I don't own Frozen.

The rush of breaking waves greeted Jane when she left her slumber. The spot beside her was rumpled, but abandoned. She blinked twice to remove the sandman's grit from her eyes and stretched languidly, like a sunbathing housecat. It was bright, too bright in the bedroom of A's Hampton house. Jane yawned primly, and tasted salt on the air.

Rolling to A's side of the bed, Jane inhaled and dozily groaned her contentment. Two days back from Scotland and she had finally adjusted to the American time zones, A snuggling her into distraction. They had yet to explore more adventurous avenues of intimate physicality, but the searching kisses and comforting cuddles were unrivaled, in Jane's opinion. She wanted to squeal, or to thrash her giddiness against the sheets swaddling her. It was so unlike her, so alien for her to be so happy. For her to wake up in an embrace, with a button nose nuzzling her throat. And a voice underscored by the sea, whispering little loves in her ear. For someone to regard her, unafraid and somewhat annoyingly unimpressed with her abilities. Like she was human. Like she was worth more than the diamonds in her purse.

Like she mattered.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle!"

A sauntered into the bedroom with the dry erase board she used for grocery lists tucked under her arm. Her copper hair bounced in a disheveled bun at her neck's nape and her toes were bare upon the hardwood floorboards. A white towel hung from her forearm, and a startling purple flower of unknown origin peeked out above her ear. A retrieved the bud, sniffed it dramatically, then handed it to Jane with a flourish.

"For you, ma cheri," she said.

"To what do I owe such gallantry?"

"You owe nothing, mon coeure, but deserve le monde!" A slipped back into her French accent, tone exultant, eyes twinkling like stardust. "I have prepared zis for your peruzal, and await your request!"

A passed over the dry-erase board. Painstakingly scrawled in calligraphied Expo marker were breakfast items like The Luckiest of Charms!, Butter-smothered French Toast, Hot Teas in Limited (but quality) Varieties, Very-Berry Parfait with Crushed Granola, Bacon, Egg, & Cheddar Cheese Omelet with Veggie Additions, and so on. Written at the top of the board was 'Jane's Best Breakfast Menu', with sketched flower petal embellishments, leaves and vines snaking in and out of the letters. Colored rain fell upon the words, and A had even accounted for the fake moisture: sad g's sagged under a drop; l's lagged; and vowels drooped wherever the rain shower touched them. An alphabetic garden sprouted at the bottom of the board, a flowered trellis spelling out 'I-Love-You' in blue and green dry-erase streaks.

In Amsterdam, Jane disregarded masterworks from centuries past, professional and incomparable pieces from the Golden Age that demanded recognition, that forced the eye to look upon them. But when presented with this silly cartoon, unassuming and sloppy as it was, something struck Jane deep and hard. Love or affection or gratitude, she was unsure. Jane ached to hug the board and never let go, but didn't want to smear the impermanent markings. It was a delicate love, insubstantial, the kind that could be erased with the swipe of a hand.



She gazed back at a wistful A, who sported the most hopeful, sincere quirk of lips Jane had ever seen.

"You're… you're going to make me breakfast?"

"But of course!" A beamed.



"But you… I…A," Jane began, unaccustomed to such care. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why are you making me breakfast?"

"Well I— that is… why does the sun shine in the morning? Why is pi infinite? Why does Brueghel insist on morality tropes? These are questions that don't need answers, Jane, they just are," A lectured fervently. "I like breakfast. You like breakfast. There's been cronuts so far, that horrible black pudding in Edinburgh, the crepes in Amsterdam, and now… well, the cereal's not exactly an endeavor, but if that's what you want, I want to make it for you."

Jane absorbed that explanation, though it wasn't truly an answer. More evasion. Or possibly, A didn't really know why she wanted to make Jane breakfast. Jane couldn't fathom A's inexplicable attraction, her strange and unnatural fondness for someone so utterly handicapped. And yet here A was, with yet another random act of kindness, assuaging insecurities Jane didn't know existed.

