Ever After

"I don’t care about her condition! Just get me what I asked for!" a disembodied voice called out as a bright flash of light blinded the girl on the table, her eyes barely open to show her bright blue eyes. "Status!" The same heavy German accent was rushed.

"Her lungs are useless and her heart is barely holding together...at this rate she wont make it" A nurse responded, her eyes quickly darting from screen to screen and reading the results from the many machines hooked to the girls body.

"Prep here spinal cord! As soon as I get my tools we are plugging her in to stabilize her brai..." The German man snapped but was cut short.

"We got it Dr!" The Nurse said franticly.

"Hurry...come here...this is for her own good" The Doctors voice called out again as a sudden jerking feeling pulled the patient up of the table. "Stand by!" and then a sudden jolt of pain filled the patient. Pain flooded the girl’s body, dark figures moved about her now closed eyes and she felt parts of her twitch, with each twitch came a flood of dark images. A black blob like figure that changed form from a human male to a beast like form danced about her vision, filling her with fear.

She tried to move her head but nothing was working, her fingers twitched with a new wave of pain and she could see the ground flying away beneath her as she ran, she had a feeling she was running from the black form. She could feel her foot twitch, but which she wasn't sure of. She felt her foot snag on something and the phantom pain of falling to the ground, she wanted to scream, she wanted to moan but her mouth wasn't working

"Doctor her brain is stabilizing...but her internal organs are failing" A second Nurse reported, her voice sounded empathetic.

"I don’t care...the machine will keep her alive. We will replace her organs with the machine...” The two nurses looked at one another with worry but the doctor didn’t give them time to object, he pulled his sleeves back and put on fresh gloves, “Have her limbs ready to be reconnected...this surgery isn’t done yet!" The Doctor called out as he began to reach his hand in, making sure to get all the useless organs out to make room for his machine that one of the identical nurses brought over on a table, it was disassembled on the table because each piece would need to go in the girl’s body with accuracy and care.

The girl flinched as more memories came back, she remembered a glorious castle with brightly colored flowers along a cobble stone walk and green grassy hills in the distance, a man in a white coat coming at her with a syringe she had seen do terrible things to the other children around her. She could hear the roaring in her ears and feel someone touching her, but it was a numb feeling, she could feel her eyes moving but couldn't open them.

"We are receiving a neural response." the Doctor’s voice called out with a satisfied tone. "Ok...prepare the limbs...we have to make sure they are able to reconnect to the nervous system…" The Doctor called out as he lifted the biggest piece from the table and placed it between her ribcage, connecting wires to parts of her body by little clamps to hold it in place, once it was settled he removed the next piece from the table. One of the nurses gulped hard and picked up a body part from a separate table from which both the girl lay on and the doctor pulled his machine from.

She placed a cold arm into the shoulder joint and closed her eyes tightly as the other nurse began sowing the body parts together. The unconscious girl laid there, her eyes slowly, with great effort scanned the cobblestone streets before her, she could feel the warmness of the red liquid that gathered around her. She couldn't feel her arms or her legs but she could feel her heart beating in a slower rhythm than normal.

She forced her eyes to look up, though it hurt her eyes and brain to do so. Grey skies laced with rain clouds, the air was cold and she could feel the icy hand of the wind as it grazed her skin like icy hands with long nails that scratched her face and neck and other parts of her that were open, she tried to move her arms so she could cover her face but to no avail, she couldn't move, then it went black.

"Almost… got it…" the Doctor said in a hushed voice as a silence filled the air, his face was laced with sweat from the strain and he leaned back, wiping his face with his sleeve, looking down at the girl and pulling slightly here and there to check the tautness of the cords that were her new body system.

"Doctor...will she make it?' The first of the nurses asked as she looked up from her needle work.

"Aye...she will make it...she isn’t all human anymore...but she will live on. Her soul was strong enough to withstand her body being torn to shreds."

'Human? I'm not...human?' the girl on the table thought weakly to herself. 'If I am not a human...what am I? What is my name? Where am I?' thoughts came more easily to her now, and she then noticed she wasn't breathing, she took in a breath slowly, and noticed she didn't feel a pressure on her chest like she would when she would when she would hold her breath to dive under water.

She slowly opened one eye and then the other, staring blankly into the bright light positioned above her. She blinked and swallowed but didn't feel dryness in her throat. She blinked and saw a shadow passed across a wall and she felt her body tense quickly, a flutter in her stomach as she relieved the same fear he had experienced in the dark ally ways.

