Author: liz012014
Rating: PG (a little language)
Spoilers: Catevari(basically just a quote)
Comments: I was listening to Puddle of Mudd's "Control" when I wrote this, thus the title of the story.
Control
"Good morning, Darien. How are you today?" Claire smiled as Darien entered the Keep.
He smiled back. "Pretty good, for a Monday." He walked across the room and slumped down in his usual chair.
"You here for your shot?" Claire started toward the refrigerator, already knowing the answer.
"Yup. You must be psychic." Darien grinned as he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt.
Claire paused as she pulled out his shot. She really should tell him. He deserved to know. Claire turned around, syringe in hand, and opened her mouth to share the burden that had been weighing on her shoulders for months when the door to the Keep opened and Monroe and Eberts walked in.
"Hi, guys." Claire greeted them as they crossed the room, hiding her moment of weakness. She immediately turned from them and gave Darien his shot.
"The Official gave the ok on those tests you wanted to run on Fawkes today. He's giving Hobbes and I another assignment." Monroe looked at Darien as she spoke.
"What tests?" Darien had a concerned look on his face.
"It's nothing big. I just want to check on those headaches you've been having lately." Claire tried to give him her most reassuring look. Darien looked skeptical but he didn't say anything. He trusted her. He knew that if something was really wrong she would tell him.
"Well, gotta go." Monroe headed for the door. Eberts handed Claire a small stack of forms and followed Monroe to the door.
Claire turned back to her patient as the doors closed behind them. She smiled at him. "I need to take some blood and knock you out for a while."
"Wonderful." Darien began to make himself more comfortable in the chair he was sitting in, but once again, he didn't protest.
Claire gathered equipment and set up an iv to give Darien an anesthetic with. He didn't protest when she stuck the needle in his arm and she took a moment to marvel at the trust he had in her. 'In a single inaction I will probably destroy that trust.' She smiled sadly as she watched his eyelids droop and close. She had control over him and he knew it. Because of the way she felt about Darien, he trusted her.
She knew that she would tell him that she had known what was causing his headaches for months before they even began. She also knew that he would be angry that she hadn't told him, that it would require delicate surgery to repair, that she had known about this eventuality for months. Silently, she wondered if he would ever forgive her for her silence. He could very easily be mere weeks from death and she hadn't told him. Brain surgery was always a tricky thing. 'Telling him would only have made matters worse. There was nothing to be done at the time. He would have become even more depressed than he already was. I had enough time to find the solution.' Claire knew that none of those arguments would hold water. Darien, her good friend, had been through a lot and she hadn't told him the second she found out that he was slowly dying, that she could probably cure it was beside the point. Her final reason for not telling him had been that the Official would remove her, citing that she had been compromised by her friendship with her patient, and she wouldn't be permitted to help him at all. He also said that he would lie to Darien for his own good and tell him that she had some nefarious reason for telling him that he was dying and that it wasn't true. She wouldn't let him die. Even if it meant keeping things from him.
In the end, it really didn't matter. The result would be the same. Darien wouldn't find out how sick he was until he began to show more severe symptoms. Claire had decided that she would rather it be her taking care of her friend than some stranger. To ensure his welfare, she would risk their friendship. Claire sighed and began her tests.
***
"How could you keep this from me?!" Darien paced the room as he shouted.
"It was for your own good. There was nothing any of us could do at that time." Claire was growing frustrated. She had known that he would be unhappy but she had suffered under her silence as well and she didn't have any sympathy left at the moment.
He stopped. "My own good?" His voice was low, dangerous. "My own good?" He paused again. "How the hell could not letting me know that I was dying be for my own good?!" He began to pace again. "At least then I would have had more time to come to terms with it." His voice was quiet.
Claire sighed. "Darien, you're not going to die. I'm going to operate and fix the problem."
He stopped again and turned to glare at her. "Oh, that's interesting. Let's just not tell the guy he's dying until he only has about two weeks left and then expect him to trust us to perform brain surgery on him. We're already controlling most of his life let's just chalk another one up to lack of free will." His voice dripped sarcasm.
"You know that you can trust me. I think that I've proven that time and again!" Claire was growing angry now and her voice began to rise.
"Trust you! Apparently, I don't even know you and you've definitely proven the extent to which you trust me." The anger on his face faded to an acute hurt. "If you trusted me, you would have told me anyway; you wouldn't have needed to control my reaction. I wouldn't have told anyone. You could have trusted me. I thought we were friends, but I guess I was wrong." He started for the door.
"Darien…" Claire started, fatigue and exasperation evident in her tone. He paused looked back at her in disgust and continued out the door.
***
A week later…
Claire prepared to give him his shot in silence. They had barely spoken a word to each other in a week. She looked over at him to find him seated in her desk's rolling chair. "Come on, get in the chair." She felt tired and she had the feeling that he was in the mood to fight.