"I… that is, I can't—"

"It's just breakfast, Jane. Don't have an aneurism."

"What do you see when you look at me?"

The question had been lying in wait since her rescue at St. John, biding its time until the right moment presented itself. But when the moment came, Jane was ill-prepared, and it sprouted abruptly from her insecurities. She brought her arms over her torso, shrank into the baby-blue sheets on the bed, and stared out the window at the rollicking waters. She wanted to know why A put up with her. Why A stuck her neck out for her with such enduring surety.

Jane wanted to know why she was worth it.

A clicked her tongue on the inside of her cheek, then bounced onto the foot of the bed.

"Hey," A said, nudging her foot under the covers.

"Yes?"

"What do I see in you?"

Jane nodded.

A ran a hand over her fluffy bangs, then nodded to herself, as if gearing up for a sporting event.

"I see consistency, not complacency," A began strongly. "I see someone grounded in herself. I see an acknowledgement of limitations. I see measured planning, and steadiness. You…" A trailed off, and stuck the tip of her tongue out to wet her lips. "I don't have to pretend to be anyone other than myself with you, Jane, because you will not waver. You aren't fickle, or perverse, like so many people I know in this business."

Anna twisted her fingers together, and joined Jane in staring out the window. Anna continued:



"You've always got a plan. You get in, you execute, and you get out. I wish I had that discipline, that... constancy. When I look at you, I don't have to manufacture a persona, pretend to be serious, or sexy, or whatever it is that the mark wants me to be. I'm settled, and I love that. I love you for that."

A picked at the edges of the white towel she had used as a prop upon her entrance. It was odd, seeing A shift from a playful role to someone so cheerlessly vulnerable. This confession, if that's what it was, didn't come easy for the grifter.

"I look at you and see a future, which has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember," A whispered. "I look at you, and I see my chance."

Jane met shiny eyes and offered a supporting half-grin. She wanted to return A's words with an admission of equal value, but meaningful professions of love and praise weren't weapons in her arsenal. She only had truth.

"I'm not as stable, or… prepared as you say I am. I didn't plan for every contingency."

"Name one thing," A challenged.

"You," Jane spoke plainly. "You've been the monkey wrench in my gears since that first night in New York."

A clacked her teeth together, tried to smile, but shifted and remained speechless.

"I'll take the omelet, with the veggies and cheese," Jane mumbled.

"Ha!" Anna croaked. The outburst was humorless, and served instead to lighten the conversation. "Alright."

"A," Jane said, moving forward before the grifter could escape to the kitchen. "Please don't ever feel that way with me. I understand, more than anyone, the pains that come with not being yourself."

"Thank you," A replied. The grifter squeezed Jane's glove-covered fingers, then placed a chaste kiss to her cheek. She stood from the bed and whipped the towel back over her forearm, plastering a congenial smile on her face.

"And this identity search…" Jane continued, feeling her sentiment had not been adequately expressed. "This thing with Hans, I—I don't want you to think that's your burden to bear. That's my problem, figuring out who I am. Not yours."

"Oh, Jane," A said thickly, in a voice weighted with sorrow beyond her years. "That's been my problem from day one."

Instead of waves, Jane awoke to the chilling beep of a heart monitor. Sterile smells. Pastel washed walls. Her mouth felt dry, like a cotton boll had sat itself atop her tongue, and her finger was aching from an awkward pinching sensation.

And she remembered.

Feelings, more so than memories. Like confusion, as to why her mom (God, her mother) was swelling in the middle like a bulbous, twisted ankle. Anger, because she couldn't sleep, shrill wails galloping down a dark corridor in the dead of night. And pride, that she had tilted the bottle at the right angle, that she remembered to mind the infant's head. Devastation, denial, when the man from the Memphis Port Authority argued with the policeman, and they tossed around words like crashed, drowned, sunk, social services. Resolution, at the instant she took her little sister's snotty hand in her own and promised, promised to find their parents. Accomplishment, with every turn of the page and every word read, the difficult ones sounded out phonetically, like teacher instructed. And joy, for Anna knew the dragon tale by heart and didn't fault her for her clumsy deciphering of the intimidating letters.

