Title: In Pieces
Author: Angela
Rating: PG
Summary: What do you do when you have found what you were seeking, yet at the same time have not? Sequel to "Moment of Clarity."
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Yada, yada, yada.
In Pieces
He was huddled in the warmth of complacency when they found him, but he wasn't really Darien Fawkes at that moment. Perhaps that man would be too horrified to reclaim his own body even if it were possible for him to do so at the time.
He clutched the thing in his grimy hands so tightly his fingertips were digging into its soft walls. The precious mass of tissue had become cold, the ragged stumps of its torn members limp with lifelessness.
He shifted his glance, one that was somehow empty and fascinated at the same time, from the contents of his hands to th devastation beside him. It was propped up against the wall, the face frozen in a mixture of pain and fear, chest gaping grotesquely.
Such a mess.
Ribs protruded from it at odd angles, the lungs were torn to shreds. How he had screamed and screamed, high-pitched hysteric wails that hurt the ears. How his two comrades had howled in disgust and fled in fear, sealing the door behind them. How he had clawed at the pale, grimacing face until his fingers punctured the cheeks, dug into the heat of the cavity which now lay in ruins, a temple besieged by hands that sought the prize they now held. It had been glorious. He had removed it with such care, one would have laughed at his caution after witnessing the treatment the body had received.
The blood was drying. There had been so much. It leapt up in vivid spurts or poured forth in dark streams. He tasted it in his mouth, felt it clumping his hair together. He could feel it on his skin.
The corpse had been quite heavy. Heaving it up against the padded wall of the room had taken some effort. Perhaps the body was not to blame. The living being beside it existed in a permanent state of exhaustion. The wasting away of his body was more gradual than the wasting away of his mind. Too tired to sleep, too angry to die.
The two of them sat in silence, one comforted by the presence of the other.
Then the door burst in with an earth-shattering bang, and they took him away.
3 days later
"You son of a bitch!"
"Hobbes, I suggest you have a seat before-"
"Did Claire tell you how we found him?"
"Bobby..." Charles Borden's head ached severely. He wanted to close his eyes and rest, but he dared not take them off the man in front of his desk.
"Answer me: did she tell you?"
Hobbes waited. He wanted on answer and was hoping to god he would get one without having to ask again. He was trembling with rage and imagining how it would feel to strangle the man sitting behind that desk looking almost sick with unease. He felt a twinge of sympathy for him that lasted almost a second.
Charles breathed in and exhaled slowly. He felt ancient, older than he could remember feeling ever before in his life. "No," he uttered wearily.
Bobby proceeded with a dangerously calm tone. It was the calm of a man who is considering means other than words. Charles gripped the arms of his business chair.
"In the corner of a room with a human heart in his hands. He tore it out of another man's chest. Jesus, if you could have seen him." What little color that remained drained from Hobbes' face as he dropped his eyes from the Official's face to the desk. He swallowed the sickness down again.
"Bobby, I did everything I could. I had men on the case around the clock. I enlisted what little help I could, requisitioned for what little supplies we could afford. I did everything I could."
"You knew where he was two weeks before we did. Why'd you wait two weeks to tell us where our man was so we could bring him back home? How could you withhold that information from Claire and I?"
"We had to make sure a retrieval mission was necessary."
"You mean worth it. You had to make sure that precious gland hadn't been destroyed. If so, what's the point, right? Darien's just a man without it, a man you don't give a damn about. You make me sick." Hobbes turned to leave.
The Official's resolve was as fragile as a porcelain doll. He could not divulge all, but he could not bear the disgust in Hobbes' eyes. He could not leave him in the dark this time. Things were different now.
"I did not say I had to make sure, Hobbes."
He turned back to look at the Official. "What does that mean?"
"I'm not what I claim to be, Bobby. I'm at the mercy of power stronger than my own. If it had been my choice, a team would have been dispatched the second he was found."
"What are you talking about? What power?"
"One neither of us can beat."
Hobbes slammed the desk with a fist, rattling the contents of it. Charles did not flinch.
"Stop with the riddles, god damn it! Who's responsible for this?"
He could see in the elder man's eyes that his question would not be answered. He had to get out of the office. Had to. The air had become too heavy, the company too unbearable. Rather than wait any longer for a response he knew would not come, Hobbes turned away with a disgusted sigh and walked out of the office, slamming the door so severely that the glass window shattered, the fragments breaking into even smaller pieces as they hit the floor.
Charles flinched.
He watched the clear fluid pool in his cupped hands, then splashed his face with it. He hadn't noticed until he felt the mercifully cold water against his face that he had been burning up, even sweating quite profusely. His heart was hammering against his chest.
