Chapter 10

Doc and Eliot walked back into Eliot's study, where Hardison and Vance were waiting for them, and Eliot saw, Hardison was watching them apprehensively. As soon as they came back into the room, Vance rose and made his way to the door.

"I'll be standing guard," he said quietly, slapping Eliot on the shoulder as he passed him.

"I'll send for you when we are ready," Doc told him. Vance nodded.

As soon as the door closed behind Vance, Doc sat down behind Eliot's desk, removing a file folder from her briefcase and making notes in it. Hardison relaxed a bit when he saw that she wasn't really paying attention to him. Eliot moved over next to him.

"Doc asked me to do your physical exam," he said, opening Doc's bag and pulling out the supplies he needed.

"Why?"

Doc didn't look up from the file in which she was writing, but she said, "I was under the impression that you were more comfortable with Eliot. If that's a problem, I can do it."

"No, that's okay." His voice faltered, and it was then that Eliot realized how nervous the younger man was. "I just wondered."

"Relax, man," Eliot said, under his breath. Louder, he said, "Take off your shirt."

When Hardison complied, he was visibly shaking. Eliot laid a hand on his friend's shoulder and squeezed gently. He knew the best thing he could do for Hardison right now was to get the exam over with as quickly as possible. Drawing on a pair of latex gloves, he placed the ends of the stethoscope in his ears, and placed the other end on Hardison's chest. The hacker's heartbeat was strong and his lungs were clear.

Doc closed the file in which she was writing, and exchanged it for another one in her briefcase. She opened the new file and sat reading silently for a moment, before she started writing. She was surreptitiously watching the men before her. Hardison looked like he wanted to throw up or cry, or maybe both. His reaction was far too severe for the circumstances. Eliot was trying his best to help his friend relax, but it didn't really seem to be helping. What was he so afraid of?"

"So, Kat, why did you bring Vance with you?" Eliot was getting ready to draw blood, and she remembered that Hardison was afraid of needles. The young man was listening intently. No doubt, that's why Eliot did it—to take Hardison's mind off of what he was doing.

"I asked him to come because I wanted his help. I think it's important in our group chat to show Mister Hardison here that he isn't alone." She paused for a moment, not sure she really wanted to say what she was about to say, but it was the truth. She continued, "And he was concerned. We both were when we heard your message."

"Wait, you let him hear my message?" Eliot said, and he couldn't keep the pique out of his voice. He withdrew the needle and bandaged Hardison's arm. A moment later, he had a blood-pressure cuff and a thermometer in place, and was pumping up the cuff.

"That's not exactly the way it happened. I was dealing with a medical emergency when the call came in, and was waiting to hear back from poison control. Vance had come in for a report, and when the phone beeped, we both thought it might be the Poison Control center calling me back. I asked him to play the message on speaker phone. And I don't know what you're so upset over—you didn't leave anything on my voice mail that no one else should hear. You know better."'

"Sorry," Eliot muttered, with a sidelong glance in her direction to gauge her emotional state. She didn't seem angry, just confused. She waved off the apology. Leaving the file folder where it was, she rose and moved over next to the two of them, as Eliot let the pressure out of the cuff.

"How's our Mister Hardison?"

"He seems fine, physically. You'll know more when you test his blood."

She looked at Hardison, silently asking the same question. He had managed to pull himself together somewhat, it seemed. At least he wasn't shaking any more. Her eyes bored into him. Finally, he made eye contact with her and nodded that he was all right.

Nodding, she turned back to Eliot and said, "You'll need to list your findings on his chart. It's on your desk. While you do that, and Mister Hardison gets dressed, I'll see what his blood tells us."

Doc had her back turned, looking at Hardison's blood sample through the microscope, and he dressed hurriedly, wanting to be finished when she turned back around. He had just pulled his tee shirt back over his head and let it fall to his waist, when she spoke without turning around.

"If you are finished dressing, will you step outside and let Colonel Vance know that he can come back in now?"

