No new eppies for an interminably long time, but at least the fanfic need not stop! Here's my contribution toward that end; I hope it helps...
For the Good...
part 6
Hobbes stared at the man in the doorway, and demanded, "Eberts, what the hell are you doing here?"
Eberts sighed. "I live here, Robert."
"But that--you mean--"
Eberts, ignoring Hobbes's dropped jaw, turned to Claire and her patient. "How is he?"
Claire's attention was entirely centered on Darien. She kept her voice pitched low and moderated, the gentle tones one would use to soothe a frightened animal. "Darien, do you know me?" Without looking away from him and in the same mode she answered the question, "He only just awoke; he's drugged and still is dazed."
More than just dazed. The ceiling light was purposely turned low but even through the dimness Hobbes could see Fawkes's wide eyes were too dark, the whites stained scarlet. His gaze jumped from person to person without seeming able to focus, without any recognition.
"But you got him out." Eberts sounded either amazed or flatly disbelieving.
"Obviously, Eberts," Hobbes hissed, his ire automatically rising. He hadn't spoken face to face with the Official's former lackey for months, but nothing had changed between them.
"Boys," the Keeper reprimanded, softly.
Hobbes winced internally. Now was not the time for petty sniping. Eberts was merely a target for the anxiety churning his stomach, as he watched Darien regain consciousness--if it was Darien at all, if anything was left within the madness--
Needing to offer reassurance almost as badly as he needed it himself, he stepped forward to touch Darien's shoulder, lightly, just to call attention to himself. "Fawkes," he said, but that didn't feel right, "Darien...hey, buddy. How--"
He didn't get any further. At the sound of his name Darien blinked and turned those disturbing red eyes onto Hobbes. For an instant there was only confusion in his face; then remembrance struck like a bolt of lightning.
Darien jerked up, his mouth opened, and he screamed. It wasn't with rage or fear, but pain, without any articulation of words. His eyes remained locked on Hobbes as if he could not force them away.
Horrorstruck, Hobbes stared back, rooted in place as Fawkes hollered, until Claire grabbed his arm and forcefully pulled him to the door. "I'm sorry, Bobby, but leave," she plead. "Wait in the hall, we'll try to calm him down..."
He craned his neck to look over her shoulder. Eberts, only momentarily frozen, had been quick to act and had Darien by the shoulders, was blocking his view of Hobbes while trying to quiet him. Before Hobbes could do more than nod agreement, Claire closed the door in his face.
The screams had stopped, at least. Left alone in the hallway, Hobbes leaned against the opposite wall and caught his breath. His heart was pounding like he had run a five minute mile. He felt as if he had been physically attacked; his chest hurt and he had to clench his teeth to keep from gasping. He had expected, he had known it would be bad, had steeled himself for Fawkes to be changed, and of course for him to be angry, if he still believed they had betrayed him. But that reaction...and just to him, because the Keeper and Eberts were with him now and all was quiet.
Bobby could have been angry, but he was only terrified at first. Fury built slowly as he waited, anger at the human monsters who had done this to Fawkes, and at Claire and Eberts for whatever privilege they had that he lacked, and then at himself for whatever part he might have unwillingly played...
It felt like eternity but was in reality closer to a quarter of an hour when Claire emerged from the room. "He's asleep again," she said. "Restlessly but Eberts is watching him. I'm taking the opportunity to test the blood sample and see if there's anything I should be concerned about."
"Claire," Hobbes said urgently, "what was that in there? When he saw me?"
She brushed her bangs back from her forehead, though they were too short to get in her eyes. "I don't know. He's definitely experiencing quicksilver madness, and it may be an advanced state we never saw. I don't mean to be insensitive, Bobby, but we don't have much time; I don't know how long he'll sleep."
For lack of anything better and since he didn't dare enter Darien's room, Hobbes followed her to the study, where her equipment was spread haphazardly across a desk and a card table. There were still pictures on the walls here, a couple art prints and framed photographs. Eberts was in several.
Hobbes shook his head. "Claire, how'd you get his help?"
"Eberts? He came to me, actually." She sat down at the desk and began prepping a slide of the blood sample for the microscope. "He volunteered his help only a little after you and I began planning."
