Title: Missing In Action
Part: 1/?
Rating: R
Pairing: Weaver, Legapsi, Ensemble
Beta Reader: Scotty Welles
Spoilers: Some season seven spoilers so be warned
Summary: Who is Kerry's mysterious husband, and why has he suddenly contacted her after six years? What is his connection to a well known terriost group, and what exactly is Kerry's role in it?
Note: I really shouldn't be posting the last of my other story plus these two parts together, however RL is a little hectic right now so I couldn't guarentee when I'd be able to post this and the next part. Beside's I'm too impatient to keep ya'll in suspence.
Disclaimer: Finders keepers, loser's weepers
Kerry shut her hiking pack with a finality that made her flinch. She
hated herself for agreeing to go, hated herself for even considering
it. The bastard had no right to do this to her after all this time. Why
couldn't he just leave her alone? 'Maybe he's finally come to terms
with the fact that I'm not going to take him back.'
Kerry glanced around desperately one last time. She felt like she was
forgetting something. She was packed and had let Randi know that she
would be taking the week off. Yanking up the twenty-year-old bag, she
started downstairs. If she didn't leave soon she'd miss her flight.
It had been almost impossible to charter the flight to begin with,
having to be satisfied with a private flight. The man in question had
been less than ideal but she had no other choice. His blazing red hair
and homey green eyes betrayed a darker, more savage spirit than she was
comfortable with.
Kerry grabbed the old leather jacket and gloves from her closet. She
still had this nagging feeling... She stopped by the door and eyed the
hall phone.
Kim. She really should call the psychiatrist and let her know that she
was going out of town. If she didn't show up after last night's
misunderstanding, Kim would probably think she was avoiding her. Not
that she hadn't considered that option. Then again Randi probably had
the news of her 'vacation' all over the ER by now, plus running a pool
on why she was going.
Kerry began out the front door before stopping. On impulse, she went
into the living room and removed the large African hunting knife from
the fireplace. The leather jacket's former owner had specially
tailored it so that the knife, in its worn leather sheath, fit snuggly
into an improvised pocket in the back of the jacket. Once in place, it
lay tight across the small of her back, handle down near her waist,
angled toward her right hip. With the jacket and hiking pack on, the
knife was impossible to detect, but she could draw it with a quick
twist of her wrist.
Maybe it wouldn't be needed, but if things worked out the way she
feared, it could also save her life.
Taking one last look around she flung the hiking bag onto her back and
left. She had always known that the past would catch up on her, she
just never expected it to happen so soon.
Kim tapped her desk again, unable to keep her mind on the chart in
front of her. She had been so sure of the signs. Rapid breathing,
dilated pupils. She thought she saw the redhead check her out a few
times. Kerry had always responded to her flirtation, so how could she
have read her so wrong, or had she?
Kerry's reaction to her last night had been strange. She knew the woman
well enough to know that she wasn't one to get flustered no matter what
the situation. So why did she get flustered last night? Could she
honestly find her attractive and be in denial?
There were too many questions and she had no answers. Maybe Kerry had
just needed a chance to think it over...
Kim made her mind up and left her office. She needed to talk to her.
Kerry eyed the plane wearily. She never had much luck with them. All
her flights ended up in disaster for some reason. Food poisoning,
delays, rerouted flight plans, pilots having heart attacks, the list
was incredible. At least, since this was a privately chartered flight,
she hadn't had to go through airport security. Her knife would have
set off the metal detectors, and that would have complicated matters.
"Ma'am? We're ready to take off," said the co-pilot, standing just
outside the plane's door.
Kerry swallowed back her sudden flash of apprehension. He was Irish. It
had to be a coincidence. Kerry climbed the steps to the plane, pausing
just inside to take in the interior. Everything was maroon and black.
Weird...most private and small jets were light in color.
There were seats for six people if you included the sofa on each side
of the small plane. She could see parachutes next to the door. That
fact made her feel a little safer if for no other reason in case the
plane went down.
She silently chided herself. With her luck she shouldn't be thinking
that. The two bulks of muscle in the very back caught her attention.
