Chapter Seven

Jaime's tears were replaced by a burning rage as she stared at the wires in her finger. Steve kept his left arm firmly around her waist, and when she turned her back to him in a struggle to get away, he grabbed her right arm with a vice-like grip. He was afraid if she broke away from him, she could seriously hurt herself, or worse. Although her bionics had been partially tuned down, panic and anger had sent adrenaline coursing through her veins and Steve found he could barely restrain her.

"I've been here over a month and no one thought it was important enough to fill me in on the fact that I'm a damned machine?"

"Jaime -"

"No! Let go of me!"

Jaime pulled her right elbow back with all the force she could muster and jammed Steve in his gut. He'd seen it coming and managed to steel the muscles before she hit him, but the blow was still enough to send him reeling backward about ten feet, the wind knocked out of him, and he landed sprawled out on the grass.

Steve was back on his feet almost instantly, but the split-second head start was all Jaime had needed. She was gone. It was impossible, even with his eye, to tell which way she'd run. He thought she might have gone back to the hospital and he started off in that direction.

The sound of tearing metal (the chain link fence?) told him the real story, and it wasn't the answer he'd wanted: she was headed off the grounds. Two more sounds chilled Steve to the bone - a single gunshot and a blood-curdling scream of pain and fear.

"Steve!"

He took off at bionic speed and found the hole in the fence where, a few yards away, two armed men were trying to force Jaime into a car. Steve wasn't about to let that happen. For the moment, Jaime was occupying their attention and holding her own, refusing to get in the car, even with guns pointed at her.

"Lady," one of them snarled, "I can get just as much money for you dead as alive, and I'd rather shoot you than fight with you, so just stop struggling and -"

Steve leapt into action. The one on Jaime's right went down with a karate chop to his neck, and the one on her left, Steve took down with a firm and well-placed kick to the backs of his knees. The driver, not wanting to wait for his turn, took off, leaving his comrades lying in the dirt.

"Jaime - run!" he told her urgently. "Go back to the hospital and tell Rudy to call Oscar!" Jaime was too shocked to move. "Dammit, Jaime - GO!"
Finally, Jaime obeyed. Rudy and Michael were already outside the front entrance, having been alerted by a nurse who'd thought she heard a gunshot.

"Jaime - what happened?" Michael asked. "Where's Steve?"

Jaime fought to catch her breath; her weakened condition had finally caught up with her. "Call - Oscar. Two men - they had guns - they tried to take me - Steve...needs...help." That was all she could manage. Rudy and Michael caught her as her legs gave out from under her.

------

Steve restrained the would-be kidnappers with pieces of the broken fence, watching them until Oscar's men arrived to pick them up. They would be charged with the attempted kidnapping of a federal agent (even though at the moment, the agent didn't know that she was one), assault and battery and anything else Oscar could find to pin on them.

"Is Jaime alright?" Steve asked as they headed back to the hospital.

"I didn't see her, Pal. Rudy said she overdid it, but she's resting now."

"She cut her finger, Oscar; she saw the wires. I need to be there when she wakes up." Steve headed up to Jaime's room and Oscar stopped in to see Rudy.

"So how is our patient, Rudy?" Oscar inquired.

"She's improved dramatically over the last two or three days. Today was a set-back, of course, but nothing she can't overcome. She'll have to learn about bionics sooner than we'd planned, but I think after the initial shock she'll do ok with it."

"I hope you're right."

-------

When Jaime woke up several hours later, Steve was at her side, holding her hand. Rudy had already repaired the cut in her finger to spare her the trauma of seeing it again.

"Jaime, I'm so sorry I yelled at you," Steve told her quietly.

"It got me moving. But you - are you ok? I didn't mean to hit you so hard -"

"Abs of steel, Sweetheart," he said lightly. "I'm fine."

"Still, I'm so sorry - about everything. I should've -"

"It's ok. You were scared; you didn't really know what you were doing."

"I grabbed the fence and it tore away in my hand. I don't understand, and I'm not sure I want to. I definitely don't wanna be a robot."

"You're not a robot or a machine. Jaime, you're the same living, breathing human being you always were." Steve looked directly into her eyes."You're the same person who had a snake down her shirt and a bird that made a mess in her hair." He reached over and gently caressed her face. "You're the same woman I fell in love with, and the only woman I could ever possibly love. I couldn't give my heart to anyone else, because it's been yours ever since we were little kids. Nothing in the world could ever change that."

"Thank you for today," Jaime whispered. "I know you saved my life. There's so much we need to talk about - so much I need to know - but right now, I'm -"

"Tired?"

"There you go again, knowing what I was gonna say."

Steve gave her a quick but very warm kiss. "You rest now, Sweetheart. When you wake up, we'll talk, for as long as you want. Ok?"

There was no answer. Jaime was already asleep.

------