Disclaimer: See initial chapter

A/N: Extremely AU.

Casper's Moon

Epiphany was bone weary dealing with the medical staff that was on this evening. Her shift had barely started and already, there had been a number of close calls and she'd had to step in to straighten things out when one of the interns had made a near fatal mistake. Of course tonight would be a full moon, she mused as she caught the ghostly shape of it, bright as Casper himself, out of the corner of her eye.

And of course I would be stuck with the most incompetent of the incompetent and on one of the busiest nights we've had in a long time, she shook her head, putting her hands on her hips as she stomped over to reprimand two of her doctors who had taken it upon themselves to argue about the care of a patient in the middle of a busy emergency room.

"Just what the hell do you two think you are doing?" She looked from one of them to the next. "We got a room here full of sick or injured people and you two doctors have nothing better to do than get into some petty argument about who's ego is better than who's?" She looked each of them up and down with an air of disdain that effectively had them turning on their heels and getting back to work.

Her job wouldn't nearly be as exhausting as it was if she didn't have to babysit the doctors and could just attend to the patients' needs. At least even the newbies knew better than to argue with her and responded to her scolding by obeying her orders immediately. It did help move things along as smoothly as possible.

"Got a John Doe dropped off at the entrance, guy drove off 'fore we could get a good look at him or what he was drivin', looks like multiple gunshot wounds, one to the abdomen, one to the shoulder and there's a headshot wound as well. Doesn't look good," Adam, one of the EMTs that Epiphany could actually stand, rattled off as he rolled what appeared to be a corpse through the emergency doors.

The man lying on the gurney was whiter than the bloodied sheets beneath him. Epiphany strode over to the gurney, waving an intern and another nurse over to join her as she assessed the wounded man.

"He even alive?" Her tone was incredulous as she took in the appearance of the drop and run. The man looked like a victim of one of them movie fashioned serial killers and as though he had no blood left in him to bleed.

Adam nodded, not breaking stride as they made their way to one of the ER rooms. "Barely, guy's lost a lot of blood, could be internal damage, pulse is weak and thready, respiration's irregular. By all accounts," he raised his blue eyes to meet Epiphany's, "he should already be dead. Looks to me like these wounds are several hours old. I'll notify the police and have them send someone over."

"At least whoever brought him here had the foresight to staunch the flow of blood and put some makeshift bandages on him before carting him from God knows where to my emergency room," she was already removing the odds and ends which had been used to sop up the blood, pursing her lips and shaking her head the whole time.

When she'd managed to unwrap the blood-soaked Metallica tee-shirt from around young man's head, she drew in a sharp breath of recognition. The boy was thinner than she'd last seen him and sporting what appeared to be a police uniform from a suburb which was a good three hours away, but if she wasn't mistaken, she was looking at the deathly pale face of Johnny Zacchara, infamous son of the crazy mobster, Anthony Zacchara.

"Adam," she called after the EMT who was already halfway out of the room, "I'll make that call to the police department, looks like we're going to be hopping around here, there's no reason for you to be wasting your time on somethin'I can handle. Besides, it doesn't look like our John Doe here will be shedding much light on whatever it was that happened to him anytime soon." If ever.

"Appreciate it Nurse Johnson," Adam nodded and smiled, waving as he headed out the double-doors of the hospital. Epiphany was willing to bet that he already had another call.

"Nurse Smith, would you mind paging doctors Scorpio and Drake?" She turned to the young nurse who was staring at the patient with a look that was an odd mixture of horror and awe. She nodded her head as though in shock and eagerly left the room to carry out her orders.

"Go get Nurse Webber," Epiphany shooed an equally horrified young intern from the room.

The young man bobbed his head in agreement and fairly ran out of the room, leaving Epiphany alone with her patient. She hastily pressed two fingers to her patient's neck, checking for a pulse that she wasn't sure she'd be able to find, all the while plotting how best to keep his identity under wraps.

