New York City was its usual busy noisy irritating way with its people rushing in both directions down the sidewalk. Dr. Goran Pickens bounced between rushing people until she was shoved up against a brick wall and pinned there until a break in pedestrian traffic allowed her to move. She looked up at the large gold numbers on the building and sighed with relief, by chance alone, she had made it to her building. Falling through the wide glass doors, she caught herself on the counter just as her heel broke. "Damn cheap shoes from PayLess." She growled and pulled both shoes off to walk towards the elevator in her stocking covered feet. When the doors opened, she walked in and felt something snag the bottom of her foot. Looking down, she watched a wide snag run right up her shin and disappear beneath her charcoal colored skirt. "This sucks hairy donkey dicks and I hope they give me a nice comfortable assignment this time." When the bell signaled and the doors opened on the floor that she needed, she looked down at her watch and cussed. "Fuck I'm late as usual!" Throwing her shoes in the air, she stepped out and ran towards the huge wooden doors to her boss's office.

***********

"I'm telling you she's going to flip out the minute you mention this assignment to her." A tall man with a cleft chin, dark brown eyes and pencil thin mustache whispered to the head of World Health Organization.

"Come on Bill, why it's not like I'm sending her to Bogotá or some disease infested village in Asia. It's Appalachia for Gods sakes, what can happen there?" He ran a hand through his silver hair and then smoothed down his beard.

"It's not where she's going; it's whose going with her. Do you really think that she needs protection from moon shiners and inbreeds?"

"That's not it at all, I want her to find out what's happening to all the supplies we're sending down there and why all our volunteers disappear." He looked to the slamming door and felt his heart freeze in his chest.

"What the Hell Jake, you're sending me on a 007 mission to Kentucky?"

"Nope, I'm sending you to West Virginia and I'm sending a United Nations Security Specialist with you." She dropped into a chair in front of his desk and rolled her green eyes at him.

"Are you nuts or something, I didn't get a UN guard when I went to Yemen but I'm getting one for West by God?"

"Give me a break here, this isn't all my idea you know. The UN thinks that there might be some dangerous terrorists over there involved in all of this, that's why you're getting the guard." He handed her a long blue envelope and a manila folder. "That's your tickets and all the information on who we've sent down there and what supplies have come up missing." She opened the envelope and felt her jaw drop; she looked up at her boss with narrowed eyes and snarled.

"You cheap son of a bitch, I have to take a bus all the way to West Virginia?" Bill took the envelope from her trembling hand and pulled out another set of tickets.

"Of course not," He looked at the tickets and then to Jake. "The cheap bastard is sending you part way on a train."

***********

"Raith get out from under there, you're going to miss your train!" A tall blonde kicked the booted foot that was sticking out from under her car and yelled louder. "Come on you crazy bitch, I'm not about to explain to our boss why I had to drive you to West fucking Virginia!" She grabbed a hold of a foot and dragged six feet of growling woman from under her car. "I told you before there are no bugs in or on my car now get your damn bag and get on the fucking train!" The tall UN specialist shook her body like a dog, tossed her long dark hair around her head and jumped up and down for the hell of it. She pulled her dark sunglasses down to reveal pale blue eyes and winked.

"No bugs under your car but you need a new exhaust and the U joint is looking a little worse for wear." She grabbed a large black duffle bag from the backseat, slung it up over her shoulder and jogged to where the train was slowly pulling away.

"Fucking loony bird," She slammed the back door and watched her friend toss her bag and then jump onto the train. "She's fucking nuts and is slowly driving me there?fuck?I say fuck entirely too much. Fuck it and fuck everyone I need a fucking drink!" She jumped behind the wheel of the state car and tore from the gravel parking lot screaming "fuck you" repeatedly out the window.

************

Raith looked both ways as she stood in the doorway of the train car, she had no idea which direction her sleeping quarters were in or if the doctor she was to be traveling with was on the train. She was lucky in a way; she was catching the train right outside of Washington DC where the doctor had been on it since New York. "Hope it ain't no damn guy I gotta protect, last one thought he was John fucking Wayne and Clint fucking Eastwood all rolled into one!" She saw a train conductor at the end of the car; she waved a hand and ended up whistling to get his attention. "Where's this car at," She handed him her ticket. "I was running late and almost missed the train."

"If you turn around and go back two cars, you'll find the one you need. Your room is the second door on the left; your friend is already there."

"My friend?is it a guy?" The conductor gave her a funny look and shook his head.

"No ma'am, it's a female. I assumed that you two knew each other, she mentioned that she was to meet up with someone here."

"Cool, I finally get a woman!" She slapped him on his shoulder and went back in the opposite direction. Searching in her pocket, she pulled out a small electronic device and flipped on a small switch. A red light blinked at the top and put out a small beeping noise. "Can't have any bugs or other little nasties around us, 'they' might be able to find us then."

*************

Goran fell over one of her bags while trying to put one above her head in the overhead compartment. She froze when she heard a loud rip and shivered from the cold air that hit her between her shoulder blades. Her life became worse when the door opened, smacked her in the back and sent her sliding on her stomach across the floor and into the wall. She lay motionless until she felt warmth along the outsides of her thighs and then warm hands on her back.

"Don't move or I'll get mean and nasty with you!" Raith growled close to her ear and waved a small metal detector around her head and down her back. At the area where the shirt was torn, she heard a loud wail from her device. She pulled out a pair of scissors, made two cuts and threw the offending article towards the door. "One less bug to worry about?" She flipped Goran over onto her back and waved the wand in front of terrified green eyes. She dropped down to straddle her hips and pin her with wild blue eyes. "Got any more bugs on you?"

"Who the Hell are you and what are you doing to me?" She struggled and then stopped when the wand made a funny noise over her breasts.

"Just what I thought, you're loaded with those things!" Raith ripped the front of her button down shirt open, snipped the front of her bra and yanked what was left of it off her. "I'll give you one chance to give me the rest of the bugs or I'll strip you down and do a crevice check." Goran struggled and slapped at the large hands running down across her body and trying to get into her pockets.

"Who the fuck are you and get off me!" She bucked under Raith and was able to squirm out from under her. "I'm calling the conductor and having you thrown off the train!" She reached for the phone near the door and grunted when strong arms wrapped around her from behind. "Let me go or I will scream bloody murder until someone comes to help me!"

"I'm Special Agent Raith Bullshanks of the United Nations Special Security Division. Now who are you?"

"I'm so SCREWED!" Goran yelled and fell to the floor when Raith let her go; she pulled her ripped shirt together in the front and turned to look up at Raith. "You fucking moron, I'm Dr. Goran Pickens!" Raith ran a hand down from a high cheekbone to her chin; she tapped a finger against it and raised a jet-black eyebrow.

"Are you sure, do you have identification proving that you are who you say you are?"

"You're fucking kidding aren't you?I'm Dr. Pickens and if you don't believe me you can get the Hell out of my room and go look for anyone else who has the same name!" She struggled against the large hand that grabbed her wrist and was horrified when Raith pulled out a small metal contraption and snapped it on her fingers. "HEY SOMEONE HELP ME!"

"Will you just calm down and let me do this, it'll take two seconds for your fingerprints to be taken and sent off." It became an all out wrestling match with the two women; Goran punched and kicked to no avail. "OK that should do it." Raith released her and got up to sit on the corner of one of the extremely small beds. She pulled a wire from under each side of her jacket and plugged them into the small contraption. She sat there without a care in the world until Goran got up from the floor. "Not so fast there, if you're a terrorist I'll have to arrest you. But then again, you were on the train first and this whole thing could be a huge set up for terrorists." She pulled a small radio from inside her pocket and was ready to call her contact.

"You're insane and there's no way you're from the UN!" She grabbed one of her bags, pulled out a t-shirt, turned her back and changed. "For one thing, a security specialist would not jump me, cut my bra off thinking it was some kind of bug and then not believe me when I told her who I was. Let alone take my fingerprints with some strange thing and ignore me when I'm RANTING!" Raith pulled a palm pilot out from under her coat and looked at the small screen.

"Let's see Dr. Goran Rosella Pickens, 36, resource director for MSF/WHO, arrest record from 1986," She looked up with a cocked eyebrow. "Public indecency and resisting arrest, that's interesting. Were you involved with terrorist activities back then?"

Goran threw her ruined shirt at Raith, stomped to the small bathroom and slammed the door. From behind it, Raith could hear her screaming obscenities at her and just smiled. "She says fuck as much as my partner." She shrugged out of her jacket and unhooked, unlatched and unbuckled all the straps that held on her gadget holsters, vest and belt. Once it was off, she felt 30 pounds lighter and free. She stretched her arms over her head and touched the ceiling above her. "This might not be too bad, a little cramped in here but not as bad as riding in that wooden crate all the way to Yugoslavia looking for possible terrorist activity in the rutabaga farms."

"Says who!" Goran asked and walked past her to get one of her bags, tripped and fell onto the other bed. "This place is too fucking small and with a giant like you in here its worse! Why don't you go get your own place and who in the Hell set this up in the first place?"

"Boy are you a cranky one, and I have no idea who set this up. Maybe it was your bosses, after all I was assigned to this case a week ago and already had a cabin, berth or what you call this tiny ass room. So why don't you go get another one of these?"

"Because my stuff has been in here longer than your stuff has and I have more stuff than you and I'm tired of hauling it all over the god damn fucking place so there!" Raith fell sideways on her bed and looked into furious green eyes.

"You know you say fuck an awful lot, if you get another place, I'll carry your stuff so that you don't burst a blood vessel or something." Goran growled and sat up on the small bed so that she could lean closer to Raith.

"Now you listen here Wraith or what ever the fuck your name is, I'm NOT moving!"

"It's Raith and that's a total of nine times you've said fuck in the last 11 minutes, my partner has said that word a total of 121 times in an hour." She brushed her long dark hair back from her eyes and searched her pants pocket for her lazar pointer. "Don't move I have to check this out before we do anymore talking." She crawled across the small bed towards the small porthole, shinning the red light all along the edge, she checked for metallic wires and fasteners. She pulled a screwdriver from her back pocket and played around with the edge of the window. "Be very quiet, I just found a wire that possibly runs to an A3150 bug transmitter."

"What are you going to do, take it apart and maybe get electrocuted? That would be good because then I'd have this castle to myself!" She fell back across the bed, covered her eyes with one arm and held on through the rocking motion with the other. When Raith cussed and then a loud whistling noise drowned her out, Goran sat up and gave her a force 100 glare. "What did you do, that awful noise wasn't there before you started fucking around with the window!"

"Don't worry about it and that's ten times you've said fuck." She looked at the thin strip of metal she had yanked from the framework and realized that her lazar pen was wrong. Grabbing her gadget holster and vest, she searched for something to fix the seal and sighed when she found a roll of duct tape. Afterwards the sound was lesser than before, she looked over to her roommate and took in her small form. "Are you sure you're a doctor, you're awful small and I don't see a black bag or anything."

"What has my size got to do with being a doctor?" She yelled above the whistling noise. "You had better fix that, how am I supposed to sleep with that noise and move your bag out of the way before I break a leg and end up killing you because of it!"

"Are you PMSing or something, maybe you should medicate yourself with something if you really are a doctor and not an international terrorist." Goran pointed a finger at her and stood up between the beds.

"What the fuck is it with you and terrorists, I'm NOT a terrorist and where we're going there are NO terrorists! Maybe you're one, you're lonely, and that's why you keep looking for them! Now fix that god damn fucking noise before I do surgery on you with one of those tools you've got laying there!" She reached for the screwdriver but missed when long fingers snatched it away.

"I'm going to be keeping an eye on you," She narrowed her blue eyes and leaned closer. "A real close eye, the way terrorists are today you could be one and be undermining the entire world by posing as a doctor for WHO." Goran rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air.

"Well agent 001, you got me figured out. I'm really Dr. Who and I'm going to jump right into my tardis and zap back to terrorist headquarters! And then I'm gonna get my army of Daleks ready to take over the completely useless Appalachia's! Now get out of my way so I can squeeze into that tiny ass shower," She grabbed her stomach, busted out laughing for no apparent reason, and continued to the bathroom. "You won't fit!" Raith sat looking at the closed door; she pulled her small radio out and realized that she was too far away for it to work. Putting it away, she took out her cell phone and dialed her partner's home number.

"You have reached Tonya's answering machine, I'm not here right now and if this is my paranoid partner Raith. I've decided to become a monk and I'm in Tibet, come see me I have a cell waiting for you!"

"Haaaaa! I fell for the monk thing the last time?or was that you were becoming a nun." She closed her phone and pulled her bag up onto the bed. "Either way I spent the night in jail and had a dozen marriage proposals and one death threat." She pulled out a pair of cutoff sweats and a thin half t-shirt to sleep in. After the rush of checking the outside of her apartment for spy bugs, getting to the train station, and checking Tonya's car for tracking devices or bugs, she knew that she needed a shower. She wondered how long Goran would be in the shower, she sat there saying the small doctors name over, decided that it was too long, and didn't fit the small doc. Worse was her middle name, her parents must have been playing that game where you close your eyes and point to a page in a book for a baby's name. Her name came from her dad not being able to spell and being drunk as hell when she was born. Living with her mother was enough to make anyone drink, the woman was nuts. "I'll just call her?Ohh God!" She followed darkly tanned legs all the way up to the white towel wrapped around trim hips, to a smooth stomach and stopping at the edge of a ragged t-shirt.

"What is your major malfunction?" Goran asked and pulled the towel from her hips to show a pair of Snoopy boxers. "Once we're down in West by God, you stay the Hell out of my way, I have a job to do and you being a paranoid idiot will not help!"

"I'm not paranoid and it's my job to protect you, I'm going to take a shower. Don't open the door for anyone and don't go anywhere until I'm done." Goran gave her a one-fingered salute and dropped down onto her bed.

"Just wait until you try and take a shower." She snickered and got comfortable. "You'll come out with a lump on your head." She rubbed her own head where the showerhead had got her and smiled.

************

Raith looked into the tiny little shower and groaned she had never seen anything so small in her entire life. Turning the showerhead up to the ceiling, she adjusted the water temperature and then hit the button for the showerhead. "Ohh this is going to be fun, I'd do better to dump a Dixie cup of water over my head." She crawled in all bent over and hoped that if she got stuck, that Goran would come to her rescue. "Probably not, she'll just get another place to stay and leave me for the next person to find." With soap still on her back and other places that couldn't be rinsed in the small shower, she got out, dried off and dressed. Stepping over bags and other stuff that was Goran's, she lay down on the other bed and groaned. Going up on her elbows, she looked down to where her feet hung over the foot of the small bed. "You're not a normal height and that's what bed companies make mattresses for." She mimicked what she had been told countless times. Getting off the bed, she dragged the mattress onto the floor and lay down between the two beds. She looked up at the small hand that fell over the edge and pushed it back up. "You fall on me and I'll smack you stupid."

