Jessica could tell Eight was expecting a repetition of what had happened when they first brought Angelo back to the ship, or of his attack on her, but from the moment Angelo had spoken her name - the moment she realized she hadn't heard her name on his lips since he'd been rescued - she had known Eight's fears were unfounded. Her certainty was borne out when the shackles with their weights and chains were removed one by one, and Angelo merely sank heavily against her, as if the last of his strength had fled.

She held him tightly until his shaking eased, her cheek resting against his hair. It was dull and tangled; she combed her fingers through it regardless, then said, "Everything's going to be all right, now."

He shook his head, pulling back enough to look at her, eyes red and expression raw.

"Jess," he whispered, reaching out and, this time, not flinching back, his fingers skimming lightly over her throat as if he expected to find some evidence of what he'd done. "I'm sorry. I didn't…I couldn't…I didn't plan it. I wasn't trying to trick you."

His hands were bruised, his wrists chafed bloody, so that Jessica only dared the lightest touch against his fingers. "It's all right."

"You were just there," he blurted. "And I realized I might never get another chance to return to my Lord…"

He broke off, pulled away from her completely, and this time it was Eight who caught him, his hands tight on Angelo's shoulders. "You did what he made you think you had to do," Eight said. "It wasn't your choice."

"And can you trust anything is my choice now?"

"If we didn't, you wouldn't be free."

Jessica moved close enough to gently capture his hands. "You were different under his control. You wouldn't even call us by name."

"Of course not. You aren't…"

"What?"

Angelo closed his eyes and sagged back against Eight. "Worthy. Of names, of any kind of recognition." He bowed his head, tangled hair obscuring his expression. "How could I...how can I think any of that? How could I believe it?"

He sounded so wretched and exhausted that Jessica ached for him. "Come on," she said. "I don't think you need to spend any longer down here."

"No. I think…I think we'd all feel better if I remained under guard."

Jessica looked up at Eight, silently entreating him for help. He nodded a little and said, "One of us can stay with you, if you like; it's probably a good idea, just in case Rhapthorne can tell that his magic failed." He shifted his grip and began pulling Angelo to his feet. "But not down here."

Angelo didn't protest being escorted from the store room, though part of him wanted to refuse, to demand the shackles be replaced. It would be wiser, he knew, with the ghosts of alien thoughts still flitting around the edges of his mind, but the lure of fresh air and companionship - the lure of being himself again - won out.

Once he was up and moving, free of the chains, he realized just how much his body ached from dragging them around all those…days? Weeks? He wasn't certain; the time he'd spent under Rhapthorne's control was already going hazy and dreamlike.

With the horrific exception of what he most wanted to forget.

He rested a hand in the center of Jessica's back, unable to resist the need to simply feel her breathe. She looked up at him; he found he couldn't meet her eyes. He felt her inhale, heard the catch of her voice as she cut herself off almost before she began to speak, then to his surprise she shifted closer, wrapping an arm around his waist.

Movement to his left as Eight stepped closer, the obvious reminder that he was still under guard sending a stab of resentment through him. Then Eight's hand settled on his shoulder, not the touch of a jailer, but of a friend, and he was ashamed of his suspicions.

"I sent Yangus ahead to fill the bath," Eight said, his voice strained and awkward. "I thought it might…help."

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry. I did…"

"You did what you had to. I know that," Angelo said; bracketed between the two of them, he almost believed his own words.

Angelo's fingers rubbed at his right wrist, as if it ached. "Should I ask Eight to make sure you're completely healed?"

He started, as if he'd forgotten she was there, looked at her, and then back down at his hands. "No. It doesn't really hurt." He was silent a moment. "Breaking Rhapthorne's control has just…brought back some things I'd rather have left forgotten."

Another silence, this one long enough that Jessica was wondering if she should break it by the time Angelo murmured, "I was almost twelve, finally old enough to be considered for training as a Templar. Of course, I'd been hounding everyone who wasn't afraid of Marcello for months, trying to learn enough swordwork to impress the captain, and I was…well, not good, but I wasn't going to embarrass myself.

"Two days before my birthday, Marcello caught me practicing. He goaded me into attacking him, and he had me disarmed the moment our blades met." Angelo fell silent again, and Jessica saw that his left hand had tightened around his wrist. "I was half his size, but I still took a swing at him. He caught my hand and snapped my wrist as easily as he'd taken my sword. Said it was proof I'd never be fit to serve as a Templar."

"Didn't anyone do anything?" Jessica asked, aghast.

"I didn't tell anyone. I hid the injury, terrified that if I went to the healers, the captain would find out about it." He looked up with a bitter smile. "Seemed a brilliant plan, until I realized I couldn't so much as close my fingers around a sword, much less pick one up."

"So you fought left handed," Jessica guessed, and in spite of everything couldn't resist a smile at having another small piece of his past.

"And it turned out that I fought better with my left hand than my right, just like I did everything else. After, I was soundly chewed out for not going to the healers when I first hurt myself, and by the end of the day I was good as new. I'm not even sure why it bothered me." He shrugged, his gaze dropping again. "It was just so utterly unnecessary. But then, Marcello seemed to think my existence was provocation enough."

Jessica wanted to put her arms around him, but settled for covering his hand with hers. "I'm sorry."

"So many little things I hadn't thought about in years. It's just a bit overwhelming, on top of everything else."

She could tell from his bleak expression that there was more, but not whether it was those unwanted pieces of his past, or what Rhapthorne had done to him.

"Are you all right?" Jessica asked. "Do you need to sleep?"

Angelo shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to sleep, not when simply closing his eyes was enough to call up the images from his nightmare, when it was so easy to slip back into the thought patterns Rhapthorne had given him.

"Will you talk to me, then?"

He forced a smile. "I suppose it's only fair, given all the hours you spent talking to me over the past week."

"I told you, there was nowhere else I could have been."

"And to be honest, that makes less sense to me now than when you first said it."

Her eyes narrowed in irritation. "Everything that's happened, happened because we were willing to let you go without a fight. How do you think that made me feel?"

"Ah, guilt." He was surprised by the bitterness overflowing in his voice. "Yes, I've heard that can be an excellent motivator for some people."

"Angelo, it wasn't guilt that made me want you back." She covered his hand with both of hers. "It was realizing I never want to let you go again."

He stared at her, vaguely aware that he ought to say something, put up a barrier against hope, because her words couldn't mean what he wanted them to mean. But he had nothing, save her name and a trio of words too dangerous to speak, and after a moment her mouth covered his and rescued him from the need to say anything at all.

He awoke the next morning curled around her, and for a moment he simply reveled that she was there, real, his. Then he moved, pressed kisses against the back of her neck and along the line of her shoulder until she sighed and shifted, rolling onto her back to regard him with fond annoyance.

"You know, when I said I'd feel safer under guard, I didn't realize the guard was going to be quite so personal."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Well, you're back to normal."

"So it would seem."

She surprised him by smiling. "I'm glad."

He smiled back and kissed her again, simply because he could.