"I think I'd rather get my shot in this chair today." He folded his arms across his chest, defiantly.
Claire sighed. "Darien, I really don't have the energy for this. Just get in the chair so I can give you your shot."
He didn't budge. "Does it really matter where I sit? I think that I should at least get to control that. It's not so much to ask."
Claire opened her mouth to respond, a sharp comment on the tip of her tongue, when the door of the Keep opened. The Official, Eberts, Hobbes, and Monroe all entered. "Is he ready yet?" The Official looked impatient.
Claire grumbled under her breath in exasperation but moved over to the chair that Darien was seated in and gave him his shot.
"Sir, we may need to have the Keeper come with us. From your description, it sounds like Fawkes will probably need to use a lot of quicksilver and I really don't want to count on us getting back here that fast." Hobbes wore a look of concern on his face, both for the mission and for his partner.
"That's a good idea, Bobby." The Official turned to Claire. "Go with them, doctor. Make sure Fawkes gets his meds."
For a moment Claire looked like she would protest but then she relented. "All right. I'll be ready in ten minutes."
***
"Fawkes, go around the back. Make sure that none of them escape that way." Hobbes was letting Monroe take charge without comment, a major change for him. He was too busy wondering what was going on between his two best friends. He knew that the argument had to do with the ailment that his partner had recently been made aware he had but he didn't want to press them for further information because he knew that neither of them would talk about it until they were ready. "Hobbes and I will go in the front. There shouldn't be any problem containing them but we'll have Fawkes as back-up."
"Where is the Keeper going to be during all of this?" Hobbes looked to Monroe for an answer.
"Claire will be in the van. We don't want the good doctor to be damaged by the big bad smugglers." Monroe's voice was sarcastic, not unusual for her. She spoke again quickly, not to giving Claire time to respond. "Let's get on with it."
***
Bobby Hobbes felt helpless as he watched two smugglers that he hadn't even been aware were there drag a struggling Claire into the small cabin he and Monroe had just stormed. "Let us go and we let your friend live." The smuggler wore a smug smile as he jammed a rather large gun into the Keeper's temple.
Monroe looked at Hobbes. "I can get a shot off before he can shoot her."
Hobbes knew that she was bluffing. Monroe was a lot of things but she wasn't the kind of agent who would endanger the life of a colleague in such a way. "If you're sure." Hobbes let his gaze wander momentarily, searching for a sign of his partner.
"I found another one out back." Their intel had missed yet another of the smugglers. This one entered the back of the cabin with Darien slung over one shoulder, unconscious. "Knocked him out." He pulled his own gun on the pair of agents and grinned.
Hobbes and Monroe exchanged looks. "All right. Leave, but they stay with us." Hobbes gestured to the door with his head as he spoke.
"I don't think so. I know perfectly well that the second we let go your friends, you'll turn on us. Don't worry, I never damage my insurance policies." The smuggler that appeared to be the leader began to back toward the door with Claire. He beckoned for his minions to follow.
Hobbes knew that this was really bad. If they left with Claire and Darien, he'd probably never see either of them alive again. The rest of the smugglers filed out of the room, the one carrying his partner going out last. There had been no choice, no alternative. Now he would just have to trust that his friends were good enough to keep alive until he and Monroe could catch up to them again.
***
Darien woke up with a killer headache. Slowly, he opened his eyes and closed them again as late-afternoon sunlight slammed into his aching eyes. He groaned softly. "Darien?" He knew that voice, Claire.
"Hmmm." He didn't think he was ready to try speaking yet.
"Darien, are you all right?" Claire sounded concerned, but he knew that couldn't be right because she had betrayed him. Obviously, she didn't care too much about him. Any concern she had must be directed toward the gland in his head. He debated not answering her for a moment, then decided that she would probably keep bothering him until he did answer.
"No. I feel like I was hit by a Mack truck." Finally, he opened his eyes and discovered what he had already begun to suspect. They were both tied to a tree. Claire was sort of behind him and he couldn't see her. He didn't recognize the area and he didn't see his partner. "Where are Hobbes and Monroe?"
"I don't know. They didn't get them. I don't know where we are either." Claire sounded sort of frightened and Darien almost felt a little sorry for her. He put the thought out of his mind as he realized something very important. The smugglers had restrained them with ropes. Darien almost smiled.
"Claire, do you see any of them?"
Claire looked around before answering. "No, but there were two of them outside the shed a few minutes ago."
"Shed?" Darien couldn't see what she was talking about.
"Yeah, it's about 25 feet straight in front of me." Claire waited, anxiously, to find out what he had in mind.
"I think I can quicksilver the ropes and break them." He paused. "Claire, do you have any more counteragent on you?" His voice held a note of fear it hadn't before.