*************

Goran rolled from the bed, put one foot down and heard a loud grunt. She stood up, brought her other foot forward and heard a wail that made her short blondish hair stand on end. She fumbled around and fell on top of a squirming whimpering body. "Ohh God?Ohhh GOD damn that hurts!" Raith yelled out and rolled into a fetal position with Goran on top of her. "Get off me?before I throw up on you!" Goran rolled off her and moved out of her way as she crawled to the bathroom, she flinched when she heard retching and wondered what was wrong.

Wraith?Raith?nut job?what the fuck." She got to her feet and stopped out side of the bathroom to see the tall woman hugging the toilet with one arm while her other hand was pressed up between her legs. "What the Hell is wrong with you?" She stepped around her, wet a washrag in the sink and wiped the sweat from Raith's blood red face. "What were you doing sleeping on the floor?"

"Bed's too short?I'll never have sex again." She dropped her head down onto the toilet seat and whimpered. "My clit's broke!"

"Ohhh fuck?I'm?," Goran tried not to laugh and lost the battle. "I'll go get you some ice?don't go anywhere." She stumbled from the bathroom with her hand over her mouth and pulled the door open. She had no idea where she would find ice but sure, that the dinning car would have something. She ran to the next car and then found an employee cleaning off tables. "Where can I get some ice, my roommate?hit her head."

"At the end of the car there is a chest, there should be some ice left in there from this morning."

"Thanks." She jogged to the end of the car and found the white chest like the ones they had at motels, inside were small bags of chopped ice. Grabbing two, she headed back to her room still chuckling over what had happened. When she opened the door, she saw that Raith was leaning back against the wall by her bed with her eyes closed. "I got you some ice," She kneeled beside her and placed the bags in her hand. "You want me to look, make sure that you're not damaged for life?" She grinned when one pale blue eye opened. "I am a doctor you know, I know things."

Raith closed her thighs around her hand and shook her head. "Well that maybe but you're not getting to know the secret squirrel, only certain people get to see it and you're not one of them."

"Ohh so if I was some hunk of a male doctor you'd let me examine you, I always thought women were more comfortable with women doctors." She got up from the floor and took a seat on her bed. "I'm sure if you're still hurting we can find a doctor on the train to look at you." Raith rolled her eyes and snorted.

"Nope, no one gets to see the secret squirrel, if they did then it wouldn't be the secret?"

"Squirrel, I got it. I never took you as being someone to be afraid of having a doctor look down there, or are you deformed and you don't want anyone to know?" Raith got to her knees and made her way over to Goran, she placed her hands on the edge of the bed and snarled.

"You listen here Dr. Who, I'm not frigid or deformed. It's my squirrel and no one plays with it but me!" She crawled back over to the wall, put both bags of ice on her crotch and growled. Goran shook her head and lay down on her bed; she took glances over and snickered at the tense look on Raith's face.

"You won't be playing with the secret squirrel anytime soon that's for sure."

"And you'll suffer because of it, if I don't get laid a couple times a week, I become a raving lunatic."

************

"Will you get out from under the table, people are looking at us."

"I'm almost done," She slid Goran across the seat and back again. "Ok, I don't see anything from under here. Can ya feel anything weird?"

"You mean besides your hands all over me, no, not get up here or I'll start kicking!" Raith slid up onto her seat and gave Goran a narrowed look after her device beeped at her.

"You have one of those under wire contraptions on again?"

"You're kidding right; you destroyed my bra's looking for invisible spy bugs. I don't have any left to wear; I'm swinging free over here!" Raith wiggled her dark brows and picked up her cup of coffee.

"Nothing wrong with that, I go that way all the time."

"That's one thing that you shouldn't be and that's free, you're a fucking lunatic that sees conspiracy's everywhere." She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. "Just because they use a different color lubricant on the car hitches here doesn't mean that there is a conspiracy with the unions."

"There could be and if they stop this train dead on the tracks and start beating each other up I'm gonna yell I told you so." They ordered their meals and waited quietly for their food to arrive. Goran watched Raith and found herself wanting to trace her dark eyebrows with her fingertips; she had always had a thing for eyebrows and found Raith's sexy as hell. Especially when she raised the left one when she looked around, she wondered if Raith even knew she was doing it. The more she looked the more she became attracted to the paranoid woman.

"So how long have you worked for the UN?" She asked and took a sip of her cooling coffee; a small crooked grin came to her face when she saw the startled look come over Raith's face. "Or is that a top secret squirrel thing?"

"No it's not top secret; I've worked there for thirteen years." She leaned over the table and held Goran's eyes. "Actually, this is only the third time that I've been on a case. I'm usually down in the basement making all the gizmo things that our operatives use on their cases." She pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slid them across the table to Goran. "Go on Who put 'em on and see what happens."

"I'm not gonna go blind or scream because I see naked men am I?" She slipped them on but left them below eye level. "Come on Raith tell me."

"No you won't go blind, but when you put them on, run your finger along the left ear piece afterward." She grinned when Goran narrowed an eye and raised an eyebrow at her. "Trust me, some of my stuff actually works and some of the testers survive." She grinned and then gave out a yelp when a foot connected with her shin. Goran slid the glasses up her face and then did as Raith said; she gasped and then chuckled when she zeroed in on one of the waiters about 20 feet away.

"So what exactly do you use these for?" She slid them off and handed them back to Raith.

"Reading, the small print kills my eyes."

************

Goran walked into the room and knew instantly that something was very wrong; she felt the tingle of an electric shock start in her feet and then travel through out her body. "Raith?fuck?help!" Raith jumped out of the bathroom, flipped a switch on a small black box stuck to the door jam and caught Goran when she fell.

"Hey it works," She carried a still trembling Goran over to her bed and laid her down. "I've worked on that thing for months and couldn't get it to give out a smaller charge until now." She cupped Goran's face between her hands and looked down into her wide green eyes. "How ya feel there Dr. Who?"

"Give me a minute and you'll find out!" She tried to lift her leg to hit Raith in the crotch but her body wasn't listening to her. "You wait until you're sleeping."

"Like you can hurt me," She went over to the door and unhooked her trap from the doorframe and then the metal strips she had slid under the carpet. "Ya know you did better than my partner Tonya, she fell over and passed out for hours after stepping on the contacts. Then again I think I had the amps up to a couple hundred thousand or so." She put the small device back in her black bag and then dropped down beside Goran. "So can you feel anything yet Dr. Who?"

"I can feel my hatred for everything spy growing by the second, I can't wait to get to the Appalachia's so I can find out what's going on and get away from YOU!" She moved slowly to a sitting position and tried to slap Raith in her arm, she let out a whimper when sharp tingles raced through her arm. "You suck Raith and this hurts like a fucking bitch!" Raith gave her a bright smile that made her insides turn to jello, she took a deep breath to calm herself and found it impossible.

"So whatcha going down there for anyway, I'm going down to find a missing CIA agent and watch your ass." She wiggled her brows and licked her upper lip and canine tooth. "The last part will be a pleasure that's all mine." Goran shook her head and tried to move away from Raith.

"Don't even look at me like that; I don't care if you do become a raving lunatic, there's no way in Hell I'm having sex with you!"

"I don't need your body for that, just my own wicked imagination to get the squirrel in the mood." Goran shivered and tried to move.

"That is the sickest thing I have ever heard?Eeeeww! Just the thought of you thinking of me when you're playing with your?squirrel, is perverted and why me anyways, there are men on this train you know!"

"Is not, and knowing that you haven't had sex in a millennium is sick and perverted. You could have an orgasm and die of a heart attack all at the same time!" She raised a hand when green eyes glared and the room became deadly quiet except for the ragged breathing coming from the small doctor. "I've seen it happen?OK so she was using one of my kinky sex toy prototypes but she did have a heart attack and fell over at her desk." She got up, paced the small area between the beds, and stopped to stare at the opposite wall. "We didn't find her until Monday morning when the prototype caught on fire and set the fire alarms and sprinklers off?that wasn't my fault either?"

"You're a national disaster waiting to happen aren't you, which brings this up. Why have you only been let out to do actual cases three times?"

"Because I'm the gizmo person that's why?" She dropped down on the bed beside Goran and gave her a pout. "They've thrown me out after certain incidents, this time it wasn't my fault I swear. I told them not to have a sprinkler system in the computer areas. The entire floor blew up with my prototype and a few people got shocked when they stepped out of the elevator."

"So you're supposed to protect me from rednecks and you're own people aren't safe from you, just great, maybe I should save us all a giant painful mission and jump from the train?"

"Ohh don't do that?the last time?it took me weeks to get through all the paper work!" She ran from the room screaming 'It wasn't my fault!' at the tops of her lungs.

"If I survive this, I'm gonna kick the shit out of both Bill and Jake!" She got up from her bed, shook her arms and legs and was glad that there were no more nasty little tingly feelings. "Send me on this stupid mission to find out where our people have disappeared to and set everything back up with 001 Raith possibly accidentally killing me in the process." Grabbing Raith's black bag from the floor, she locked the door and then dumped the bags contents on her bed. "She never did answer me about men on the train, I wonder?" She picked up small plastic bags with what looked like underwear and t-shirts in them. They were no bigger than a sandwich bag and were heat-sealed. She searched through the rest of her items, most of them confused her; it was just her luck to end up partnered with a person like Raith. "Bullshanks, what in the Hell kind of name is Bullshanks? Then again, any woman that refers to her crotch as the secret squirrel ain't right in her head to begin with." She flipped a small silver square box about the size of a pack of matches over in her hand and jumped when it started vibrating. Looking at it closer, she snickered. She had an idea of how it could be used and wondered if it was a slim lined version of a clit stimulator. "What I don't understand is why she makes toys like this, she could have anyone she wanted in her bed in a blink of an eye?including me." Grabbing her carry-on bag from under her bed, she reached in and pulled out a bag of Cracker Jacks. It was a main staple to her diet of junk food, and where she was sent sometimes, the food was not safe for animals to eat. So she took along her own supply of food that was light to carry and easy to pack. She tore open the bag and dumped half of it into her mouth, chewing slowly; she looked over the rest of the stuff that belonged to Raith before putting it back in her bag. "She's a weirdo?everything is so?tiny?" She jerked when she heard the door handle rattled and then sighed when she heard the house cleaner asking if she needed anything. Tossing everything back into the bag, she tossed it on Raith's bed and then let the house cleaner in.

***************

Raith walked along the cars with a small device in her hand, she stopped every time it beeped and inspected the area. When she stopped in front of the small sink in the dinning car, she cussed and pulled out a small screwdriver. "Damn copper pipes," She adjusted her device and put the cover back on. "Should use PVC, it's cheaper and doesn't send my toys off on tangents." She stopped what she was doing when a strange voice came from behind her.

"Excuse me ma'am, can I help you with something?" A dinning hall attendant asked and then stepped back when she turned with the box and screwdriver in her hands.

She scanned the room with a nervous twitch to her eyes and then leaned in close to whisper. "See any strange people around here, you know, messing with anything that they shouldn't be?"

"No ma'am, just you." He walked away and kept looking over his shoulder to make sure she wasn't following him. She searched her cargo pockets, pulled out a headset wire, and attached it to her small device. She looked around her and then held it close to the wall and walked the length of it until she hit the exit to the car. Opening the door, she looked both ways before going into the next car. She was glad that at least she had a room; these passengers had to sit in seats the entire trip. Pulling another device from her pocket, she hooked another headset into it and placed the ear plug in her other ear. "Okay dokey; let's see if anyone has satellite communication devices on 'em." On her way to the other end of the car, the newest device sent a high-pitched signal that made her jump and yank the earplug from her ear. She looked down at a businessman and saw a tiny little silver thing held up to his ear, she grab it and ran from the car back in the direction that she had come.

************

Goran took a sip of her double mocha coffee and sighed as the chocolaty flavor swirled around in her mouth; it was another one of her weaknesses and she had many of them. She flipped a page in the file Jake had given her and read down the list of supplies that were unaccounted for in Appalachia. What she couldn't figure out was what could possible happen to a 25 foot tractor trailer filled with supplies and the trailer they used as a hospital on wheels. "This is a first, now where is the crew I sent down there?" She looked at the list of three doctors, three nurses and various other people that totaled eighteen. "Alien abduction, maybe this is where the alien mother ship lands and I can give them Raith to take back with them?" She grinned and then let out a deep groan when the tall paranoid woman came flying into the dinning car. "She'll say that she's being followed by KGB agents or something."

"Who hide me!" She slid on her knees and went under the table to hide on the beside Goran legs closet to the wall. "Is he coming?"

"Who, I don't see anyone?"

"Big man, grey suit, bald head and beard."

Goran saw the man coming into the dinning car huffing and puffing; she jumped when Raith pressed closer to her legs and squeezed her thigh. "Why's he chasing you, what did you do?"

"Stole his satellite transmitter, he was sending messages to his bosses when I walked past." She fingered the thin silver device and handed it up to Goran. "Must be Russian, look how small and slim line it is?"

"Ohh yeah I see what you mean there Secret squirrel but when did Nokia become Russian?" She waved to the man and handed him his phone back. "Sir I think this is your phone and it's ringing." She held Raith's head down with her other hand and nudged her with her foot. "Stop or I'll tell him you're under here, I'm sure the Russian's would love to put you in a cell for thievery. Maybe torture you by pulling out your teeth or something."

"You wouldn't let them torture me would you?" Raith said and then hugged Goran's thigh with both of her arms. "They'd get all my secrets!"

"Ohh and there would be thousands of happy Russian women and a battery shortage in Russia." She slid out of the seat and waited for Raith to crawl out from under the table. "I'm going for a walk and you're coming with me so I can keep an eye on you." She grabbed the devices from Raith's hands and dropped them in the cargo pockets on her pants. "No toys, means no problems, stick you hands in your pockets."

"You know that I'm older and bigger than you and I can pretty much do what I want right?"

"Go ahead and keep on believing that Squirrel," She grabbed her belt loop and pulled her behind her. "I'm a doctor and I know all the weak areas on the human body, in fact, one of yours is still sore."

"You wouldn't hit me there would you?" She jumped out of the way of Goran's small foot that came back at her. "OK so you would kick me."

**************

Goran looked up from where she was sitting on her bed with her back against the bulkhead reading more of the file. "Hey Squirrel, you said you were going down to look for a missing CIA agent, I thought you were going down to look for terrorists. So which is it?" She closed the file and waited for blue eyes to rise from the electronic mess she was working on.

