I have to say, thank you very muchly, everyone who's written reviews, etc. You've no idea how much that encourages me! I know I'm taking a while on this thing, but you know what they say...good things come to those who wait, haste makes waste, keep on plugging, Sloane's Teddy wins the race...
(I really should borrow Darien's copy of Bartlett's Quotations...)
At any rate, while not as timely as some might prefer (pity my boss probably wouldn't accept fanfic as a valid excuse for a vacation. Someone suggested I take sick days from work to complete it...hmmm! ^_^ ) for better or worse, here's the next bit...
For the Good...
part 7
With Claire overseeing Hobbes and Eberts, they set up an IV for Darien and a couple other necessities. He was so deeply asleep he didn't stir as the tube slid into his vein, and his reflexes were almost nonexistent. "You sure this is normal?" Hobbes demanded yet again.
"Fairly certain, yes," Claire replied, and repeated her explanation. "The counteragent is acting to negate the effects of the quicksilver. His body has to reacclimatize itself to the lower levels, just as it originally had to adjust to the quicksilver's presence. You know, Darien was in a coma for three weeks when they first implanted the gland."
"He was?" Hobbes frowned down at the still man, torn between astonishment, pity, and anger. They had been putting Fawkes through hell from the very beginning...he hadn't understood that before. Sure, he had known Darien was an unwilling agent; though he enjoyed some of the perks of the job he had always insisted he wanted the gland out and himself free. After a while he had started to come around, look past his own self to responsibility, to duty, to what he could do for his country...
And to repay Darien for everything he'd done, his country cast him into hell.
There was once a time when Hobbes could have accepted this. He could have told himself it was what needed to be done, and if he personally found it morally uncomfortable, well, those who commanded him were made of sterner stuff. In the grand scheme of things, what did one man really matter? Especially a convicted criminal determined to squander whatever gifts he had. So the guy did a couple good deeds and got screwed anyway. Shit happened.
He couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't turn his back and cover his ears. Patriotism wasn't worth the price of his soul. Nothing was.
But if Fawkes were truly lost, he might as well have sold it, because nothing was going to mean anything anymore. If they won--if he'd let them win--
"Bobby!"
Claire's hand on his arm snapped him out of it. He belatedly realized that she had called his name several times, looked to her guiltily. "Yeah?"
"Eberts has brought food. Do you like take-out Thai?"
"Yeah. That'd be great for, uh--"
"Breakfast, actually," the Keeper said, nodding toward the window, where the sky was rosy with dawn.
They ate in the kitchen, a silent repast, each tangled in their own thoughts. When they had stowed the plates in the dishwasher Eberts said, "I have a couple errands to attend to; I'll be back as soon as possible."
"Not gonna go report on us to anyone, are you?" Hobbes asked.
Eberts returned his suspicion with a level gaze. "And of course I would tell you if I were, Robert. But you can come shopping if you'd like, in case you're worried about me pasting coded messages onto soup cans to be scanned by the register at the grocery store."
"Wiseass," Hobbes muttered, as the other man departed. "Okay, he's helpful, but does he have to be so annoying?"
"When dealing with you, apparently it's a requirement," Claire sighed.
Hobbes ignored her and made his way back to the guest room where Darien lay. Claire followed him, advising, "It would be best just to sleep now. Seeing as we didn't last night."
"Thought Eberts got a couple hours in."
"You could have as well. I suggested as much."
Hobbes shrugged as he took the chair by the bed. "Wasn't tired."
"Nevertheless, you need rest."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll catch up tonight. Besides, Fawkes is sleeping enough for both of us."
"That hardly counts." Claire sat down on the cot, angled to keep Darien in her line of sight.
Hobbes eyed her sideways. "It was a long night. You're looking peaked. Maybe you should lie down."
"I will if you will."
"Okay, okay."
He didn't move. Neither did she. After a little while, Hobbes said, quietly, "Dammit...he doesn't look like he's getting any real rest, either." Fawkes was still, except for the measured rise and fall of his chest. But his eyes were cast in deep shadow, ringed in darkness, and his cheeks were hollow. Even unconscious, his brow was drawn up in fine lines of pain, like faint scars. Hobbes grimly wondered if they ever would heal.
If only Fawkes would just open his eyes...and if only they would be clear of any red, clear of the madness...just clear...
When Eberts returned to his apartment that afternoon, all was quiet. Upon entering the guest room, he found all three of them. Darien was still unconscious. Claire was on the cot, sitting up propped against the wall with her legs stretched out and her eyes closed. Hobbes had tilted his chair until the back leaned against the wall; his head was rocked to the side as he snored.
Eberts shook his head disparagingly. After last night of course they were exhausted. They could have laid down and slept comfortably. Darien wouldn't awaken for hours yet, according to Claire's most positive estimate.
