Missing In Action
Part One
By Aeris Jade
aerisjade@worldnet.att.net

Rating: R
Pairing: Weaver, Legapsi, Ensemble
Beta Reader: Scotty Welles
Spoilers: Some season seven spoilers so be warned

Note: I really shouldn't be posting the last of my other story plus these two parts together, however RL is a little hectic right now so I couldn't guarentee when I'd be able to post this and the next part. Beside's I'm too impatient to keep ya'll in suspence.

Disclaimer: Finders keepers, loser's weepers



Kerry shut her hiking pack with a finality that made her flinch. She hated herself for agreeing to go, hated herself for even considering it. The bastard had no right to do this to her after all this time. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? 'Maybe he's finally come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to take him back.'

Kerry glanced around desperately one last time. She felt like she was forgetting something. She was packed and had let Randi know that she would be taking the week off. Yanking up the twenty-year-old bag, she started downstairs. If she didn't leave soon she'd miss her flight.

It had been almost impossible to charter the flight to begin with, having to be satisfied with a private flight. The man in question had been less than ideal but she had no other choice. His blazing red hair and homey green eyes betrayed a darker, more savage spirit than she was comfortable with.

Kerry grabbed the old leather jacket and gloves from her closet. She still had this nagging feeling... She stopped by the door and eyed the hall phone.

Kim. She really should call the psychiatrist and let her know that she was going out of town. If she didn't show up after last night's misunderstanding, Kim would probably think she was avoiding her. Not that she hadn't considered that option. Then again Randi probably had the news of her 'vacation' all over the ER by now, plus running a pool on why she was going.

Kerry began out the front door before stopping. On impulse, she went into the living room and removed the large African hunting knife from the fireplace. The leather jacket's former owner had specially tailored it so that the knife, in its worn leather sheath, fit snuggly into an improvised pocket in the back of the jacket. Once in place, it lay tight across the small of her back, handle down near her waist, angled toward her right hip. With the jacket and hiking pack on, the knife was impossible to detect, but she could draw it with a quick twist of her wrist.

Maybe it wouldn't be needed, but if things worked out the way she feared, it could also save her life.

Taking one last look around she flung the hiking bag onto her back and left. She had always known that the past would catch up on her, she just never expected it to happen so soon.



Kim tapped her desk again, unable to keep her mind on the chart in front of her. She had been so sure of the signs. Rapid breathing, dilated pupils. She thought she saw the redhead check her out a few times. Kerry had always responded to her flirtation, so how could she have read her so wrong, or had she?

Kerry's reaction to her last night had been strange. She knew the woman well enough to know that she wasn't one to get flustered no matter what the situation. So why did she get flustered last night? Could she honestly find her attractive and be in denial?

There were too many questions and she had no answers. Maybe Kerry had just needed a chance to think it over...

Kim made her mind up and left her office. She needed to talk to her.



Kerry eyed the plane wearily. She never had much luck with them. All her flights ended up in disaster for some reason. Food poisoning, delays, rerouted flight plans, pilots having heart attacks, the list was incredible. At least, since this was a privately chartered flight, she hadn't had to go through airport security. Her knife would have set off the metal detectors, and that would have complicated matters.

"Ma'am? We're ready to take off," said the co-pilot, standing just outside the plane's door.

Kerry swallowed back her sudden flash of apprehension. He was Irish. It had to be a coincidence. Kerry climbed the steps to the plane, pausing just inside to take in the interior. Everything was maroon and black. Weird...most private and small jets were light in color.

There were seats for six people if you included the sofa on each side of the small plane. She could see parachutes next to the door. That fact made her feel a little safer if for no other reason in case the plane went down.

She silently chided herself. With her luck she shouldn't be thinking that. The two bulks of muscle in the very back caught her attention. They were dressed simply. She thought she could see a bulge under their left armpits. She dismissed that thought.

"Ma'am, if you'll be seated...?"

