Chapter 11

Ethan shifted slightly, and groaned as a shattering pain pierced his skull. After it passed he tried to pull his thoughts together only to invite a dull pulsing ache into his head. An unconscious decision was made to fall unconscious until he was a little more stable.

An hour later he repeated his attempt, this time the dull ache greeted the movement. Going off the little logic he could muster he decided thought would be unhampered. This however was not the case, and he once again passed out.

This time he waited three or four hours before he attempted anything. Movement still hurt, but he could at least put more than a single syllable into a thought without pain. He refrained from thinking though until he was more cognitive of his surroundings, which meant until he could open his eyes. So he simply decided to go to sleep on his own.

He wasn't sure how long he was out, but upon waking he was able to open his eyes just a crack. The light was intense enough that the gesture was useless, making him wonder just how long he had been out. Honestly he didn't want an answer, but the question helped him focus.

Since he wasn't able to see a clock he really couldn't get his internal clock to give him an estimate of how long he lay there with his eyes barely cracked so that he could adjust himself to the light. He reckoned maybe around five minutes passed before he could open his eyes another couple of millimeters to repeat the process. He did this five or six times until he could make out blurry outlines of objects in whatever room he was in. Tired from the effort he decided to get some more sleep.

Half an hour later he opened his eyes and held them open for thirty seconds so that his eyes could start to refocus. He repeated this action until he was capable of making out small details. Once again exhausted he drifted to sleep.

Another half hour passed and he awoke to start analyzing his surroundings. The first thing he perceived was a steady beeping, almost like an EKG machine. Turning his head to the right he visually acquired the machine and following the leads he found them hooked to his body. At least this meant he was still alive. Further examination revealed that this room was not on board an ocean going vessel of any design, it looked more like it was in a mansion rather than a hospital.

The walls were a deep mahogany in color with a piece of trim that looked like cherry running along the floor and ceiling. He also could tell that he was in a king sized four poster bed rather than a hospital bed. Flexing the muscles in his right arm he located two IVs. Focusing on them he felt fluid flowing from one while the other was just there, more than likely when they changed the bags the hooked the dormant one up and disconnected the other and went back and forth to save time. This was not some field medics job, the doc that did this had some serious skills, more than he, even with the millions he had stashed in a multitude of banks all over the world, or any other successful merc would be able to afford.

Whoever had wanted him definitely wanted hi... He changed tracks as he heard the doors open, and with him flicking his head around attracted the person entering's attention, as well as a massive jolt of pain from the sudden movement. He heard a tray drop and something shatter as the person, a woman with a familiar voice started running and screaming something he couldn't understand through the pain. The pain this time caused by the extreme increase in sound which succeeded in knocking him unconscious one more time.

He woke again to hear someone talking near him. Though he could only catch snippets he put together an idea of what was being said which he decided to put into a kind of dialogue for the fun of it.

Man1: Something about Ethan having woken only to fall unconscious moments later. Meant something good. Probably the doctor that was working on him.

Woman 1: Crying from a small chance her little boy could wake up. No clue what they meant there, he hadn't seen his mother in sixteen years.

Man 2: Older, with a raspy edge to it, someone who had not taken much care in their health. Was comforting Woman 1 and trying to get her to stop crying and reminding her that her little boy was thirty years old.

Woman 2: The voice from earlier that had knocked him out. Sounded like a Revy who had never smoked a cigarette or taken a drink. Sounded kind of pretty actually, wouldn't mind having a girl who sounded like that. She seemed happier than the older people. Was happy that "Master Caleb" was waking up from a coma.

Caleb. Caleb. Caleb. The name was so familiar, yet he could not figure it out. The significance was very important. And it was significant to him in particular. He figured he could pipe up and ask some questions, but he didn't want to risk waking to a Makarov in his face. Though a S&W or a Colt was more likely since all the accents were American rather than Russian.

He couldn't think of any Americans who wanted his brains splattered, but that didn't mean there wasn't any. He was as adept at making enemies as he was at sex, which if all the women he didn't have to pay were anything to go by, Rasputin could have used lessons from Ethan. Maybe on both points.

At the moment though he knew that the most important thing was looking for a way to get out of this situation. Something he actually was not adept at since he was usually able to avoid getting into these situations. When the people who wanted to kidnap you were left bleeding out they tended to not be capable of carrying through with the action.

After listening to the conversation he had fallen asleep again. Whatever had happened had drained him of any energy reserves he may have had. Last time he felt like this he had been in Zimbabwe during a sniper mission for a local warlord. A .32ACP had entered just above his heart, luckily there was no major damage though he did collapse from blood loss after trekking about a mile to reach his headquarters. The medic had told him he got lucky that the bullet had gone straight through, cause if he had attempted to make the trip with it in him he would have died. He hadn't had the energy to tell the man that he had been shot before and knew how to tell a through and through and that he knew better than to walk around with a slug in him.

