuit waiting to happen. Failure to gather enough data and faulty interpretation of data will earn you that lawsuit, and from the looks of these nearly blank charts, I'd say you haven't spent more than two minutes with each patient."

"They presented, students did history and physicals. They're just benign complaints."

"Please tell me you got a chest x-ray for Childers and put him in isolation."

"Which one is that?" he asked, obviously inconvenienced by his superior's stonewalling.

"HIV positive, three week history of fever, cough with occasional bloody sputum and night sweats. How closely did you read the student's notes? Did you see 'patient reports he has a low CD4 T-cell count'?"

"I gave him a script for Bactrim and steroids." Morris began to fidget, then grabbed the chart back to read what he hadn't previously. "He agrees it's probably pneumocystis pneumonia. Didn't want to deal with labs and x-rays."

"So now you're letting the patient make the diagnosis? You assume that just because he is HIV positive that it's automatically PCP?" Carter went back to the chart. "How about, 'patient states that he had been exposed to a friend with isoniazid resistant tuberculosis last month'?"

"Neela should have told me."

"No, you should have read the med student's findings and acted on them. You're the teacher here. Put him in strict isolation, get that chest x-ray, labs including ABG and sputum AFB smear and culture, call Infectious Diseases, and get a mask on him. Then you present to me."

"Fine." Morris gabbed the chart and turned to leave.

"Not yet, doctor," Carter said, "start over with these other five. Get appropriate labs, consults when necessary, and never do this again."

Carter hung his head in disgust as Morris made his way back to his patients, still cocky, and seemingly put upon.

"He wants to be Chief Resident next year. Did you know that?" Pratt chuckled between the words, enjoying Morris' coming out party, so to speak. "I've tried to tell all you Attendings, I really have."

"Don't worry. We know. Unfortunately Weaver loves his ass kissing."

"I'm not touching that one." Pratt pushed his own charts in front of Carter, who read them through and signed off with no questions. "How you feeling? Any more atrial flutters?"

"No. I'm good."

"I didn't realize you were having problems," Pratt said appropriately hushed as he signed onto the computer. "DeRaad was down earlier and asked if you were having issues with paranoia. Just thought I'd let you know."

Carter moved in closer not wanting to share their conversation. "He's talking to you about me?"

"Let's just call it a consult. After all, I was your treating physician yesterday."

"And your answer was…?"

"Come on, you think I'd be working with you if you were walking around in a tin foil hat talking about little space men out to get you?"

Carter relaxed and went back to his stool. "Wire hangers redirect the gamma rays," Carter said quite dryly as he turned the page of the medical book he was reading, "not tin foil."

Pratt laughed for a split second, then raised his eyes from the computer screen, not sure where to go with that one.

"I'm kidding, Pratt. Jeez."

"I knew that." Pratt finished up what he was doing at the computer and walked the few steps back to Carter, leaning forward on his elbows. "Now that we've got the jokes out of the way and I've ascertained that you are healthy and lucid, how about you cover the second half of my shift."

"No. My twelve hours is done at seven."

"Just 'til midnight, and then you're not on again until Monday night." He grinned, he knew he'd get what he wanted.

"You've memorized the schedule?"

"I already tried everyone else… and besides, you owe me."

Carter looked at his watch, tapped the eraser end of his pencil a few times on the book, then caved. "Alright, but we're even now, right?"

"Absolutely, my man. You have just made one beautiful lady very happy."

"Glad I could help, I guess. Might as well get out of here now before a trauma comes in. What have you got waiting?"

He just so happened to have a new stack of charts waiting on the other side of the computer. "In two I have an altered LOL with SOB, history of Alzheimers. Cardiac enzymes and chest x-ray were negative. RT is nebulizing as we speak. Also, a screaming six year old vomiting what Dad thinks is blood - I sent a sample to the lab. Considering he's only eaten strawberry Jello for two days, my money is on that." Pratt continued to pile high the charts. "In three we have a rule out appy waiting on labs, chronic headache waiting on transport to CT, and twenty year old female with SVTs. I suggest a tox screen on that one, student still has to do the H & P. Lacerated labia is waiting in sutures…"

"I'm sorry," Carter interrupted, "did you say labia?"

