Unreasonable Addiction III

Chapter 7: Endangered

By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth

Clair leaned back in her chair, gazing expressionlessly at the two policemen on the other side of the table. She was still in Precinct Twelve, where Hanover had brought her. Apparently, it took time to make arrangements to move someone into Riker's for pre-trial custody. She'd been here for almost three hours, the most recent hour spent in this hard chair. At least her hands were cuffed in front of her now. The other arrangement had dragged unpleasantly at her recently-healed shoulder. At first, she'd been alone in here, though she knew that they were watching through the mirrored wall. She'd spent the time thinking. There was a lot to think about.

Otto would come for her, she was sure of that. He'd killed to get her back before. And he'd probably be as irritated with her as she was with herself. Captured while getting groceries. And by Hanover no less! The only worse thing would have been for it to be the bug. Silently and still, she had railed at herself for her incompetence, but she couldn't think of anything she could have done differently to avoid it. Facing the truth, she knew she was incapable, physically, of putting up much fight without the actuators. She was weak on her own.

The two cops had come in and interrupted her train of thought before she gave in to the despondency that she felt threatening, taking the chairs opposite hers and sitting forward, leaning against the table in nearly identical poses. She stared back at them, evaluating them. Physically she might be weak, but she could handle these two in this setting of interrogation.
One of the cops opened a file, her eyes flicking between the papers and Clair. "Doctor Clair Holmes, formerly Clair Watson?" she asked.

"Yes," she answered shortly, fixing her eyes on that one.

"Your file says here that you've encountered Octopus before, seven years ago, and you were entered into the Witness Protection Programme. And that a year ago, he found you again and took you into captivity, driving across Canada from Seattle to New York City. Arrival in New York City resulted in a confrontation with the vigilante known as Spider-man. You were seen threatening both him and a one Joshua Spisak with a deadly weapon, as well as having made an assault on Brandon Page, your then live-in boyfriend. The record skips ahead to an incident at Kurtzweil Memorial Hospital in which an MRI was stolen and you assaulted an agent of the FBI."

The other cop spoke up after she'd finished, his voice holding the calm of a snake poised to strike. "Have you lived with him this whole time?" he asked, staring stonily through half-open lids at her.

She nodded to both the list of details and the other's question. "Yes, I have."

"Willingly?" he asked next. The tone of his voice didn't sound like one doing anything else than gathering every nuance, every fact.

"Of course," she answered dismissively.

He sat back, regarding her with that same snakelike stare. "You've come to two options, Doctor Holmes," he said, his voice still maddeningly calm. "With the charges against you of aiding and abetting a terrorist with a record such as his, you're looking at a great many years in Riker's. However, if you should choose to help us apprehend him, you'll find your sentence considerably... lightened."

Her gaze went instantly cold, her eyes ice. "That is not an option."

"Why not, Doctor Holmes?" he asked slowly, patiently. "It seems to me that the less time spent in Riker's, the better. Are you afraid of what might happen should Octopus be apprehended? Are you, perhaps, afraid of what he might do to you?"

"Afraid that he might hurt me? No, not really. But I'd rather not have him 'apprehended.'" She laced her fingers together in her lap.

"And why is that, Doctor Holmes?" The cop pressed, still watching her stonily. His partner didn't seem to possess much more animation as she sat still, watching her calmly. These two really must have gotten high marks in the "unnerve the suspect" portion of their Academy training.

"It's not something I intend to explain to you," she said archly. Complete stillness didn't bother her; if it did, living with Otto would have been intolerable at times.

"Why not, Doctor Holmes? What sort of interest do you have in Octopus' freedom?"

"Life would be inexpressibly dull without him," she said dryly.

"You are aware that if you don't assist us, you will also be charged with obstruction of justice?"

"Perfectly," she said. "And perjury, at some point."

"This doesn't bother you, Doctor Holmes? Why not?"

"Because his freedom is more important than mine," she said before she could stop herself. The dual, unblinking stares must have been getting to her.

"Why would his freedom be more important than yours, Doctor Holmes?"

"How about you ask questions about less irrelevant topics?" she said, scowling. "My motives are hardly the important issues here."

"Unfortunately, Doctor Holmes, your motives are the relevant topic. We already know where Doctor Octopus is hiding. All that is left for it is to draw him out in order to apprehend him. That is where you come in," the cop replied slowly, unflappably.

"If I'm just bait," she answered, "Then it hardly matters why I do anything. Just hang me out there like a worm and wait for the big scary Octopus to come and flatten you all."

The cop smiled a humourless smile. "It will all work so much more smoothly if we've ensured your co-operation, Doctor Holmes."

"It isn't going to work at all," she said coolly, leaning forward. "So what are you going to do?"

"You sound confident," The cop replied. "Does he have a plan? Tell us what it is."

She made a skeptical face. "Does that ever work? Of course I'm not going to tell you."

The cop smiled that smile again. "We'll get back to that. Actually, I'm curious as to the circumstances surrounding the incident at the hospital two months ago. Why did Octopus need an MRI, and why did he seem to need your help to get it?"

"Hmm," she said, smiling fondly. "You've got that backwards. I needed the MRI, and I needed his help to get it."

"Why did you need it?" the cop asked, his face remaining expressionless.

One eyebrow rose. "To see inside someone's head."

"Whose head, Doctor Holmes?"

"Just some guy I went to high school with. He ran into us a few nights before the hospital affair and he'd changed a lot. I wanted to see exactly how. I'm a scientist, Officer..." She trailed off in a question.

"Smith," the cop replied stonily. "It seems a bit much to steal an MRI only to engage in a little class-reunion psychology."

"It only looks that way from your perspective; I assure you."

"Right now, for the purposes of this interrogation, mine is the only perspective that applies, Doctor Holmes."

"Congratulations," she said wryly. "In that case, then I took possession of the magnetic resonance imager because the alternative was a physical examination of the abnormal neurological structure that I detected with a Tesla scan and I had some tests that I still wanted to perform on the subject, none of which could be applied post-mortem."

"Mmhm," the cop nodded, as though he knew all that and just didn't care. "And what has Doctor Octopus got to do with this?"

"Hmm. Nothing, really. This was just satisfying my own curiousity. I'm a scientist, Agent, er, Officer Smith. Sorry, I've been dealing with the FBI today. I'm a scientist, a very good one. Presented with a tangled web such as this classmate presented, I couldn't resist."

The cop appeared to mull this over. "To what end?" he asked. "There's more here than curiosity. I couldn't help but notice, from the Bugle's usually vigilant account of such things, that Spider-man was conspicuously absent from the latest Doctor Octopus appearance."