He had been so furious, so close to...something. Not entirely certain of what he might have done had his emotions taken over, but without question it would have been a regrettable act...but Fawkes had been in that place for two weeks longer than he should have been. Was there someone higher than the Official, someone behind the curtain, lurking in the dark who dictated the decisions Charles Borden had claimed to make on his own? Who was this mysterious entity? Why had this person sentenced his partner, his friend, to two more weeks of torture?
Hobbes clutched the edges of the sink. Darien had been in there for six months before he'd been rescued. Christ knew what had been done during that time. There had been a few video tapes, the sporadic dates on them indicated that they had not taped a good portion of their work. There were notes, lab journals, and folders stuffed with readouts and charts, but Hobbes had a horrible feeling that the worst of it existed between Darien and his captors. What could drive a man to rip another's chest open with his own two hands?
Hobbes wearily raised his head and stared at his reflection in the mirror, faced the haggard expression his visage displayed. He didn't want to think about it, any of it. He wanted everything back, everything that was before this. Things were fucked up enough on their own. They didn't need complications. He massaged his temples. Too much stress. He had managed to deal with it while the search mission was in effect. He had his partner to find, and he could not let anything get in his way, not even himself, his own distressed heart and exhausted mind. But now the search was over, and he felt the emptiness of all those sleepless nights filling him. There were no maps to trace, was no data to analyze. No clues, just thoughts. No phone calls, just his own tired voice inside his head. Now he had to process it all, despite desperately not wanting to.
He felt utterly useless. He wasn't a doctor of the body or of the mind, so there was nothing he could do. Fawkes was so far away that Bobby no longer knew how to reach out to him. Partners were supposed to be there for each other. The kid had been able to intervene when no one else could, putting his own life at risk, saving the life everyone else feared lost.
Hobbes released the sink and turned away from the mirror. He walked to the door, gripped the knob with little strength and twisted it, opening the restroom door and then closing it softly, a sharp contrast to his earlier treatment of the Official's office door.
He walked the barren halls of the Agency not quite realizing where his steps were taking him, his mind filled with raw memories that ached like a broken heart. The trance did not break until the door slid open with that familiar swish, a sound Darien had imitated so many times before while fabricating some outrageous narration to go along with it, like something out of a parody of the Twilight Zone.
It felt different now, the lab did. The oppressive atmosphere was tinged with something like defeat, hopelessness. After only a few days, it was finally seeping in like a toxic fog to smother them and end their battle before it had even truly begun. Hobbes told himself it was all in his own head, that it wasn't being emitted by Claire or anyone else. It was all in his head. The work of those sick operatives couldn't withstand Claire's brilliance, nor could it have erased Darien Fawkes. The stubborn bastard had searched for a cure for the madness and found it. He had survived things previously beyond his own imagination. Together they wold burn what had been created and sift through the ashes for what was real and right.
Hobbes stopped walking.
Claire was crying. Muffled sobs, the most pitiful thing Hobbes had ever heard in his entire life. He stood with his hands at his sides, looking like the lost boy he felt like inside.
It was all in his head. It was all in his head. It was all...It wasn't.
"I've never seen anything like that before. No. I've never felt anything like that before," she whispered. She had heard the door open and hoped for the man standing near her. She was in the main area of the lab now, while a nurse attended to Darien. Claire insisted she herself attend him constantly, but it had taken a toll on her already.
Her voice startled Hobbes, then he moved closer. He had been so absorbed with interrogating those they had captured, those few who had been unable to swallow their suicide serums. It had been an amazing thing to witness. Within seconds of the team's entrance, every single person in the room downed a dark liquid pulled from a pocket on their shirts, and had collapsed in an almost instant death. Each room contained several more bodies. Only two men were apprehended, and they refused to speak, even under the extreme conditions that were currently being imposed upon them. It was understood among the team that these men were to be treated as if they were not human beings at all.
Claire had spent every second of the past week in the lab with Darien. Hobbes could not remember seeing her during that time.
Until today, Bobby had been almost feverish with frustration and anger constantly. Until now, he hadn't stopped to ask the question that aroused such dread within him.
"Is there anything you can do?"
Claire wiped her eyes and concentrated on keeping her voice steady and clear.
"Honestly, I don't know. Physically, he's severely malnourished and dehydrated, but that's the very least of his problems. Whatever was done to him...Bobby, there's damage to his body and psyche that could be permanent. There are needle marks on his arms, legs, and abdomen, but what he was injected with hasn't been identified yet." She sounded so tired. "His current state could be a form of psychological self-defense. Once his body begins to recover, Darien could reemerge as his mind realizes the threat is gone. If he wants to come back at all." So god damn tired.