"He's both actually, they think he's a double agent and is selling information to the highest bidder. Don't know why they're sending me, what am I supposed ta do with him?" She closed up the long black plastic box she had been working on and put her full attention on Goran. "I don't even have a gun?actually; they won't let me have one. I shot the target mechanism and the target pulleys went nuts and smacked the instructor in his forehead. He ended up with ten stitches and a black eye, I was reprimanded and my firearm taken away?forever."

"Ok, now you killed a woman with a sex toy and wounded your firearms instructor, I'm not safe with you am I and I'll have to protect you from bad people?"

"I can protect myself if they're not too mean, I can even punch someone if I have to." Goran rolled her eyes and fell back on her bed.

"You're a lover not a fighter huh?or does that even count since you only love yourself?" She covered her face with her pillow and yelled, she wondered if you could have screws come loose in your head from being around someone with that problem. She pulled the pillow to the side, pointed a finger at Raith and growled. "No playing with secret squirrel when I'm awake and no screaming, ya got me?"

"Not yet but give me a few days?yeah I got ya I wouldn't do that anyways. I do have some morals ya know, wasn't raised in the wild."


"That's good ta know," She rolled from the bed, grabbed what she slept in from the foot and headed for the bathroom. "I'm going to struggle in the shower." Raith nodded her head and pulled out a small electronic device from her bag, she turned it on and pulled up a small antenna. A small 4x4 inch screen came on and showed the inside of the shower. Adjusting the color on the screen, she mumbled and went to the bathroom door.

"Hey Goran, would you reach up to your left and turn that little camera?that's?" She jumped back when the door flew open in front of her and there stood a pissed off Goran. "You moved it the wrong direction." She ducked the soap on a rope that swung at her head, fell to the floor and scurried towards the door. "I'll be back later!" She crawled out into the hallway and looked up at a woman that was standing in front of her. "It's that time of the month for her; she gets really mean and nasty." She got to her feet and ran towards where the dinning car was, she hoped they had some fresh coffee made and some junk food. She had a feeling that she was going to have a long wait before Goran calmed down.

*****************

A few hours later, Raith knelt outside of the door to her room. With her ear up against it, she couldn't hear anything from the noise of the train itself. Afraid of what Goran would do to her if she was still mad about the hidden shower cam, she paced the hallway. Her boredom got the better of her; she pulled out a toy that she had bought at the gift shop. She placed the eight-inch tall chicken on the floor and squeezed its wing. It started out at a slow shuffle to the music of Chicken Dance. As the music's beat sped up, so did the little chicken with Raith right behind it. So intent was she on the small toy that she never noticed the small doctor standing in the hallway behind her. She danced behind the small chicken and when it stopped, she bent over and squeezed its wing again. As the small toy turned in the hallway, Raith turned with it and saw a pair of unmistakable Garfield slippers stopping her chicken. She looked up with her arms bent to resemble little wings and gave her roommate a weak smile. "Hey ya Dr. Who, still mad at me?"

"You know," Goran looked down at the toy and back up at the tall woman. "You're an idiot." She grabbed up the toy and went into their room.

"What are ya doing with my chicken?" She ran into the room after her and slammed into her back when she stopped. "That's my toy!"

"I know it's your toy but what kind of alterations did you perform on it?" She examined every seam and then opened the battery compartment to look for anything strange. "Does it have a little camera to spy up women's skirts?" Raith snapped her fingers and went over to her black bag.

"Never thought of that, I have one that will fit perfectly!" She held out a small camera and reached for the chicken.

"Get out of here, there's no way I'm letting you do that you giant pervert!" She hid the chicken behind her back and gave Raith's chest a shove. "Now move your ass, we have to pack because in less than an hour we'll be in Richmond." She pulled down a bag from the compartment and fell over onto Raith's unmade bed. "Why don't they design something better than that damn thing," She pointed to the overhead and pushed herself up. "Like maybe something under the shitty rock hard racks they call beds!" Raith pulled the rest of the bags down and placed them on the floor for her.

"You're just mad because you're so short, so do we take a bus from Richmond all the way to Charleston where we're supposed to have a ride waiting to the Appalachia's?"

"You're asking me?" She tossed her dirty clothes into a bag and looked around her for anything else that needed put in it. "I've been lost since I got on the first damn train in New York!" She closed up her bag, pulled off her slippers and stuffed them into another bag. "With my luck, I'll end up hitch hiking all the way to the mountains!"

**************

Goran opened one eye, reached out and clamped her hand down onto Raith's. "If you don't stop jumping around, I'm gonna break all you limbs and toss you in the baggage hold."

"I can't help it; I'm not used to being stuck in a seat for hours at a time with nothing to do." She looked out the window and groaned when a sign flashed past with 109 miles to Charleston on it. It wouldn't be bad on the bus but it sounded like it was falling apart and the other occupants should be on their way to Florida not West Virginia. The conversations were about what kind of medicines they were taking, types of diapers and how many and what brand of enemas they were using. Raith was ready to slam her head into the window and hope that it knocked her out for the rest of the ride.

"Here, this should give you something to occupy you for a while." Goran handed her a shaving kit bag and went back to her napping.

"What am I supposed to do shave my legs or something?"

"Humor me and open the damn bag already, wake me up when we get there." She pulled her coat up to her chin and snuggled down into the seat. In seconds, she was sound asleep and drooling down her chin, Raith looked over and shivered at the sight.

"They should supply bibs on this bus," She looked around at all the old people doing the same as Goran. "Hell, sell the things that alone could pay for the gas." She opened the bag and grinned at what was inside; it was all prizes from Cracker Jacks. "Ohh little Dr. Who has an addiction," She pulled the small carry on out from under Goran's seat and opened it, a wide smirk came across her face when she saw that it was packed full with Cracker Jacks. "Each one with its own special prize." Filling her mouth to the point that she could hardly chew, she pulled out some of the toys to play with.
She had worked herself to the point where she was exhausted from playing the ignorant games from the Cracker Jacks and was close to drifting off to sleep. When a loud banging noise came from the back of the bus and then it careened and fell off the edge of the road. Keeping Goran from falling to the floor, she grabbed her by one arm, and pulled her into her arms. When the buss tilted dangerously to Raith's side, she slammed into the window and let out a howl of pain. After the bus came to a shuddering halt, she looked around at the shaken passengers. She let out a deep moan when Goran moved out of her arms.

"What the Hell happened?" She asked, pushed herself out of her seat and looked back to a pale faced Raith. "Are you alright, you look washed out?"

"Ohh just peachy, I'll be alright check on the others while I go kill the bus driver." She lurched from her seat, held her right arm against her stomach as she made her way to the front of the bus. She groaned when she found the driver out cold and with a knot the size of a golf ball forming on his forehead. "Ohh this is even better," She yanked on the handle for the door and struggled with it until it opened. "What else can happen to us?" She all but fell from the lopsided vehicle as she went down the steps, she then went towards the back and checked the bus on her way. What she saw made her think that they were all extremely lucky, the rear axle was broken and if not for it jamming upward beneath the bus, they would have rolled over into the ditch. After walking around the entire bus, she went back to the front and started helping the other passengers from inside. Once everyone was out, she dropped down onto the ground and laid her cheek on an upraised knee.

"I called 911 and they said that ambulances and a wrecker are on their way here." Goran said and dropped down beside Raith. "You still don't look to good, are you OK?"

"Just banged up a little," She turned her head and flinched. "OK so I'm banged up a lot and I think my right side is gonna fall off on the ground, I'd use my duct tape if I could get to my bag."

"Let me check you out, and when an ambulance gets here you're going with them if it's serious." Raith scooted back from her and shook her head.

"Uuuhh ahhh?you ain't touching me and neither is anyone else!" She slapped at Goran's hand and lost when she fell over onto her right side. "FUCK THAT HURTS!"

"And I'll hurt you even more if you don't let me look now stop moving around and let me look." Raith's eyes grew wide with panic; she flinched when Goran placed her hands on her ribs.

"I don't have to take my clothes off do I?"

"Like I would make you strip right here on the side of the road with all these toothless old geezers watching us?" She raised an eyebrow along with the corner of her mouth and wiggled a finger at Raith's shirt. "Take it off Secret Squirrel, take it all off!" She laughed when Raith gripped the front of her shirt and shook her head. "Just kidding, I'm going to slip my hands under your shirt and check your ribs. If I hit a tender spot, let me know without hurting me. Damn old lady kicked me earlier for touching her bruised elbow."

"I can save you the trouble; it's my shoulder and upper arm that hurts?got any good drugs for me?" Goran pushed up her shirtsleeve and whistled at the dark ugly bruise that went from her elbow up past where the shirtsleeve started.

"What did you hit?" She tried to push the sleeve up higher and winced when Raith gave out a deep moan.

"The edge of the window, I didn't break anything did I?"

"I can't tell without an x-ray, I don't think it's broke but you should have it checked at the hospital anyway." Raith shook her head and tried to get away from Goran.

"Nope, cuz then you'll take off and leave me there, something will happen to you and I'll end up with my carcass on a spit and my boss roasting marshmallows over my burning ass!" Goran raised her hand and gave Raith the brownie salute.

"I will go with you and I'll stay by your side until they release you from the hospital." She pulled Raith's sleeve back down and turned her head when she heard sirens coming towards them. "If anything happens to you, it'll be me on the pig spit." She stood up and then offered a hand to Raith. "Come on, let's get the geriatric brigade out of here and then we'll catch a ride with a cop or something."

"What about our bags, I can't leave my bag here?it's top,"

"Secret stuff I know all about it and that's why I had someone pull the bags out of the bus."

*************

"Don't touch?it's mine?all mine!" Raith yelled and gripped her bag with one arm to her knees. "Got?Victoria's secrets in here!" She stumbled and finally gave up on trying to carry her huge bag with one arm and dropped it at her feet. "Damn Victoria is heavy as shit?maybe let her go or somethin?" She blinked her eyes and grinned like an idiot when Goran stopped in front of her. "I know you?you're Who!"

"Who am I?"

"You know who Who." Raith swayed and then leaned against the wall.

"Who who?"

"Yeah?you know who you are?you're Who." Goran slapped her forehead and then grabbed Raith's bag from the floor.

"Come on Raith, whatever they gave you is making you weirder than you already are. And I hate to even mention this but we have to take another bus to Charleston, it seems that it's the only way there unless we hitch hike."

"Bus?for some reason I don't like them." She stumbled after Goran, tripped, and fell into the ER door. "Ooooww?need little stickers on the doors?can't seem 'em, maybe some great big butterflies or smiley faces." She rubbed her forehead and then stumbled through the doors when Goran grabbed the front of her shirt.

"Come on Secret Squirrel let's see if I can get us a ride to the bus station."

"I wanna ride a pony!" Raith yelled and jumped up and down at the end of the sidewalk, Goran turned her head and groaned when Raith became silent. She was looking down at the crack in the sidewalk and seemed totally entranced by it.

"And here I thought the chicken and the line thing was all a big lie." She pulled the doctor's release papers from Raith's pocket and searched for what they had given her to help with the pain in her arm and shoulder. "Ohh this is great, at least now I know you can't have Vicodin." She covered Raith's eyes and led her towards a parked police cruiser.

**************

Goran dropped the last of the bags inside the room she had gotten at the Quality Inn after finding out that they missed the last bus; she clapped her hands over her ears and wandered back out into the hallway. "BULLSHANKS!" Raith was swaying in the hallway with the nozzle of a fire hose held up to her mouth for a microphone and singing at the tops of her lungs.


Memories like the corners of my mind,
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were.
Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me - would we? could we?

"BULLSHANKS! You're killing me, you're really KILLING ME!" Goran grabbed her by the front of her shirt and dragged her into their room. "You are so?GAY!"

"Am not?ya like Neil Sedaka how about Lizza ?" Goran turned and went up on her tiptoes.

"One word, a hum, whistle or anything else and I will knock you out!" She picked up a small black case and opened it selecting what she needed then snuck up behind Raith.

"Ya ain't big enough?" She raised both arms in the air and belted out another song. "What do ya get when ya fall in love?OOWWW!"

"A big shot in the ass ta knock ya out!" She watched Raith fall face first into the double bed and lay still. "Ain't no fucking way I'm listening to you sing Burt Bacharach songs! And just my luck, there's a hog calling convention or some bullshit in town and not only do I have to share a room with squirrel but a damn bed as well!" She tossed the case on the dresser and headed to the bathroom for a shower. "The world sucks and so does my boss, I hope Jake gets jock itch all over his body!" After a quick shower, she dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and came out to find Raith on her back with her legs hanging over the foot of the bed; she dropped her towel on the doorknob and then went to work on Raith's boots and Levis. A few minutes later, she had her under the thin blanket and was easing in beside her. "This has got to be a nightmare or my karmas finally catching up with me." She punched her pillow a few times, elbowed Raith in her ribs and put her cold feet on her leg. "Hope you get frost bite from my cold ass feet."

***************

Goran tried to roll over and found that her one arm was trapped against Raith's chest; she rose up on one elbow as best she could and couldn't believe what she saw. Her thumb was firmly stuck between Raith's lips and being sucked; she wiggled and pulled to no avail. "Ohh if this isn't just gross and disgusting," She watched the way her warm wet lips wrapped around her thumb and moaned. "On second thought," She moaned and fought with herself. "I can't handle this." She pulled on her thumb, ended falling over on top of Raith and trapped by an arm wrapping around her waist. "Come on Squirrel let me up."

"What ya doing laying all over me, I thought ya didn't like me?"

"I don't like you and if you ever suck my thumb again I'll?"

"Enjoy the Hell outta it and get all hot and bothered." She held onto Goran and rolled to her back with a deep moan. "My right side hurts like a royal bitch, ya sure they read the x-rays right?" Goran moved so that she was comfortable and looked into lidded blue eyes.

"Yes they read them right and I double checked them, you just have deep bruising of the muscle and bone. But, you are not getting any more Vicodin; I am not putting up with you singing drag queen songs all the way to where ever the Hell we're going. I'll write you a different prescription for pain pills."

"But I need them?wait, what are ya gonna give me?" She flipped Goran over her and then hovered above her. "Can I have morphine?" Goran busted out laughing and then sobered quickly.

"HELL NO you can't have morphine, you get regular old Tylenol three with codeine. But if you weren't such a big fucking pussy, you wouldn't need any pain pills."

"I'm not a pussy; I'll?take regular aspirin." She got out of the bed and looked down at her bare legs. "Did you take advantage of me last night?" Goran rolled from the bed and snorted.

"Get over yourself; I'll never be that desperate to attack a comatose person or you for that matter." She grabbed up her clothes from the day before and dressed with Raith standing there with her jaw hanging open. "Besides, you're not my type." She looked up from tying her shoes and groaned. "Ohh come on and close your mouth, you act like you've never seen me get dressed before."

