ZEDD

I jerk awake, heart pounding and nearly panicked. The only light comes from the screen in the far corner of the room, but it is enough. I turn to look at Thomas, only to find he's not next to me. Trying to reign myself in, I get off the bed and check the bathroom. Finding it empty, I quickly head for the door, calling for him as I do. "Thomas!"

Once in the hall, I call again as I head for his room. Panic and unexplainable fear taking hold of me the longer I go without finding him. He'll be in his room, he has to be in his room. That hope is dashed to hell however, as the door is wide open and the room is dark. My fear ratchets up another notch. "Thomas!"

I head for the stairs, undecided whether to go up or down, when the door to Pina's room opens and she and Dar emerge. "Zedd? What's going on?"

"Can't find Thomas and I don't know where to look." I can hear myself babbling but I can't seem to stop it. "Why the hell did he leave?! I just dozed off for a second and he was gone! What if he's hurt? Or what if he ran off? We have to find him before he gets hurt! I don't know if he's back up in the turret or in the kitchen or down in the-"

My words are abruptly cut off as my head rocks back. I blink at Dar, who is scowling at me as his hand drops to his side from the slap he just delivered. "Pull yourself together and focus, Zedd! This isn't you, now calm down. Odds are, wherever he is, his panic is taking over and you letting it get to you isn't going to help us find him."

I take a deep breath. I turn my attention to my bond with Thomas only to find that Dar's right. Thomas still has his barriers up, but his terror and panic are so high, it's leaking around the edges - so to speak. Before I turn to follow the link, I look at Dar calmly and say, "Slap me like that again and you'll draw back a stump."

"Whatever." I head for the stairs, grateful that they decide to follow me. The lower we get in the castle, the more my heart sinks. Oh god, Thomas, what have you done to yourself this time?

Finally, we reach the floor that his cell is on. As I turn the corner, I hear a faint whimper immediately followed by a shushing sound. In a moment, I'm at the door of his cell peering in between the bars. He's curled into a ball and rocking. I can see his lips moving, but there is an odd metal on stone scraping that I can't place and is making it impossible for me to hear what he's saying. "Thomas!"

He doesn't seem to hear me as he doesn't even raise his head to look at the door. Attempting to open said door only to find it locked just adds to my - or his - panic and I barely register Dar's words. "Move, Zedd, so I can unlock the damn door!"

I move just enough to be out of his way, not taking my eyes off the former Ranger. Once the door is open all three of us enter the cell and I'm on him in a flash. I kneel down next to him, trying to hear what he's saying as again he doesn't even seem to register my presence. My heart breaks at what he says.

"Can't go to sleep. It might come back. Won't hurt them anymore. Can't do to Zedd what Big John does to me." He whimpers in fear, then immediately shushes himself. "Be quiet. Don't want Big John to come in here. Maybe tonight he'll forget I'm here."

Oh hells. He thinks sleeping triggered the darker side of his evil and locking himself up like this has triggered flashbacks from that hellhole on Earth. I knew I should have made him talk about this instead of caving to him again. "Thomas, pet, it's Zedd. I'm here. Thomas can you hear me? I'm right here. Everything's okay."

I'm still not entirely sure he knows I'm here at first. "Can't sleep. Have to stay awake." He raises his head, terror filled eyes meeting mine. "Don't let it get me again, Zedd. Not the evil and not Big John. Please, I'll do whatever you want, just please Zedd." Right now all I want is to know that he's still sane.

"Easy, Thomas. I won't let it get you, but we need to get out of here. Do you understand?"

He presses back into the corner all the tighter. "Can't leave. Might hurt you if I'm free. Won't do it again. Can't touch you ever again. I'm just like him." Well now that's a bit of a slap to the face. I think once I get him out of here and settled we should discuss just how long 'ever again' really is and why that would not work for me. For now however…

"Who, Thomas?"

"I'm just like Big John."

Stunned at the comparison, I can't speak for a minute. Thomas goes back to talking to himself. I'm about to seek some advice from the other two in the room when I hear Dar hiss at Pina. "I don't know where that key is!"

Briefly, I turn my attention to my other companions. "Key for what?"

Pina points. "He's chained himself to the wall, Zedd."

Suddenly, I realize that the scraping sound I've been hearing is the chains dragging along the stone floor and wall as he rocks. Heartsick and angry, I summon my staff and with one well-placed shot, the chain shatters where it's fastened to the wall. "We'll get the rest off him later. Right now, we've got to get him out of here."

I scoop him up in my arms and swiftly head out the door. His panic explodes the barrier he has on our bond and I can feel just how deeply this has affected him as he squirms to be released. "No! I have to stay there! I don't want to hurt anyone again!"