"Like, a couple years ago? And you agreed? Isn't he still with the Agency?"
"So are we," Claire reminded him.
"Yeah, well, we don't head Accounting."
The Keeper slid the slide under the scope and squinted into the eyepiece. "He has an impeccable reputation. Almost above suspicion. It's unlikely there's anyone watching him or his house. We need that immunity, to keep Darien safe."
"Can we trust him, though?"
"He's already helped us."
"He has?" Hobbes's eyes narrowed. "Wait, he's the Official's hacker?"
Claire nodded, then pursed her lips as she siphoned another fraction of the blood sample and dripped it into a testtube. "Bobby, I need to concentrate," she said apologetically.
"Okay. I'm quiet. Won't hear another word out of me." He sealed his lips, leaned back in his chair, and watched her work with all the patience he could muster.
***
Hobbes hadn't dozed off, precisely, but his eyes were half-mast and he had lost track of time when abruptly he snapped into full alertness. He launched to his feet.
Claire looked up at the retort of the chair legs clattering against the floor. "What?"
He looked at the clock. He had been sitting there for an hour, but the awareness of time wasn't what had awoken him. "Did you hear something?"
"I've been concentrating."
"How's it coming?"
"I think it may be safe to try it."
"Good. Great."
"I'm preparing the dose now. It won't be much longer."
Hobbes started for the door. "I'm going to check on him." When Claire opened her mouth he raised his hand. "I'll just sneak a peek inside. Won't even enter the room." But he needed to check. Something wasn't right. He was familiar enough with paranoia to know the difference between psychological crossed wires and genuine concerns, even if it didn't help him handle the former any better.
He knocked on the guestroom door lightly, and when there was no answer, opened it. And swore.
The bed where they had left Darien asleep was empty. Eberts was sprawled on the floor by the door. Hobbes crouched and shook his shoulder, not gently.
Eberts groaned and opened his eyes, struggled to sit up. "Wh...what--Robert!"
"Did Fawkes do this?"
"Don't know..." Eberts winced and raised his hand to the back of his head, where a blue bruise was darkening. "Thought he was asleep...I was going to check on your progress--"
He left Eberts on the floor and ran the short length of the hall. "Damn. Crap. Shit." Hobbes decided he needed to learn another language. English didn't have enough expletives.
The front door was still locked. He booked it the ten feet back to Claire's makeshift lab. He could have shouted but didn't want to alert his quarry. Darien probably was still in the apartment--he had faked being asleep until Eberts had opened the door, though it hadn't been locked. Maybe he was so used to doors being locked that he no longer tried them. And was screwed up enough in the head not to know what safety meant anymore.
The apartment wasn't big; he shouldn't be able to hide long--unless he went invisible...
"Claire," Hobbes began, "we have a prob--aw, hell."
Claire had found their fugitive. Or rather he had found her.
Darien's hands were around her neck, not quite tightly enough to cut off all air, but the flesh was white where his fingers dug in. She stared up at him, breathing shallowly, her eyes wide with as close to terror as Hobbes had ever seen in her.
But it was nothing next to the absolute fear on Darien's face as he stared down at her, terrible red eyes filmed with liquid tears. "Stop it," he whispered. Hobbes strained to hear the hoarse entreaty. "Stop this. Stop it now."
He jerked up his hands, forcing Claire onto her toes to lessen the pressure on her throat. A tiny whimper escaped her, but Hobbes saw her hand behind her back reach down to the desktop, groping for the hypodermic she must have dropped when he attacked.
It was out of reach. Hobbes took a step toward them.
Darien's head whipped around. A shudder rocked him as he saw Hobbes, but he didn't loosen his grip on her.
Hobbes raised his empty hands placatingly, tried to imitate Claire's soothing tone of before. "Easy, Fawkes. You're safe. You're with friends. Remember us?"
"No. No. It's all a lie. You're here. It's a lie."
"We're real. It's me, Darien. Hobbes, remember? And that's Claire. You don't want to hurt her. We're helping you."
"Stop it." He was shaking. "Stop it. Just stop it."
Eberts was in the doorway behind him, watching in shocked silence.
