III: The Soldier and the Fairy Queen: Red Eve

XXVI: Frozen Skeletons, Big Cans, and Incompetent Medical Staff

The Winter Soldier looked on as the blue-scrub-clad nurses swarmed around Summer. Seeing that she was unconcious, they'd taken her burning body from him and tossed her on a gurney like a piece of coal, not wanting to touch something so gruesome for any longer than necessary. When they started rolling it down the hallway, he followed them, and no one had stopped him.

They had taken Summer to a room he hadn't been in before. It looked like all the rest, square and dull and gray. The only difference was that one wall was lined with medical machines of all sorts. EKG's, heart rate monitors, anesthesia machines. Dozens of machines he couldn't even recognize, much less name. The majority of them were letting out annoying little beeps.

A doctor ran in, his white coat flapping, "What's going on?"

"It's blood pressure's dropped and it's running a 104 degree fever. We don't know what's wrong," the nurse who'd taken Summer's blood earlier replied.

"Heart rate is plunging! What do we do, Doctor?" A petite nurse with short hair asked, her fingers pressed to Summer's neck.

The doctor threw his hands up, "I don't know what to do, Samantha! I've never done this before! We're underground with a bunch of machines and a medical anomaly that has never been documented! Your guess is as good as mine!"

The nurse to the right of Samantha frowned, "Maybe we should ask her what to do. She does know the most about her, after all."

"I don't want to call her! You know what she did to that last person who did that!" The doctor cried.

Summer was still gasping for breath, her eyes closed and sweat pouring from her face. Winter wondered if they were going to help her. Would she die if they didn't? Not that it was any of his business, of course. He probably shouldn't even be in here.

"Just call her, g*******t! We'll all be dead if it dies!" The dark skinned nurse from earlier hollered.

The color of the doctor's face matched that of his coat. The buzz among the nurses suffered a sudden death when the doctor pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of his scrubs. The only sound in the room was of the beeping machines and Summer's strained wheezing.

The doctor held the phone out, apparently putting it on speakerphone. His hand was shaking, making the phone wobble up and down.

The Winter Soldier stared at Summer's quivering form. She was skinny, her cheekbones sharp and her wrist bones defined. He hadn't seen her truly eat yet, she only picked at her food. Provided, the mush they were given couldn't really be categorized as food so much as fuel. He hadn't seen her sleep either. He didn't really sleep, he mostly rested on his cot, watching her from almost-closed eyes. She sat on her cot or paced to pass the time between missions when they weren't training. She repeatedly lifted her hospital gown sleeve and looked down at her shoulder, unfortunately, she was always turned away from him, so he didn't know what she was looking at.

He, unsurprisingly, also wore the degrading uniform of nothing but a hospital gown almost constantly, training and missions excepted. The Winter Soldier had stopped caring about what Summer saw. She rarely noticed him. But although they had barely spoken, they'd come to some sort of agreement to work together when they had to, and ignore each other otherwise. Earlier, he'd almost been asleep after the nurse had taken away Summer's blood when she started choking. He'd tried getting her attention, but she didn't respond before collapsing onto the floor.

The Winter Soldier had come over warily. He saw that she was sucking in air and shaking like a fish out of water, her violet eyes open and wide but unfocused. The Winter Soldier didn't really know what to do, so he'd picked her up. She was light. More like a bundle of sticks than a person. He thought he saw a faint glimmer of recognition in her large pupils before her eyes closed and she went limp in his arms.

The dial tone stopped and startled the Winter Soldier out of his thoughts. The woman's-- he didn't know her name, or even if she had a name-- voice came through, harsh and irritated, "This had better be important, Doctor Childers. You just interrupted a nice evening with my husband."

Doctor Childers held the phone up to his mouth, "Uh-- ah-- ma'am. The soldat has been behaving unusually. She's running a fever, and her blood pressure is low, and--."

The woman interupted, "Her?"

Doctor Childers flushed and cleared his throat, "It, apologies, ma'am. But the medical team and I were wondering if you know what to do to-- to-- it."

"Put her on ice," the woman said, the anger gone, replaced by annoyance.

"Pardon me-- me?" Doctor Childers stammered.

The woman sighed on the other end of the line, "You heard me. Put her on ice for a week. It will give her time to heal without having to deal with all this nonsense. Zima will have to go on the next mission without her. Goodbye, Doctor Childers."

"Goodbye, ma--." The line went dead. Doctor Childers looked up, "You heard what she said, people! Let's get her to the cryo case."

The nurses burst into conversation again. They unhooked Summer from the machines and rolled her past him through the door. Again, no one noticed him, their attention completely absorbed by the unconcious assassin on the gurney.

He followed them soundlessly further down the endless hallway. They turned into another room, this one cold. Three huge canisters sat in an orderly line in the corner, humming with energy, but empty. He stood beside the doorway and looked on as Samantha injected a purple-tinged liquid into Summer's thin arm.

Samantha looked at the girl at her side, "Do you think that'll be enough?"

The girl shrugged.

"Thank you for that vote of confidence. I appreciate it. Pass me that," Samatha pointed to another slim syringe on a cart someone had pulled in. The girl gave it to her and Samantha did the same thing with that one.

Summer relaxed slightly, still gasping, but not quivering. Samantha nodded, "I think that's as good as we're going to get, if they don't get us the good stuff."

The girl elbowed her, "That stuff is expensive. Can't go using it for everything. She's still chewing out Stauffer for using the sedative when we first got it."

Another doctor commanded them, "The case is ready, let's get it in." The canister rumbled and moved down to a horizontal position, the hydraulics hissing. The door popped open with a whoosh.

"Three... two... one!" The nurse from earlier, Samantha, her friend, and another nurse hauled Summer's limp body into
the canister. Samantha straightened her limbs and pushed the door closed. The seal activated, cutting off the noise of Summer's breathing.

The canister went back to it's former position. The Winter Soldier stared at Summer's gaunt face through the small window. A man in faded but clean overalls tapped the control pad, "Activation in two... one."

Summer stilled as frost captured her face and clouded the edges of the window.