CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Awaken

"It doesn't mean anything," Taeyeon said. "We're not your enemies."

"Your word against the military's."

"Look, I left not because of any kind of traitorous reason. I did something wrong, but my platoon mates helped me escape, which is how I even got out in the first place. That means I can't be that bad, right? Getting accosted by Northerners was just unlucky. I don't want to cause any trouble to you guys. If the MP comes here looking for me, I'll leave."

"In a wheelchair?"

"If Sunny lets me take this one, sure. If not, I'll find some other way to get out of your hair."

Jiyong frowned. "I was hoping for a better explanation. You could be lying."

"I can move out now if that's better." She didn't really want to. She'd probably die on the way to the elevator without a wheelchair.

"No need for that. You're harmless," Jiyong said. 

Taeyeon thought about going for his Glock to prove how harmless she was.

"We should go back, if there's nothing else," Youngbae said. 

Jiyong stared down at her. "It's the MPs we're worried about. Any hint of them, and I'm sorry but you'll have to go. The military butting into our business would be a real crapfest to deal with."

When Taeyeon woke up, Sunny and Yuri were already gone. Jessica was sound asleep, knocked out by exhaustion. Working at the clinic must be hard. Jessica had gone straight to sleep after confirming that she passed the encoded message to an American corpsman who would relay it to Tiffany. 

Taeyeon clambered onto the wheelchair beside the bed. She brushed her teeth before hurrying to the kitchen for another serving of kimchi fried rice. Being constrained to a plate per meal made her hungry all the time. Taeyeon supposed it was good that her appetite had returned, because it meant she was recovering.

She warmed the rice in the microwave, ate at the dining table by herself, and returned the plate to the sink. Jessica slept through it all. Taeyeon drank a cup of water.

Sitting in the wheelchair, she observed Jessica's chest rise and fall steadily. It lulled her back to sleep.

A microwave ding woke Taeyeon up. Jessica apologized when she took her breakfast out of the microwave.

"It's okay. I was waiting for you," Taeyeon said. She was worried about inconveniencing Jessica, but she didn't think she could stand another day trapped in Yuri's living room. "Could I go with you to the clinic?"

"Sure," Jessica said. "You must be bored, being all cooped up in here. It's not a long way's off. Just a ten minute walk, and it's not that dangerous because they've got sentries posted around their turf."

"Great."

Jessica finished her food quickly and did the dishes. Then she walked over to Taeyeon and checked the bandages. The entry and exit wounds had hardened into thick, black scabs. "Looks good. Want a real shower?"

"Holy yes." Toweling off didn't feel entirely satisfying.

Taeyeon became embarrassed when Jessica had to help her out of her clothes, even though Jessica had put them on for her and probably cleaned up her crap when she had been bedridden. "I can handle myself in the bathroom."

"What are you gonna do, get your wheelchair all rusty?"

Taeyeon was sullen.

"It'll be easier if I help. It's no trouble. Part of my job description, you know."

Jessica wheeled her to the bathroom and half-carried her piece of body into the shower, and Taeyeon's cheeks colored with shame. She stared at the floor and fixed a non-expression on her face while she was soaped up and rinshed down. Jessica toweled her off and had to help her into a new pair of shorts. 

Taeyeon took the bra and shirt off Jessica's hands. "Thanks, I can do it myself."

She grimaced when she reached around her back to hook her bra on and clenched her jaw shut when she pulled the shirt over her head, but she was just relieved that Jessica hadn't insisted on helping her with them.

"When are the serums coming?"

"My colleagues are going to try to get it to us by the end of the week. Hopefully we'll get it by then. It's not easy because they have to do it in secret. The MPs are searching for you."

"."

"They won't find us. When I rendezvous with my colleagues it's a town far from here, and we never see anyone. I don't see how the police can track us when nobody we know knows we're here."

"You're just a medic. How're you going to know when an MP is tailing you?"

"I suppose we can't know for sure, but until they come knocking on the door, we can assume it's safe. We are very cautious."

"Okay." Taeyeon rubbed her fists over her thighs. After she obtained the serums, she would have to try harder to get Jessica to leave the country. It just wasn't safe.

"I heard you met Yuri's brother, and Daesung and Youngbae. They dropped by the clinic yesterday and we had dinner together. They're nice, aren't they?"

Taeyeon shrugged.

"We'd be frozen corpses on the river bank if they hadn't helped us," Jessica said. "I like this place. They have so much optimism and initiative here. And they're risking their lives to help so many people get out of the city. It's awesome."

"Yeah."

"It's like, they're not altruistic do-gooders, but it's because they've got all this loyalty and patriotism that they're doing this. The outcome is good though, so it's nice."

Taeyeon blinked. She wasn't too sure she liked YG, but she suddenly knew what Jessica was still doing in Korea. Kind of stupid really, because Jessica kept saying it, but it hadn't really sunk in. Who stuck with such crazy pure motives nowadays? She couldn't despise Jessica for them, however, because Jessica wasn't some naive spazz. She's strange, but real nice.

Taeyeon didn't know when her relationship with Jessica had transitioned from strictly business to this. She remembered Jessica breaking down in the dead of night at Anyang, and it now hurt to wonder what had made her cry like that. Her body no longer ached with the carnal desire to kiss the out of Jessica. Maybe it was because of the reduced chemicals jacking her system, or maybe it was because she was starting to care for Jessica.

Jessica smiled uncertainly at her prolonged silence, and she roused long enough to crack a grin for the only person she should trust here.