Jane remembered her sister, and she loved her.

The partitioned area of the hospital was tiny, the bed kinked into an upright position, and the bustle of workaday medicine puttered about outside the heavy linen curtain separating her from the rest of the room. She shook her head once, twice, then looked down to see that she was in another gown, just as scratchy as her WGT garb, but not nearly as bloody.

Blood.

Jane glanced down at her clean fingers, her forearms, catalogued bruises and a few bandaged cuts. Jane moved to prop herself up, and sharp spurts of pain raced up from the arches of her feet. Yanking the blanket back, she was semi-surprised to find her feet wrapped in surgical gauze, taped down with indifferent efficiency. She maneuvered, balky and cumbersome, toward the end of her bed and found her chart hanging there, blank but for a few hastily scratched lines and ticked boxes.

Jane Doe #1.

Female. Caucasian. Early Twenties.

Deep lacerations, dressed and cleaned to offset infection.

Minor burns.

Severe shock, administered ten cc's of sedative at 23:17.

Excessive bruising and swelling.

Possible dehydration.

Weight. Height. Blood type. Heart rate.

And so on, and so on.

Date of birth was blank. So was address, insurance company, emergency contact information.

At least they got my name right.

Jane attempted to rise from the bed and instantly regretted her decision. She was sore, her feet ached, and her head was throbbing. Reading so soon after waking had been a poor decision. A feeling akin to vertigo upset her physiology, and she fell back against the poor excuse of a mattress to prevent herself from retching.

She registered the shink of curtain loops sliding against metal and tried to focus on the young woman in periwinkle scrubs before her.

"Hi there, waking up okay?"

"Yes, I'm… I'm alright."

But what about my… what about Anna?

"The woman I brought in," Jane rasped. "She's…where is she? Is she alright?" Her inquiry was a husky tenor.

"Let's deal with you first. I'm Ellie, and I'll be taking care of you. Drink this, and take these," the nurse said, and handed over a tiny paper cup of two white pills.

"No, you don't understand, she's—"

"Pills first," Ellie insisted, and forcibly shoved the paper cup in the direction of Jane's moving jaw. A practiced pointer and thumb closed over her nostrils and pressed; Jane then felt the neutral wet sliding down her throat.

She had no choice but to swallow.

"What was that?!" Jane sputtered.

"Ibuprofen and water, nothing to be afraid of," Ellie recited calmly. "Now, can you answer a few questions for me, please?" The young woman continued briskly to the end of her bed.

"No, not until you tell me about Anna."

"Yes, let's see…" the woman flipped a page on the chart, then another, and another, until she came to the details at the back of the metal clipboard. "You were admitted with another Jane Doe—"

"Her name is Anna," Jane amended. "She's my... sister," the admission came reluctantly, smoky and sluggish.

She didn't like hospitals, but she knew the stupid rule about medical information and 'family only'. It sucks, when you're seven, and in a hospital, and your closest family is your social worker.

"Oh, well, we'll get right on that," Ellie said, her voice even and unconcerned. "They put you down as contact since you brought her in. Says here she was in OR 3 with Dr. Pierce, and they moved her into recovery shortly after. That was—" she checked the wall clock. "—two hours ago? They'll probably set her up in the ICU, if the surgery was extensive. But she might be—"

"She's… she's alive?" Jane cracked, blood rushing through her ears. "When can I see her? She's…"

What? What is she to you?

"—all I have, so please, tell me where she is!"

"Miss, just calm down please, we've had quite the night here—"

"Nothing like mine! Tell me where she is!"

"Dr. Pierce was on call and assigned to your case, I'll page him and see if I can find out some information for you. Now, I can tell you that we can't release any further information on another patient without—"

"She's my sister," Jane panted, bereft of conviction. The words dribbled regretfully over her tongue; and she loved Anna, and she hated Anna. "She's my sister."

