Madison stashed her bike behind a dumpster, removed her helmet, and breathlessly looked behind her for the umpteenth time. No sirens. Good. She was still trying to process the sequence of events that had allowed her to escape. That FBI guy, he just – fell over. Went pale as a fishbelly and hit the ground. I know my luck's been ridiculously good today, but did the guy trying to arrest me come alone and suddenly have a fatal stroke?
She shook her head – no use speculating – and strode briskly back to Sam's place, helmet in hand. He'd re-chained the door, and blinked nervously through the gap at her when she knocked. "Seriously, Mad," he hissed, "I've got a wanted guy in here and I'm nervous as a cat – you couldn't use the front-door intercom just once so I don't shit myself?"
"Sorry, Sam, just let me in. I've got my bike back. Ethan and I should probably get out of here. I think the authorities are looking for me, and I think you might count as one of my 'known associates.'"
"I don't have a problem with you leaving," he replied, unchaining the door again, "But he hasn't so much as made a peep since you left."
"Damn. Perfect." She tossed her helmet into one of the piles of clutter and stalked past Sam, back to the chair by Ethan's side. He was still obviously out cold, but had actually changed position since she'd seen him last, so that was a bonus. "Ethan," she said, more shrilly than she'd intended. He twitched slightly in his sleep.
"You seem a little freaked, Mad," Sam said doubtfully behind her, rechaining the door and eying the peephole. "Something you're not telling me? Again?"
"I just had a gun pointed at my head, Sam."
"What?" He sounded almost as on edge as when she'd first shown up with Ethan.
"I will tell you all about it in a minute. I swear I'm not shutting you out. But I just . . . I need to get things going, here." She knew she was sounding defensive. "I'm sorry, I think I'm a little more spooked than I realized."
"No problem. Okay. Right. I think I might just go check some things in the study."
"Yeah," she said, laying her hand on Ethan's chest, "That might be for the best." Not just because Ethan might get skittish, she added mentally, but because I know you love being plugged in and you need to calm the hell down, so I can calm the hell down.
Sam beat a retreat, and Madison began trying to wake Ethan up in earnest. She flipped the sheet up, checking his bandages again in what was beginning to feel like some sort of OCD ritual. I could probably just shake him a little, but it seems like he's hurt everywhere, and I don't know where to grab him without . . . torturing him. Again. It was hard to admit that that was what she'd done, and instead of thinking about it, she grabbed some clean gauze and went to the kitchen to wet it down. She doubted Sam had any clean kitchen towels or dishcloths.
Returning, she started wiping Ethan's face with the fabric. He grunted and moved his face away from the cold cloth. Good. "Ethan? Ethan, I need you to wake up."
He came to slowly, whimpering, and when he first made eye contact with her, she saw no recognition there. Oh god please don't have brain damage or something. Then something seemed to turn the switch in his brain to "on," and his body jerked briefly in surprise. The immediate resulting tension in his face told her that even that small motion had hurt a little. She tried a reassuring smile, but she wasn't sure how tense her own face still was.
"Madison?" he slurred, "What's going on?" And then, more clearly, "Where are we?"
"At a friend's place," she replied, and his face took on an expression of deep dismay that she thought probably had nothing to do with the pain he was in.
"No, we've – I've got to get back to the hotel. It's very important. I have to go." He tried to struggle to a sitting position and Madison put out her hands to stop him, then changed her mind. Might as well see what we're dealing with. She pushed aside the chair Sam had placed by the sofa so Ethan could swing his legs over the edge, and helped him sit up. He was trembling with the effort by the time he had made it fully upright, and he seemed paler again. Well, that's not promising.
"Okay, Ethan, hold on. Get your bearings." She kept one hand on his shoulder; he looked both like he was trying to refocus his vision and like he might fall over, and was still shaking. Poor guy's almost naked. "Are you cold?" He gave a tiny nod, and she wrapped the plaid sheet around him, wishing there was a blanket in the apartment that wasn't covered by ten tons of Sam's dirty clothing.
