FIC- General Hospital (Diego/Georgie) 1/3
Title: Prodigal
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 2,088
Summary: There is only one reason in the world why a man would willingly give up his life. (Goes severely AU from the moment right before Georgie died, consider history to be completely re-written.)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: written for scoob2222, my darling lj partner in crime, who has waited so patiently for this. I hope it is worth the wait, luv! I'd like to thank empressearwig for being a sounding board and wise13183 from The Alcazar Compound for her help fine-tuning.
Georgie heard someone behind her, and had half-expected to come face to face with the text message killer. Maybe it was just someone, anyone passing through the park. Maybe it was Coop, and he wasn’t the TMK after all, and he was just going to take her home.
But Diego Alcazar was the last person she would have expected. He’d been dead for over a year, but never far from her thoughts.
An Hour Later
The man sitting next to her, was steadily driving them was somewhere. She was disoriented and she felt like she knew nothing at this point. She looked at him and the man she once cared about was very much alive.
“I know you have a thousand questions, Georgie,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. “And I’m going to answer every one of them, when we stop.”
“When we stop where?” She was screaming inside her head but the words were frozen in her throat.
“Look, it’s a long drive, and it’s late, so why don’t you close your eyes and try to get some sleep?” He still wasn’t looking at her, and there was a peculiar note of authority in his voice that she’d never heard before. It seemed that Diego Alcazar had grown accustomed to being obeyed in his second life. How could he expect her to calmly fall asleep on the road to nowhere, next to a dead man, with no knowledge of where she was going or when or if she was coming back.
So she said the only thing that she could wrap her mind around at the moment. “Fuck you.”
At this, Diego eased off the gas and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye for the first time he’d looked at her since carefully tucking her into the passenger seat of the Mercedes they were riding in. One of his thick black eyebrows rose slightly before turning his concentration back to the road.
Georgie had never used that word in her life before, and it was surprising how much calmer she felt after letting out a curse. And it was sure good to know that she could surprise him after he had given her the shock of her life.
An Hour Earlier
Georgie Jones was nothing if not logical. And she knew she was taking her life in her hands by dawdling through the park, on her own in the night time, with a killer on the loose who was targeting young women. She looked up from Maxie’s cell phone after hearing the sound of footsteps. Seeing Diego Alcazar standing in front of her, her throat constricted. She thought she had totally lost her mind.
She pinched her stomach through her coat and blinked twice but he was still standing there. He looked different than the last time she’d seen him. He’d put a generous slab of solid muscle over his lean frame and his face looked like it was sculpted from granite. He was sporting a beard and his thick black hair had been shorn to a closely-cropped fade. Georgie remembered how it used to flop over in front of his eyes, silky and soft. There was nothing soft about him now. The mischievous flash in his eyes, the hint of vulnerability around his mouth- that was all gone, and she started to believe the Diego she knew as well. “Diego,” she said his name with barely a whisper on her lips.
“Georgie,” he answered, his voice lower than she remembered. He caught her eye for a moment, but before he could continue, he had her in his arms and had roughly thrown to the ground, a split second before a shot rang out, shattering the glass in the gazebo right at the level of where her face had been. “Are you hit?” he asked, to which she could only shake her head no. She couldn’t even breathe.
And then, just like something out of a James Bond movie, they weren’t alone in the gazebo any more. Two men had seemingly appeared from nowhere, but before Georgie could scream a warning, Diego stabbed one in the chest with a knife from his boot. He twisted the blade and the man crumpled to the ground with a groan. Diego took the man’s gun and shot his partner in the kneecaps. When he fell, Diego stood over him and shot him in the head. The other man had struggled to his feet, and began moving towards Diego. But before he could advance, Diego grabbed his head and twisted it. Georgie winced as she heard his neck snap, and then it was quiet. Georgie could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She looked down next to her at the dead man with a neat bullet hole between his eyes. She reached out and touched his face. It was still warm.
When she finally looked up, Diego was standing over her.
“Georgie, are you all right?” he had to know it was a loaded question, considering what she witnessed, “Come on, we have to go,” he held out a hand to help her stand but she couldn’t move. She looked down and she was still tightly clutching Maxie’s cell phone in her numb, white fingers, the text unsent. She was panic struck, only three minutes ago the world was relatively normal.
Present Time
He didn’t say another word in the car. Georgie noticed that he would periodically look in his side and rear view mirrors and whenever another car’s headlights appeared, he sped up until they were cleanly out of sight. It was clear that he was concentrating too hard for her to get any concrete answers out of him at the moment, and Georgie eventually did feel her eyes drooping shut, despite all her efforts to stay awake. It was all too surreal- finding Diego back from the dead, and what he had done at the park made her break out in fresh goose-bumps when she thought of the two men lying dead where they’d left them.
