by Anne Fox
When James returned, he asked Hank, “What did you tell Edge that kept him in the chair this time?”
“I told him to just make a fist, like he was going to punch you, and then imagine doing it.”
“Gee, thanks,” James said. “I’m glad, at least, that he didn’t carry through with it, or I’d have been the one on the floor.” He donned gloves and then held up the catheter he’d be using to do the multiple blood draws required for the bloodwork. “Ready?”
“You know I don’t faint.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, sliding the needle into her arm and filling the tubes for the bloodwork.
“All done. Send your hubby in for me.”
Walking back into the library, she told Spud, “You’re next. And I didn’t notice any new magazines in there.”
Spud turned a little red and said, “Do I need a magazine this time?”
“Want me to go in there with you?”
“It’s the thought that counts,” he remarked to the snickers of the rest of the team.
Hank sat back down and pulled out another book.
“Which one this time?” Amigo asked.
She held it up. “Jack Levin. Domestic Terrorism.”
“You’re intent on reading up on the topic as much as you can, I see,” Edge said.
“My degree is in criminal justice,” she said. “But the field changes all the time. In looking at the cases we’re likely to encounter, it stands to reason that the cases we’ll get are ones that will involve those changes. You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.”
“Make it quick, Voice. We’re all hungry,” Spud said, coming back into the library. He sat down next to Hank. She leaned over and whispered so the comm link in her ear could relay what she was saying to the comm link in his. “Spud, any difficulties?” She smiled.
“Hank, nope. I just thought about what you did last night.” He smiled back at her and she chuckled.
“What are you reading?”
She held out the book to him.
“Are you intent on reading every book in the library?”
“Pretty much,” she replied, opening the book up and reading.
“Oh, almost forgot,” Crow began. “Edge, don’t forget to get Doc Rich or Doc Wright, whichever one you get for your medical exam, to make out a student pilot certificate for you. They’re both aviation medical examiners. The two of you are getting close to solo, and Cloud and I can’t solo you without it. It requires our endorsement for you to do the solo portion of your training.”
“Hank doesn’t need one?” Edge asked.
“She got hers while we were in Nebraska on the Camp Chaos mission.”
“How long do you figure it’s going to take us to get to the point where we can fly first officer on the Citations?” Edge asked, knowing the two pilots in the unit were anxious to be able to take both aircraft at once.
“You’ve got to finish private pilot, then get your instrument ratings. After that, there’s some required flight time to get commercial pilot, which is really just a requirement of the government. I figure we can combine the commercial pilot with a multiengine rating given you have to fly an aircraft with retractable landing gear for the commercial. Just make that plane the multi. Even combine that checkride with the multiengine instrument rating. After that, it’s a matter of gaining some experience and getting our instructor friends from Advanced Flight out to get you type-rated on the Latitudes.”
“Sounds like you’re fast-tracking them,” Spud observed.
“Works for me,” Edge said with a grin. “Bet it works for Hank, too.”
“The main thing is to have the capability of taking both the Latitudes if need be,” Crow said.
“Who’s ready for breakfast?” Voice asked from the door of the library.
Spud glanced at Hank. “Silly question,” he muttered as she jumped to her feet.
The team rose and made their way to the cafeteria. Grabbing food, they sat and mulled over the evaluations they would be going through over the next few days, with each team member first seeing the medical doctors and then the unit’s psychiatrist.
“Bloodwork goes alphabetical, exams go by team designation, I see,” Crow remarked. “Edge and Voice get tomorrow morning, then psych in the afternoon; then Amigo and myself in the afternoon and psych the next morning. What’s the stuff with you and Hank, Spud?”
“They want to see us both separately, then both together. I guess there’s something about married life that we get the privilege, if you want to call it that, of being seen twice.”
“That will give you time to get your stories straight,” Voice said to the laughter of the rest of the team.
“They probably want to know what your love life is like,” Amigo said, smiling.
