Greg woke to a painful cold rushing through his chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing,” he grumbled as he squinted blearily at a nurse. His head was feeling significantly better than it had the day before, but his brain was still too occupied with creating a constant humming pain for him to think entirely clearly.

The nurse ignored him and removed her freezing stethoscope, moving to strap the blood pressure cuff around his arm.

“Where the hell are—”

“Table to your left,” she said, not looking up from where she was squeezing his arm.

His free hand groped and found his glasses and an empty glass. “Cigarettes, where are my cigarettes.”

“You cannot smoke in the emergency ward, sir,” the nurse tutted, and flipped off the cuff. “Your blood pressure is high,” she added, pausing to write on Greg’s chart.

“Yeah, it’s the lack of nicotine,” he scorned. “I had a pack when I got in here, what happened to them?”

“They’ll be returned when you’re discharged, Mr. Proops, although I suggest you try quitting, they’re not good for your heart.”

“What heart,” Ritza smirked as she wandered through the curtains.

“She’s taken away the one joy I have left in my life,” Greg whined, pointing accusingly at the nurse who rolled her eyes, “and if I don’t inhale some tar soon I’m going to be forced to injure someone.”

“We’ll get you some cigarettes as soon as we can, Proops, so shut up before I’m forced to do something rash,” Ritza warned.

“Rash? I might be able to cope with rash,” Greg smirked.

“Trust me. You couldn’t.”

The nurse wandered off muttering to herself and scribbling on a clipboard.

“Come to babysit me?” Greg asked, scooting over as Ritza moved to sit on his bed.

“Beven and I are going back to Amy’s to see if we can’t find out something about Fen.”

“You mean just the two of you?”

“We’ll be taking Claudia with us, of course. Can’t leave the psychotic with the incompetents.”

“So you’re gonna leave me here to heal and smoke and not deal with maniacs with guns?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the plan,” she nodded.

“You’re a goddess,” he grinned, snuggling deeper into what he was guessing was less than sterile bed, but at that point he didn’t care. It was warm and soft and although it was nicotine free, it was also far from people who wanted him dead. “Can I get a packet of cigs now?”

“Get some sleep Proops. Not that it’ll help any,” she added under her breath as she marched out.

Brad sat in his bed grumbling to himself because he’d let Beven leave to find Fenny without him. He wanted to be doing something useful, to try to talk to Fenny, but Beven had taken advantage of the fact that one of the nurses had pumped him full of painkillers as he’d woken up and told the sleepy and doped up Brad that he and Ritza were leaving, and he’d let them. In all actuality he barely remembered the conversation, which was probably why he’d also been left a note that said “sit tight, keep Greg from being an idiot, and leave the McDermotts alone” in Ritza’s handwriting, with an added “be good” in a gruffer text, obviously from Beven.

Here he was, a grown man, being told what to do by an ex-girlfriend and, admittedly, a very large man with a very large gun. But still, he didn’t have to like it.

“I understand you’re hurting,” a pretty young nurse declared as she came into Brad’s makeshift cubicle with a glass of water and a small paper cup.

She startled him out of his funk and he smiled up at her. “Me? No,” he grunted as he strained to sit up. He never knew so many muscles could hurt at once. “What’s a little pain to a man like me. Ow,” he yelped as he reached out to take the proffered water.

“You know, Mr. Sherwood, you really should be more careful when you’re climbing those rocks,” chirped the nurse, Lucy if her badge was to be believed. “But here, take these,” she held the cup of pills out to him, “they’ll make you feel good as new, ready for another one of your…romps.”

“Oh I’ll bet they will,” he smirked and downed the pills.

“Is there anything else I can get for you Mr. Sherwood?”

“Well for starters you can call me Brad.”

Lucy giggled shyly. “Do you often climb rocks here in Australia, Brad?” she asked coyly.

“Only when they’re in my way,” he shrugged, then immediately wished he hadn’t as every muscle in his back protested.

She giggled again as she reached for her stethoscope. “Mind if I check your heart?”

“Course not,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

She leaned towards him, her long dark hair brushing past his arm. He took in her pert little body in her crisp white uniform; she reminded him of Bess back home, and he found himself smiling, then paled.

Lucy jumped back, whether from the sharp intake of breath and quick clearing of his throat or his suddenly accelerated heart rate, he didn’t know. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh, look,” Brad mumbled, “I should probably be going.”

“Going?” Lucy asked, eyes going wide.

“Yeah. My friends, I should check on them.”

“They’re doing fine,” she assured him with a smile and a pat on the arm. “I was talking to the other nurses and we all agreed that you’re all doing wonderfully. Except for your friend with the glasses.”

“Greg?”

“The angry one with the nicotine addiction.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Threatening people’s lives again if he didn’t get a pack of smokes, right?”