They were dressed simply. She thought she could see a bulge under their
left armpits. She dismissed that thought.
"Ma'am, if you'll be seated...?"
Kerry graciously dropped onto the couch right next to the door. The man
with long curly brown hair smiled at her reminding her of a tarantula
she once found in the bathtub in Africa. She was going to keep an eye
on this one, just in case his bite was poisonous.
"Do you know where Kerry is?"
Randi's head snapped up quickly, the glint in her eyes catching Kim's
attention. The desk clerk leaned over and grinned. "She called this
morning and said she was taking the week off. It turns out she charted
a flight to Northern British Columbia."
Carter glanced up from his chart, trying to decide whether to chide
them for gossiping about his friend or joining in. He had to admit that
his curiosity was killing him. "Did she say why?"
"No, only that she had some personal business to take care of."
"Did she leave a number where she could be reached?"
Randi eyed Kim with sudden interest. The same interest with which she
always eyed potential gossip. "I'm only supposed to give it if there's
an emergency."
"It is one."
Randi leaned her elbows on the desk and grinned like a vulture. "What
kind of an emergency?"
"A private one."
Randi shrugged and straightened up, turning back to work. "Then I have
no way of knowing if you're lying and Dr. Weaver left very specific
instructions."
Kim eyed the crowded desk. Everyone was acting like they were working
but she could tell they were listening and if she told the desk clerk
the truth then the whole hospital would find out. She couldn't do that
to Kerry, she'd just have to wait or... "One of her friends was killed
last night..."
"I'll call her..."
Kim smiled at Randi. "No, I really need to be the one. I have all the
details."
Randi was sizing her up. The desk clerk knew that, unlike Kerry, she
was capable of wheeling and dealing on several levels. "You can give
them to me."
"I'm a close friend though, and it would probably be better coming from
me."
"How close?" Randi asked, archly jumping on the opening immediately.
Kim winced inwardly. She knew better than that. "Give me the number."
"Tell me and I will."
"Give it to me, then I'll answer you."
Randi removed a piece of scrape paper from a pile and held it
thoughtfully. After a long moment she handed to Kim and waited.
Kim checked the paper then grinned evilly. "We're friends."
With that she spun around and walked toward the lounge aware that she'd
just made an enemy of a very dangerous woman.
Kerry kept her breathing slow and shallow, feigning sleep.
She felt some amount of safety from the large 14-inch bone-handled
hunting knife strapped to her back. Its hardness against her spine
made it difficult to find a comfortable sitting position, and would
have made sleep impossible in any event, but right now that discomfort
was something she welcomed. It was a constant reminder of the danger
she was almost certainly in, and would keep her sharp.
Another reason why the knife was a totem of good fortune. It had been
a gift from the woman that had inspired her to pursue medicine.
It hadn't started out as anything she really been interested in. She
had been a teenager, unsure about what she wanted from life, more
unsure of what she wanted to do. She studied music and art. Her
drawings were good enough for her to consider it for a career but it
didn't feel right.
Her foster parents, as much as they loved her, barely made enough money
to survive from month to month. Most of their food came from their farm
in Africa, and the rest went into research on the local animal life.
She'd only gone into Americorps because they couldn't afford to send
her to college, so the program was one of her only hopes. She spent the
next three years traveling around the world, helping everyone from
hurricane victims to ancient tribes in need of medical attention. Which
is how she was first introduced to medicine.
There had been an outbreak in one of the tribes native to the rain
forest in South America. The Americorps had been sent in with the Red
Cross and half a dozen other groups. Dr. Amelia Rynes had been the
person in charge of the entire project. She was short, well toned, and
a woman to be feared. Her long black hair was pulled back into an
unruly French braid, her black eyes changing from sharp and snappy to
warm and understanding in a moment's time.
Kerry had been taken with the woman almost immediately. Dr. Rynes had
noticed her interest in her and taken her under her wing. Teaching her
everything from tracking to field medicine. Over the month in the rain
forest, Kerry had discovered that the older woman had been orphaned as
a child, spent her residency in Africa, and gone on to join GreenPeace
and the corps.
