Authors Note: I accidentally loaded chapter fourth up before. I fixed it so this one is what was supposed to be chapter 3.

Third

She arrived ten hours after his beacon went off to pick him up. When she landed the Pelican, the two medics hurry out of the back towards Washington and the members of the recovery force. She might have waited in the cockpit but 479er still got out, almost strolling over. She had no reason to run to the guy who once was part of a team that was close to her. And she was no medic either. Not like she would be any help.

The place looked like nothing but debris and dirt. What an unspectacular place to die, 479er thought. Somewhere ahead she saw the medics fuss around Wash, preparing him to get moved. She walked over, watching them do their work from a certain distance. The ground was dyed red all around Washington and she wondered how he could live after losing that much blood. But he did.

They had moved him on a stretcher and someone had pulled off his helmet. It was the first time she saw his face since the project crashed.

He didn't look as young as she still thought he would. There were more lines in his face than she thought should be. But it was hard to tell. Washingtons face was scrunched up in pain and his hair was not bright blonde but black like he dyed it a long time ago in the project.

He was halfway conscious, trying to look around and focus, trying to understand what was happening. He was brought to the ship then and while 479er was on her way back to the cockpit one of the medics followed her. "He was quite lucky", the man told her. "The bullets missed his spine and the healing unit he had kept him alive. It was an extraordinary strong one, I must say."

479er stopped right before entering her ship. She turned around to give the man her most annoyed and impassive glance. "Hey, what makes you think you need to tell me? I'm just the pilot. So now get moving and do your job. I hate corpses on my ship" she said in a flippant way and waved him off before she walked past the other medic and Washington. "Hey", she said, casually as if she wasn't talking to a man suffering in his fight against death. "Don't die here, Wash. You know I hate corpses on my ship. And you know rule number one. You gotta clean the mess you make here."

The medic stopped his work to stare at her like she grew a second head. Wash only titled his head with effort, trying to blink his eyes open at her. She wasn't sure if he really understood any longer.

"I don't…" he started, voice faint and the pain lingering in it. He broke off and coughed, followed by a pained hiss as the medic held him in place. He looked agonized and hurt. He tried to focus his eyes on her. The pain was written in them and because she thought he was still such a stupid man she was sure it was not only the hurting from the two bullets in his back. His face was twisted and he bit his lip so hard that he was bleeding there, too.

479er thought he might be close to crying.

There was nothing for her to say so she went on, with firm steps to her cockpit. Because there was something she had to do.

Flying was her job and it was what she did best. The sound of the engines was for her what Hawaiian music or bird twittering was for others. Calming, setting her at ease. But somehow she would have welcomed if the noise had been louder. More distracting.

In the back of the ship 479er heard the medics talk in low voices, doing their work in stabilizing Washington to the best of their abilities in this situation.

She heard him as well. Low moans and muffled cries of pain while the medics work on him. It was not the worst, though. It were the small other sounds. The small chocked off sounds and the weak and pathetic whimper.

She could have shut the door but she didn't. Neither did she say something. Neither did the medics. Because there was nothing to say to a man broken like him.

It didn't last long, though. Unconsciousness came soon over him and everything went quiet expect for the engines and the medics doing their work. It was better.

When they finally landed and the medic brought the unconscious soldier away, 479er watched them, thinking that he might have been better off dead. Maybe it would have been better for him to break his neck instead of his arm back when the Mother Of Invention crashed down.

She needed coffee now.

479er didn't see him for a long time after this. She didn't see him when he got discharged either, though it surprised her that he ever would return to battle again. Though, no one believed him to return to duty ever after the project either.

She never picked him up or dropped him while he hunted the Meta together with this simulation troopers. She only gave him orders over the radio, directing him. It was on a work related basis only.

But when she told him that they found South, she knew one of them would die.

(South died and 479er wasn't surprised. At some point things would come back to her. She wasn't surprised that there was no body left and she didn't believe that the team killing simulation trooper killed her.)

When she told him they found the Meta and she confirmed that it was Agent Maine, she was sure Wash was going to die in this fight. Maybe they both would die.

It didn't matter to her, really. It had nothing to do with her because she wasn't picking corpses up.

But 479er didn't count on Washingtons resistant and his seemingly never dying foolishness.

So she found herself picking both of them up.