Hardison looked at her in disbelief, eyes wide. How did she know? He thought. She didn't even look at me. Giving her an odd look, he stepped outside, and then back in a moment later, with Vance in tow. Eliot was standing at the door, and he nodded them down the hall and into his treatment room.

When everyone was seated and settled, Doc looked at Hardison. She asked gently, "How is this process making you feel?"

"I don't know how to answer that."

"There is no right or wrong answer. How you feel is how you feel."

"Embarrassed. A little angry. Confused. Defeated."

"Why would you be embarrassed?" she asked quietly.

"Because I couldn't handle this like everyone else would."

"Exactly how do you think everyone else would handle it?" Eliot asked, watching him through narrowed eyes.

"Nate wouldn't be having nightmares about being in a box."

"You have claustrophobia. There's a reason you react the way you do."

"Yeah, and you said you had it, too. Only you cured yourself of it." Eliot sighed. He found himself wishing he hadn't shared that particular part of his youth with his friend.

"I shut myself in a woodshed for a few nights, alone, and I survived. Maybe mine wasn't as bad as yours. And you're right—Nate probably wouldn't have nightmares about being in a box. He'd probably be too drunk to notice. I'd be surprised if he doesn't have nightmares about Sam—at least sometimes. Or maybe that's why he drinks—to keep the nightmares away. If you think I've never had nightmares, you're very much mistaken. In fact, that's why Doc is here. I had one last night."

"You did?"

"Yeah, Hardison, I did. You aren't alone in this. Feeling embarrassed is pretty much part of the territory.

Think about it. You're going through this in a very public fashion, in full view of your friends. Knowing that makes you insecure, and that's even more embarrassing. Your embarrassment is valid, but it's nothing to be ashamed of—none of this is."

Eliot squeezed the younger man's arm gently.

Doc gave Hardison a moment to process all that Eliot had said, and then said, "Now tell me why you are angry."

"I'm angry because this is not how I want to live. I feel like I've been robbed of something, and it wasn't my fault, but at the same time, there's nothing I can do about it."

"Oh, there's something you can do. You can fight to get back to where you were before all of this started, or as close to that person as possible. Are you willing to do that?"

She and Hardison gazed at one another for a long moment, until he finally nodded, very slowly.

"Good. Now answer me this: What are you so afraid of?"

Hardison opened his mouth as though to speak and then closed it again. Then he sat there opening and closing his mouth, like a fish flopping around on a dock, gasping for air. Doc's intense gaze never left his. Finally, he said, "I'm afraid of what comes next."

"What do you think that is?"

"I-I'm not sure. Eliot said something about getting me over my claustrophobia. And I know we haven't solved the problem yet. This can only get worse, can't it?"

"Well, that depends on what you consider worse. There are certainly some other things I'd like to try, with both of you, but they aren't any worse than the nightmares are. Okay?"

Hardison nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

After a moment, Doc broke the silence and spoke gently.

"All right, gentlemen. If you're ready..." she fell silent, and gestured toward another part of the large room. For the first time, Eliot noticed some equipment he hadn't seen before—what looked like black silk hoods and eye masks laid out on a table, with wires protruding from the masks. The wires ran into a small cylindrical apparatus, sitting on one of Eliot's side tables.

"What the hell is that?" Eliot's tone sounded, to the untrained ear, more curious than angry, but Doc wasn't fooled. The fact that he had cursed was enough to tell her that he wasn't at all happy about any of this.

"When all of this started, we talked about two new therapies we might need to try. This is one of them. It's a concept called Lucid Dreaming. The black silk hood covers your head and protects your face. The mask fits over the hood. I will inject you both with a medication that will send you to a place between sleep and wakefulness, where it is easier to dream. The masks will help you to be aware of your dreams, and able to change their outcome. Now, the standard treatment protocol is to try one and then, if that doesn't work, to try the other. These two therapies, when used that way, have seen some success."

She paused for a moment, searching for the right words—the words that would put them at ease—make this easier for them.