The nurse's eyes shrank into narrowed slits on her heart-shaped face. Ellie couldn't have been much older than Jane, and the careworn signs of fatigue were beginning to show the more coherent Jane grew.

"You two were at the plant that came down, right?" she asked.

"Yes," Jane confessed, but didn't elaborate.

"There's been incoming patients all night, but the hospital couldn't account for everyone injured. We just didn't have the capacity."

Oh, please no.

"We've transferred a lot of those with minor injuries to First Pres, and sent the surplus to Brookeside in Trenton."

"So... she may not even be at this hospital?" Jane gaped. The nurse was asking too much of her. She couldn't put the pieces together and deal with the knowledge of victims.

Mine. My fault. Or... our fault?

"We only moved the stable patients. We are the closest to the site, so it was a proximity issue," Ellie said. "If your sister was severely injured, it's unlikely they would approve a transport—"

"She was sh—hurt, really bad. She was bleeding, so much when I brought her in," Jane explained. She couldn't explain a GSW, not now, not while others were coming in with blunt force trauma and third degree burns and lacerations so deep they scratched bone. Not after she had confirmed the setting. Jane placed her hands on her head and cried quietly, heart monitor at her side shutting on and off willy-nilly.

The nurse removed a small pen light and coaxed her head up, encouraged her to breathe through the tears. She pulled against the paper-thin lid over Jane's eyes, told her to focus on a rapidly moving finger.

"Can you tell me your name?"

Jane blinked, and almost barked a laugh at how comically depressing the question now seemed.

"Miss, your name?"

"E—Eh, Jane," Jane said, though she had no idea why. Elsa gleefully mocked her indecision. "Jane…D—Arrendale."

"And your sister?"

"Anna. Anna Arrendale."

"What's today's date?"

Jane told her, and relayed a few more answers.

"The best thing you can do right now is fill this out, if you're up to it," Ellie said finally, and passed over a form that had been tucked in the stack of papers on Jane's chart. "That would really help us out a lot. I wasn't on shift when you were brought in, according to this, but I'll see what I can do to get you some information on your sister's condition, and when you can see her. I know it's stressful, waiting to hear the fate of a loved one, but we'll do everything we can. You're free to sit in the holding room a bit longer, but we'll need to get your information and discharge you soon. You don't show any signs of head injury, and we need the bed," Ellie said tiredly, then moved to draw the curtain back once more.

Jane peeked out but the room seemed calm, and thusly wrong for its tranquility. It was full, but not the bloodied pit she so fearfully imagined. The injured few she caught glimpses of had bandages mummy-wrapped about various limbs or extremities, and a handful were situated in wheel chairs, all filling out forms. One older gentleman in the bed beside her took wheezing breaths into an oxygen mask on a nurse's count, inhale 1-2-3, exhale 1-2-3, the rise and fall of his chest hitching and imperfect. People were covered in grimy dust and ash.

"WesGenTech's gonna have one helluva PR mess on their hands," Ellie said absently. "No one bought the whole, 'green technology' thing at that plant. I mean, thank God it was the night shift, half the staff and all. But the bigwigs will be shelling out workman's comp to you guys for decades, assuming it was all on the up-and-up."

"Please," Jane said again, for she couldn't fathom the woman's indifference. She couldn't absorb the details of her failure when everything was mush inside her head. "What about Anna?"

"I've already paged Dr. Pierce, but he's been in some OR or another for the past six hours. It may be a while before you hear anything."

"OR? But everyone here looks fine," Jane said hopefully.

Ellie's face chilled as she cut a glance toward the rest of the room.

"This isn't the ER. These are the people who were on the lower floors, who got out before the building came down."

Jane couldn't stop the retch this time, and the water she had just sipped with her pills came right back up.

"Easy there," Ellie said, passing over a curved plastic spit tray the color of uncooked beef. "You don't have to drink any more, we've run a fluid line for you to combat the dehydration. It's easy to forget about healthy habits when you're on night shift," Ellie tried for sympathy. "You'll need to give us the address of your home clinic, so we can ask them to send over yours and your sister's records, in case she needs further treatment. Anything you can tell us would be helpful. Do you know if you and your sister are the same blood type?"

