Firstly, I want to thank you all for the amazing feedback. You've all been wonderful.

I also want to say that this story was supposed to be fluffy, with some angst, and only five chapters. But I really hated the original last chapter I'd written (honestly, it was terribly unrealistic) so I sat down and tried to edit it and... well, this happened. So there's going to be one more chapter after this one (sorry about that!) Maybe I can even get it up today as compensation for the ending for this one... I don't want Jet Becker to fail her exam, LOL, (good luck, by the way!) so I definitely will try to get the the chapter up ASAP - in the mean time, revise! :D

Babycakes10121 wanted a longer chapter - I'm not sure I did that, but I have delivered two, if you'll take that instead? :)

Anyway, sorry for rambling, but I just wrote the last half of this in one sitting and now my body is hyper from writing. (This is why I should stick to fluff, LOL).

I hope you like it!


The unit of soldiers spun to face them as somebody pressed the lock and the doors slid open.

"Jess!" Emily called as Matt ran to meet them, Becker causing Jess to limp along at a snails pace, and took the other side of Becker, who was now dangerously limp in her arms. The unbearable weight was immediately lifted, but she didn't let go. She wouldn't.

Besides, one of her hands was pressed firmly against his stomach, still desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

Her hands were soaked red.

"Jess," Matt got straight to the point. "What happened?"

"We locked the anomaly," She focused on what she knew, rather than slipping into shock or panic. The sudden noise and bustle around her was unnerving after the eerie hospital. Her voice was unsteady and her eyes were glued to Becker's stomach injury in a constant state of panic. "Two Saurornithoides attacked us on the way out. Becker was so preoccupied with keeping me alive he didn't notice the one hiding."

A medical team brought a gurney over, and Matt and Jess lowered him, now barely conscious, onto it. Three of his soldiers - ones Jess definitely remembered seeing often under his command in first unit - and Emily, followed close behind. They looked extremely alarmed - after all, how often (if ever) had they seen Becker like this?

Jess continued to press down on his wound, and the medics didn't instruct her otherwise.

"We need to get in there and contain the creatures," Jess heard Matt order to the unit now prepared to go in. "The anomaly is locked, so we don't have to worry about a stream of creatures attacking us. Our main priority is to contain and relocate the creatures to the anomaly room on…"

"The eighth floor," Jess supplied, which he repeated. "Room H, MRI scanner."

The unit began preparing to move out. Matt turned to Jess. "I'm going with them, Jess. Will you be alright?"

"I'll look after her," Emily promised him. Jess tried not to think about the state of the last person who had promised that, but she could hardly tear her eyes away from him anyway.

Speaking of Becker…

"Abby," Jess managed to speak clearly into the comms, "don't let Tami over. Becker's..."

"Got it," She replied shortly, probably restraining from showing her concern in case Becker's sister panicked.

"Jess…" Becker's hoarse and strained voice surprised her, Emily, the soldiers and the medical team who had all but declared him unconscious.

"Becker!" She exclaimed thankfully. His hand twitched, so she edged closer and leaned down to hear what he wanted to say. She wanted so desperately to hold his hand - screw protocol - but hers were preoccupied and covered in his own blood. He didn't even hesitate when he raised his left hand to cover hers with on his stomach. He must have felt the blood, but he didn't show it.

Maybe he'd seen worse injuries out in Afghanistan, she thought suddenly. Maybe he'd had worse injuries?

"You're going to be okay," She promised, hoping beyond everything that it was the truth. "And when you get out of hospital you have to promise me never to get distracted by me again. You stupid, stupid, foolhardy, idiot," the words were critical, but she was almost crying in relief and he knew she was grateful, only concerned for him.

"I… always…," He breathed as the medics raised him slowly onto an ambulance, Jess stepping up with them under the instruction of one of the medics. "I'll promise… dinner."

"Good," She pretended to be strict. "Because I'm holding you to that, whether you've been attacked by a creature or not, Becker."

Then she smiled, grateful that he was alive and actually trying to smile back. She ignored the blood, and the tubes, and the medics as best she could.

She knew she needed to stay to reopen the anomaly long enough for the team to shove the creatures back through, but one glance at Emily and the Victorian woman was saying into the comms, "Connor, we need you here to lock the anomaly… oh, ignore Matt, he's not in charge."

There was the muffled sound of a cheer of success through the comms, then Connor had signed off.

Emily looked at Jess as the medics made to shut the doors to the ambulance. "If Matt goes on about field clearance, I'll give him a piece of your mind, Jess."

"Thank you," Jess managed a grateful smile, and knew that, born in the Victorian Era or not, Emily was a strong 21st Century woman undoubtedly.

And then the doors were slammed shut, and Jess, an unconscious Becker, and three medics were being driven, sirens blaring, away from one hospital and to another. Luckily they were in a populated city, and the closest other hospital wasn't too far.

One of the medics started Becker on a drip, probably morphine, and another was furiously writing something down. The third came up behind Jess and pushed her hands - Becker's left limply still clutched over her own - down harder into his stomach. Jess worried she would cause more damage than she would help, but the medic just instructed her to keep the pressure.

"He's not as fragile as he looks," The older woman told her. "Just keep putting pressure on that wound, and you'll really help out the doctors when we get him into surgery."

"Surgery?" Jess managed to squeak out. She was alone - because Becker wasn't really in a position to be supportive, was he? - and completely out of her depth. She tried not to shake, but couldn't help it.

What are you doing here Jess? She thought. This is crazy.