Claire was choking, beginning to hyperventilate. Hobbes could see her trying to keep calm, could see her failing.
"It's a lie. Stop it. Please. Stop it!"
Eberts jerked at his cry. Claire couldn't even whimper now, but her hands gestured desperately.
Hobbes charged forward and crashed into Darien, checking him like a hockey player to knock him down, and breaking his grip on Claire. Gasping for breath, she staggered back, leaning heavily on the desk. Darien stumbled into the wall, pushed himself off it, but Hobbes tackled him, wrestling him into a headlock.
He struggled with the manic violence Hobbes well remembered, but his strength was nothing to that he used to have when taken by the quicksilver madness. Still, Hobbes was scared he would do himself real harm if he kept it up. "Calm down," he told Darien, all but begging. "We're not gonna hurt you, I promise. We'll make it stop. We'll make it better."
"No! You can't--you can't be..."
He abruptly went still. Hobbes, suspecting a trick, didn't release his hold. Darien was still conscious, but passive, as if all the hysteria driving him had snapped like a string pulled too taut. Hobbes felt him tremble. "It's a lie, I know...I'm sorry..."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Darien's voice caught like a sob. "I'm so sorry, Bobby, I don't, I don't remember..."
"Hey--you know it's me?" Hobbes felt a sudden stab of relief so keen it stung. "It's all right, we're here for you, Fawkes. We got you out of there. You're safe now, you hear me? Just let us help you."
"Stop it..." Darien was beyond listening, not just insane but absorbed in a grief Bobby couldn't comprehend. "You're here so it's a lie...stop it..."
"Keep holding him," Claire said quietly, kneeling beside them, a hypodermic of clear fluid in her hand.
Hobbes nodded. Eberts took position on the other side as she raised the needle. He held Darien's head still as Claire brushed the hair back from his neck, then with swift precision injected the compound into the small swelling that marked the quicksilver gland.
Fawkes jerked as the needle penetrated, but Hobbes and Eberts held him firm while she depressed the plunger. By the time she withdrew it he was already sinking down, shadowed scarlet eyes closing. "No..." he whispered, and then with a final tremor he was gone.
Hobbes looked to Claire. "You okay?"
She was rubbing her throat, but at the question she shot him a baffled glance, as if she couldn't imagine why he'd ask. "I'm fine."
They brought Darien back to the bedroom, laid him on the bed in silence. When finally he was settled, Hobbes released the breath it felt like he had been holding for the last hour. "God. They really fucked him up. Will he--is he gonna be all right?"
Claire raised her eyes from Darien to meet his with effort. "I hope so." Unconsciously her hands closed into fists at her sides. "I wish I could say better--I didn't imagine the...extent..." With iron will she reestablished control, her voice flattening into a businesslike tone of exposition. "The new counteragent should be more effective, but it will take his physiology a little time to adjust. Plus, in his current condition--" Her eyes drifted back to Fawkes, then were forced away, mask renewed--"With his stamina this low, he might be out for several days. I expect twenty-four hours at least. I'll set up an IV to replenish his nutrients..."
"But he'll be okay, when he wakes up?"
"Better than he is," the Keeper said evasively.
Eberts glanced to her, then cleared his throat. "What he was saying could indicate--"
"Yeah, what's with that crap?" Hobbes demanded. "He looks at me like he's seeing a ghost."
Eberts and Claire exchanged another look. Then Claire said slowly, "We could be mistaken, but from his reaction...I believe they may have told him that you...that you are dead, Bobby."
She deliberately didn't say more, but Hobbes could put two and two together. He added that hypothesis to Darien's half-coherent apologies and felt sick. "Oh God. They told him he did it. Those sons of bitches."
All too clearly he could see it. Darien alone in that room, and they told him his worst nightmare had come true, that he'd completely lost control--it would have been involuntary homicide, and of course he wouldn't have had any memory of it. Didn't matter one iota; Hobbes knew the way his partner's mind worked. His conscience would have scarred him and never let the wound heal. And seeing a reminder of that crime, what he was sure was a hallucination, at best a trick, must have hurt worse than the gland's agony. Hobbes scraped his hand across his eyes. "Those bastards..."