"He was keeping watch," she said earnestly. Over the ceiling in her lab, but she didn't add that. No harm in tarnishing the bug's name if she could.

"Pardon my skepticism, but that seems a little... out of character for Spider-man."

She shrugged. "Who knows what goes on behind the mask. He's not all right up here." she tapped her temple with a cuffed hand.

"That sounds almost laughable from someone who willingly lives with a psychopathic terrorist," came Smith's cool reply.

She laughed at that. "I suppose it does. But I find Otto far less objectionable company than the bug."

"The propensity for violence doesn't bother you? The history of murder? The apparent--" his eyes flicked to her injured shoulder. "--abuse?"

"I've adapted," she said coolly. "And the "abuse" is not from him."

"Who, then?"

"Spider-Man," she said simply.

"I see. A fight with Spider-man. I see. Would this be before or after you were apparently given the ... arms?"

"Before. The bug's attack injured only an unarmed citizen who hadn't broken any laws."

"Funny, Doctor Holmes," Smith replied, though his tone made it obvious that it was anything but. "Does this mean, then, that throughout the drive across Canada, you were not along with him of your own volition?"

"Of course I was."

"I see," Smith said again. "That refutes your previous claim because, by going willingly, you were aiding him in his escape."

"It's a complicated situation, Officer. If I hadn't been willing, I would have ended up aiding his escape in exactly the same way, and probably been left in a ditch on the side of the road in British Columbia."

"Leaving him without the means to create more of your neural restorative serum?"

"Haven't you heard?" she replied sharply. "It's Oscorp's serum now."

He blinked, visibly shifting tracks. "That bothers you, doesn't it?"

"Of course it does," she said, staring at him. "How do you think it feels to have your life's work stolen by some hack?"

"I wouldn't know," he replied unflappably. "This is my life's work. One cannot 'steal' police work." A pause. "You have a plan, don't you? To replay Osborn for his thievery. You need Octopus to carry it out? Is that why his freedom is more important than yours?"

She steepled her fingers in front of her face and slouched lower in her chair, the very picture of an uncooperative witness. "I have a plan," is all she said, smirking slightly.

"A plan that will not come to fruition now, I can assure you," Smith replied, stony, lacking even a grain of satisfaction that would otherwise humanize him even a little bit.

"You can assure me nothing," she said lightly. "Are we done yet? I don't really feel like talking to you any more."

"What are you so confident about, Doctor Holmes?" A slight demanding edge made its way into his tone.

She sighed through her nose and looked down at her hands, past him at the mirror, and up at the bright light that hung above the table. In general, she looked exceedingly bored with the proceedings. And she did not answer.

"Do you think Octopus is going to come and rescue you?" Smith asked, leaning forward.

She canted her eyes sideways at him, an amused expression on her face, but continued to say nothing. She was tired of this.

There was a long pause in which Smith stared at her. Finally, the other cop spoke up. "It doesn't look like we're going to get any answers out of her."

She nodded, smiling. "I'm happy to wait for my ride here, or did you want to move me downstairs?"

"We'll be taking you downstairs to a holding cell, Doctor Holmes," Smith replied, standing and walking round the table to where she sat.

She stood up, looking up at him. "Sounds fine to me. I don't think it really matters. But if it has an outside wall, you'll have less property damage when this is over."

"This attitude won't get you far," Smith replied, steering her out the door as his partner followed.

"Reflex," she said, unapologetically. "I think it comes with the awful pseudonym, courtesy of the Daily Bugle."

Smith's partner snerked, but maintained a straight face after that. They led Holmes down the stairs and into the nearest holding cell, locking her inside and leaving again.

She walked over to the bench along one wall and sat down, twisting her wrists inside the cuffs. And waited. She tipped her head back against the cement wall and shut her eyes. It was useless to pretend that she wasn't listening for the familiar sound of the actuators hammering their way closer, but all she heard were the machinations of the building and the drunken snoring of someone in a cell down the hall. Another hour passed. It had been four hours since she'd been taken into custody.

Otto was coming for her.

The walls had begun to close in on Clair by the time a guard came into the cell block, followed closely by a young man in a leather jacket and three other women, one grey-haired and maternal-looking. She stayed where she was on the narrow bench as they stopped in front of her cell.

"Oh, Clair," said the older woman, in a voice so flattened that she might have been speaking in her sleep.

"Hello, Mom," she said, nodding a greeting. "Mark, Moira, Jennifer. Nice of you to come. Where's Dad?"

Her mother looked stricken. "Clair... He died. Two months ago. Cancer."

Clair blinked, shaken. "Oh. God. I'm sorry... I didn't even know he was sick." It was a hard thing to picture; her giant bear of a father, six foot four in his boots, had been so proud of his perfect attendance record at work. "Never a sick day since the first grade," he'd always said. "And then only because they thought I was dying."

"How could you?" snapped the man, gripping a bar in the front of her cell and grimacing. "You disappeared with that monster. We couldn't find you to tell you, if you even cared!"

"I would have come if I'd known, Mark," she said in a low voice. "I'm sorry." There was nothing more she could say. Her father was dead. That should have meant more to her.

"What's happened to you, Clair?" asked the taller woman plaintively. She towered over the others, probably taller than Otto even. Their father's genes. "What has he done to you?"

Clair's hands clenched on the edge of the bench. "Why does everyone ask me that?" she growled, baring her teeth. "I am a grown woman, Jennifer, not a child! I make my own choices! What I am now is not Otto's doing! I went into this with my eyes wide open."

"This criminal, this 'Doctor Octopus' has some sort of control over you, Clair. We know-"

"No one controls me!" Clair interrupted harshly, but her sister continued regardless.

"We know he hurt you, Clair! It was on the news, live. We watched that freak cut off your ear!"

Clair opened her mouth to say something scathing, then changed it. She did not want to attack her family. "I'm sorry you had to see that. It was the only thing I could think of to keep him safe. We needed to convince the police that I was still Otto's hostage, so he could use me as leverage to keep them away long enough, and then to escape. It didn't hurt much. And I hardly notice it." Her voice softened unconsciously as she tried to reassure her mom, but it was Mark who answered, aghast.

"It was your idea? How the hell did he convince you of that?"

"Clair, he's a murderer, and a criminal, and a terrorist!" said Jennifer, her voice rising. Next to her, Moira, always the silent one, seemed to shrink in on herself.

"Do you honestly think I'm that stupid?" Clair asked, scowling at them. "I know what he is. I know what I am, what I will be, what I would be already if not for that damn bug! He, for the record, has done me a lot more damage than Otto ever would!"