“They already know what our love life is like,” Hank remarked, tapping her left breast over her bum ticker. “You guys can’t see what’s going on with our bum tickers while we’re in quarters, but they can, remember?”
“Yeah, the bum ticker’s an amazing device, but I guess it does have its drawbacks,” Amigo said.
“Everything looks fine, Hank,” Doc Rich said. “Your labs should be back tomorrow, and if it’s acceptable to you I can discuss those when you and Spud come in together.”
“We don’t hide things from each other,” Hank said.
“I would like you to have a CT, though.”
“What?” Hank exclaimed. “I’m not going to have to go through another bowel prep, am I? Because if that’s the case, I resign.”
Doc Rich laughed. “No, Hank. I’d just like to get a look at your lower abdomen and pelvis. Since the sterilization procedures you and Spud were required to have in order to cohabit and remain part of the unit, I’d just like to make sure the tubal ligation hasn’t managed to reverse. It’s very rare, but it does happen.”
“And if it has?” Hank asked.
“Then we’ll have to repeat the procedure.”
“Oh, Spud will love that. Although I’m not sure which of us would go crazier over a week without sex.”
Doc Rich shook her head. “Two rabbits.”
Hank shrugged. “With no fear of pregnancy, why not have a good time?”
“You’ve got a point,” Doc Rich observed. “At any rate, you can head on down to Imaging right now for the CT. Janet’s waiting for you.”
Hank walked across the hall to Imaging to find Janet waiting, as promised.
“Take off all removable metals,” Janet said.
Hank pulled out her earpiece and took off her watch, handing them to Janet.
“The bum ticker’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
“Actually, none of it’s a problem for a CT. You’ll see where the devices are, but the way the CT works, they don’t create shadows that would obstruct the ability to see everything else. The issue is actually with the radiation messing up your hardware. If we were going to do a CT of your chest, it could potentially be a problem for the bum ticker, but when we know we’re going to hit it, we try to go with the lowest effective dose to get good images. So, removing your watch and earpiece is really just a precaution.”
“One of these days, I’m going to have to read up on how this thing works,” Hank said. “But for now, at least I don’t have to go through the shit – literally – that I had to go through the first time.”
“Just once every five years, Hank.”
“Oh, fuck that! I’m resigning. I swear, I thought I was going to die drinking that shit! And shitting that shit!”
Janet laughed. “You learn a few things each time. Like, drink your fluids. You still end up glued to a toilet, but at least you don’t tend to feel like puking. Or passing out.”
“People pass out from the bowel prep?”
“Every so often,” Janet said. “It can seriously disrupt some people’s electrolytes.” She patted the table on the CT machine. “Lie down here for me.”
As Hank was lying down, Doc R
ich walked into the room. “I figured I could just get a look at the images as Janet gets them.”
“I’ve got to ask you two,” Hank began. “Spud tells me he’s had to have an actual colonoscopy, given he’s over forty. He says you gave him some sort of drug so he’d forget everything?”
“Midazolam,” Doc Rich said. “It isn’t actually for making a patient forget, it’s just to get you nice and sedated. But amnesia while it’s being administered is a side effect. Like most sedatives, it makes you a little loopy, too.”
“He says he can’t remember anything, but that Janet here gives him a funny look every time she sees him.”
Janet and Doc Rich both laughed.
“Do we dare tell her?” Janet asked.
“She says they don’t hide things from each other,” Doc Rich said, smiling.
“Do you know what’s involved in a typical colonoscopy?” Janet asked Hank.
“Only vaguely.”
“Well, there’s a reason why we like a patient squeaky clean internally when we do a colonoscopy,” Doc Rich explained. “It’s due to the fact that to get a good look, we inflate the colon, so we don’t want... stuff flying out while we’re doing that.”
Hank suppressed laughter. “Ok. And did something like that happen?”
