As soon as they arrived, X gave the orders he hoped Aila already had. "Disable my teleport codes and get a virus scanner now!"

Teleport system slaving meant one could be taken anywhere on earth. Sleep was a semi-defenseless state. Zero had just been through an amazing amount of emotional pain.

X had assisted Dr. Cain for years. He could do this math perfectly well, although Alia had gotten it first and her attitude had made him aware there was something to get. He was a little rusty. "I don't feel any different," he assured all of the people standing there with horror dawning as they realized they might have just lost the only two immune reploids on the planet with Sigma still out there. "But that might be the idea."

X stepped away from Zero to be scanned only reluctantly, and frowned. "I think… make it a very through scan. This would be a custom virus, if it is there."

"Did you notice something?" Alia had picked up on it and was the first to ask.

"I am very uncomfortable with him lying there asleep and surrounded by people who might hurt or dissect him. It's irrational, this is MMHQ and you're all professionals. It might just be that it's been quite a day. Still, keep scanning." Nothing yet.

"Nothing found by the anti-virus scan of the nanite sample, but if it's atypical that could miss it," the new head technician reported. "No aversion to humans, no anti-social tendencies..." Since X's systems were so scan-resistant, they'd started to check his responses to stimuli that mavericks were programmed by the virus to have certain responses to. "Not especially fond of Sigma…" Okay, he'd found something. "Your default response to an attack by Sigma went from fight to flight."

"Recheck the nanite sample until you find it or have cleared every last one in there." X started to disable his weapon systems and remove the components.

"Why are you so sure?" This was a little extreme a conclusion to draw so quickly.

"Zero implied that a virus would have to work within my preset personality to affect me. I do not like fighting. The virus could hopefully not make me hate or kill innocents if what he said about the nature of immunity is accurate. It could, theoretically, render me a non-threat by strengthening my dislike of violence enough to incapacitate me as a Hunter." There, the last ones removed and put on the table. "I don't know if it has. I always have had an aversion to violence. The only way to test that reliably would be to put me in the field, and that is an extremely bad idea at present. Keep running the stimuli tests."

"Most of them look for sudden personality shift and antisocial tendencies." And hence wouldn't find much if that hypothesis were valid, given X's stability.

X looked thoughtfully at Zero again. "Too bad we don't have a baseline for my response to him as a stimulus." He sighed. "It's probably not going to be allowed for us to share a room here, in case I am still uninfected."

"You're really not happy with that."

"It's also that I was already planning to sit by his bed. I didn't want him alone with this. What's odd is that I feel such a need to protect him. He was always the one who protected me. Perhaps an element is the desire to return the favor, but he's immortal to whatever degree and he'd be much happier if I were safe. Yet I still want very much to be holding him right now." X grimaced. "If I'm not there, he's going to wonder why, because I said I would be and he knows how much of a mother hen I am. If he finds out he may have infected me that might be what finally breaks him. He's already suicidal."

Alia, having been fully scanned, rested a lead-lined nanite-killer glove on X's shoulder. "How about we have you in the same testing room so you can keep an eye on him and be there when he wakes up?"

"If you're moving him, hook me up first. I am not liking the idea of him being out of my sight and I want to see how extreme the reaction is."

When the bed Zero was on was rolled out of the room, X found himself out of the chair and two steps closer to the door before he realized he should stop following him. It was an effort. "That is not natural."

They all had to agree, as much as they didn't want to.

"Zero's going to be quite upset. An observation room without other people would be a good idea for when he wakes up. Don't take out the furniture. I hope he'll be healthy enough to break things." Instead of break himself. X rested his head in his hand when he arrived in the room Zero was in now. "I should have thought of this. Zero trusted me."

"You're blaming yourself?" Glances were exchanged.

"Teleport slaving wasn't around in 20XX, despite the fact their overall technology was quite advanced, and Zero has always had an aversion to anything technical. They had to put in a subroutine in his teleport system to handle linking in his unit for him. Nowadays most people have those, but in the old days they wanted you to be able to do it manually." X sighed. "He's going to worry it was some unconscious-level viral manipulation of his thoughts, or something. I don't think that's likely, unless the virus itself has an AI capable of that sort of planning, but I'm not the most objective source at the moment."

"I didn't think of it either until after the fact," Alia tried to comfort him. "And I'm more up to date, and never infected."