Kerry graciously dropped onto the couch right next to the door. The man with long curly brown hair smiled at her reminding her of a tarantula she once found in the bathtub in Africa. She was going to keep an eye on this one, just in case his bite was poisonous.



"Do you know where Kerry is?"

Randi's head snapped up quickly, the glint in her eyes catching Kim's attention. The desk clerk leaned over and grinned. "She called this morning and said she was taking the week off. It turns out she charted a flight to Northern British Columbia."

Carter glanced up from his chart, trying to decide whether to chide them for gossiping about his friend or joining in. He had to admit that his curiosity was killing him. "Did she say why?"

"No, only that she had some personal business to take care of."

"Did she leave a number where she could be reached?"

Randi eyed Kim with sudden interest. The same interest with which she always eyed potential gossip. "I'm only supposed to give it if there's an emergency."

"It is one."

Randi leaned her elbows on the desk and grinned like a vulture. "What kind of an emergency?"

"A private one."

Randi shrugged and straightened up, turning back to work. "Then I have no way of knowing if you're lying and Dr. Weaver left very specific instructions."

Kim eyed the crowded desk. Everyone was acting like they were working but she could tell they were listening and if she told the desk clerk the truth then the whole hospital would find out. She couldn't do that to Kerry, she'd just have to wait or... "One of her friends was killed last night..."

"I'll call her..."

Kim smiled at Randi. "No, I really need to be the one. I have all the details."

Randi was sizing her up. The desk clerk knew that, unlike Kerry, she was capable of wheeling and dealing on several levels. "You can give them to me."

"I'm a close friend though, and it would probably be better coming from me."

"How close?" Randi asked, archly jumping on the opening immediately.

Kim winced inwardly. She knew better than that. "Give me the number."

"Tell me and I will."

"Give it to me, then I'll answer you."

Randi removed a piece of scrape paper from a pile and held it thoughtfully. After a long moment she handed to Kim and waited.

Kim checked the paper then grinned evilly. "We're friends."

With that she spun around and walked toward the lounge aware that she'd just made an enemy of a very dangerous woman.



Kerry kept her breathing slow and shallow, feigning sleep.

She felt some amount of safety from the large 14-inch bone-handled hunting knife strapped to her back. Its hardness against her spine made it difficult to find a comfortable sitting position, and would have made sleep impossible in any event, but right now that discomfort was something she welcomed. It was a constant reminder of the danger she was almost certainly in, and would keep her sharp.

Another reason why the knife was a totem of good fortune. It had been a gift from the woman that had inspired her to pursue medicine.

It hadn't started out as anything she really been interested in. She had been a teenager, unsure about what she wanted from life, more unsure of what she wanted to do. She studied music and art. Her drawings were good enough for her to consider it for a career but it didn't feel right.

Her foster parents, as much as they loved her, barely made enough money to survive from month to month. Most of their food came from their farm in Africa, and the rest went into research on the local animal life.

She'd only gone into Americorps because they couldn't afford to send her to college, so the program was one of her only hopes. She spent the next three years traveling around the world, helping everyone from hurricane victims to ancient tribes in need of medical attention. Which is how she was first introduced to medicine.

There had been an outbreak in one of the tribes native to the rain forest in South America. The Americorps had been sent in with the Red Cross and half a dozen other groups. Dr. Amelia Rynes had been the person in charge of the entire project. She was short, well toned, and a woman to be feared. Her long black hair was pulled back into an unruly French braid, her black eyes changing from sharp and snappy to warm and understanding in a moment's time.

Kerry had been taken with the woman almost immediately. Dr. Rynes had noticed her interest in her and taken her under her wing. Teaching her everything from tracking to field medicine. Over the month in the rain forest, Kerry had discovered that the older woman had been orphaned as a child, spent her residency in Africa, and gone on to join GreenPeace and the corps.

Then, one morning, she'd woken up to find the doctor gone. She'd left during the night leaving her favorite knife and leather jacket just inside Kerry's tent. All she'd been able to find out was that there had been a family emergency.

