Author's note: Hey! Thanks to my reviewers:

Boxer Thief: hope this was fast enough for you.

Rabid: (Waves)

In which the plot thickens, and we hear an angsty story full of angst from Bridge's angst-filled angsty past full of angst. Did I mention there's angst?

Joanne was suddenly there: Sky would have sworn she was nowhere in sight a moment before, but she was on her knees beside Bridge before any of them had reacted.

Sky snatched at his communicator, paging Kat and watching as Jack hauled Joanne out of the way to let Z and Syd at Bridge. Joanne was yelling, fighting desperately to get to Bridge, and after a moment Z duplicated herself to help Jack hold her back.

"We're on the way." Kat told him, and he snapped the communicator closed and joined Jack, letting Z recall her duplicates.

"You don't understand." Joanne had stopped fighting and was standing passively in Jack's grip. "I knew you wouldn't."

"You knew this would happen?" Jack demanded.

"I tried to warn him." she protested. "No one could stop this but only Bridge, and he wouldn't hear me."

"You knew and you didn't warn us?"

Sky glanced away momentarily as the SPD ambulance arrived. Z and Syd rose to help the techs, and he turned his attention back to Jack and Joanne.

"I didn't know when. And Bridge wouldn't hear me. I tried to see him, you know I did."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Jack demanded. Z and Syd came to flank him as the techs loaded Bridge into the ambulance.

"Right." Joanne agreed bitterly. "Because you'd really have believed I was innocent if I'd warned you Bridge was about to be attacked."

"Nobody attacked him." Syd pointed out. "This is just from the concussion earlier."

"No one attacked his body, no. Bridge is being attacked psychically."

"No." Sky said firmly. "Gruumm's aliens can't lock onto human brainwaves. Kat checked it out."

"It isn't one of Gruumm's, it's one of Broodwing's." Joanne murmured.

"Sir!" The driver leaned out to yell at them. "We have to go!"

"Coming." Jack shoved Joanne at Sky. "We'll deal with you later."

"Aye." she muttered. "Sir."

When they reached headquarters Sky turned her over to C Squad with orders to take her somewhere out of the way and keep her there. The others had already reached the infirmary when he caught up with them, gathered in a nervous clump watching Cruger and Kat confer over the bed. Bridge looked odd, too small and too pale.

Kat glanced distractedly at them as he slipped into place at Jack's shoulder. "His mind's been completely overwhelmed." she told them.

"So he's being attacked psychically." Sky said slowly.

"Yes. Whoever—whatever—is doing this is sending huge amounts of information directly to Bridge's mind. He can't cope with the volume and his brain's shut down to protect itself."

"She knew." Jack said angrily. "She must have had something to do with it. She said it to Z and me."

"She can't have done it." Z reminded him. "She wasn't anywhere near Bridge. Not for weeks."

"Cadets!" Cruger said sharply. "To whom are you referring?"

They exchanged quick glances before Jack stepped forward. "There's a woman who's been trying to see Bridge for the past few weeks, sir. He doesn't want to see her and we've been running interference for him. Earlier today she claimed she knew something was going to happen to him."

"Who is this woman, and where is she now?" Kat asked.

"C Squad have her." Sky told her. "Her name's Joanne, and she used to work for Bridge's parents."

"And you believe she is involved in this?" Cruger glanced at Kat as he spoke.

"Yes sir I do." Jack said quickly, pre-empting Z. "She all but admitted it to Sky and me."

"Is that true, Cadet Tate?"

Sky thought quickly. "She told us she knew something would happen, but not when, and that one of Broodwing's contacts is responsible. But she also claims to be innocent. She made several attempts to see Bridge, but none of them succeeded until after he'd already collapsed."

"Except the first one." Jack added.

"They spoke for twenty seconds, Jack, and Bridge spent most of that time walking away from her." Z reminded him.

"And if she'd done something then, why keep trying?" Sky added.

"So you think she is innocent?" Cruger asked.

"No, sir." Z said reluctantly. "I don't think she caused this, but she knows something and she's not talking."

"Very well. Kat?"

Kat glanced up from her scanner. "Bridge is stable for now, and there's nothing we can do until I analyze the scans. I'll go and talk to her."

"You know who she is." Sky said suddenly, looking from Cruger to Kat and back again. "You know what's happening."

"That is none of your concern, Cadet." Cruger said in his 'command' tone.

"Did she do it, sir?" Jack demanded, murder clear in his expression.

"I do not believe so. But that is why Kat is going to talk with her."

Kat took that as her cue, triggering the PA to say "C Squad, report your position please." After a moment they called in and she left. Cruger followed her, pausing the doorway to say quietly, "B Squad, you are excused from all training exercises for the immediate future."

"Thank you, sir." Jack said quietly.

Syd looked up from her death-grip on Bridge's hand. "Where are they going?" she asked disinterestedly.

Z exchanged glances with Jack before saying gently, "Come on. Let's go get something to eat."

Syd shook her head. "But…Bridge."

"He's Ok for now. Come on, you need to eat."

"Go on, Syd." Jack added, making it almost a command. "We'll call you, anything changes, Ok? I promise."

"Ok." she agreed reluctantly.

"We'll bring you back something." Z said quietly, steering Syd out of the room.

Sky settled himself into a chair beside the bed. Jack wandered over to lean against the wall, giving him as much space as he could without leaving the room.

"Anything like this ever happen before?" he asked after a while.

Sky didn't react for a moment. When he did speak, his voice was oddly flat. "A while before you came, we had a D level cadet who liked to pull practical jokes. Her squad had already disowned her, the crew was ready to riot, and she decided to try one more. So she snuck into Bridge's room one night and stole his gloves."

"Surely he had more than one pair." Jack protested.

"He'd ripped the others in training. Everyone in the rec room heard him complain about it."

"Ok." Jack said slowly. "So this D level made off with Bridge's gloves."

"Bridge freaked." Sky was still speaking in a monotone, as though he was totally unconnected. "He wouldn't leave his room, didn't even get out of bed. Syd kept him company while I went after D squad, but they'd left for a training exercise. So I went to Kat instead." Catching the look on Jack's face he added defensively, "I had to. Bridge wasn't eating, he wouldn't even talk to us."

"I'd have gone to her first thing." Jack agreed. "What'd she do?"

"Brought him about ten pairs of those plastic gloves from the labs. And then told Cruger."

"Cruger was really angry." Syd said, stirring her soup listlessly. "He said it was the worst kind of bullying, and that he wasn't having it in SPD. He recalled D Squad to 'deal with an emergency.' When they get back he called everyone together and told them something terrible had happened on-base, that a cadet had been subjected to an attack that left him too ill to perform his duties or even leave his room." She gestured vaguely: Z pushed her soup back in front of her again. "He said it was unacceptable, especially coming from a fellow cadet. And then he asked D Squad to step forward."

Z waited patiently for her to continue, but Syd seemed to have forgotten they were talking, staring moodily at her bowl. "So what happened?" she prompted her finally.

"What? Oh…she wouldn't confess. Everyone knew she'd done it, including her own team, but she didn't confess, so Cruger flunked her out of the Academy in front of everyone."

"Way to go Cruger." Z said, impressed. "And…that's the only time?"

Syd shrugged, pushing her plate away. "Yeah. He gets headaches, sometimes. But that's it."

"He'll be Ok." Z said quietly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Syd shuddered, burying her head in her hands without answering.