"What do you mean, what you are?" asked her mother, horrified. "You're not a murderer. You could never hurt someone." Clair looked at her, pity the predominant emotion she felt for this woman, who seemed almost a stranger.

"Mom," she started, wondering how to word this. "Mom, I can't live in the rules any more. I can't do the things that I absolutely must do while living by all of the rules that society and the law try to strangle me with. And I can't do it without him, and I can't do it without hurting people. I have tests to run, materials to procure. People will try to stop me. I can't let them do that, no matter the cost. The science is more important."

"More important than lives?" Mark bit off as their mother crumbled, burying her face in his shoulder. "Christ, Clair, what kind of monster has he turned you into? You were a doctor, for fuck's sake! You pratted on and on about that damn oath, and it means nothing to you now? You gave it up for this freak?"

"Don't call him that," she growled dangerously, suddenly on her feet. Mark was at her eye level, and she glared at him.

"What, a freak?" he snapped. "Oh, that's right. I forgot how much you hated being called a freak in school. Is that what this is, then? You pity him because he's a freak? He is, Clair, and you know it. He's insane and dangerous and he'll change his mind someday and kill you for the fun of it."

She was at the bars in an instant, her hand through it on the collar of his jacket. She yanked him forward so he banged up against the bars. "Don't call him that," she hissed before the guard reached them and tore them apart, driving Clair back from the bars with his nightstick. She glared at Mark, rubbing her newly-bruised shoulder. "He'll come and get me out of here. All you came to do was throw accusations. Who deserves my loyalty more, Mark?"

"Clair, I saw those bruises on your neck seven years ago. I was fourteen, and it was the most terrible thing I had ever seen. His handprint wrapped entirely around your neck. He could have killed you right then. He doesn't deserve anything from you."

"Didn't kill me, did he?" she answered. "And he's never even threatened to hurt me since."

"Oh yeah?" said Jennifer incredulously. "Every single time anyone's seen you since he took you, you've been half-dead or broken."

"None of that was his fault," she pointed out. "He's the one who set my bones after Spider-Man broke them." Her shoulders slumped; she didn't want to fight with her family. "Otto has never hurt me," she said honestly. "Not since the first time." And then she heard the sound she'd been listening for. "And now he's here to get me."

A loud crunching THOOM! could be heard. Then another. Screams accompanied it as the crashing drew closer, then gunfire as well. The sound drew closer, dust sifting down from the ceiling at each impact.

Clair meant to tell her family to go for cover, but she froze when she heard the gunfire, listening intently for any information she could get.

Moira broke her silence and screamed, but Jennifer clapped a hand over her mouth as Mark dragged all three women back, farther into the cell block away from the direction of the commotion. Clair barely noticed.

Another THOOM could be heard, nearly deafening by now, and more dust sifted down from the ceiling, the people in the other cells waking or snapping out of their funks or their drunken stupors and creating a babble of vulgar complains and questions. The door rattled, then flew into the room, along with a huge chunk of masonry and the body of an officer, his gun still clutched in his hand. A dark shape loomed in the smoke, coming forward on the snaking lengths of battered metal tentacles.

Clair rushed back to her bars. "I'm here," she called out. Between the smoke and the lack of glasses, she couldn't see any details. Back in the block, she could hear people, her mother and sister's included, screaming. Than a small shape ran in front of her, stopping in front of her cell. Mark, with a long chunk of the decimated door held in his hands like a baseball bat stood facing Otto, in a defensive stance.

The shape loomed closer, drawing ever nearer to the cell, tentacles snaking out and carrying him into the room and out of the smoke. One reached out and snatched the wood from Mark's hands with brutal force. Octavius narrowed his eyes, squinting through a haze of pain and the remains of the smoke. Close, but not quite. Was this Clair's family? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her holding the bars of the cell. Another actuator wrapped around Mark's waist and tossed him aside, away from the cell door. It and another then reached out to pull the bars out of the cement.

Clair backed away from the bars, watching Otto, her eyes running over him to see if he'd been hurt. It became obvious that he used his actuators for just about everything, as his left arm, its shoulder twisted at an unusual angle, hung useless, and both hands were streaked with blood, though whether it was his own or someone else's was hard to discern. Blood matted his hair into a tangle around his face and neck, and his face bore a long gash from one eye to his hairline, the skin stained almost completely red, the goggles cracked but still in place over his eyes, one of which looked as though it were probably swollen shut. His breath came in a heavy, wet wheezing and his coat glistened darkly in several places. Blood dripped on the floor below him. He didn't speak, but snaked one actuator into the cell and curled it around her, carefully but not gently.

"Oh god, Otto," she breathed, reaching for him even as the actuator squeezed her slightly too tightly. It didn't matter. He did.

"Hey, FREAK!" shouted Mark from down the hall where he'd been thrown, getting to his feet and picking up a chunk of rubble, throwing it at Otto. He missed, but he didn't shut up. "Leave my sister alone!"

Octavius' head whipped to the side to look at him, lips curling back in a vicious sneer. One actautor reached out and grabbed Mark's neck, lifting him from the floor.

"You heard him!" A voice shouted from the hole. "Drop them, Ock!" Spider-man leapt through the hole after Octavius. Octavius growled and the actuator flung Mark at the wall-crawler, who caught the other in a web, thus stopping his momentum.

Mark struggled to get loose. "Get my sister away from him!" he shouted to Spider-Man.

Clair's head whipped around to face the bug. "Did you do this to him?" she demanded furiously.

"I only wish I'd done all of it, but I didn't," Spider-man replied, two seconds before he was broadsided by another actuator. Octavius growled almost incoherently and the actuator pounded the arachnid into the floor, leaving him momentarily motionless. Octavius headed for the hole he'd made, still carrying Clair with one actuator and passing Mark, who'd managed to flail his way partially free of the web. Another actuator came over and snapped the chain between her cuffs.

"Clair!" Mark called desperately, reaching out to grab her. She tried to shake him off, glaring at him, but he persisted, tugging her bad arm with all his strength, which couldn't compare to the actuator around her waist.

The activity behind him caused Octavius to stop for just a moment as the actuator around Clair pulled her free of Mark's grip. However, this proved too long of a stop as the cop who'd flown in with the door, who'd been painfully trying to draw a bead on Octavius the whole time, finally squeezed off a shot. Octavius jerked, made a small strangled sound, and seemed to wilt. A thump behind them told Clair the cop had lost consciousness. The actuators lifted Octavius up higher and smashed their way through more walls, then following the trail of holes out of the building, quickly scaling the building across the street and making their way east, gunshots pinging off the concrete around them.