"But I haven't, you always went in the bathroom?of course you're the only one who fit in there without getting a stiff neck." She dropped down onto the edge of the bed and wigged her toes in the carpet. "You wear socks and everything."

"Of course I do and where were your socks, I pulled your work boots off and no socks?" Raith looked at her feet and then up at Goran with a small crooked smile.

"I forgot 'em down in my lab; I was making 'em into ones that you don't have to wash?" Goran held up a hand to stop her.

"I don't wanna hear anymore, socks' not needing to be washed doesn't sound right to me. Remember, I've been in more shit hole countries, had body rot, foot rot, leech bites and everything else that you can think of. And they tried to pass that shit off on us as well as water proof this and that, while we were in the middle of some fucking swamp with mosquito's the size of Huey's and big fucking huge ass anaconda snakes!" She took a deep breath and blew it out to ruffle her bangs. "So don't tell me about any of your clothing designs cuz they don't FUCKING WORK!"

"And I know you weren't using my stuff because, my stuff works!" She got up from the bed and looked around for her Levis. "Where's my pants, I can't go nowhere without pants?"

"Ohh will you calm down, I have them and I'm taking them down the street to the laundry." She picked up the bag with all her dirty clothes in it and slung it over her shoulder. "Now gimme the rest of your dirty stuff and I'll get it all done at one time." She wiggled her finger at Raith's t-shirt and boxers. "Come on squirrel take it all off so I can get going."

"You better not shrink my clothes or I'll?look like a dork!" She went into the bathroom, closed the door and tossed out her dirty clothes without opening it but a crack.

"Geez ya sure do have some modesty problems dontcha!"

"NO ONE SEES THE SECRET SQUIRREL!" Goran rolled her eyes, stuffed the rest of Raith's clothes in the bag and went to the door.

"Who wants to see your damn squirrel anyways?" She went out the door and headed down the hallway to the elevator; she had seen a small Laundromat the day before and wanted to wash all their dirty clothes before they hit the mountains. She didn't know what was left up there from what the organization sent and there was no way she was going to wash her clothes in a river. Not like she hadn't had to do that in the past but there was no way in Hell that she would do it in her own country. "There had better be someplace for me to stay or there will be Hell to pay when I get back to New York. I organize this shit but I always get the worst places to stay, gigantic bugs, snakes, lizards and nasty, reeking, disease infested men who think I want them!" She shivered and walked from the hotel at a quick pace talking to herself the entire way. "I help people, give them shots, and heal their wounds both physical and mental if I can and my boss gives me the shaft with added splinters!" She threw her hands in the air and growled at a little boy who stopped to stare at her. "And then of all the crazy ass shit, they send a fucking paranoid lunatic with me who sings SHOW TUNES!" She pushed open the door to the small Laundromat and looked for two washers side by side. Moving down the line of washers, she dropped the bag on the floor in front of the last two.

***********

Raith looked around the room and spotted Goran's bags sitting next to the small closet; she sighed and walked over to them. "Guess since you left me with nothin but a towel to wear, I'll wear something of yours." She pulled out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. "You're not washing my clothes without me being there, ya might get kinky with my drawers and I wanna watch!" She dressed in the too small clothes, pulled her work boots on; left the laces untied and went out the door. Halfway down the hallway, she stopped a maid and asked where the Laundromat was located. Running down the stairs, she jumped the remaining steps, pushed through the fire door and headed for the front doors. She ignored all the looks she got on the sidewalk as she jogged towards the Laundromat; it wasn't something out of the ordinary. Someone not looking, would have her suspicious and paranoid. She stopped outside of the doors and looked through at Goran; a small wicked grin came to her face when she saw that she was holding up a pair of her boxers.


***********

"Turtles, her boxers have little turtles on them." She threw them into the washer and lowered the lid. "Damn weird ass person, vacuum seals everything but forgets her socks."

"I told you why I forgot my socks and your boxers ain't much better?" She looked down at the Budweiser lizards on the front of the boxers and then into wide green eyes. "You think maybe I should have shaved my legs before coming out like this?"

"That or maybe visited a suntan bed, you ever go outside?"

"I'm outside now, does that count?" She looked around her and snarled at a guy giving her the once over one too many times. "Get lost before I rip your eyeballs out and feed them to my pet rat!" She let out a rumbling growl and stopped when Goran grabbed her upper arm and pulled her away from the guy.

"Behave yourself, I'm not good in places with steel bars and that's where we'll end up if you kill him."

"Not me, I just growl good, I was hoping you'd beat him up or something. Remember, I'm a pervert not a fighter."

"Ohh yeah I forgot, that is really going to help us if we get in a bind somewhere!" She pulled her over to a row of seats, pushed her down and handed her a package of Cracker Jacks. "Now sit there and eat your Cracker Jacks, I have to put softener in the washers." She stopped in front of the guy and looked over her shoulder at Raith. "Listen little man, she just got out of prison after a five year stint for murdering a man for just accidentally touching her in a crowded elevator. Do you really want to be her next victim?" She raised an eyebrow when he kept looking at Raith. "Did you hear what I just said?"

"Yeah but she don't look dangerous and she can't be no worse than my sisters," He spread his hair apart and pointed to a long scar. "See that, my younger sister hit me with a 4x4." Goran nodded her head and pointed over her shoulder.

"See the size of her muscles, those came from lifting all the weights in the yard. I should know because I watched her every single day until we got out," She looked back to Raith and mumbled. "I should have known the damn body would float to the top of the lake, but she's my wife and I have to protect her." She turned her head, stepped closer and ran her hand across his chest. "Can you lift?say 220 pounds of dead weight?" He gave her a big grin and nodded his head.

"Good, because we have a body out in our trunk, it needs to go in the dumpster. I'm too short to help her, can you do it?" He gave them both a look, grabbed his laundry bag and left. She grinned, poured softener from the small packet into the washers and went back over to sit beside Raith. "Dumbass men, when will they learn that they are not the center of the fucking universe and they can be replaced with something with higher IQ points like?GOLDFISH!" Raith handed her the toy surprise and just sat there staring at her profile. "What?"

"What did you say to him that he ran out of here and will you teach me how to scare people like that?" Goran rolled her eyes and looked to her side.

"I told him you just got out of prison and you scare people all on your own," She looked down at Raith's hairy legs and grinned. "The way you're dressed right now has me a little scared."


***************

Goran looked from where her bags were sitting in the dust and back up to an all too cheerful Raith, she snarled and pointed a finger at the dirt road that led to where the trailer and other WHO equipment was supposed to be. "Come on Dr. Who, let's see if there's anything left up there and if not then I can play with my secret squirrel toys and see if I can put a trace on it."

"Right like you can find where all the supplies went, the trailer and all the other stuff that I had sent here with your toys. That trailer is probably some family's condo right now and all the medical supplies and other stuff is strewn across state lines with the moonshine runners." She kicked a rock across the dirt road and threw her arms in the air. "I've done this stuff for years and even in war torn countries I've never lost an entire shipment or my staff for that matter!" Raith laid a hand on her shoulder.

"They're here somewhere or they decided to just up and quit and go back home." She gave her a one armed hug. "And you're in luck; I was born in these mountains so I know the people."

"What?you're kidding me right?," She saw the wide grin and shake of a dark head and groaned. "I'm stuck with secret squirrel the Appalachia hill jack!" She leaned down, picked up all her bags, and waddled down the dirt road.

"Hold on there Dr. Who, let me take some of your bags." She took the heaviest ones and carried them as if they weighed nothing. "So, what's first on your agenda?"

"Finding where the Hell I'm supposed to set up for my investigation and then where I'm supposed to sleep. What about you?"

"Ohh I think I'm gonna go see my ma and other family members that ain't in jail for running moonshine across state lines."

"Wonderful, you're relatives are in state institutions. Anything else I should know about you?like is your ma really your sister and aunt?" Raith rolled her eyes and chuckled.

"Don't believe all that you've heard about West Virginians, ma's only my cousin." She walked up ahead of Goran and held back her chuckle; she knew that she had gotten one in on the small doctor. What worried her was where Goran was going to stay, there were no hotels, motels or anything else where they were. Moreover, if the trailer was in fact missing that left it up to the family's around to offer a place to stay. That wasn't saying much, the people of Appalachia were dirt poor and could barely feed there family's let alone offer anything to a stranger. She looked back over her shoulder and saw that Goran was looking around them; she knew that the small doctor had seen awful living conditions in other countries and probably had never seen them in her own country. Some of the houses they were passing were no more than tarpaper shacks or shacks made from rusted sheet metal. Small dirty children peeked from open doorways and windows without glass. Raith knew the medical treatments that Goran had planned for here would help a little but when the winter snows came, it wouldn't mean much. Goran wouldn't be around to see the kids going down to the railroad tracks to pick up the coal that fell from the train cars, or that they were dressed in raggedy clothes and suffering from terrible colds. What people just couldn't understand is why these people chose to stay here and live in these types of conditions, they were born here and knew nothing else. Many never went to school; they went to work in the coalmines instead. But as the years went by, some of the mines closed down leaving a poor area even worse off. She was one of the lucky ones, she got out and attended college and then landed a good job. "So Dr. Who, I take it that you've never been down here before?"

"You'd be right about that, I usually go to the places that I'm setting up. This was someone else's baby, the doctor who was down here died of a heart attack before he could have everything set up and I just sent down what was needed. I delegated the smaller jobs to the other doctors and took care of the bigger stuff; little did I know all of this would happen." She stopped and looked at the WHO/MSF trailer. Where the word 'WHO' was in bold blue letters across the side, smaller letters were spray-painted at the end. The trailer now had the word WHOters on it. "Ohh this just ain't right! I want HEADS ON PIKES!" She dropped her bags and walked up to the trailer that now had a ramshackle porch on it, rusted lawn chairs and the seat out of a truck. She pulled the screen door open and walked inside to find a dozen or more filthy men sitting around the tables used for giving health exams. "Who in the Hell are you people and what in the Hell are you doing in my trailer?"

"This ain't yer trailer lady, traded my best coon dog and ten gallons of shine fer it." An old man said and pointed to the door. "Now ya better get before I let my boys throw you out." Goran threw a hand out in front of her and pointed at him.

"You are leaving; this is government property you're sitting in and where the Hell are all my supplies that are supposed to be here?"

"Ain't no government here lady and we traded all that junk that was here, don't need no rubber gloves or little wooden sticks. We need more money from welfare and more food stamps." Goran was about to go over the edge when Raith walked in behind her.

"All right ya'll get out and don't come back," She pointed to the door and pulled Goran back into her body. "Ya knew what this trailer was fer and ya can't be trading stuff fer government property anyways." She grabbed the old man by his suspenders and stopped him from getting out the door. "Who did you do all this business with and where is he?" The old man ran a gnarled hand through his scraggly beard and looked up to her with rheumy eyes.

"You go ask yer Uncle Billy Ray, he knows all about everythin that's been goin on here." Goran waited until they were alone in the trailer and grabbed Raith by the front of her t-shirt.

"You are in so much trouble; you knew what was going on up here didn't you?" Raith gave her a crocked smile and winked.

"I had a pretty good idea but I'm still here to get that CIA agent," She looked around and grinned at the 55gal steel drum that they turned into a wood stove. "You can't stay here Dr. Who, for one thing, there's no bed here and the water around here isn't fit for dogs to drink."

"And where exactly am I supposed to stay, at one time this trailer had a sleeping area and a bathroom complete with shower!" She walked over to the area where everything had been and pointed to the holes in the floor. "They traded the damn toilet and everything didn't they?"

"Well ya know, it's a hilly billy thing, we put 'em in our front yards and plant tomato plants in 'em." She picked up her bag, took Goran by her hand and pulled her from the trailer. "I'll call my ma and have her come and get us, we can stay there with her if ya want?"

"I'm not going to find my toilet in your ma's front yard am I?"

***************

Goran bounced in the seat between Raith and her ma; she looked over to the older woman and couldn't believe that she and Raith were related. Where one was tall and dark, the other was short and mahogany. The truck they were in was something else; one side rode lower because the tire on the front was smaller than the other three. Keeping the passenger door closed was a bungee cord and a pair of vise grips doubled for the window handle. She looked between the cracks in the windshield and blinked when they pulled up a rutted and pothole filled road to a large tin shack. What she didn't see were old appliances that she thought every redneck had in their yard or a car on blocks. She knew she was going by what Jeff Foxworthy said on his comedy shows but that's all she had. "Only got two bedrooms, you'll hafta share a room with Raith."

"That's OK ma'am, we've shared a room since Washington DC. I've gotten used to your daughters strange ways." She cast a narrowed look at Raith who wasn't paying any attention to her as she pulled the truck up to the side of the shack. "Including how she tunes me out when I'm talking."

"Ohh she's listening alright, she just wants everyone to think she's not paying any attention." Ma opened the passenger and held it for Goran. "So ya two gotta find everything that was ripped off huh? I can tell ya right now it ain't gonna be easy and chances are it's not even in West Virginia."

"Kinda figured that ma," Raith came around the back of the truck and grabbed most of the bags. "Where's Uncle Billy, he's one that's most likely guilty as Hell and maybe he can tell me about the CIA agent I'm supposed to find." She flinched when her ma jabbed her in her stomach.

"Now don't go blaming Billy before you talked with him, he's not done anything since he got out this last time."

"Really then why did Old Beaner say to talk to Uncle Billy?" She walked between her ma and Goran.

"Because your Uncle is the radio guy, there isn't anything around here that he doesn't know about." Goran grabbed Raith's upper arm and held her back from going into the shack.

"Maybe he knows where my people are," She froze in place once she was through the shacks front door, she looked around and if not for Raith grabbing her arm, she would have fallen. "This?it's?outside?"

"Looks can be very deceiving," Ma said, she had her drop her bags and then led her to the kitchen where she turned on her Bunn coffee pot. "We left it looking like this to keep nosy people from coming around."

"That makes sense but aren't your neighbors jealous?"

"Nope, ma don't have any and the only ones that come around are relatives." Raith sat down across from Goran and jumped when her ma smacked her in the back of the head.

"Show some damn manners and get the coffee." Goran covered her mouth to keep Raith from seeing her grin. "It's nice to have my slave back, so Dr. Pickens you work for who?"

"Yes ma'am." She saw the confused look come over the older woman's face and realized what had happened. "Sorry, I work for Doctors without borders or WHO for short. Uuhhmm what's your name, its odd calling you ma'am?"

"STELLA!" Raith yelled and then grunted when her ma kicked her in her ass. "Sorry ma ya know I can't pass up doing that."

