This is shorter than usual, but I couldn't find a way to add more without ruining the next chapter. Sorry.

Enjoy.

Crawford was thrown into the starkly lit jail cell with the feel of two finger casts and a multitude of bandages weighing him down. His left leg, the one with the majority of bullet holes and grazes, collapsed underneath his weight and the sterile floor rushed up at him. He threw his hands out in front of his body in an attempt to stop himself before he hit the floor. He was just realizing the mistake of tying to catch himself with his broken fingers when his fall came to a jerking halt.

"Damn idiot," mumbled whoever was keeping Crawford from crashing face-first into the hard concrete. "I thought you wanted to keep us alive!" yelled the voice. Crawford could hear footsteps walking farther and farther away. "Hey! Get back here!"

"Murata…"

"Don't you say anything, Shouhei. You should have let me punch Shige's lights out. The damn bastard betrayed us."

"Shige isn't…"

The resulting tense silence ensued for a good minuet. During that time Crawford pulled away from Murata, who had kept him from adding more breaks than just his fingers by hitting the concrete. The room there were sequestered in was small, suffocatingly so. He only moved maybe a foot away from Murata before he was pressed up against the side of the wall. He pushed himself up against the bars of their cage, marveling at the fact that someone still used old medieval jail cells. He hissed as his tense muscles pulled at the various bullet wounds that riddled his body. None were life threatening, but Crawford was tempted to borrow a page from Schuldich's book and say they hurt like a son of a bitch.

"What? Shige isn't what? A traitor? A lying bastard that's working for the yellow bellied jerk that harassed Red for so long? He isn't what, Shouhei?"

Murata was furious. Deadly still, he stared down Shouhei with a venom that Crawford never remembered the man possessing. His dark shirt and darker pants were torn, ripped and slashed as if someone had gone after them with a knife. His back auburn hair was in complete disarray and his left shoe was missing.

"Trouble in paradise?" Crawford said nastily.

Shouhei turned glaring, pain-filled eyes down on him and Crawford felt a certain sense of satisfaction. It had been years since he'd seen either of them, but it was nice to know they hadn't had a good time of it. The last time he had seen Shouhei the man had had a gun pointed at Crawford's head.

"You shouldn't be one to talk, should you? You're down here in the damn jail cell with us," snapped Murata, switching the target of his anger from Shouhei to Crawford.

"Ah, yes, but I haven't been betrayed by my team, now have I?"

"Then why aren't they here rescuing you?" hissed Murata, disdain dripping from every word.

Crawford opened his mouth to spit his answer back at Murata, but never got that far. All his senses faded and he suddenly wasn't in the confining cell anymore. He only had a second to recognize his power consuming him before he fell into one of the clearest visions he had ever had.

They were standing in a big antechamber, one of the rooms Crawford remembered as leading up to the guest suits. All of them were there. The entirety of Weiss and the rest of Crawford's team, along with the deceptively diminutive form of Mari, whom Crawford remembered fondly as the secretary and mother hen of the Consort and her second.

The eight were talking quietly, too quietly for Crawford to hear, even though volume shouldn't have mattered during a vision. After a few minuets Mari turned and led Nagi, Farfarello, Siberian, and Bombay up the stairs toward the guest rooms. Schuldich and the two other Weiss members stayed behind.

Schuldich and Balinese were standing unnaturally close together and Schuldich seemed more relaxed than he should be surrounded by two members of Weiss. It puzzled Crawford, making him feel a sense of anger and loss that he didn't understand. He tried to reach out to Schuldich, only to find that the constant link he kept with the telepath was gone. For a second he was worried, an emotion that Crawford was both unused to and annoyed at feeling, but then he realized the significance of Schuldich staying close to Balinese. It seemed Schuldich had found a substitute anchor to keep him sane. Crawford shoved any emotion he felt about that as far away from his conscious mind as he could.

"Why do we have to stay down here?" complained Schuldich in his best disgruntled child voice. It grated on Crawford's nerves and he would have preferred this vision stay on mute if he had to listen to Schuldich whine instead.

"Because Aya needs to meet up with someone," replied Balinese. "You can go join the others if you're just gonna stand there and whine."

Schuldich mumbled under his breath in German but declined to reply.

At that moment the far door burst open and a man who could only be described as beautiful walked in. He had flowing brown hair that would have probably touched his hips if it hadn't been pulled back into a high pony tail. Two long bangs framed a face with high smooth skin and slanted eyes that gave his Anglo-Saxon features the look of an Asian woman. His tall, muscled form filled out his grey slacks and unbuttoned dress shirt effortlessly. He looked elegant and feminine, but not as delicate as Crawford remembered him. Then again, Crawford had never taken much interest in Phelan.

