Black Hawk, which was what he called himself rather than his given name, lay quietly in the bed, observing his surroundings. He wasn't sure but thought he'd drifted in and out of sleep for several days.

He remembered the doctor's cool hand against his burning cheek, the concern in her voice over his temperature, remembered her removing the tube from his IV when she had nothing left to put through it anyway, though the small tail, the 'port', she'd called it, was still stuck inside his arm. She'd brought him liquids to sip through a straw, forced him to swallow pills he didn't want. She changed the pads under his leg when it started bleeding again, re-bandaged the wound and fussed over him in a way that no one had since he'd been a small boy.

The lady's apartment was a tiny, one bedroom flat with a main room, kitchenette, bedroom and bath. The main room had been set up to be half-bedroom, half-office. A hospital-style bed with hospital-grade equipment around it took up almost a third of the space. From the bed, a pair of leather tethers hung ominously from the rails.

The remainder of the room was nearly all office; the wall between the kitchen door and bathroom was almost entirely hung with computer monitors over a long desk, while a couch with a coffee table in the center of the room, directly in front of the door, served as the only nod toward what the space was originally intended to be.

Three doorways led from the main room. To the right of the outside door, a kitchenette was separated from the main room by a wall with a pass-through large enough to serve as a bar, in and of itself. Toward the rear were two doors, side by side. What was meant to be the bedroom but was filled with various gym equipment stood to the right of a small bathroom whose door was only a few paces from the office area.

As he perused the room, the doctor slept on her couch, exhausted from caring for her patient and herself as well as consulting by video well into the night on other doctors' patients. He'd seen her routine repeat at least three times.

The screens all had different functions, he'd discovered. One for video-chat to whatever doctor was asking for the consultation, one for viewing computer-generated information such as MRI or CT scans, one for her word-processor, another was a flat-screen TV and still another appeared to be hooked into her apartment building's security cameras since it showed simultaneous images of just outside her apartment, just outside the main door and what appeared to be a corridor and a back alley.

Black Hawk noticed that behind her keyboards, amid her paperwork and computer accessories, she owned a device similar to those of his enemies. It was older, her device, but appeared serviceable. Similar to a cell phone, the communications device, commonly referred to as a 'comm' by ECHO personnel, was designed to strap to a wrist in order to use the body's own kinetic energy to power it. Once flipped open, one had only to voice a code name and that ECHO operative would be instantly connected to something akin to video chat. It was never out of range that he'd seen and could be tracked only by other ECHO operatives.

It seemed to Black Hawk that the strange and mysterious Dr. Hall knew far more than she let on. Why, if she were ECHO, did she not turn him in to them? Why had she not left him to the scant mercies of Nakimura and his apprentices? For that matter, why was she not wearing her comm? The crippled woman was a puzzle and Black Hawk enjoyed such puzzles.

"Have you been awake long?" Dr. Hall's question brought his eyes back to the woman in the couch. She was sitting up, ready to begin her day. Her long, honey-colored hair was still braided but tendrils had managed to escape here and there, giving the braid a slightly ragged appearance. The deep circles of exhaustion around her eyes were muted but still there. Interest and compassion lit her expression as she looked up from the black, leather-bound book she was reading. He'd seen her reading it before, always before she began her daily routine.

"Not long," he lied. The truth would have brought more medication and Black Hawk preferred the pain to having his thoughts cloudy and his reaction slowed. He'd been awake most of the night, unable to sleep through the throbbing of his head and leg and the deep ache of his ribs and kidney whenever he took a breath. At least he was no longer feverish.

"I asked how long you were awake, not how long you slept." A grin took the sting from her comment. "I've been where you are. How can I take proper care of you, if you lie to me?"

"You've been where I am?" Black Hawk lifted one wrist to indicate his restraints. Not that they would stop him if he cared to get out of bed, but the good doctor hardly needed to know that.

"Restraints and all," she confirmed. "How do you think I ended up in the chair, and why do you think those pills are non-habit forming?" She stood up and got into her chair. "Six-and-a-half wasn't always that long."

"My apologies, it was a thoughtless question."

Her reply told Black Hawk much. He knew that she'd once been an addict and that someone had helped her to detox in this very room, which meant that someone loved her enough to help. That she lived alone and had the doorman opening up for her instead of a trusted neighbor told him that Dr. Hall was also a loner, having sent the loved ones away. If six-and-a-half minutes hadn't always been that long, she must be a very determined woman.