When she finally woke up Diego was gently nudging her shoulder. “Come on, we’re here,” he said, as her door was opened for her by a solidly built man wearing a black suit. As she got out, she saw that they were at the base of a steep hill, with a thickly dense forest. It was too dark to see where they were headed. Diego slung a bag over his shoulder and came around to her side of the car.
“Thanks,” he said to the other man, who did not reply, but got into the Mercedes and drove it away. Diego put his hand to the small of her back to guide her up the hill.
Still groggy from sleeping in the car, Georgie allowed herself to be pushed along through the woods. She didn’t know how long they were driving for, but she was completely exhausted and wherever they were, it was absolutely freezing. Her Uggs were soaked through with the damp underbrush and her teeth were chattering, even when he draped his own coat over her shoulders. She burrowed into it, pulling the collar up over her cheeks and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. She had no energy left to think about the decidedly bizarre turn her life had taken.
Maybe when the sun comes up, and it is a new day began, I’ll see that this was all a dream, she tried to reassure herself.
When they finally reached the cabin nestled in a thick patch of trees near the top of the hill- it was completely obscured from view from the bottom- Diego opened the door by pressing a security code into a keypad. The inside of the cabin was warm, shockingly so after the raw damp of the outside. It looked like a luxury ski condo. Once Diego had shut the door behind them, he leaned back against it and sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a long moment while Georgie wiggled her toes, trying to get the feeling back into them. He opened his eyes and looked down at her.
“Here,” he said, handing her the backpack he’d brought up from the car. “I brought some clothes for you. Go put them on; they’re dry.” He pointed her towards a hallway with three bedrooms.
As Georgie changed in the first one, she realized that she had been so eager to get out of her wet things, she hadn’t questioned that he had thought ahead to bring her a change of clothes- he had. Her heart started to race when she realized that he had known ahead, he would be taking her away. She looked down at what he brought with him- a black cashmere sweater and a new pair of Citizen’s jeans, exactly her size. Best of all, though, there were thick wool socks that felt like heaven when she slipped them on.
She headed back outside. Diego was in the kitchen and he was preparing a cup of tea. When he looked up and saw her, he pushed the teacup towards her and went to the other side of the counter to a sidebar and poured himself a shot of brandy. She moved right past the cup of tea, and picked up another tumbler, which she thumped down in front of him, indicating that she wanted something a bit stronger than tea. He poured two lady’s fingers worth and she shot it back, choking and sputtering, but it all went down. She pushed the empty glass towards him again, and he raised his eyebrow, but obliged her.
“More slowly this time,” he said.
She grabbed the glass and said, “Fuck you.” And she shot that one down, too; it went down more easily than the first. “I think it’s about time you told me what is going on. Who are....Were those men?”
“You’re right,” Diego said, settling down onto one of the barstools. He knocked back his own drink, without a wince. “You deserve an explanation.” Pausing for a second, Georgie sat down next to him. When she was settled, he continued. “Those guys worked for the person you know as the Text Message Killer. What you don’t know is that this person isn’t just a serial killer, targeting young women randomly.” He shook his head in disgust, “No, that’s more of just a hobby for this individual. A way to blow off steam, if you will. No, this one has bigger fish to fry. International terrorism, to start.”
“You sound like you don’t know who it is,” Georgie said.
He shook his head slightly. “I can’t tell you everything, Georgie.”
“You can’t tell me everything?” Outrage colored her voice and flashed in her eyes. “Diego…you’re alive!”
He took a deep breath and knocked back another shot. “The night that I…the night I died- and I did die, Georgie.” Diego paused trying to figure an easy way to explain to her, “Georgie, I was selected by a special branch of a, worldwide espionage bureau. It’s top secret. They choose young men who are physically capable of handling the job and can survive the training-” her eyes were as wide as saucers, but he didn’t pause for a second longer, “And they choose young men who did the kind of work my family was involved in. Men who are good at keeping secrets.”
“But…But you were…How did you?” she could barely fathom what he was telling her.
“Caught within twenty-four hours of the body expiring, the branch has perfected an antidote.” He said all of this so matter-of-factly.
“The body expiring? A water of life,” Georgie said under her breath.
He was silent, watching her take it all in. “There’s another reason why guys like me are chosen,” he began, his voice low and thick. “Georgie…” he was interrupted.
“Stupid, stupid boy. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Diego ducked his head at the smooth, cultured voice, and Georgie whirled around. Time had changed this man. Prominent threads of gray streaked through his dark hair and a three inch scar bisected his left eye and cheekbone. He now walked with a cane. But instead of making him appear weak, he resembled a king as much as ever; strong, proud and indomitable.
“No need for introductions, Diego,” he said, lifting Georgie’s right hand delicately, palm down. “Miss Jones and I were acquainted years ago.”
Diego sighed. “Georgie, you remember my uncle Luis.”