"How likely is recovery?"
"It is a real possibility. I wouldn't be telling you that if I didn't believe it."
"What about full recovery?"
"One step at a time. Right now, he desperately needs familiarity. He needs to feel safe. There is a chance we can coax him back into reality."
Hobbes breathed in deeply, wanting to conceal his frustration for Claire's sake. He knew the poor woman felt guilty for not having all of the answers, and it was a weight she did not deserve to carry. The thought of leaving Darien within the Agency was disturbing; if he needed comfort and warmth, this was not the place for him to be. Still, he knew an attempt to move Darien anywhere would be irrational, with his health being in such a fragile state. It seemed every suggestion Hobbes could think of would be of no help to them right now, and a feeling of inadequacy continued to plague him.
"What can I do right now? You have to give me something, Claire. Anything."
She gazed up at him, hoping he would accept her sympathy. She hated to do it, but she knew he could offer no direct help to Darien at the moment. His abilities lay outside the laboratory.
She rose, put a hand on Hobbes' shoulder and squeezed.
"Bobby, you need to take care of yourself first. You're exhausted."
Before he could protest, Claire moved to one of several medicine cabinets in the lab and removed a dark bottle, tapping out a few tablets. "I want you to take these. You can lie down for a while in one of the private lab rooms."
Bobby shook his head. "I have to be ready incase something comes up."
"I will wake you if that happens, I promise. Please, for me, for Darien. At least for a few hours," she pleaded softly.
He stared at the pills, which, despite his protest, were not entirely unappealing. His insomnia had been severe after Darien's disappearance. He had not known more than an hour's sleep in a long time.
Darien was safe.
Safe.
He took the pills, much to Claire's relief. She guided him toward the room, which was equipped with a cot. It was not a bed, which was where Hobbes really belonged, but Claire knew it would be much easier to convince him to rest if he did not have to leave the Agency. She covered him with one of her own lab coats, then left the room as he began to drift off.
The doctor returned to the patient's side to resume her vigil, loathing the whisper of self-doubt threatening her resolve. She observed in near-silence, with only the comforting sounds of the signs of life being translated by the medical equipment. The body had been saved. Soon, it would be time for the mind to rebuild.
The End, for now
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Yada, yada, yada.
In Pieces
He was huddled in the warmth of complacency when they found him, but he wasn't really Darien Fawkes at that moment. Perhaps that man would be too horrified to reclaim his own body even if it were possible for him to do so at the time.
He clutched the thing in his grimy hands so tightly his fingertips were digging into its soft walls. The precious mass of tissue had become cold, the ragged stumps of its torn members limp with lifelessness.
He shifted his glance, one that was somehow empty and fascinated at the same time, from the contents of his hands to th devastation beside him. It was propped up against the wall, the face frozen in a mixture of pain and fear, chest gaping grotesquely.
Such a mess.
Ribs protruded from it at odd angles, the lungs were torn to shreds. How he had screamed and screamed, high-pitched hysteric wails that hurt the ears. How his two comrades had howled in disgust and fled in fear, sealing the door behind them. How he had clawed at the pale, grimacing face until his fingers punctured the cheeks, dug into the heat of the cavity which now lay in ruins, a temple besieged by hands that sought the prize they now held. It had been glorious. He had removed it with such care, one would have laughed at his caution after witnessing the treatment the body had received.
The blood was drying. There had been so much. It leapt up in vivid spurts or poured forth in dark streams. He tasted it in his mouth, felt it clumping his hair together. He could feel it on his skin.
The corpse had been quite heavy. Heaving it up against the padded wall of the room had taken some effort. Perhaps the body was not to blame. The living being beside it existed in a permanent state of exhaustion. The wasting away of his body was more gradual than the wasting away of his mind. Too tired to sleep, too angry to die.
The two of them sat in silence, one comforted by the presence of the other.
Then the door burst in with an earth-shattering bang, and they took him away.
3 days later
"You son of a bitch!"
"Hobbes, I suggest you have a seat before-"
"Did Claire tell you how we found him?"
"Bobby..." Charles Borden's head ached severely. He wanted to close his eyes and rest, but he dared not take them off the man in front of his desk.
"Answer me: did she tell you?"
Hobbes waited. He wanted on answer and was hoping to god he would get one without having to ask again. He was trembling with rage and imagining how it would feel to strangle the man sitting behind that desk looking almost sick with unease. He felt a twinge of sympathy for him that lasted almost a second.