“No, he did a good prep for it.” Doc Rich and Janet both looked at each other and laughed a bit.
Hank looked at them quizzically.
Janet giggled and said, “As his colon was being inflated, he turned to me and said, ‘Baby, that’s not how you do a blow job.’”
Hank guffawed. “I don’t know what would embarrass him more: knowing what he said, or just putting up with getting a funny look.”
“Ok. Try not to laugh anymore so we get good images,” Doc Rich said. “This won’t be a whole-body scan, so we should be done in just a few minutes.”
“Now that we’ve all been declared paragons of good health and mental well-being, I guess we can get back to physical training and mission exercises,” Amigo said, taking a drink of his coffee while the team chatted over breakfast.
“Everyone except our married couple,” Crow observed.
“They’ve been declared fit individually, but now the docs want to see if they’re just too warped working as a team,” Cloud chuckled.
“What would any of you guys know about us being warped?” Hank asked innocently. “It’s not like we’ve ever pranked any of you.”
“Oh, no. Not you two,” Cloud said sarcastically. The rest of the team all laughed out loud, given Hank and Spud were infamous for their pranks - especially of a sexual nature. “For instance, you’ve never been known to stick a dildo down your boxers to make it look like you’ve got a giant hard-on...”
“You should have predicted something would happen by sending Amigo down to my quarters when you saw me take Hank down there after our wedding,” Spud replied innocently.
“Well, I knew the two of you weren’t... engaged at the time,” Cloud objected.
“Yeah, ‘cuz you’d been listening in with a glass against the wall,” Edge observed, turning Cloud red and getting the others laughing.
“I guess it’s time for us to find out what they want with both of us,” Spud said, getting up.
Hank finished her coffee and stood as well. “Wish us luck, guys.”
Crossing the hall, they walked into Doc Rich’s office.
“Have a seat.” Doc Rich woke her monitor. “Hal, display medical records, Hank.” The mainframes responding to her request, Hank’s medical records appeared on the screen.
“There’s nothing but good news, Hank,” Doc Rich said. “All your lab work came back well within normal parameters. You’re still showing a little serum lead, but it’s a microgram per deciliter less than when you joined the unit, so that’s a good thing. With your role being as our firearms expert, we can tolerate seeing a little lead, and the fact that it’s dropped from five to four micrograms is good. Just keep taking the calcium supplement, and I’ll expect that to perhaps drop a little more. And the weight I wanted you to gain is there as well. You’re now at a hundred and twenty-two pounds, which is still on the low side for a woman who’s five-foot-seven, but it’s at least in the normal range.”
“Where did she put it?” Spud asked.
“It’s additional muscle mass, Spud, so what she gained in weight she also gained in muscle tone.” She looked back at Hank. “So, all the women in the unit are still going to hate you, because now not only can you eat like a horse and not gain weight, any weight you gain doesn’t show.
“The other good news is that the CT showed that your tubal ligation has not reversed. I didn’t expect it to, but better safe than sorry. It’s very unlikely if it didn’t reverse already that it never will.”
“So, no more CTs?”
“I didn’t say that,” Doc Rich said. “There is still the CT that we do every five years just to make sure we don’t see any pathological changes.”
The look on Hank’s face spoke of protest.
“Everyone goes through it, Hank,” Doc Rich said admonishingly. “You all get to suffer together.”
“Wonderful.”
“Hal, display medical records, Spud.” Hank’s records disappeared, replaced by Spud’s.
“Nothing but good news for you, too, Spud. All your lab work is well within normal parameters as well. And the additional good news for you is that your semen sample shows no sperm present, so your vasectomy hasn’t reversed, either.”
Hank looked at Doc Rich and laughed.
“Hank?”
“Nothing, Doc Rich.” Hank laughed again.
Doc Rich looked at her, her demeanor asking for an explanation.
