The cell had been passably transformed into a hospital ward. Windowless, bullet-proof, lit with two rows of fluorescent lights, its dark grey walls seem to hem in the doctor who is hunched over a clipboard at the foot of the bed. Trenton Corey scribbles out something, then checks his reading against the previous day's ones. With a nod of satisfaction, he tucks the clipboard snugly back at the foot of the bed.

Mr. X, as the patient is known among the medical staff, hadn't taken a turn for the worse.

But neither had he taken a turn for the better in the time he'd been delivered to the emergency room, only to have gotten himself whisked off again to a secret facility that had impressive medical equipment to keep people alive.

With a last look at the figure lying motionless in the cot surrounded by the number of machines that monitor his vital signs in a series of fluctuating waves and numbers, Corey leaves the room and walks into an adjacent one where two agents dressed in black wait for him.

The first is a woman with hair the colour of the falling autumn leaves, curled so that it falls softly against her ears and cheek. Corey thinks that her beauty undiminished even with the hard expression on her face. From the stern set of her lips to her glassy eyes, she looks as though she is carved out of granite, as is the man next to her who has the same wary look on his face as she does. They're both decked out in leather with accents of grey, silver and red, and he wonders – not for the first time – about their intense interest in the comatose figure on the bed.

As far as Corey knows, his patient – a man in a vegetative state – is a wanted man, a dangerous criminal who cannot be warded in the local hospital for the risks he presents. Dangerous enough to warrant the presence of two imposing and recognisable figures who carry the burdened fame of being Earth's Avengers.

Corey's brows furrow sceptically. Mr. X is so bruised that it was a surprise to see that he had even been alive and walking on the street before he had collapsed and been hauled off to the nearest hospital by some kind-hearted soul.

When Mr. X had arrived, he'd nothing on him but the clothes on his back. No identity, no money, no fancy gadgets which they could use to track his relations. But years of doctor's instinct say that Mr. X is not the typical, run-of-the-mill tramp that sleeps on the streets with newspapers as his bed of roses.

"Doctor, how badly injured is he?"

A curt voice interrupts his ruminations on the mystery of Mr. X.

Curt, straight to the point. Something he should have expected from the female agent who seems to be carved straight from granite.

Badly, Corey wants to say. The team of doctors sent to work on him had thought he was going to bleed his life out on the operating table.

But he knows what they are really asking about.

Corey straightens unconsciously as though she'd called his credentials into question. He manages a straight face as he answers, "It will be sometime before he regains consciousness."

"That wasn't my question, Dr-" The redhead glances once at his nametag. "-Dr. Corey."

"Injured enough to be placed under a medically-induced coma, Ms. Romanov," he answers crisply as he turns to the glass that separates the holding room from the cell to flick a glance at Mr. X. It's on the tip of his tongue to say that his patient looks more like a victim than a perpetrator, but he doesn't.

Natasha Romanov's pursed lips provide him with the only visible clue of her annoyance.

Corey licks his lips once and continues pointedly, "We're looking at fractured ribs, internal bleeding from sternal fracture, a fresh stab wound, multiple bruises in the joints, partially-healed contusions in the head that point to previous episodes of head trauma. And the list of other superficial injuries goes on. It's a wonder that he's still alive."

"But he is alive," the other agent called Clint Barton says brusquely. "And that's all that matters."

It's more than that, Corey wants to say. If the patient's physiology bears any resemblance to any ordinary human being's, that is where the apparent similarity ends.

"What else can you tell us about him?"

Corey eyes the patient once. "A CT-scan is scheduled later today. We're still awaiting the results of the patient's blood work but preliminary tests show..." he paused, wondering how he could possibly put the news across without sounding like an absolute crock.

An emotion resembling curiosity breaks through Barton's steely eyes. "Show what?"

"We're looking at a completely new blood type," Corey replies in a whoosh of a breath. "Medically speaking, it's impossible. His body is healing itself at a rapid rate, but he remains very weak still, which suggests the sheer amount of energy required for him to function normally. And his core-" he breaks off and shakes his head once, "-his core is like an entity of its own, more closely tied to his subconscious than we've ever seen before. We're still trying to find a logical explanation for this."

The two agents exchange a weighty, significant glance that Corey doesn't miss.

He hears a sharp exhale from his right.

"It's at this point in time I need to remind you that all of your findings are highly classified," Romanov says coolly.

Corey tries to wave off his annoyance at the agents' patronising ways. Seven years of working for this particular, secretive arm of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he finishes every case none the wiser. The agents flit through this place like ghosts in the night, checking up on their chosen wards ever so often. And then they're gone and he never sees any of them again.