The clinic was less monotonous, but it was a claustrophobic, suffocating chamber from hell. She waited on the floor, massaging her unfeeling legs, wondering how Jessica could stand this atmosphere.

Two men walked into the clinic. Taeyeon recognized their faces from yesterday. Daesung spotted her and pointed her out to Jiyong. They approached her. 

Jiyong said, "Let's talk."

"What's up?"

"Should we go somewhere more conducive?" Daesung asked. "The clinic's too depressing."

She shrugged Daesung off when he tried to help her onto the wheelchair, and told him to screw off when he insisted on pushing her out. Jiyong told him to let her do whatever she wanted. She told Jessica where she was going.

They went to the clinic entrance. In the open, Taeyeon breathed in the fresher air greedily.

Jiyong pulled out a crumpled paper from his pant pocket and smoothed it out. Taeyeon recognized the bounty order immediately. All three faces of the Firefly team were on it. The sketches were serviceable, the likeness sufficient since there were only three women pushing the frontlines, and only a handful of female soldiers compared to the swarming mass of male soldiers.

She still had to try for plausible deniability. "What's that?"

Jiyong didn't bite. He pointed at her picture. "This is you, isn't it?"

"What?" She didn't want them to know. Not while she was like this. Vulnerable.

"This looks like you."

"It's a stick figure drawing."

"Now you're just grasping at straws."

Daesung cut in. "Hey, I think this is amazing. You and your friends are the only people I know with bounties. You must have ripped them a new one real bad."

Taeyeon smiled at him, "That's nice, but this isn't me."

Daesung laughed. "Dude, you're going to be treated like a hero here. Everyone wants to know who these women are and what they did to piss off the North so bad. All of us try real hard to piss off His Greatness but we don't have even one KPW on our heads."

"This really isn't me."

"Quit lying," Jiyong said. "Sunny told us all about how you got onto the wheelchair so easily your first try. No one does that, so you've got to be someone."

"And we've seen your body. It's like you're some warrior out of a seinen manga." Daesung said.

She recoiled from him. "Don't ever talk about me like that again, ."

"I didn't mean it in a y way!" He even genuinely looked apologetic. "I'm not some ert."

Taeyeon had enough of their good cop bad cop game. "Get outta my way."

Jiyong blocked her wheelchair with his foot. "You still haven't admitted that you're the one here. We just want to know what you did to get the attention of the Northern bastards."

"I'm not her."

"You know," Daesung said, "if you were, we'd treat you like royalty. We'd ensure Jessica's safety, too."

"But I'm not, so what?" Are they going to threaten us?

"So, nothing," Daesung said. "It's just a real shame, because me and hyung and everyone else would think you're really cool."

"Don't rope me in with your gay ," Jiyong said, cuffing Daesung at the back of his head.

Daesung said, "Hyung just doesn't like to look weak in front of women. But really, we'd ask for your help. You could be like Sunny and do the tactical stuff."

"Too bad," Taeyeon said.

"Okay, so then who is this?"

"She's... Everyone knows these people in the army. They're the Fireflies. I heard they're good, but I've never met them."

"Let's go. If she wants to be an antisocial then there's nothing we can do," Jiyong said. He shot her one last glare before walking off.

Daesung scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry about hyung. He's real nice if you get to know him better. One last try. You're not on the bounty?"

"Nope."

"Okay fine, you're just a normal down-and-outer like the rest of us." Daesung winked at her knowingly, humming as he walked her back to the clinic. He passed her a dog-eared paperback novel, and she thanked him for his consideration.

After that, Daesung visited often to keep her company. He didn't bring up her questionable identity again. He cracked jokes and talked about inane , but sometimes they ditched the screwing around and he told her YG stories. He might have been boasting, but his five member squad was supposedly the best in YG. With Jiyong as leader, they were the reigning crew that outstripped everyone else. 

"If you're so damn important, what are you doing wasting your time here with me?"

"It's downtime, so there isn't much to do. Seungri's always slacking off anyway so it's time for him to step it up without the great Daesung around."

"Oh, the ego."

They never ventured beyond the clinic entrance, because Taeyeon wouldn't go anywhere else alone with him even though she appreciated his company.

One day, Jessica disappeared for hours before returning with a white medical kit. Inside it was Dr. Seo's vials of genetic enhancing technology. They waited until night, when they would both be free at home, to use the serums.

Sunny saw them organizing themselves, excited and nervous. "What's that?"

"Just some medicine from the military base," Jessica said.

"To cure what?"

"We're not sure if it will work." A non-answer. Sunny sensed that they were too distracted.

Some of the serums were to be ingested through IV, some sufficed with an injection. Jessica looked at the instruction list. She'd have to monitor Taeyeon's blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. They went to the clinic and got a bed.

The first injection that Jessica administered would knock a bear out.

"See you later," Taeyeon said, just before she went under.

Dr. Seo's serums worked again. The bullet holes were now nothing but twisted, knotted scars. When she stretched she felt no pain. She stood up, folded up the wheelchair, and carried it one-handed to Yuri's apartment. The elevator was waiting but she walked up the stairs instead. She unlocked the front door with the keys Jessica lent her, and when she entered, Sunny was at the dining table, on the gray cushion wheelchair, papers out and planning.

Sunny looked at her, twice, eyes wide. She opened and closed soundlessly.

Taeyeon raised a hand. "Hey."

"What the- how the are you standing right now?" Sunny screamed.

A/N: It looks like many of you are looking forward to Taeyeon serving her own justice haha. That part starts next chapter... Thanks for the feedback! What was good/bad/mehh about this one?