"Are you hungry?" She headed her chair into the kitchen.

"Thirsty," he admitted despite being rather hungry. His thirst was more pressing, and Black Hawk could go hungry if need be.

She returned with two glasses in a tray clipped to the sides of her chair, both tall, both sweating with condensation to show they contained something cold, both appearing to contain the same substance. "Vanilla milkshake?" she offered. "You choose; green straw or blue- and I drink the other. No tricks, no hidden meds."

Black Hawk considered it. She'd drugged him several times while he'd been feverish. Knowing she'd hidden the narcotics in his drink before made him wary of accepting her offer- but surely, she couldn't guess which drink he'd choose. Either both of them would be drugged or neither. It was a tempting offer. "Green," he capitulated.

She propped the cup where he could sip at it. He tasted it carefully, not detecting any bitter aftertaste that would warn of trickery on her part. The sweet, vanilla flavor was light, the icy liquid soothing his parched throat and rolling stomach. Whatever alcohol she'd given him with his pills affected him like no other. He truly hoped he wouldn't disgrace himself by vomiting on the bed.

"I'm sorry about the alcohol and the meds," she told him, sipping her own breakfast. "They always gave me a nasty hang-over, but it sure does help to begin with. I promise from now on though; now that your fever seems to have broken, no drugs unless you ask for them."

"Why?" He thought it a strange promise for her to make, considering her actions up until then. Why did it matter to her? He was bound, unable to resist- more because of pain and loss of blood than because of the straps that encircled his wrists.

"Because I was hooked on pain meds for a long time and they're a hard habit to break. Ordinarily, I don't insist on pills, but that was emergency field medicine, not hospital."

"You are ECHO." It wasn't so much accusation as confirmation. Any doubts he'd had about that had been put to rest by her remark about field medicine.

"I was, for a while," she confirmed. There was a latent anger in the admission.

Curiosity got the better of him. "You are a surgeon, Board-Certified in three special areas, all related to critical mass. You claim to have been ECHO but no longer, yet I have never known of an ECHO to leave the unit alive." Black Hawk studied her reaction carefully.

She shook her head, lips tight. "No, I guess not. There's a saying, 'once an ECHO, always an ECHO.'" It was obvious to him that even though her heart still lay with ECHO, she was unwilling to admit it to herself.

"Yet, you are not an ECHO," Black Hawk clarified, "was it because of your legs?"

"I got left behind."

"Impossible," he denied. Black Hawk had studied the group for a long time, knew them as well as he knew his own. "ECHOs never leave anyone behind. They will move mountains to retrieve one of their own when the need arises. It is something I use against them, from time to time."

"Yet, here I am," she countered, eyes narrowed as she met his gaze, "dreaming almost every night of the jungle and a jeep that never came back for me." Her straw made a sucking sound, protesting the empty glass. "Are you finished?"

Black Hawk's glass was only half-empty but he nodded anyway, too tired to finish it. "Thank you." Perhaps it would be good to close the subject before she began to question him in return.

"You're welcome." She fetched his glass and switched straws so she could finish his shake.

Her actions made Black Hawk grin before he closed his eyes, knowing his mask would hide his emotions from her. He wasn't sure if she merely wanted more milkshake or if she wanted to prove that she hadn't drugged his; but the action was endearing, nonetheless. He likened her to his older sister, who had been the last person to take such care of him.

Warm, honest sleep crept over him and Black Hawk embraced it, knowing it wouldn't be the forced unconsciousness of drugs that brought no dreams and left the sleeper feeling as tired when he awoke as before he'd slept. When he awoke, the light over his bed was off but the computer monitors were on, showing a lovely looking, severely dressed business woman talking to the doctor.

"Deirdre, are you okay? You look tired."

"No, I'm not okay. That's why I need a vacation. Just a few days- until Thursday I guess."

"Will you be available for consultation?" The woman, Vietnamese by Black Hawk's guess, had a sharp inflection to her question.

"No, of course not; that is the point of a vacation, right?" Dr. Hall- Deirdre- grinned while the other woman laughed. "I'll be fine, Liz, really. Just give me some down time, okay?"

