A/N - So here is another chapter. However I am working ten hour shifts on both the next two days so may well not have time to update again until Monday. I will try my best though.
Iguy and anyone else who was wondering: - I chose Grace to be Margit's pseudonym for two reasons. 1) She is supposedly Irish (to fool everyone) and Grace is a typically Irish name. 2) She is the Grace of God (Emerson). God's grace is the benevolence he shows towards humans and Emerson believed his daughter was a personification of his work that would help the human race.
Chapter Seventeen
Danny paced like a wild animal trapped in a cage, the worry and fury he was feeling eating away at him, gnawing at his very soul. He couldn't breathe, he felt sick, he wanted to collapse onto the floor and cry. But he didn't. He just paced, up and down and over again on repeat. The world passed around him as he waited, doctors and nurses moving along the corridors, patients stumbling about, women crying, children screaming and men shouting angrily at the staff. Danny felt some mistrust towards the doctors, he couldn't help it. Men prophesying to be doctors had started all of this. They were the reason Flack might die.
"Mr Messer, we meet again and so soon," said a voice behind him and he turned to see Doctor Caramel standing behind him.
"Caramel, what's going on? Is Flack...is he...is..." Danny gulped as a cry of agony twisted in his gut and he wanted to grab hold of the kindly man before him and sob into his scrubs.
"May I introduce Doctor Mick Fry, he's a toxicologist. We called him in advance to come take a look at Mr Flack when we heard what he was being brought in for," Caramel said.
"So he's alive?" Danny asked desperately.
"His condition is very severe," Caramel explained. "We've managed to stabilise him for now. But without knowing what was injected into his bloodstream we have no way to cure it. The antibodies in his immune system aren't being able to fight off this virus and his organs are shutting down."
Danny wobbled for a moment and Caramel reached out and grabbed his arm to steady him.
"You can't cure him?" Danny choked as he looked up, tears in his eyes.
"We've sent a sample of his blood over to the lab for analysis," Fry said stepping in. "But unless we can find an antidote his organs will stop functioning and when that happens..."
"How long?" Danny cried, tears falling down his cheeks.
"At the rate the virus cells are multiplying in his body, a day at most," Fry nodded.
"I...I..." Danny turned and collapsed into a hard, plastic seat. His face held in his hands as he wept.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?" Caramel asked sadly. "A friend or colleague perhaps?"
"Mac..." Danny suddenly murmured. "Has a Mac Taylor been brought in yet?" he asked, looking up.
"I'll go and check for you," the doctor said, trying to smile as he went over to the reception desk, returning only a moment later.
"He was brought in half an hour ago. He's on third, room 379," Caramel said softly.
"And when can I see Flack?" Danny asked, as he stood up, still wobbling slightly.
"The nurses are preparing a room for him as we speak, maybe twenty minutes, half an hour tops. I'll let you know which room he'll be in," the doctor said kindly.
"Thanks. I'll be with Mac...room 379," Danny nodded as he turned and made his way to the elevator, feet moving mechanically in front of him.
He blinked and before he knew it he was on third, unaware of how he had got there, of the journey up in the elevator. He no longer saw, was no longer conscious even though he was still awake. There was nothing they could do. Flack was dying, his body was failing. In twenty-four hours... Danny collapsed against a wall suddenly, shocking a little old man who was scurrying past and making him jump. Danny howled out loud in agony. He'd been too late. For the second time he had let his friend down and had been too late. And the last thing he had ever done with Flack... start an argument and fight with him, shoving him over a table. Danny knew he would never get over the guilt of that one action.
Slowly he raised his head, his body was throbbing, he wavered on his feet and then his vision started to become clouded and blurry. Panic attack, his brain told him. Stumbling down the hallway he felt a hand on his shoulder and then someone was steering him in a direction. He only realised where he was when the smell of urine came to his nose and he heard a cubicle door slam open.
"There you go..." a voice murmured.
Danny collapsed down and retched into the toilet bowl. All the food he'd eaten that day found its way up through his throat, burning it red raw, and plummeted into the bowl.
"God," Danny muttered as he tried to swallow and then vomited again into the toilet.
