Jesse looked across the emergency room from her vantage point in the paramedic's break room. She watched the patients waiting, some bored, others in obvious pain. A few others crossed her field of vision; a pair of candy stripers moved through the room making sure everyone had filled out all the forms, that no one would soon or had recently passed out, and generally tried to keep everyone's spirits up. This pair had lasted through the Rain and the disasters following. Not many could say that.

Somewhere upstairs Charlie lay in a hospital bed, doctors deciding his fate. Jesse wanted more than anything to push her way past all the barriers and see him. To keep herself from doing just that she catalogued the ways she could, and the reasons why each of them would make things worse. Of course, the biggest reason she couldn't tell herself; just like all the concerned, emotional relatives she'd gently pulled away so Steve or Angela could work, she'd only be in the way.

Mercy walked over from the nurses' station. "Jesse, I heard about that big bear you fought up on the Delaware."

"Yeah."

"I heard Steve…" She stopped, obviously at a loss for words. "Got hurt, but Doctor Merilyn sent him home. I guess she figured he was beyond anything we could do here. Charlie's up in ICU. Has anyone looked you over?"

Jesse grinned; humor absent from the expression. "No need, Mercy."

"Charlie's laid up with some kind of brain trauma, and from what I heard there wasn't enough left of Steve to fill a body bag. Someone needs to check you out, young lady."

This time a little genuine laughter leaked out from Jesse's lips. "Who are you calling young, Mercy? I'm a year older than you."

"And if you're still young, that means I am too. Now, am I going to have to call an orderly to hold you down? I'm not about to have you bleed out while you're sitting in my ER."

Jesse shook her head but levered herself from the chair anyway.

"Okay. I'd prefer just a little privacy though." She pulled the curtain across the entry to the alcove just as a few new people came in; a mother with a crying child, an elderly couple, the woman holding something over the man's hand, and a nondescript guy in a dark suit.

"You just got some new customers, so let's make this quick." Jesse shrugged off her camo jacket, exposing the tattered blue tee shirt beneath. She reached into the supply cabinet and pulled out a scalpel. Before Mercy could do more than open her mouth, she slashed it across her own forearm. A gash appeared, but instead of gushing blood, her skin just folded back over itself.

"How... what?"

"Yeah. That's what I'm trying to tell you, Mercy. I'm... I'm upset about Charlie. I'm kinda tired. But other than fatigue and emotional trauma, I don't seem to be prone to the kind of injuries you can treat."

Mercy's gaze kept shifting from Jesse's face to her arm and back again. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.

"I expect Steve is fine, too. Assuming Drew hasn't found a way to kill him yet."

Mercy shook her head again. "Well. I guess you don't need anything from me. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing."

"Actually..."

"Yeah?"

"Could you check on Charlie and Angela for me? I have no idea how he's doing, and as far as I know nobody's checked on her."

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"You mean she can't..." Mercy nodded toward Jesse's arm.

"Not that I know of, no."

The nurse stared for a few moments longer before shaking her head, then nodding once and walking away.

Jesse turned back to her people watching, trying to reconnect with the person she had been.

***

Angela leaned against the waiting room wall, her mind racing in circles. On one hand, she knew with absolute certainty she wasn't the right specialist to be looking at Charlie right now, and she could only jog the MRI tech's elbow. On the other hand, no one in the world understood the blue blood phenomenon as well as she did.

Charlie didn't have many friends. Angela counted herself as one of them, and that meant she couldn't, right now, be his doctor. Day to day, researching their shared condition, she could make an exception, but with his life on the line she wouldn't be able to retain her objectivity.

The same thoughts chased themselves through her brain over and over again, her blood pressure rising with each passing moment. Briefly, she considered heading to the cafeteria to get some food, but Doctor Davies might come out at any moment. Before her thoughts could fall into the same trap again, she pushed herself from the wall and headed for the elevators.

Waiting for the elevators, she thought about the heavy device she'd summoned up on the back of the bear frozen in the middle of the Schuylkill River. The sigils on the sarcophagus' panel didn't coincide with any alphabet she knew. She pulled out her phone and started searching the web for other character sets, hoping to find a matching one.

The elevator doors slid open, but before she could step in a man in a dark suit stepped out. She stood aside to let him pass, and in the distance heard Doctor Davies' voice.

"Doctor Merilyn?"

The guy in the suit turned away from the waiting room, heading toward the terminal care patient wing. That suited Angela just fine, she took the corner at a sprint, gray haze threatening every moment. She couldn't afford to lose it just now; her other self might not understand why Charlie needed a doctor, let alone what the doctor said.

She skidded to a stop in front of the doors just as they swung closed. She pushed them open cautiously and called out, her attention focused on keeping that grey haze at bay. Her other self prodded at her, trying to take over, but she held strong.

"Doctor Davies?"

The doctor turned around, relief on his face. "Doctor Merilyn. Thank god." He paused. "Are you okay?"

"Sorry, I was just about to step onto the elevator when I heard you calling."

"Oh. Have you run any MRIs on patients with haematochromatic syndrome?"

Angela blinked, trying to focus past the encroaching grey haze. "Uh, no. I'd intended to, but I've never had the time and equipment. What's wrong?"

"That's what I'm not sure of. There's some intracranial bleeding. Not a great deal, normally I'd recommend against any invasive procedures given the amount. I'd proscribe drugs to assist him with recovery, but..."

"But you're not sure how they'd interact with his altered body chemistry?" Given a problem for her conscious mind to work on seemed to help with the grey haze. Unfortunately, the problem wasn't very complex, and she tapped the solution into her phone and fired it to the pharmacy before Davies could finish nodding his head.

"I've sent down equivalents that should work. Is that all?"

"No. There seems to be something out of place."

Doctor Davies' words brought the grey haze down with a vengeance, but she didn't lose herself entirely. Instead, his last three words echoed over an image of a nondescript guy in a dark suit headed down the hall toward the terminal ward.

Out of place. Roger left the hospital the night of the Rain of Fire. Jack lived at Blue Bloods headquarters now. The post-Rain refugees had long since returned to their homes or more permanent shelters. Only one patient remained in the terminal ward.

"Jane." She made eye contact with Davies, trying by force of will to make him understand her urgency.

"Call security!" With that, she turned for the terminal ward, diving into the wall of blue-grey haze, hoping it would be enough.

***

Angie literally bounced off the wall as she came around the last corner before the terminal ward. Halfway down the hall, the security camera shot sparks onto the floor, landing in the pool seeping from behind the nurse's station. Angie knew she ought to be able to help the nurse, but not right now. Doctor Davies could help the nurse, she had to stop the dark suited man before he did this to anyone else.

Before Angie got halfway there, the heavy door to Jane's room blew backward across the hall. For a moment frozen in time, the assassin hung suspended from the door, a smoking half-sphere burned into the center of his chest.

A voice boomed from Jane's room, raising goose bumps across Angie's arms. "The silence is over. Your guilt echoes in my eyes. Justice is done."