“A hobby of his?”

“It’s all this clean, sterile air, it irritates his lungs,” Brad shrugged. Lucy giggled and he sat upright again. “I should go find him,” he babbled and, the painkillers finally kicking in, he all but dashed into the hall.

“Why is it that we seem to spend most of our bonding time in hospitals and running from gun wielding maniacs?” Paul mused as he stared up at the poorly tiled ceiling. Gina was playing with his mussed and still significantly dirty hair as she cradled his head in her lap, her wrapped ankle propped up on the bedside table.

“Because whenever we’re not in hospital or running from mad people, we’re at home and you’re stuffing things up,” she smiled, “or too busy playing with your inanimate children.”

“Or dealing with the American psychos.”

“Can we disown them yet?”

“Again you mean? Absolutely. When we get home, let’s change our names, move to Peru and live out our lives snuggled together in bed.”

“Deal,” Gina breathed, and gently shifted her weight so she could lay next to him. “They’d find us you know,” she added after a few moments.

“It’s a nice dream though.” Paul wrapped his arms tighter around her.

“I hope Beven does some serious damage to the bastard that hurt you,” she grumbled.

“I’m kinda used to it,” he smiled weakly. “I’m healing quicker, look, I can almost breathe without swearing.” He took a careful deep breath. “Shit,” he hissed, letting out a short cough.

“Here I was thinking I could help distract you from the pain, but if heavy breathing is out, I don’t know,” she teased.

“Oh no, it’s in, it’s definitely in,” he nodded, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Well, let’s see,” she mused and leaned closer, kissing him lightly and trying to find an unbruised section of flesh to caress. She settled on the side of his neck and deepened the kiss a bit before pulling away, much to Paul’s chagrin. “How you feeling?”

“Great,” he breathed.

“Great,” she smirked, leaning in for another kiss.

“…and so Gina got snippy and decided to go rescue the guys on her own, which, now that I look back at it, I shouldn’t have let her do, but I’ve had a very bad couple of days, and that’s when you kidnapped me and Troy here,” Fenny concluded, and took a deep breath.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Eric mused unbelievingly after a contemplative moment.

“Granted, improvisation has become an unwelcome constant in my life, but I was never that good,” Fenny shrugged as she watched him closely. “So Mr. FBI man, what now?”

“I suggest we go back and try to find your friends. God knows what Amy’s going to do to them if Gina hasn’t succeeded in freeing them.” He stood up and stretched. “And Amy’s bound to find out about Danny, probably sooner than later, and she’ll not be pleased.”

Fenny squinted as if expecting a blow. “You’re gonna say we have to go back there and do something foolhardy and potentially painful, aren’t you?”

“Well, we do have options. We could assume that they’ve successfully escaped which, given your track record, I’m guessing would be about a fifty-fifty chance. Or we could assume that Amy’s got them all and is plotting something devious as we speak.”

“Do we have to assume that?” she breathed.

“Or we could assume that they’re dead already,” he pointed out.

“Right, option B is good,” Fenny nodded.

“So, I think I need to go back to Amy’s base and see exactly what’s happening, and try to at the very least keep Danny out of trouble. You can either come with me and my gun, or you could stay here with the native fauna.”

“Guns are good, let’s go,” she enthused.

“I should probably call headquarters,” Eric mused, “now that we’ve got at least a partial back story and a witness or six.”

“Wait, you’ve got a cell phone,” Fenny chirped. “Can’t I call them?”

“Don’t think you should – what if Amy were to intercept the call?”

She pouted. At that point all she wanted to do was make sure that her friends were at the very least alive. “Then do you know where we can pick up a couple tacos on the way?” she asked hopefully, but went back to sulking as Eric shushed her with a wave of her hand as he began pacing with the phone pressed to his ear.

Brad wandered through the hospital looking for Greg and hoping he hadn’t been tranquilized by the nursing staff yet. The rustling noise at the end of a short hallway assured him otherwise, and he wandered down to where Greg was rifling through a closet filled with paper bags, a pile of discarded bags at his feet.

“Hey Proops, what’re you doing?”

“They kidnapped my deathsticks,” he grumbled, grabbing another bag from the belongings closet. “This one’s dated 1987,” he mused, “I knew the assholes weren’t gonna give ‘em back.”

“Well, you’re back to your usual cranky self I see.”

“And you’re back to your usual observant self. Come to whine about how much you’re worried about Fenny and how you’re upset that she hates you for the little booze incident?”

“No,” Brad squeaked.

“Uh huh.”

“Well come on, my wife is missing and the last thing I heard from her is how much she hates me, what if she dies and that’s the last thing we have to remember each other by?”

“She’s gonna remember hating you when she’s dead?”

“And we’re stuck in this crappy hospital doing nothing,” he continued, ignoring Greg completely.