"Have some water," someone was saying as a plastic cup was thrust into his hands.
Danny nodded his thanks and then drank the cool liquid down, trying to soothe his throat.
"Thanks," he muttered and looked up to see a compassionate looking orderly standing in front of him.
"That's okay, I've seen the signs of a panic attack many times before in this place," he smiled. "You got someone with you?"
"Yeah," Danny nodded. "Room 379."
"Come on then, I'll help you there," the man smiled and then held a hand out to Danny.
"Mac, how are you feeling?" Jo asked as she was finally allowed into his room to see him.
He was lying in the bed, looking slightly pale, strange with no hair and clearly exhausted from worry and whatever torment he had suffered.
"Jo," Mac smiled weakly as she sat down beside him.
"Yes, you're stuck with me now," she laughed, hiding her worry.
"Just how I want to be," Mac said breathlessly.
"Mmm," Jo hummed as she gently touched his arm and then began straightening out his sheets for him.
"So I hear your prognosis is good," Jo said as she worked. "They found nothing strange in your bloodwork. They just need to keep you in for a few days to keep an eye on that, that nothing comes back."
"He gave me antidotes," Mac murmured. He felt weak, and tired. Probably from whatever meds he was on.
"Looks like one thing he said was truthful then," Jo said bitterly, stroking her hands over the crisp white sheets.
"Should have been a nurse," Mac smiled as he took hold of her hand to stop her.
Jo paused and then laughed a little smiling up at Mac. "I'm so glad you're okay, I don't know what I would have done..."
"I'm here, Jo. Fine," Mac said sincerely.
The two stared deeply at each other for a while, no longer needing words to convey their emotions or their relief at finally being reunited.
"I should have had more hope," Jo scolded herself.
"Hope dwindles with time," Mac said wisely.
"Mac Taylor, does your mind ever stop working?" Jo laughed as she sat back down.
"No," Mac smiled, taking in Jo's beauty.
"So the doctors said that you need to take a couple of months off from work, that you'll need feeding up and taking care of for a while," Jo stated matter-of-factly.
"Hmmm..." Mac made a noise of alight disagreement.
"Don't you think I'm gonna let you disobey them," Jo said sternly. "I was just thinking of how we're going to manage with you needing looking after."
"I can look after myself," Mac stated.
"Well yes, you can," Jo nodded. "Or you can let me do it for you."
"Jo, I..." Mac stopped and then looked at her. "How?" he finally asked.
"Oh, let's say in my apartment for now," Jo said quietly, all joking put aside.
"You told Ellie?" Mac asked quietly.
"She knows I was seeing someone, just not who. Maybe we could do that together when you are better?" Jo asked.
"Jo, I would love to," Mac said, smiling again.
"So you'll move in with me?" Jo asked sincerely.
"Yes, yes I will," Mac said happily as he entwined his finger with hers.
Suddenly the door opened and Danny stumbled through, his face ashen and grey.
"Danny, Dear Lord," Jo cried as she stood and rushed over to him, helping him into a chair.
"He had a panic attack, nearly fainted in the corridor," said a tall orderly who had followed Danny into the room.
"Thank you for helping," Jo nodded.
"No problem," the orderly replied and then left.
"Danny what's happened?" Jo asked as she poured him a cup of Mac's water.
Danny stared up at them both, tears in his eyes.
"Don?" Mac murmured suddenly more awake than he had previously been.
"There's nothing they can do for him," Danny choked, tears spilling forth over his cheeks again. "He's gonna die, Mac."
"No!" Jo gasped in horror, hands covering her mouth.
"But he got out," Mac coughed, a hand reaching out to touch Jo's arm.
"His body is shutting down, the virus... whatever the hell it is that bastard gave him, it's attacking his organs. Without a cure, there is nothing the doctors can do," Danny cried.
"Emerson," Mac murmured.
"Mac, we know," Jo said softly, tears in her eyes. "He's gone now. You arrested him remember?"
"He has twenty-four hours left," Danny muttered, head hung low over his body. "And then..."
"No, Emerson," Mac muttered again.
"What about him?" Jo asked.
"He'll know the cure. If he has one back at the asylum. Or how to make one. He'll know," Mac replied.