"I don't… I don't know," Jane replied. "And we don't… I mean, I don't know the address."

"Do you have an HMO card?"

"A… what?"

"Or did WGT take care of your insurance? Since you were on staff?"

"I—wha— I've got all of my information on my computer," Jane lied, because she wanted the familiar feel of keys beneath her fingers. When faced with such uncertainty, with inconceivable tragedy, the last thing she wanted to do was answer a form full of inconsequential questions. None of it mattered because:

Anna is in ICU.

Anna is alive.

Jane needed Olaf and she needed him now.

"Do you have a laptop I could use?" Jane asked, resigned. While in her head she screamed, Do you think you could move your ass and tell me if my loversisterAnnafriendfianceassholemotherfuckingAcon is even stable?

"All of our medical information is on a… in the, uh, Cloud, so I can complete this form if I can access the Internet," Jane said.

"You can't use electronic devices in the holding rooms. It freezes the equipment."

Jane suppressed a groan and wiped her hand over her face.

"But there are computers for public use in the lobby. Let me get you a wheelchair and I can take you out there. This doesn't mean you're being released yet, though. Not until we get those papers."

"I understand."

Ellie positioned the chair near the edge of the bed and hefted Jane up firmly from under her armpits. Her feet hardly brushed the ground but she winced, placing them gingerly into the foot pedals once she was settled.

"And your personal effects," Ellie said, passing over a clear bag to Jane. The nurse eyed the tattered white cloth Jane had worn at WGT for two weeks straight. Unable to stomach further conversation, Jane clapped her hands atop the bag and decided to explore its contents when out of Ellie's sight.

"Here you go," Ellie said, rolling her up to a behemoth of a monitor, circa 1998.

The lobby bustled with a weary, restless energy that the holding room hadn't possessed. Phones didn't stop ringing in the standing-room only area. Visitors and nurses alike burst through doors with hurricane force, only to find a friend or fellow staff member and calm instantly as they exchanged quiet, desperate words. They had triaged the massive numbers as soon as news of the catastrophe spread, and a cluster of lightly battered patients were huddled in one corner, grimly filling out forms as nurses called for papers and numbers at rapid-fire pace, like health care auctioneers. Children stacked blinking blocks in a play section while a young man cried softly into his palm near the reception desk. To her right was an elderly woman in glasses thick as hockey pucks, lucklessly websearching medical suits and cheap New Jersey lawyers.

Worried wives and brothers and children and parents waited to hear the good news, the bad news, the news, of that man with his shoulder out of joint, of that woman coming out of a gall bladder surgery. Of that mother whose spine had been crushed under a cement block. The grandfather who didn't make it.

And tonight, they all awaited news of the people Jane had hurt.

Jane pushed it down, down, down, but still found herself irrationally angry at Anna. Furious with a woman who might be in critical condition, because she didn't think it through.

"They won't stop, Jane. We have to fight!"

Jane blinked and turned her attention to the monitor.

"Thank you," Jane said, devoid of thanks. "How can I reach you if-?"

A doctor pushed through a set of swinging double doors on the far side of the room and hollered, "Bates!"

A thin, fragile-looking woman with hair the color of corn kernels shot up with a child on her hip and raced toward the doctor. Rushed words passed between mother and M.D., until a gigantic smile and a grateful sob shattered the woman's worry. She flung her arms around the doctor's neck while the toddler gurgled into her shoulder. She released the doctor and two other children came scampering up from the play area, a dark-headed boy dragging a ratty stuffed ostrich in his wake. The kids collapsed upon their mother and all seemed to breathe easier.

"It's nice to see the good news delivered, when the big accidents come in. Just have a little faith," Ellie said, catching Jane's sight line. "And once this is all said and done, you should really rethink keeping so much information online. My second cousin had her identity stolen, and it was hell getting everything sorted again."

