Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC and the ideas for the episode tags/missing scenes. No copyright infringement intended. Direct quotes from the show are marked as such. Thank you, dear writers, producers etc., for letting me play with John, Harold and the others. I promise to put them back (relatively) unharmed.

A/N: This story is AU as it introduces an original main character. That being said, I tried to stay true to the rest of the canon as much as possible. With the exception of chapter 1, these are tags/missing scenes to episodes of seasons 1-3. Enjoy.

Chapter 1 (Pre-series)

Resurrection

"Bloody bum at the door."

"Language, please, Mr Miller. Our patients may live on the fringes of society, but they're still human beings who deserve to be treated with as much respect as any other person", the doctor at the reception desk admonished the male nurse quietly but sternly. Pete Miller was new on the team, and Dr. Silverstein already thought about letting him go. His callous attitude was as disturbing as his impressive physique was helpful in this harsh environment.

"With all due respect, Dr. Silverstein, but if you'd just take a look yourself ..." Pete moved a step to the right, allowing the doctor a good look at the roughed-up homeless man who was being held up by an older, much smaller, slighter homeless woman. She was softly talking to him, pressing a bloodied piece of tissue against a heavily bleeding wound on the side of his head.

"Oh." In this case, Pete had been more literal than sarcastic in his announcement, she conceded. "Put him in #3. I'll be by in a minute."

Monday morning – not the usual time for beaten-up street dwellers, Dr. Silverstein mused while finishing her entries in the chart she was holding. She quickly downed the rest of her tea and made her way to treatment room 3. "Good morning", she greeted the unequal pair kindly. "I'm Dr. Hannah Silverstein. Would you like to tell me your names?"

"I'm Joan. This is John. He needs help," explained the older woman.

"Hi Joan. Hello John. Can you tell me what happened?" Hannah asked while donning gloves and pulling up a rolling table with some equipment.

"He got beat up defendin' me from some muggers," Joan explained with tears in her eyes. "If it weren't for him ..."

"It's just a scratch." Hearing the man speak up for the first time gave Hannah pause. His voice was the exact opposite of what she had expected from a man of his size, stature and appearance – low and gentle, almost soothing, and just a tiny bit husky.

"Well then, let's get that scratch seen to," she replied calmly and stepped in front of the man. Standing in his personal space, the young doctor found herself surprised for a second time. While he looked shaggy and smelt of cheap liquor, something was distinctly missing: the ripe odour of weeks without washing. If she had to guess, she'd say he had had a shower and a change of clothes no more than four or five days ago. Splitting her work time between a big city hospital and this free clinic most certainly had given her some interesting skills, an acute sense of smell being just one of them.

"Did you pass out at any time?" she asked routinely, pulling out a penlight and putting a gentle hand to the man's forehead to tilt his head a little.

Then she froze, hardly hearing the quiet response of "No, ma'am."

"Maura," she absently addressed the nurse by her side, "could you please take Joan to the waiting area while I treat our patient? Make sure she gets a hot coffee and something to eat, please." Her own voice sounded foreign in her ears, and very far away.

"Sure thing, Doc," the nurse replied cheerfully and led the woman out of the treatment room.

Once she heard the door close, Hannah took a deep, steadying breath. Not possible. No way. "How old are you, John?" she asked as casually as possible. Experience had taught her that patients here – unless they were teenagers trying to cover up an embarrassing situation – might lie about their names, but rarely about their ages.

"Forty-two, no allergies, no pre-existing conditions," John replied with a light smirk. His diction revealed what Hannah had already suspected: this man was relatively new to the streets, and obviously had a well-educated background. No.

Hannah rallied enough to continue her examination. "Your pupils are a little sluggish, though I guess a blood test would tell us that your little 'scratch' is not the only reason for that, right?"

The man's lips drew into a straight line and he only blinked in response. "That's what I thought. So, no painkillers for you right now." She went on to have a closer look at the head wound. "This is one nasty gash," she commented, flushed the area and carefully dabbed it dry with some gauze. "But not from a blow to the head. Did this happen when you went down in the fight?"

Her patient's eyes slightly narrowed at that. "Stumbled against a wall. Must have hit a ledge somewhere," he offered.

"I'll have to put in a few stitches, but nothing major. – I'm not going to insult you by asking about headaches, but did or do you experience any dizziness, nausea, vomiting?"

"No, none of that."

"All right then." She turned around, found the suture kit and quickly, skilfully closed the wound with a few stitches.

Her left hand lingering against the back of his neck where it had come to rest, she found she couldn't move. She didn't even notice she was staring into his eyes – those eyes! – until he softly asked, "Is everything all right, Dr. Silverstein?"

When Hannah snapped out of her stupor, she found John catching her eyes and holding her gaze. "I'm sorry. I guess ... well, frankly, you remind me of someone ... someone I haven't seen in a very long time."

John seemed to ponder that. "Bad memories?" he asked.

A small smile appeared on Hannah's lips, tingeing her blue-and-grey eyes with a warm glow. "No. All good memories."

"Oh." The tall man seemed surprised, even taken aback, and his eyes screamed the question that he couldn't ask out loud: How can a dirty, smelly, more-than-half drunk bum remind a beautiful young woman of someone good?

Without thinking Hannah continued: "My brother. He was a soldier. I lost him many years ago. You remind me of him."

At that, John paled considerably. He swallowed once, twice, couldn't find his voice and suddenly felt his heart clenching painfully in his chest.

Following an impulse Hannah pulled out her wallet and produced a slightly tattered photograph. Sitting down next to John on the exam table, she showed it to him. "That's him. That's my brother."

The hitching breath next to her, the trembling fingers gingerly reaching for the photo, convinced her she had been right all along.

"What happened to your brother?" The question was barely audible. John stared at the two people in the photo, a teenage boy and a girl just old enough to have started school, sitting on a horse, both with the same raven-black hair and blue-and-grey eyes, one of the boy's arms protectively curled around the girl, holding the reins with his other hand.

"Deployed abroad, never came back. I was told he was missing, presumed dead."

John had always prided himself on being able to keep a straight face under any circumstances. Not now. He slowly turned around to face Hannah, and the anguish in his eyes was like a punch in her solar plexus. "You're not dead," she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes. "Dear God, you're alive!"