Then, one morning, she'd woken up to find the doctor gone. She'd left
during the night leaving her favorite knife and leather jacket just
inside Kerry's tent. All she'd been able to find out was that there had
been a family emergency.
After that she'd felt a strong passion to be a doctor. To take control
of a chaotic situation and make it more bearable...
A soft click caused her to open her eyes.
The silver-colored gun was pointed straight at her forehead. Tarantula
Boy smiled as his finger tightened on the trigger.
In such moments, all human beings make a fundamental choice. Either
they reject what they see, believing 'no, this can't be happening', and
then they die in the paralysis of fear. Or they accept that yes, it is
happening, and they proceed to deal with it as best they can.
And Kerry Weaver was, of course, the "Deal With It" Queen.
Kerry clenched her teeth and lashed out with both hands. The left
seized the co-pilot's gun wrist and yanked it to the side, just as the
gun went off. Kerry felt the hot puff of gunsmoke against her cheek,
and the noise clapped her ears, stealing her hearing on that side, but
the bullet went into the fuselage of the plane, not her cerebellum.
Her right hand, in the same moment, thrust forward, the heel of her
hand impacting the co-pilot's nose where it met his upper lip. The
force of her blow was increased by her left hand pulling his arm in the
other direction, and the cartilage of his nose was driven sharply
upward into his skull. His dying thought was no doubt surprise that
her being crippled didn't equate to her being helpless. Serves you
right, she thought.
The two other passengers, who had never introduced themselves, showed
no such surprise. They were already reaching into their jackets.
Kerry put the boot on her good leg against the dead man's chest and
shoved hard, yelling something she could hear through the ringing in
her own ears, and the corpse fell heavily against the first gunman,
rendering him momentarily helpless. The second, an auburn-haired man,
avoided the grisly missile, and as he drew his pistol, the sleeve on
his left arm pulled up enough to reveal the tattoo on his left wrist.
In a quick decision, she threw herself off the sofa and lunged toward
the front of the cabin, scrambling to keep her feet and reach the
cockpit and whatever momentary safety it might hold. Her crutch still
lay abandoned, as there'd been no time to thread her arm through its
cuff before the violence began.
Although the man's initial shots had missed because of her unexpected
reflexes, Kerry's safety was short-lived. The cabin of the plane held
almost no shelter or cover, and even an able-bodied person couldn't
escape for more than a heartbeat. Kerry knew this even as she made her
desperate lunge for life.
And then something struck her in the spine with the force of a
piledriver.
She screamed in shock and hurt as the impact of the bullet drove her
forward and slammed her against the closed cockpit door. She felt the
impact of the wall along the entire front of her body, in counterpoint
to the sharp, concentrated injury in her back, and she slumped
hopelessly against the rack of parachutes.
Even then, she knew something was a little off. She hurt terribly from
the gunshot, but not in the way she should. There was an intense ache,
but not the burning, piercing sensation she expected, or the liquid,
leaking feeling of her own blood filling the wrong cavities of her
torso. By some miracle, she hadn't been killed.
"Jesus, get 'im off me!" she heard the first gunman yelling behind her,
still weighed down with the co-pilot's body.
"Relax, I got her," the second replied, turning to pull the dead man
off his partner. "Bloody bitch had some fight in her, though."
The fury that thundered through her at his words swept away her
feelings of helplessness and despair. She took hold of the nearest
parachute and pulled herself painfully upright.
"Bloody hell, she's up! Finish her, quick!"
The hell you will, she thought in a moment of intense clarity.
Clenching her fingers tightly around the chute's strap, she reached
over with her other hand to the lever of the cabin hatch and yanked
hard.
The door opened, virtually exploding off its hinges as the sudden
hurricane of air pressure ripped it away. Kerry had only the slightest
instant to hear the gunmen screaming in shock before the suction yanked
her violently out of the plane.
Then she was tumbling in midair, countless hundreds of feet above
ground with nothing between her and the earth plummeting upwards at
her. The icy wind howled in her ears, drowning out her screams...