“I don’t mind,” Greg shrugged as he dug through the contents of a bag labeled “Cooper, 12C, 8-7-03.”

“Don’t you feel helpless?” Brad demanded with a foolish gesture of his hands.

“Dude, I always feel helpless,” Greg grumbled into a new bag, Cooper’s abandoned at his feet. “I’m stranded halfway across the planet being chased by madmen and I can’t even find my fucking cigarettes, how do you expect me to feel?”

“Well good. Then it’s settled.”

“What’s settled?” Greg asked, a bit distracted by his continuing quest for cigarettes. At this point he’d given up caring if they were his, he just wanted cigarettes.

“Let’s go get Gina and Paul.”

“What? Why?”

“We’re going to get Fenny.”

“What? No, the professionally frightening people are getting Fen, we’re cowering in fear and rehabilitation and withdrawal until they come back and get us and send us back home to live happily ever after until Fenny fucks something else up.”

“We’ll stop by a convenience store on the way and get you cigarettes,” Brad added in a sing song voice.

Greg let out a long, defeated sigh. “I want it known that I hate you,” he groaned, and followed Brad out of the hallway.

“Hey guys,” Brad perked as he pulled back the curtain surrounding Paul’s bed, “I’ve got an idea.”

“No, we don’t want to go find Fenny,” Gina declared as Brad opened his mouth to speak. He snapped it closed again for a moment as he scowled at them, then opened it again hesitantly.

“But if we do, you’re in charge of stealing the car,” Paul added.

“Great, come on, get dressed,” he demanded.

“Peru you say?” Gina grumbled, reaching for her crutches.

“Do you think it was a good idea leaving them at the hospital unsupervised?” Beven asked as he drove back towards Amy’s.

“What harm could they do battered and bruised in a hospital?” Ritza countered.

They nodded at themselves for a moment.

“Something bad is going to happen, isn’t it?” he mused.

“Yep,” Ritza agreed.

“Even I knew that,” Claudia scorned from the back seat. “That group has never done anything that wasn’t stupid.”

“Can we gag her again?” Ritza chirped.

“The car’s still here,” Eric announced as he killed the engine.

“I’m guessing this is not a good thing,” Fenny pouted. “They’re still in there, aren’t they?”

“Well Amy and her posse are gone.”

“Posse?” Fenny asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Y’all can’t comment on my talkin’ skills,” he grumbled, slipping back into Sean mode as he slipped out of the car, “I’m from Texas, ‘member?”

“Yeah, that’s nothing to brag about,” she sneered, coming around the car to meet him.
Eric scowled at Fenny for a moment before marching towards the back of the house. “I’m beginning to see why your friend left you in the car,” he huffed and hurried his pace.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’ve had a very rough couple of years, okay?” Fenny declared as she dashed to catch up with him. “Although the idea of having FBI agents around is greatly comforting. When they’re not kidnapping me.”

Eric tried the back door, found it unlocked, and gently nudged it open. He shushed her, then whispered, “Where’s Danny?”

“In the bedroom directly over the basement would be my guess?” she whispered back with a shrug.

He nodded and headed through the house, hand on his pistol until he got to the bedroom, where he drew the gun, knocked briefly and threw the door open.

“Jesus, what the f—Fenny!” Danny squealed, jumping off the bed. “Sean,” he gasped, falling back down, groping for his gun.

“Dan, cool it, he’s with the FBI,” Fenny soothed. “His name’s Eric.”

“How, what—I mean, why—huh?” Danny babbled. “We thought you’d been kidnapped.”

“I was.”

“By the FBI agent?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m still not entirely sure.”

“Why?” Danny tried again, looking at Eric.

“Reconnaissance,” Eric answered shortly, investigating the room.

“Right,” Danny nodded, although he was quite clearly perplexed. “Can someone tell me what’s going on here?”

“Where’s the others?” Fenny asked.

“Seeking medical attention and looking for you with Beven, Ritza and the mad Frenchwoman.”

“Claudia?” Eric demanded.

“Medical attention?” Fenny gasped.

They paused at the sound of a series of car doors slamming. “Shit,” Eric hissed, “Amy’s back.”

“Now what?” Danny gasped.

“Into the cellar,” Eric commanded, grabbing the balaclava from him. “Turn out the light and stay in the far corner so she can’t see you, I’ll cover for you.”

“I hate this cellar,” Fenny grumbled as Danny hopped down. He helped her down gingerly then quickly switched off the light as they hurried to corner and tried to pretend they were three sleeping men.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Danny murmured.

“Most likely,” Fenny breathed.

“Shut up,” Eric hissed.

All was silent as they listened to Amy and her gang pile into the house. There was a great clattering around the kitchen, and the stomping of feet towards the bedroom. Danny held his breath as Fenny trembled lightly, and they waited.