Emma doesn't get sent to the lab for a long time. It pisses her off, frankly - did Hidgens figure out her plan? Did McNamara? It scares her too; she doesn't know what else to do if this doesn't work. Then she starts to notice how pleased Paul seems to be as time goes by and nothing changes, and that pisses her off some more.
At any rate, she is fulfilling her promise to lay low. Doing nothing wild, against her better judgement, when a guard spits at Ted, when someone makes a snide comment about Bill, when Charlotte returns to the cell later than the rest, bruised and sniffling one day. These people have done nothing wrong - even Ted, as far as she can tell, never meant to hurt anyone.
...
"Hey, Paul." She's lying on her bed, sore and exhausted after what must have been the whole day by herself in the ring, when he gets pushed into the cell. She glances over out of habit, even though she knows the sound of his footsteps by now, and shoots upright to get a another look as she registers red all over his grey top. "Shit." She says.
He is soaked in it, shivering where he stands and barely just keeping on his feet. She swings down off the bunk and runs over, hands hovering when she arrives out of fear of making it worse.
"What happened?"
"Em..." He murmurs, eyes darting towards her. He is standing unsteadily in front of her with his arms wrapped around his middle.
"Why are you bleeding, Paul?" She scans him up and down but can't see an open wound.
"I'm... um... not anymore." He shakes his head.
"What?" She starts to pat him down, feeling his arms and then his chest. He doesn't wince. She tries gently to move his arms away from his body but he pulls back.
"Not bleeding anymore." He manages, and stumbles to his bed with her help. "Just... the ring."
Emma takes his head and gently combs her fingers through his hair - she can't feel any bumps, despite the way he's acting.
"What did they do in the ring, Paul?" She remembers him healing her nose, the blood that had dripped from his own then. "Did you have to fix someone?"
He nods. "Couldn't." Then he shakes his head. He seems lost.
"They were too hurt?"
"'M sorry." His eyes droop closed and Emma moves one hand to cup his cheek, moving her other to brace his shoulder.
"Hey, no, its not your fault." Her hold on his shoulder tightens, icy fear gripping her.
"There was-" He paws at the left side of his chest, then gasps. His eyelids flutter.
"Woah, alright, do you need to lie down?" If he falls, slides off the bed, she might not be able to catch him.
"Jus' tired." He slurs, but lies down anyway. Emma wishes for the others, any of them - even Ted.
She shushes Paul and eases off his shirt, just to make sure. The skin beneath is tacky with blood but there is no open wound, thank goodness. He just feels the sensations, she remembers him saying, but she remembers him bleeding too - she guesses the injury he treats is fully inflicted on him before healing quickly enough not to do too much harm. Cold fingers wrap around her own and she doesn't pull away.
"I've got you. Try to rest." She thinks it should be fine, since he's not outwardly injured anymore.
With his free hand, Paul scratches at his chest. Emma places her other hand on top of his, and eventually his movements slow and he slips into sleep.
When she's sure he's out, she extricates herself from his grip and moves to the little washbasin in the corner. She wets one of her spare shirts with water as hot as it can go, then returns to his side and begins to wipe off the sticky crimson, gentle so as not to wake him.
He sleeps dead through her work, not stirring even once, so she takes his ruined shirt next and scrubs it in the sink. As expected, the water runs rusty for five minutes and even then she can't really get the stains out. It's no longer bright and fresh, but the shirt is not it's original concrete grey. Sighing, she hangs it up to dry anyway.
"What did they do to you?" She sighs to herself.
At the sound of the door clicking open once again she spins on her heel defensively, but its only Char and Bill.
"Thank god." She gushes. "I didn't know what to do... Paul came back and he was covered in blood."
Bill hurries over to his best friend's side and starts checking him over himself. Char stays standing in the doorway.
"I can't feel him." She says, eyes wide.
"What?" Bill startles.
"I don't know, I don't understand!" She's muttering frantically.