"I know and I just enjoy the Hell outta kicking you every time you do it, now where's my coffee?" She looked over to see that Goran had a hand over her heart. "I thought you said you were used to her strange ways and you can just call me ma?"

"OK and what she just did is new, but the chicken thing was the weirdest that I've seen her do though." She explained how she caught her dancing with the toy chicken on the train and all the other weird things she had done.

"Leave it up to Raith, never was a normal kid."

"Gee thanks ma and you were or are a normal mother?" She placed coffee in front of both of them and then got another cup for herself. "Ma's a retired C&O train conductor, ya know the funny hat, pocket watch and all."

"And it put food on the table and a roof over our heads." Raith nodded her head and gave her ma a kiss on her cheek.

"Sure did," She looked to Goran. "My dad died of a heart attack on the job at the mines when I was eleven; ma was working at the train station where they hauled the coal for the mining company?"

"I took a promotion that had me traveling from here to Pennsylvania a couple times a week, while I was away; Raith was working the coal mines for extra money." Goran choked on her coffee and wiped her mouth.

"You were eleven, what were you doing in the mines?"

"Hey I know but most everyone around here either worked for the mining company or worked the trains, I don't like trains." She sipped her coffee and flinched when Goran kicked her under the table. "What?"

"You'd rather get black lung then play with trains?"

"Money was better back then with the mining company then walking the tracks. Anyway, I traded my time in the shafts for lumber and building supplies."

"I would come home and find new walls and floors; she was remodeling our house because she was bored." She got up to get the coffee pot and looked to Goran. "So Dr. Pickens where are you from?"

"You can call me Goran and I'm from New York but I've lived all over the world. When I was eleven, I was lucky I was allowed out of the house after dark. Then again it was New York and anyone with half a brain didn't go out at night." She saw the look ma gave Raith and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Wouldn't have stopped this one, for all the brains she has, ya would think she would use them ta stay outta trouble."

"I stay out of trouble?a little bit of the time, I get bored and have ta do something or I'll go nuts." She pulled a strange wire out of her shirt pocket, attached it to her palm pilot and aimed the tip of it at Goran. "You need to trim the hair in your nose?Oww ma she kicked me!"

"I would've done worse, its no wonder you can't get a date with the way you act around women." Goran turned her attention to Raith and leaned across the table.

"And you had me believing that you were some sort of stud and here you're a giant DUD!" Raith gave her a brilliant smile and nodded her head.

"Kept you on your toes didn't?" She got up from the table and left her sitting in the kitchen with her ma.

"She's evil, always has been always will be, no changing the devils spawn." Ma said and got up to refill their cups and pull out a tin of chocolate chip cookies. "Ya know I would come home and she'd have all my appliances on the table in pieces, I kept telling her to leave at least one of them alone so I could cook supper when I got home."

"So she's always been this way," She waved a hand on a small device that Raith had left on the table, she watched as ma lifted the black box up to her mouth and yelled in it. Off in another part of the shack, Raith let out a howl. "She was eaves dropping on us?"

"Of course, I wouldn't put it past her to have bugged all your clothes and put a lojack system on you. She's good at what she does, I just wish she would get out more. You know spend some time with humans and not her toys." Goran chuckled and grabbed a cookie from the tin.

"From what she told me, the reason she was sent down here was because one of her toys caused some problems at work and they kicked her out."
"Hell I wouldn't doubt that she leveled Washington DC some how, she turned an old stil into a huge bomb and leveled an old barn when she was eight." She leaned back in her chair and looked Goran over. "So what is your specialty, family medicine or something else?"

"Trauma was my specialty until I got tired of it; I volunteered for WHO/MSF around 5 years ago. Now I set up all kinds of treatment plans all over the world that was until this problem arose. I'm missing a number of people along with the supplies."

"Don't worry, Raith will help you find them." Goran looked into her pale blue eyes and knew that she was right.

"I just don't understand why they let someone take everything and why they didn't call the main office for help if there was a problem." Ma leaned across the table and held green eyes captive.

"Have you ever seen what happens to a person after they've drank too much shine?"

"Is it anything like Raith on pain medication?"

"Ohh a hundred times worse, the stuff the boys make around here can take rust of steel." Goran dropped her head to the table; she didn't even want to think about her nurses and doctors sitting somewhere drunk out of their minds on moonshine.

*********

Goran walked into Raith's bedroom and stopped to watch her feet kicking from where they were under her bed. She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe and listened to her cussing and struggling grunts. "So it's true there are monsters under our beds." She walked forward, grabbed one of her feet and pulled her out from under her bed. "What were you doing under there?"

"Looking for some of my toys I left here the last time I came home for a visit." She waved a long tentacled device at her and got to her feet. "It can stick to any surface ya want and picks up both sound and video."

"Raith, it looks like a big damn bug." She gave her a wicked grin and a wink.

"I know I make 'em smaller now so that they look like wolf spiders, they can be put in a corner and no one knows about 'em." Goran shivered and dropped down on the edge of the double bed.

"You're a fucking freak ya know that?"

"I thought ya figured that out days ago," She wiggled her toy in front of her. "They're water proof now to, work great in the shower or outside." Goran fell back on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

"You want me to be as paranoid as you are don't you?"

"Of course, that way I'm not alone in my psychosis." She lay down beside her and looked at her profile with interest. "Ya know ya got hair on your ears?"

"Ohh just find all my faults in one day why don't you," She removed one hand and smacked her in the chest. "You really need to work on your lines if you ever wanna get a date."

"Hey it's not faults, its details and I gave up on women a long time ago. Why do ya think I make sex toys?"

"You have a point there." She groaned and rolled over to look at her. "I'm hungry, is there anyplace around her to get something to eat?" Raith rolled her eyes and got up from the bed.

"The kitchen is a good place, at least that's where I always go."

"Smartass." She grumbled and followed her to the kitchen.

***********

Raith looked out across the river to her uncle's small shack; she wondered how a man in his 70's that was missing one leg and one arm managed to get across so easily. She looked to the far side, saw the small rowboat, and shook her head. "Either we swim across or walk all the way around to the bridge." Goran stepped up beside her and narrowed her eyes.

"If you knew this before hand then why the fuck didn't we just go to the bridge to begin with?"

"Because he always had a rope running across so that ya could pull the boat ta this side that's why, so which is it, swim or walk?" She looked back down and saw her uncle watching them from his porch. "Wait a minute, he's on his porch." She slid down the embankment and waved a hand at him. She watched him as he got up and pointed to a small area thick with brush, she nodded her head and then went over to inspect the area. "Hey Dr. Who we got us a little boat down here!" She waved a hand and watched as Goran slid down the embankment and made her way over to her.

"Squirrel that's nothing but a washtub!" She looked at Raith and then the small two-man boat. "If we sink in that thing I'm gonna pound on you until I'm exhausted, I hate water and if I die I can't save people!"

"Well that makes a lot of sense, you're a doc but ya wanna beat me up and hurt me." She pulled the boat out of the bushes and pushed it out into the water. "Come on Who let's go see uncle Billy, maybe he knows where your peoples are and then you can go cure them, find your supplies or whatever, I have better things to do." Goran looked at Raith and wondered why all of the sudden hostility towards her, she walked slowly around her and stepped into the boat. On the short trip across the calm river, she tried to read the situation but found Raith able to block all emotion from her expression and eyes. With all the time they had spent together, this was the first time that Raith acted this way. Blowing out a breath of air when they reached shore, she climbed from the boat and waited for Raith to join her.

"Is everything alright Raith?I mean?," She flinched and backed away from Raith when silvery blue eyes looked down at her and a low growling voice hit her ears.

"Just drop it and leave me alone." She stomped through the brush and up towards the shack, after giving her uncle a quick hug, she disappeared into the trees leaving Goran with the older man.

"She sure don't like you much." He said and held out a calloused to her. "Names Billy and who are ya?"

"I'm Dr. Pickens; I'm looking for my associates and the supplies that were taken from the medical trailer and semi truck trailer."

"Don't know anything but that they all got pissed off about the conditions here and took off outta here in that big ole truck. One of 'em said somethin about selling the truck and donating the money ta the feed the family's foundation." Goran dropped down onto an old bucket and dropped her face into her hands; she looked up at the older man and noticed for the first time that he was handicapped. "What's a matter there doc, never seen a half limbed person before?"

"Yes I have, it's just that I just now noticed." She looked off in the direction that Raith had gone and then back to Billy. "Raith was fine until we came down here, is she mad at me or you?"

"Ohh it's you, she don't like doctors too much, kinda like me." He lifted his leg stump at her and then flapped the empty sleeve on his right side. "I got this way 'cuz of some Korean bullet and doctor." Goran raised her brows at him and was about to ask a question when he handed her a mason jar with clear liquid in it. "Got shot down during a mission over Korea, got shot, which wasn't bad, it was getting captured that sucked."

"I don't understand what any of this has to do with me?"

"Ohh it's simple, our docs heal the world, and some of the others use their doctoring skills ta torture. He held out his arm to show her an old bullet wound in the bicep area. "This is where I got shot after our plane crashed," He wiggled the empty pant leg and shirtsleeve. "This is where they cut my arm and leg off tryin ta get top secret information outta me." He watched her face grow pale with the information.

"But why is she mad at me, I didn't do anything?" She took a sip of the liquid in the jar and gasped. "Holy shit!" She barked out and coughed until tears ran down her cheeks.

"That's the smooth stuff ya got there, really potent stuff went out the other day ta North Carolina." He picked up a coffee cup and drank from it. "She gets pissed over a bunch of stuff, me being tortured is one of 'em. She'll calm down in a bit don't cha worry none, now about your peoples." He pointed to the West and grinned at her. "They went that away three days ago?" He watched her look off to where Raith had disappeared, get up and go in the same direction.

"Ohh you stupid bitch Goran, you said you would pound on her and there's her uncle who was tortured by a doctor." She took a long drink of the moonshine and coughed. "Gotta fix this?I need her help." She stumbled over tree roots and ducked low branches.

********

Raith sat up in a tree not far from her uncle's cabin; she was pissed at Goran's remark about pounding on her. "Maybe you are as whacked as everyone thinks," She dropped her head down so that her chin rested on her knees. "Ya better get back down there before she wanders off and gets lost." She was ready to drop down from the tree when Goran stopped beneath it and tipped back a mason jar, she waited and watched as she settled below her and drank some more.

"You're an idiot Gory?always playin the dis?distant doctor, never payin attention." She drank more shine. "Treat the symp?toms not the problem," She chuckled and ran a hand across her flushed cheek. "Like ta? treat her lack of?sex life, gotta be deaf, dumb and blind...not ta want?some of that woman." She downed the last of the shine and placed the jar beside her. "I wanna play?with the?squirrel?" She fell sideways when something dropped down in front of her. "Rainin acorns?," She picked up the small nut and rolled it in the palm of her hand. "Squirrel don't eat 'em?but I'd eat squirrel?all night?"

"So ya call yourself Gory huh?" She watched her for a few minutes and then yelled down when she became still. "Hey Gory, ya all right down there, ya look kinda?passed out?" She sighed and dropped down in front of Goran. "You're a lush Dr. Who; now I have ta carry ya all the way back to ma's." She picked her up in her arms, headed back to her uncle's shack, and then down to the boat. "Ya know it wouldn't hurt for ya ta be a little more human, maybe nicer ta me to."

*********

"You have to get over all that shit Raith, what happened to Billy, was a lot of years ago and isn't anyone over here's fault and you jumping on Goran was just plain wrong." Ma threw a roll at her and went back to eating their late supper. "Now when she wakes up, you go in there and apologize ta her." Raith opened her mouth and then closed it again to think before speaking.

"But ma I didn't do anything?OK I?got smart with her but she said she was gonna beat on me?" She dropped her head and took a deep breath. "OK I know she didn't mean it, it's just that we were at Billy's and I?never mind I'm an asshole." She looked down at her plate and played around with her food, when her ma grabbed her hand she pulled it away.

"Ohh now I know what your problem is, your hands are swollen so that means you're gonna be a real big son of a bitch for the next week." She looked at her daughter and snorted. "You can't really believe that little Goran could hurt you?"

"She's meaner than ya know, she scared the Hell outta me on the train. Yanked the bathroom door open after finding out I had a little camera in the shower?" She grinned when her ma laughed and threw a napkin at her. "After that's when she caught me dancing in the hallway."

************

Raith woke up and groaned, opening one eye, she quickly closed it and rolled over. The stench of moonshine came from Goran's pours and was bad enough to make Raith nauseous. Pulling her pillow over her head, she whimpered when Goran curled around her body and forced her face under the pillow to nuzzle the back of her neck. She jumped from the sound of the window next to her bed going up and then the one on the other side. "Come on Raith, wake Gory up and hose her down." Ma yanked the pillow from her head and grinned. "Fried wild ramps on a humid day smell better than her."

"I know and why'd ya let me sleep in here with her?"

"Cuz I'm evil and you deserve it fer being mean ta her, now get outta that bed." Raith rolled from her bed and used her pillow to beat on Goran.

"Get up, you reek and I'm getting a headache from the stench!"

"Go away squirrel my head hurts." She mumbled and buried her head under her pillow, a second later, the flung the pillow on the floor and groaned. "Damn but something died in my mouth." She opened an eye and whimpered when a piercing pain shot through her brain. "What the Hell did I drink last night?"

"Ohh I'd say it was 140 proof moonshine, good thing none of us smoke or the house would blow up." Ma said and left the bedroom to start breakfast. "And don't spare the soap or the hot water you two, ya both reek!"
"Guess I'm guilty from association." Raith mumbled on her way to the bathroom. Goran rolled from the bed and stumbled after Raith; she grabbed the back of her shirt and let her pull her along.

"Got any Lysol I can gargle with?" She put her head against Raith's back when she stopped and then whimpered when she moved too fast.

"I think ma's got some bleach, it might work better." She turned the shower on and then laid out a clean towel for her. "You shower first and I'll go get you something for your hangover." Goran grabbed the front of her t-shirt and shook her head slowly.

"I just need my carry-on bag; I have some stuff in there." She struggled with her shirt and whimpered. "Help?please?" Raith tried not to look at her body when she tried to help her undress but found it hard, and it only got worse when her ma stepped into the doorway.

"You two are completely hopeless," Ma grabbed her daughter by the back of her boxers and pulled her from the bathroom. "Go get some coffee and I'll help Gory before one of you gets hurt." She put her hand on Raith's chest and pushed her backwards through the door while she held Goran up with the other. "Ya would think that neither one of ya had ever undressed before, damn kids." She untangled Goran's arms from her t-shirt and sat her down on the toilet seat. "Have you ever been drunk or had a hangover before?"