Charles breathed in and exhaled slowly. He felt ancient, older than he could remember feeling ever before in his life. "No," he uttered wearily.
Bobby proceeded with a dangerously calm tone. It was the calm of a man who is considering means other than words. Charles gripped the arms of his business chair.
"In the corner of a room with a human heart in his hands. He tore it out of another man's chest. Jesus, if you could have seen him." What little color that remained drained from Hobbes' face as he dropped his eyes from the Official's face to the desk. He swallowed the sickness down again.
"Bobby, I did everything I could. I had men on the case around the clock. I enlisted what little help I could, requisitioned for what little supplies we could afford. I did everything I could."
"You knew where he was two weeks before we did. Why'd you wait two weeks to tell us where our man was so we could bring him back home? How could you withhold that information from Claire and I?"
"We had to make sure a retrieval mission was necessary."
"You mean worth it. You had to make sure that precious gland hadn't been destroyed. If so, what's the point, right? Darien's just a man without it, a man you don't give a damn about. You make me sick." Hobbes turned to leave.
The Official's resolve was as fragile as a porcelain doll. He could not divulge all, but he could not bear the disgust in Hobbes' eyes. He could not leave him in the dark this time. Things were different now.
"I did not say I had to make sure, Hobbes."
He turned back to look at the Official. "What does that mean?"
"I'm not what I claim to be, Bobby. I'm at the mercy of power stronger than my own. If it had been my choice, a team would have been dispatched the second he was found."
"What are you talking about? What power?"
"One neither of us can beat."
Hobbes slammed the desk with a fist, rattling the contents of it. Charles did not flinch.
"Stop with the riddles, god damn it! Who's responsible for this?"
He could see in the elder man's eyes that his question would not be answered. He had to get out of the office. Had to. The air had become too heavy, the company too unbearable. Rather than wait any longer for a response he knew would not come, Hobbes turned away with a disgusted sigh and walked out of the office, slamming the door so severely that the glass window shattered, the fragments breaking into even smaller pieces as they hit the floor.
Charles flinched.
He watched the clear fluid pool in his cupped hands, then splashed his face with it. He hadn't noticed until he felt the mercifully cold water against his face that he had been burning up, even sweating quite profusely. His heart was hammering against his chest.
He had been so furious, so close to...something. Not entirely certain of what he might have done had his emotions taken over, but without question it would have been a regrettable act...but Fawkes had been in that place for two weeks longer than he should have been. Was there someone higher than the Official, someone behind the curtain, lurking in the dark who dictated the decisions Charles Borden had claimed to make on his own? Who was this mysterious entity? Why had this person sentenced his partner, his friend, to two more weeks of torture?
Hobbes clutched the edges of the sink. Darien had been in there for six months before he'd been rescued. Christ knew what had been done during that time. There had been a few video tapes, the sporadic dates on them indicated that they had not taped a good portion of their work. There were notes, lab journals, and folders stuffed with readouts and charts, but Hobbes had a horrible feeling that the worst of it existed between Darien and his captors. What could drive a man to rip another's chest open with his own two hands?
Hobbes wearily raised his head and stared at his reflection in the mirror, faced the haggard expression his visage displayed. He didn't want to think about it, any of it. He wanted everything back, everything that was before this. Things were fucked up enough on their own. They didn't need complications. He massaged his temples. Too much stress. He had managed to deal with it while the search mission was in effect. He had his partner to find, and he could not let anything get in his way, not even himself, his own distressed heart and exhausted mind. But now the search was over, and he felt the emptiness of all those sleepless nights filling him. There were no maps to trace, was no data to analyze. No clues, just thoughts. No phone calls, just his own tired voice inside his head. Now he had to process it all, despite desperately not wanting to.
He felt utterly useless. He wasn't a doctor of the body or of the mind, so there was nothing he could do. Fawkes was so far away that Bobby no longer knew how to reach out to him. Partners were supposed to be there for each other. The kid had been able to intervene when no one else could, putting his own life at risk, saving the life everyone else feared lost.
Hobbes released the sink and turned away from the mirror. He walked to the door, gripped the knob with little strength and twisted it, opening the restroom door and then closing it softly, a sharp contrast to his earlier treatment of the Official's office door.
He walked the barren halls of the Agency not quite realizing where his steps were taking him, his mind filled with raw memories that ached like a broken heart. The trance did not break until the door slid open with that familiar swish, a sound Darien had imitated so many times before while fabricating some outrageous narration to go along with it, like something out of a parody of the Twilight Zone.