Fawkes's breathing hitched for a moment, evened again. Eberts turned his attention to the object of their concerns. Under Darien's closed lids one could perceive his eyes shifting. His body might be in repose but his dreaming mind was active, and troubled. But there was no way to soothe the nightmares; until he awakened he was out of reach of any contact. There was no point in maintaining a vigil...
Eberts took the blanket still folded at the end of the cot and spread it over Claire, and adjusted Hobbes's chair so it tipped at a less precarious angle. Then he pulled the other chair up to Darien's bed and kept watch while the others slept.
***
There was no pain when he awoke.
He had become accustomed to its constant presence, the quality of his hours measured by the level of agony. Less or more, bearable or beyond his endurance. Everything he was could be defined by it. His intelligence, his sanity, all bound in how much was lost to that inescapable pressure. There were days he would have given anything, done anything for its surcease. Moments that life was such cruelty that he almost lost his fear of death, that despair of the end to everything seemed more tolerable than continuing.
That was when he held on the hardest, knowing it had to get better, that at the lowest point it could only improve. Until finally he would lose himself in the hurt, until he became it, allowing the madness to win and twist the pain into darker releases, all forgotten when sanity returned.
Unforgivable, and every time he awoke from one of those darkest times, not knowing if it had been a few hours or a few days or more, not knowing what he might have done, what new sins might stain him...he swore each time never again, that he would maintain himself, that he would not give in again. The pain always was endurable then, in the time right after, and he could always tell himself he could survive it.
And every time the pain would increase again, until eventually he lost to it.
Now it was gone, and he thought he must be dead. For a while he could feel nothing except the absence.
Gradually he began to be aware of sensations, clearer than they had ever been in his memory, no longer shadowed by the agony. Warmth. Softness beneath him, supporting him as he lay...on a bed? Blankets over his body, a pillow under his head.
He barely dared breathe. He wouldn't open his eyes, for fear it would bring the pain back...a reddish hue to the darkness under his eyelids. Heat against his cheeks. Sunlight?
Experimentally he turned his head. Crisp bedsheets rustled at the motion, the only sound beside his own breathing. No sudden stabs piercing his brain. His skull felt empty, undefined. Wrapped in warmth, cocooned in silence, he reveled in the dearth of perception.
Then the quiet was broken by a creak--wood scraping wood, to his side. Words. "Fawkes? You awake?"
A gruff voice, tight with concern. He knew it. He recognized it all too well, and despaired. So it wasn't real. The dead don't talk. He had not forgotten. He couldn't.
He didn't remember what had happened, though he had tried, for hours at time, tried to force himself to see it. Recall some moment, some brief flash. He never could. In his nightmares it was recreated a thousand times, and every time was different. He didn't know which was reality, if any of the visions were. Sometimes he thought that was the even worse crime. That he had done it at all... But that he couldn't remember it, could not offer any justification, could not even preserve those last moments for an elegy...
He had awoken in a different cell than usual, smaller, the window barred. By then he had become accustomed to the blank gaps of time, where the quicksilver madness had robbed his memory. But the cell was new and he had been confused at first. Then worried, as he realized they must have had a reason.
When finally the doctor entered he sprang to his feet, then held back, wanting to reassure the man of his current sanity, fighting the anxiety eating at him to ask his questions reasonably. "How long was I out?" He always had to ask, even if he wasn't sure he could trust the answer. But whether or not they lied to him, what the doctors told him were the only answers he was going to get. By then he was coming to accept that.
He indicated his new confines. "What happened?"
The doctor had hesitated at first. A new man, but he had seen enough of them by then that he had stopped looking at the faces, saw only the white coats and the calm demeanors. "It's been four days," the new doctor said at last. "You're feeling better?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." He had become used to the pain too, by then. They had given up using the counteragent at all, but the grip of the quicksilver went in cycles. 'Fine' was when it was bearable, when he could read and talk and function. They would let him out, monitoring him closely but allowing a certain semblance of freedom.
The CIA hadn't given him an assignment in a month. For longer than he had expected they had continued his employment, sending him places with other agents guarding him, ready to act when the madness did take him. Sometimes he would have time to handle the missions. Sometimes he would lose control before he accomplished anything, would wake up some indeterminate period later back at headquarters.
Sometimes he would refuse to go, but they sent him anyway. They didn't seem to care if he only sat and waited for the madness to come, without lifting a finger to carry out their instructions.
But the times he could manage, even if willing, had become fewer and fewer, and now they had given up. He had wondered how much longer they would keep him. Eventually they were bound to pass him along, try to send him to some other program for analysis or dissection or another damn purpose. He was prepared to fight it, with all the sanity he could manage, with all the will that remained to him. He still had rights. He might be living on the edge of the abyss and losing his grip a little more with each day passed, but he wouldn't willingly surrender the last of himself. He vowed that.
