Ah! Um, yes, hello, remember me? I haven't been around these parts much, but I am still alive...still writing...and this is approaching an ending...all my gratitude to those patient ones still with it! Really appreciate the reviews. I'm not going to say hope it's worth the wait, 'cuz after this long it'd have to be 'War & Peace' to be worth it...but please accept this humble offering as my atonement...
For the Good...
part 9
"I can't go invisible."
Claire was the first to act, passing Eberts to sit on the bed and gently push Fawkes horizontal again. Her fingers automatically curled around his wrist to check his pulse as she said quietly, "It's okay, Darien."
"Did you do it?" He didn't sound accusing, just desperate, as he turned anxious dark eyes onto her. "Is it the new counteragent, screwing it up?"
"It may be," she said. "I've had little opportunity to test the formula on subjects with the actual gland--I was more concerned with balancing the neurotransmitter levels. It's possible it interferes with quicksilver production or action as well."
"Possible." He hadn't missed her stress on that word. "But you don't think that's what it is?"
"No," she admitted. "I think it's more likely that it's you."
"Me?"
Before either anger or recrimination could win out in him, she rubbed his arm to forestall the battle. "It's not your fault, Darien. It's a natural reaction. Your body knows that quicksilver is bad for you--now that you have control again, it's going overboard in exerting that discipline, trying to limit the gland's production as best it can. Your instincts, your subconscious, are overriding your conscious mind."
"You're saying I'm scared to quicksilver."
"Not precisely, because as you know the fear response triggers the gland. I'm saying you're suppressing your ability to go invisible." She continued to knead his shoulder, trying to loosen some of the tension holding him so stiff. It wasn't healthy, not when he was barely recovered. "Give it time, Darien. It will come back to you. I'll run some tests to make sure it isn't the counteragent, and then we can try some of the exercises you used when you first got the gland. You didn't always have much control, remember. You're probably a bit out of practice with your biofeedback technique."
That won a hint of a smile. "Maybe a bit."
Hobbes pushed forward. "You sure it'll be safe and all, Claire? The new counteragent will work as good as the old one?"
"It should work better," Claire said.
"Better?" Hobbes and Fawkes echoed, synchronized.
The Keeper nodded. "If my previous tests were accurate, he should be able to go twice as long between shots, and have even more time when quicksilvered. Perhaps as much as two hours. The new formula doesn't neutralize the effects of the quicksilver; it overrides them, by inhibiting the production of neurotransmitters--" She saw the twin blank stares and stopped. "Never mind. The significant thing is that a single dose is more effective than the original compound. And there may be long-term benefits as well. I'm hoping that a carefully monitored regiment may--slowly--acclimatize you to the quicksilver without any external mitigating factor."
"What do you mean?" Darien asked, in a cautious tone that suggested he understood but didn't dare hope.
"I mean that it may be possible for you to give up the counteragent altogether, eventually. This last year, you never were given any counteragent, but you had periods of lucidity, correct?"
Darien nodded.
"Now, that's directly contrary to our original findings, as well as what Arnaud told us. Stage 5 madness is supposedly irreversible, but as far as I've deduced you only went through it once, and more importantly you came out of it. I believe that some of what we assumed to be quicksilver madness was actually symptoms of withdrawal from the counteragent itself. Arnaud might have deliberately instilled addictive properties in the formula."
"But your counteragent doesn't have those things, right?" Hobbes pressed.
Claire shook her head. "All my formula does is counter the quicksilver's effects."
"I'll be able to use quicksilver without any counteragent," Darien said, wonderingly, inspecting his hand as if already imagining it invisible for as long as he wanted.
"If you can remember how to use it at all," Hobbes reminded him smartly.
"Bobby!" Claire protested, at Fawkes's chagrined look. Though it was only teasing, Darien's self-esteem was such a fragile thing right now that she dreaded any unmindful lack of tact which might fracture it further.