It felt different now, the lab did. The oppressive atmosphere was tinged with something like defeat, hopelessness. After only a few days, it was finally seeping in like a toxic fog to smother them and end their battle before it had even truly begun. Hobbes told himself it was all in his own head, that it wasn't being emitted by Claire or anyone else. It was all in his head. The work of those sick operatives couldn't withstand Claire's brilliance, nor could it have erased Darien Fawkes. The stubborn bastard had searched for a cure for the madness and found it. He had survived things previously beyond his own imagination. Together they wold burn what had been created and sift through the ashes for what was real and right.
Hobbes stopped walking.
Claire was crying. Muffled sobs, the most pitiful thing Hobbes had ever heard in his entire life. He stood with his hands at his sides, looking like the lost boy he felt like inside.
It was all in his head. It was all in his head. It was all...It wasn't.
"I've never seen anything like that before. No. I've never felt anything like that before," she whispered. She had heard the door open and hoped for the man standing near her. She was in the main area of the lab now, while a nurse attended to Darien. Claire insisted she herself attend him constantly, but it had taken a toll on her already.
Her voice startled Hobbes, then he moved closer. He had been so absorbed with interrogating those they had captured, those few who had been unable to swallow their suicide serums. It had been an amazing thing to witness. Within seconds of the team's entrance, every single person in the room downed a dark liquid pulled from a pocket on their shirts, and had collapsed in an almost instant death. Each room contained several more bodies. Only two men were apprehended, and they refused to speak, even under the extreme conditions that were currently being imposed upon them. It was understood among the team that these men were to be treated as if they were not human beings at all.
Claire had spent every second of the past week in the lab with Darien. Hobbes could not remember seeing her during that time.
Until today, Bobby had been almost feverish with frustration and anger constantly. Until now, he hadn't stopped to ask the question that aroused such dread within him.
"Is there anything you can do?"
Claire wiped her eyes and concentrated on keeping her voice steady and clear.
"Honestly, I don't know. Physically, he's severely malnourished and dehydrated, but that's the very least of his problems. Whatever was done to him...Bobby, there's damage to his body and psyche that could be permanent. There are needle marks on his arms, legs, and abdomen, but what he was injected with hasn't been identified yet." She sounded so tired. "His current state could be a form of psychological self-defense. Once his body begins to recover, Darien could reemerge as his mind realizes the threat is gone. If he wants to come back at all." So god damn tired.
"How likely is recovery?"
"It is a real possibility. I wouldn't be telling you that if I didn't believe it."
"What about full recovery?"
"One step at a time. Right now, he desperately needs familiarity. He needs to feel safe. There is a chance we can coax him back into reality."
Hobbes breathed in deeply, wanting to conceal his frustration for Claire's sake. He knew the poor woman felt guilty for not having all of the answers, and it was a weight she did not deserve to carry. The thought of leaving Darien within the Agency was disturbing; if he needed comfort and warmth, this was not the place for him to be. Still, he knew an attempt to move Darien anywhere would be irrational, with his health being in such a fragile state. It seemed every suggestion Hobbes could think of would be of no help to them right now, and a feeling of inadequacy continued to plague him.
"What can I do right now? You have to give me something, Claire. Anything."
She gazed up at him, hoping he would accept her sympathy. She hated to do it, but she knew he could offer no direct help to Darien at the moment. His abilities lay outside the laboratory.
She rose, put a hand on Hobbes' shoulder and squeezed.
"Bobby, you need to take care of yourself first. You're exhausted."
Before he could protest, Claire moved to one of several medicine cabinets in the lab and removed a dark bottle, tapping out a few tablets. "I want you to take these. You can lie down for a while in one of the private lab rooms."
Bobby shook his head. "I have to be ready incase something comes up."
"I will wake you if that happens, I promise. Please, for me, for Darien. At least for a few hours," she pleaded softly.
He stared at the pills, which, despite his protest, were not entirely unappealing. His insomnia had been severe after Darien's disappearance. He had not known more than an hour's sleep in a long time.
Darien was safe.
Safe.
He took the pills, much to Claire's relief. She guided him toward the room, which was equipped with a cot. It was not a bed, which was where Hobbes really belonged, but Claire knew it would be much easier to convince him to rest if he did not have to leave the Agency. She covered him with one of her own lab coats, then left the room as he began to drift off.
The doctor returned to the patient's side to resume her vigil, loathing the whisper of self-doubt threatening her resolve. She observed in near-silence, with only the comforting sounds of the signs of life being translated by the medical equipment. The body had been saved. Soon, it would be time for the mind to rebuild.
The End, for now