"Otto!" Clair shouted as the actuators carried them out of range. She knew he'd been shot, couldn't see where. "Otto, come on, talk to me, please!"

She could just see, from her swinging vantage point, that his lips moved soundlessly, blood running from them in a small rivulet. His head lolled forward, came back up, then wilted, nodding. He sputtered weakly and muttered something in a stringy wheeze, but she couldn't hear what it was over the wind and the clanking of the actuators as they carried them both over the buildings. Instead of taking them back to the house, the actuators crawled along the wall of an apartment building, opened the window, and pulled them both in, laying Otto on the floor.

As soon as the actuator let her go, she was kneeling at his side, pulling his coat out of the way, trying to see where he'd been hit. The amount of blood that soaked places on the garment was alarming enough, and she was nearly frantic.

He coughed weakly, a wet sound, one hand trying to push hers away, but it was weak and dropped to his side after a moment. The actuator harness had, strangely, absorbed a lot of the shots, rather like a flak jacket, but blood soaked his shirt just under the edge of the harness. His head lolled to one side and he fell still, breath still laboured.

She undid the clasps of the harness, barely waiting for the connections to withdraw before pushing it off him and tearing open his shirt. The gun shot wound was bleeding freely, frothy pink blood from the lungs and it bubbled with each breath. She pressed her hand on it, putting pressure, but she could feel the air in his chest cavity under her fingers. She couldn't help him. Not here, not with no supplies at all. Not even back at the house. Her mind raced. Lung shot. Twenty minutes, thirty, forty at the utmost to asphyxiation, if he didn't bleed out first. She looked around frantically for anything. The apartment was empty, but she could hear voices next door. She couldn't ease up the pressure, so she screamed towards the wall. "Someone, help me! Please!"

The voices stopped, and she shouted again before pounding footsteps went out to the hall and came around to the door. The handle rattled. "Please, he's dying!" she shouted, and the footsteps receded, then rushed forward again. The door smashed open with a crash to reveal a trio of guys who looked absolutely shocked to see Doc Ock lying on the floor. "Please," Clair pleaded. "I need you to call an ambulance. He's been shot through the lung, and he's going to die if we don't get help."

"Uhm, wouldn't that be a good thing?" one of them asked, pointing vaguely at the recumbent villain. The guy standing behind him nodded.

Octavius wheezed and coughed hard, blood flecking his already streaked face. "No..." he wheezed. "Not... ambulance..."

"Maybe we should go," the second guy muttered, backing up.

The third thwacked both of them. "Dude, where's your sense of karma?"

"What the hell you talking about? The first yelped. "He ain't got no sense of karma, does he? I say we just let him croak."

The third rolled his eyes and walked away, returning two seconds later with a phone. "Whatever, man," he huffed, dialing 911. He turned away and talked into the phone while his friends stared at the two on the floor.

Octavius grabbed for her hand, squeezing it hard. "Spj... no ... we'll be ... taken in... can't let you..."

She gripped his hand back with her spare one, not letting up with the other. "No choice. I'm not going to let you die. Not after all this. Not for me." She looked up at the one dialing. "Thank you."

Octavius' eyes rolled toward the young man with the phone and he found himself watching him. His grip on Clair's hand loosened as his eyes drooped almost shut. He couldn't breathe, couldn't even think. He simply wanted to sleep; maybe he'd feel better after a rest...

"No, no," she urged, gripping his hand tight enough to hurt. "Don't fall asleep. I need you to send the arms away. Concentrate, get them out of here. Up onto the roof, or something. So you can call them back when you're patched up, get us both out of there. Keep an escape route open." She was speaking quietly right by his ear, and she could feel the boys watching her. "We'll get out of this, I promise."

"Hnnnnhhhh..." he wheezed. After a moment, the arms stirred, wobbling onto their ends, causing two of the three young men to yelp and skitter backward. They clanked toward the window and crawled slowly out of it, and she could hear them making their way upward. Octavius twitched and his eyes rolled. He coughed some more, gasping loudly.

"The ambulance is on its way," the fellow with the phone said, stepping closer. "Be about five minutes."

"Thank you," she said again, fervently. She paused a moment and looked up. "Did you call the police too?"

"Nah," he said simply.

She nodded, smiling gratefully and turned back to Otto. "You still with me? Help will be here soon. You're going to be okay." Senseless, reassuring prattle meant as much for herself as for him.

He moaned incoherently and stirred. "Told you not to..." he mumbled wheezily.

"I don't have a choice," she insisted. "I'm not a thoracic surgeon. I can't fix this. I need to get you somewhere where they can. You're going to be fine, and then we'll escape again. You've come back from the dead, this is going to be easy."

"Ffffhh... ffinjrr... opt'mism... 'mmusing..." he spluttered, and coughed again. "can' breathe..."

"Just hold on," she said. She could hear sirens getting closer. Looking up at the man with the phone, she brushed her hair out of her face, leaving a bloody streak across her cheek. "Could you meet them downstairs, get them up here as fast as you can? Tell them it's a lung shot, left inferior lobe. About fifteen minutes ago."

He nodded and left, his two friends still standing in the doorway and staring. They watched him leave, then returned their gazes to Clair and Octavius, watching with the same kind of blank, slackjawed stare one usually sees on witnesses of a train wreck.

"Oh man, the rest of the guys are so not gonna believe this," one of them said, shaking his head. The other nodded.

She shot them a glance, but her attention was on Otto. A minute later, a bunch of paramedics pounded up the stairs into the apartment, bringing in a backboard. One of them took over Clair's post, almost pushing her out of the way. "What happened?" another asked her. "How'd he get shot?" She could see him looking around for a weapon.

"In the back," she answered vaguely, watching them work, rolling him on to the backboard and strapping him on.

A vague distressed sound escaped him as they did this, his hand not releasing Clair's. One of them pulled the goggles from his face, peeling open one eye despite his semi-verbal protestations, as another ripped open an IV needle and tube and a third pushed the tube to a breather bulb into his mouth.

Another looked at her, checking that she wasn't hurt, and noticed the broken handcuffs hanging from her wrist. She ignored him, holding on to Otto's hand as they inserted the IV into his wrist and taped it in. "What's his blood type?" another asked her.

"A positive," she supplied absently, and he nodded and connected a bag of fluid, holding it up. The one who'd noticed her handcuffs pulled out a radio and said something into it that she didn't catch.