"This is highly irregular, Dr. Hall. I must say. This is the first time you've asked for time off since you came on staff. I can't have you skipping vacations all the time, two weeks- and no arguments." The older woman paused, then added playfully, "and not a day less, you understand me?"

Dr. Deirdre Hall laughed. "Yes, Dr. Webster. Thank you."

"Now you get some sleep, okay?" Dr. Webster peered at the monitor closely. "I see a few lights on behind your bed. You're not moonlighting, are you?"

Black Hawk felt a frisson of real fear, but Dr. Hall only laughed. "Me? Don't be silly. Those are for me. I'm going to bed as soon as I shut down this call."

"You better! Good night, D. D. Enjoy your time off." The screen went blank.

Dr. Hall sighed and shut down her computer screens- all but the security monitor- and turned her chair around. "That was close."

"What would happen if you were caught?" His question made her jump.

"We would both go to jail."

"Am I not headed there anyway?"

She rolled her chair over to the bed and pressed a button. A soft light over his headboard turned on, illuminating the immediate surroundings. The only other light was from the security monitor. Black Hawk realized he was partly sitting up rather than being flat on his back as he had been. "Why would you think that?" asked the doctor.

"Because you know who Nakimura is and recognize the symbol on my gi. Is your plan not to call the ECHOs as soon as you're sure I will survive?"

"No."

"No?" He pretended to pull at his restraint a little, challenging her answer.

Her grin was tight, wary. "Let's just say this is my first chance at payback- a decade overdue and not nearly enough."

"Is that why you ran them off?" he marveled, feeling the pieces of her puzzle start to come together in his mind. "And when you deem me fit to leave?"

"Then you will leave."

"If you consider the ECHOs your enemies, why not join us? Is not the enemy of your enemy a friend?"

She thought about it. "Does hating the dog make a rat friend to the cat? Thank you, but no. I've seen enough of Orage to know better." She turned her chair around abruptly and wheeled herself into the back room.

Black Hawk realized too late that Orage was somehow responsible for her crippling condition. Soon, Black Hawk heard the whirr of equipment and the steady beat of her stride on a treadmill. Only a short time later, with her stride still at a flat-out run, he heard a solid thump.

The treadmill powered down immediately. "NO!" Deirdre screamed in a frustrated voice. "Not again! I hate six-and-a-half minutes!" There were a few muffled scrapes, followed by the steady sound of blows landing on a punching bag.

Black Hawk felt ashamed of the emblem painted on his chest. Orage, intentionally mispronounced O-rage by the ECHOs, came from the French word for 'storm'. The Orage organization was a tightly-run group of terrorists, mercenaries and gun-runners, all at the beckon-call of their leader, the Commandant.

The Commandant was purely profit-driven and would do whatever he wished to in order to make money, even to the point of starting senseless wars or organizing riots- all quietly and from the background, of course. Black Hawk was in the Commandant's employ when the occasion warranted, which is to say, when it suited Black Hawk's purposes.

The blows in the back room continued for a long time, outlasting his ability to stay awake in spite of his pain. When Black Hawk woke up, a glass of water rested near his cheek. Dr. Hall was parked in her chair next to the couch, reading a newspaper. An empty plate sat on the coffee table nearby.

He sipped at the water. She looked up and sat the paper aside. Without a word, she wheeled her chair to where he lay. Lights came on at a touch of her fingers. He noted where on the bed she'd touched, noticed that most of the symbols had worn off through time and use.

Her pen-light shined in his eyes. "You still show signs of a concussion. It's not healing well." He watched her tend the wound on his leg. "No infection so far, but you will have a nasty scar there."

"It will not be the first."

"No, nor will it be the last if you insist on continuing as you have been." She donned a stethoscope and applied the proper end to his chest. "Take deep breaths."

He did so, stifling his pain as best he could. "Roll on your side?"

He complied awkwardly so she could listen to his back. "You don't have a punctured lung, but you are beginning to develop pneumonia. You need to breathe more deeply."

"I am Black Hawk." He decided to trust her to keep her word.

She nodded, "Dr. Deirdre D. Hall." He didn't miss that there was no pleasantry after it, merely a statement of her name. She was not pleased to have met him, nor were they 'well-met'. Silently, she removed a disposable pad from beneath him and worked a fresh one in its place, frowning at the heft and the blood stains on the discarded pad.