"Yeah. Haven't gotten to the bottom of that one yet. She and her girlfriend aren't talking. Chuny is in with them now. Last but not least, a disimpaction safely away from the population in trauma-2. Have fun, nice to see you, adios and good night."

By Saturday, Sam and the kids had fallen into a routine at the house. Sam had split the daffodils and was now using the last bit of daylight clearing out the raised circle garden in the center of the driveway. The kids had found enough to do that the lack of television was either not important yet or had just gone unnoticed. They busied themselves with climbing trees, playing with the age old toys found in the attic, walking to the camp for a paddle around the pond, and keeping an eye on Grover.

What routine Luka was keeping was the question in Sam's mind. Not going to work for twelve hours at a time was foreign to him. He didn't wander far, choosing to stay indoors. He was restless at night and wandered the house at times. He had finally found something to do in the garage, picking around at the old wood working tools and reading the ships logs he found in the upstairs office. He sat at the old drafting table next to the window and looked down at Alex and Amanda on the boulder watching the groundhog hard at work with a piece of melon. In the midst of all the calm and tranquility of the mountains as the four of them experienced complete solitude from the outside world, he felt oddly uneasy.

"Hey." Sam came up the narrow staircase of the garage to check on Luka, her hands filthy from the moist earth of the garden. "Find something to do?"

"Ships logs going back a hundred years or so."

"Yeah. Never knew how he got them. Mostly cargo ships. We used to read through them as kids. Got boring up here after about a week."

"We?"

"My cousins. Uncle George's kids. They'd come up to keep me company sometimes." She wasn't sure Luka was hearing her as he stared out the window. "I'm glad Amanda is here. Nice for Alex to have someone his age to play with." Not only did he not answer her, he closed his eyes and sighed away the self imposed sleepiness that had embedded itself within him. "Luka?"

"Yep. Ah… was your grandfather an architect?" he asked as he smoothed his hand over the wide drafting table.

"Engineer, I think. Retired well before I was born. Designed bridges." Luka nodded, but remained silent - distant. "Okay, I'll get back to the garden."

"Sam? The bell - what's the story there?" He knew he had been something less than sociable since they got there and at least attempted conversation.

Sam turned around and looked up at the bell that was mounted above the garage. She'd forgotten about it. "If I remember correctly, that came from a church that burned down in the next town. Gramps put it up there."

"Must have been pretty noisy sometimes with kids around."

"We weren't allowed to touch it. Story goes that it was only ever rung one time and that was the day my Great Uncle Mike got back from the Korean war. They said they could hear it ring clear over in Star Lake." Luka nodded politely and returned his attention to the window, leaving Sam to feel totally alone - at least existentially. "Alright, I'm going to, ah, get back to…" He had stolen back into himself. She didn't need to finish, and saved her breath as she turned and went back to the garden not sure what kind of relationship they had anymore.

"How come it's always cold?" Alex whined as he pulled his hands from under his butt cheeks.

"Too much shade, I guess." Amanda drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them as the two kids sat atop the boulder watching Grover eat the melon leftover from dinner. "It's just a big old rock, anyway." Looking up at the second floor window of the garage, Amanda caught sight of Luka. "He's watching us."

"Who?"

"Luka," she said directing Alex's attention to the window. "He always like that?"

"He's a lot of fun. We do a lot of cool stuff together. Just me and him… and Mom. Says we're a winning team of three."

She caught that little jab, but Amanda didn't let it get to her. "What else do you want to do?"

Alex shrugged his shoulders and continued ripping leaves apart at their veins to kill time. "My mom told me we were going to drive up to Whiteface Mountain to the North Pole place, but that was before you came with us."

"We can still go."

"No we can't. They said that we have to stay here and hide, or something like that." Alex didn't take any extra time getting to the final nail. "I wish your father would hurry up and get here."

"We don't have to hide. You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I heard them talking this morning. They said because that Sean guy was killed that they have to keep you safe."