"I'm a doctor," she said when they tried to pry her away from him. "Let me come with him."
"Hnngh...," Octavius coughed, his eyes screwed shut. The paramedic with the light tried a second time before giving up, unable to get a good fingerhold on his blood and sweat-soaked face. Octavius' grip on Clair tightened and he coughed, spitting up wiggly, bloody mucus

The paramedics sped up, working faster to insert a chest tube, to allow the air that had collected outside his lungs to escape. One pumping the breather bulb with one hand and holding up the IV bag with the other, the others picked up the back board like a stretcher and headed out of the apartment, maneuvering through the narrow hallway and down the stairs as carefully as they could. Clair stayed with them, not letting go of Otto's hand, her eyes on his face.

His eyes flickered open, gazing at her unfocusedly. He tried to speak, to no avail, the tube down his throat preventing any sound. His hand tightened around Clair's and his focus returned for a moment before his eyes rolled back and closed.

She looked up at the closet medic, who nodded. "He's better unconscious," she said, climbing up into the ambulance to help pull him in, setting the backboard directly on the gurney there and belting it on. The IV bag was hung on a hook from the ceiling.

The man with the radio took the driver's seat, still on his radio. "No, we can't wait for a police escort!" he snapped, starting the engine. "I don't care who he is, he's dying in my van!" Clair listened to him, anxious, as she took a seat on the bench next to Otto. "Meet us there. Yeah, she's with him. She's coming too, won't let go of his hand. Fine." With an irritated sigh, he snapped the radio shut and flicked on the siren, pulling out into traffic with a slight lurch.

"Who is he?" asked the female medic, looking at Otto. "What was that about a police escort?"

"We have the honour," grated the driver. "Of transporting one Otto Octavius, or Doctor Octopus, and one Ockette, Dr. Clair Holmes. The police will meet us at the hospital, they are very much under arrest. Keep her from doing anything stupid," he said, glancing up into the rear view mirror at Clair. She just hunched in her seat, clinging to Otto's hand as if it were a life line. For which one of them, she didn't know.

They arrived at the ER of Kurtzweil Memorial Hospital into the middle of a circus of media and police. The paramedics pushed their way through the cordon on either side of Otto's gurney, sweeping Clair along with them. She was not going to let go. And she didn't, even when they tried manually to pry their fingers apart. In the end, they gave her an apron, gloves, and a mask and worked around her, stitching and cutting and repairing the damage done. It wasn't just the one gun shot; there was another graze on his leg, the slash across his face, which was bloodier than it was deep, and broken ribs, which threatened his other lung, as well as a broken collar bone and dislocated shoulder. She stood by his legs, out of the way, both of her hands wrapped around his, ignoring the din in the room of doctors and out of the room of police and press, just watching his heart rate on the scanner, shallower than it should have been and jumpy. She ignored the nurse who shrieked when she realized who the patient was and ran from the room, only to be replaced by an older RN.

She was beginning to waver on her feet when the surgeon nodded decisively and stripped off his gloves. "That's it," he said confidently. "He'll pull through." He looked down at Clair. "Good job getting pressure on it right away. He's lost a lot of blood, but we've already begun replenishing that, and he's all stitched up and good to go. We'll move him into ICU for a while, but I'd call him stable and improving."

She smiled and would have answered, but the door opened behind her. The blast of noise and flashing camera bulbs was headed by Hanover who strode in with a triumphant grin on his face.

Clair glanced over her shoulder at him, then turned back to Otto, reaching out to brush his hair back from his face. "Don't look so pleased with yourself, Handover. We won't be here long."

"On the contrary," Hanover smirked. "As soon as he's stable enough to be moved, you'll both be transported to prison."

"Well, I suppose we ought to be grateful to you for waiting." she said acerbically.

"Believe me, I wouldn't have, but someone somewhere along the line made it illegal to 'endanger' anyone, even monsters like him."

Clair looked back at him again. "How fortunate for - " She paused, because over Hanover's shoulder, she spotted a familiar face. "Parker!"

For a reply, Parker simply raised the camera to his face and snapped a picture. Hanover turned and looked at him. "Well, well, the kid from the Bugle. You finally decided to show up."

"Wouldn't miss this for anything," Parker replied, still behind the camera. He looked bruised but otherwise all right from the beating he'd received at the prison.

"No, of course not," said Clair dryly, raising her eyebrows. "I have things I want to discuss with you, Parker. But I doubt you want to me to say them here, so they'll have to wait."

Orderlies came to move Otto into a private room in the ICU. Clair, of course, went with him. "Well, I hope you two enjoy the rest of your time together," Hanover observed casually as he followed after them. "Prison's not very good for relationships, so I've heard."

"I'm not very worried," she said, snagging a stool to sit by Otto's bedside. "Nothing involving Otto can be measured by any other standard or judged by any other precedent. And we're not going to prison, at any rate."

"Touching," Hanover sneered.

The doctor, who'd introduced himself as Dr. Tannin, looked up from his clipboard, where he was taking notes. "Agent Handover, was it?" he said politely, adjusting his glasses. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please. Post whatever guard you want outside the door, but not in here. You can stay," he said to Clair, eyeing their clasped hands. Clair smirked at Hanover.

Hanover scowled and turned, leaving, sparing the two another glance before stalking out.
Clair sighed and nodded a 'thank you' to the doctor. "When do you think he'll wake up?" she asked quietly. He checked his notes.

"Four hours or so. We won't move him out of the ICU until tomorrow, though."

She begged a book off of him before he left them in the windowless room. Whenever the door opened, she could see a barricade of SWAT team members, guns at the ready, waiting outside, the press crowding close behind them. She waved at Parker once, then turned to her book. Time passed slowly.

Dusk had filled the outside with gloomy, purplish light by the time Octavius moved, his eyes fluttering open and his hand twitching.

"Mnnnhhh... Nh?" he said, his eyes tracking toward her. "Clair..." he wheezed after a moment, his voice a barely audible hoarse rattle.

She set aside her book, squeezing his hand. "Hey. Welcome back."

"Where ... am I?" he rasped.

"The hospital," she supplied. "Kurtzweil. The doctor was just here, about half an hour ago, and he says you're doing well."

"I ..." he coughed again. "Don't think ... we're the only ones here ... are we?"

"No," she said reluctantly. "Hanover and half the city's law enforcement is out there, but the doctor wouldn't let them in here." She indicated the door.

He sighed, his eyes fluttering shut. "We're ... stuck here?"

"Not for long," she said. "Your arms aren't far, and the only thing below us is the parking garage. As soon as you recover enough to control them, we can get out."

"Mmm," he said. Experimentally, he tried to listen for them, but he was just far too tired. His eyes fluttered open again and he looked up at her, watching her.