"Still. He trusted me." Ah, hospital clothes. X took off the last of his armor when the gown arrived while answering some final questions. "Do you need me for anything else? It's been a long day for me too."

"I'd like to keep you hooked up while asleep," one requested.

Head turning to Zero, X sighed again. "Yes, do that. I don't think I'll be able to sleep on a separate bed. I've been fighting it somewhat, but I don't want to try to relax while doing that, and it might be good to see what happens when I let myself go along with this."

What happened was that X carefully tucked himself against Zero and both of them in, and felt so very comfortable, right, and safe there he fell asleep quickly. That was nice, he'd lie awake for hours for weeks after a war normally.

Unless something else turned up, this wasn't so bad, to have an excuse to stay by Zero. It could be worse, and it certainly wasn't intolerable. It might be to Zero, though.

They were beautiful, lying there together, X smiling softly and sweetly in his sleep, holding Zero as if to comfort him but being comforted in return. Zero had put himself into a deep enough sleep that he could be tested on and his armor removed without being woken up too early and startling the doctors. He hadn't reacted to anything yet, but the small motor movements of a dreaming reploid running systems tests didn't begin until X was in his arms. Over the night, the pain on his face eased and he and X became even more wrapped around each other. So very peaceful, after so much turmoil.

To the onlookers, it was a terrible beauty. They would have wanted their heroes to be happy, but where in that tight embrace were they, was the world? Mavericks were legally dead, so both their champions were lost. They might prove that they never had been mavericks, not really, but for now they had to be treated as such, so Alia and others had to find excuses to leave to cry out of sight.

When she came back, she checked over the data again. If only they could scan them more completely. "These readings, it's almost like they're being sedated. X is usually calm, but too happy right now for these circumstances, and the readings from Zero show that since X joined him his stress level has been dropping rapidly, as well as emotional pain level, and Zero is never calm." Nor especially happy, normally. "Why would Zero be affected like this by the virus?" Or was it by the virus?

"Possibly as a reward for finally infecting Dr. Wily's enemy and an incentive to keep X under control." Lifesaver was a nice person, really, but you'd never know it from his tendency to play devil's advocate and raise the possibilities others didn't want to contemplate, or admit to out loud.

"Quite possibly." The fact that Alia would have liked it to be more than that didn't mean the possibility could be ignored. An alarm beeped on the monitor, and she returned her gaze to the observation window X and… the subjects slept behind. Zero was starting to wake up, systems coming out of sleep mode.

Microphones picked up a quiet noise of complaint: Zero was comfortable the way he was but it was time to wake up now. His arms tightened around X and he nosed his hair, reluctant to leave him for the outside world. Still mostly asleep, Zero's distress wasn't on a level he was conscious of yet, and the movements weren't so much more dramatic than others throughout the night, such as being wheeled into this room, but X started to rouse as well, worried.

A soft little sound from the smaller of the two: are you okay? And don't wake up, stay with me. Zero's semi-growl of irritation with the world and all things he had to do in it that required waking up and leaving X was louder this time as processes continued to boot up. He still unwrapped his arms from around X and used one to push himself up into more of a sitting position, head slowly clearing and eyes opening as he did so.

He was taking visual input before his processor had come fully online, clearly, as there was a moment where he was looking at X and he didn't seem to really register him other than as something in Zero's bed. Then Zero blinked, registering the fact that there was indeed something odd in his bed and this was something that needed to be dealt with, causing systems to come to readiness more quickly.

Still not fully awake, which was very unusual for him, Zero recognized this as X. "What?" His eyes closed and the hand that wasn't keeping him propped up covered his face. "X, what happened last night?" Zero paused, then responded as though he'd heard a response. "X, take pity on me, I have a hangover and I think a couple days are hidden by the blur. Just tell me it was a threesome."

Did he actually have a hangover? He did, they quickly verified. 'Overload hangovers' were caused by too much physical and emotional stimuli being processed. Zero's turmoil was indeed enough to cause one. However, the more common cause, reploids being careful to avoid that sort of stress, was the use of recreational substances and often sex under the influence of them, which was what Zero seemed to be assuming had happened.