“It’s just...” Hank laughed again. She walked over and whispered in Doc Rich’s ear. “It’s just he said he didn’t have any problem with giving the sample, because...” Hank broke down laughing uncontrollably. “He says it’s because he just thought about what I did the other night. I guess if he thinks Janet doesn’t know how to do it right, he feels I do.”
Doc Rich got wide-eyed, then chuckled.
Hank just shrugged. “Anything goes,” she said by way of explanation and laughed again.
“Oh my.” Doc Rich looked over at Spud and broke out laughing herself.
Spud’s puzzled look transformed into narrowing eyes. “You two women are hiding something from me,” he said.
“Yes, we are,” Hank and Doc Rich said simultaneously.
He looked at Hank. “We’re going to have a chat once we get home.”
Hank pressed her lips together to keep from laughing and shook her head. “No, we’re not!”
Doc Rich shook her head, smiling. “That does it for me,” she said, still chuckling. “Medical 3, they’re headed your way,” she said, communicating through her earpiece and bum ticker to Doc Andy.
Spud gave Hank another look as they got up. Once outside the door, he took her hand. “Want to have some fun with Doc Andy?”
“What have you got in mind?”
He took her hand and put it against one of the cargo pockets in his cammie pants.
She stopped walking. “What did you bring that for?”
He smiled and shrugged. “Why not? I’d love to spoof the old lecher, wouldn’t you? He is Freudian schooled. Just play along – it’ll be fun. Besides, you got the thing from him in the first place, so it’s his fault.”
They grinned at each other and walked into Doc Andy’s office.
“You can both have a seat on the couch,” Doc Andy said as they arrived. He did his usual and placed a glass of water in front of each of them, then took a chair himself.
“I used to find it useful to occasionally meet with married couples together back when I had my practice outside the unit,” he explained. “Just to get an idea of how things are going and head off any problems before they become insurmountable.”
“Are we having any problems?” Spud asked, turning to Hank.
“I wouldn
’t say so,” she replied.
“I wouldn’t say so, either,” Spud said, leaning over and kissing her. He continued to kiss her, turning to face her. “Help me with this,” he whispered, taking her big dildo from his cargo pocket and working to stuff it down his boxers.
Not able to see exactly what was going on, Doc Andy sat in his chair watching the two apparently struggling with Spud’s pants. I think about now, Doc Rich would be saying, ‘Oh, my.’
Hank was trying not to laugh as Spud kissed and caressed her like an anxious teenager. “Let me help you with that,” she said, and unzipped his fly.
Doc Andy got wide-eyed. Definitely oh my.
“Doc Andy,” Spud said, feigning breathlessness, “Can you leave?”
“It’s his office, Spud,” Hank said with a sigh, still trying her best not to laugh.
“I don’t care. He’s got to leave.”
“Not yet, not yet,” Hank sighed, winking at Spud. “We’re going to need some lube. He’s got some in his drawer full of sex toys.”
“You’re right,” Spud breathed. He turned toward the doctor, the dildo still hidden in his pants. To Doc Andy, it looked like Spud was sporting a huge erection. Emphatically oh my.
“Doc Andy, can you lube this for us?”
YOU ASKED ME TO DO WHAT?!
Spud readjusted the object and grabbed it, then tossed it to the psychiatrist, who bobbled it as he caught it. Looking down at it, he turned bright red.
“Oh my God, Spud! You are so wicked!” Hank said, and broke out laughing, slapping her knees and literally falling off the couch and onto the floor at the expression on the doctor’s face. Spud broke out laughing as well. Standing and helping Hank to her feet, they both slapped their thighs, hugged each other, and laughed so hard that they cried.
“Oh, God, I wish there were security cameras in here,” Spud said, wiping tears from his eyes. “We could have gotten Voice to record it.”
“Oh, damn! Too bad we didn’t think of it earlier! We could have borrowed one of his little drones!” Hank replied, and they both broke out laughing again. “Hey, Doc, mind if we do a second take?” Again, they broke out laughing.