Fourth chapter up. this one is a lot happier than I had originally planned, but I really don't think I would like it as much any other way. please review, I need the advice, what you liked, what you didn't etcetera.

I step through the door, not knowing who would be there, or what to expect. I am terrified, these men and women have become like a second family to me, and to have them see me like this, it's extremely difficult to even go through with it. By that same vein of logic, however, I must go through with it, for my own sake as well as for theirs. I don't want them to think badly of me, but they deserve to know what happened. Trust won't come easily, but I hope and believe that it will come. I have to lower my wings to enter the room, as the doorways that lead into the troop quarters are smaller than the ones that house the more public facilities.

My squad is inside. They are talking to each other, most looking extremely solemn, with a few looking angry or mistrustful even in just talking. As the door opens, first one, then another of them turns to look as a dead silence falls over the room. It continues unhindered for several seconds, before it is broken by Andrew himself, who greets me with a simple "Julia" and a nod. After that, the proverbial floodgates open, and everyone begins talking at once, I hear the words "she's walking free?" and "why did they bring it here?" that last one hurting, as the speaker, who I believe is Dave, one of the more outspoken members of our group, refuses to acknowledge that I have a shred of humanity left in me, thus using the gender neutral pronoun, it, instead of her. Andrew gets them calmed down eventually, before turning back to me. "Well?" he asks, "why did you come here?"

My mouth is slow to move, fear at saying something wrong, and losing the trust of this group weighing down on me as I try to construct an answer. Finally, I settle for the inadequate "you're my friends, and my squad. I needed to see you." It was true, but it appeared that the truth is not what they want, as looks of displeasure radiate throughout the group. Throughout all of this, I am still standing in the doorway, stopped in my tracks by the intensity of their stares. Andrew once again comes to my rescue, motioning me inside, to sounds of displeasure from behind him. I note, however, that my close friends no longer looked distrusting. They are the group of friends I have formed even within the squad. I trust every member with my life, I have to, but I am closer to some than to others. That group, consists of Myself, Blake Anthony, a well-muscled, serious marine with military cut brown hair and brown eyes, and Zeke Hopewell, a wiry blonde with blue eyes and a carefree attitude. he is also a marine, although the CMC armor looks ridiculous on him. I had black hair and green eyes. The hair is gone now, but the eyes remain. The three of us spent most off mission hours together, and had managed to requisition several computer interfaces to allow for LAN multiplayer games of some of our favorite games. Both of them have been with me from the beginning, and we know each other's mannerisms by heart. Zeke looks hopeful, and is staying silent, while Blake is looking away from me altogether, and apparently is in fierce debate with Dave. They appear to be my only support from the group. I mentally tell myself to stop moping and acting like a character from a cheap romance novel. I have support, or so it appears, which is much more than I had been expecting previously. I sit down in the chair provided, nodding a thank you to Zeke, who had given it up. he flashes a small smile back at me, and moves to stand against a wall. "Why don't you tell us what happened" Andrew prods gently. I realize the opening I have been given, hoping it would be enough to gain a small amount of their trust.

For the second time that day, I recount what happened to me. I closely gauge their responses, ranging from distrust and hatred on the faces of Dave and several other members, to studiously blank from Andrew, disbelief from the other medic, Tim, as well as several new faces I did not recognize, and finally, from among my close friends, careful optimism. In this account, unlike the one I gave the good doctor, I include what happened to me after I was onboard the Hyperion, as, unlike Doctor Hanson, they did not know. I finish by saying that although I still did not know what had happened to me; whatever tests the Raiders performed indicated that I am still myself.

Their curiosity satisfied, for now, and with a few words of encouragement from Andrew, most of the squad returns to what they were doing, or a good approximation thereof. Although, I still catch people staring in my direction when they believe I am not looking. I move over with my friends to a corner, away from the rest of the squad.

The silence lasts only a second before Zeke says "so… that… happened. I have to admit, you outdid me there, Julia. Infested, stranded on a base within the Zerg's home system, no problem. You just waltz right out." He says, grinning. That's the way he deals with pressure, by turning it into something humorous.

I return the smile, and shoot back at him "if you were in this situation, I'm sure you would have just killed everything in your way, regardless of whether or not it was alive in the first place." That was a reference to a mission where he shot the corpse of a Zergling no less than seven times before he would be convinced it was dead. He's jumpy in the field, not a bad trait, especially with the neat little IFFs that keep people on our side from sneaking up on him during battle, but it does get a little ridiculous some of the time.

He smiles wider at the crack, my dry wit, which I had very little occasion to use over the past two days, finally coming out of its hiding place. Not to be outdone, he comes right back around with "You ever think of forming a church? With those wings you could almost convince people you were an angel, until you open your mouth of course. The game would be up rather quickly then."

I feel instantly at home, comfortable with these two, Zeke and I bantering back and forth while Blake waits it out. We continue like that for several minutes, the joking finally begins to die down, and then Blake says seriously "I'm glad you're back, Julia. I was worried."

I smile, and say "thanks. I was too."

Zeke joins in, grinning and not willing to give up one last jibe, "I wasn't." he indicates that he's joking by his tone and nonverbal cues, "I knew that your medic magic would get you out, not to mention your awe-inspiring Psionic might, o' mystic seer" I sigh, partially exasperated, he never was going to give that up.