"Dr. Frances...she is beginning to respond to outside stimuli!" the second nurse spoke out in hoarse voice as she kept her eyes away from the girls half sown on leg that the first nurse was still sewing on.

"Ah...so it was a success...now….to test her nerve connections." He smiled, taking on an almost relaxed look. "Sally? Sally...don’t feel fear...you are being treated...just tell us if you can feel a small prick on your toes and fingers?" Frances spoke out as a needle was pocked into each toe and finger but she jerked violently.

"No, no!" she could feel restraints on her arms and legs and she tried to fight against them but she was to weak, her body hadn't awaken totally and she was frightened, causing herself to go into panic mode. "No, shadows get... away!" she flinched as she felt the pricks on her fingers and toes. The Doctor started to laugh in his success as the patient on the table began to react to the pricks

"Don’t worry Sally...you are safe here…" this was all too good in the Doctors eyes. "Do you still have all your memories?" He asked it was the last thing he needed to test.

"M-memories?" she gulped again, "Whose, whose Sally? I-is that m-me?" she was stuttering now, her body responding to the intense fear she was projecting. "And who-who are you? I can't see....all I see are shadows, shadows, like the one....in...the alley way...."

The Doctor sighed a bit in disappointment. Turning, he stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "Make a note nurse...procedure has room for improvement but the patient still shows promising signs of personal retrieval." the Doctor stood in front of the light and looked down at Sally. "Don’t worry...we saved you Sally...now just rest...remember you are in good hands...I’m going to make sure you are safe. I promise." the Doctor said with a smile on his face.

The girl, Sally, gasped as the man leaned into her vision. She had never seen a man quite like him before; he looked older, but only in the sense that he looked tired. His face was slightly wrinkled, but it looked more like wisdom than age around his eyes, his skin was slightly pale and his hair was cropped somewhat short to his head and slicked back, a dark brown color with a few strands of grey. There was a slight scar above his left eyebrow like a stitch. She gulped again and could feel heat in her cheeks.

"Sally...that's my name, isn't it?" She asked, no longer questioning but verifying the fact she was now accepting. Dr. Frances looked down at Sally with soft eyes, still smiling.

"It is the name we gave you...But I think it’s a good fit." He said with a smile on his face as he placed a hand on Sally’s forehead. "Just relax for now...your body needs time to rest for all the connections to take." he laughed a bit to himself, "You gave us a scare Sally...we almost lost you.” He rubbed a lock of red hair from her face and kept smiling.

"You almost...lost me? Connections?" she asked, and then she finally felt her lids become heavy with sleep. She felt his hand on her forehead and she could feel the calluses on his palm, somewhere something registered that this was a sign of a hardworking man. "O....okay..." she said in a sigh as she closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless black sleep.

"Atta girl" Frances spoke out as he stepped back to look at the rag doll of a patient in front of him. "Nurses...you have my thanks...with your help...we brought back a person from the brink of death." he said with a smile as he sat down. "Report to Madam Goose...I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the patient...keep track of her vitals…” the women bowed in respect and backed out of the room, whispering to themselves as they walked down the halls to find The Director, Madam Goose.

Madam Goose was busy in her office preparing paperwork when two soft knocks interrupted the tranquil silence of her quarters.

“Enter.” She said dully, peering through her small glasses at the words on the white page in her hands, the two nurses from the Doctors quarters entered with their heads bowed causing Madam Goose to look up. “I see the Doctor has failed in his attempt to—!” But one of the nurses cut her harsh evaluation short.

“She lives, not as a human, but she lives.” The nurse ventured bravely, looking up past her long brown bangs. “She doesn’t need to eat, drink, breath or sleep really, but she is still living, her brain waves are functioning and when the Doctor sent us away she was speaking, though somewhat slurred we blame this on…” But she fell silent because Madam Goose a had lifted her stone cold gaze and was glaring at her.

“I shall see the Doctor shortly in his quarters.” Her voice was cold and had a note of finality in it, causing the twin nurses to bow and back out of the room looking down at the floor as they left her sight. “I see…so the mad-man was able to save that scrap of a girl after all, or part of her at least…” She mumbled as she placed the papers neatly in the middle of her desk and stood, pulling on a white lab coat and as she walked down the labyrinth of halls to the Doctor’s quarters.

She peeked in the room from the crack in the door and saw him watching the girl intensely; scribbling down in a brown leather notebook smiling at some dark thought crossed his mind as she stirred lightly, as if in a nightmare. “Doctor.” Madam Goose said sternly as she walked inside, making him shut his book with his pencil inside and look coolly over his shoulder to her, bowing as he turned. “I heard the girl survived…” her tone was cold and detached; she didn’t like being told she was wrong.