"No and I never wanna have another one either, feel like shit." She stood up on wobbly legs and held onto ma's shoulders when she finished undressing her. "This is embarrassing?I'm a doctor?"

"Right now you're a mess but you'll feel better once you've had a shower and ya get something in your stomach." She helped her get into the shower and then pulled the curtain closed. "I swear it doesn't matter how old they are, one shot of moonshine and all the brain cells disappear."

*********

Goran sat on the couch with a cup of green tea and an ice bag on the top of her head, she looked to the side and snarled at a grinning Raith and then felt bad for doing it. "Sorry squirrel?sorry for last night to, I didn't mean anything by it." Curled in a fetal position, Raith was trying to ignore the cramps she had. She nodded her head and moved around at the end of the couch so that she could see her better.

"I wasn't much better; I'm not the nicest person to be around when it's that time of the month." She moved the heating pad and whimpered from a sharp pain. "Damn cramps do me in and nothing helps." She saw a flicker hit green eyes and wondered what she was thinking. "Got any good drugs with ya?"

"I could have helped you if they hadn't run off with everything from the med trailer," she moved so that she was sitting with her back against the couches arm and her feet on the center cushion. "Gimme your feet."

"Why do ya want my feet, I hate my feet being touched?"

"Ohh be quiet and just gimme one foot and I'll show you." She wiggled her fingers and waited for Raith to straighten out her legs and place one foot in her hand. "I'm gonna hit some pressure points that are known to relieve the cramps, it doesn't get rid of them completely but it helps." She watched blue eyes roll back and a low rumbling moan come from between parted lips when she hit certain areas on her feet. "There's another way that gets rid of them but there's no way I'm telling you because I know that you'll try it and I'll go nuts knowing what you're doing." She groaned when a twinkling pale blue eye opened, held her in place while a pink tongue moistened a top lip.

"Ohh and why couldn't you handle the fact that I would be getting myself off, you're a doctor, I'm a pervert and nothin should phase you?" She pulled her foot from Goran's hand and moved so that she was crawling towards her. She stopped when her hips were between Goran's spread thighs and hovered over her. "Or would the problem be that you wouldn't know if I was using a toy or just my hand?" She leaned down to whisper right in her ear. "I prefer my hand when I wanna take my time, toys are for quickies. Wanna have a quickie with me?" She pressed her hips down into Goran and moaned in her ear before falling on top of her and burying her face against her neck. "Maybe later after my uterus falls out?hate this shit." She moved off Goran, rolled to the back of the couch and whimpered into the cushions.

"Stay right there," Goran said close to her ear and then went in search of her bag, she had some painkillers but she didn't know if they would help her. On her way back to the living room, she ran into ma and gave her a small smile. "Does she always get bad cramps?"

"From the time she was eleven, it's so bad at times that she can't get out of bed. I told her to go see a gynecologist but she's a chicken shit." Goran looked out to the living room and nodded her head.

"Is there a family history of female problems?"

"Yep, cysts and endometriosis, maybe you can convince her to go see someone." She pulled the front of her faded button down Levi shirt straight and looked up into green eyes. "I had cervical cancer years ago, she's afraid that they might find something else?or the same." Goran nodded her head and went over to the couch; she sat down on the edge and caressed Raith's shoulder. "I have some muscle relaxers that I think will help but if you get goofy like the last time, I'm knocking you out."

"Can we skip the first part and go right to knocking me out?"

"We could but," She placed her hand on Raith's cheek and brushed her thumb across her eyebrow. "I want you to go see someone about this."

"Nope, not gonna do it no one sees the secret squirrel and its just cramps, lots of women get 'em."

"Maybe but not all women have female problems in the family history." She saw the wild look in Raith's eyes and didn't know what to do. "Ma told me and I think it would be wise to at least let a specialist take some tests. I have it done twice a year to be on the safe side?"

"Then have it done three times this year and I'll call us even." She took the pills from Goran's hand and the bottle of water from the coffee table. "No one is gonna go down there while I'm still alive."

"For fucks sake Raith it might be nothing at all! Ya know there are survivors out there; your ma is one of them! Don't be stupid and take a chance with your life?"

"It's my life and all you doctors just like ta take blood, cut people up and collect that big paycheck. You don't care what happens after ya leave the surgery room; the patient is just another statistic or hash mark." Goran clamped a hand over Raith's mouth and rubbed at her pounding temple.

"You're giving me a migraine and you haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about." She raised her hand and then pointed a finger at Raith. "Give me one second to show you and then you can run off at the mouth all you want but?," She paused for effect. "I'm still right." She pulled her t-shirt up over her head and dropped it on the couch; she then unclipped the front of her bra and watched Raith's eyes widen. "No one knows about this, not even my colleagues." She lifted her left breast to show a faint scar that ran under her breast from her ribcage to the center of her chest. "This is from a mastectomy, I found a lump in my breast years ago and the tests came back positive." She refastened her bra and reached for her shirt, Raith laid a hand on hers and looked into her eyes. "Afterwards, I had a lot of reconstructive surgery." She saw the confusion on Raith's face. "I lost both breasts at the same time Raith, I have implants."

"I'm sorry?I don't know what to say." Goran leaned down and placed a finger over her lips.

"Don't say anything; go see a doctor, not for me or your ma but for yourself." She watched blue eyes fill with tears and then uncontrollable sobs wrack Raith's body; she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her to her body. She looked up when ma came into the room and gave her a questioning look; ma mouthed the word 'hormones' to her and left through the front door. For long moments, she rocked Raith in her arms until the pain medication kicked in and or exhaustion. Laying Raith down, she covered her with a thin blanket and went into the kitchen for something to drink. With her mind on Raith, her hang over and headache had disappeared but she still felt a little dehydrated and swore to herself that she would never ever drink moonshine again. Grabbing a bottle of Coke, she went out the back door and then walked around the shack until she found ma at her small garden. "So her breaking down like that is normal?" Ma chuckled and nodded her head.

"Ohh she'll get worse before it's over, she'll cry at the weirdest things or moments. And I'll warn ya now, she'll latch on to ya tonight like a leach and won't let go. Used ta drive me nuts when she did that, I'd wake up with her standing beside my bed starin at me." She tossed a handful of weeds in a pile and went back to weeding her tomato plants. "I'd have ta let her sleep with me or she'd stand there all night and stare at me." Goran dropped to her haunches and started to pull weeds from around the cucumber plants; she looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"I can see her doing that when she was little."

"Try a few months ago, damn kids an emotional dork during her period." She sat back and looked Goran over. "So do ya have a girlfriend waiting for ya somewhere?" Goran looked under her arm and snorted.

"I gotta do something about that rainbow sticker on my ass huh?"

"Ohh it's my momdar as Raith calls it that gave ya away."

"Ohhh OK and no, I'm never anywhere long enough to have a relationship that would last. Plus the fact that no one can stand my God complex and they all get pissed when I make them build alters to me and worship at my feet." She snorted and then laughed along with ma.

"Sounds like Raith, who in the Hell could stand to put up with her spy toys and paranoia? She thinks there's KGB agents' hiding under her bed!"

"Why is that, I mean I know there's spies out there but what's with her conspiracy beliefs?"

"Too much TV, an over active imagination and a lonely childhood; I take the blame for that." She sat back in the dirt, wiped sweat from her face and brushed her long mahogany hair over her shoulders. "After her dad died I had to work more hours to make ends meet, we had his life insurance but that didn't go far after the burial and other bills were paid. She was here all alone for a good part of her childhood and like now, she wasn't a people person."

"Sometimes it's good not to be around people, I know I can't wait to be by myself for a few hours. You know to just sit back and think, maybe soak for a few hours in a tub." Ma nodded her head but knew that what Goran was talking about and what Raith did were polar opposites.

"That's fine but months in the basement of the UN office building is not normal, the only person she sees is her work partner."

"True, maybe she needs to pass out more of her sex toys." She knew she had said too much when ma gave her a funny look. "Ask the squirrel about what happened."

**************

Hours later Goran fought with the electrical cord, she yanked and cussed until Raith rolled over on the couch and she was able to move the heating pad from where it tangled around Raith's leg. Checking the heat dial, she grabbed the hand towel she brought from the bathroom and sat down beside her tall friend. "I'm surprised you didn't hang yourself with this thing," She pushed her t-shirt up and was about to put the towel on her stomach when she spotted something odd, pushing Raith's waistband down, she snorted at the tattoo of a squirrel's head. "Ohh for fuck sakes Squirrel only you would have road kill tattooed on your body." She would have looked further but ma came into the living room with a bed pillow in her hands.

"Now what did my freak of a kid do?" She looked over the back of the couch and snorted. "Told you she's a dork," She reached over the back of the couch and pulled the waistband down further. "Who else would have a dead squirrel tattooed above their privates?"

"Why you two harassing me, what'd I do?" Raith mumbled, pushed hands away from her shorts and tried to roll over on the couch.

"Agent road kill put the heating pad on your stomach and go back to sleep, I left some more pills on the table if you need them." She covered her back up and then went into her bedroom, flipping the light on; she went over to one of her bags to get clothes to sleep in.

"I left the nightlight on in the bathroom for ya," Ma said from the doorway. "That way you won't be falling all over the place if you have to get up. I have an early appointment in the morning but if you guys need ta go anywhere, my truck keys are hanging near the door."

"OK, I might have Raith take me back down to the trailer so that I can get it ready to be hauled out of here or what ever my bosses want done with it. I may just tell them to write it off and have a new one brought in; I'm thinking a Winnebago would be better down here anyway."

"Yeah something that you can haul ass outta here with when the rednecks come looking for a new hideout." She gave Goran a quick hug and went to her own bedroom. "Night Gory don't let Raith bite you tonight."
A short while later, she was changed and in bed, she beat on her pillow until she had it right and then closed her eyes. The sounds were so different from anywhere else in the world, off in the distance she could hear a train whistle and then the clunking as it moved down the tracks. The soft sounds of nocturnal creatures, crickets clicking and a low thump of someone falling off the couch, she held back her snicker by covering her mouth and then busted out laughing when Raith stubbed her toes on the door jam to the bedroom. "Ain't fucking funny Dr. Who, I think I broke all my toes." She whispered hoarsely and hopped over to the bed to fall beside Goran with her one foot clutched in her hand.

"If you think I'm gonna kiss your nasty toes and make 'em all better you're insane."

"Well OK but would ya look at 'em an make sure I didn't bust 'em?" She held her foot out and then clamped a hand over her eyes when Goran flipped the bedside light on. "Are they busted?am I gonna need a cast? She whimpered and then started to sob.

"Your toes aren't broke, just bruised?why are you crying?"

"Don't know?feel like it." She rolled into Goran and curled around her body like a second skin. "Would ya pet my squirrel?"

"I'm not petting your squirrel," She reached across Raith and turned off the light. "Go to sleep and maybe it'll be better in the morning." She ran her fingers through long silky hair and pressed a kiss to Raith's crown. "Under different circumstances I'd do more then pet your squirrel." She whispered when she felt Raith relax into her and breathe deeply. "As goofy and paranoid as you are, I could fall so easily for you?forever." She wrapped her arms around Raith, held her tight and drifted off to sleep.

************

Raith raised her head up, looked down at Goran's childlike appearance and smiled softly. She had been awake for over an hour but refused to move and break the magic that she felt while wrapped around the smaller woman. She dropped back down into the bed, buried her face against the back of her neck and inhaled the soft scent of her shampoo. "Hey squirrel stop drooling down my neck and ease up on the bear hug, I can't breath." She wiggled until Raith let her grip loosen and then rolled over to face her. "You were playing with my tits weren't you?" Blue eyes widened. "And if you say no, I'll know if you're lying cuz silicone holds imprints and I'll have yours all over my tits." She rolled away from Raith and headed for the bathroom with Raith right on her heels.

"But at least I didn't suck your thumb like the last time!" She came to a screeching halt when the door slammed in her face. "And ya won't find my finger imprints cuz it only takes 3.5 seconds for them ta come off your tits, I timed it!" She leaned her ear against the door and sighed. "OK so your tits ain't the only thing I was playing with?your ears twitch when they're touched!" The door flew open to show Goran with a fierce expression on her face and toothpaste dripping down her chin.

"You're killing me squirrel?killing me!" She turned and went back to brushing her teeth.

***********

Raith held the small satellite dish high above her head and turned in a circle until Goran yelled her name. "Squirrel stop?Right there?don't move!" She dialed the number to her boss's office and hoped that she could complete her phone call before Raith's arm gave out. Moving closer to Raith, she looked up at her profile and felt her heartbeat pick up, with the way the sun was slanting through the treetops; it cast a warm glow upon her skin and shone blue upon her dark hair. She gave a little jump when she heard Jake's voice over the phone. Sighing, she let him run off at the mouth for not calling him sooner or on her way down to West Virginia. Finally, she was able to get a word in edgewise and flinched when he yelled in her ear. She pulled the phone away and held it up to Raith's ear so she could be part of the ass chewing she was getting. "OK OK, I'll take care of it and no there's not much left of the trailer?" She pulled the phone away and let him finish yelling. "The wheels, they let the frame with the wheels on it." She hung up and saw the smirk on Raith's face. "So I lied, ask your uncle Billy if he wants to move into the trailer, I know with the help of his buddies they can fix it up for him." She closed her phone and unhooked the antennae wire from the back of it. "So what about this agent you're supposed to be looking for, any idea where he or she is?" Raith folded up her satellite dish, placed it back in its bag and dropped it down inside of her backpack.
"I've known where the agents been since before I left DC, gonna get the double cheating bastard to." She held her hand out to Goran and pulled her up the small incline above where the trailer was. "So ya wanna go into town and get something ta eat, there's a little restaurant there that makes good chicken fried steak and uses real potatoes?"

"Real potatoes huh?those are those things ya dig up out of the ground aren't they?" Raith nodded her head and pulled Goran behind her to where she had parked her ma's other truck.

"Yeah down here us hillbillies dig 'em up outta the ground, where you're from, ya get 'em at the grocery store already clean and sometimes in a box." She placed her backpack in the back of the truck, went around to the other side and opened the door for Goran. "They got blackberry cobbler to with homemade vanilla ice cream for on top." She helped Goran into the truck and closed the door before running around to the driver's side, when she got in; she saw the shocked expression on Goran's face and wondered what she had done wrong. "What?"

"Nothing, I've just never had anyone open a door or help me into a vehicle before. You always do that or is this a special occasion?"

"Ohh I always open doors for who ever I'm with, ma trained me well and would kick my ass if I didn't do it." She pulled the truck down the dirt road and swerved around all the deep holes and trenches. Fourteen minutes later, they pulled into a small parking lot outside of a small building. Raith ran around the truck, opened the door for Goran and then took her hand.