Amanda straightened her legs out when she heard about Sean. "My friend from Ireland? Sean Griffin?"

"Yeah. The guy Luka knew from the refugee camp."

Her heart raced, breathing became rapid, and head trembled just a little as she stiffened up, eventually turning her head and glaring directly into Luka's distant eyes behind the old wavy pane of glass. Slowly she slid off the face of the boulder, inching herself down until her toes reached the ground, all the while never taking her eyes off of Luka. She was sad, yes, but at that moment anger is what became her motor.

She started out walking at a regular pace around the garage, the tan vest flapping as her feet quickened. When Amanda saw Luka appear at the garage door, her stride picked up.

"Amanda?" Sam called out, the girl's face contorted with fury. "Hey…"

Amanda kept right on past Sam and continued on down the driveway, her fingers securing the claddagh pendant around her neck.

"What's going on?" Luka asked from the doorway.

Sam shrugged, puzzled at the situation. "Alex, what happened?" she asked the boy who finally appeared.

"I don't know. We were just talking about stuff."

"What stuff?"

"I don't know. Like, what we're going to do. Then when I said that we had to stay here because that Sean guy was killed, she wigged out."

"You said what?" Sam wanted to talk to Alex - maybe even throttle him, but with Luka standing still and not going after Amanda, she was left to pick up the pieces. "Luka?" She tried to get his attention as she ran down the driveway hoping to catch up with Amanda. Luka remained in the doorway of the garage, but Alex tagged along with his mother almost instinctively. "Where did she go?" Sam asked turning around when she heard Alex's footsteps. "To the camp?"

"Nah. I know where."

They walked across the deserted road to the meadow, over the Irish stone wall and a few feet in behind some berry bushes where they found Amanda sitting on the ground behind the dilapidated shed.

"Amanda? Hey, Alex didn't know that we had kept the news about Sean a secret. I didn't even know he heard us talking this morning." The little girl was unmoved by Sam's explanation. It didn't matter how she heard about Sean, just that he was dead and nobody cared to tell her. "Sweetheart, I know you're mad, but there is so much going on in your life right now that we wanted to wait for things to settle down before we told you."

"Is that why I had to come with you? Because Sean died?"

"Mm hmm." Sam put her hand on Amanda's knee.

"So Luka knew?"

"Yes."

"He didn't tell me."

"I told you, we wanted -"

"- I'm not a baby. My dad tells me everything."

"Luka tried real hard to save Sean. Dr. Carter too. But honey, you have to understand that Luka and Carter were very close friends with Sean and they're hurting inside right now."

"It's not fair."

Alex had been keeping to himself, but almost as though his mouth was being controlled by a puppet master, he just couldn't help… "How do you think Luka feels, huh?"

"Alex!"

"I don't care. This was supposed to be our vacation." His words were directed at Amanda, but he made sure his eyes burned into Sam before he turned and jumped over the wall and ran up the driveway.

By the time Amanda and Sam had gotten back to the house, Alex had sequestered himself in the bedroom and Luka was in his spot on the sofa reading a book.

"What are you reading?" Amanda asked demurely, standing at the far end of the sofa a safe and comfortable distance for her.

Luka flipped the book over and looked at the cover. "Early Twentieth Century Bridges."

"Do you miss Sean?"

"Is that what happened?" he asked her as though he didn't know. "You found out about Sean?"

She didn't answer but turned her head downwards.

Luka cast his own eyes down as he answered her question. "Yes, I do miss him."

"Did he have a lot of friends?"

Luka smiled as he thought about the parties back at the camp and Sean's inability to hold his liquor. "He sure did. Everyone liked Sean." Looking downwards, he felt a pang of sadness, then quietly added for himself, "everyone loved him."

"My mom too?"

"In her own way, I suppose." Luka swung his arm with the book up onto the back of the sofa. "When Sean first saw her he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world."

"Did you?"

Luka nodded. "You know, you are just as beautiful as she was."

Amanda sat down next to him, then inched over until she was nestled into him, her arm around his chest. "I'm sorry about what happened to Sean. He said you and Dr. Carter were the two best doctors he knew."