Maybe the time for that resistance had come. He looked around the new cell and demanded, "When can I get out of here?"
As he had half been expecting, the doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid--"
"Now listen here, you can't keep me locked up. I'm not a criminal; I've--"
He was surprised to see pity in the doctor's face. "Mr. Fawkes, why don't you take a seat," the man said, indicating the cot. When he had done so, the doctor sat in the chair opposite and gently inquired, "Now, how much do you recall of your last...'episode'?"
"If they've told you anything, you know I don't remember most of what happens when I'm QSM."
What the doctor said next was so outside his expectations that he didn't understand it immediately. "Do you remember anything of your former colleague's visit?"
"What?" He tried to think back. In the cell, raging. He could recall nothing beyond that blackness. A colleague? "Who? A guy from the CIA?" He tried to remember if any of the CIA agents had ever come to see him. Of course not. Most of them didn't even think of him as a person, closer to an animal, a beast to be restrained. Some were afraid of him--they hated him for that. A few pitied him, but not enough to seek him out in the hospital. He had no desire to see any of them again anyway.
"Not the CIA," the doctor told him. "The man's name was Robert Hobbes. I believe he was once your partner."
"Hobbes?" He stared at the doctor. Hobbes had never come before--or they had never mentioned it if he had. He hadn't seen Hobbes in months, not since the CIA had taken him back.
Except in his dreams, occasionally, when his imagination spun elaborate rescue plans that would never happen. Or at least he told himself they wouldn't, because optimism came at a price too dear. Hobbes and the Keeper hadn't betrayed him...he was almost positive of that now. At first he had thought so, and others confirmed it, but after months of consideration he knew they hadn't. Was nearly sure. He trusted his old associates. He had to, because he could not doubt everyone, and there was no one else.
And he remembered when he had been with the Agency, under the Keeper's care, partnered with Hobbes. He would have denied it then, but thinking back on it now, with the perspective of time and distance, he knew that had been the happiest time of his life. Crazy and stressful and disquieting...but he had belonged, fit in a way he never had before. He had had a purpose, even if he had been forced into it. And had found friends, the first true ones he had ever made, something even Kevin hadn't been. People who believed in him, who he believed in.
After all they had been through together...he couldn't doubt them. He knew he was here against their will, and if some part of him doubted, a greater part held the persistent hope that in the end they would save him. That if he were to be freed, it would be by their efforts.
He had long used up any miracles he might have deserved. Faith in people was all he had left.
"Hobbes came here?" he asked, wary, but encouraged against all evidence.
And the doctor looked at him with that undisguised, unmistakable pity. "You don't remember?" he asked quietly.
"I told you, no. What happened? Why'd he come?"
"I want you to stay calm, Mr. Fawkes," the doctor said. "There was...an accident. We are entirely at fault; you must understand that. You cannot be held responsible--"
"Responsible?" He felt the blood drain from his face, felt a hard knot coil in the pit of his stomach. "Responsible for what?"
"Agent Hobbes came to your former facility two days ago. He came to see you, Mr. Fawkes. He was very insistent. They were reluctant to allow him--you had been experiencing the QS side-effects for fifty hours, and though you were calm at the time they were unsure if you were stable. But Agent Hobbes kept demanding a visit until they granted him permission." The doctor paused, searching Darien's face for any sign of recollection.
His hands were trembling. He clenched his fists, rested them on his knees as he fought to keep sitting, to stay calm. His head ached with the constant throbbing but he was still sane; he had to prove that. "I don't remember anything. What happened?"
"Mr. Fawkes, it was inexcusable that they could've allowed this to occur. It was their miscalculation, both in evaluating your state, and then in not being prepared when you acted. They're aware of your strength and agility when experiencing such an episode, and certainly your mental--"
"What happened?" he repeated, and heard his voice crack. "What did I do?"
"Given your condition at the time," the doctor said, "you cannot be considered--"
"Is Bobby--is Hobbes all right? Did I hurt him?"
The doctor hesitated.
"Dammit, how bad was it? Is he in the hospital?"
Still the doctor didn't answer.
He could barely hear his own voice over the pounding of his blood in his ears, over the painful thunder that was the quicksilver always rising within him. "Is he all right?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Fawkes," the doctor said.
"No." It tore out of him, not a shout, hardly a whisper, but it hurt his throat as if he had screamed. "I couldn't have, I wouldn't...you're lying. I couldn't. Not Bobby. He can't be--"
"I'm sorry," the doctor said again, all sympathetic sincerity, without blame. He didn't have to confirm it aloud. The truth was obvious in his face.
"No. I didn't. I wouldn't. No. No..." He was crying without tears, each word a dry, racking cough that lacerated his lungs. As if the pain could make the denial true. As if he could redeem himself with any punishment.