Mr. X's situation however, isn't shaping up to be a typical case that the doctors encounter daily.

"Of course," Corey answers easily. "Every report is encrypted and stored in the database, accessible exclusively to the medical staff treating him. Clearance is only given to the select few handlers of this case."

Romanov looks at her partner steadily, though Corey suspects her words aren't just for Barton's ears alone. "Then you know what is at stake here. We aren't looking at an ordinary serial killer. We need him awake as soon as he's able to-"

"Time and patience are needed right now," Corey interrupts Romanov flatly. He reminds himself that his first priority is as always, the health of his patients and not their deeds. Placed under such subtle pressure from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents, he actually manages to forget sometimes why doctors do what they do.

Barton tries to speak, but Corey barrels ahead.

"During this time, patients can die, recover fully or, in rare cases, slip into a vegetative or a minimally conscious state. And although it has been documented that brain activity measured in coma patients with minimal consciousness isn't completely halted, I wouldn't do recommend anything yet to reverse this state-"

"Our primary goal is to speak to him, Dr. Corey. To find out as much as we can about those murders. And we know that-"

"That will only happen when he's sufficiently well to do so," he says firmly. "If and when it happens."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand, Corey. The information that this patient has is time-critical." Barton shifts minutely in annoyance, stilled only by Romanov's calming hand on his forearm.

Romanov looks at him steadily. "Dr. Corey, we need some leads but we prefer your willing corporation. Do what you need to do so. Remember what's important."

Wake him by any means necessary.

Corey reads between the lines easily, understanding the hidden threat that simmers below that calm exterior. They'd been expecting him to treat Mr. X as the doctors try to treat all their criminal patients here – as anonymous bodies that require patching up so that they could be carted away to face the kind of justice that will meted out without trial. By doing so, the patient would be reduced to a case number and forgotten in the archives as the years go by, an artificially-simplified variable in a complex equation where shades of grey are erased by hard lines delineating the good and the bad.

It's a prickly situation to be caught in – and the part of his job that he hates.

Pursing his lips once, Corey considers his options, which aren't that many. Naïveté and the desperate lack of money had made him sign across that dotted line all those years ago and he was now bound to honour the restrictive contract, whether he liked it or not.

The pointed clearing of a throat makes Corey realise that he'd been lost in his own musings for longer than he'd liked. Taking a deep breath, he makes them wait a little longer while he mentally files through his own scant knowledge of practicing physicians specialising in brain trauma rehabilitation. As far as he knows, there are experimental technologies dealing with neurological cartography and synaptic transfer, most of which would not even live to see the official stamp of an approved patent. But while such technology had also been hailed as a miracle, there are many others who have resolutely written off the capability of comatose patients of communicating at all.

But since they pushed for progress…

Perhaps there isn't too much harm in recommending them a certain alternative that he has vaguely read about in some medical journal. It would even go some way to help soothe his own pricked conscience.

Corey feels around his pocket for a pen with hands shakier than normal. He scribbles out an address and a name and hands it to the woman.

"What about a compromise, Agent Romanov?"

oOo

The entourage comes on a typical workday in the neurosurgical ward when Jane Foster is making minute tweaks to her virtual machine in the surgical room.

They're dark shapes in black – distinct and unpleasant blotches on the placid, pastel colours of the hospital – like the clichés seen too often in the movies. Panic crests in the first ten seconds, then ebbs away, replaced by indignation as they enter her office without knocking. As affronted as she is by the efficient and brusque manner in which they've swept into a private space as though they own it, she wonders if it's too much to hope that they'll conclude their business as painlessly as possible.

It isn't the first time that they've been here.

Seven months ago, she'd watched with some curiosity from her office window as black SUVs screeched into the driveway of the hospital, dislodging the ambulances from their waiting spots. Official government agents, her colleagues had said, on some top-secret mission that only a select few hear about, involving a particular patient warded here. The agents had rushed into the entrance and reappeared fifteen minutes later with a woman still strapped to a cot, the machines beeping out her stats in numbers and squiggly lines. The purple glint of a necklace reflecting off the patient's neck was how Jane had realised that it was Bernice Leitha they were taking away, a twenty-five year-old woman with whom she had only started work. By the time her feet had taken her to the main entrance, all that had remained of Bernice were the tyre marks crunched in the gravel by the SUVs.