Leaving the book atop the back of the sofa, Luka wrapped his arm around Amanda's shoulder and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "What do you have planned for today?"

"We found Grover's front door. You know, the hole he lives in. We think he has a back door for emergencies."

"Is this the raccoon you're feeding?"

"Groundhog," she corrected him. "Did you know they can dig tunnels up to a mile long?"

"I still don't think you should be getting too friendly with a wild animal." Luka reached over and touched her fingers, finally taking ahold of her hand. "You just can't trust them no matter how cute they are."

"I won't touch him."

"Still, just wash your hands if you find that hole. They can carry parasites."

"What are those?"

"Bad little critters that attach themselves to wild animals and infect you without you knowing it."

"I'll be careful."

"I know, but you can never be too careful. Okay?"

(A very few song lysrics from If I Could sung by Ray Charles previously properly attributed, have been deleted 5/03/05 as per site administrator's new regulation. The complete original text of this fic can be read at LUKAFIC)

Carl DeRaad had heard about the Carter estate but had never been there. As he pulled up in front of the house he was immediately taken by the enormity of the property and the grandeur of the old mansion, the stiff peaks and proud chimneys jutting up from the immaculate landscape. Before he could turn off the engine, a very large man - large in every sense of the word from waist, to head to height - appeared looming over his modest sedan and opened the door.

"You have business with Dr. Carter?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is the doc expecting you?"

"I work with him at the hospital. And you are…?"

"Security. I'll need to see some identification."

Luckily he had left his briefcase in the car with his hospital ID. The hulking guard took the ID and looked back and forth between the picture and the man before him until he was convinced to take the next step.

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

"What? No."

"Okay," he said, looking over the doctor seeing no obvious weapons, "follow me."

The guard knocked a few times on the massive front door before opening it and letting himself in. Carter was on the phone leaning back against the console in the foyer in the midst of a conversation.

"… it wasn't bad. Could have been Haldol." Carter put his hand over the phone and nodded at Carl, then the guard who went back outside. "Hi. Did we have a thing today?"

"No. Just wanted to talk with you."

"Okay, let me finish up here and I'll be with you shortly."

Carl wandered the downstairs of the mansion feeling very small inside the widely spaced walls and insanely high ceilings. In one grand room and out the other side, he almost found himself lost until he eventually made his way back to the other end of the foyer.

"…she is, but she went with Luka on his scheduled vacation. He's had kids, he knows how to take care of them…"

Wandering into the kitchen he was met by Bridget who stretched herself awake and found her way off her cozy bed by the stove and over to Carl. Her cold, wet nose nudged his hand hoping to get some attention. She got a pet or two, then moved back into the foyer to be by her substitute master.

"…no clue. Supposedly this kid, Artie Bishop, who works at the hospital knows where they went... Well, he has Down Syndrome. Great kid. Has a thing for the nurses."

Carl had seen all the portraits and pictures, taken inventory of the antiques that he would never see anywhere but a museum and followed the dog back to Carter.

"I'll talk to you later. Thanks for calling. It means a lot to me."

"Found someone to talk to?" Carl asked after Carter had hung up.

"An old friend. Just recently found me again."

"Girlfriend?"

"No."

"John, what's keeping you from exploring the physical comforts of a woman?"

"You even make sex sound clinical."

"Not sex. Love." He watched as Carter raked his fingers through his hair, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. "Is the woman in that dream of yours still in your life?"

"Not possible."

"Then what's stopping you? We all crave affection and it can be very healing. What are you afraid of?"

"Hurting someone I love, I guess." Carter folded his arms across his chest and looked at Carl's face. "So what is it you see when I'm sleeping?"

"What?"

"You watched me sleep the other night. Said you can learn a lot about someone watching them sleep."

"Well, it was almost like you were running from something, someone. I know you've come a long way since your captivity but I honestly think that in some ways you are still being held hostage."

"That would be a good assumption."

They stood silently together, both waiting for the other to speak.

"So you have a security guard?"

