Two

Stephen had taken the news better than Nick had hoped, but he suspected that the other man was in shock. He'd listened to Nick's explanation, then said 'oh' and 'right' a lot, before falling silent for a while. Then he'd wanted details about how the rest of the dealings with the anomaly went.

Nick thought he was hoping he would fall asleep later and wake up totally mobile again.

Still, he'd obliged. He'd sat and told Stephen, in a story-telling detail that Nick usually had little patience for, about how they'd sort-of-inadvertantly-but-really-totally-on-purpose killed the bugger, and Stephen had given him a little laugh then scowled at him for getting bitten on purpose.

"You're an idiot," he'd said.

"What does that make you?" Nick had quipped, and Stephen had rolled his eyes.

Eventually, Stephen had dozed off again and Nick had gone back out into the corridor to find Abby and Connor sitting on the plastic chairs and both looking anxious, but in that way that people do when they're really trying to hide the fact that they feel anxious.

"He's alright?" Abby asked.

"He'll live," Nick said, "but you heard what the doctor said."

He knew Abby would have heard. Even if he and Helen hadn't exactly gotten along in the last year or so of their marriage, Nick did understand women fundamentally (or as much as any man could) and he would have been honestly shocked if Abby hadn't listened in. Even most men would have listened in on that kind of thing.

"Bummer," Connor said eventually, letting Nick know that they hadn't been sitting here in silence, and Abby scowled.

"Sympathy is usually longer than one word, Connor," she said, then looked back up at Nick. "Did he wake up?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Did he...?"

"I'm not sure he totally believes this is real yet," Nick said. "He hasn't panicked yet, but I think he was in shock."

"Oh," Abby said again. Then she added: "What's going to happen?"

"I don't know," Nick said.

But really, he did. Stephen would have to come off the anomaly project. There were no two ways about that. He'd be killed the moment he came up against another creature. But Nick also knew Stephen, and he knew that the man was going to be stubborn as all hell about it. He would refuse to be pushed out of the loop for any reason bar actually dying.

So either Stephen would have to take a backseat role in the entire thing with no chance of seeing a living creature from one of these anomalies - which he would despise - or there was going to be a hell of a fight to regain mobility.

And 'fight' was definitely the right terminology.

The hospital released Stephen after four days. The doctor hadn't been a hundred percent correct in what Stephen had lost: his left arm was sluggish and the movement badly coordinated, but nowhere near the loss they had originally suspected. But that was pretty much the only improvement.

A wheelchair had been dug up from somewhere, and Nick had already made it known to the others that Stephen would be staying with him.

"For help?" Abby had said.

"Partly," Nick had said, "but mostly because I wouldn't fancy trying to get a wheelchair up three floors to his flat, would you?"

Stephen hadn't looked surprised when Nick had shown up with the wheelchair that morning, but then, Stephen had spent the last couple of days in a permanent state of gloom. He didn't even put up a fuss with Nick bodily lifting him from the bed and into the chair, just stared stupidly at his feet for a moment before leaning back in the seat and making a noise like an angry cat.

"It'll work itself out," Nick said. "Can you feel anything?"

"Right foot," Stephen said. "Can't bloody well move it, though."

"It's a start," Nick pointed out, but Stephen wasn't keen on being optimistic right then, and he didn't say anything.

There was another advantage to keeping Stephen at his house that Nick hadn't bothered to let the rest of the team in on - and that was that, really, Nick's house was as familiar an environment to Stephen as his own flat. He wouldn't be trying to navigate a new way of moving around in a new place, which would make everything twice as frustrating.

Plus, of course, the guest room had almost turned into Stephen's room in the first two years after Helen had died.

Nick had been to Stephen's flat the previous day and gotten a few armloads of clothes for him, as well as Stephen's 'comfort book'. Most people had a pillow or something they needed on a bad day, or when they were ill, but Stephen had a book. It was an ancient, battered copy of an old evolutionary zoology textbook. Most of the theories had been proven wrong or updated in the fifteen years since it had first been printed, and it was miles below Stephen's academic standard, but it had been the very first book about pre-history that Stephen had ever read, and he'd hung onto it throughout the years.

Nick was pretty sure it was going to get another good going through in the next few weeks.

"You'll have to kip on the fold-out sofa until you're back on your feet," Nick said as he pushed Stephen into the living room and kicked the front door shut behind him. "I got some stuff from your flat and you can commandeer the downstairs bathroom for the moment. Though I got you a new razor."

"There wasn't anything wrong with my old razor," Stephen protested.

"Stephen, that thing couldn't have been capable of cutting bathroom steam, let alone your hair."

"It worked fine," Stephen groused, pulling a face that Nick privately attributed to Stephen inner five-year-old.

"Sure," Nick said, "or maybe you're just facially bald?"

Stephen snorted, and it was such a normal conversation that Nick allowed himself to hope that Stephen wasn't going to be beaten by their situation.

"What about work?" Stephen asked suddenly.

"You're on sick leave for now," Nick said. "Even without the paralysis, you're not over the other side effects yet."

"Like what?"

"Like, for instance, that nurse of yours told me you threw up dinner again last night," Nick said sternly.

Stephen pulled another face, but didn't deny it. "It's hospital food," he said instead.

"And as you're so fond of pointing out, mine's no better."

That much was true. Nick had never been a chef. Or a cook. He wasn't even up to burger-flipping standard. His cooking came out carbonised for ninety percent of the time, or raw and bloody for the other ten. As a student, he'd lived on frozen meals and an exchange with his roommate that he cooked and Nick cleaned. Helen had married him under the strict understanding that if she didn't want them both dead in a week, she took control of the kitchen.

Funnily enough, Helen had always seemed to enjoy that bit. It was the nearest thing to being a normal wife she'd ever been. Except maybe the nagging.

"What are you thinking about?" Stephen asked.

"Helen," Nick responded flatly. After Helen had died - or gone, or whatever it was she seemed to have done - Stephen had become his lifeline. Without Stephen, Nick was sure he would have drunk himself to death in that first year. By this point, there was no point in trying to fob Stephen off. Not only would Stephen see through it, it wasn't something Nick needed to keep to himself anyway.

"Helen...Nick," Stephen said sharply. "She was there."

"What?" Nick said, turning to stare at Stephen. "She was where?"

"Helen was in the tunnels. I swear I saw her. And..." Stephen hesitated, then said: "It's too late now, but she had a message. She wanted you to meet her on the other side of that anomaly."

"She was there?" Nick demanded. "After you were bitten?"

"Yeah."

Nick's frown turned into a full-scowl, and then he announced: "So she left you to die."

Stephen wasn't entirely sure why Nick latched on to that rather than the evidence - the real, cold evidence - that Helen was indeed alive.

"Nick..." he began.

"Did she help you?"

"Well, no..."

"So she left you to die," Nick concluded. Then he swore. Loudly.

"Sorry I didn't tell you before," Stephen said.

"Don't be stupid," Nick snapped. "Your life is slightly more important than Helen's games."

Stephen very nearly said 'is it?' but even he realised that that was a suicidal question in front of Nick right now, so he clamped down on the thought and hid it away again.

"God," Nick muttered angrily, then slowly collected himself and shook his head. "Right. Lunch?"

"Takeout," Stephen said quickly - just in case Nick got any other ideas.