Jane looked blankly from Ellie, to the family, to the monitor, and then back to the nurse.

"Having my identity stolen is the least of my concerns at the present moment," she breathed. "Now go find my sister."

It took a too-long five minutes to hack the hospital system and find Anna's room. But she was injured, and pissed, and sad, so Jane cut herself a hefty portion of slack while infiltrating the hospital's slip-shod system. It blinked and scattered with every release and transfer, so it was with minor trepidation that she set to work arranging Anna's own transfer into New York City.

Jane couldn't very well have a doctor come out and yell her surname when they were ready to release details on Anna's condition. She was in a roomful of WGT employees and bereft relations, and a name like Arrendale, even if the staff didn't know its true significance, was a ticking time bomb under the pressurized, close-quarters of the hospital lobby. It hadn't been wise to give her real name.

My real name.

Jane downloaded Olaf to the hospital PC and was overjoyed to see his familiar face, running slowly and glitching occasionally in a dark window at the top left of the ancient screen. He fixed everything, provided all the necessary information with a dopey grin, and expressed his hope of seeing her in person (well, as 'in person' as a semi-sentient hologram can get) within the upcoming days.

"Is A coming home, too?" the question appeared, innocent and ingenuous, in Olaf's text box.

"I don't know," Jane typed back.

"Why?"

"Because she's injured."

"Well, when she gets better then?"

"I don't know, Olaf."

"Why not? You said she was family, now."

Jane heard the pointed clearing of a throat behind her and ducked her head for what felt like the hundredth time. She'd been monopolizing one of only three computers in this lobby for the better part of an hour, and with every impatient grunt she heard, she was afraid she'd be jabbed by one of those SWAT men in insulated suits, stolen away and hooked to a generator for the rest of her sorry days.

"Sorry, 'm almost done," Jane said to the boy behind her.

"Whatever," he grumbled, and threw a gym bag to the ground behind her. He leaned against the wall and slid down, shoving his hand into his sweats and whipping out a smart phone.

"Jane?" Olaf typed.

"I'm angry with her, Olaf. She… I… it's complicated."

"Well uncomplicate it. If she's hurt, you should be there for her."

"I'm trying Olaf. It's quite hectic where we are."

"But she's alright, isn't she? You know that, at least."

"I— they won't let me see her."

"When has that ever stopped you before?"

…

…

…

"Fair point," Jane typed. "Have a courier pick up some clothes and my extra duffel from the safehouse in Brooklyn. I'm getting Anna transferred into the city. I'll forward the address of the new hospital and the room number once I get confirmation."

"Why are you getting her transferred?"

"It's—"

"Complicated? Sure," he typed, but his glasses-clad face had sunk into a simple frown, all green lines and endearing digits on the screen. "I'm always here to help," he typed.

"Thank you, Olaf."

After another glance at the hospital schematics, a quick double check to make sure they hadn't moved her, again, Jane logged off.

"Sorry," Jane murmured to the boy below her. "It's all yours."

"Thanks," the boy choked out. His voice was weary, dehydrated and sapped. "You'd think I could email from the phone, but the wireless reception sucks in here."

"There's probably a lot of traffic right now."

The boy made a noncommittal noise.

"I can make it to where your phone can send the email without the wireless connection, or even decent reception, for that matter," Jane said. She offered involuntarily, as if this one small kindness might absolve her of… well, not everything, but at least something.

"Really?" the teen said, handing his device over. He had stubble on his chin and a scratch over his lip, as if he hadn't quite gotten the handle of a razor. There was a lacrosse stick lying against his gym bag, and a cow-lick on the crown of his curly head. He looked tired. Everyone in the waiting room looked tired.

Jane unlocked his home screen without asking for a passcode, fingers flying and surging and content with the easy task at hand. She liked being busy. Tedium was preferable to dwelling, because dwelling was… unpleasant.

"You should call," Jane said softly, handing the phone over to the boy. "It'll send now, even if there's no wireless and poor reception."

"How did you do that?" the boy asked, fat fingers tapping inexpertly at the screen.