"Ah, yeah. A team actually. We're having issues here at the estate." Carter motioned the dog towards the kitchen and followed her. "Let's go outside." Carter took them to the gardens where Bridget happily weaved in and out of the choreographed designs, jumping up every now and then to snap at a bug in the air.

"What kind of security issues?"

"Look, Carl, I know you pumped Pratt for information. I'm not being paranoid." Carter stopped at the reflecting pool and leaned against a statue. "One of the people who helped get us out of Africa the first time is a CIA agent - Bob."

"Bob who?"

"Just Bob. He showed up again at the camp in Uganda. Luka got involved with an American woman there, Colleen, who turned out to be Bob's ex-wife, but she was deeply involved with rebels in the Congo. Things got bad, real bad. Luka and I both got sucked into this vortex that led us back to the guy who had originally kidnapped us. She was working with him, exchanging drugs from our camp for photo ops. In the end, Colleen put a gun to my head, Luka saved me, Colleen ended up dead and Bob saved the day but at the expense of the mother of his child. Now his daughter's life is in danger and he sent her to us. She stayed here for a while until they found out, so we sneaked her out of here one night and sent her off on a vacation with Luka and Sam…"

"They?"

"The men looking for her. After Sean was shot, one even came to the hospital pretending to be a Detective Danielson. Frank called and checked. No such detective exists." Carter felt as though he shouldn't have said so much. "Don't look at me like that, Carl. I'm not making this up."

"You have to admit it sounds contrived."

"Maybe to you it does. But it would take me days to tell you everything."

Bridget stopped what she was doing and pointed her nose in the air, her ears perking up. Carter immediately let his attention drift from DeRaad to the prancing dog who seemed to alert to something unusual.

"What is it, Bridget? What's wrong?"

Carter turned in a circle surveying the property. "I don't like this. Someone's here," he murmured.

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it. Stay here, Carl."

"John…"

The dog bolted to the house and started barking in the direction of the driveway out of sight from the gardens. As Carter reached the house and nearly ran into one of the guards exiting the back door, a figure appeared carrying bags.

"It's good to be back home," she said, putting her suitcases near the door, her arms outstretched to the golden retriever who was overjoyed with her arrival.

"Emily, what are you doing here?" Carter asked relieved.

"Oh, I couldn't stand being in that place all by myself. It was foolish to go in the first place. My life is no more secure there than it is here."

"John?" DeRaad made himself welcome.

"Emily, this is Dr. DeRaad. Carl, this is Emily. She works for the family."

"I keep them ship shape, and can't do that all the way from London now, can I? You work with John?"

"Yes, I do. So you've been to London?" He had heard what she said, but was fishing for more details.

Carter tried to interject. "Emily, let's keep…"

"John was being overprotective. Thinks we're in danger. Pish. Now, if those steaks are still in the freezer, I'm going to make us a good dinner. Care to join us Doctor DeRaad?"

"No, no thank you. I'll let you get back to your routine. John…?" DeRaad walked around the house to his car, Carter tagging along. "What did you mean that you could feel it? You mean feel someone's presence?"

Carter shrugged. "I suppose it has to do with spending time in a shack in the middle of the jungle. We knew by the sound of the insects and animals what time of day it was. Carnivore predators do most of their hunting early in the day and then at dusk. Their prey would alert each other." They stopped at DeRaad's car, the guard holding open the door. "Middle of the day seems to be prime mating time for the colobus monkeys. I can't get any sleep when they're going at it. And the closer rebels get to the building the quieter the wildlife becomes."

DeRaad noted the far off look in Carter's eyes as he instinctively scanned the edge of the property, but he didn't want to force the issue. The fact that Carter was talking in present tense about what happened over a year ago stuck in his mind. "I hear that you worked a double shift yesterday."

"Shift and a half, more like it."

"Let me talk to Kerry and get you some time off."

Carter shook his head and closed his eyes letting a smirk escape. "You know one of the reasons people hesitate about seeing you shrinks is because you believe what you want to believe, not what we tell you."

