Falling Skies Invasion Alone

Explosions

"Cassidy!"

I looked up from the kid I was examining and pulled the stethoscope out of my ears. It was Tom's voice yelling my name from half way across the main hospital room.

"Cassidy!"

"Here." I chucked a manual oxygen mask at Cameron, the eleven year old boy I was examining. "Play with that." I told his mother I would be back in a moment before running quickly through the blue curtain dividing the cubicle and towards Tom's yells.

Yes. Tom was back. He sailed back on a yacht hours before, surprising everyone and yet not really shocking us.

And there he was, standing over Cochise, who's head and face was sliced and peeling, blood sticking to all of his scaly skin. "What the hell? Is he alive?" I questioned.

"He just spoke to me and now he's out." Tom looked at me desperately. I looked up to Lourdes who was staring at me.

"I can't do anything. I don't know his system." Lourdes said to me, shaking her head. And then she left; she just turned and rushed off, clutching the med bag.

"Lourdes!" I yelled, flustered. "Lourdes!"

"Where is she going?" Tom questioned, still leaning over Cochise's body.

Good question. She couldn't just leave me with a Volm being almost dying. I started to panic. "I don't know. I- She normally deals with major trauma. Anne does it... and then Lourdes. I don't-"

"Cassie. You know the physiology of Volm. You can do this." Tom reached his hand across Cochise and clutched my arm. I looked at him and took a breath.

"Cochise." I took the friendly alien's wrist and felt for a pulse. Before I remembered that Volm didn't have a pulse in their wrists. "Shit. What the hell am I doing? Volm are self healing." I gripped Cochise's arm and shook him once. The pressure of my grip roused him. "Cochise. Tell me you can heal yourself."

"I can heal myself." He croaked hollowly.

I laughed shortly and grabbed his hand. "Okay, now say it like you mean it."

I felt him weakly squeeze back, making me smile a little. "I can heal myself."

"Okay. Now, I'm gonna get all this crap out of you and then you're gonna be up in no time." I insisted, motioning for the two soldiers with us to wheel Cochise into one of the cubicles.

I yanked on my gloves and reached for the forceps to remove all the debris that was lodged in his face, sprinkled into his flesh.

"I'm afraid it will take slightly longer than what you think, Miss Cassidy." Cochise's voice was gasping, weak.

I stopped and looked down at him. "Why?"

"I told you before." He took a deep breath.

I thought furiously, trying to remember all the things he had told me. He had told me a lot of things. After I had accepted what had been done to me, I formed a slightly odd friendship with Cochise. And he had taught as much as he could about the Volm as a race. I figured if I was one of them-if only a little- I should know what I had gotten myself into.

"What is he talking about?" Pope asked me. Oh yeah, Pope was there too. We hadn't spoken in the two weeks since he had kissed me. In fact I had pretty much gone out of my way to avoid him. And he did the same to me. Pope's behaviour was very anti Pope.

I swallowed my distaste of Pope and sighed. "The speed of my healing is aided by the Volm DNA. The part of the Volm is the regeneration aspect, something in the human part of my DNA speeds up my healing somehow. Don't really know how it works. The Volm don't have the speed. I can heal pretty easily on the go. It just takes a bit longer and then I need rest. But with them, they put themselves in a type of coma."