"No, no! We can't give up on her, she can pull through this. I know she can!" Doctor Ryan shouted, tearing the surgical mask away from his face and snatching the defibrillator, "Charging!"

A dark haired man stepped forward and placed a steadying hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Come on, it's over. She can't take anymore. Look at her, Jack, look at her. She's eleven years old and she's been through so much. Don't you think she's suffered enough?" He said, looking into his eyes and willing him to stop. "Stop this, Jack, stop. It's over."

"You know what, Joey? You're right; she has been through a lot. Damn it, she has fought this so hard. We can't just give up on her." He said, begging his colleague to see sense, to stand aside and let him bring his patient back to life. But he didn't. Joey, as it were, stood firm.

"It's over." He said in a cool voice, taking hold of Jack's wrists and gently lowering the defibrillator back into its slot. "It's over." He repeated, softly this time. He glanced at a nurse, who nodded and silently pulled a sheet over the young girl's body.

"Time of death is 22.00 hours." She said, her bottom lip quivering ever so slightly.

Jack was furious and devastated and in shock, all at the same time. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't. She was an innocent eleven year old girl who hadn't even been given the chance to live yet. She had been born with a rare heart defect that meant she would probably never make it into adulthood. How cruel, how very, very cruel that was.

He tore off his gloves and apron, shoving them in the waste bin and storming out of the operating theatre. This day could not get any worse, or so he thought.

He was relieved to see that the break room was empty as he walked in and closed the door behind him. He leaned against it and shit his eyes, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down before he punched someone. As a general rule, a doctor never wants to lose a patient. In fact, losing a patient is the worst possible scenario. People often assume that doctors get used to people dying, that it becomes part of their daily routine and that, after many years in the profession, it stops having such a profound impact on them.

Bullshit.

While it's fair to say that the first cut is the deepest, so to speak, the pain never really goes away. As for the pain of losing an eleven year old girl after years of reassuring her parents and sugar coating her impending premature death, yeah, that hurt. That hurt a lot.

He opened his eyes and headed over to his locker, swallowing the nasty lump of grief that had formed in the back of his throat. Opening the door only served to worsen his mood as he noted the photograph blue tacked to the back of the door. It had been there for years, ever since his first shift when his then-girlfriend, recently-fiancé, now-ex had given it to him. It was a picture of the two of them in Italy, standing in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But it was a badly taken photograph, slightly blurred and the way it was angled made it look as if the tower was poking out of Jack's head. It used to be funny, but now it was just sad. What he wouldn't give to go home and find her waiting for him to crawl into her arms and just let go because, damn, he lost a kid.

He sighed audibly and tightened his jaw, forcing himself to man up. After changing into a pair of jeans and a shirt, he shoved his car keys and wallet in his pocket and made for the exit. He knew his colleagues would understand. There was no way he could stick around for the time being, he desperately needed some down time.

It was by chance, really. He was waiting for the lift and, after several minutes of waiting for a lift that probably wasn't coming any time soon, decided to take the stairs. On his way to the stairway, he happened to hear a distinct moan echoing along the nearest corridor. Someone was in trouble, he knew that much. Now, normally in a hospital, hearing someone moan in pain isn't uncommon, in fact, it happens on an unsurprisingly regular basis. However, what wasn't uncommon was the fact that the ward in which the moan came from was currently out of order.

It was nothing serious, just basic maintenance. There were a few pipes that needed to be repaired, machinery that wasn't working quite the way it should, lights that flickered and such. It was just a number of small, unimportant matters that the general public apparently had significant enough issues with to warrant a general restoration of the entire ward, as if budgets weren't tight enough already.

The ward was definitely supposed to be empty. So where did the moan come from?

Jack couldn't help himself; curiosity got the better of him as he started to creep down the corridor, systematically looking in every single room. There had to be someone nearby. Jack knew, or at least hoped, that he wasn't quite crazy enough to be hearing voices.

All of the rooms were dark, lit only by the dim overhead lights which were required to be lit at all times thanks to various health and safety regulations. After the third room, he was starting to think that he was insane. That maybe he imagined the moan or, oh, it drifted through the air conditioning or something. He was just about to turn back when he heard it again.

It was quieter this time, more like a stifled groan followed by a few sharp intakes of breath. He continued down the corridor, faster this time, looking in each and every room until he got to the final one. He glanced in through the door and, sure enough, there was a shadow lurking in the room.

He knew he had to be cautious, this man could be dangerous. He had, after all, snuck into an off-limits hospital ward. He slipped his hand over the door handle and very carefully turned it, before easing it open.

He edged in slowly, as quietly as he could, closing the door behind him. As he turned back around to face the mysterious figure, he noticed something strange about the man, or rather boy, who had perched himself on the edge of one of the beds.