"It was warm today." Sam creaked open the screen door and joined Luka on the porch. "It could have been 90 degrees and my grandmother would make sure I was wearing a sweater when I was out here. Had to put bug spray on the kids. Gramps would say, this is the time of year that we have to learn to live with the black flies."

"Like tse-tse flies," Luka said, jolting as Sam whacked one dead.

"Must have flown in here with me," she said, wiping her hand on her pants. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. Are the kids talking to each other yet?"

"Give them some time. Amanda's hurting and Alex is feeling a little jealous." Luka nodded, acknowledging her, but said nothing as he stared out of the screened porch into the darkening wilderness. "Luka, you should get out and go exploring. There's so much to see. Take the kids down to the river and go fishing, check out the foundation of the original homestead down the road. Lots of treasures there." Again, he remained silent. "At least try and get some sleep. You kept getting up again last night."

"Sorry."

Conversation with Luka was stunted at best since they had arrived and Sam was beginning to feel the effects. "Why did we bother to plan a vacation together if all you wanted to do was keep to yourself?"

"I didn't plan this, you did."

"Just talk to me. Is that so hard?"

Luka wanted to erase the bad things he had done, make it easier for Sam to trust him, to love him. But the place they were in was too close to the jungle. Far in miles, but close in feeling, in sound, in spirit.

"I'm going to bed," Sam spit out, slamming the aged door behind her.

Dusk was but a fleeting moment in the mountains, the daylight stripped quickly and replaced by the crisp dark air untouched by artificial city lights. The stars above were magnified, brighter some might say, as they stood on their own merit and seemed to beam down droplets of illumination through the branches and leaves of the trees, the flickering lights moving on the ground as the branches themselves swayed prodded by the continuously moving, sweet smelling air.

The green wicker rocking chair Luka was sitting in seemed to creek even louder on the old floorboards of the porch, the peeling gray paint crackling under the weight of the rockers. Through the old weathered screens, moving with the air at times like curtains, Luka focused on the scant clouds as they wisped over the moon, briefly hiding the bottom half as if to anchor it to the sky and protect it from unseen elements. His eyes closed, chair tipped back cradling his weary body, Luka felt as though he were back in Ikela sharing the porch with Carter, sharing their surroundings with the wildlife, insects and veiled eyes of the rebels somewhere out there, somehow watching them. He was in a deep sleep, yet a sudden brisk breeze fluttering the branches of the trees above startled him awake, his eyes flying open in sync with a gasp that came from the depths of his soul. He couldn't get out of there fast enough and left the chair rocking in the disquieting wind as he lumbered back into the house finally making his way to his bed, too tired to notice Sam already sound asleep on her side of the bedroom.

This night he slept, his body craving the slumber he had avoided for so many nights previous. But it wasn't without disruption. His mind was erratic, thousands of miles away at the camp clinic tending to Mani, his mother pleading for him to save her son. It was in the Midway watching Colleen dance with Carter, whispering in his ear while her eyes intentionally focused on her lover. He was at the bottom of a tree next to the soccer field hoping that Carter hadn't broken his neck. His legs took him up the creek bed racing the rebels to the clinic, then to the killing field, blindfolded and hoping he wouldn't feel pain when the bullet cracked into his skull. Then he was in the Land Rover driving to the satellite clinic, the bus in his rear view mirror.

Tilting his head up, squinting against the midday sun, he saw the helicopter, the beating of the blades in the sky drowning out the rebels as they tried to yell to each other. But the noise was closer than he remembered it, and louder. Throwing the covers off of him, Luka stumbled at first, then straightened up and moved forward intent on getting outside to where the noise came from in the predawn hours. He brushed his arm against the doorframes as he made his way out of each room and finally to the kitchen door, the noise getting louder and louder. He stumbled down the one step forgetting that it was there, the wind catching the aluminum screen door and holding it open against the house. The cold of the brick pathway overgrown in moss startled his feet but failed to trigger his brain fully awake. The sky was full of them - full of helicopters flying overhead, their lights blinking and strobing, the bellies of the ships just barely above the tree tops. He needed to get everyone to safety. There wasn't much time.