"He'll need surgery," The woman told her truthfully. Jess was glad for that. She may be young, naïve and completely clueless in this situation, but she wasn't a child. She wanted to know. "But… it's not so bad."

Jess swallowed, staring at his face, looking so peaceful, such a stark contrast to what had just happened to him. She had to fight back the urge to pick up her hand and push his fringe out of his eyes. It made him look like a little kid sleeping, dreaming, and as much as it would have been adorable in another circumstance, it unnerved her now. "R-Really?"

She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. The look two of the medics exchanged told her she'd failed.

"What's your name?" The woman asked kindly. One part of Jess appreciated the attempt to relax her, the other really just wanted to know if Becker was going to be alright.

"Jess," She breathed, suddenly hearing it in Becker's voice: the way he'd joked with her earlier about attending Sandhurst, the way he'd calmed her down in the corridor when she'd almost freaked out on him, the way he'd said it as he said slumped against the wall in the stairwell.

"Nice to meet you, Jess," The woman told her calmly. "I'm Claire."

"What…" Jess swallowed, then started again, trying not to shake. "Is Becker going to be okay?"

"It's still bad," Claire told her as the other medics, who Jess hadn't really been watching earlier, started doing something to his chest. "But your hands are stopping a lot of the blood loss - it was a good thing you had enough sense to put pressure on it that when you saw the damage."

"I've… had first aid training," Jess mumbled weakly. It was the only thing she could think of to say.

"You may have saved his life," Claire was telling her again as she watched the other two medics finish their examination of his chest and arm wounds.

Jess swallowed.

This was too much.

"No…" She shook her head rapidly from side to side, panicking. She couldn't abandon Becker, wouldn't, but this was too much. She shouldn't have even been on site, and now her… and now Becker might- "No… I can't…"

"Shh," The woman stared her right in the eyes, which was oddly reassuring, rather than unnerving.

"Please," Jess begged, overcome with how serious it could have been, or maybe even still was. Surgery? "Please, you do it. I… you're the medic. I'm just… I…"

"No," The woman told her firmly. "Your hands are on an artery. When we get to the hospital we'll take him into surgery and one of the doctors will careful switch with you. Then I'll be right outside to get you checked on, okay?"

Jess nodded, glancing back down at Becker. Her voice came out as a breath. "He'll… he has to be okay."

There was an awkward pause, where none of the medics responded.

But before Jess could panic, they pulled to a halt outside the hospital, and the doors were wrenched open by doctors.

The next few minutes were a blur of chaos - movement, voices, commands, medical jargon, and people calmly introducing themselves to her with expressions on their face that showed they were expecting her to freak out and do something stupid at any second.

Jess didn't.

Sure, she was absolutely petrified, completely overwhelmed and undeniably in shock, but she wasn't going to let that hurt the man in front of her on the gurney.

She'd told him earlier that she always had his back, and she damn well was going to keep to that promise.

They hurried through the bright walls of the hospital, piling through double doors as if they were nothing but air: her, Becker, Claire and four doctors.

The corridors were alive and buzzing, brightly lit and chaotic.

They were still white.

Jess doubted she would ever be able to see another white-washed hospital wall without conjuring up the image of Becker's blood smeared across it.

They reached the surgery room and somebody placed a surgical mask over her face. Then they were inside, and it was just like she'd seen them on TV, albeit more real: more gloomy, more scary, more serious.

Anything could happen in here.

Derek Shepherd wasn't going to materialise and save the day.

Anybody could die.

Jess never wanted to watch Grey's Anatomy again.

"Jess?" A middle aged man with a trimmed beard and grey hair looked to her across Becker with a fixed, steady gaze and complete eye contact. "I'm Doctor Dardon. Call me Jonathon."

"My dad's name is Jonathon," Jess mumbled back meekly. Again, the only thing she could make herself say seemed unimportant, but it calmed her a little to know that she could speak in coherent sentences.

"That's good," He smiled reassuringly. She should have felt like a child at the tone, but she didn't. It was comforting to know that this man clearly knew what he was doing. "Now, Dr Kisling here is going to place her hands under yours, and when she tells you too, you're going to lift yours up as quick as you can and step away from the table. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Jess nodded as a young blonde doctor came and stood beside her.

She gave Jess a reassuring nod, but otherwise didn't delay. Jess liked that.

As soon as the woman's small hands sidled under her own, Jess was ready to let go. She didn't think she had the strength to continue applying pressure, and she just wanted Becker to be left in capable hands. Hers were more than incapable and inadequate in comparison.

"Ready?" The woman whispered calmly. Jess nodded again. "Now."

As she sprung back, lifting her hands up close to her own body, and Dr Kipling stepped into the space she'd been standing, closer to the gurney, closer to Becker, closer to the wound. Even from her position behind the doctor, Jess could already tell that the woman had applied pressure immediately.

She didn't want to look at Becker, but she couldn't not do so.

He looked like he was sleeping, except for the sheer amount of blood now smudged across his stomach and chest.

And that damned piece of hair was still in his eyes.

Jess sucked in a breath, then bit her lip to calm herself.

The blood was too much.

Then Claire was there, keeping to her promise, leading her away and out of the surgery room.

"That blood," Jess kept repeating. "I didn't know… someone could bleed so much. There was so much blood."

"It's okay," Claire said every time. "You did the best you could. You were brilliant."

Jess couldn't help but wish she'd used any other word.


So it's different to my usualness, so I'm dying for reviews? Thank you for reading! Please stay tuned for the next chapter (which should have enough fluff to counteract this, if I can manage it! :D)