"He's healing." Bill mutters. "When I first arrived here, the kid told me that sometimes it takes him a while to heal, that his brain shuts down so his body can do the heavy lifting."
"Char, has this happened before?" Emma puts a hand on the woman's shoulder.
"Never, only - only when someone dies. I can't hear them then." Her eyes well with tears.
"Nope, no." Emma gives her a shake. "He's alive, look at him."
And he is breathing, deeply and evenly. Bill wraps his fingers around Paul's wrist and nods to say that he's found a pulse.
"He's just out for the count then." Emma smiles desperately. "He'll get some rest and wake up."
...
She is still rushing around with this fake reassuring smile plastered to her face two days later, when he still hasn't. He hasn't moved save for his steady waves of breath.
"He hasn't drunk anything." Ted comments that night. "Or eaten. Surely he still needs to?"
Bill shrugs. "He hasn't been out this long before."
They've tried shouting and shaking him awake, after enough hours passed that they were getting worried. General McNamara had been pissed, but hadn't protested when they had stopped him from touching Paul. Nothing had roused him, and Char had been even more freaked than the rest of them.
"When you say you can't hear him..." Emma ventures now, a comforting hand on Charlotte's shaking one. "Char, what do you mean exactly?"
"There's normally this feeling like... smooth, cold... When he's sleeping. And when he's awake - well, it changes. But now there's nothing, and that hasn't happened before. I still feel you guys though."
"What do we feel like?" Emma prods, not sure if she wants to know.
"You're sharp." Char smirks. "And right now, sort of... quiet. Like that sound after a constant buzzing, when it stops, and there's this... hole."
Emma isn't sure why, but this sounds just like how she's been feeling lately.
"You've never told me what it's like before." Ted sounds a little dejected.
"It's difficult to explain." She defends. "Bill is warm and fuzzy, all the time, and you Ted... it's hard to describe you."
"Can you ever change how people feel?" Bill asks suddenly. "With your power, I mean?"
"Well, I- I've never done it on purpose." She blushes. "Once, I calmed my husband down when we were fighting, but that might not even have been me..."
"Maybe you can wake him up Char!" Emma bursts out, and Ted laughs. "What?" She snaps at him. "You have a better idea?"
"Any idea is better than that! Look at her!"
Char goes red as he points at her. Bill steps in front of her.
"You leave her alone! As if you've ever done anything good with your power!" He hisses, faltering slightly as he speaks. Ted's eyes go wide and he falls quiet. Emma remembers the fear in Ted's eyes when he'd singed her hair, and the regret when they'd gone back to the cell that evening. "Ted, I- I'm sorry." Bill tries.
"Shut up." Ted waves a hand dismissively. "Just shut up Bill."
"I'll try it." Char cuts through the tension. She's glaring at Ted.
"Thank you." Emma breathes, putting a hand on her friend's shoulder. Char crouches down next to the bed and takes Paul's hand in her own. She takes a deep breath in and then out again. "I am strong." She mutters to herself.
"You don't have to do this Char-" Ted interrupts.
"Butt out, Ted." She says steadily. "I can do this."
And she does.
...
Charlotte blinks and everything is dark. Her friends are gone, and so is the cell.
"Ted?" She calls out instinctively. The guy can be a scumbag, but his presence - its like the feeling of putting the final piece in the puzzle. She can't feel him now, or the others.
"Paul?" She takes a step out into nothing, feeling a cold hard floor beneath her feet. The place is completely quiet, so she keeps on walking, slowly at first, then faster as she hears a noise. High pitched and echoing - crying. "Hello?" She says softly, and the crying stops.
She turns on the spot and she's in the cell suddenly, only she can't see Paul and Ted and Bill and Emma. There's only a little boy, perched on one of the bottom bunks.
"Hi there." She ventures, not getting any closer than she already finds herself. "Are you ok?"
The boy looks up, startled, and shakes his head. He has a bloodied knee.
"My name is Charlotte." She takes a careful step towards him. "Who are you?"