"What time is it?" he asked, and when she told him, he started shaking his head, "Oh, no, no, it can't be, we have to go." He tried to rise to his feet, and this time she held him down. His attempt was so feeble that it took a depressingly small amount of effort on her part. "You don't understand, I have to get going, there's something I have to do."
"Ethan, right now you're in no condition to go anywhere, and I can't carry you," she responded, mentally adding, Any more than I already have.
"I'll be all right," he protested.
"I hope so, but right now I want you to try to eat something, okay? You need something else in your stomach besides pills and alcohol." God, I sound like I'm implying he's Sid Vicious. Weaving slightly, he nodded wearily, and she leant him against the back of the sofa before she headed to the kitchen. The interior of Sam's fridge was almost as bad as he'd implied – all mostly-empty condiment bottles and odorous takeout containers – but he'd simply left everything she'd bought in the store's plastic bag and shoved it in together, so at least that was easy to find and grab. She heard a thumping noise from the other room and quickly turned back – Dammit. Ethan was on the floor next to the sofa now, leaning against it with his legs sprawled and his head bowed towards his chest. The plaid sheet had settled on the floor around him. He'd clearly tried to stand up and failed miserably. Maybe this is all part of my punishment for hurting these guys today, she thought, hurrying back, having them be idiots. Fine, let him stay there, then.
She crouched in front of Ethan and, opening a bottle of water, simply thrust it at him. "Drink," she commanded. He flailed briefly at it with his left hand, seemed to visibly remember why that was a bad idea, and shifted his weight to successfully grasp it with his right. Once he'd maneuvered the open end into his mouth, he started drinking so quickly and convulsively that a significant amount dribbled down onto his chest.
"Easy, easy," counseled Madison, and forcefully tipped it away from him, while he gasped for breath. "It's all yours, but take it slow." She let go to unwrap a sandwich, and he instantly started choking down the liquid again. "Ethan!" She pulled the bottle away entirely. "Slow down!"
He looked at her then, and the hurt betrayal she saw in his eyes made her pull back briefly, wondering, What does he know? Madison took a deep breath, realizing, Think, girl. His son is missing and only has so long to live, you're already delaying him by not letting him leave, and now you're telling him to slow down.
"Listen, Ethan," she said seriously, looking into those hurt eyes, "You do not have a lot of friends right now. I might be the only friend you do have, and I am trying to help you. I will get you to the hotel. I promise I will get you there, and that we are going to go as soon as I think it's safe. But if you accidentally make yourself sick, right, if you throw up, you are probably going to crash and we are going to have to start all over. I am helping you whether you like it or not." She allowed herself a small smile. "All right?"
He dropped his eyes, nodded, and held his hand out. "Okay then," she said. "Sandwich or water?"
"Water." She handed it back, thinking, Thank god I got the six-pack. She finished unwrapping the sandwich while he demolished the rest of the water bottle, albeit at a more reasonable pace, then handed it to him. It appeared to be some fairly limp roast beef, but she wasn't sure it mattered. He certainly didn't ask before attacking it.
"Chew, Ethan. What do you remember?" she asked pointedly. "About earlier."
Answering the question did slow down his eating slightly, though his mouth was never entirely empty. His eyes rose to meet hers. "We . . . you came to the house. Why were you at the house?"
"I followed you there," she admitted frankly. If she wanted answers out of him, she might as well start giving up some of her own. "We can talk about it later. And after that?"
His eyebrows were drawn together suspiciously now, but he thankfully kept going. "You were helping me get away, and the cops were chasing us. We made it into the subway." His eyes widened with the memory. "We almost got hit by the subway, and then we got on the train. And then . . . not much. I guess I was sort of in and out of it."
"Mostly out," she contributed.
"Oh, and you taught me the thing, the thing with your hands."
"What?"
Ethan performed a brief pantomime of covering his mouth with his hand, a task made more difficult by the fact that both hand and mouth contained sandwich. "For breathing."
"Oh, I'm glad you remember that," said Madison, a little surprised and suddenly shy. "It's really pretty useful for stuff like – well, like what you were going through."