Black Hawk felt oddly disappointed by her reaction. Not merely because she was a pretty woman or because she'd saved his life, but that despite her having tied him to her bed, she didn't want him there. He realized that the symbol painted onto the front of his gi made him partly responsible for her troubles, at least in her eyes.

"Thank you." He hoped she understood what he meant.

"I did what had to be done." She understood all right.

"If I had been my adversary or one of his students, would you have done the same?" Black Hawk pushed the issue, wanting to know if she saw him as a person first, or an agent of Orage first.

"The ECHOs never leave anyone behind." There was bitterness in her voice, hidden behind her careless shrug. "I wouldn't have needed to."

"I know." He drank a little more of his water. "Why did you not call the police when you saw the fight, or an ambulance when I was lying in the street?"

"Because you would have ended up in prison; the hospital must report all such injuries."

"And?" he asked. Black Hawk was surprised by her answer and wanted to know why she cared.

"And . . ." She paused thoughtfully, a blush staining her pretty face. After a moment, she answered. "It would be caging a tiger."

"Dangerous for the handlers?" Black Hawk pictured the tigers he'd seen in the Tokyo Zoo as a child. They'd always paced, eyeing the crowd malevolently as they walked circuits around their enclosures in search of weaknesses in the fence.

"And maybe I like to see the wild remain so." She paused but before he could answer, she continued. "Perhaps I'm being a fool. Maybe when you are able to leave, you'll go straight to your master and I'll end up being returned to the one responsible for all this. But," she sighed tightly and finished her thought in a resigned voice. "What's done is done; I'm a doctor above all things."

Something about her answers warned him that there was more to the story. It hadn't been lies, exactly, but Black Hawk could sense that she hadn't been entirely candid, either. The sense of mystery surrounding her grew, making his desire to solve it grow in proportion.

"My master is in Japan, awaiting word that I have finished my task."

"So, you are Yakuza first? What of the Commandant?"

"Merely a means to an end," he assured her, hiding his surprise at her insight. Not many people knew or even guessed that he was Yakuza, not even those in Orage who often grew frustrated with his wavering loyalties.

She appeared to consider this. "The Yakuza aren't in the habit of taking names like our own Native Americans. Tell me, why did you choose that name?"

"Black is the color of rage, of bitterness, of death- and the hawk always finds his prey."

"You are angry and bitter then, but death?"

"Will come to the one who betrayed me, who left me to die in a burning building," he promised tightly, feeling his scars afresh.

Deirdre nodded her understanding. "Drink your water while I get you something to eat. You lost a lot of blood and you need the fluids."

"When you return," he started, then stopped, embarrassed at being forced to admit weakness. He'd been slipping out of his bonds to use the bathroom while she slept, but his need was great and she showed no sign of sleep. She turned her chair and raised her brows, waiting. "I need to get rid of fluids."

Dr. Hall only nodded and changed direction toward the bathroom. When she returned, she held a bottle with a handle. "You should be able to reach." Immediately, she turned her back and wheeled herself into the kitchen, returning after an appropriate length of time with a sandwich. "Roast beef on whole grain bread with spinach greens and cheese."

"An interesting choice." He eyed the plate, dubiously considering the enormous pieces of bakery-bread stacked with meat, cheese and crisp, fresh greens.

"Designed with blood count in mind; plenty of iron in the beef, the spinach and the grains." She took the bottle with the handle from him and set it aside.

"Will you please remove my mask?"

"Are you sure?"

"No- but starving to death will accomplish nothing." He decided that he could risk being honest, allowing his humble need to be known.

"I wondered how long you would go," she grinned at him, then rolled his mask up just far enough to reveal his mouth and jaw before she held up the sandwich for him to bite. Though she undoubtedly saw the edges of the scars hiding under his mask, she didn't comment or even allow her gaze to linger on his exposed features.

Black Hawk took a bite, savoring the taste of the food that spread over his tongue. The sandwich was good, he discovered. She'd toasted the bottom half, the meat and cheese, before adding the spinach and top crust. He managed to eat most of it before the pain in his head made him too dizzy to hold his head up any further. He closed his eyes. "You can take it off, if you wish," he murmured.

She lowered the mask back down where it had been instead. "I've always been able to," the doctor reminded him quietly, "rest now." He nodded once and went back to sleep, feeling safe with her.

<><