"Why do you keep taking my hand, I'm not going to get lost or run off."

"Maybe not but ya want rednecks hittin on ya thinking you're available and in the market fer a tobacco chewing, moonshine swiggin toothless?"

"OK and you holding my hand is gonna stop them?"

"Yep, they know better than to go up against me." She gave Goran a toothy grin and held the door for her.

"Ohh I forgot I'm with secret squirrel who can punch someone if they're a bad person." She walked in and found a seat at the back of the small restaurant; she slid across the bench seat and looked to Raith when she slid in beside her.

"Hey don't give me that look; I can't sit where I can't see." She leaned close to Goran's ear and whispered. "They might be in here hiding, maybe bugged the place as well." She pulled a small device from her pocket, turned it on and handed it to her. "Take this and keep a close eye on it, I'm gonna have the other one and check fer other bugs and stuff, the little red light will flash when I've deactivated a bug." Goran grabbed her arm to keep her from getting up.

"Hold on there squirrel, you are not?shit?" She rolled her eyes when Raith slipped beneath table. "Get up here before someone says something."

"Whose gonna say anything, no one knows I'm under here." She started to scan the booth as she had done on the train, when it came time to slid Goran across the seat; she heard a raspy voice above and then her head was slammed between Goran's thighs.

"What can I getcha, special today is fried chicken gizzards," The old woman held up a finger and walked over to one of the other tables to get a menu. "Always ferget what the Hell I'm sayin?" She gave Goran a funny look when she magically slid across the seat and then from a grunt from under the table. "Anyhow, what can I get ya?" She gave her another strange look through her pop bottle glasses and straightened her apron when Goran was pulled by her shirt down to the tabletop.

"I'll have two of the chicken fried steak platters and two cokes?" She jumped when Raith bit the inside of her thigh. "Hold off on the Cokes for nooow?Beer?lots of beer!" She said in a deep voice and jumped on the bench again when Raith moved up between her legs. The old woman gave her a nod of her head and went back to the kitchen area. "Squirrel get your ass up here before I squash your head some more!"

"Kinda like havin my head right where it is?owwowwOWW!" She fell to the floor clutching her head and trying to smash Goran's foot with one hand. "That was mean and rotten Gory!" She crawled up onto the bench beside Goran just as the old woman placed the pitcher of beer on the table. "Hey ya Mavis ya finally mopped the floors in this place and guess what...no BUGS!"

She gave Goran a nasty look. "If I had known you were with that nutcase, I woulda tossed ya out the door!" She threw their silverware on the table in front of Goran and shook a finger at Raith. "You behave yourself and if I see ya lookin at any of my customers in that weird ass way ya got, I'm kickin your ass!" Raith dropped her head and played with the paper placemat in front of her.

"Yes ma'am?Tell Uncle Bernie I said hi." She looked up and yelped when Goran elbowed her in the ribs. "What?"

"First the under the table thing with my crotch and now I find out your relatives run the restaurant," She grabbed Raith by the front of her shirt and pulled her over to go nose to nose with her. "If they poison us?I'll kill you!" She said in a deep guttural voice.

"Would ya squash my head until I die a painful death?"

"You are not getting between my legs again so just forget it." They ate their meal as quickly as they could and then left before Raith's aunt could make their meal any more dangerous. She had already made sure that the biggest rednecks that Goran had ever seen sat around them and then brought them the check before they had even gotten their food. Still chewing the last of her food, Goran flipped Raith off and kicked her in the ass on the way out the door. She watched Raith walk to the truck and just couldn't keep her eyes from where they fell on her ass, a clothed women was more of a turn on for her then a naked one. And at that very moment, she could feel a pulse point beating between her thighs. Ohh I'll let you between my legs again?just not in a restaurant. She looked up when Raith said her name or what she was calling her at that moment.

"Dr. Gory you were looking at my ass weren't cha?"

"What?no I was looking at the ground." She felt a blush working its way up her neck and ignored it. "Let's get out of here before we get in serious trouble for something, maybe we could go find where my crew is." She stopped beside Raith, looked up at her angled face, and stopped to stare into her clear blue eyes. "Any ideas there squirrel?"

"The nearest stil or maybe the moonshiner bar down at the Green river in Marlinton." Goran rubbed her face with both hands and looked at Raith.

"This maybe a stupid question but where are we right now?"

"Ohh we're in Beckley, home of the smokeless coal mines, ya know Bituminous coal."

"I know surgical procedures and drugs; I wouldn't know a piece of coal if ya hit me in the head with it. How far are we from Marlinton?" Raith rubbed her jaw and grinned.

"With me drivin maybe 40 minutes, with ma drivin you'll be 50 before ya get there."

"And please tell me my aging would be because your ma drives at 20 miles an hour."

"Nope, she goes the long way around the mountain, I go over the mountain."

"What mountain, I haven't seen anything including the so called Appalachia's where I'm supposed to be."

"We call them the Allegheny's here; they're part of the Appalachian Mountains. And you're just in luck cuz that's where were headed."

"Then why the Sam Hell is my trailer in Beckley instead of Marlinton where the mountains are?" She planted her hands on her hips and paced in front of Raith. "How are we supposed to help the people that this was set up for if we're not even close to them?" Raith sighed and scratched at her head.

"The less fortunate are everywhere Gory, no matter where ya look around here you'll see poor people who need medical treatment of some kind. The doctor who set this all up beforehand probably only hit this area and considered it part of the Appalachia's, there's more poor people just a short drive in either direction."

"OK well let's get going then, I don't wanna be out all night driving around with you, you'll try and pull that "Ohhh look we're outta GAS!' Bullshit on me and think I'm gonna give ya some." Raith raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"I'm the pervert here but you keep saying about me getting between your legs and givin me some?would ya give me some?" She wiggled her dark brows and tried her best smile. "I'm kinda good at it at least that's what I've been told the two times I was given the chance." Goran laughed and shook her head.

"You just happened to find two desperate women in this world that were willing to have sex with you?" She crawled across the seat of the truck and then waited for Raith to get in.

"If ya haven't noticed, I'm not exactly homely." She gave Goran a seductive look that had her swallowing with difficulty. "And if ya get down on your knees and beg enough someone will notice and take pity on ya, I did it twice and had a date a few minutes later." Goran shook her head and sighed.

"No Raith you are no where near homely and I don't know why in the world you would have to beg some strange woman for sex. Unless it was something very kinky and dangerous," She gave her a narrowed eyed look. "Was it?"

"Nope, all I wanted was ta please them. They didn't even hafta touch me if they didn't want to?they didn't either come ta think of it." She shrugged her shoulders and pulled the truck out onto the road. "Sooo how many women have you been with?"

"You are never going to find out; I don't discuss my past lovers with anyone so just forget it."

"Ohh so ya had what one or two?"

"Two, now just shut the Hell up and don't remind me that I suck at relationships and that both of them left immediately after sex. And if I had smoked, they would have been gone before I could light a cigarette." Raith grinned and shot a quick look over at a fuming Goran.

"At least mine stuck around long enough to put their clothes back on."
Goran smacked her self in the forehead and glared over at her. "How come I can't keep my yap shut around you?" Raith gave her a bright smile and winked.

"Cuz I'm gorgeous and I have a winning personality." She chuckled at Goran's groan. "Ya know my grandma used ta say three was the magical number for everything, so maybe the next woman ya kiss will be the last one?"

"Yeah I'll probably get hit by a truck or something afterwards."

"Nah that only happened ta my grandpa took grandma three tries before she knocked him down completely. She gets outta prison in two months though, ya know good behavior."

"And you're full of shit Raith; they wouldn't put a woman that had to be in her 80's in prison."

"Ohh I know, that was fifteen years ago when she ran grandpa over. She's in her 70's, had my dad when she was fourteen." She turned to Goran and gave her a crooked grin. "So ya wanna give it a go, I could be number three and ya can't get run over if you're already in a truck?"

"Keep your eyeballs on the road squirrel and your mind on spies and conspiracies."

On the way to Marlinton, Goran saw the kind of houses that people lived in. Some were nothing more then metal tool sheds and one that everyone called the castle, was a double seat outhouse that an old man had converted into his living quarters. They passed people sitting along side the road with signs reading that they would work for food or for a room. At the first sign of a good size store, Raith pulled in and checked her wallet for money. "I need tampons and pads." She closed her wallet and got out of the truck. "Ya need anything or wanna come in with me?"

"I'll go in with you; I need some cracker jacks and water." She slid across the seat and took Raith's hand; she looked up into her face and noticed how pale and sweaty she looked. "Are you OK, you look?"

"I'll be OK as soon as I take a bottle of Motrin and Advil; damn cramps had to come back." She placed a hand on her lower abdomen and winced in pain."

"Get back in the truck, I'll go in and get the stuff." She placed a hand on the side of Raith's face and felt how clammy she was. "Go on and get in there and why didn't you tell me you were in this kind of pain, we could have gone looking some other day?"

"I'm used ta it after all these years," She weaved to the side and felt Goran grab her by her arms and ease her into the truck. "I'm just gonna wait out here?" She passed out and fell backwards on the seat; Goran panicked and ran around to the passenger side. She pulled the door open and then pulled Raith across the seat, running back around; she got in and pulled back out onto the road.

"Son of a bitch?where's a hospital around here?" She looked out on the road in both directions and saw an old man sitting on a wooden box with a sign in his hand. "Hey mister I need some help!" She grabbed Raith's wallet, pulled out a twenty and waved it at him. "Where's the hospital?" He got up and came towards her at a limping jog, when he reached the side of the truck; he looked in at Raith and then climbed into the back of the truck.

"Go out to the right and at the next road turn left, when ya get close I'll tell ya where ta turn. Kinda tricky around here and wanna make sure ya get there." He held onto the side of the trucks bed with one hand and braced the other on the roof. After Goran made the turns, he yelled into her where to go next, with in fifteen minutes and a dozen turns later, they were at the ER doors. She climbed down from the cab and held out the money to him. "Don't want that ma'am; she's a Bullshanks and kin."

"Please take it and at least get yourself something to eat, I know she'll throw a fit if?"

"You can get me a sandwich after we get her in there."

***********

Goran paced in front of the payphone, she had tried getting a hold of Raith's ma but it went unanswered. "Why don't you have an answering machine?" She turned around when she heard the old man clear his throat. "I need to get a hold of her ma, she'll be worried about her and she needs to be here?" He held up his hand and stopped her.

"Leave it up to me, I'll call my buddy and he'll call Billy on his radio and then he can get a message to Stella. I'll be back when it's all taken care of, you go talk to her, she'll be tryin ta escape outta here if she's awake." She nodded her head and took off down the hall where Raith's room was, she didn't know if she was awake yet and hoped that she wasn't. She looked around the doorframe and saw that she was still unconscious, going in, she took a seat in the chair next to the bed. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad, I could have helped you?" She took Raith's larger hand in hers and brought it up to her lips; she had helped the nurses undress Raith and had no idea that she was wearing two maxi pads along with a super plus absorbency tampon. They immediately called in a gynecologist; started IV's and took blood to test. "You're gonna hate me but I signed the papers, you can kick my ass after surgery." She placed a kiss on Raith's temple and held her hand under her chin; she then looked up when the doctor came in. "How drastic are we talking here?"

"At the most a partial hysterectomy, I'll only do a full one if the other fallopian tube is damaged or any other problems are found. What I'm worried most about is the amount of cysts on the uterine wall and how damaged that tube is." Goran nodded her head and looked down at Raith's slack features.

"If it's too bad, you do what you have to. I have someone who's trying to locate her ma," She looked up with teary eyes and felt her chest clench. "She won't be here before you take Raith in for surgery; so I'll donate the blood she'll need." She pulled out her wallet and handed her doctors license and an immunization card to the doctor. "I'm clean of any diseases and I was just tested for AIDS last month and it helps that we're the same blood type." The doctor looked at the immunization card and then looked to Goran with a shocked expression. "I work for WHO/MSF so I'm usually in foreign countries."

"OK, I wondered why all the shots. I'll send in a nurse to get you and then we'll take Raith up to surgery, she maybe stable but I don't want to waste any time with this. She's lost a lot of blood and I don't want to wait too long." Goran nodded and gripped Raith's hand tighter; she knew all to well about time when it came to something like this. She looked up to the female doctor and nodded her head again.

"I'm ready when you are." She moved to the side when nurses came in and rolled the gurney from the room, she felt her heart clench with what was going on around her. It had been a long time since she had been in a hospital atmosphere and she had to admit that she missed it a little. She took one last look at Raith as she disappeared from her line of sight.

"Doctor Pickens if you'll come with me I'll take you so you can give blood." A nurse said and took her by her arm. "And when we're done, I'll run the blood right over to the OR. Your friend's lucky, not many people around here with B negative blood type. We can save the O and B negative blood we have in the bank with your donation, plus I'm sure your friend will feel safer with your blood."

"She better or I'll kick her ass across a few states before I let her ma take over." She followed the nurse to a small room just down the hall from the OR room and laid down on a gurney. "This is different, in the hospital were I worked, we just had a chair to sit in." She laid her arm out for the nurse to apply the tourniquet and took a deep breath.

"We found out this was safer, too many rednecks hitting the floor was killing our backs when we had to pick them up."

**************

Goran paced in the small waiting room for hours, her feet hurt and her head was pounding. She looked over to the overflowing trashcan and added one more Cracker Jack wrapper to it. She had filled the small trashcan all on her own and had done it by emptying the vending machine and her backpack of all bags of Cracker Jacks. She was about to storm the nurses desk when the tall form of the Dr. Stephens the gynecologist pushed through the OR doors, she sighed and met her halfway. "How is she and can I see her?" The doctor pulled her mask and hat off and took Goran by her hand, she didn't let go until she had her in the recovery area.

"I found out a long time ago that you can't keep partners away from each other too long or you're looking at WW III." She pulled back a curtain and nodded her head at an unconscious Raith. "When she wakes up, tell her that we didn't touch her tattoo; I went through her naval. In addition, I did have to do a full hysterectomy, there was too much scaring on both fallopian tubes and too many cysts and polyps. I didn't feel 100% sure that trying to save her uterus would have worked."

"OK let me correct this before it gets spread around, we're not partners and we only meet a little over a week ago. We live in two different States and once my job here is done then I'm going back to New York."

"What ever you say doc but you kissing her and holding her hand right now is something a person who cares would do. I don't have any female friends that act the way you do." She looked down at Raith's classical features and gave Goran a crooked grin. "I'd crawl over the fence for someone who looks like her."

"Not if you knew how insane she is, she's off the deep end and maddening as Hell?"

