Christina couldn't believe she was considering getting a civilian job. All she had known was the Marine Corps since she lied about her age at 15 and joined. But first she had to get her wounds re-stitched. She sighed. She could just let the Marine Corps pay her the medical leave money they owed her, but doing nothing for the year they put her on medical leave would cause her to go crazy. Something about her mental wellbeing. She signed and opened the door to the clinic that was in the hospital where she had an interview in two hours. Might as well check to see if the clinic was any good. Of course then again any proper medical building was better than the field. Of course the Marine Corps had paid for her college and medical degree. She signed and checked.

"How can we help you today?" The over bubbly nurse at the desk asked.

"I need to have a few stitches re-stitched." Understatement of the decade.

"Fine, please sit and I will call you when I have a doctor available."

Christina sat down; she should have just gone to the emergency room. The stitches had ripped open pretty badly. Bloody nightmares she thought as she waited and felt the twinkling of blood down her back. Why did she have to be so full of pride? When she left her home seventeen years ago she never thought she would be sitting and applying for a job at a hospital. She always thought she would die in combat after 9/11 had happened. She laughed out load, which caused some stares. But she did not care; she shook her head, and laughed again. She almost had, it had been close, her heart had stopped two times- no three times- on the flight out of the hell hole she escaped from, and she got her team out. She did her job. She was done, she had thought, but the doctor on board saved her. Didn't know how. Didn't care, the Marine Corps put her on a one year medical leave to heal, both physically and mentally. That was three days ago. She checked her self out of their hospital because an old friend of hers from med school got her a job interview. It was in New Jersey. The state's name left a bad taste in her mouth. But at least it wasn't her home in Iowa. She could have gone there; after all she had gone back for Medical school. Not that her family knew. Her family barely acknowledged her existence, let alone she was a Marine Corps doctor and had a firm handle on what she wanted out of life. Which was to put up with this year leave and go back. She hoped that her dress blues would be enough for the interview. She didn't have any civilian cloths yet. They lay next to her in the oversized handbag. She bought it because it seemed civilian like and would hide her dress blues. But anybody looking at her knew from her fatigues she was a Marine… well they would think solider many people couldn't tell the difference even though Marines had generally used more of a khaki color.

"Christina Roche?" A nurse called her name.

"That is me." Christina took a moment to stand up. The pain was dull and slowed her movements but she had survived worse.

"The doctor will see you now." The nurse lead her to a small room and then left the chart on the chair without asking any questions.

Unprofessional Christina thought and waited for the doctor. Which he came in a moment later screaming at someone on the other side of the door. "I have lackeys to do this for me!"

"For Christ's sake House do your job!"

The man in question slammed the door and turned to look at me. "What is wrong?"

"Need some stitches repaired."

"How many?"

"However many you can do an…" Christina paused and looked at her watch she would need to wrap and then dress and she waited in the waiting room for twenty minutes. "An hour and ten minutes."

"You can't have that many…" But he stopped speaking as I took my jacket off and pulled the tee I had on over my head, and turned my back to him.

"I am required to ask if you need the cops called?"

"I am a Marine back from active duty on a medical leave because I was in a POW camp." Easiest way to get a doctor to drop something it to tell the truth.

"And they are broken up because?"

"Not used to a bed yet."

"Generally beds don't do that."

"Nightmares. I was in a POW camp for eighteen months figure it out and get to work I have an interview in hour and a half."

"Well the local would take…"

"Just bloody stitch the wounds. I don't need pain killer. I would do it my bloody self if I could reach them, but I can't! So take those needles and thread and sew!"

Christina didn't know why she told him the truth but she did, she told herself was to get him to shut up, but really anybody could make up a believable lie. She didn't know what to think of the older man in front of her, she estimated he had to be born in the late 50's so he was about mid fifties and she just told him something she refused to even tell her military appointed shrink.

"No." His answer to her demand to replace her stitches startled her back to reality.