Watching her carefully, Eliot spoke when she stopped. "Why do I think that's not the way you intend to use them?"

She smiled. He knew her well. "Because both my intuition and my research tell me that these two will work better together. I propose a situation in which you both rehearse what you wish the outcome of the dreams to be, and when you have a good idea of it in your head, we will move on to the lucid dreaming, so you can change your dreams to what you want them to be. That should take any power they have away. Okay?"

Eliot nodded once and then turned away, looking out the window and thinking. Hardison was slightly horrified at the sight before him. Why would she ask him to put something over his head? Didn't she understand that he couldn't have anything that close? Some of what he was feeling must have shown on his face because she said, "Hardison? Is there a problem?"

"I-I can't." After a moment of staring wildly about, Hardison bolted from the room. Eliot glanced at Doc, and saw that she was as confused as he was. Eliot started for the door. Vance's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Do either of you understand what just happened?" Looking from one to the other and seeing that they didn't, he said, "I thought not. Better let me go." With that, he rose calmly from his seat and left the room.

Eliot shot Doc a bewildered look, and Doc smiled and said, "That's why I brought him along." Seeing that he was still confused, she spoke again. "I'll let Vance explain it to you when he comes back in, if he will. It's his to tell."

(0o0)

Vance stepped into the hallway, and saw the young man duck into what he guessed to be one of Eliot's guest bedrooms. He hurried to catch up, worried that the young man would lock the door behind him and Vance would, at the very least, have to scare him to get him to open it. As it happened, he needn't have worried. Vance reached the room into which Hardison had disappeared, and knocked on the door, but he didn't receive an answer. Carefully turning the knob, he was still a bit surprised when he was able to open the door without any problem, and he slipped inside. The bedroom itself was empty—he saw that at first glance. Closing and locking the door behind him, he moved into the room, and over toward the other two closed doors inside the room.

Flinging one of the doors open, he discovered a closet. Closing that door, he opened the one right next to it, revealing the head. It was there that he found Hardison half leaning against one wall, breathing heavily. Walking up beside him, he spoke softly, right behind the younger man's ear.

"Easy, son. No one's going to make you do anything you can't do. Just try to relax." Knowing that Eliot's bathrooms would be stocked almost as well as his treatment room, Vance opened the upper cupboard and withdrew a plastic cup, which he filled with water from the sink, and handed to the young man. "Here. Drink this."

After a moment, the color began to return to the young man's face, and his breathing evened out. Finally, he turned himself so that his back was against the wall, and he slid down it and into a sitting position.

"Feeling better now?" Vance asked. He had seated himself on a small stool Eliot kept in one corner, and watched his charge carefully.

Hardison nodded, gazing warily at the man seated across from him.

"Are you ready to go back and join the others? I know Doc would like to talk to you about what happened."

Hardison didn't answer, but he nodded again, and pushed himself to his feet, somewhat unsteady but resolute. He allowed Vance to guide him back down the hall and into the treatment room, where Eliot and Doc waited. They didn't look angry, just confused.

"Do you wish to explain, or shall I?" Vance asked, once they were all settled again. Hardison shot him a panicked look, which told Vance he needed to be the one to explain. Doc's expression told him it needed to be sooner, rather than later, thank you very much. He took a deep breath.

"Before I left, I asked if either of you understood what happened to Hardison. Have you figured it out?"

Both of them shook their heads, waiting.

"For a person who is claustrophobic, the idea of putting on anything that obscures vision, or anything which is restrictive in any way, is simply unthinkable. I couldn't do it, even now, and it has been years since my claustrophobia has caused me any real problems."

"Wait, what? You've done it several dozen times in the years that I've known you."

"Did I say I couldn't do it? I meant to say I couldn't do it without the help of friends. Each time I've had to do it during those dozen or more times since we met, one of the two of you have been close by."

"What are you suggesting, Vance?"

"I'm suggesting that this might be the outlet you've been looking for to help Hardison get over his fear, but it must be done properly, and with the support of friends."

"All right. I think we can do that."