Jo stared at him for a minute as her brain processed the information.
"Danny, he's right. We need to question Emerson, get the antidote out of him," she stated.
Danny looked up. "He'll never tell us," he said miserably.
"Well we can try can't we?" Jo said as she looked at the two men. "We have to hope."
Adam smiled kindly at the thin pale man lying in the bed in front of him. He'd got back from the asylum earlier than expected due to his equipment being destroyed from the fight he had with Kyle Black. He'd managed to get a lift with Lindsay and Sid who hadn't spoken the entire ride home. The man looked destroyed and Adam was worried for him. So many of the team had been affected by this case. Mac and Flack, Danny and his car crash which meant Lindsay too, Jo had started acting very strangely after Mac was taken, Sid and the revelations about a man whom he had once looked up to, even Hawkes who had been consumed with worry for his older friend. No, it seemed as if it was only he who had come out relatively unscathed, not that he didn't feel awful at the thought of what had happened to the team. But right now he knew he could be a shoulder for them all to cry on, if needed. He was the self designated rock this time.
"Mmmm..." the figure in the bed murmured and started to wake.
"Hey there," Adam smiled kindly.
"Who are you?" the kid whispered in fright.
"My name's Adam. Adam Ross, I'm err... I work for the crimelab, in New York," he replied.
"Is this an asylum?" the kid asked worriedly.
"No!" Adam shouted and watched as the kid flinched. "Sorry...I mean, no, it's a hospital. Here let me get you some water."
Adam poured out a cup and helped the kid sit up to drink it.
"So do you remember your name?" Adam asked.
"No," the kid replied. "But Benny always told me it was Brody. Brody Boxer," the kid stammered, gulping down the water like it was a real treat.
"You know how long you were in the asylum for?" Adam asked as he sat back down.
The kid shook his head. "No. I don't remember anything from before I was in there."
Adam nodded and felt saddened for this poor young boy.
"Are Mac and Don okay?" Brody asked quietly, looking timidly over his cup.
"I don't know. I've not heard anything I'm afraid, but I'll let you know once I do," Adam smiled.
Just then the door opened and Lindsay came in.
"Hey," she smiled but Adam could tell she'd been crying. He'd known her for too long to be deceived by her smile.
Brody stared at her nervously and then almost hid behind his sheet.
"Hey it's okay," Adam reassured.
"But...but...she's a girl," Brody whispered.
Adam grinned at him. "Yeah...I was kinda shy too when I first met her. But she's really nice," he laughed.
"Ad, can I talk to you for a minute?" Lindsay asked.
Adam looked up at her and could almost sense what was coming.
"Sure. I'll be back in a moment, okay?" he told Brody and then followed Lindsay from the room.
Lindsay turned to him but before she could speak she burst into tears and fell against his shoulder crying deep tears into it. Adam closed his eyes and held her. He was her rock.
Danny and Jo sat across the table from Emerson in the interrogation room. They'd both thought that the doctor might have lost some of his vigour, some of his nerve now that he'd been brought out of his own environment and into one where he was defiantly no God. But he hadn't. The man was just as arrogant and full of hubris as he had always been. Danny had not met him before and stared at him with a cold intensity that would have made any lesser man break in an instant. But Emerson was strong, that much was obvious, and he would not be easy to break, if at all.
"Tell us what you gave Detective Flack!" Jo asked for the hundredth time.
"I know not of such a man," Emerson replied. It was the same answer he had been giving since they'd started asking.
"Yes you do know," Danny spat. "Flack, you know? Tall, dark detective, or he used to be until you got your hands on him."
"You must mean 571," Emerson replied calmly.
"He is more than a number," Danny said vehemently, barely able to look at Emerson, let alone stand being in the same room.
"You're so right," Emerson nodded. "He is the result of a huge leap in the progression of medicine. Do you think they might allow me his body to study after his death?"
"Why you..." Danny shouted and practically leapt over the table.
"Danny! No!" Jo shouted as she pulled him back.
Danny was breathing hard. "He deserves to die!" he spat.
"So you're Danny?" Emerson said with interest.