"I have one in my pocket. Break the ropes." She wondered how close he was.
"Here goes." Claire watched as quicksilver slowly coated the rope that bound them. "Pull hard." The two of them pulled with all of their strength until the rope broke.
They scrambled to their feet just as one of their kidnappers exited the shed. "Hey! They're getting away." He started toward them.
"Come on!" Darien grabbed Claire's arm and began dragging her along.
They hadn't gotten very far when there was a loud bang. Claire cried out and began to fall. Darien turned at her cry and grabbed her before she could hit the ground. He scooped her into his arms and quicksilvered as he took off into the surrounding forest at a full sprint.
***
"I've got a lead!" Alex was running full tilt down the hallway toward Bobby.
"What?!" Hobbes was as excited as Monroe.
"A location." She smirked.
"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Hobbes and Monroe headed for the van at a full run.
***
Darien felt like he had been running forever. Claire hadn't said a word since she had been shot. He was really getting worried. He slowed to a walk and looked for a place to set her down. After a moment's searching, he found a fallen log and gently sat her down on it. His head was pounding, a combination of impending QSM, a concussion, and something he hadn't felt before. The unidentifiable part of his headache was what concerned him the most. Claire placed a hand on his arm and he sat down next to her.
Darien pulled off the baggy over-shirt he had been wearing and tore off one of the sleeves. He then proceeded to wrap it around the gunshot wound in Claire's leg. She gasped as he pulled it tight but didn't say anything. When he had finished his amateur paramedic imitation, she pulled out his shot and gave it to him. He closed his trying to focus through the pain.
"Darien?" Claire studied his face.
"Yeah, Claire. What?" He sounded so tired.
"Are you all right?" She could see his wrist and she knew that the counteragent had done its job.
"I don't know." He paused. "I have probably the worst headache that I've ever had."
"You probably have a concussion. You were unconscious for a rather long time. I heard one of the men saying that he had hit you with a crowbar." She took a breath. "I don't know what to do about our situation."
"I think that we should keep heading in the direction we were going. That way we're further from the bad guys and closer to something else. We can figure out what that "something else" is when the time comes." Darien still hadn't opened his eyes.
"All right." She continued to study him, her fear and sadness growing. It was just about time for him to need the treatment that she had been working on for the last few months. The continued use of quicksilver and the concussion probably both had a hand in shortening the amount of time he had.
He finally opened his eyes and moved to pick her up. "I'm sorry." He stopped and looked at her.
"What?" He was almost whispering.
"I should have told you. I know I can trust you." Claire looked up at him, not sure of what she would see in his eyes. He just stood there for a moment; then he gave her a small smile and picked her up. They set off into the forest again, both feeling somewhat better.
***
"Freeze!" Hobbes and Monroe shouted as they entered the shed. Six very surprised smugglers looked up at them with gaping mouths. The two agents and their newly acquired backup quickly arrested everyone.
"Where are they?! And don't tell me you don't know?" Bobby was yelling. He looked like he would hurt the smuggler that he had pinned to the side of the shed if he didn't like the man's answer.
"They escaped, took off into the woods. That's all I know. They went in that direction." The man gestured with his head in the correct direction, a look of fear spreading across his face with Bobby's implied threat.
Hobbes roughly handed the man over to one of the other agents. "Let's go." He and Monroe started into the forest in pursuit of their friends.
***
She didn't know how long it had been. Every step Darien took sent shooting pain through her leg. She could tell by the pained look on his face that he was in intense pain. The way that he described his headache sounded more like the problem with the gland that she had been expecting then like a concussion. They had to get out of here soon. 'He should be in bedrest.' She looked at her leg and didn't miss the irony of that last thought. He wasn't the only one. 'At least I'm not bleeding anymore.'
Claire was jarred from her thoughts as Darien stumbled suddenly and put her down heavily. "What is it?" Claire watched as he dropped down next to her.
"I just need to rest for a minute. It hurts." He leaned back against a nearby tree and shut his eyes. She let him sleep for about a half hour, than shook him awake.
"Darien, you have to get up. We need to keep going." Claire leaned against a second tree and tried to pull herself to her feet. She made it with difficulty and turned back to Darien.
"Yeah." He stood shakily. "What are you doing? You're going to start bleeding again." He took a step toward her and started to bend to pick her up again. Concern was evident on his face.
"No, no. I want to try to walk for a while." Claire slipped her arm across his shoulders as he straightened. She knew that they would get farther if Darien didn't have to carry her. They started to walk again at a much slower pace, each focusing on fighting through their respective pain.
***
"Hobbes, I think I found their trail." Monroe was watching the ground as she walked.
Bobby smiled at her as he approached. "We're going to find them. I just know it."
The two walked on in relative silence, each concentrating on the trail of scuffed earth and drops of blood before them.