Rating: pg-13
Word Count: 2,088
Summary: There is only one reason in the world why a man would willingly give up his life. (Goes severely AU from the moment right before Georgie died, consider history to be completely re-written.)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: written for scoob2222, my darling lj partner in crime, who has waited so patiently for this. I hope it is worth the wait, luv! I'd like to thank empressearwig for being a sounding board and wise13183 from The Alcazar Compound for her help fine-tuning.
Georgie heard someone behind her, and had half-expected to come face to face with the text message killer. Maybe it was just someone, anyone passing through the park. Maybe it was Coop, and he wasn’t the TMK after all, and he was just going to take her home.
But Diego Alcazar was the last person she would have expected. He’d been dead for over a year, but never far from her thoughts.
An Hour Later
The man sitting next to her, was steadily driving them was somewhere. She was disoriented and she felt like she knew nothing at this point. She looked at him and the man she once cared about was very much alive.
“I know you have a thousand questions, Georgie,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. “And I’m going to answer every one of them, when we stop.”
“When we stop where?” She was screaming inside her head but the words were frozen in her throat.
“Look, it’s a long drive, and it’s late, so why don’t you close your eyes and try to get some sleep?” He still wasn’t looking at her, and there was a peculiar note of authority in his voice that she’d never heard before. It seemed that Diego Alcazar had grown accustomed to being obeyed in his second life. How could he expect her to calmly fall asleep on the road to nowhere, next to a dead man, with no knowledge of where she was going or when or if she was coming back.
So she said the only thing that she could wrap her mind around at the moment. “Fuck you.”
At this, Diego eased off the gas and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye for the first time he’d looked at her since carefully tucking her into the passenger seat of the Mercedes they were riding in. One of his thick black eyebrows rose slightly before turning his concentration back to the road.
Georgie had never used that word in her life before, and it was surprising how much calmer she felt after letting out a curse. And it was sure good to know that she could surprise him after he had given her the shock of her life.
An Hour Earlier
Georgie Jones was nothing if not logical. And she knew she was taking her life in her hands by dawdling through the park, on her own in the night time, with a killer on the loose who was targeting young women. She looked up from Maxie’s cell phone after hearing the sound of footsteps. Seeing Diego Alcazar standing in front of her, her throat constricted. She thought she had totally lost her mind.
She pinched her stomach through her coat and blinked twice but he was still standing there. He looked different than the last time she’d seen him. He’d put a generous slab of solid muscle over his lean frame and his face looked like it was sculpted from granite. He was sporting a beard and his thick black hair had been shorn to a closely-cropped fade. Georgie remembered how it used to flop over in front of his eyes, silky and soft. There was nothing soft about him now. The mischievous flash in his eyes, the hint of vulnerability around his mouth- that was all gone, and she started to believe the Diego she knew as well. “Diego,” she said his name with barely a whisper on her lips.
“Georgie,” he answered, his voice lower than she remembered. He caught her eye for a moment, but before he could continue, he had her in his arms and had roughly thrown to the ground, a split second before a shot rang out, shattering the glass in the gazebo right at the level of where her face had been. “Are you hit?” he asked, to which she could only shake her head no. She couldn’t even breathe.
And then, just like something out of a James Bond movie, they weren’t alone in the gazebo any more. Two men had seemingly appeared from nowhere, but before Georgie could scream a warning, Diego stabbed one in the chest with a knife from his boot. He twisted the blade and the man crumpled to the ground with a groan. Diego took the man’s gun and shot his partner in the kneecaps. When he fell, Diego stood over him and shot him in the head. The other man had struggled to his feet, and began moving towards Diego. But before he could advance, Diego grabbed his head and twisted it. Georgie winced as she heard his neck snap, and then it was quiet. Georgie could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She looked down next to her at the dead man with a neat bullet hole between his eyes. She reached out and touched his face. It was still warm.
When she finally looked up, Diego was standing over her.
“Georgie, are you all right?” he had to know it was a loaded question, considering what she witnessed, “Come on, we have to go,” he held out a hand to help her stand but she couldn’t move. She looked down and she was still tightly clutching Maxie’s cell phone in her numb, white fingers, the text unsent. She was panic struck, only three minutes ago the world was relatively normal.
Present Time
He didn’t say another word in the car. Georgie noticed that he would periodically look in his side and rear view mirrors and whenever another car’s headlights appeared, he sped up until they were cleanly out of sight. It was clear that he was concentrating too hard for her to get any concrete answers out of him at the moment, and Georgie eventually did feel her eyes drooping shut, despite all her efforts to stay awake. It was all too surreal- finding Diego back from the dead, and what he had done at the park made her break out in fresh goose-bumps when she thought of the two men lying dead where they’d left them.