"We didn't have a threesome with Iris? Oh god, what am I going to tell her?" Zero fell back down onto the bed. "It's not your fault, X, I'm the one with a girlfriend, I should have been more careful. How on earth did we end up getting drunk?" The hangover was keeping his reasoning functions from working properly until the remnants of the overload were repaired. "We didn't have sex or get drunk? Then why are we in a bed and why do I feel like scrap?" Zero looked around. "We're in medical? So we got hit with something?" Transparent relief. Whatever this was, he clearly felt, it had to be better than having cheated on Iris with X.

By this time, X had managed to fully wake up, unhindered by hangover. He sorrowfully wrapped his arms around Zero.

"X, can you just tell me what's going on?" Zero looked down at X, noticing something was off.

"Can someone get an overload counteragent for Zero?" X asked the watchers in the window, helping Zero sit up. Zero allowed himself to be repositioned, focused on something else.

"X, did you learn ventroloquism and didn't tell me?" X looked at him and Zero paused again, listening. "Yes, you've gotten really good at it, I don't see your lips move at all."

Seemingly making a conscious effort to do so, X responded aloud. "Zero, just wait until they bring the counteragent. It's a long story. Why don't you just lie down again for now?" X gently pushed him back onto the bed.

"Yeah, that sounds good." Zero's eyes closed. "I've never had a hangover before, and I didn't even get to enjoy being drunk for the first time to get this one. That sucks. I'm going to kill Sigma again and make it stick this time," he declared, quite clearly out of it as his systems started to cool down from the strain of trying to process at a high level despite the overload.

Quietly, X lay down next to him and held him, so sad at what would happen when the counteragent was kicked in. Zero wrapped his own arms around X, sensing his condition. "Oh, damn it. Who died?" X winced as Zero's eyes flew open, apparently having responded automatically and silently. "Iris!"

"Zero, just wait until they bring the counteragent," X tried to tell him. "It's a long story and you'll need to be able to think clearly and have access to your memories for debriefing."

"Debriefing? There was another war?" Zero looked utterly lost. "What happened?" To Iris.

Over the intercom, Alia informed them, "X, there's a counteragent in the supply chute, red door. It's unlocked."

"Thank you." X stood up. "Zero, stay put for a second, okay?"

Zero clearly did not like X getting up and leaving him there with so many questions, but allowed it. "We're in medical quarantine? What on earth did we get hit with?" He didn't follow X, but pushed himself up again, body wanting to reach for him.

They were actually wanting him to tell them.

"Zero," X said firmly, the tone saying that this wasn't Zero's ex-student and fellow officer with less seniority speaking, this was Dr. Cain's research partner and hence the orders he were about to give were doctor's orders and not suggestions, "Attempting to decode overload-fogged memories before the overload damage is cleaned up can destroy those memories. We need those memories. Stop panicking, calm down, let this work," X expertly took Zero's arm and injected the cleaner nanites without giving Zero the option to do anything about it, "and do your duty, Hunter!" The tone at the end there was Zero's, the end of Zero's speech given so many times to strengthen the nerves of rookies about to collapse under the strain.

Ex-lab rat, Zero knew the futility of arguing with doctors. X's partner, he knew X couldn't be argued with either when he got like this. A Hunter commander, he knew the orders were the right ones and in the right words. "Yes, doctor sir," he murmured wryly, eyes closing again. "Just…" This was Zero asking now, not the patient or fellow soldier.

X knew what he was asking, but not what to tell him. "We're both going to be fine." That wasn't what was asked, and Zero's brow furrowed with worry that X would even think Zero needed to be reassured of that. Was there a reason to worry? "I only know that Iris died, Zero. I don't know the details. I'm sorry."

"Who?" Had he already killed them? Did he have to hunt them down?

"Zero, go to sleep."

"I'm not trying to decode the data, I'm just asking you." Zero's eyes opened a bit, annoyed that X was implying he would keep doing that.

"And it's upsetting you and that's making it harder for the nanites to repair the remnants of the overload's scrambling of your mental state and data. Go to sleep. You can't do anything about it anyway until your head is clear. Do I need to ask for a sedative?" X put his hand on Zero's forehead.

The instant lowering of Zero's tension was visible to the onlookers. "Just stay with me. I won't ask what we got hit with for now, but I don't want to lose you too."

"We're in medical quarantine, Zero. Of course I'm not leaving." Silly Zero.

