The next day I was feeling a little better. Most of my broken bones were reconnected, though the doctors still would not let me take the collar and brace off. I ached all over but my bruises were gone. The cuts were scabbed over and healing nicely. If my luck held, it would be like the first time and I wouldn't have any scars. The nice thing was that the doctors said my injuries from earlier in the fight were completely gone. There was no evidence remaining of my torn kneecap or my broken shoulder.

My appetite was unbelievable. I ate everything they offered me and begged for more. I guess it was the price I was paying for everything I’d done the day before.

There was a knock on my door and saw Stone through the glass. I waved him in. “Morning soldier,” he said. He was looking a bit worse for wear. There were some small bandages across the side of his head and he had a crutch under his arm to support his left leg. There was bruising across the side of his face, but somehow it just seemed to add to his charm. He looked rugged, like a boxer or something.

“Morning Corporal. You’re looking pretty good.”

He laughed. “Don’t lie. I look like shit.”

“Hey,” I said, “You don’t have a pet collar around your damn neck, so I’d say you are doing pretty good.”

Hobbling over to my bed, he said, “Well, maybe. But you’ll be out of that damn thing in no time. I’ll be stuck with this crutch for a few weeks.”

Looking at his leg, I asked, “What happened anyway?”

“Shrapnel from somewhere. Some idiot threw a grenade at the thing and then I got caught in the blast.”

“Ouch. Any idea who threw it?” I asked, trying to look ignorant.

“No idea. Probably better that way.” He lowered himself onto the chair, leaving his wounded leg straight out. Stone dwarfed the small chair.

“I heard you pulled Johnson out of the fight,” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah, Johnson was lucky. The thing knocked him across three rows of seats. His chest plate caught most of the force and probably saved his life. Split it in half from the hit, though. His leg broke in three places and he tore some ligaments in his back, that and some fractured ribs. Not too bad, considering.”

We both nodded at that. Nothing more really needed to be said about what had happened to the others. My chest ached, realizing how much closer he must have been with the guys we lost.

“I heard Kemi helped you guys?” I asked, to distract us from the dark paths our minds were wandering.

“What? Oh, yes. Man, she was fast. Like the Flash, I tell you. But then, so were you.”

“Really?” I asked. That was interesting. I had not thought about what I must have looked like to other people. “What were we like?”

“Oh, you haven’t seen any of the footage from the cams, have you?”

I shook my head.

“Aw, hell, you need to see that stuff. You guys were off the hook. I mean, you and Claire are like blurs half the time, and Kimura practically flies. When she came to get Johnson and me, I couldn’t even understand what she was saying, she was talking so fast. I think she had to actually work hard to slow down enough to make me understand her. It was crazy! And when Claire toppled that bas… thing over the side of the balcony, and you just jumped after them like it wasn’t a thirty or forty foot drop…man! It was like an action movie.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I’ve got to see that footage.”

Stone nodded. “I didn’t know you could go that fast.”

Shaking my head, I said, “Yeah, neither did we. It had something to do with the angel… I mean the enemy. As soon as it showed up, our powers ramped up to new levels. I was healing faster and even the world slowed down around me. I was strong enough to fire the rifle steady without needing any kind of tripod or support at all. My leg got bent sideways. Fucking snapped at the knee,” I said with relish, while Stone blanched. “By the time I stood up, it was fixed.” Snapping my fingers, I said, “Just like that.”

“Did it hurt?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, with a deep breath, “Yeah, there was a hell of a lot of pain. But it wasn’t like normal, like I would have expected it to be. I mean, when it happened, the pain was an annoyance. It was more like I was pissed off because I could not get back into the fight. That’s what I remember feeling the most. Oh, that and the sensation of everything moving around under my skin as it was sorting itself out.”

Stone blinked, taken aback. “You could feel that?”

“Yup,” I said with a little nod and a grimace. “And I’ll say this; it’s gross. I mean, really fucking gross. Every bit of tendon that got snapped was writhing around, trying to find where it belonged. The knee cap was loose and slid back under the skin trying to find where it was supposed to go.” I shuddered, feeling my stomach heave as I remembered the sensation. “Yeah, gross.”

Stone just stared at me, his mouth hanging open. He looked pale which was really no worse than I felt. Talking about it and remembering all that stuff was pretty awful.

“Bullets man, I could see bullets as they moved in the air. It was like a movie or something.”

“Did you learn kung fu?” he asked with a laugh.

“Bitch, I already know kung fu,” I said, raising my arms to a guard position, and immediately regretting it. My shoulders and back screamed in protest. I pinched my eyes shut and bit back a groan.

“Are you Ok?” Stone asked.

“Not… yet. But I will be, soon I hope.” I gave him a thumbs-up. At least doing that did not hurt.

“Right, okay.” Concern passed over Stone’s face. “You need to get better. As quickly as possible, do you understand me?”

I nodded. “The General already gave me the order, but I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” He sat there, looking like he wanted to say something else, but instead pushed himself up off the chair. “I’ll visit as much as I can,” he said.

“I’d like that.”

He kept his word, visiting me at least twice a day for the next three days, limping in with his crutch and a smile. Rebecca came to see me with chocolates; her strangling hug nearly killing me. It was an unusual experience, to say the least. But it was nice, really nice, having people care about me and go out of their way to check up on me.

I felt fully recovered on the second day, but it wasn’t until the third when a young doctor walked in and gave me a check up. After a song and dance demonstrating my range of motion and lack of pain, he nodded and wrote on his clipboard. “All right,” he said. “You can take some light physical exercise if you wish. It would probably be good for you.

“About time,” I said. The doctor crooked his head and stared at me.

“I meant, thanks doctor.”

After he left, I put some trousers on. There was one place I needed to be.

I needed to see Claire.