She didn't want her emergency room to become the scene of a bloodbath or a mob hit. She wasn't sure what had driven Johnny Zacchara from Port Charles a little over a year ago, but doubted that it would be a good thing if Sonny Corinthos and Jason Morgan were to learn that he was back in town, regardless of the strange events surrounding how he'd come to be here.

A single heartbeat thumped against her fingers and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"You just hang in there," she whispered fiercely, not sure why she felt so strongly about the haggard young man lying at death's door. "We'll get you back on your feet in no time," she promised, gripping a limp hand tightly in her own.

"What do we got here?" Patrick slid into the room, clearly out of breath; apparently Nurse Smith had really lit a fire under him. His eyes traveled from Epiphany to the patient and he immediately moved to examine the head wound. His brows furrowed in concern.

"When was this patient brought in?" His eyes darted up to Epiphany's.

"Couple a minutes ago," she answered curtly.

"We need to prep him for surgery stat," Patrick quickly took stock of the other gunshot wounds. Turning to Robin just as she walked into the room, he ordered, "We'll need an internist at least and I'd like to have an orthopedic surgeon in to consult on the shoulder injury. I'd like to get a CT scan first and we'll need to hang a couple of bags of O, unless you've got a blood type for our John Doe?"

Patrick turned back to Epiphany who shook her head. She had no idea what Johnny's blood type was and doubted they had much time to look it up. She went to work immediately and followed Patrick's orders without comment.

Nurse Webber came in shortly after, as they were wheeling the gurney down the hall where the patient would get a CT before being brought directly to surgery. Conditions weren't ideal, but if they didn't act quickly, he had no chance of survival.

A half an hour later, while Johnny was being prepped for surgery, Epiphany drew doctors Drake and Scorpio as well as Nurse Webber aside.

"That John Doe look familiar to any of you?" She asked in a terse whisper. All three shook their heads. They hadn't been looking at the patient, so much as scrutinizing and categorizing his injuries.

"The reason I paged you three is because that young man in there," she pointed through the glass window housing the operating room Johnny was currently awaiting surgery in, "is gonna need a whole lot of discretion. No one and I mean no one," she pierced them all with an intense glare, "can let it slip that the John Doe in there is Johnny Zacchara. I don't know what happened to drive him out of Port Charles, but I ain't gonna have one of my staff be the cause of his death because they can't keep their mouths shut. Is that understood?"

Elizabeth's jaw dropped in disbelief, her eyes searching Epiphany's face for some hint of a joke, and finding none, she nodded her agreement. She'd only been dimly aware of the events surrounding Sonny's arrest, Dante's shooting, and the disappearance of Johnny Zacchara as own her life had been spiraling out of control at the time. Looking back, she only had a vague recollection of the circumstances of her own breakdown, let alone anything else that had happened a year ago.

Patrick stared through the plate glass window as though trying to ascertain whether Epiphany was speaking the truth or not, before he turned around to face her. The last time he'd withheld an identity from someone it had nearly cost that young man his life and had driven a wedge between a father and his son. He wasn't sure that he was willing to go down that same road again.

"I'm not asking you to do anything that I ain't willing to do myself," she held the doctor's eyes as she spoke, "and this ain't nothing like what happened with Dante and Sonny. If we don't keep his identity under wraps, it could cost him his life."

"I'm not even sure he'll make it through the next half hour," Patrick sighed before reluctantly nodding.

"Robin?" Epiphany turned toward the petite young doctor who happened to be pretty good friends with Jason Morgan, Sonny Corinthos' known enforcer.

"I don't like keeping secrets," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and biting her bottom lip, "and though I hate to say it, I think you might be right on this. I have no idea what kind of falling out Johnny had with Sonny and Jason, but I don't think either of them would be happy to see him back in Port Charles."

Relieved, Epiphany smiled and exhaled audibly.

"You do your best to save that young man in there, you hear me?" She charged them before turning on her heel to make a phone call which could cause her well laid plans to come crashing down. Why on earth do I care what happens to a former mobster? She shook her head as she placed a call to the PCPD. It just don't make no earthly sense.