"Magic," Jane said tensely. "But news, whatever yours is… you should call. I'm not that… I mean… I don't want to tell you what to do, but this isn't something I'd want to read in an email."

"My sister's with my aunt in Australia," the boy said, looking up from his phone, and down at Jane. "She… she's s-studying, in Perth, and my mom—" his eyes were flooding, his words too somber for a boy who was only just learning how to shave, who had probably come straight from a late lacrosse practice. "I can't call right now, but I need to tell someone— shit, sorry," the boy said, and swiped at his eyes. "She didn't make it," he mumbled.

"I—I… I'm sorry," Jane said. She knew the impotence of the words before they'd even left her mouth. Had felt their ineffectuality the whole of her life. She had mastered self-soothing, but it wasn't a talent she wished for others to perfect. As if fixing a phone could replace a mother. "What about your father—"

"Gone," he hissed, and pounded another nail in Jane's coffin. "It's just, God, this is not your problem—"

"No," Jane said, and reached out—she reached out— to the crying boy before her. "It's okay. You'll be okay."

"Fuck, this is just, life, and… you know, it's—"

"What's your name?" Jane asked.

"Theo," the boy said. "But when mom was pissed she called me Theodore."

"A mother's prerogative," Jane answered. As if she had any right or claim to a mother's prerogative. "Theo, I… you're going to be alright."

"Yeah," he sniffed, sliding down against the wall. He didn't look up at her in her rolling chair. "Thanks."

"You will be," Jane said, more to herself than to him. She ducked her head again when she saw a man in a dirty white coat staring at her intently from across the room. She rolled the side of her wheel chair away, and hunched her shoulders to a crouching Theo. "I have to go check on someone now, but you'll be okay," Jane said to him, vowed it to herself. She rotated the wheel and headed for the stairwell, which no one questioned as nonsensical, in the midst of their own personal calamities.

"Hey!" Theo asked, and turned his head to wipe his nose on his short sleeve. "Did your someone… did they make it okay?"

"Yes," Jane said.

"Good."

"Yes. Good."

She wheeled herself into Stairwell C, and proceeded to climb three floors on blistered, cracked feet. The gauze was a soppy, leaky crimson mess by the time she reached the appropriate landing. Jane wandered down corridors, blended into walls, and avoided nurses who seemed more concerned with hall-patrol than medication administration. She tiptoed on torn feet into the ICU, a ward so full patients and machines spilled out into hallways. She left only the barest of bloody footprints, and had to wipe up behind her to literally, not digitally this time, erase her trail. Even under sky-blue hospital blankets, she recognized the amputees. Jane bypassed those in traction, ones with braces and rods and ugly purple welts rippling over warped skin where screws protruded, ugly and accusing, from bodies of wounded people.

Good people. Bad people. Pain had no moral compass, didn't discriminate. Pain didn't care.

She located the room and, with disgust and gratitude and dread and joy, she shouldered the door open and slipped past the first bed to the patient behind the fifth partition.

Anna lay sleeping on her back in a graying hospital gown. Her complexion matched the color of the worn sheets, washed out and pallid; such that her freckles noticeably popped, stark blotches against the background of dry skin. Her ankle was wrapped and elevated, an ice pack attached to its side. A clear tube ran up an IV pole and onto the bed. It curled over Anna's shoulder and branched into two pinched inserts that fit in her nostrils.

Anna breathed, heavy and slow.

Jane approached, because she needed to see, needed to feel Anna alive beneath her touch. Jane spread her fingers across Anna's chest and felt it, gloriously, that warm heart thudding against her palm. And she was grateful for Anna's life, and happy for her survival. She loved Anna, she did, this confounding woman who ruined her and bettered her.

Jane sat and waited on the team that would surely come within the hour, the transfer medics that would be moving and operating under her own covert orchestrations.

Jane sat and waited and loved her.

And she hated her.

At least it's not a cliff hanger. Sort of a, chapter within-a-chapter. Thank you for all of your reviews, critique always appreciated!