At that time though he had a .357 strapped to his hip. He was completely unarmed here. And unarmed meant big danger. The blow to his head had definitely incapacitated him to the point that he could not function. Which begged the question of how long did he have until they decided that it was time to put him six foot down. Whatever the case he needed to get himself out of there and soon. As he became more aware he started doing a checkover of himself.

What he found was not inspiring. He had apparently been down long enough for his muscles to have started atrophying. He could barely stay awake long enough to start forming a plan for escape. And were he to start an escape the goddamn instruments hooked to him would alert everyone when the machines flatlined. Above all was the muscular atrophy. He seriously doubted he would be able to fire a .22 in his condition, let alone pull off a hairbrained escape. His only option was to figure out what the hell Caleb had to do with anything and who the hell he was. Which left him only one thing to do.

Sleep some more.

Revy shook her head as she started regaining the ability to think. Hurt worse than a whole night bender at the Flag. How she got like that she had no clue. However the mother fucker that was responsible was in for more than just getting a new asshole in the middle of the forehead.

"Rock, are you there? If so moan once for yes, twice for no. And get me a fucking aspirin or something like it," she managed to get out between pulses in her skull.

Two moans echoed out from the other side of the room and a groan from one corner. Crawling to a wall she managed to get on her feet and look around. Half propped up against a wall was Rock, and on a bunk across the cabin lay Ethan a bit of blood matted on the back his head. Rock didn't appear to be in too bad of shape so she decided to check the other gunman first.

Who ever had worked Ethan over had done a good job of it. He had a bruise on his face that matched up pretty well with the stock of an AKS-74. The back of his head looked like it had been smacked with something really heavy, luckily he had a really thick skull. However he wasn't waking up anytime soon. Out of frustration she smacked him in the stomach and recoiled when she hit something hard.

"Ow, fuck. Either he is wearing a ballistic vest or he has some hellacious abs. When the fuck would he have the time to exercise like this?"

With nothing else to do she decided to do something a little fiendish and naughty to the jackass. Reaching to the hem of his shirt she started raising it and as soon as she did she felt like Christmas had come early. Not only did she get and eyeful of some of the most toned stomach muscles she had ever seen, but tucked down the front of his pants was one of her Cutlasses. Whoever had caught him had apparently not been real thorough when searching him. Must have been another guy, cause she would have stripped him completely looking for guns.

Popping the mag she was rewarded with fifteen shiny nine millimeter cartridges. Reinserting the mag she racked the slide. Feeling behind her back she felt the two extra mags stuck in the back of her panties. Amateurs. Either that or queer, or something of the like. What the fuck was going on. Pirates were never so bold, or so moral with women. Of course since she knew that they had taken the mate to the gun she currently held in her hand they must have had some sense, and must have thought that the two spare magazines were of no consequence. Checking her pockets though the mags there were gone. Somehow she knew that but the check helped clear her head.

"I may have pegged you wrong grease monkey, you might not be a complete fuckhead. Now to get one of them in here so we can get out. Rock, wake your ass up, looks like we're going to have to carry Ethan out of here."

"Revy, please yell a little quieter. I feel like I just got run over," the man said wearily.

"You haven't got a dent in your skull, he does. So just get the fuck over it and stand up, I can't lift his ass on my own," she retorted mostly trying to ignore the fact she felt the same damn way.

"If you can't lift him what makes you think that the both of us could? He has to weigh over two hundred pounds, we would need Dutch to even budge him. So can I just sit here until they decide to come execute us?"

Revy's eyebrow went skyward, "Wow, the last time you were this negative you had puffed a joi... Son of a bitch, we got drugged. But how."

"Revy. Shut the fuck up."

Ethan lay with his eyes barely shaded so nobody could tell he was awake. So far what he had seen had done nothing but puzzle him, and he had only seen one thing. Revy. Not the Revy he was used to either. This one was wrong, but somehow extremely right. He couldn't rationalize it, he couldn't make sense of it, and he was sure as hell that he loved the sight of it. This Revy was nice.

The first time he had seen her he had not recognized her as her. She was dressed in a maid's outfit, walked in a way that was almost skipping, and was humming a pleasant tune. It didn't mesh with his mental image with Revy. However that was not necessarily a bad thing, because he felt that he had very little to fear from her. Of course he really hadn't feared "his" Revy, but still she wasn't wearing a brace of automatics.

"I really wish you would react again. I feel lonely just taking care of you like this. I miss the time before the accident, in so many ways," the "Anti-Revy" said blushing furiously.

Ethan went cold. Accident, what accident? He had been banging Revy's not so evil twin? When the fuck did this happen?

A/N: OK, before you start flaming I have no clue how it ended up like this. Two different Revy persona's had been planned, and I had played around with a possible not Revy and Ethan romance, but not like that. Anyways, please enjoy this until I can get enough over my shock to get chapter 12 out.