"Don't worry about it," she said, looking up at the door again. "The doctors here are useful. They haven't let anyone, press or police, near us since we got here. Which reminds me. Parker was here."

"What'd he wan'?" Octavius slurred sleepily. The vague notion that Parker seeing him like this wasn't a good idea floated aimlessly through his mind, but he had the sneaking suspicion that blood loss and morphine were pretty much preventing much coherent thought.

"To gloat, I presume," she growled. "I didn't expose him, though it was tempting. But he knows I can, so I don't know what he's going to do."

"Take pictures mos' likely," he mumbled. "See it on th' fron'page tomorrow..."

"Hopefully, we'll be out of here by then." She would have said more, but the door opened then, briefly letting in the swell of noise and Dr. Tannin.

"Oh, good, you're awake," he said after shutting the door. He crossed the room to Otto's side, pulling a pen light out of his pocket. "Can you tell me your name and what day it is?"

Octavius stirred, the cuffs clinking softly against the bed railing. "Otto Octavius, January twenty-second," he mumbled, a wry look on his face. He eyed the penlight.

"Good." Tannin leaned forward with the light, meaning to check his pupil reactions, but Clair stopped him. "He's sensitive to light. Can we have it a little dimmer in here?"

"Sure," he said, adjusting the switch so the room was in half-light. "How do you feel, Octavius? You're on a pain-killer drip, but do we need to adjust the dosage?"

"'M fine," he mumbled, and coughed, a long series of wet sounds. His eyes remained closed after it stopped, and he breathed slowly and deliberately.

"You will be," corrected the doctor. "You came in with a collapsed lung, Dr. Octavius. We re-inflated it and it's doing fine now, but you need to be very careful for a while. Sudden exertion could cause a relapse. You do understand that you are under arrest?"

"Mmhm," he tried to make a dismissive motion, but his hand wouldn't move far enough.

"Don't try to move too much. You've a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder on your left side. We put two pins in the collarbone to hold it together." He looked at his clipboard again. "I'm planning on releasing you from the ICU tomorrow, but I won't sign for your transfer until your lung has recovered. Three days, four, if you take it easy."

Clair squeezed Otto's hand. She didn't intend them to still be here by then.

"Mm," he mumbled again, his eyes slipping shut.

Tannin looked at Clair. "Best to let him sleep if he needs it. I'll be back in an hour to check on him." He looked away. "Agent Hanover is still here, and I can't keep him out any longer without obstructing justice. He'll be in after I leave."

Clair sighed as the doctor left, weaving her fingers more securely into Otto's.

The door opened further, allowing in the noise and Hanover as Doctor Tannin left. Hanover stopped inside the room, looking at the two of them.

Clair stared back at him, her face closed. "Haven't you gloated enough yet, Hanover?"

Hanover smirked. "Your little lair has been searched, your research confiscated as well as the wetware control array," he finished, directing a nasty smile at Octavius. When the other didn't stir, Hanover frowned, and redirected his attention to Clair. "We found some graphs and readings of an abnormal brain in your records. Whose is it?"

She glared at him stonily. "You realize that you have just set my work back again. This is not a good way to ensure my cooperation, Handover." She turned back to Otto, shrugging. "And as for the brain, it's Spider-Man's."

"I see. Well, now that we have Octavius in custody, your co-operation is no longer needed," Hanover replied, smirking wider.

She watched Otto, not letting any of her thoughts show on her face. She hoped desperately that she hadn't shut the trap on Otto, but she'd had no choice. Her only idea going in, and she hadn't come up with any new ones, was for Otto to get them out of here when he'd recovered enough. But time was the issue. If they moved them to Rikers before then, they would be too far away.

Hanover leaned against the wall, arms folded. "So. Tell me about Spider-man's brain."

"Not even my Zombie Juice could repair what's wrong with that," she said absently. "A mind firmly in park, you might say." She rolled her eyes at herself.

"What was the abnormality?"

"He's got spiders on the brain. And in it."

He left the wall and came closer. "Explain."

"Didn't you see the scans?" she asked, rolling her eyes over to look at him. "He's of two minds, Hanover. A second brain, woven into parts of the human neurological system."

"Did you plan to do something with that?'

She shook her head aloofly. "Not at the moment. I have other experiments in progress. And he interfered by escaping anyway. I'll have to arrange to finish with him later."

"Not terribly likely," Hanover smirked. He looked down at Octavius and his smirk faded. "Pathetic. This is the man who took up so much of my time and energy?"

Clair sneered at him. "Don't forget that he could have killed you two months ago. And I told you already, don't get too smug."

"Oh? Why, what are you planning?"

She looked at him witheringly. "Do you honestly think I'd tell you that?"

"I don't know, don't you types usually gloat about your plans?"

"Only once they've succeeded."

"And you haven't assumed that already?"

"I'm smart enough not to count it a success when I'm sitting in a room surrounded by SWAT," she said calmly. "At least, not just yet."

"We'll see," Hanover replied.

"Well, you might not," she said, and the tone was clearly a threat.

"Are you threatening me, Doctor Holmes?" Hanover asked very quietly.

"Only a little," she said, looking back at her hands and Otto's. Waiting for him to wake up, she'd been allowed to clean him up, but blood still outlined both their nails.

"We can simply add that to your list of offences," he replied, heading for the door. "I will see the both of you in prison, mark my words, Doctor Holmes."

"Only so I can make you eat them," she said pleasantly.

He scowled at that and the door let in more noise before shutting again behind him, leaving the room in relative quiet.

She took a deep, sighing breath and closed her eyes, leaning back against the wall again. That man was almost as aggravating as the bug, but it was so much fun to taunt him.

She opened her eyes and looked back at Otto. He was pale against the pillow, his hair jet by contrast. She ran her fingers through it, teasing out a knot. He was hurt because of her. She reflected on all the times she'd seen him injured. The gunshot wound from Hanover in Seattle. Any number of battles against Spider-Man. But she'd never seen him hurt this badly. And it was because he had had to rescue her from her own idiocy.

"You should have left me," she murmured to the silent room.

"I couldn't do that," he mumbled softly after a moment, his eyes still closed.

She bent over his hand. "I'm a distraction to you. A danger. Leverage." Her voice shook. "Every time I step out the door, I'm going to be a way for someone like Hanover to target you, and I'm too weak to do anything about that. It was just the two of them, and I couldn't get away."

"You're integral," he mumbled. "And you're mine."

She held his hand up against her face, bending to accomodate the limits of the cuffs and careful of the IV in his wrist. "But that's the problem. They know that now. They know that you'll go to these lengths to get me back, and they'll use that. Hanover knew that you would come for me. And look where that got you. A little farther to the right, and the bullet would have gotten your spine as well as your lung."