“Ah...Madam Goose....you heard correctly...Thanks to my experimental surgery Sally as full stability of her brain and higher level functions." Frances spoke out turned halfway and gazed at his prized experiment.

“I see.” Madam Goose dug in her pocket and produced two gloves and looked to him, “are you able to show me…the non-human part of her? The part you replaced?” She put her hands behind her back, she wasn't going to simply let him off the hook that easily, she was going to go over this girl with a fine tooth comb before she let her off that table and walk bout. Dr. Frances held a smug smile about him as he too put on gloves and moved closer to Sally on the table.

"Of course I can Madam, I was able to block the pain receptors to her chest cavity so if she were awake or asleep we can make any necessary adjustments and not cause her any discomfort physically." The Doctor said as he walked up to Sally and looked down at her chest, unshy of her girlish attributes. There was a zipper just above her belly button that went almost directly up her chest, between her breasts.

He gripped the zipper and unzipped slowly and pulled back the skin gingerly, as if he were laying a delicate piece, down without breaking or scratching it. Madam Goose stepped forward and watched as the Doctor opened Sally's chest and peered inside, reaching in to poke or tug gently on some of the wires and cords that made up for the missing blood vessels and other organs in her body. Everything seemed to be tightly secured and in place. "She will be able to walk I presume, how soon will it take her to get used to her new body?" She asked, turning Sally's face gently from side to side and peering at her.

Dr. Francis zipped Sally back up just as gingerly as he had undone the action and pulled the surgery blanket to cover her up like a blanket, stopping at her shoulders. "From my calculations she should be bale to control her body for the most part by tomorrow morning, as for walking…I give two days...but if you were thinking about throwing her in the field with you prized student and that reattached child then she will at least need two weeks for her body to finish its connections to be able to withstand the strain of combat.” He frowned at her and looked at her sideways as she smiled knowingly, she must have been thinking that very thought.

“I see…and she will be where as she recovers?” She asked sternly, “We don’t exactly have a rehabilitation facility Doctor Stein….what if she takes longer? Or she doesn’t fully recover at all, what will you do with this….failed experiment?” She was smiling now, “Or, what if she is not strong enough to take on my girls? She will be useless if she can’t fight.” She looked down at Sally’s arm and looked disgusted. “And…this…” she said sourly, pulling down the sheet making Doctor Stein glare, picked up Sally’s arm and gestured to the stitches in her arms. “Doesn’t look like this will stand up to a fight, she will loose this in an instant...”

Dr. Stein took a step back as she nit picked at his work, it was something of a game between the two of them and he was positive he was going to win this time around. "Madam Goose, as for her recovery she won’t be bed ridden, she will be fully functional and able to move on her own with in two days...and after those two weeks are up...with a little combat training I’m positive your little star will have her hands full dealing with this one."

Stein smiled as he walked up to the opposite side of Sally...lifting her other hand. "And this proves to be an actual benefit...the strings used are currently fusing themselves to her skin...so she won’t fall apart in the middle of a fight, but they can be unthreaded…" Stein stood straight with a smug look on his face. “And let’s say and arm or a leg was to be severed...I can just get a new one and put it back....tell me if your girls can do that?” That made Madam Goose snarl a bit, but before she could respond there was a cheerfully tinkling voice.

“Frank-y-stein! What are you doing now Frankie? What kinda experiment you got this time?” they turned to see Red, a little brown headed girl with pigtails standing in the doorway wearing her signature red cape around her shoulders, a leotard her only source of true clothing and a wolf pup pelt around her tiny waist. She bounded into the room immediately without waiting to be invited and dashed up to the table to look at the girl on the table as she slept. Frances twitched a bit at the sound of the girl’s voice; it was one of the few people who knew how to just push his buttons. He watched as the little brown haired girl ran up and looked over at Sally curiously as to see what the doctor was working on.

"Each time I tell you child...its Francis...not this Frankiestien..." Francis spoke out through his teeth as he looked to the child "And she is your new team mate...or will be in a week or two.” He said with a sigh, looking down to Sally.

“OOohhh!” Red cooed in admiration, “She’s got red hair! Like my red hood!” She said and grabbed the cloak about her shoulders and smiled, “She’s really pretty, but what’s with the stitches?” She said poking Sally’s arm, as if to see it felt like regular flesh.

“Indeed,” Madam Goose responded curiously, “Even I didn’t get a full report on what happened to this girl, we’re you able to get any information from her about her past, exactly who she is?”