"Sorry about that," he added, looking down again. "Embarrassing."
"Embarrassing, he says. Ethan, you're eating a sandwich in your underwear. And socks. On the floor. I think we're past 'embarrassing' at this point."
That actually got a little smile out of him, or at least a not-ghastly-look of despair. "So where are we now, again?" He'd finished the sandwich, and she handed him another bottle of water without prompting.
"We're at my friend's apartment," she repeated while Ethan drank again. "I have to tell you, there's a decent-sized manhunt out for you. My friend's a little nervous about the whole thing, so he's in the other room. You and I accidentally ended up all the way across town from the hotel, but I think I've got a way to go back there. We just need to get you in good enough shape to get moving. Speaking of which, want to get back on the sofa?"
He nodded, and she helped to ease him upwards and back. He moaned as he got his limbs to cooperate with hers, baring his teeth. "How bad does it hurt?" she asked, rewrapping him in the plaid sheet.
He seemed to consider this, wincing. "Pretty bad," he finally admitted. I believe him. All of his breaths ended in tiny shuddering noises.
"Okay, I think you can probably have a few more pills at this point, but you let me know right away if you start to feel worse, all right? Dizzier?"
"Yeah. I think you'll probably find out pretty quick, anyway." Wow, even a touch of humor this time. She fetched him the minimum dose and eyed him doubtfully as he swallowed.
"All right," she said as he rested his head against the sofa's back, "We have to get out of here, but we can't leave just yet. I need to take care of a few things with our host, and you need to lie down for a little bit more, give the food and drugs time to kick in." She felt almost sad when he didn't even protest, sinking instead back down into the stained and grotesquely mismatched sheets. I don't know if it's perseverance or stubbornness, but he's usually got at least that going for him. He did manage to settle himself prone while she was talking, so that was encouraging. "Look, I bought a ton of water and Gatorade, and there's still another sandwich. I'm going to leave it all here next to your head, okay? Help yourself." No answer but a heavy sigh, which probably signified his going back to sleep. His face was almost already peaceful again.
Madison headed into Sam's inner sanctum. If the rest of his apartment was verging on the edge of him being a diagnosable hoarder, his home office was mind-blowing in a different way. Just as packed, and, to her eye, just as disordered, but packed floor-to-ceiling in the tools of his trade: reference manuals, modems, multiple phones, multiple monitors, desktop and laptop computers, cables, notebooks, a filing cabinet here and there . . . it really was, believably, the lair of an evil genius. Most of it wasn't new, and some of it, she'd never seen turned on, but she suspected it all had purpose.
"Okay, Sam," she said, coming up behind him.
"Yeah," he said, whirling around in his office chair, headset on, pointing to a pile of phone books for Madison, "You can sit on that. No, not you, idiot," he continued, shouting into his headset mouthpiece, "I have a goddamned visitor. Yes, I damn well do. No, you know what? I'm just going to call you back, Rachel." He did something with his hands to disconnect the call. "How's your pet serial killer?"
"He's not my . . . he's better, definitely. Down to business, Sam. I need two things from you, ASAP." Sam obligingly pulled a tiny netbook from somewhere and set it on his lap, hands poised attentively. "One, there's a guy from the FBI who's working with the police now, I think only on the Origami Killer thing. They said they'd gotten some profiler, so I guess it's him." Sam nodded; of course he would have already heard the official police press briefing. "Skinny guy, looks about twelve. I never saw him before this afternoon, but I need everything you can get me on him."
"Uh, okay, like what?" The staccato sound of his typing was impressively fast.
"Well . . ." she hesitated.
"C'mon, it's sharing time."
"Like, is he dead? Recently dead? Very, very recently dead?"
"Oh, shit, Mad." Sam had stopped typing entirely, and he looked horrified. "Tell me you did not kill a fucking federal agent today."
"God, Sam, I never laid a hand on him. But remember that gun that was pointed at my head while I was getting my bike?"
"Only by reputation."
