He rolled over. She was there, clutching to his left bicep with one hand and trailing the other over his hip. He gave her one of his half-and-obligatory smiles: a quick thinning of the lips, on and off like a light switch. Her bronzed skin caught the early-morning light as her hand trailed upwards over his well-chiseled chest, her fingers ghosting lightly over his neck to find his face…

"You really didn't see it coming, did you?"

And her long fingernails plunged into his eyes.

Panting slightly he sat up, his hands flying involuntarily to his eye sockets only to be stopped by the scratchy gauze bandage that sat in their place. Biting down hard on his tongue, Sands forced himself back into a reclining position, schooling his breathing back into a semblance of normalcy.

It had been twenty-eight days. Four weeks trapped in a hospital room at Langley. The bullet wounds- while still tender- were mostly healed.

What the fuck am I doing here still?

Inwardly, Sands knew. He had been debriefed here in the hospital room while he still been too weak to wreak any real havoc, but how he was more himself, and a psych evaluation was beginning to loom in the near future.

In the interim, however, he was quite welcome to amuse himself by making the white coats run like little lab rats on a wheel. Wearing lab coats, of course. Sands smirked lightly and reached for the buzzer that would summon a nurse to his aid. However, before his thumb touched the button a knock sounded on his door.

Telepathic service, is it? Very nice. He quickly dropped back and feigned sleep.

"Officer Sands?" A light, flutelike voice- one that he knew as one of the nurses- floated in the door.

He raised his head slightly. "Hmm?"

"Officer Sands, you have a visitor."

"Oh, gosh. Who is it?"

A different voice- male and extremely patronizing- spoke. "Officer Sands, my name is Officer Samuel Winston, but you're free to call me Sam if you prefer." Sands suppressed a smirk.

Yes, I really am that easy to butter up. Tell me your first name, and we'll be best friends! "Well, whoop-de-doo on a pogo stick." He heard the nurse snort and shut the door as she left. Winston sat at the edge of the bed and patted Sands' knee through the bedclothes. Sands sat frozen, momentarily caught between laughter and homicide.

"So, Sheldon. If you don't mind…" Does this man have a death wish? Clearly, nobody had warned him about Sands. "…I'd like to ask you a few questions about your operation in Culiacan, and about some of the information given in your debriefing."

What the hell? Granted, Sands hadn't been entirely truthful during the debriefing, choosing to eliminate certain details of his operation regarding bullfights and a certain twenty million pesos (among other things), but he had been reasonably truthful- certainly truthful enough for the circumstances.

"We have become aware of certain papers of a rather sensitive nature that you failed to bring to the Company's attention during your debriefing. I trust that you know to which I am referring?" Winston's voice dropped its paternal warmth as quickly as an extinguishing candle. The temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees.

"Well, Sammy Churchill, I can't say that I do."

Winston stood, and Sands could hear the clasps of a briefcase unfastening. The distinct sound of papers rustling came towards him. "Sands, be aware that these are only copies. The originals aren't here." The papers were placed in Sands' lap.

"I suppose that I should use my handy-dandy reading software that has been installed in my thumb to identify these, shall I?"

Winston snapped in his direction. "You know very well what these are. These are the papers that were signed by both you and one General Marquez-"

"What?"

"- in which you offered your assistance to him in assassinating the President in exchange for…" Winston flipped a page over noisily. "…five million pesos."

I might be crazy, but I'd never do something like that for five million pesos. Something like that would cost ten at the very least…

Sands sent a half-smile at him. I've been set up. Somebody in the Company, or Barillo, or Cucuy… "Tell me… What signature did I affix to these documents of yours?"

Winston snorted. "Buying for time, are you?"

"How did I sign my name?"

"With a pen, I assume." The saddest part is that I don't think that he was even slightly sarcastic.

"No. Was it just Sands, or was it Jeffery Sands, or…"

There was a slight pause. "Sheldon Sands," Winston muttered.

Well, I know it wasn't me, then. And that was true. Sands had never signed the name Sheldon Sands to a document; he either signed S. Jeffery Sands or S. J. Sands. But never Sheldon. "Well, that is truly unbelievable." Unbelievable as it is, the shit has officially hit the fan. I need an out. Now.

"Be that as it may, you're under arrest for perjury."

Sands snorted. "Just perjury?"

He could hear the smile in Winston's voice as the door to the room opened. "For the time being, but there will be more."

Sands could hear two sets of footsteps enter the room; the door closed again. Wow. They must think that I'm really wounded; only two cops for the infamous Officer Sands? He smirked. Well, then. Thank you for giving me my out.

"Officer Sands, you are under arrest for perjury."

"Oh, really?"

The cop either hadn't heard him or chose to ignore him. "Place your hands behind your back." Sands could hear the metallic snick of handcuffs being opened. "You have the right to remain-"

"I know my rights. Thank you. And I can't place my hands behind my back; I was shot in the arm."

Winston crossed the room and whispered in what he must have thought to be an inaudible voice to the cop. "He's blind and injured. You can take him in like this; he won't be any trouble for you."

Ladies and gentlemen, the theatre doors are wide open.

The cop crossed over to Sands' bed and grabbed him roughly by the arm. Sands pretended to wince. "Come on, then. We're taking you in. If you make so much as one wrong move, we'll shoot you." Clearly, they're not thinking perjury. More along the lines of treason. Shit.

"Well, then. We'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen." Sands' hand flashed out for the cop's gun, and within ten seconds, Sands was the only living person in the room.

Okay. Let's go.

Sands strode briskly as he dared across the room, still holding the gun. His hand was on the doorknob before he realized that he still resembled a mummy in a backless hospital gown. Yeah, I'm ready to Defy Gravity.

Fifteen minutes later, Sands was dressed in Winston's clothing with both Cop Number One and Cop Number Two's guns hanging from his new (if slightly large; neither Cop Number One or Cop Number Two was a real pixie) gunbelts which crisscrossed his hips. Cop Number Two had sported extremely large aviator sunglasses which were now hiding the ruins of what had once been his eyes. Even better, he was seated in the back of a cab en route to the airport, his CIA badge in his pocket.

If his luck held out, he would be able to make it all the way to Mexico without anybody being any the wiser.

And from there?

He wasn't really sure. But one thing was certain; the Company was not going to take his freedom from him. If he had to run to ensure that fact, he would run.