"Red! It's so good to see you again," said Phelan, a huge grin eating up the bottom half of his face. Abyssinian's lack of reply didn't seem to bother the man at all as he switched his attention over to the other two people in the room. "Hello, I'm just here to pick up Red and then we'll be getting out of your hair."

Abyssinian's hands were limp and trembling, his eyes unfocused.

"Red?" questioned Balinese.

"That's what that spitfire Mari called him, remember?" Schuldich said to Balinese.

"You're calling her a spitfire?"

"Of course. Didn't you see her? That lady can move."

"I don't think I'm talking to you anymore," said Balinese, frowning. He turned back to Abyssinian. "You okay, Aya?"

"Fine," the pale man said faintly.

"It's all good," interrupted Phelan. "Why don't you two head to your rooms while I take Red where he needs to go?"

"Well…I…" started Balinese.

"C'mon, Yohji. He's met the man he needed to wait for, right? Let's go." Schuldich turned and stared walking toward the stairs.

"Aya?" said Balinese uncertainly.

"It's fine," replied Abyssinian. The breathy quality of his voice made Crawford uneasy. It seemed to do the same thing to Balinese as he hesitated. "I'm fine. Go," he said, his voice sounding angry. Crawford thought he heard fear and desperation underneath that anger, but whether it was there or not, Balinese obviously didn't hear it. After a second of staring at Abyssinian he turned and followed Schuldich up the stairs.

"I'm surprised you didn't ask them for help like you did Shige the last time," said Phelan once the room was empty of listening ears. He had lost his jovial attitude and instead of the open and friendly façade he had worn earlier he suddenly looked cold and angry. His eyes glittered in mean satisfaction.

"Leave them alone," said Aya, his voice showing his fear just as clearly as his frozen body.

"You've grown some backbone, have you?" growled Phelan. "We'll have to fix that."

Abyssinian sucked in an audible breath.

"I have no interest in your friends," said Phelan, springing forward to clamp iron fingers around Abyssinian's limp wrist. "I only want you."

"CRAWFORD!"

Crawford blinked, once again looking at the inside of the small cell. His mind was still half enthralled in the vision, intent on finding out what was happening to Abyssinian. And it was happening not something that would happen. That his power would show him something that was happening at that moment and not in the future was rare, but it had happened before. Crawford had always hated it, and therefore never told anyone of the talent. He didn't like being forced to watch something he had no chance of changing.

"Crawford? Did you have a vision, or are you just spacing out on us?" Shouhei was kneeling in front of Crawford.

"What would you care?" mumbled Crawford in a moment of weakness, not paying attention to his words. "The last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me."

"That was the order Phelan gave me. You were suspected of leaking information about the Consortium."

"Phelan?" said Crawford, once again remembering the vision he had just had. "Why would you follow Phelan's orders?"

"He became the Consul when the former Consul was killed."

"Killed? He was killed?"

"Yes," Shouhei said, suddenly sounding apologetic. "You were suspected of leaking the information that killed him, that's why I was given the order to hunt you down."

"Then why aren't I dead?" asked Crawford, knowing full well that anyone who harmed the Consortium was dead, no exceptions. By all rights, if an order for his death had been placed, he should be six feet under right now.

"Sora stepped in. She said there wasn't any evidence of your involvement and got the hunt called off. You disappeared after that."

"I joined Esset."

"There was that rumor."

Crawford sighed and pulled his mind out of the past. What happened back then was irrelevant to what was happening now, but it relieved him to know that his old friend hadn't tried to kill him just for the fun of it. Crawford suddenly realized he had slumped further down the wall and pushed himself back upright. His body was stiff. He must have been in that vision for a long time.

"Why is Phelan interested in Fujimiya?" Crawford asked the question that had been bothering him since he'd watched the scene in the antechamber.

Crawford saw Murata stiffen out of the corner of his eye, and Shouhei was instantly more alert than he had been a second ago.

"Is that what you saw?" asked Shige, tension straining his voice. Crawford looked through the bars to see the man standing on the other side. Murata's lack of reaction to the traitor told Crawford how important the question was.

"Phelan is…escorting Fujimiya," said Crawford, at a loss of how to explain the emotions and connotations that had swirled under the surface in his vision.

Shige burst out swearing.

I've realized ending it like that makes me very evil, but I couldn't help myself. Please review and return.

5:12 PM

04/08/07