***
It was dark the next time they stopped and Claire was relatively certain that they wouldn't be moving any farther, at least not that night. They sat down together next to the trunk of a large tree. She watched Darien's face again. He didn't seem to be all that aware of what was happening around him. "Darien, how are you doing?"
Slowly, he focused on her. "It's hard to concentrate. I'm having trouble seeing and hearing. I don't figure that's probably too good."
Claire smiled reassuringly and pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms around him and he didn't pull away. "It's cold." Darien was shivering.
She pulled him closer and said, "I know. It's going to be all right."
He was quiet a moment before he said, "Claire, I don't think I can walk any farther."
She nodded, said nothing. "Claire, if we get out of this I'll do whatever you need me to do to fix this. I trust you." Darien fell asleep.
Silent tears streamed down Claire's face. 'Maybe miracles really are real.'
***
Hobbes and Monroe had been hiking for a long time. It had grown dark a long time ago and Monroe was about ready to try dragging Bobby away to get some rest. They could try again in the morning. Just as she opened her mouth to start her argument she noticed a large, dark lump at the base of a tree. "Hobbes." She pointed.
"It's them." Hobbes sounded certain. They jogged over to the tree and leaned down. Claire looked up at them weakly. "Hey." Hobbes couldn't think of anything better to say. He was just so relieved that they had found them.
"Hey, yourself." Claire gave both of them a weak smile.
"Is that a gunshot wound?" Alex motioned at her leg as she spoke.
Claire nodded. "I'm more worried about Darien. It's the gland. His symptoms are growing more acute. He could barely hear or see when we stopped."
Hobbes leaned down and shook his partner. He didn't even stir. Bobby frowned and looked up at Alex. "Can you get the van through here?" Alex nodded and took off in the direction of the van at a jog.
Hobbes sat down to wait. He and Claire talked about everything that had happened and about the now resolved conflict she had had with Darien while they waited. Alex was back quickly with the van. She and Hobbes carefully moved Darien and then Claire to the van and drove back to the Agency as quickly as they could.
***
When Darien woke next, he was first aware that he was in a brightly lit room. Next, he became aware of familiar voices nearby. He groaned and moved his head slightly, regretting the movement instantaneously. "Darien, are you awake?"
"Unfortunately." He tried to pry open his eyes.
"Hey, buddy. Welcome back." Bobby was standing next to the bed he lay in. He smiled.
Darien attempted to smile back. "Hey."
"How are you feeling?" Claire was sitting in a wheelchair beside Bobby.
"Is that a trick question?" Darien closed his eyes again. "What are we going to do about my latest gland problem?"
Claire looked a little nervous. "Darien, I've already performed the procedure. I couldn't wait for you to wake up. I really didn't think that you would wake up before it was too late."
Darien was quiet for a moment. "Oh."
A look of pure anxiety took up residence on Claire's face. "What does that mean?"
Darien opened his eyes and smiled at her. "Smart girl like you should know what "oh" means." Claire still looked tense so Darien continued. "I told you Claire. I've decided I trust you." That brought a smile to her face.
"Thank you." Her face grew somber again. "I know that you think that most of this is about control but it isn't. It's about trust. I don't want to do some of the things that I have to do but it's my job. The Official put me in charge of your well-being and I take that very seriously. I regret that I didn't show you well enough that I care about you and trust you."
Darien nodded. "How about a compromise?" He now wore a somber look as well. Claire nodded for him to continue. "How about we share control. I do what you need for me to do, but you don't ask for beyond what's necessary to maintain my health. We trust each other."
Claire nodded again. "Agreed. Understand that some of the things that I ask you to do aren't without merit just because you don't know the reason behind it. Some things do have to remain classified."
Darien looked unconvinced for a moment then seemed to make up his mind. "I trust you. I'll just have to learn to trust you with a higher degree of control over me."
Claire could see how hard that decision was for him to make and she leaned forward in her wheelchair to give her friend a hug. When she pulled away, he was asleep again. Claire chuckled and began to back away from the bed. Bobby took hold of the wheelchair and pushed her toward the door. "You know, trust works both ways."
Claire looked up at him and smiled again. "I'll keep that in mind. I promise."
***
(Darien)
'In my relationship with Claire, there has to be about equal parts trust and control. Each of us was fighting for one of these. I had been fighting for control almost constantly since we first met. Claire had been fighting to gain my trust. After our last little adventure, I realized that the only way to gain her trust was to give up the control that I had been fighting for. To give her my trust. Without our fight, she has the control that she needs to do her job and to protect me and I have her trust so that I can have a higher degree of freedom and confidence. I know; it's a paradox. It's very difficult to explain and you'll have to forgive me if this doesn't make much sense. The root of it is that when I gave Claire control, she could give me her trust. Hopefully, we'll all be happier for it.'