Claire and Eberts were waiting in silence while he assimilated it. "Okay," he said finally. "What do we do about it? Prove to him the truth?"
"Hopefully when Darien is able to think clearly, he'll be easier to convince," Claire said.
"I'm going to be here when he wakes up," Hobbes decided. "I'll hammer it into his thick skull whether he wants it or not. You don't get rid of Bobby Hobbes that easily. Fawkes better not have forgotten that."
"I doubt he could have, no matter how he tried," Eberts muttered.
Hobbes glared at him, then saw the slightest hint of a smile on the other man's lips. Not happiness, it wasn't even humor, really. But some things don't change and there was comfort in that. He needed the stability. They all did.
"Don't worry, Eberts, he won't have forgotten you either. You IRS types always stick in the memory. Like root canals do."
"That's it, I'm going to see to Darien and get to bed," Claire said with a yawn. "Listening to you two always puts me to sleep."
Hobbes and Eberts looked at one another in surprise. "Ouch," Hobbes said. "Score one for the Keeper."
Claire rolled her eyes and headed to her temporary lab, leaving the two of them alone together. Eberts made to follow her, but once they were in the hall Hobbes blocked his way.
"Hold it, Eberts," he said. "I want to know why you're doing this." He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes up at the other man. "You and the Official both. You didn't give a damn before. You threw Fawkes to the dogs like he was a piece of meat, sold him--"
"Like a slave." The Keeper appeared at the doorway, her face closed.
"Yeah. That's what he always was to you. You never cared before--what happened?"
Eberts closed his eyes with something like genuine pain. "I'm sorry that was your impression. It wasn't true, in either my case, or the Official's."
"I never knew what to think," Claire said quietly. "I had to believe Darien meant more than that--what work I did, I did because I believed in the Agency. I believed that though we did what we needed to get the job done, we hadn't lost our compassion. We looked to the greater good, but we didn't ignore who we might hurt. We did all we could for everyone."
"Fawkes was one of us," Hobbes said. "He was an agent. How was I supposed to believe we can protect the nation, when we don't even protect our own?"
"You're right," Eberts said. "I'm helping you now because you're right."
"Yeah, then why didn't you see it sooner? When it really could've meant something? We got him out, but you saw him in there." Hobbes jerked his thumb toward the closed bedroom door. "The worst enemy of the state doesn't deserve what we did to him. Fawkes, God... At least Claire and I fought it. You and the Official let it happen. You could've done something--"
"You think we didn't try?" Eberts didn't speak loudly, but his voice shook with anger. "I didn't have any influence."
"You, no," Claire agreed. "But the Official--"
"Why do you think he was forced to retire?" Eberts snapped.
"'Forced'?"
"They couldn't fire him, and they couldn't terminate him, though they'd probably like to. He knows too much about too many people in high places for them to do that. But they made him leave. He pushed too hard. The only reason he stopped protesting when they drove him out of the Agency directorship was because it would have been useless, and because he needed to keep what connections he still had. He knew you'd try this eventually, and he knew you would need his help. He asked me to stay with the Agency for the same reason."
"He asked you to stay?"
"Yes, Robert. He ordered me to stay. Of all of you, I was the only one who hadn't lodged a formal protest. The Official instructed me not to, in the interests of preserving my 'impeccable' reputation. Other than contacting you, I was to forget I had ever known the name Darien Fawkes.
"You know I always have been exemplary at following instructions, but I assure you, that was one of the hardest I have ever been given." Eberts adjusted his tie, almost self-consciously. "I don't ask for your trust. But we have more important concerns now, and it's quite late. If we could see to Darien and then sleep, I'll try to answer whatever interrogation you want to give me in the morning."
Claire only nodded and returned back inside the room. Hobbes again stopped Eberts from following her.
"Hey," he said, awkwardly.
"Yes, Robert?"
"Eberts...uh..." He wiped his forehead. "Look, man, I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," Eberts said stiffly, and made to move by him.
With a noiseless sigh, Hobbes let him pass. "Well, you can't say I didn't try," he muttered to whatever unseen force might be listening, and went to join them in the lab.
to be continued...
Well, I hope even with all the delays and the horror of the hiatus that there's still a few brave souls hanging with it..?