Two days later, Bernice's obituary had appeared in the local papers, a small rectangle cut the bottom corner of the page. She'd only seen it because the saucer of her morning coffee had coincidentally snagged a fold there.

The shock had come like a bucketful of cold water in her face.

That these people had thought their business a priority over medical emergencies had left more than a flaky, revolting taste in her mouth.

But the fuller picture only came a month later. It hadn't occurred to her that Bernice was linked to several terrorist cells in the Middle East until an overheard snippet of a conversation one day in the ladies' bathroom had let that discreet piece of information slip.

Whether that had been rumour or fact, Jane doesn't know to this day. Their presence simply makes her edgy and apprehensive, but never would she have imagined that they'd be looking for her instead of her patients. Her small, short glimpse of the shadow world in which S.H.I.E.L.D. and its operatives function had been an unwelcome jolt of reality that is proving to be as surreal as the twisted dreamscapes that she waded through daily.

Now that they're here, Jane gets the distinct feeling that her orderly world comprising routine, virtual testing and rehabilitation is set on a spectacular collision course with their shadowy one.

"I hope you're not a secret criminal, Dr. Foster."

Jane throws a mock-annoyed look at her Swedish intern. Sigrid is as cool as a Scandinavian woman can get (and looks unfairly modelesque in hospital scrubs), with a dry sense of humour that's quirky to brighten up an awful day. That is, when Jane actually manages to understand the obscure jokes that seem to revolve around Swedish parliamentary seats and their nosy Norwegian neighbours.

She walks to the window where Sigrid is standing and looks at the SUVs parked haphazardly by the curb.

"I wonder what's going to happe-"

Jane jumps a little when the knock on the door echoes loudly in the room. It opens before she can say 'enter'.

"Good day, Dr. Foster."

The thinly-veiled politeness in the greeting is a veneer, as always.

A loose wire that tabulates her patient's latest readings dangles from the side of the computer. Brushing a stray lock behind her ear, Jane takes her time hooking it back where it belongs before turning slowly to face the first agent clad in a dark suit.

"I'll be alright, Sigrid," she says and gestures vaguely to the machines. "I'll take it from here."

Shooting her a quick but nuanced look of disbelief, her intern nods once and slinks away, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Jane suppresses an inward sigh. A dozen, impolite phrases run through her mind before she tries for a stiff and neutral greeting. As wary as she is of the shadowy presence of these agents, her curiosity never fails to betray her.

"How can I help you?"

"Bluntly put, we are in need of your expertise."

Whatever she'd been expecting, it certainly isn't this. "You don't mince words, do you? What do you mean?"

"Your work with nonresponsive coma patients has been outstanding," the agent says and pauses. "We have a case that requires your input."

Concise, straight to the point. But that statement is also reductive and obscure, lacking the necessary context that would explain this personal house call.

Jane shrugs once. "You could always transfer your patient here. He or she will be put under my care and there's a special section of wards that has been recently set up to accommodate th-"

The agent's lips curve sardonically as he stops her mid-sentence. "I'm afraid that's impossible, Dr. Foster. The security here is-" he looks pointedly around,"-sadly lacking. Even in those wards you've talked about."

"It's a hospital, not a prison," she says in exasperation.

The agent raises a brow, affirming her candid observation. "Precisely."

Just played into that one, she thinks ruefully. But the mild condescension she's hearing in his voice grates on her nerves nonetheless.

"I assume you're expecting me to pack my bags, leave everything and come with you?"

"Along with your equipment, of course. Relocation costs will be fully covered, as would the transportation of everything that is necessary for you to work. I can also assure you that you will be compensated satisfactorily. This is not a permanent assignment but it will take as long as it needs. Your place here is guaranteed, should you wish to return."

Should she wish to return?

Her original question, Jane notices with some bewilderment, had been too easily sidestepped.

She blinks once, twice, letting the words sink in. Suddenly she understands the allure of the web of secrecy that they weave, built on layer upon layer of gossamer strings of secrets and vague promises that have the power to ensnare.

"So this is a job offer?"

"Of a sort."

"Assuming I do take this, where are you taking me? Who exactly, am I expected to treat? If you're not telling me this now-"

A white, unmarked folder is shoved onto her worktable. "The non-disclosure forms are here, awaiting your signature. I suspect that you already know that this assignment is highly classified – as are the all of the things we handle. Sign where the dotted line is and you'll get what you need to know."

Her resolve is already weakening; the bait that they're dangling in front of her nose is too tempting to refuse. Jane leans her hip against the edge of the table as she slowly picks up the folder. She deliberates a moment before she thumbs it open, curiosity overriding growing suspicion.