"And you're falling for my kid no matter how crazy she is." Ma said from behind Goran and wrapped an arm around her. "But that's OK; her dad was a little off in the head to and had my heart with one look." She looked down at her daughter and smiled. "Ya know she's the spittin image of her daddy, he was a handsome devil."

"Thanks ma that blows my credibility," She ran her thumb across Raith's knuckles and sighed. "But you're both right, I do care about her a lot and I'm falling for her but it won't work."

"Will if ya pet my squirrel," Raith mumbled and pulled Goran's hand down to rub her lower stomach. "Squirrel hurts?why?" She opened one eye and gazed up at the doctor. "What all am I missing?" Everyone looked to the gynecologist.

"It's OK I'll explain everything to ma and Raith," Goran said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Keep you from getting yelled at and me from explaining everything again later." The gynecologist nodded her head and gave them all a smile.

"Thanks, I have another surgery in an hour and I have some rounds before that. If you have any questions later, just tell the nurse and she'll page me." She left the recovery room with a wave and a smile.

"OK Dr. Gory what did she do ta me and how did I get here?"

Goran recapped from the very beginning what had happened right up until ma walked in and Raith woke up, when she was finished, she looked down and was amazed that she was still rubbing Raith's stomach. "Why am I rubbing your stomach?"

"Cuz it makes it feel better," Raith gave her a sleepy grin and tried to stay focused. "So no more monthly curse or getting pregnant?" She chuckled and then whimpered with pain.

"Cute Squirrel like with our lifestyle you could get pregnant." Ma chuckled and sat on the other side of the bed.

"That would be something that I would never expect from her," She patted her daughters shoulder. "Kids and Raith don't mix well, she scares the piss outta 'em."

"Do not; just don't understand what makes 'em so loud or why little boys can't talk right until they're 20." Goran gave Raith a funny look and when her eyes closed, she looked to ma.

"What did she mean about little boys?"

"Have ya ever noticed that boys lisp and talk like babies until they're much older than the girls? Raith will pick on 'em until they speak right and all it does is make 'em cry louder and stutter."

"Then I guess it's a good thing that neither one of us likes kids, mean little trolls with sharp teeth." She moved her hand from Raith's stomach, got up and fixed the blankets around her. "I'm hungry how about we go get something to eat and not from the cafeteria?" Ma stood up, kissed her daughter on the forehead and took Goran's hand.

"Sure, there's a good restaurant a little ways from here, I'll even buy."

"Nope," She shook her head. "It's my fault that you had to drive all the way out here, it's the least I can do." Ma chuckled and gave Goran a hug.

"It's not your fault; it's my damn kids' fer not going to a doctor years ago. I'm just glad that you were with her, if she were alone?" She became quiet. "She could have died couldn't she?" Goran took a deep breath and released it slowly.

"Yes and I still feel that if I hadn't asked her to bring me out here then we would have been closer to home and a hospital. Then when she got out of the truck yesterday, she had already started hemorrhaging. She probably thought her pads were leaking from not changing them, but when she passed out, I knew there was something wrong."

"Gory, you two were closer to a hospital here then back in Beckley. This was bound to happen and I'm glad she wasn't alone."

***********

"I wanna go home!" Raith yelled at the tops of her lungs and shook the guardrails on her bed. "Ya hear me Dr. Gory, I wanna go HOME!"

"Ohh for fuck sakes Squirrel calm your paranoid ass down before they lock it up." Goran dropped one of the guardrails, sat down on the edge of the bed and slapped at her roaming hands. "Will you stop already; I don't have anything for you."

"I know ya got Cracker Jacks, I can smell 'em on your breath!" She pulled her head over and licked from her chin upwards. "I knew it, I tasted caramel! Now GIMME SOME!" She searched Goran's pockets until she found half a bag of Cracker Jacks and then saw the dark green eyes watching her. "What, I'm starving in this place!"

"So am I." She said in a whisper before pulling Raith's face to hers and capturing her lips in a fiery kiss. She moaned deeply when Raith's tongue pushed into her mouth and tangled with hers, they kissed deeply until someone cleared their throat.

"Just friends huh?" Dr. Stephens said and walked up to stand beside the bed. "None of my female friends have ever kissed me like that and if they do it'll kill me."

"Figures, finally break through her walls and I can't get none cuz of my parts being removed." Raith mumbled some more and sunk into the bed. "When can I have some?" She gave the doctor a raised eyebrow and then wiggled it. ''Better not say months either or I'll stick my head in an oven."

"Squirrel the ovens electric so go ahead and stick your head in." Goran mumbled to her and tried to hide her embarrassment from Dr. Stephens.

"Ohh the usual time period is 4-6 weeks, that's what we tell most women. But everyone heals different and I leave it up to the individual, now remember that you may suffer from heat flashes and vaginal dryness. Just get some KY and everything should be fine from there on out."

"I've never had a problem with not getting wet," She ran a fingertip across Goran's nipple and grinned when she slapped her hand. "Gory got me wet just looking at me."

"That's it Squirrel, I'm gonna kill you as soon as we're alone!"

"No ya won't cuz we're gonna make out as soon as doc leaves." Dr. Stephens snorted at the two women, she updated Raith's chart and left them to their bickering.

"I can't believe you said that Raith and we are not going to make out." Raith pulled her into the bed, up against her body and captured her lips in a consuming kiss.

************

Raith leaned against the headboard of her bed and pouted each time Goran looked up at her, she wanted out of bed but it was a losing battle. Between her ma and Goran keeping an eye on her, she was lucky to move without being caught. "Please just let me sit on the couch and watch TV, I wanna watch the robot wars." Goran looked up from her laptop and raised an eyebrow.

"Give me one good reason why I should let you do anything after what you pulled the other day?"

"Ohh come on Who you can't still be mad, you kissed me first and ya can't say ya didn't enjoy what we did after."

"Maybe but?," She put her laptop down on the floor and went over to stand beside Raith. "You're dangerous and you make me crazy?"

"I made you loose control and ya don't like it." She grinned when Goran pulled the sheet off her and held out a hand.

"No I don't and it was wrong, you just had surgery and?"

"We didn't break anything now did we," She leaned over and placed her lips close to Goran's ear. "My parts might not work right now but yours do." She took a deep breath and let it seep through her teeth to wash across Goran's neck, gooseflesh rose on her skin, and she shivered. "I can still smell you; feel you pressing against me?"

"You're full of shit and if you don't stop, I'm gonna knock you out?" She growled and wrapped an arm around Raith to help her out to the living room. "I swear this is all a karmic payback or something and I haven't any idea where I'm going or how I'm gonna solve this problem."

"Don't worry about it and take a break," She said and eased down onto the couch. "Vegetate with me and ma and your missing peoples will show up somewhere."

"I can't do that, maybe I can treat some of the local people and ask questions about my missing doctors and nurses." She sat down beside Raith and looked to her hands hanging between her knees. "I have another shipment of supplies on the way down, it's not as big, and it can fit in the back of a truck."

"You do that and I'll look fer my screwed up cheatin agent, my boss will want my ass hung if I don't give 'em something." She placed her hand over her lower stomach and rubbed gently. "How long is this gonna hurt?"

"It wouldn't hurt if you took your pain pills, where are they anyway?"

"Don't need 'em," She pulled Goran over to lie behind her on the couch. "Pet the squirrel like you been doing at night." Goran brought her arm over Raith's waist and gently rubbed her lower stomach, within minutes, Raith was sound asleep and snoring. She buried her face in her long hair and inhaled the scent of her shampoo. Every night since Raith had been out of the hospital; Goran had lain behind her and rubbed her stomach. She asked ma about it and found out that she was a fussy baby and that was how she got her to sleep. And each morning, Raith was either sucking her own thumb or Goran's, the tall woman was just plain weird. "So much for you watching robot wars or was this a ploy to get me away from my reports?"

"Knowing Raith, it was a ploy to get you to rub her stomach. She's like a dog; ya know how they keep moving under your hand until ya pet them?" Ma flipped the TV on and sat down in her recliner. "Who knew that she wouldn't grow out of the stuff," She flipped through the channels until she came to the local station. "Here we go kiddies; I think we might just see some people you know on the news." Halfway through the news, they showed the annual wild ramp fair, what had Goran leaning over Raith's sleeping form were two of her nurses waving at the TV cameras.

"I know them and they're?"

"Wasted on shine," Ma pointed to the clear liquid in the glasses they held. "They'll be in lock up by dark; Sheriff does it so no one gets hurt."

"Just great," She said and sunk back down to wrap around Raith. "At least I know where two of them are, six more to find."

"Then what will ya do, go back to New York or another country?"

"I'm not sure where I'll go, there's a lot of work to do down here first. What about squirrel and her cheating agent as she calls him?"

"As soon as she's able ta get around, she'll track him down and have him hauled back ta DC. After that, she'll stick around for a week or so and then go back." Goran leaned up on one elbow, rested her chin on Raith's upper arm and looked to ma.

"How many times has there been an agent on the loose down here?" Ma chuckled and winked at her.

"You're a little slow aren't cha, it's the same guy all the time. He works with Raith in the basement and he runs off so he can come down for ramp season."

"So this is a set up and not only did I fall for it but my boss as well?"

"Yeeeep," Ma gave her a big grin. "That's our fine Government agencies at work, two agents can have them running in a dozen different directions all at once." She sat up in her chair and gave Goran a look very similar to her daughters. "Ya gotta admit, if ya weren't with my kid where would ya be right now?" Goran sighed and nodded her head; she knew that she would be out in the open wandering around and still trying to find her trailers. On the other hand, possibly even in the wrong part of the state. She had tried calling all of her people and still hadn't reached any of them by phone, she had a sneaky suspicion that they sold or traded their cell phones. Then something even scarier seeped into her mind, where would Raith be without her? She looked down into the agents face and felt her pulse race with the knowledge that she could have died from her medical condition. "Sometimes things happen all weird for a reason," She pulled a small bottle from her pocket, got out of her chair and handed it to Goran. "Try this stuff out, I've wanted ta do it fer years."

**************

Raith let out a howl and wiped at her burning tongue and lips, she rolled from the couch and grabbed Goran's hand. She looked at her thumb and then her own. "Ohh this just ain't right?MAAAA!" She got up and stumbled through the house looking for her ma; she stopped and looked at the note on the kitchen table.

Went bowling be back later.

Ma

Raith groaned and went to the sink to wash her hands; afterwards, she went back into the living room to terrorize Goran. "Put burny stuff on my thumb," She picked her hand up and smelled it before putting it back down on her chest. "Ya put it on your own thumb to, just ain't fair?" She leaned over, licked the side of her face, and waited for her to wake up.

A green eye popped open. "That is gross and disgusting," she wiped her face off and then her hand on Raith's shirt. "Why'd ya do that?"

"Why'd ya put burny stuff on my thumb?" She wiggled said appendage in Goran's face. "My mouth still burns." She grinned when Goran rolled from the couch and ran for the bathroom. "Guess your face does now." She stood up, pulled her shirt up a ways and checked her bandage. "Hey Dr. Gory will ya change my bandage?" She went into the bathroom and pointed to her stomach. "It itches and the tape keeps sticking ta my shirt."

"Don't I play with your squirrel enough, now I gotta change your bandage to?" She pulled the edge of the tape off, looked beneath it and then removed it the rest of the way. "Squirrel this is all healed," She ran her fingertips across the two incisions on either side of her naval. "It's all healed and it shouldn't be."

"Sure it should, I heal quick so that means ya can play with the squirrel's tail now." She flinched when Goran yanked on what made up the squirrel's tail. "OK so maybe later." She walked away rubbing the area through her boxers. "OK so maybe I'll play with it myself." She looked over her shoulder at her. "Wanna watch?" Goran held up her fist and shook it at her for an answer.

"You're killing me Squirrel, just killing me!"

***********

A few days later with new supplies in the back of ma's truck, Raith drove Goran to different areas to give people check ups and give immunizations to the kids. She sat on the tailgate watching Goran interact and treat two older people who suffered illnesses, one from diabetes and the other from arthritis. It was obvious to Raith that this is where Goran belonged, not in an office somewhere pushing papers. She pulled her cell phone off her belt, attached an earpiece and then her palm pilot. Hitting buttons on everything, she watched the small screen and grinned when a blip flashed on it. "Gotcha ya rotten damn asshole." She made note of everything and slipped her stuff back into the pockets on her vest. "I'll get you later, Gory's busy and I'm too damn tired." She leaned back against a box, closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

"OK Henry, this is enough antibiotics to take care of your infection." She wrapped a gauze bandage around the old man's forearm and then taped it in place. "You have to take all of them and change your bandage twice a day," She placed enough bandages and other items in a white plastic bag and handed it to him. "If you need more, you come back here and see me. And let one of your grand children change the oil in your truck." He shook her hand and gave her a toothless smile before going on his way. She had cleaned a nasty gash on his arm that he had gotten when changing the oil on his truck. "80 year-old man working on his truck, ridiculous." She said under her breathe while changing her surgical gloves. Five hours later, she looked around the parking lot of the Dairy Queen and sighed with relief. They had chosen this place because it was close to the church and the one place where everyone came to eat. She rubbed her lower back and then took the bottle of Coke from Raith. "I think that might just be it for the day." She took a long drink and handed it back to her.

"Ya think, 'cuz my ass has square imprints from sitting on the tailgate all day and I've tried almost everything Dairy Queen makes." She rubbed her stomach and groaned. "Think I might be sick." She grabbed the hand made free clinic sign from the side of the truck, tossed it in the back and then rested her head on Goran's shoulder. "Got any Pepto in your bag?"

"No but I've got stuff that works better and why did you make a pig of yourself?"

"Got bored and tired of Cracker Jacks don't know how ya can eat them all day and not get sick of 'em."

"Why didn't you say so, you didn't have to stay with me all day." She tilted Raith's head up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "You could have left me here and gone and done something." She looked into her clear blue eyes and felt her blood pressure rise.

"And miss watching you doctor people," She bought their noses together and dropped her voice an octave. "I was prayin for short people or kids so ya had ta bend over more."

"So that was why the entire bible school class was here, just so you could look at my ass?"

"Or down the front of your shirt, not much ta your bra."

"That's because some lunatic got too close to it with wire cutters," She backed up, took Raith's hand and pulled her to the side of the truck. "Good thing I don't spend a lot of money on underwear or you'd be in big trouble. Now let's go home, I'm tired and my feet are killing me." Raith helped her into the truck and then got in behind her.

"I'm gonna warn ya, it's ma's poker night and the old women that are gonna be there are loud and they all smoke cigars and drink shine." Goran blinked and started to chuckle, she shook her head and slapped Raith's leg.

"Right, ma's not like that."

"I warned ya," She started the truck and pulled out onto the road. "It's not gonna be a Tupperware party."

***********

Continued in Part 2