The morning after Agent Grey was returned to the Bureau, a file appears on Manning's desk even before he's arrived and had a chance to settle in with the morning's cup of coffee.

( A handwritten (barely legible) note is taped to the outer cover of the manila folder. )

It was a few hours later and all available agents had scrambled and left for the evening, off to save the world again, while Grey was out. Dag made sure of it, even though it didn't take much to sedate the agent, making sure the crazy bastard slept. Grey's physical body had taken a hell of a beating when he'd pulled back from the hard drive reformat. Mentally, the man was sound, but Grey's abilities were as much a curse as a blessing. It was like being six feet tall and 90 pounds soaking wet, then handing that person a .357 magnum and letting them fire it. The backlash knocked you off your feet, and you ended up with broken bones and a cracked skull.

Grey had merely given himself a nasty case of whiplash, a few broken ribs, a bruised brain, and a punctured lung. All in all, not too bad in Dr. Wrede's estimation. (Hey, he'd seen agents brought to the lab in Hefty bags and he'd been asked to work miracles.) Even so, Grey was a person whom, on a good week, he could swear in six different languages, chew his own food, and breathe on his own, all a the same time. Therefore, such injuries needed a bit more monitoring.

A good portion of the damage was already healed, due to his doctor's skill. Dag was a fleshcraefter; not a strong one but a very skilled one--something that he hated to admit as he insisted that Science was Truth. All that other crap the bureau had to deal with was based in Scientific study in some way, he'd just not figured out how yet.

Fleshcraefting was a rare talent indeed. He could do a fair amount of healing through his fingers; his hands were his tools, as it were. He could mould flesh as if it were clay, smooth over cuts with the brush of his thumb, perform surgery without the use of tools. The downside was, it tired him out, it couldn't be used in just any case, and it went against everything he believed. Science was science, and such things like hoodoo and magic and telepathy and his own gift was science as well... he just hadn't worked it out yet.

So, considering the internal injuries his patient had sustained, and the fact that his patient wasn't at home for the procedure (somewhat like anethesia, only you hoped the patient didn't return when you had your arm half-way into his chest cavity), he parted the skin and the bone, keeping even the tiniest vessels intact, and withdrew the broken rib from Grey's lung. The lung itself would have to heal fully on it's own, but there'd be no perforations. It was just going to hurt like a mother.

In a few seconds, the ribs were set and the skin was smooth again. Once again, the lab was full of people standing in awe at the man with the blood all over his hands telling them to shove off and get back to work. When they didn't all move quickly enough, he threatened them again with shovelling duty and bared his teeth at them, growling and cursing in Swedish.

Later, he would think back and try to understand what had happened, yet again, and to coax the least bit of Scientific proof out of what he'd done. And then he'd drink good scotch until he stopped wondering and he'd fall asleep, only to be woken in the morning to find his patient mentally AWOL. Again.

Damn the fool bastard.