Everything in the folder is in triplicate and the stack of papers in there is thick enough to be a graduate dissertation. She takes her time reading clause after clause, slowly untangling the copious amounts of legalese to the best of her ability. By the time she reaches the end of the document, her eyes are watering with strain and all that really sticks in her mind are the dire consequences that await her should she ever speak a word of this to anyone else.

She's no stranger to confidentiality agreements. It is fairly often that she receives requests from anonymous, wealthy donors who specifically request – through unofficial channels – for priority treatment. For her silence and her personalised attention, there would be numerous personal benefits, many of which are obscenely generous. The temptation is to take them up on their offers lurks perpetually in the shadow of every dark corner that breaks the monotonous linearity of the whitewashed hospital walls.

Jane shakes her head once, willing that stray thought away. She takes a moment to stare out the window, allowing herself a moment for her unspoken thoughts to run wild. She's under no illusions that there'll scarcely be enough time to say her hurried goodbyes to Sigrid and a few colleagues who have become friends.

But the patient who is waiting for her at the other end…who is he that S.H.I.E.L.D. had seen fit to send special task force agents just to bring her into their ranks?

"We appreciate your cooperation, Dr. Foster. After you've signed the requisite permissions, all you'll need to know is-" he pauses and slides a green file onto the table, next to the non-disclosure agreement forms, "-over here."

The agent's demeanour is bland and pleasant, but she detects some smugness beneath it. This is, to him, as good as a done deal, a presumption that is also, unfortunately quite true. And they both know it.

She wonders if they patiently hunt down everyone whom they find suitable to further their shady causes and hold prettily-decorated carrots on a stick in front of their noses until the potential of obtaining a negative answer becomes an irrelevant memory.

There have been stories of course. There always are. Told by a friend of a friend, in the days when she'd still been a newbie. Each interesting case that had graced the reception desk of the public hospital to which she'd been attached was accompanied by the spectral presence of men in black and wary looks among the staff.

Jane also knows that no one contacted by S.H.I.E.L.D. ever says no, for a variety of reasons that are always less than altruistic. And especially not if creative cajoling comes into play.

The naturally conspiratorial air of intrigue that the agent carts around in abundance is whittling away her wariness, leaving her natural inquisitive self grasping at the mystery of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s patient. It's all in that folder, lying just a centimetre out of her reach – a bridgeable distance, should she put pen to paper. Her own work in the hospital is admittedly experimental; Jane isn't too much of an ostrich with her head in the sand not to be privy to pointed conversations that more than hint at the shamanistic methods she's employing with her patients.

To work on a classified case with the technology that she'd developed would be sufficient, personal validation of her work in the neurological field, even though her official results might never really see the light of day in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret facility.

But to drop everything and leave her responsibilities to the other doctors even for a temporary period…

A part of her is ashamed to admit that she hadn't felt such deep-seated excitement in years.

A roommate that she had as a medical student once cheekily commented that a certain…dionysian impulse could never be separated from the person of Jane Foster. Back then, she had surreptitiously looked up the meaning of that word in the dictionary, gotten herself horrified at its implications and had proceeded to do everything to disprove that casual-but-not-forgotten statement in the months and years to come.

There is more than a grain of truth in that observation, as Jane had learnt to acknowledge with no small amount of chagrin. The virtual machine that is her brainchild and lifeline today had been created out of the feverish flux of dreams and hypotheses that were tossed out of respected academic circles for years, developed out of scrap materials in her dorm's backyard and re-fashioned into its final form in a medical facility when a generous grant had – against all hopes – materialised on a cold winter's day.

Jane digs out a pen from the pocket of her lab coat as anticipation builds into a tingling throb that amplifies her heartbeat in her ears. The pressure of her bold, unremitting strokes across the document's dotted line is so great that it rips the first sheet straight through.

Then she reaches for the file.

oOo

Jane had asked for three days.

Seventy-two hours to be exact, from the time the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had stepped out of the hospital to the time they were supposed to collect her and relocate her to wherever she needs to be. Instead, they'd come in forty-eight hours, exactly a day earlier than what was agreed upon, and found her still throwing random articles of clothing into a suitcase that wouldn't close.

Their excessive enthusiasm had been inversely proportional to her good humour. An extra hour of belligerent negotiation on her part had left her nerves more frazzled than ever but bought her at least an additional six hours to finish her errands.