"S'a risk I take," he mumbled, forcing his eyes open. The lids got about halfway and he stared glassily up at her. "My choice, in the end."

"It's too big a risk," she insisted. "What if they'd been more ready for you? We have an escape route this time, but what about next time?"

He sighed, pushing his eyes open further. "Every instance is an independent event," he said slowly, as though trying to keep his thoughts focused. "And I always have a plan."

"I know," she said, smiling a little. "And I know you'll get us out of here. But right now, just concentrate on getting better, okay?"

"Don't presume to think..." he managed slowly. "That I didn't know ... what ... this entailed ... for the both of us."

Her brow furrowed. "I know you did. I was just worried about you. I am."

"Don't ... tell me ... to leave you ... again," he said, looking up at her, eyes a little more focused.

"I won't let you risk your life for me again," she insisted. "If I can't take care of myself, then I'm not strong enough to be with you."

His hand tightened around hers, his grip still surprisingly strong. "No-one lets me do anything. If I decide it's worth the risk, then it's worth the risk." His brows met.

"I can't stand this," she said through gritted teeth. "I don't want to be a risk to you."

"You've said this already!" His hands pulled at the restraints, creating a clanking noise, as he tried to sit up, failing. "How many times do I have to tell you that whether or not you are a risk is not your decision! You've been making far too many of these decisions lately! Taking far too much control!" He paused, wheezing, and staring hard at her. "You will--" he broke off, coughing. "I won't ... allow--" the coughing intensified and he flopped backward, red-faced and wheezing hideously.

"You won't allow what?" she asked, stung.

He struggled to catch his breath, wincing with pain. "I will not ... allow ... you ... to ... decide ... my course of action, my ... assesment of ... risk ... No-one ... makes those ... decisions for me--" he broke off again, coughing loudly, spitting up more reddish, wobbly gobbets. "Agh... don't argue with me..." he grated, face twisted in pain again.

"Calm down before you hurt yourself worse," she urged him. "I'm not making any decisions for you now."

"There .. you ... telling me what ... to do ... always..." he wheezed, eyes glassy and fevered. "No-one--" more coughing. "tells..." The racing heart monitor caught her eye.

"Otto, please," she pleaded as the line on the moniter spiked worryingly high. "Please calm down, or you're going to kill yourself!" Her voice cracked, an inch away from crying.

His eyelids drooped and he fell silent, still wheezng loudly and occasionally coughing--strings of wet sounds somewhat lessened in intensity but still worrying. He stared at her.

"Please," she continued, softer. Her eyes were wet. "Please be more careful. I can't..." Her shoulders shook and her voice broke again. "I can't lose you."

The coughing died down to an occasional, unconscious thing every frew breaths. "I can't... lose you, either, he wheezed. "That is why I do what I do. What I did."

She didn't argue anymore, merely rested her free hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with his breath. "You can't lose me," she murmured. "I'm yours."

He closed his eyes. "And you won't lose me... I won't ... allow it..."

Only the low hour-chime alerted Clair to the fact that it was morning, jerking her out of a light doze. She hadn't been willing to sleep, for fear that they would separate them, but she'd definitely slipped below the level of consciousness at some point. She twitched, startled, and her book slid off her lap onto the floor. She ignored it, looking first to Otto.

He lay sleeping quietly, his head tilted to the side, still save for the slow up and down motion of his chest. The line on the heart monitor, while maybe not as steady as she would have liked, was at least steady enough, unhurried. In the grey sunlight from the window, he looked pale and bruised.

She smiled, rubbing the stiffness out of her face, and reached out to brush his hair back from his face, pulling a few strands out from under the bandage covering the gash above his eye. Sighing, he woke slowly, blinking up at her and looking for a moment as though he didn't know where he was.

"Still in the hospital," she said lightly. "How do you feel today?"

"Dulled," he mumbled after a moment's consideration. "Probably better than the alternative..."

She nodded. "Can you feel them yet?" she asked as the door opened. The rumble was still out there, though quieter than yesterday. Dr. Tannin came in, looking as if he hadn't had much sleep either. "You have a visitor, Dr. Holmes," he said, circling to the other side of Otto's bed to examine him.

She looked up at him and blinked. "A visitor?"

"Mark Watson. He said he was your brother."

"Ah." She looked back at Otto. "I don't want to see him."

"Suit yourself," Dr. Tannin said, finishing what he was doing. "Well, Dr. Octavius, it looks like we can release you from ICU with no problems. We're looking for a room right now, but we'll be back to move you soon."

"Mmmm," was his vague reply, his eyes closed. He coughed, like he'd been doing on and off all night, a tired sound. His eyes slitted open.

"Oh, right," said the doctor. "She said you were sensitive to light, so I brought you these." He pulled a pair of black sunglasses out of his pocket, handing them to Clair. "I must say, Dr. Octavius, you've been a model patient. Agent Hanover, the man who was here earlier, was telling me horror stories about you."

Clair scowled at the agent's name, slipping the glasses on Otto's face.

"He would... self-aggrandising fool," Octavius mumbled. He paused, coughing, and continued. "'n b'sides... drugs take the edge off one..."

"Have you been coughing like that all night?" he asked, a moment of concern on his face.

A vague wry look. "Wouldn't know... been sleeping through it, haven't I?"

Tannin turned his eyes patiently to Clair, who nodded. "All night, and often."

He made a note on his clipboard. "Probably just an irritation in the larynx from the tracheal tube causing the coughing, but it's not good for the repairs done to your lung if we let it continue. I'll add a cough suppressant to your IV. You'll probably sleep some more with it."

He left the room to go and get the medication, leaving the door ajar.

An amused sound. "Hmf... I'll end up sleeping my life away," Octavius mumbled vaguely.

Clair bit her lip, worried. "We need your head clear, not more drugs." Before she could say anything more, the door edged open farther and her brother slipped in quietly. She stared at him. "What are you doing here?" she asked accusingly. He had had a hand in getting Otto shot, after all.

Mark held up his hands in truce. "I'm just here to make sure you're okay, Clair. They wouldn't give us any details." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the rest of the hospital, studiously ignoring Otto. "You are seriously under arrest. There are at least sixty cops out there, just waiting for you to try anything."

"I'm not the one who got hurt," she said, barely civil. "Please leave, Mark. I can't talk to you right now."

