Chapter One

Zack yawned as he dressed for duty; today was the day Dr. Franklin would wake up the mystery patient, and he was on edge as the possibilities rattled through his head. He hadn't slept well thanks to a series of nightmares that always seemed to feature her, and the sense that all hell was about to break loose when she woke up wouldn't leave him alone.

Sure enough, his link beeped before he even made it to the transport tube. A harried Dr. Franklin was demanding his presence at Medlab; she was awake and had injured two doctors, and nobody could get close enough to sedate her. Zack told him he was on his way and jogged the rest of the distance to the transport tube, then made his way to Medlab, where many of the doctors were waiting outside, along with Talia Winters. She hurried to him and pulled him back a few steps, her expression sad, anxious, and somewhat frightened.

"What's going on, Talia?" he asked quietly. Talia shook her head for a moment, apparently too overcome with emotion to answer immediately.

"She…" the telepath trailed off for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Zack, she's terrified. Everything she was told scared her to death…where she is, the year…she never volunteered for cryostasis. In her time it was still considered science fiction…and the date of her accident was December 02, 2011."

Zack's eyes bulged when he heard this; he opened his mouth to speak, but Talia raised a shaking hand to silence him.

"That's not the worst of it." A strained silence followed as she tried to compose herself, but a tear slipped out as she spoke. "I keep getting images from her—I can block a lot of things, but it's hard to shut out strong emotions…she had children, Zack…a son and two daughters."

A lump formed in his throat at this information. Words had failed Talia at this point, but they were no longer necessary; he could only imagine the grief and the massive pain and sense of loss she had to be feeling right now.

No wonder she's reacting so violently, he thought to himself. She's in pain and she's lashing out—she doesn't wanna believe what's happening to her.

Zack took a deep breath and swallowed, but the lump refused to budge, and he steeled himself as he walked through the doors into Medlab. The scene was terrible; she was holding the doctors at bay with a small, severely dented metal tray. Two doctors were huddled in the far corner with a third tending to both of them—one had a broken nose, and the other seemed to have a concussion. Dr. Franklin was the only doctor still trying to calm her down, but the fact that there was a syringe close at hand hadn't escaped the woman he faced.

"Back off!" she barked at the doctor, cutting off his steady stream of soothing words. Zack looked at her more closely and noticed her stance; she was keeping her weight on her right leg, clutching the tray in her right hand…her left arm and leg had been broken in the accident she experienced before cryostasis, and she kept the arm close to her and the bad leg slightly behind her. The panic in her eyes was blatantly obvious, but her face only showed hostility.

She looked taller than she had while lying down; he guessed she was about 5'6", but between the effort to keep the doctors away and the state of shock she was in, her fair complexion looked like death warmed over, which was in stark contrast to her dark brown hair and hazel eyes. When she turned her head slightly to look at him, he caught hints of red in her hair.

"It's okay, ma'am," he said quietly, then turned to Dr. Franklin. "Doc, why don't you wait outside? Here," he pulled his holster for his PPG off his hip and gave it to the doctor, feeling her gaze burn through his hands, "take that with you."

For a split second it looked like the doctor was going to protest, but one glance at his patient silenced him. Shaking his head, he walked out the door, leaving Zack alone with the dark-haired woman.

"What's your name?" he asked softly, leaning carefully against a wall. At first he thought she was going to yell at him, but when she finally spoke, her voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Amy." He gave her a small smile.

"Amy," he repeated. "Well Amy, I'm Zack…I'm with station security." His last words made her eyes narrow, and he lifted his hands to show innocence. "It's okay…nobody's gonna hurt you here."

"Bullshit!" she spat out through clenched teeth. He noticed her grip on the tray tighten and fought the impulse to back away.

"I'm sorry, Amy, but it's true."

"I have a FAMILY!" she shrieked at him, and the hostile exterior crumbled before his eyes. "I've got a son and two daughters—they NEED me!"

Her outburst left him speechless; even with Talia's warning, the pain and grief suddenly radiating from her threw him off-balance.

"And you're telling me that the year is 2258? That they're gone?" she whispered, her voice breaking as tears welled up in her eyes. "No…"

Zack rushed to her side and caught her just before her knees hit the floor. Her tears fell thick and fast as she dropped the tray, oblivious to the clatter it made when it hit the floor.

"NO!" she screamed, burying her face in Zack's shoulder as sobs wracked her body. He held her close, rocking her back and forth as she cried, smoothing the dark hair back from her face with one hand. In the corner of his eye, he saw Dr. Franklin walk back in and reach for the sedative, but Zack waved him back with one hand.

He held her until she cried herself out and slowly pulled out of his arms, sniffling and wiping the tears from her face. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, but the pain they revealed made the lump in his throat seem to grow bigger.

"Come on, you need your rest," he said gently as he helped her back to her feet; she wobbled for a moment as she struggled to regain her one-legged balance.

As he helped her back into the bed she had vacated, the look in her eyes became distant, haunted. He had seen that look in some of the post-trauma veterans of the Minbari War, and it made him feel even sorrier for her.

"Look, I have to report for duty, but I'll check in on you later, okay?" he told her softly, taking her hand in his. To his mingled relief and pain, her only response was to nod before rolling onto her side, her back to him.

Zack stared at her for a moment longer, then walked out to report in for duty. As he rode the transport tube, he couldn't get the image of Amy's haunted eyes out of his mind. The entire situation sounded impossible, but there was something in the raw emotion she displayed, the undeniably genuine pain and grief, that made him believe her—even without taking Talia's words into account.