Curiously, I ask "so, what gave it away? How did you figure out that I wasn't just trying to lure you all into a false sense of security and then kill you all, eat your flesh, and sew your skin into my clothing, preferably in that order?" I referenced another old television series, not that there were any new ones. The Kel-Morians had no reason to make them, the Dominion's series were all so heavily propagandized that anyone who watched them would either puke or want to go out to kill some "raider scum" and the Umojans weren't exactly rich, they could publish the old ones, but they didn't have the resource to make any new ones. Therefore, we were stuck with movies and shows from before the super carriers. My favorite show would have to be firefly, especially the second season with the new director and the CGI cast, although they did use the original actors as their Voice Actors.

It was Blake that answers. "first off, as far as we know, the only infested Terran to have kept their intelligence is Kerrigan, and even she had major changes to her personality. When we heard that you had come back in your current… situation, we decided that they wouldn't have been able to figure out how to exactly copy your personality, but one that served the swarm, in that short of time. So we decided that we would see what you were like when you acme in here, if you acted like yourself, and we couldn't see anything different, then you were you, if not, then you were a spy. You passed the test perfectly I'm happy to say, so we know it's you."

It's just like them, logical, makes sense theoretically, and yet is completely insane by any normal standard. So many things could go wrong, and yet they, probably with Zeke leading, plowed ahead anyway. It's like a lot of their strategies in our games, a gambit that requires everything to fall into place, and somehow it does.

Zeke gets around to the next topic of conversation. "so, did you see me?"

I look at him, "what?"

He responds with "did you see me? When you were in prison, I was one of your guards."

I'm shocked. "no, I didn't see your power armor anywhere."

He smiles grimly, "that's because I was wearing a different suit. I did wave at you though, didn't you see it?"

I respond "no. no I did not. Of course, I was under some stress at the time. If I knew you were there, it would have been a lot easier."

He looks down, in actual shame. "We were told not to talk to you at all. I'm sorry, but it was a direct order."

I nod. "I understand. Even still that does make me feel a little better. Thanks."

The serious topic done with, he grins again and says "and Julia, I thought you hated high heels"

I grumble, I knew this was coming. "I do, it's not like I had a choice or anything."

He laughs out loud at that, "so you're telling me, that you got stuck, not only in an infested body, but an infested body with the footwear you hate the most in the galaxy? I told you the universe would get revenge for winning against me that many times. I still say you were cheating" I let that one pass, knowing that the argument would be fruitless considering he would never admit to leaving his supply lines that unprotected.

Then I say "surprisingly, they actually aren't that bad."

his mouth falls open in mock horror, "it's not her! Help! Help!" he stage yells, grinning. That's all he gets through before I punch him, lightly, in the stomach, making sure not to actually hurt him, and his cries devolve into fits of laughter. This reunion went so much better than I had assumed it would, my friends still trust me, and everything is good with the world for now.

After all too short of a time, someone else enters the cabin. I look up to see Hanson; she says "Julia, I'm afraid I need you to come with me. We've had a development we need to discuss right away." I take a last look at my friends, who nod, and I stand, and leave with Hanson.

Concerned, I ask "what's going on, doctor?"

she looks at me and says "we need to determine what to do with you, and fill you in on what we've found now that we've made some theories." I nod, it makes sense. They're going to give me a diagnosis. Probably they're going to tell me both how deep the infestation has spread, and why they believe I'm able to fight it as I have. I follow her back to the lab, retracing the steps I had taken what was only about an hour ago, but feels like it was much farther away than that. We spend the rest of the short trip in silence, a comfortable silence, but silence nonetheless.

We enter the room, to be greeted by Raynor and Stettman, who were looking at the console on the far side of the room. Hanson speaks up as we enter. "we still have no idea why you were able to escape the mind controlling effects of infestation, we do know how. For some reason, your nerve cells are almost completely unchanged from the Terran norm. in fact, the only modifications at all were to the brain stem, which allows you to use your new appendages, and that's simple adaptation, not Zerg enhancement. Other than that, however, most of your body has been completely overrun by the virus. Your cardiorespiratory, and digestive track were left mostly intact, although there are some small modifications made for greater efficiency. As I'm sure you know, your musculoskeletal system has undergone the most radical change, your muscle density has been exponentially increased, and in addition to your normal Terran bones, which are still there, you now have an outer layer of carapace which acts as an exoskeleton. Your immune system suffered the second greatest change, with entirely new forms of leukocytes common to zerg. These will not target the Hyperevolutionary Virus, but will aggressively seek out and eliminate any "foreign" material, without the normal duress to your systems. In other words, you will not get sick. Your endocrine and nervous systems are still entirely intact, apart from increased adrenal glands. Unfortunately, we could find only vestigial remnants of your reproductive system, as it has been entirely selected against. Unless for some reason it returns, I am afraid you will not be able to have children." Even though I knew that in this form it was extremely likely, hearing that confirmed was hard. Of course, I would never raise a child like this; there would be too much danger of hurting him or her, but still, knowing that it's not an option is a little hard. I understand everything she is saying, and file it away in case I ever need medical care. As a medic, you have to know these things.

Raynor began to speak after that. "Well, as she said, we can't see anything that would stop you from wanting to help out here. We still don't want you going planetside until we know why you're still you, and that it's not going to go away, but until then, I don't see why you couldn't help out, treating our wounded and helping out doc here."

"thank you, sir" I say, I am still be able to help. This is great, almost as good as my reunion with the squad. Even so, I feel a nagging suspicion that the good times couldn't stay around forever.

Hanson says "I will need your help, two people trying to figure this out will work better than one, and if we can duplicate what happened to you, many lives could be saved." I resolve then to make sure that we do, after all, saving lives is what I'm good at.