"What?" Danny shouted at him.
"Danny. Danny Messer yes?"
"How do you know?" Danny asked.
"571 called your name out multiple times during some hallucinations he suffered from the virus I gave him.
"He called my name?" Danny asked, a cold fear running through him.
"Yes," Emerson mused. "I believe he thought you would come and rescue him."
"Well I did, didn't I?" Danny replied.
"Not in time though," Emerson cackled. "Not in time."
"Mr Emerson, just tell us where the antidote is," Jo said angrily as she sat back down.
"Doctor," Emerson corrected. "I will be addressed correctly or I will not speak to you."
"You ain't no doctor," Danny sneered. "Not after what you've done. Goodbye medical licence," he laughed waving in the air at Emerson.
"I will always be a doctor and my work will always continue to help mankind. You will see. My children shall carry it on," Emerson said calmly.
"What, Doctor Hartmann and Doctor Fremont...dead buddy," Danny laughed.
"And Doctor Chastaine and her staff at the Thorn Everidge Institution are being rounded up and arrested as we speak," Jo added.
Both detectives took great satisfaction at the flicker in Emerson's face.
"Oh and of course, we can't be forgetting Grace now can we?" Danny chuckled. "Or Margit, I should say."
"Where is my daughter?" Emerson asked, a slight tinge of worry to his voice.
"Dead. Dead as a dodo," Danny spat, enjoying the rage that sprung to Emerson's face.
"No..." he gasped. "You lie!"
"Nuh huh..." Danny sneered happily.
"Then I will never tell you the antidote. 571 will go to his death and your arrogance will be the cause," Emerson grinned back at Danny.
"But you say you are a God, a fair ruler of your people. One who will cure the sick," Jo stated.
Emerson turned to her and nodded. "I am."
"So why then make... 571 is it? Why make him suffer? You know you'll never be able to use his condition to gain any results now you have been caught. So surely a fair man would not prolong his suffering. It is unnecessary and cruel," Jo surmised.
"Because I am simply keeping my side of a deal I made with 567. He broke it, so he must learn," Emerson explained.
"What made you become so evil?" Jo asked suddenly. "Was it what you saw in the camps? You said you enjoyed seeing your brother tortured, something must have triggered that."
Emerson looked at Jo in interest at what she had asked.
"I always knew I was made for better things than the life my mother was giving me. My brother always held me back, we were always compared, always only half of a set. But I was a whole being, a human and I did not want to have an identical to myself existing alongside me," Emerson mused.
"So you wanted you brother to die?" Jo asked.
"I did indeed," Emerson grinned. "And Mengele let me be the one to end his life. It was the most victorious and satisfying moment I have ever experienced."
"So you just chose to be evil?" Danny snorted.
"I am not evil, Danny. I am good. I do good work," Emerson stated, clearly annoyed with Danny's ignorance.
"To choose between good and evil is an exploration of human violence and human free will, and the cost to the individual of restraining it," Jo said carefully, watching Emerson for any kind of reaction.
"How very interesting you are," Emerson said, eyes gleaming at her. "You obviously know a lot about the human psyche."
"I have been fortunate enough to study the psychology of the mind," Jo said.
"So then ask yourself this," Emerson stated, leaning forward. "How far would you be willing to go in order to achieve your goals? How much of your soul would you be willing to give up? Are you even really you? Or will the real you only emerge following a catastrophic event?"
Jo leant back, deep in thought at what he'd said.
"So you believe the real you only came to fruition after your time in Auschwitz?" she asked.
"We can only learn from suffering, my dear," Emerson sighed. "I have certainly suffered. And that is how I learnt who I was, and what I could be."
"You suffer, so you cause suffering," Jo stated clearly.
Emerson laughed and then his face went serious again. "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. And in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. I am that God."
"Aeschylus," Jo murmured in knowledge.
"Huh?" Danny muttered from where he was still standing behind her.
"A great and lonely thinker. Hardly since then have the depth and penetration of his thought been equalled, and his insight into the riddle of the world has not yet been superseded," Emerson stated.
"And what riddle was that?" Jo asked.
"If God is just, why does man suffer?" Emerson replied coldly.