Part: 1/?
Rating: R
Pairing: Weaver, Legapsi, Ensemble
Beta Reader: Scotty Welles
Spoilers: Some season seven spoilers so be warned
Summary: Who is Kerry's mysterious husband, and why has he suddenly contacted her after six years? What is his connection to a well known terriost group, and what exactly is Kerry's role in it?
Note: I really shouldn't be posting the last of my other story plus these two parts together, however RL is a little hectic right now so I couldn't guarentee when I'd be able to post this and the next part. Beside's I'm too impatient to keep ya'll in suspence.
Disclaimer: Finders keepers, loser's weepers
Kerry shut her hiking pack with a finality that made her flinch. She
hated herself for agreeing to go, hated herself for even considering
it. The bastard had no right to do this to her after all this time. Why
couldn't he just leave her alone? 'Maybe he's finally come to terms
with the fact that I'm not going to take him back.'
Kerry glanced around desperately one last time. She felt like she was
forgetting something. She was packed and had let Randi know that she
would be taking the week off. Yanking up the twenty-year-old bag, she
started downstairs. If she didn't leave soon she'd miss her flight.
It had been almost impossible to charter the flight to begin with,
having to be satisfied with a private flight. The man in question had
been less than ideal but she had no other choice. His blazing red hair
and homey green eyes betrayed a darker, more savage spirit than she was
comfortable with.
Kerry grabbed the old leather jacket and gloves from her closet. She
still had this nagging feeling... She stopped by the door and eyed the
hall phone.
Kim. She really should call the psychiatrist and let her know that she
was going out of town. If she didn't show up after last night's
misunderstanding, Kim would probably think she was avoiding her. Not
that she hadn't considered that option. Then again Randi probably had
the news of her 'vacation' all over the ER by now, plus running a pool
on why she was going.
Kerry began out the front door before stopping. On impulse, she went
into the living room and removed the large African hunting knife from
the fireplace. The leather jacket's former owner had specially
tailored it so that the knife, in its worn leather sheath, fit snuggly
into an improvised pocket in the back of the jacket. Once in place, it
lay tight across the small of her back, handle down near her waist,
angled toward her right hip. With the jacket and hiking pack on, the
knife was impossible to detect, but she could draw it with a quick
twist of her wrist.
Maybe it wouldn't be needed, but if things worked out the way she
feared, it could also save her life.
Taking one last look around she flung the hiking bag onto her back and
left. She had always known that the past would catch up on her, she
just never expected it to happen so soon.
Kim tapped her desk again, unable to keep her mind on the chart in
front of her. She had been so sure of the signs. Rapid breathing,
dilated pupils. She thought she saw the redhead check her out a few
times. Kerry had always responded to her flirtation, so how could she
have read her so wrong, or had she?
Kerry's reaction to her last night had been strange. She knew the woman
well enough to know that she wasn't one to get flustered no matter what
the situation. So why did she get flustered last night? Could she
honestly find her attractive and be in denial?
There were too many questions and she had no answers. Maybe Kerry had
just needed a chance to think it over...
Kim made her mind up and left her office. She needed to talk to her.
Kerry eyed the plane wearily. She never had much luck with them. All
her flights ended up in disaster for some reason. Food poisoning,
delays, rerouted flight plans, pilots having heart attacks, the list
was incredible. At least, since this was a privately chartered flight,
she hadn't had to go through airport security. Her knife would have
set off the metal detectors, and that would have complicated matters.
"Ma'am? We're ready to take off," said the co-pilot, standing just
outside the plane's door.
Kerry swallowed back her sudden flash of apprehension. He was Irish. It
had to be a coincidence. Kerry climbed the steps to the plane, pausing
just inside to take in the interior. Everything was maroon and black.
Weird...most private and small jets were light in color.
There were seats for six people if you included the sofa on each side
of the small plane. She could see parachutes next to the door. That
fact made her feel a little safer if for no other reason in case the
plane went down.
She silently chided herself. With her luck she shouldn't be thinking
that. The two bulks of muscle in the very back caught her attention.
