Maisie woke up before Ethan did. He was in a bed to her right, both of them presumably in the medical camp still. Her left leg was resting atop a pile of pillows, with an ice pack resting on her ankle.

The bandages on her nose had been changed, much less bulky now, and the smooth wave of morphine coming from the drip in her hand eased her muscles and dulled the pressure in her head.

When she came to, the bearded man she had briefly met before was hovering anxiously over the bed, and he started when she shifted around.

"Easy, take it easy, you've had a rough day."

It took a moment, but the memory of hurtling through the air in a crashing helicopter and everything that ensued afterwards slowly returned to her. The fact that Ethan was beside her and, of course, the fact that they hadn't all been blown to pieces was reassuring, and she sighed in relief.

"That's it, just take it easy."

"Where is everyone?"

"They're outside, I can bring 'em in for you if you want."

She gave a grunt of affirmation and in a few short moments the IMF team came bundling in. Luther looked no worse for wear but both Benji and Ilsa had strange marks around their necks. "What happened?"

Ilsa winced, but Benji gave her hand a reassuring pat. "Oh, just almost strangled to death. Nothing too exciting."

Maisie raised her eyebrows, but couldn't stop a grin from sneaking onto her face. "Just hang in there."

He scoffed, but smiled back. "I'm glad you're okay. Sprained ankle is pretty rough going, huh?"

"I still have a second leg I could kick you with, so watch out, Clifford."

Ilsa jumped in. "What happened with Lark, Maisie?"

"I can answer that," a creaky voice groaned from beside them. Ethan was awake and leaning on one elbow to face them. "Lark is dead, and the bombs were stopped. Oh, and thank you, Maisie, for dropping the remote down to me. I wasn't going to reach it in time."

Maisie laughed awkwardly.

Ethan blinked at her.

"How close were we?" Benji asked, not noticing the incredulous look on Ethan's face.

Ethan recovered, and gave Maisie a stern look that broke into a smile too soon to be real. "The usual."

"You're lucky your friends were so close behind," the bearded doctor piped in, "they airlifted you two out just in time. Another hour and you would've both died from exposure."

Ethan and Maisie both furrowed their eyebrows at this, glancing towards the doors as two familiar figures strode in.

"You two are lucky to be alive," a dark skinned woman announced. "I'm glad we could trust you."

Maisie did recognize the second person that entered the room. The Secretary of the IMF left the lady's side and came to stand at the end of Maisie's bed.

"Here to arrest me, Hunley?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "On the contrary, you'd make a great agent someday, Miss Parker."

"Hard pass."

"Okay, then."

A moment of silence passed before the group lapsed into quiet laughter.

They may have all been exhausted, and injured, and weak from the comedown off the constant stream of adrenaline they'd all been on for the better part of a day, but they were all still alive.

Maisie fell silent. "What's going to happen to Lane?"

"We'll deal with him," Ethan promised her.

She bit her lip. "What's going to happen to me?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I can just go back to…to college? It feels like a thousand years away, and I don't know if I'd even remember half the things I was taught. I can barely recall even going."

Her mind was all jumbled, timelines entangled, experiences foggy, but if she thought hard enough, she could feel that the memories were there.

It took a while, but eventually it was the bearded man who spoke up. Patrick, she thought his name was. "We just had one volunteer finish their term here. Of course, we'd have to train you up, but you're welcome to come join us. Next week we're leaving for the Philippines."

Maisie nodded slowly. "I do like warm weather."

"Anyway, you have a while to rest up and think about it. I'll let you lot catch up."

Patrick left the room, and one by one, the IMF agents not on bedrest enthusiastically retold their version of events from the past hour.

At one point Maisie drifted off, content in the warmth of the evening sun and the mingling voices of her friends.

Maisie did have time to think. While the dark-skinned woman left shortly after she arrived, Hunley had stayed around to get a full account of events from the team. Maisie's nose was still busted up, but her ankle was a quick heal, and she had spent some time following around Patrick as he explained to her their usual day-to-day.

She was on one such round when she saw several figures lining up to hop into the helicopter that Hunley arrived in. Ilsa, Luther, Benji and Ethan were due to return to the IMF headquarters with Hunley.

Tuning out Patrick's enthusiastic descriptions of a water filtering system, Maisie tried to ignore the twisting in her chest.

There was no reason to be upset; she didn't even know these people a week ago. But it had felt like forever to her, and maybe she was a little scared to give that up.

The rotor blades were starting to turn, now.

Patrick had stopped speaking about water filtration, and was giving her an odd look. "Maisie, what's u-"

Maisie shot up and started sprinting towards the vehicle, its rotor blades picking up speed. Patrick called out to her to ask what she was doing, but even she didn't really know.

Only Hunley was still on the metal steps leading up to the helicopter's body.

She yelled out something incoherent and he turned around in confusion, waiting, bemused, as she half ran, half hopped up to him.

Hunley had to wave at the pilot to get him to stay put, and he gripped on to the stepladder as his coat buffeted around him.

She was panting when she reached him, clumsily climbing the steps so that she was close enough for them to hear each other.

"What are you doing?" He shouted at her.

Maisie paused. What was she doing? Deep down, she knew exactly what. "I'd like to revoke that hard pass if I could?"

He gave her a disbelieving laugh. "Welcome to the IMF, Miss Parker."

.

We've come to the end of Maisie's story! (at least in this book) Thank you for your patience, my schedule got a little iffy with a first aid course I was sitting, but we got there!

I'll miss Maisie too much to let her go, so she's going to come back for an alternate universe-style fan-fiction, where she meets the IMF in either Ghost Protocol or Rogue Nation (which one would you like to see?) and see where that takes her!

If you're a fan of Stephen King's IT (particularly the 2017 movie), the Sherlock TV show or The Shining, I have fan-fictions for those on this account too (sorry for the shameless self promotion).

This is goodbye, not for Maisie, but for this story. It's been an amazing time.