He doesn't say anything. She creeps forward further. "I'm looking for my friend. Have you seen him?"
The kid wipes at his eyes ferociously. "There's nobody else here. It's just me." His voice is quiet but hard.
"How did you get here?" She asks but he's shut down again. She sighs, then shrinks back at the sound of footsteps down the hall. It startles her to realise there is a hall, that she isn't lost in the black anymore. She's at the facility. The boy stands bolt upright.
"You should hide." He whispers conspiratorially. "General McNamara is mean."
"You know McNamara?" Charlotte asks dumbly. The kid is in the facility, he must do.
The boy stares at her. "How do you know him?" He frowns. "I'm always by myself."
The door flies open, but McNamara doesn't address Charlotte at all. It's like he's looking through her.
"Paul!" He shouts. She flinches, throws her gaze around the room but she can't see him anywhere.
The kid clenches his fists. "It wasn't my fault! I didn't want it to hurt!" He pouts.
"We've talked about this. You can help people, and refusing to do so is very selfish."
"I'm sorry." At that last word, his demeanour changes completely and he looks away.
"You look me in the eye when I'm talking to you, Paul."
Charlotte chokes on a breath. It all makes sense now - well, maybe not all, but still - this little boy, alone, arguing with McNamara... he is Paul.
Young Paul obeys, glancing up at the General.
"You are not to do that again. And you will fix the Professor's arm immediately."
Paul sniffs. "Okay." He mutters.
McNamara lunges forward, lands a hit on the kid before Char can move. When he pulls back for a second, though, she rushes over.
"Stop!" She yells. "Hey! Don't you touch him!" Spinning from her position between the two to check if he is alright, she comes face to face with Paul - her Paul.
"No-one has stopped it before." He murmurs, taller than her now but still wide-eyed and despairing in a way that makes her want to hold him close.
"Oh my god, Paul!" She moves to embrace him but her arms go through him. She shrieks.
"This isn't real, Char. You can't hug me." He wraps his arms around himself. "Even if I want you to."
"Y-you were a kid!" Her eyes are as wide open as they've ever been. "Just now, I saw you..."
"It's just me. I'm always by myself." He echoes, staring past her.
"You have to wake up, Paul." She doesn't know what's happening and it's scaring her. "You need to eat, and drink."
He shakes his head. "I didn't save him." He holds his hands out in front of him and they are dripping with blood. She blinks and it covers his shirt too. Charlotte whimpers but stands her ground.
"Who, Paul?"
"I don't know, a man, they... they killed him, and I couldn't..."
"You heal people. You can't bring back the dead!"
"I should've... there was so much blood and it hurt so much... I let go." He shudders.
"Your power reflects, right? You'd have died too, if it was all that bad." Char reaches for him again, then aborts when she remembers their weird dream-state.
"I should just stay." He gestures to the cell, empty save for the two of them.
"We'd miss you awfully." She comments, the only thing she can think to say.
"I'd miss you too."
"So wake up."
"No, you don't understand!" He raises his voice for the first time since she's known him. "They hurt people for me, because of me!"
"What they did, that's on them." Charlotte thinks of Sam, of all the things he'd done to her that she'd blamed herself for. "It wasn't your fault. It isn't."
"I don't know what to do." His voice breaks on the last word.
"Come back to us, Paul. Even Ted misses you. And Emma just isn't the same."
"Emma?" He unfolds his arms. "Is she ok?"
"She feels... sad. No, that's not right... longing. For something that she wants." Charlotte's head hurts; it's difficult to think straight.
"I didn't mean to hurt her. I'm sorry." Paul moves away from the wall a little, into the weak light of the bare bulb in the ceiling.
"She isn't angry. She just wants..." The room is spinning, Char thinks distantly.
"What does she want, Char?" Paul calls to her from a mile away.
But Char doesn't have any energy left to speak - she just manages to breathe out, in, out, before she starts to fade.