They were dressed simply. She thought she could see a bulge under their
left armpits. She dismissed that thought.
"Ma'am, if you'll be seated...?"
Kerry graciously dropped onto the couch right next to the door. The man
with long curly brown hair smiled at her reminding her of a tarantula
she once found in the bathtub in Africa. She was going to keep an eye
on this one, just in case his bite was poisonous.
"Do you know where Kerry is?"
Randi's head snapped up quickly, the glint in her eyes catching Kim's
attention. The desk clerk leaned over and grinned. "She called this
morning and said she was taking the week off. It turns out she charted
a flight to Northern British Columbia."
Carter glanced up from his chart, trying to decide whether to chide
them for gossiping about his friend or joining in. He had to admit that
his curiosity was killing him. "Did she say why?"
"No, only that she had some personal business to take care of."
"Did she leave a number where she could be reached?"
Randi eyed Kim with sudden interest. The same interest with which she
always eyed potential gossip. "I'm only supposed to give it if there's
an emergency."
"It is one."
Randi leaned her elbows on the desk and grinned like a vulture. "What
kind of an emergency?"
"A private one."
Randi shrugged and straightened up, turning back to work. "Then I have
no way of knowing if you're lying and Dr. Weaver left very specific
instructions."
Kim eyed the crowded desk. Everyone was acting like they were working
but she could tell they were listening and if she told the desk clerk
the truth then the whole hospital would find out. She couldn't do that
to Kerry, she'd just have to wait or... "One of her friends was killed
last night..."
"I'll call her..."
Kim smiled at Randi. "No, I really need to be the one. I have all the
details."
Randi was sizing her up. The desk clerk knew that, unlike Kerry, she
was capable of wheeling and dealing on several levels. "You can give
them to me."
"I'm a close friend though, and it would probably be better coming from
me."
"How close?" Randi asked, archly jumping on the opening immediately.
Kim winced inwardly. She knew better than that. "Give me the number."
"Tell me and I will."
"Give it to me, then I'll answer you."
Randi removed a piece of scrape paper from a pile and held it
thoughtfully. After a long moment she handed to Kim and waited.
Kim checked the paper then grinned evilly. "We're friends."
With that she spun around and walked toward the lounge aware that she'd
just made an enemy of a very dangerous woman.
Kerry kept her breathing slow and shallow, feigning sleep.
She felt some amount of safety from the large 14-inch bone-handled
hunting knife strapped to her back. Its hardness against her spine
made it difficult to find a comfortable sitting position, and would
have made sleep impossible in any event, but right now that discomfort
was something she welcomed. It was a constant reminder of the danger
she was almost certainly in, and would keep her sharp.
Another reason why the knife was a totem of good fortune. It had been
a gift from the woman that had inspired her to pursue medicine.
It hadn't started out as anything she really been interested in. She
had been a teenager, unsure about what she wanted from life, more
unsure of what she wanted to do. She studied music and art. Her
drawings were good enough for her to consider it for a career but it
didn't feel right.
Her foster parents, as much as they loved her, barely made enough money
to survive from month to month. Most of their food came from their farm
in Africa, and the rest went into research on the local animal life.
She'd only gone into Americorps because they couldn't afford to send
her to college, so the program was one of her only hopes. She spent the
next three years traveling around the world, helping everyone from
hurricane victims to ancient tribes in need of medical attention. Which
is how she was first introduced to medicine.
There had been an outbreak in one of the tribes native to the rain
forest in South America. The Americorps had been sent in with the Red
Cross and half a dozen other groups. Dr. Amelia Rynes had been the
person in charge of the entire project. She was short, well toned, and
a woman to be feared. Her long black hair was pulled back into an
unruly French braid, her black eyes changing from sharp and snappy to
warm and understanding in a moment's time.
Kerry had been taken with the woman almost immediately. Dr. Rynes had
noticed her interest in her and taken her under her wing. Teaching her
everything from tracking to field medicine. Over the month in the rain
forest, Kerry had discovered that the older woman had been orphaned as
a child, spent her residency in Africa, and gone on to join GreenPeace
and the corps.