I'm struggling to retain control over my own emotions as I sit down on the floor in the hallway, wanting to get him back upstairs, but knowing I'd probably drop him with how he's fighting against me right now. Taking a deep breath, I send calming feelings to him through our bond. "Shh you have to calm down, Thomas. It's all right, everything is all right." Suddenly, I notice that the bruises that Dar gave him are much worse than they were before. What the hell happened in there? I know he didn't have any injuries that deep on his forehead and neck before I fell asleep. "Easy, Thomas. We won't let you hurt us. We won't let you go back to that and we won't let the evil get you again."

I stroke his hair in a calming manner and continue to soothe him despite his best efforts to break free of me. Dar clears his throat and gives me a pointed look. For a moment I'm confused but then I understand. As I keep talking to Thomas, I switch over to Eltarian and mentally cross my fingers that it will have the same calming effect it had before.

It takes several minutes before he stops fighting me and several more after that before he settles down. Suddenly, he laughs shakily. "Wow. I really lost it there, didn't I?"

"That would be an understatement. Are you back with us now?" He's still trembling severely as I try and stand. Holding him as I am makes it impossible, however.

"I think so." Voice exhausted, he thankfully sags against me his head finally lying against my shoulder rather than trying to bite or punch it now.

"Whatever were you thinking, Thomas? Why did you do that?"

"If I go to sleep, it might come back," he answers softly.

"Why do you think it'll come back after you sleep?"

He shakes harder as he answers. "When you scanned me, I was just your minion. It wasn't until after I slept that I tried to take over and started thinking about hurting you." You must be joking. Realizing just how confused he is over the entire matter I again kick myself for not having talked to him about this before I went to bed.

"That's not what did it, Thomas." I find my face reddening with what I'm about to say, in spite of the fact that I'm not normally shy about this sort of thing. "The whole thing was caused by a spell Rita put on you when you were a teenager. I accidentally triggered it when I scanned you. The spell was linked to your hormones. When we mated and you kept denying yourself any release, it raised your hormones, which in turn made the evil worse."

He falls silent as he considers this. Before he can speak again, I ask, "What happened to your bruises, Thomas? Why are they so much worse?"

He lifts his hand to his face, chains rattling as he does. "I was trying to stay awake. The pain helped for a little while." By the power I'm not going to be able to sleep or leave him alone unsupervised for a moment.

I sigh, deciding a lecture can wait for now as really I just want to get him back upstairs where I can tend to him properly. "We'll talk about that later, right now we need to get these chains off of you and then get you cleaned up. Dar, can you?"

Dar rolls his eyes. "Bring him upstairs and I'll see what I can do."

I hand my staff to Pina and shift Thomas in my arms, unwilling to let him go. Carefully I use the wall for balance as I stand, still holding him. "I can walk, Zedd."

"I'm sure you can. Now hold still and let me do this." Dar has already gone and Pina is right behind me as we go. "If you had woke me up and told me your concerns, I could have told you that this was unnecessary."

"I did - kind of." At my look he continues softly. "I told you that I wasn't going to let you fall asleep beside me, Zedd. I said that I wasn't going to risk your safety."

"Even if you sleeping was somehow a risk to my safety, which it is not, we could have found another way rather than risking your sanity, Thomas."

I can hear the irritation in his voice as he answers me. "I didn't think there was another way."

"Which doesn't mean that one of us wouldn't have thought of one," Pina says quietly. "We'd still have tried to help you, Tommy. We know that it was the spell's influence that was-"

Thomas interrupts her, his voice surprisingly harsh. "Don't start. Quit being nice to me after what I did to you!"

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as she snaps back. "I'll quit being nice when you quit being a martyr!"

Silence falls for a minute before Thomas says wryly, "Then I guess we're both in trouble, huh?"

Making it back upstairs I set him down at the table in my room where Dar joins us. Finally able to see Thomas clearly now that we're out of the dungeon, I'm not surprised by Dar's assessment of his condition. "Wow, you are a mess." Turning his attention to me, I scowl as a sudden smirk appears on his face. "You're not much better." Considering how he fought against me, I wouldn't be overly surprised if I'm as much of a mess, if not more so, than as he is right now.

"I'll draw him a bath and check his injuries after you get the chains off." Not worried about how filthy he got while wallowing in terror in the dungeon, my focus is still on his bruises and the shackles. I wait impatiently for Dar to get to work as he unrolls a length of fabric on the table.

"Do this, do that. You know this is almost as bad as the time Rita lost the key to the cuffs she used to restrain you to the bed." Well now, my humiliation for the night is complete. Giving me an odd look at Goldar's grumblings, Thomas thankfully is quickly distracted by what's been laid out before him.

Thomas looks at the contents curiously though stays still and doesn't mess with any of the tools now on display. "What's all that?"

"Lock picks," Dar answers shortly. "I have no idea where that key went so I'll have to do this the old fashioned way." We all settle in while Dar gets to work.