Francis took in a deep breath "Well...all I know is she was attacked by the Shade...that’s what your boy told me anyways when he brought the human jigsaw into my medical room...so as for who she is, your son is the man to ask." Francis admitted as he walked over to one of his cabinets and pulled out a small bottle of pills, eyeballed them for a moment before putting them back. As if he had eyes on the back of his head he had a feeling red was about to touch something "And child please don’t touch anything...again."

Red jumped slightly, putting down a syringe that she had picked up to play with. Madam Goose looked at Red and smiled as Red tiptoed to put it back into place.

“Another Shade victim… I see….” Madam goose sighed and patted Red on her head as she looked at Sally once again, she was sleeping soundly now, not a trace of disturbance in her face; she seemed almost like a glass doll. She sighed again and closed her eyes, wondering how her star pupil would react to this fresh meat. As if on cue, a third voice harshly cut through the awkward silence.

“Seriously? Like we need another weakling on this team.” Goldi snapped as she strode into the room, her cape flowing behind her like a force of nature, her armor making no sound as she came and stood behind Red, glaring down at Sally’s body on the table. “What’s this ones power?” She said, not taking her eyes off her.

“Yes,” Madam Goose chimed in, both her and Red looking to the doctor now, “What special ability can you give her doctor?” Francis looked to the group of women in front of him and rubbed his face a bit in frustration, it was always a pain in the ass to explain everything he did to them all at once.
"Look here you over zealous blond...don’t think just cause she was mauled by the shade that makes her any less then you...if I remember correctly that bear didn’t leave you in much better shape when the huntsman found you." Stein looked at the scars on her face. "As for abilities...that is up in the air right now...besides being almost immortal to fatal wounds...only time will tell if she has any special abilities.”

Red’s mouth fell open as Madam Goose’s clamped shut; they both shot looks to Goldi as she placed a hand on her hip and glared at the Doctor.

“Shut the hell up you psycho, I survived because my soul was strong. She survived because of you. That makes a big difference.” She clenched her free hand into a fist, “I will not fight along side her, not until I know she can keep up.” Red looked down to Sally and then back up to Goldi before jumping away from the table and crossing her arms.

“Yea!” Red agreed enthusiastically with a overly emphasized nod. “She’s gotta keep up with me an’ Goldi if she wants to be part of the team!” Goldi rolled her eyes and turned, her cape making a snapping noise as she stormed out of the door.

“I have enough to watch over without adding to the load, she will never be my equal. Know this.” She pointed to the girl on the table, her eyes narrowing making her scars stretch and look fierce, “I will leave her for dead.”

Francis watched as Goldie stormed out of the room, turning only to confirm that she didn’t like the idea of Sally becoming a new member of the team. The doctor crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as he laughed a bit, the one person he actually wanted to see appearing at the door. Standing not a few feet from Goldie a bulky man garbed in leather clothing looked down at Goldie with a dissatisfied look as he hit Goldie upside the head with two fingers to catch her attention.

"Come on now...I taught you better then that." The huntsman spoke out with a deep grumbling laugh as he looked over at mother Goose, "Good work doctor, I’m glad she was able to pull through and thank you mother for allowing her the chance to live."

Madam Goose smiled as if she had only been to happy to help, Red grabbed onto one of the Huntsman's hands and looked back at Goldi as she stared off into space, her hands shaking a little out of anger. "Could you find anything to identify who this girl is son?" she asked, crossing her arms in a relaxed manner as she looked back at Sally and turned her head to the side, it seemed like she was crying in her sleep.

The Huntsman looked over to his mother laughing a bit as Red took hold of his hand "No...the only thing I was able to dig out of my connections in Humpty’s court was that Humpty was real interested in that girl...so much so that if he couldn’t have her...no one could...the reason why the shade was the one who attacked is my guess.” He shrugged and Red pulled on his hand making him look down.

“I like her,” Red said pointing to Sally. “I like her hair, and she’s pretty.” She smiled and looked back over her shoulder at Sally as she twisted around in her bed and moaned slightly.

“I see…” Madam Goose said thoughtfully. “This will require more insight.” She turned and pulled the gloves off her hands and then threw them in the trash. “I will go and see if I can pull something from our Intel in the streets, maybe we can even get someone on the inside. A servant or something…” She tapped her cheek with her hand as she walked out of the room and back down the hall to her office. Goldi scoffed and made the Huntsman and Red look at her. “I’m going to train.” She stated and walked away, Red bounding after her. She turned the corner and then poked her head back in.

“I’ll come visit her tomorrow Frankiestien! You better tell me if she wakes up, I wanna know what color her eyes are!”