Then, one morning, she'd woken up to find the doctor gone. She'd left
during the night leaving her favorite knife and leather jacket just
inside Kerry's tent. All she'd been able to find out was that there had
been a family emergency.
After that she'd felt a strong passion to be a doctor. To take control
of a chaotic situation and make it more bearable...
A soft click caused her to open her eyes.
The silver-colored gun was pointed straight at her forehead. Tarantula
Boy smiled as his finger tightened on the trigger.
In such moments, all human beings make a fundamental choice. Either
they reject what they see, believing 'no, this can't be happening', and
then they die in the paralysis of fear. Or they accept that yes, it is
happening, and they proceed to deal with it as best they can.
And Kerry Weaver was, of course, the "Deal With It" Queen.
Kerry clenched her teeth and lashed out with both hands. The left
seized the co-pilot's gun wrist and yanked it to the side, just as the
gun went off. Kerry felt the hot puff of gunsmoke against her cheek,
and the noise clapped her ears, stealing her hearing on that side, but
the bullet went into the fuselage of the plane, not her cerebellum.
Her right hand, in the same moment, thrust forward, the heel of her
hand impacting the co-pilot's nose where it met his upper lip. The
force of her blow was increased by her left hand pulling his arm in the
other direction, and the cartilage of his nose was driven sharply
upward into his skull. His dying thought was no doubt surprise that
her being crippled didn't equate to her being helpless. Serves you
right, she thought.
The two other passengers, who had never introduced themselves, showed
no such surprise. They were already reaching into their jackets.
Kerry put the boot on her good leg against the dead man's chest and
shoved hard, yelling something she could hear through the ringing in
her own ears, and the corpse fell heavily against the first gunman,
rendering him momentarily helpless. The second, an auburn-haired man,
avoided the grisly missile, and as he drew his pistol, the sleeve on
his left arm pulled up enough to reveal the tattoo on his left wrist.
In a quick decision, she threw herself off the sofa and lunged toward
the front of the cabin, scrambling to keep her feet and reach the
cockpit and whatever momentary safety it might hold. Her crutch still
lay abandoned, as there'd been no time to thread her arm through its
cuff before the violence began.
Although the man's initial shots had missed because of her unexpected
reflexes, Kerry's safety was short-lived. The cabin of the plane held
almost no shelter or cover, and even an able-bodied person couldn't
escape for more than a heartbeat. Kerry knew this even as she made her
desperate lunge for life.
And then something struck her in the spine with the force of a
piledriver.
She screamed in shock and hurt as the impact of the bullet drove her
forward and slammed her against the closed cockpit door. She felt the
impact of the wall along the entire front of her body, in counterpoint
to the sharp, concentrated injury in her back, and she slumped
hopelessly against the rack of parachutes.
Even then, she knew something was a little off. She hurt terribly from
the gunshot, but not in the way she should. There was an intense ache,
but not the burning, piercing sensation she expected, or the liquid,
leaking feeling of her own blood filling the wrong cavities of her
torso. By some miracle, she hadn't been killed.
"Jesus, get 'im off me!" she heard the first gunman yelling behind her,
still weighed down with the co-pilot's body.
"Relax, I got her," the second replied, turning to pull the dead man
off his partner. "Bloody bitch had some fight in her, though."
The fury that thundered through her at his words swept away her
feelings of helplessness and despair. She took hold of the nearest
parachute and pulled herself painfully upright.
"Bloody hell, she's up! Finish her, quick!"
The hell you will, she thought in a moment of intense clarity.
Clenching her fingers tightly around the chute's strap, she reached
over with her other hand to the lever of the cabin hatch and yanked
hard.
The door opened, virtually exploding off its hinges as the sudden
hurricane of air pressure ripped it away. Kerry had only the slightest
instant to hear the gunmen screaming in shock before the suction yanked
her violently out of the plane.
Then she was tumbling in midair, countless hundreds of feet above
ground with nothing between her and the earth plummeting upwards at
her. The icy wind howled in her ears, drowning out her screams...