As if there were anything at all he could do that would bring his partner, his friend, his victim, back to life.
They waited to tell him the details, gave him time before relating the exact circumstances of his murder. He remembered none of it, not how Hobbes had entered the cell, not a syllable of the few words they had exchanged. No hint of what deranged impulse had compelled him to attack, without provocation or warning. No one had been prepared, neither Hobbes nor the guards waiting just outside the room.
By the time they had entered it was too late. He had been that quick--it was a fast death, they had assured him. Painless. He liked suffering when taken by the madness, perhaps had a sadistic bent to inflict on others some fraction of what he experienced himself. But at that instant he must have been more intent on the kill.
He owed it to Hobbes to remember, but he could not recall a single flash of that time.
Of course they put him in higher security confinement. A different sanatorium, where he was not allowed to leave. Even if they told him it was not his fault. He was dangerous.
And it was the least he deserved for his crime.
Only now he was here, this new place, strange place. Not a cell. It didn't even smell like a hospital room, but like a home, unfamiliar but warm, not sterile. And he was hearing a voice that was impossible to hear. A ghost's voice.
He must be crazy still, though there was no pain, and his mind, his thoughts flowed clear. Hallucinating everything, escape from a reality he would have fled long ago if he had been able. But he had no right...no right to escape. No right to be here where there was no pain, where--
"Fawkes. I know you're awake, I saw you move. C'mon, Darien, you can do it. Just open your eyes."
It haunted him, so vivid, so real--alive, it sounded, the depth of a living voice, not imagination. Unable to stop himself, he slit open his eyes. And saw Hobbes, looking exactly as he always had, suit and tie and balding head, and brown eyes dark with worry.
Guilt stung like acid. With a moan he turned his head away from the vision, this new trick of his quicksilver-warped mind.
Someone gripped his shoulder, a solid grasp. "Fawkes," said that too-familiar voice. "Darien, look at me." A gentle shake punctuated the command. "I know what's going on. It isn't true. I'm not dead. You hear me? It was a lie. They were lying to you. I'm not dead."
Hallucination, ghost, daydream turned imaginary flesh, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. Or maybe they were playing with him, forcing this on him. "Stop it," he gasped, forgetting any pride he might once have had. He couldn't bear this. "Please, don't..."
But it didn't end. "We got you out of there," Hobbes--not Hobbes, only his insanity talking to him. "God, Fawkes, I'm sorry it took so long--but we did it. You're safe here. And it's all fine. You never hurt me. I'm not dead. I swear. Would I be telling you this if I were? Bobby Hobbes wouldn't lie." Hobbes almost might have laughed. "I promise, I ain't dead. Just look at me, okay? Show me you're all right--Fawkes?"
He curled up on his side, under the sheets, his back to the vision and his hands clapped to his ears, trying to block his hearing though the words penetrated through his flesh. All in his head, all in his mind, it sounded real but it could not be. Could not be.
The hand on his shoulder shook him again, roughly now. "Fawkes, you gotta look at me. Please." Not angry, but desperate, harsh with anxiety. "They were lying. They were trying to get to you. You can't let them, Fawkes. You can't let them win. It's what they wanted, for you to give in, but you're too damn stubborn for that. I know you, Fawkes."
"You're dead." He forced it out through numb lips, hands still to his ears. "You can't be here. I killed you. You're dead."
There was a long moment when he heard nothing except his blood rushing in his head. Then Hobbes said, simply, "No, I'm not."
He said nothing else. The hand withdrew from his shoulder. Darien waited until the silence became too heavy, until he had to twist around, look to see if the hallucination had passed.
Hobbes sat on the edge of the bed, watching so intently his gaze burned into him like a brand. He flinched, but before he could turn back away Hobbes grabbed his wrist, pressed Darien's hand to his chest, directly over his heart. "Feel that, Fawkes?" he said calmly. "You feel it?"
Through the cotton shirt he felt warmth, the solidity of the rib cage. Then a steady rhythm, pulsing distant but unmistakable beneath his fingers. "See?" Hobbes said, and the word vibrated through his chest. "Still beating. I'm alive."
"No..." He couldn't trust a ghost; it hurt too deeply, far too much even to dare to think it could be true. And yet he wanted to believe so badly he couldn't stop it, a rush of faith and optimism and untempered hope which swept through him, scattering the last remnants of his control. The room was warm and the pain was gone and he was drowning, he was choking on his own breaths.
He was sobbing, and the friend who should be dead was holding him, catching him before he could fall. Hobbes was alive, and this was real, and everything wrong was undone, unmade so that it might never have happened. Even if all of it was only the quicksilver's insanity, it was the kindest madness he had ever known.
To be continued...
More to come. Really!