She blows a lock of stray hair out of her eyes and takes another look around, her gaze inadvertently falling on the large telescope that takes up half the valuable space in her tiny bedroom. A fork in the road many years ago could have gotten her down the road to Astrophysics and her only real financial indulgence when she'd finally obtained her medical degree hadn't been an apartment but a large, and very-professional-looking telescope that had wiped an obscene amount out of her savings. She hadn't exactly looked back since, even though the experience of looking at the stars is now confined to the small lens of her telescope.

The stars will always be her obsession in one form or another.

The bulky telescope will go wherever she goes and she'll be damned if she allows the relocation company to even touch its tattered box.

Jane picks up the phone and starts saying her goodbyes to the people who deserve better than to hear of her departure through the office grapevine. The conversations are at times trite but always courteous and at times, too long for her liking.

They leave her more exhausted than she thought she'd be.

When S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents return in their SUVs six hours later, she's finally ready to leave.

oOo

Escorted by men in black with wearing clichéd aviator shades, Jane walks up the ramp of hulking C-17 parked on the airstrip and is immediately shown the passenger room and her temporary quarters for the duration of the flight. The crew leave her to her own devices but Jane is perfectly fine with it.

Dumping her duffel on the bunk, she's surprised at the elegance of the interior of the modified military cargo aircraft and even more stumped at the strong wireless signal that her phone picks up and announces in a series of chirps.

Do all their employees enjoy such luxury, with no expenses spared?

She knows that her bemusement hasn't faded yet and is unlikely to do so until she settles in and starts work on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mysterious patient. Then she straps in, listens to the roar of the engines prepping for take-off and allows her mind to drift until the craft levels out.

Only when the safety lights blink out does she whip out the file that the agent had left her that day immediately. She scans through the information given the umpteenth time and slams the binder shut in frustration.

The anonymous patient's profile is as good as a dummy case study found in the morgue, handed out to squeamish first-year medical students. Jane is curtly told that he is a condemned criminal with the blood of dozens on his hands. It doesn't matter that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s only tenuous claim to this bold conclusion is the presence of matching blood types found on his headless victims scattered throughout the globe. Nor does it matter that she can think of a dozen reasons why that particularly skewed conclusion is not necessarily a logical consequence of its premise.

They're just doing their job, just as they'll expect her to do hers with no questions asked.

There are no accompanying photos of the patient's condition. Instead, there are only clinical reports, charts and graphs cataloguing his numerous injuries sustained and the corresponding treatments administered to keep him alive – long enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. to conduct their interrogation.

Her only job, as she'd found out, is to plumb her patient's mind for any sort of information that will help S.H.I.E.L.D. in their investigations. To generate new leads, to run down any loose ends that they might have missed, through the use of her virtual machines.

Every other detail is superfluous, revealed on a need-to-know basis, should someone see fit to relay her with it. In short, the information that has been provided for her is as incomplete as her last meal a few hours ago.

That the case offers her the chance of delving into a killer's mind makes her simultaneously nervous and uneasy. Yet, that she knows so few tantalising details about him adds to the allure of treating him, despite knowing that he is a dangerous man who is at present, incapacitated and seriously ill.

If the practice of medicine is fraught with emotion, the detached concern with which she'd been taught to employ with her patients is a battle that she fights daily. Every plunge that she takes into her patients' sub-conscious memories narrows the professional distance that lies between doctor and patient.

It had taken a week for the roiling nausea to fade after her first case with a catatonic woman who, by all outward appearances, resembled a petite small-town pre-school teacher whose thoughts had been anything but an emotionless void. It had taken a few more patients and several nightmares later for her to realise that the invisible entities – wants, desires, hopes – housed on the inside were the most terrifying elements to confront in this field of work.

But to walk in the fantasy world of a killer…would it come with a price she cannot pay?

It's this worrying question that sticks in her head as the C-17 banks left and begins its slow descent over a vast outcropping of rock.

oOo

The journey from the airstrip to the facility passes in a significant blur.

Jane remembers being ushered into yet another black SUV that had already been waiting at the tarmac and shuttled through acres of farmland and temperate forests. She remembers breathing the air that is heavier all around her, remembers being weighed down by moisture that signals an inevitable downpour.

Alone in the backseat, Jane clutches her duffel closer and tries to relax. It's an impossible task.

She checks her watch frequently and wonders what time zone she's in, then decides to get all the details right when she's finally settled in. Her attempt to engage the driver in small talk fails miserably when all she gets are non-committal grunts from a man who knows better than to say anything to her. Heaving a sigh of annoyance when her latest question falls flat, Jane wonders if the prisoner's doctor is regarded as suspiciously as the prisoner himself.