Then she looked at Hobbes, and saw he hadn't been speaking before thinking at all. His face was serious, gaze fixed unwavering on Fawkes. Darien shrank under that regard, even as he said, unconvincingly, "You heard Claire. I'll be able to relearn how to do it."
"Why?" Bobby asked. Darien looked confused. Claire frowned at the agent, not understanding herself. Pointing at Fawkes for emphasis, Hobbes clarified, "Why do you want to go see-through? That quicksilver's brought you a lotta grief these past couple years. Why are you so all-fire anxious to get it back?"
"Hobbes, why do I have this thing in my head if I can't go invisible?"
"There you go," Hobbes said, as if that explained everything. "All the time we were partners, the one thing you wanted more than anything was to get that gland out. To be a normal guy again, instead of a freak. Now, I got my doubts about you being normal again 'cause I don't think you ever were, but I sure understood you wanting your brain to be implant-free. Now, though, you haven't asked Claire once about removing it, and you're pushing to get it working again."
"Bobby," Claire began, warningly.
Darien's eyes flashed, not red, not crazy, but definitely angry. "What the hell is your problem, Hobbes? You scared you're gonna be upstaged again? Or you're just too paranoid to stand having a guy who can go invisible around?"
The agent didn't reply, just continued to stare at him steadily. Before Fawkes could waver, Hobbes quietly requested, "Claire, Eberts. Give us a minute?"
Eberts nodded and slipped out of the room. Claire vacillated, then with a concerned glance at Darien and a warning look to Hobbes, exited as well. When the door closed behind her, Darien's eyes dropped again, not strong enough in body or spirit to maintain his anger. His shoulders were slumped, hunched inward. Trying to pull everything in, fold the fear and the hurt and all the rest of the baggage away inside. Never had been Fawkes's style keep it all tucked away; he had always been verbal about his concerns, always had everything he felt written all over his face. Too late to start stuffing it away now.
"Fawkes," Hobbes said, "What's this about--why do you need to be invisible? What do you want to hide?"
"Hide from, you mean."
Hobbes shrugged, neither denying nor agreeing with the correction.
Darien hesitated for a long moment. Then he began to speak, picking up momentum as he went along, until the words were spilling out as fast as he could pronounce them. "I had a lot of time to think, in that place. When I wasn't nuts...time to reflect, consider what I am, what I do--what I did. What I could do about it, if I ever got the chance again. Hobbes, what good am I without the gland? I'm no agent. I'm a thief, and a lousy one. I can go invisible, that's the one thing I've got--I'm not much help to you otherwise. Not any help to the Agency. What use was it for you to get me out if I can't even do the one thing everyone wants me for?"
"Whoa! Hold on, Fawkes!" Hobbes rapped out. "That's not why we did all this. That's not why we got you out of there," he informed Fawkes. "The Agency has nothing to do with this. Matter of fact, Claire and I--Eberts too, I guess--are going to be in deep shit with the Agency if they ever find us out."
"Then why--"
"Because you needed help. Because it was our fault, all our fault, everyone in the Agency, that you were stuck in that damn place to begin with. You didn't deserve that, not after everything you did. Someone had to help you, and we were the only ones who would. We had to--I had to. I owed you."
"You don't owe me anything--"
"Yeah, right." Hobbes snorted. "You might think saving my life is no biggie, but I'm kinda fond of being here, still breathing, and I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you. And anyway, I told you a while ago. Bobby Hobbes doesn't bail on--"
"I'm not your partner anymore, Bobby."
"Says who? You're back with the Agency--well, not really, but whatever--and you haven't been given another partner, so we're still together. Besides, you can't break up this team. None of the dweebs they've assigned me could hold a candle to us--we had, what's it, chemistry. You know. Starsky and Hutch. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
"Laverne and Shirley. Abbott and Costello."
"Uh, Siegfried and Roy. Penn and Teller."
"Would you be the short one, or the loud one?"
"Fawkes..." Hobbes growled, mock-threatening, then broke it off. Studied him. "So, you believe me? Buy that we might want you around for more than what magic tricks you can pull? Things a little straighter inside that mixed-up noggin of yours?"