After that she'd felt a strong passion to be a doctor. To take control of a chaotic situation and make it more bearable...

A soft click caused her to open her eyes.

The silver-colored gun was pointed straight at her forehead. Tarantula Boy smiled as his finger tightened on the trigger.

In such moments, all human beings make a fundamental choice. Either they reject what they see, believing 'no, this can't be happening', and then they die in the paralysis of fear. Or they accept that yes, it is happening, and they proceed to deal with it as best they can.

And Kerry Weaver was, of course, the "Deal With It" Queen.

Kerry clenched her teeth and lashed out with both hands. The left seized the co-pilot's gun wrist and yanked it to the side, just as the gun went off. Kerry felt the hot puff of gunsmoke against her cheek, and the noise clapped her ears, stealing her hearing on that side, but the bullet went into the fuselage of the plane, not her cerebellum.

Her right hand, in the same moment, thrust forward, the heel of her hand impacting the co-pilot's nose where it met his upper lip. The force of her blow was increased by her left hand pulling his arm in the other direction, and the cartilage of his nose was driven sharply upward into his skull. His dying thought was no doubt surprise that her being crippled didn't equate to her being helpless. Serves you right, she thought.

The two other passengers, who had never introduced themselves, showed no such surprise. They were already reaching into their jackets.

Kerry put the boot on her good leg against the dead man's chest and shoved hard, yelling something she could hear through the ringing in her own ears, and the corpse fell heavily against the first gunman, rendering him momentarily helpless. The second, an auburn-haired man, avoided the grisly missile, and as he drew his pistol, the sleeve on his left arm pulled up enough to reveal the tattoo on his left wrist.

In a quick decision, she threw herself off the sofa and lunged toward the front of the cabin, scrambling to keep her feet and reach the cockpit and whatever momentary safety it might hold. Her crutch still lay abandoned, as there'd been no time to thread her arm through its cuff before the violence began.

Although the man's initial shots had missed because of her unexpected reflexes, Kerry's safety was short-lived. The cabin of the plane held almost no shelter or cover, and even an able-bodied person couldn't escape for more than a heartbeat. Kerry knew this even as she made her desperate lunge for life.

And then something struck her in the spine with the force of a piledriver.

She screamed in shock and hurt as the impact of the bullet drove her forward and slammed her against the closed cockpit door. She felt the impact of the wall along the entire front of her body, in counterpoint to the sharp, concentrated injury in her back, and she slumped hopelessly against the rack of parachutes.

Even then, she knew something was a little off. She hurt terribly from the gunshot, but not in the way she should. There was an intense ache, but not the burning, piercing sensation she expected, or the liquid, leaking feeling of her own blood filling the wrong cavities of her torso. By some miracle, she hadn't been killed.

"Jesus, get 'im off me!" she heard the first gunman yelling behind her, still weighed down with the co-pilot's body.

"Relax, I got her," the second replied, turning to pull the dead man off his partner. "Bloody bitch had some fight in her, though."

The fury that thundered through her at his words swept away her feelings of helplessness and despair. She took hold of the nearest parachute and pulled herself painfully upright.

"Bloody hell, she's up! Finish her, quick!"

The hell you will, she thought in a moment of intense clarity.

Clenching her fingers tightly around the chute's strap, she reached over with her other hand to the lever of the cabin hatch and yanked hard.

The door opened, virtually exploding off its hinges as the sudden hurricane of air pressure ripped it away. Kerry had only the slightest instant to hear the gunmen screaming in shock before the suction yanked her violently out of the plane.

Then she was tumbling in midair, countless hundreds of feet above ground with nothing between her and the earth plummeting upwards at her. The icy wind howled in her ears, drowning out her screams...



Aeris Jade Orion
AIM: Aeris Jade
ICQ: 51496263
AT&T/Pow-Wow: Jade
Pow-Wow Community: Orion

Web Site: http://www.geocities.com/aeris3996

" This act hasn't been seen in 20 years, and if i'm any judge of talent it will never be seen again."
- Theres no business, like show business