At the half-hour mark, they take a sharp bend on to a gravel road. The road is bumpy and uneven, the crunch of the gravel strangely loud even in the unnatural silence of the interior, jolting her out of the thoughtful lull that had she'd fallen into sometime after they left the airport.

A quick glance outside tells her that the car had just gone off the official road and onto a minor, unmarked one. The trees seem to press in closer, their broad canopies shrinking the narrow width of the dirt track into a thin, trespassing strip of land that cuts defiantly into an impenetrable forest. Then the SUV picks up speed, gravel spraying the tinted windows. At one point, it veers particularly close to the foliage, causing a cluster of birds to burst from the canopy of a tall tree.

They roll to a halt another fifteen minutes later in front of a large, white facility that starkly is out of place in the untouched wilderness. The actual complex lies at least five hundred yards from the double fences that make up its perimeter, its only entrance and exit being the small, automatic gate opens up into a driveway that leads straight to large double doors.

Two agents, dressed in black leather, wait at the doors as Jane climbs out of the car. Two of Earth's own Avengers, she realises, recalling the scant news articles that she'd read about them.

Romanov and Barton.

"Dr. Foster?" Barton takes her duffel and intones unsmilingly as he stretches out a hand in greeting. "Please follow us."

No preliminaries, just the minimal amount of politeness. Works for her.

Jane takes the proffered hand and gives him a practised smile of acknowledgement that she reserves for difficult colleagues and patients. There's no small talk as they make their way through the maze of corridors, for which she's grateful. The silence gives her the chance to observe the utilitarian, sterile environment that looks like a cross between a research facility and a high-security prison compound.

Everything is steel, grit, concrete and white walls. Functionality over form.

Barton and Romanov stop in front of a grey door labelled '15b'.

"This is the quarters of all our medical residents," Barton says and steps aside.

The door swings open after authenticating both agents' fingerprints and retinal patterns, revealing an interior which is only a slight an aesthetic improvement from what she has seen of its exterior.

A double bed, a large workstation, a closet and an attached bathroom with view of the facility's double perimeter fencing.

Jane quirks an eyebrow at the sparse but functional furnishings. It seems as though this mantra bleeds into every aspect of its mission, from the facility's architecture to its agents' patterns of speech.

But right now, there's a more important matter that she needs to attend to.

"Thank you. I'd like to have a look at my patient," she tells them firmly.

Romanov and Barton exchange a wordless glance. After half a second's hesitation, the redhead nods and leads the way out of her quarters and into a different corridor that snakes away from the main complex that they had entered. They lead her across the underground compound into a different building that is just as nondescript as the rest of the complex.

Just ten minutes into this place and the disorientation comes as an indistinct cloud of lines and corridors that merge towards a vanishing point.

As though sensing her confusion, Romanov turns around without breaking stride and tells her, "You'll get used to it in about a week."

Jane hopes so too.

oOo

She's led into a room that is barely half the size of her own quarters. The door slamming shut behind her barely registers when Jane finally takes a look at the mysterious patient who had, up until that point, been a collection of charts and sentences on thick sheets of paper.

The sophisticated array of machines that will keep a man alive lines half the windowless wall, the only source of sound in the silence.

The dim light casts perpetual long shadows on Mr. X's pale face. The portion of black hair that isn't caught up in bandages is stark and bunched up on the white pillowcase, highlighting the sharp angles of his prominent cheekbones and jaw even through the bruises that mar his smooth skin. Beneath the injuries and the gauntness that comes from an extended time spent in a medical ward, Jane is unprepared for the otherworldly perfection of his thin form which houses such murderous instincts.

She blinks once, feeling an unease that has nothing and everything to do with the strange, crawling sensation that seems to skim the walls of this place. Her skin is suddenly tingling, reacting to a curious prickling feel that seems to permeate the cool, scrubbed air, her nose detecting a faint hint of pine and exotic oriental spice. It is gone as soon as she tries to put a name to it, leaving the vestiges of antiseptic lotion and bleach that hadn't been there before.

He's just a man, Jane, she tells herself. A killer, in fact, to be more precise.

Get a grip.

Jane takes an involuntary step back and frowns as she keeps her eyes on the unmoving patient. His chest rises and falls steadily and a quick glance at the heart rate monitor offers sufficient proof that things hadn't been any different ten seconds ago.

Taking a deep breath, she picks up the chart that's at the foot of his bed and starts reading.