The first thing was his hair. It was white, like, really white. It was stuck up in every direction and it appeared to glow slightly, almost supernaturally. And then there were his eyes, a brilliant shade of electric green and – yes – they were most definitely glowing. The third strange thing was the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt, and that there was blood everywhere.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" He said without thinking, instantly wishing he hadn't. The boy looked up in shock and tried to get up, only to double over in pain and fall to the ground like a lifeless sack of potatoes. Within seconds, Jack was by his side, checking his pulse, before inspecting his injuries. Call it a Doctor-reflex. He really didn't have a choice in the matter.

It was difficult to see, but the injuries certainly looked like bullet holes. There were three of them, if he wasn't mistaken, one to the chest/shoulder area, and the other two to the abdomen. The wounds were a real mess and, if the bloodied tweezers hanging loosely from the boy's hand were anything to go by, they had been damaged further by an attempt at removing the bullets. An unsuccessful attempt, he might add.

The boy struggled, pushing weakly at Jack's hands and letting out strangled cries of pain.

"Please," he near-sobbed, "please stop." Jack looked at the boy, really looked at him. He couldn't have been older than seventeen or maybe eighteen, at a push, and he was terrified and clearly in a lot of pain. Who wouldn't be? Most people would be unconscious after taking three bullets, never mind the state they would be in after trying (and failing) to remove them. But this was no ordinary person. No, Jack recognised him. He'd seen him before on television and in the newspapers, and on wanted posters.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Doctor Jack Ryan, and I'm going to help you, okay?" He said, playing a gentle hand on the boy's cheek, grimacing slightly upon noticing the bloodied handprint he left behind, before returning to his wounds.

"Why?" He said weakly, letting his arms fall numbly by his sides. "You know who I am, I can tell. Why would you help me?"

"You're Phantom." He said dismissively, as if it didn't matter at all.

"Why are you helping me?" His voice cracked as he spoke, his eyes watering up in a way that was just heartbreaking.

"Because you need a doctor, and I am a doctor." He replied simply. "But there's not much I can do in here. I'm going to get help. I'll be right back, okay?"

"No!" He cried, grabbing Jack's wrist. "No, you can't! Please, I just need... I just need to get the bullets out so I can heal. Please, I'm not human. I'll heal before I bleed out. No more doctors, please, Doctor Ryan, no more doctors." His grip on Jack's wrist weakened before disappearing completely, he turned his head to the side and scrunched his face up in pain.

"But... You need help. Proper medical help, you've been shot three times, Phantom, three times! You need surgery, drugs - antibiotics and some serious painkillers. Your wounds need to be sterilised, you need stitches and, god, probably therapy for post traumatic stress. I can't do that here." He was freaking out a little, and with it came what his ex-fiancé had termed 'word vomit', but surely that was acceptable, given the current situation and all. "And don't even get me started on how wrong this is. Ghosts aren't supposed to bleed, and if they do bleed – which they might, because I'm honestly no expert, but if they do bleed, then they don't bleed red. Humans bleed red."

The boy turned his head to face Jack, his eyes pleading with him to help him, to save him, to not let him die like he had the little girl. "Please, if the system gets hold of me then I will die. There are people who are after me. They will take me, they will run tests and poke and prod me until they get bored, and then they will kill me." He took a deep, steadying breath, and lifted himself onto his elbows, despite the pain it so obviously caused him. "Doctor Ryan, I don't want to die. Please, just let me go."

"Let you go? I'm sorry, what? Let you go, are you serious? Have you even seen the state you're in? Where the hell would you even go?" And just like that, an idea formed in Jack's head; a simple, brilliant (albeit incredibly stupid) idea. He would smuggle Phantom out of the hospital, along with any supplies he might need. He would take him home and nurse him back to health and then, and only then, could he be redeemed.

"Hey, Doc..." Phantom started, letting his read rest on the ground and smiling up at Jack in a somewhat dazed fashion, "Has anyone ever told you that you talk way too much?" Without further warning, his eyes rolled shut and his head lolled to the side lifelessly.

Jack swallowed hard and panicked. Shit. If he was going to do something, he was going to have to do it right now, and fast.

And that's exactly what he did.

Getting Phantom out of the hospital had not been easy. In fact, it had been about as far from easy as you can get.

In the end, he'd settled for shoving as many medical supplies as he could into a rucksack, throwing the unconscious ghost over his shoulder, and bolting it out of the fire escape and to his car. Aside from a security camera or two, he'd managed to go largely unnoticed. He was surprised, really. He had fully expected to encounter at least one person asking questions that were practically impossible to answer.

He flung the seemingly boneless ghost into the passenger seat of his car, before breaking god knows how many speed limits on his way to his apartment.

"This is crazy." He mused aloud, glancing at his passenger before locking his eyes firmly on the road. "This is absolutely crazy." He repeated, raking a hand through his hair. "This is the craziest thing I have ever done in my life."

Phantom groaned as they went over a speed bump. "Don't worry, kid, we're nearly there. Just hold on a little while longer."