"A little." Darien dared meet his eyes. "How'd you know? How'd you guess..."
"What tracks your thoughts were running along? Give me some credit, Fawkes. I've lived with paranoid insecurity eating at me for most of my life. You think I wouldn't recognize a mother like that chomping on my best friend?"
Fawkes blinked rapidly to keep unwanted moisture from collecting in his eyes. Hobbes stifled a smile, not wanting it to be taken wrong, and patted Darien's shoulder. "You better get some rest, or Claire'll have my hide. She says if you take this downtime seriously you'll be up and around within a couple days--and we need you up."
"Oh?"
"Can't stay here forever, Fawkes. Don't worry, we'll talk about it later. It's nothing serious. Just don't want to make Eberts go postal or something, messing up his neat and tidy domicile. You're gonna be okay, and that's the important thing."
"Okay," Darien mumbled, whether an echo or an answer Hobbes wasn't sure. He obediently settled down on the bed, drawing up the covers as his eyes slid shut.
Only to snap open again as Hobbes switched off the light, casting the room in dim shadows from the twilight behind the closed shade. "Bobby?"
"Right here, buddy."
"Geeze..." Shame weighed heavy in the whisper. "Sorry...God, I feel like a five year old."
"Claire always said we sound like kindergartners when we, uh, talk," Hobbes said, "so I guess that's okay. You want the light?" He turned on the lamp by the bed.
Darien relaxed, then tensed again, hands fisting on the covers, bunching the blankets. "Afraid of the dark...what the hell's wrong with me?"
"You're just jumpy," Hobbes said. "Hell, if I was in your shoes I'd probably be hiding under the bed. Or at least under the covers. You know how you feel safe under the covers, 'cause the monsters can't get you? I never got that--I mean, what's in a quilt that keeps the Bogeyman from tearing it apart? Monster kevlar? But it always worked. Never got my head bitten off once."
"I don't think I'm bad enough to need to hide under them," Darien said. "Besides, my Bogeyman would be under them with me..."
"So you keep the light on. And I'll be here in case any other monsters turn up when your head is all exposed and vulnerable. Ready to clock them with my Glock. Well, actually it's a Smith & Wesson, but it sounds better--"
"Good night, Hobbes."
"'Night, partner. And don't worry. No bedbugs will bite with Bobby Hobbes on the job."
***
When Claire came in half an hour later, Darien was sleeping soundly enough he didn't stir when she took his pulse. Hobbes watched her from where he sat, chair rocked back against the wall. When the doctor was done her examination, she approached him, asked in a whisper, "So, you've worked out whatever was going on between you?"
He nodded. "Think so. He gonna be up for moving soon?"
"Hopefully. Physically, at least." She hesitated. In this they didn't have much leeway. That they hadn't been caught yet was only a matter of chance. Sooner or later, even with the protection of Eberts's reputation, they were bound to be discovered. And if Darien wasn't yet in a condition to move when they needed to abscond...he had gone through so much already; pushing him too fast might drive him over the final edge, but if there was no choice...
"Hey, it'll be okay, Claire," Hobbes murmured. "He's all right in the head. It's just that place, and the madness and everything. All the lies they fed him. He sort of lost track of everything, since there wasn't anything he could hold onto. I know what it's like, but he'll pull through. Just needs to remember there are some things he can count on. All we gotta do is remind him, when he needs it."
She flashed him a smile, for once unquestioningly warm. "I'm glad you understand, Bobby. This wouldn't be possible without you. I came up with the counteragent replacement, but you'll be the real reason he recovers..."
He heard the unspoken 'if he does' as she trailed off, shook his head and said, "When, Claire. It's only been a day and he's already mostly there--he'll make the final stretch, no problems. He's going to get through this."
Claire reminded him quietly, "That is, if any of us do."
to be continued...
Xperiencing technical difficulties, please stay tuned...but more will come, vows I! Anyone still out there to receive it?