"Fine," he said shortly, drawing himself up to his full height. "But at least talk to Mom before they cart you off to rot in jail with him. She wants to know how you could choose a freak like that over your own family." And he ducked out of the room before she could answer him, leaving her pale with rage and shaking. Her hand tightened on Otto's as she forced herself to calm down. "Family just gets in the way," she murmured to herself.

"Mmm." His typical vague reply. His eyes opened. "I can hear them," he said softly.

She looked out the window, as though she could see them coming. "How long?" she asked quietly, glancing back at the door. In the corridor, she could hear three raised voices: Dr. Tannin, Mark, and another that she didn't recognize. They seemed to be arguing about separating Otto and Clair, and about medications.

"Only a few minutes," he whispered, eyes darting sightlessly under barely-open lids.

"I'll hold them off," she whispered back as Dr. Tannin came in, followed by a very large policeman. "Dr Octavius," said Tannin apologetically. "I've been ordered to put you under heavy sedation until you can be moved to a more secure facility. I'm sorry about this."

Clair stood up, standing between the men and Otto. "Can you give us a few more minutes?" she asked innocuously. "We were just talking."

The large cop grunted in amusement. "Say your goodbyes, then, Dr. Holmes. We're removing you to another location. You can see Ock again at the trial."

"Where are you taking me this time?" she asked, playing for time.

"Somewhere where he won't find you," said the cop. He looked as if he was enjoying her discomfiture. "Ever."

"He's pretty good at finding me," she pointed out.

"Not from a cell."

She eyed Doctor Tannin as he drew a dose of whatever sedative it was that he had, tapping the needle for air. "That's really not necessary; you said it yourself, he's been a model patient."

The big cop laughed. "And how long is that going to last? Hey, is he even awake?" He peered past Clair at Otto, looking for a reaction. "Hey, Doc Ock, we're taking your girlfriend away." He stepped forward, one hand closing around Clair's arm even as Dr. Tannin pushed past her with the syringe, injecting its contents into the IV feed. Clair yanked her arm from of the cop's unprepared grasp and ducked under Tannin's arm, pulling the IV feed out of the shunt in Otto's arm before the sedative could reach him. The solution dripped on the floor as the cop lunged forward and grabbed Clair by the arm again, dragging her back. She struggled, but he twisted her arm up expertly behind her back, and she froze as she felt the joint of her elbow stretch painfully. "What are you trying to pull?" he growled.

A smile crossed Octavius' features.

A beat later, something crashed through the window, thumping and clanking into the room. The actuators snaked their way in from the window, the harness suspended bizarrely above everyone. One tentacle lifted and slapped the cop with enough force to knock him backward while a second reached for the restraints, grasping them and easily breaking them.

Clair smiled widely in relief as the cop was knocked away from her. Dr. Tannin was backing slowly away from Otto and the arms, his eyes huge and his face dead pale. "I'd get down," Clair advised him, but he turned and bolted for the door instead.

The actuators ignored him. Carefully, they plucked the sensors from their owner's chest, and then pulled him up into a sitting position, the harness descending around him. Clumsily, he fumbled with the catches until they were all latched. The cop hauled himself up off the floor and one tentacle grasped his head slamming it against the wall with a sickening crack where he slid to the floor, motionless. Another one wound itself around Clair and they were both lifted into the air the moment the door burst open, a dozen SWAT team members running in, immediately opening fire on them as they made their way to the window.

"Let's go!" she screamed as bullets thunked into the walls and ceiling around them, pinging off the tentacles, which seemed to be everywhere.

They quickly pulled the two out through the window, scaling up the side of the building before heading across it. They headed south, picking their way over the suspiciously quiet buildings in the frigid morning air, the sun shining brightly off the actuators despite their battered appearance.

Clair relaxed slightly in the actuator's grip, just happy to be out of the hospital. Watching Otto. "You look like you're freezing," she observed. "Do you know anywhere we can go?"

"Mm," he said, shivering slightly. "I have an old base ... south of here," he said, and his voice caught, dissolving into coughing before he continued. "Maybe ... another... twenty blocks or so... we can stay there before moving on ... to another house."

"Sounds good," she said before reaching out and wrapping her arms around his chest, sharing what little heat she had and being careful of his ribs. "We can stay there until your lung is better." She sighed deeply. "I'm going to have to start my research over again from what I can remember."

"We'll find it," he coughed. "If it means we have to take it from Osborn or this wretched police force ourselves."

She started to say something about it being too dangerous, but stopped before the words reached the air. That seemed to be a sore subject, and she didn't want to set him off again. "When you're better," she said instead.

"Obviously," came the reply, and he lapse into silence save for the occasional fit of coughing until they reached another apartment building, slipping round the building and then opening a window, making their way in.

The apartment was sparsely furnished and cold, and the actuators lowered Octavius onto the couch while setting Clair on her feet nearby, then one snaked out to shut the window. Another found the thermostat on the wall, turning its dial a precise amount which may or may not have been enough.

Clair prowled around, finding a heavy shirt for him in the bedroom, stiff and a little musty but clean. She also snagged the blankets off the bed, bringing them back out into the living room, checking the thermostat and tweaking it a little bit higher. "How many of these places do you have around the city?" she asked, dumping the pile by his feet and handing him the shirt.

"Maybe a dozen..." he wheezed, fumbling at the catches of the harness with frozen fingers. Eventually it came free and clattered to the floor, leaving him breathing heavily for a moment. He attempted to pull the shirt on, but with one arm in a sling, it was a little difficult.

"You should go into real estate." She helped him with the shirt, not trying to thread the injured arm through a sleeve, and then she wrapped the blankets around them both. "Warm up, rest, and then we'll think about what to do next," she muttered, catching his hand in hers.

Too tired to rebuke her for once again having given orders, he lay back on the couch, his fingers still curled around hers. His skin was cold to the touch. "Hnn... shouldn't sleep," he mumbled.

"Should, actually," she suggested, making sure he was lying straight enough for his ribs. "You don't cough as much while you sleep."

"Should keep watch," he persisted, trying to stifle more coughing. "Might have been followed." His hand pulled at hers with little strength.

"I'll keep watch," she promised. "You need to sleep."

His eyelids fluttered in an attempt to keep them open. "Stay..." he managed, his voice little more than a stringy wheeze. "Never been... s'cold b'fore..."

She huddled closer to him in their nest of blankets, worried. He had always been the warm one in their duo. She had little heat to offer. She unwound herself from him for a moment to get out and turned the thermostat up to full, then got all the clothes from the sparse closet and piled them on top of the blankets for warmth-weight before sliding back in.

A halfhearted effort to slip his arm around her was the only reaction from him that she could feel. His breath had already slowed, and his eyes were closed.