"He was on the other end of it, and I swear I didn't do anything special or brave or particularly heroic to get away. He just . . . fell down and didn't move any more, and I made a break for it. I don't know if the guy passed out, or had a fatal heart attack, or got shot in the back, or what."
"Jesus, that's weird." He sounded more intrigued than horrified, and was busy with the keyboard again.
"It might be important, I don't know. I have a hunch he might have been the only guy looking for me, so his death . . . ?" She shrugged. "If he's still up and about, give me what you can on him. Name, background, all that. All the basics. Any phone number you can give me would be great."
"You want to call the guy who pointed a gun at you and then was struck down by the angry hand of god?"
"Maybe. You never know. At any rate, it would be nice to be able to not answer if he tries to call my phone."
Sam bobbed his head in a "good point" gesture. "Where did all this happen, by the way?"
"That's the other thing I want to ask you. I was getting my bike back from in front of some house on Marble Street. 9711 Marble Street. Nobody lives there; it's all burned out on the inside. I need you to find out who owns it, and how I can get in touch with them. I think they might have some connection to this whole business, or at least know someone who does, or who might be using the space. Something pretty screwed up happened to Ethan in there, and I want to know why."
Sam nodded thoughtfully. "I'll call you when I get the info. Anything else?"
Madison thought for a second, then shook her head and rose from her dusty seat. "That's it for now. I think we're going to try to get out of here."
"All right," Sam replied, gazing after her from his chair. She was almost out the door when he called after her, "You be careful, Madison Paige."
She smiled and, impulsively, came back in to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll try, Sam."
"I have to say, Mad, it was worth you coming here with that guy, because I love to watch you walk away."
She gave him a mock snarl and slammed the door on her way out.
In the living room, Ethan was clearly asleep again, his mouth hanging open, even after the bang of the door not fifteen feet away. I hate to wake him again, thought Madison, I don't even know how much of his problem is his injuries, and how much is just exhaustion. But I know he wants me to. She sighed and began to gather together the medical supplies as a time-killing measure. Better take them along, just in case. She placed them by the door in one of her shopping bags, and started gathering up Ethan's clothes off the hissing radiator. They were mostly dried, but felt stiff and grimy in her hands. Oh, no, why didn't I think to wash his clothes? They're disgusting. I don't even know if they're wearable. She hesitated over whether to get some of Sam's – with or without asking – but there was no way they'd fit Ethan. He's done enough for me today, anyway. Time to just bite the bullet.
She went through the routine of waking Ethan once again, this time rubbing his chest until his eyes began to peel open. He looked around wildly.
"Madison? Where - ?"
Thankfully, she was able to control her own answering panic before helping him work through his brief disorientation. "It's okay, Ethan, we're safe. You're safe. My friend's place, remember?" He relaxed as he processed his surroundings, but was so stiff it was nearly incapacitating; he needed her help again to sit up, and she handed him another bottle of water and the last sandwich as soon as he'd made it. Oh, god, I bought an egg salad sandwich from a drugstore. I hope he doesn't just die of food poisoning. "Here's the catch, Ethan," she said, as he chewed blearily. "We've got to go on my motorcycle. You don't have to do anything but hold on and balance when we turn corners, but I've got to be sure you're up to that, okay? So if you start to feel out of it, or if I feel like you're losing your grip, we're going to stop immediately. Make sense?"
He shot her a weary thumbs-up and said, "Can I have my clothes?"
"Well, that's the other catch. I . . . you know, I'm not even sure your sweater will bend any more."
"I'm sure it'll be soaking wet soon enough. Where's the bathroom?"
She had to help him up and support him on the way there, before she handed his clothes to him through the door. But when he came out, he was doing pretty well on his own. Gingerly fingering his broken ribs and moving like an old man, but moving. Damn, she thought with surprise, I can't believe he's up and about. He's like Wile E. Coyote. I'm going to try dropping an anvil on him, next.
"It's getting better," he said, when she caught his eye meaningfully. "Your friend's bathroom is a little, uh."