When she finally woke up Diego was gently nudging her shoulder. “Come on, we’re here,” he said, as her door was opened for her by a solidly built man wearing a black suit. As she got out, she saw that they were at the base of a steep hill, with a thickly dense forest. It was too dark to see where they were headed. Diego slung a bag over his shoulder and came around to her side of the car.
“Thanks,” he said to the other man, who did not reply, but got into the Mercedes and drove it away. Diego put his hand to the small of her back to guide her up the hill.
Still groggy from sleeping in the car, Georgie allowed herself to be pushed along through the woods. She didn’t know how long they were driving for, but she was completely exhausted and wherever they were, it was absolutely freezing. Her Uggs were soaked through with the damp underbrush and her teeth were chattering, even when he draped his own coat over her shoulders. She burrowed into it, pulling the collar up over her cheeks and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. She had no energy left to think about the decidedly bizarre turn her life had taken.
Maybe when the sun comes up, and it is a new day began, I’ll see that this was all a dream, she tried to reassure herself.
When they finally reached the cabin nestled in a thick patch of trees near the top of the hill- it was completely obscured from view from the bottom- Diego opened the door by pressing a security code into a keypad. The inside of the cabin was warm, shockingly so after the raw damp of the outside. It looked like a luxury ski condo. Once Diego had shut the door behind them, he leaned back against it and sighed heavily, closing his eyes for a long moment while Georgie wiggled her toes, trying to get the feeling back into them. He opened his eyes and looked down at her.
“Here,” he said, handing her the backpack he’d brought up from the car. “I brought some clothes for you. Go put them on; they’re dry.” He pointed her towards a hallway with three bedrooms.
As Georgie changed in the first one, she realized that she had been so eager to get out of her wet things, she hadn’t questioned that he had thought ahead to bring her a change of clothes- he had. Her heart started to race when she realized that he had known ahead, he would be taking her away. She looked down at what he brought with him- a black cashmere sweater and a new pair of Citizen’s jeans, exactly her size. Best of all, though, there were thick wool socks that felt like heaven when she slipped them on.
She headed back outside. Diego was in the kitchen and he was preparing a cup of tea. When he looked up and saw her, he pushed the teacup towards her and went to the other side of the counter to a sidebar and poured himself a shot of brandy. She moved right past the cup of tea, and picked up another tumbler, which she thumped down in front of him, indicating that she wanted something a bit stronger than tea. He poured two lady’s fingers worth and she shot it back, choking and sputtering, but it all went down. She pushed the empty glass towards him again, and he raised his eyebrow, but obliged her.
“More slowly this time,” he said.
She grabbed the glass and said, “Fuck you.” And she shot that one down, too; it went down more easily than the first. “I think it’s about time you told me what is going on. Who are....Were those men?”
“You’re right,” Diego said, settling down onto one of the barstools. He knocked back his own drink, without a wince. “You deserve an explanation.” Pausing for a second, Georgie sat down next to him. When she was settled, he continued. “Those guys worked for the person you know as the Text Message Killer. What you don’t know is that this person isn’t just a serial killer, targeting young women randomly.” He shook his head in disgust, “No, that’s more of just a hobby for this individual. A way to blow off steam, if you will. No, this one has bigger fish to fry. International terrorism, to start.”
“You sound like you don’t know who it is,” Georgie said.
He shook his head slightly. “I can’t tell you everything, Georgie.”
“You can’t tell me everything?” Outrage colored her voice and flashed in her eyes. “Diego…you’re alive!”
He took a deep breath and knocked back another shot. “The night that I…the night I died- and I did die, Georgie.” Diego paused trying to figure an easy way to explain to her, “Georgie, I was selected by a special branch of a, worldwide espionage bureau. It’s top secret. They choose young men who are physically capable of handling the job and can survive the training-” her eyes were as wide as saucers, but he didn’t pause for a second longer, “And they choose young men who did the kind of work my family was involved in. Men who are good at keeping secrets.”
“But…But you were…How did you?” she could barely fathom what he was telling her.
“Caught within twenty-four hours of the body expiring, the branch has perfected an antidote.” He said all of this so matter-of-factly.
“The body expiring? A water of life,” Georgie said under her breath.
He was silent, watching her take it all in. “There’s another reason why guys like me are chosen,” he began, his voice low and thick. “Georgie…” he was interrupted.
“Stupid, stupid boy. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Diego ducked his head at the smooth, cultured voice, and Georgie whirled around. Time had changed this man. Prominent threads of gray streaked through his dark hair and a three inch scar bisected his left eye and cheekbone. He now walked with a cane. But instead of making him appear weak, he resembled a king as much as ever; strong, proud and indomitable.
“No need for introductions, Diego,” he said, lifting Georgie’s right hand delicately, palm down. “Miss Jones and I were acquainted years ago.”
Diego sighed. “Georgie, you remember my uncle Luis.”