Zero's eyes closed again, reassured. "Yeah, trying to think while overloaded really isn't a good idea. I keep hallucinating that you're a little kid and I thought Alia was a guy when I glanced over there and then it took me awhile to figure out who she was when she spoke and I knew she wasn't whoever I had thought she was. Weird, huh?" He chuckled a little, having found something to laugh about in this terrible uncertainty.

"Go to sleep, Zero," X restated soothingly, stroking Zero's hair. "It will help the nanites work and you'll need to restart your thought processes after they're done anyway."

"I'll try. Just keep talking, X. I feel like… Let me know you're there while I'm sleeping. Overload's really weird… I'm afraid that something will happen to you, like," Like Iris, but Zero was trying to obey X's order not to think of that now. "I know you won't disappear if I can't keep an eye on you for a second, and we're in HQ, nowhere safer on the planet, but I can't get myself to stop being afraid for you. Maybe you should use the sedative. I'm not sure I can sleep while I'm this worried." He was finally letting the strain he felt show in his voice.

"I've sent one," Alia informed them..

"Which one?" X asked.

"Standard Issue quick acting, highest dose. Why?"

"Zero's got atypical immune responses. Repair nanites are fine, but anything that tries to affect his systems without allowing him to control the process puts him on alert and makes him fully awake. Haven't you looked up his medical file?"

"It's a very big one. I just skimmed the relevant parts, sorry. What sort should I send?" Alia was furiously inputting commands.

"White Noise, the prescription ones. There are two sedative types, one tries to force the system into sleep mode and the other reduces stress and inputs soothing stimuli. The first one's more reliable so most use either just it or a combination, but it won't work on Zero. Don't use a generic: some of them do have a slight amount of the first type in there to make it more effective even though they're being marketed as equivalent to a medicine with none at all. Even human generic medicines aren't as good as they should be on quality control and it's worse for reploids, which is the reason for Cain's standing order to only use the brand version unless we do our own lab tests and verify that specific generics are usable. The company that passed the clinical trials has to keep making exactly the medication they passed the trials with, so we know their version is safe."

Alia was good on science, not on medicine side effect issues, which was why X was giving her the quick version of the lecture he had once given to interns. "Can we get a medic doctor up there?" he asked. "I'm so out of date on current medical data I'm this close to getting my license to practice revoked for failure to keep myself well enough informed to be able to safely treat patients." Alia did have a degree in medical science, but this wasn't her specialty and she had nearly sent Zero bouncing off the walls.

"I'm paging Lifesaver now." Alia was also very out of date, especially since becoming a spotter, but even though this might not be her specialty she still had gone through medical school and was aware how badly she had nearly screwed up and how inexcusable that was. You did not put a medicine, standard issue or not, into a patient without checking their records for possible dangers. You did not. Period. People died that way. Reploids could be built to avoid the equivalents of allergies and so on, so it was less of a hazard than for a human, but checking was mandatory and she knew Zero was very atypical. She should not have just sent it out without verifying it herself, even though she had been right to assume that X knew what he was doing. Thank goodness he did.

"Thank you."

"It'll be there in a minute."

X looked down at Zero, who had tuned out the conversation since medical matters were utterly out of his depth and hence something safe to ignore. "I think my speech put him to sleep, or almost, actually. Send it, but let's see if we can avoid using it. The fewer things we put in his system the fewer things in there that might distort the readings." X stroked his hair again. "You always hated being a 'lab rat.'" Poor Zero.

Hearing the sorrow in his voice, Zero frowned and started to become a little more alert. "It's okay, Zero." X leaned over the bed and hugged him. "It'll be okay." Yet he couldn't hide the sadness, the fact that it was not okay right now, from Zero. Zero could read him like a book in his sleep.

X gave up and climbed into the bed with him again. "Alia." Doctor mode. Calm, rational. He put it on like he put on armor to protect his body. "He said he needs confirmation I'm safe to be able to rest, and he seems to be picking up my distress when I speak, so I think verbal is out." He let himself snuggle against Zero, Zero semi-awake enough even if not registering the words to wrap his arms around X and tug him into place. "What are his readings at right now?" X had to fight back the urge to relax utterly to ask that.

"Stable: he's calm and will be in full pseudo-REM sleep in a minute. Your stress level just went to almost none was well." Fascinating.

"I know. It's worrying how hard it is to worry right now." How ironic. "How is the nanites sample search going?"

"They're your nanites, most of them." So they were odd and atypical by default. "The symptoms are narrowing it down a bit, what types we need to look at. No luck so far."