"And you have solved it?" Jo asked.
"No. My father did," Emerson smiled. "God does not exist, and man must become his own God if he is to learn, and suffer through experience."
"So to suffer is key to your greatness?" Jo said.
"Exactly. Once a man has experienced true suffering, he will know how to be at peace, with himself and others, and there will be no cause for war and fighting. He will appreciate even the smallest things in life and teach others of this knowledge," Emerson explained.
"But you carve people up... you torture them for no good reason," Danny spat angrily.
"I see how they work, how every individual part is a part of the process that is existence. This is vital to my understanding of human nature. We can never learn enough," Emerson laughed at him.
"But what about love, and joy and doing things on a whim...just for fun?" Jo asked.
"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life and all competing pleasures will be destroyed" Emerson said bitterly.
"Well excuse me for saying so but your world doesn't sound too fun," Danny snorted derisively.
"You know so little. You epitomise the worst kind of person in this world. You live off your need for pleasure and your need for power. Power over the criminals, over suspects, over me right now," Emerson snarled at Danny. "Until people come to see the light, as I have, there will always be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless."
"You sure talk some shit," Danny growled.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face... forever," Emerson said nonchalantly.
"And there, right there, you have just described everything you do," Jo smiled in satisfaction. "Stamping on the week, on those you keep imprisoned, on those you torture, on those you destroy. You are the one who has become intoxicated by the power you possessed in your asylum. Why else would you call it a kingdom? You are the one who has trampled on the innocent, and you are the one who will come to see the light."
Emerson stared angrily at her for a moment and then lunged across the table at her. In a second Danny was there roughly pushing him back.
"Get away from her, dick!" he growled.
"I will never cure your friend. I will never reveal the antidote. And he will die, slowly and painfully. The worst is yet to come, you will see. I hope you have your goodbyes ready," Emerson laughed manically.
"You utter bastard," Danny shouted at him as Jo just shook her head. "You'll burn in hell. Say goodbye to the world, Emerson, because you won't be seeing it where you're going, not for the rest of your life!"
"Do your worst," Emerson laughed loudly. "You think I am worried what you do to me? I am old, I knew my time would soon be over. You don't think I haven't secured my future? That there aren't others who will do my will? Continue my work and make sure my legacy survives?"
"What?" Jo choked.
"I spent thirty years teaching at Harvard. Fremont, Chastaine and Hartmann weren't the only ones who agreed with my work. I have many children, spread out all over the world doing my work as we speak. And they will seek justice for what you do to me, mark my words," Emerson laughed.
Jo and Danny swapped looks of fear as Emerson continued to laugh, loudly and high pitched and didn't stop, not even when he was taken back to his cell.
Sid's face was a picture of murder as he stared through the glass and watched Emerson being questioned. His hands clenched at his sides, lips pursed tightly into a thin line and a look of total revolt on his face.
"Hey" Hawkes murmured kindly and placed a hand on Sid's shoulder. "It'll be okay."
"No it won't!" Sid shouted. "Don is dying and this bastard won't tell us the antidote. He takes pleasure from this!"
"Sid, calm down," Hawkes said worriedly.
"There isn't time, Sheldon!" Sid muttered as he wiped a hand over his face exhaustedly. "Don is going to die within the next twenty-four hours unless we can find him the antidote."
"Jo and Danny will get Emerson to crack," Hawkes said reassuringly.
"No they won't," Sid replied. "I know that man. He'll never crack."
"He has to," Hawkes murmured, looking back at the interrogation going on through the glass.
"I'm going back to the lab," Sid suddenly stated. "See if I might be able to help."
"Sid..." Hawkes started.
"Just don't," Sid threatened. "I worked with Emerson. I know his ways, his thinking... his logic. If anyone can find a cure in the next few hours, it'll be me. And I will...I will..." Sid murmured.
"Sid, you need to rest, you're exhausted..."Hawkes said worriedly.
"No, I need to save Don. It's the very least I can do," Sid said bitterly and then he stormed from the room.
Hawkes stared after him worriedly, knowing the truth that Sid had already worked out for himself. That Doctor Sidney Hammerback was Flack's last hope of survival.