"I should have warned you, he was raised by a family of wolves that was raised by a family of pigs," she replied, and handed him her helmet. "It'll be a little snug, but it probably makes more sense for you to wear it than me, you being such a celebrity and all." He squeezed into it immediately and nodded. They headed slowly out the door and down the stairs together, her plastic bag of medical supplies dangling from one hand. Guess I ended up carrying Mom's purse after all, she thought wryly. He only stumbled a little bit going down the front steps and out into the rain, but managed well otherwise.
At the bike, Madison stashed the plastic bag and fished around for her spare pair of sunglasses so that she could see once they hit the road. Not gonna be a fun trip. She guided the bike out to the road and got astride it, pointing out to Ethan where he should put his feet. "Right," she said, "Just keep your arms tight around me, and your head down." He obligingly reached around her to grasp his left wrist in his right hand, letting his bandaged hand stick out awkwardly, and nestled his head against her shoulder.
They headed back to the hotel. It was a quiet, slow ride; they passed almost no cops, and traffic was light. Most of Madison's attention was consumed by maneuvering on the wet pavement and dealing with the awkward balance of her inexperienced passenger; she could feel his arms clench nervously on every corner. She wasn't sure about Ethan, but she knew she was glad for their enforced silence. Pretty soon, some questions were going to have to be asked and answered in earnest. She was afraid of completely losing her professional cool around him, and wasn't looking forward to answering questions about the kinds of things he was probably starting to wonder about her, in return.
Ethan removed the helmet – rather unwisely, she thought – as soon as they came to a stop in the parking lot of the hotel. "Can't breathe in there," he said, and he did look a little flushed, for a change. He handed it back to her as they dismounted and regarded each other briefly.
"Listen," she said, "I know you've been running yourself ragged and you've still got . . . things to do. I'm going to go out and get you some supplies so you can't forget to feed yourself again, all right?" He looked at her doubtfully and she rushed ahead, not wanting to give him a chance to refuse. "Do you think you can make it up the stairs? I can come with you."
"No, it'll, I'll be fine." He gave her a crooked smile and moved off, still stiffly, then turned back briefly to say, "Thank you, Madison."
And by that, he means, "Good-bye, Madison," she reflected, watching him lean heavily on the banister as he began to ascend the stairs. Well, we'll just see about that. I bet I can make it to the corner store and back before he even makes it up to his room. Then maybe we'll have to have a sit-down to see what's what.
As she walked off, her phone rang, and she smiled at the name that popped up on the screen before she answered.
"Hi, Sam. It's been ages."
"Mad! I think I've got what you need on Mr. FBI. Far as I can tell, he's not dead, or at least he didn't die today on Marble Street. But if he's involved with the technology program I think he is, I want you to go find him, because I think I want to kill him and have his job. Either that or marry him. Gimme a sec and I'll rattle off his vital statistics for you."
She laughed as she got out her notebook, still walking briskly. "Ready when you are, Sam." As she waited for his response, she wondered, What should I grab for Ethan to eat? I've no idea what he likes when he's not starving to death. Well, that's all right, there are solutions to that. That can be fixed. She smiled to herself.
There were solutions to almost everything.
Author's note:
The end. I was trying to be a little playful with the language in this piece to allude to the fact that it attempts, in part, to "fix" some of the strange writing gaps in the original, and I hope it wasn't too heavy-handed. (Why does Madison still have her bike after "Fugitive," and why isn't Norman smart enough to track her down, given that she abandons it? Why does she have Norman's phone number? How do Madison and Ethan get off the subway?) Of course, it's not a perfect fix - every little change you make means something else, somewhere else, now makes slightly less sense. I'm sure I've missed out on something that I've completely screwed up; I'm even now shaking my head because I can't do anything about the fact that Norman sounds like he's never heard of Madison when he finds traces of her in "Fish Tank."
I wrote two different Sams, but the version I've just published made more sense than the original one. I sort of like him. And, of course, the joke in the first chapter is that it is all relative as to just how Madison ends up on the subway tracks, as the storyline may change slightly for each player. Anyway, I've never written a piece of fanfic before, but I had fun letting this keep me from getting my real work done.