"Ah." Did it matter? Of course it did, what was he thinking? "Alia, this is definitely affecting my thought processes as well as my emotional state. One of the basic symptoms of the virus is that the Mavericks don't care that they're infected because they like it, think it's only making them do things they should have done anyway and so on." No need to describe the condition and thoughts in detail to a researcher. "My being infected is a tremendous danger to the world, an incredible risk to myself, is going to cause Zero's mental state to collapse even further once he gets his memories back and becomes aware of it… there is no good side except that it feels good and yet I just found myself thinking that identifying the virus particle did not matter. Which stems from the thought that curing me does not matter, because this is not a bad thing."

X was trying to be enraged and horrified: it was not working. "This should be the case anyway, but do not trust my judgment." That was an order. "And check the nanites that interface between judgment-making and emotional status. I should be angry, terrified, and guilty, but I cannot seem to feel that way as opposed to think that way."

"Found it, or at least one of the components," Alia reported after a moment. "It's destroying the nanites sent to signal 'negative emotions.'"

Damn it. X tucked his head under Zero's for comfort, eyes closing for a moment. "If I can't get angry enough at all he's done, then I can't overcome my… desire not to hurt people? Hatred of fighting? Sadness and the desire to deny that it's necessary?" He shook his head. "Unless we can get rid of that aspect of the virus, at minimum, I don't think I will be capable of forcing myself to fight Sigma." Who would save them all if he and Zero were unable to? "I was feeling sorry for Zero, and I'm worried about what will happen if neither of us can fight. I think it might only target negative emotions about the virus, ones it doesn't want me to feel."

"That's very possible." Alia tried to hide her pity behind her professional tone.

Zero stirred a little, nosed at X. "I'm fine," X assured him, though there was no truth behind it, only sadness and the hope he could shield Zero from it.

Zero held him tighter, and then it felt like it was not only X's body that was held.

A promise there, or a renewal of one. Zero would keep X safe. Body, mind, and heart. Even in his sleep he took care to protect him, could and would not rest unless X was safe and happy.

Knowing this, feeling it, X's fears were soothed. It would be okay. Zero would make sure the virus didn't destroy X. Or kill himself trying. Or break under the strain. Those were academic possibilities, and he would try his best to prevent them, but he had faith in Zero, Zero who cared for him and had protected him as long has he had known him.

Since X truly was alright now, Zero fell back into a deeper slumber. X began to join him.

"X, X!" Alia.

With a sigh X's eyes opened. "Yes, something just happened. What did you read?"

"Nanites with Zero's coding type appeared in your systems out of nowhere!"

"Oh, so that's why I felt what he felt." He really should care, but it was so hard to make himself when this felt so nice and he wanted to sleep. "He felt that I was worried, so he woke up a little to make sure that I was okay. I think it was on the instinctive level. Since I was just worried about Sigma, and the virus, and what would happen to everyone instead of an immediate threat, he reassured me: not told, but felt that of course he would take care of me and everyone else, that I was being silly to doubt that, and that I should go to sleep instead of waking him up with pointless fears."

"You know the White Noise sedative you mentioned? He is, or he's using the virus to, not sure what's going on, but he's feeding you stimuli that are soothing you and making your systems think this is the optimum time to enter sleep mode."

"Yes," X murmured, closing his eyes again. "Is there anything else you need to know now? I think it would be very tiring to fight this, and on the practical level I'd like to be well rested when Zero wakes up and realizes what has happened so I can try to do damage control." Sighing, he murmured to Zero, "It would be much easier to fight this if it wasn't you, you know. I can't think, let alone feel, that you are an enemy." Another sigh. "Of course, if you weren't you, you really would be an enemy. I'm glad that you're the vessel of the virus, really. I'm sorry that you have to bear this burden, but anyone else would be so much less able to." A little nuzzle, tender, soft, and sweet but loving as a kiss. Oh yes, Alia. Research. "We need data on how well I can fight this, but we could probably get better data once Zero's awake and we can get his read on it as well…"

"Just go to sleep, X." Alia looked at his readings and shook her head. "I'm amazed you're not out cold already."

"Sometimes things just need to be done." No matter how tired you are of it, or how much you don't want to. Staying awake was far easier than fighting Sigma. However, since he didn't have to stay awake anymore, he stopped fighting it and was out like a light.