"What the f*ck do we do now?!" Ted is pacing like a wildcat, driving Emma nuts. It's been ten minutes or so since Char tried to wake Paul. She'd slumped over beside him, hands still clasping his, and been out cold since. Bill is freaking out, and Ted is getting restless.
"Guys, she wanted to do this, remember? Just give her some time." She tries, swallowing her own anxiety.
"Yeah, like we gave Paul some time?" Ted bursts out.
"Hey, I'm scared too ok?!" Emma yells, and he promptly shuts up.
Bill is busy stroking Char's hair and coaxing her. "Come on, Charlotte, it's your buddy Bill. It's alright, it's all gonna be alright..."
They lapse into silence eventually, and Emma starts to wonder if they should call for McNamara. But she doesn't know what he'll do, and she's far from the man's biggest fan. He's the one who caused this, for Christ's sake! She's shocked out of her spiral by a choked gasp.
Charlotte is sitting bolt upright, panting like she's had a terrible nightmare.
"Char!" Ted calls, and then Paul is groaning and coughing, rolling onto his side and sitting up too.
"Oh my god!" Bill grins and embraces them both in a hug.
Emma laughs. "You did it, Char!"
Paul's eyes are racing along with his heart, until he locks his gaze with Emma's. "Hi." He croaks, throat sore and itchy.
"Hi yourself. Have a nice lie in?"
He starts inspecting his hands with barely a smile. He scratches at his arms and his chest, until Emma's warm hands cover his cold ones. "I cleaned you up." She explains. "It was all I could think to do."
"Thank you." He whispers.
Charlotte stands and moves towards Ted with alarmingly velocity. "I'm sorry." She tells him. "I need you to know, it wasn't your fault, what happened to Jenny. I should never have said that."
Ted blinks rapidly. "I..." Then he inches forward, ever so slowly, and wraps his arms around Charlotte. He lowers his head onto her shoulder, and she takes him into the embrace.
"What happened to you?" Emma whispers to Paul on the bed. Bill has excused himself after giving Paul a firm pat on the back and a warm smile, reading the room expertly.
"I don't really remember." Paul answers. "It was like I was a kid again, but after I was taken, in here." He shakes his head, reaches for her arm. "I didn't want it, Em." He catches her gaze. "It just felt like the safest place. It was always the same, and there wasn't anyone else around..."
"We scare you?" Emma's heart drops.
"No! No, just... it's like I'm scared for you, all the time. Like something bad is going to happen and I won't be able to save you." He shakes his head. He doesn't tell her how he was scared to come back, how part of him had wanted to stay in the memories, terrible but reliable and consistent, forever.
"Hey, I'm a freaking superhero. I don't need saving." Emma jokes, and to her delight he smiles.
"I might."
"You're stronger than you know." She moves a hand to his arm gently. "But if its a rescue you're after..." She raises her eyebrows.
His expression hardens and he glances to the corner above the door. They're being watched, he tells her with his eyes. She nods minutely. Then, just to cover for her previous words, she laughs.
"Come on, Sleeping Beauty, up you get. You should stretch those legs before lights out."
He obliges, with the help of Bill. They take a few laps of the cell as the pins and needles all over his body start to fade, and all the while he hears Emma's words. A rescue; an escape, something he's not considered since he was young. There are blind spots for the cameras in the corridor, but they're always surrounded there - there's the cafeteria too, but he doesn't know if they can be heard there or only watched. He knows they can be heard here, if nothing else from when as a teenager he'd screamed profanity at the closed door only to regret it soon after when McNamara had stormed in, hands clenched in tight fists at his sides.
They could work as a team now, maybe. He hasn't thought about that for a long time. There hasn't ever been a team, not really. But he could try. With other people by his side, people who want him with them despite how broken and ugly his soul must be after all this time being an experiment of cruel scientists and soldiers. Tomorrow, he'll figure out if the cafeteria is bugged, and after that, maybe they'll figure the rest out too - together.
...
They go for a test run, chat under their breath in the cafeteria about what a dickbag McNamara is, and make up ridiculous plans to best him - throwing porridge at him when he comes to collect them, knocking him out cold in a pillow fight, anything far fetched but still technically conspiracy. They don't want to reveal any actual upper hands they hold, just in case the room is bugged; but after a few days none of the PEIP staff has said anything and they come to the thrilling conclusion that nobody was listening.
"We still have to be careful that nobody overhears us." Bill whispers over dinner on the day that they decide it is safe to talk.
"Of course." Emma agrees. "And Paul says they can still see us, so don't be obvious. Neutral expressions, look bored."
"Shouldn't be too hard." Ted rolls his eyes, and Char gives him a look that suggests she knows it isn't just for the cameras.
Emma, slowly and cautiously, catches them up on her plan with Professor Hidgens. "Once I have a card," She says, wary even now of saying it out loud. "We can break out of here like it's nothing. I mean, you haven't all seen what I can do, but for one thing I broke all the windows in my house when I was 16." Her parents had genuinely almost killed her, but Jane had agreed to pay for all the repairs at the last moment and that had been the end of it, thank goodness.
Char raises her eyebrows, obviously sensing that she is telling the truth, but Ted frowns. "So what, I can break a window."
"With your mind?" Emma grimaces. "Just trust me, won't you?"
"We do, Emma." Paul is staring at her with clear admiration in his eyes. "How can we help?"
Ted scoffs but says nothing as Bill hums in deep thought.
"Do we know the way out?" Char says suddenly.
"I was sort of hoping we'd be able to wing that part." Emma admits, making an effort to still her bouncing leg as she becomes aware of her outward display of emotion.
"There isn't room to wing anything." Bill points out gently, and he's right. If they fail, and somehow still survive, they'll triple the security in this place and they won't ever get a second chance.
"I think I can do it." Paul pipes up. "I remember... other areas, from when I was a kid... I had lessons and things, and I've been to the medical bay..."
He has seen more of the facility than any of the rest of them.
"Ok." Emma nods. "Paul, do your best to plan our route." She shifts in her seat, resists the urge to glance over her shoulder conspicuously. "Char, think you can use your thought-feely thing to work out the guards' shift patterns?"
"It'd be an estimate, but an educated one." The woman answers. "I'll do my best."
Emma smiles in thanks. "Ted," She continues, "You need to get over whatever this thing is you have going on with your power, because I'm going to need you and Bill."
Ted blinks at her, and suddenly straightens in his seat; after a tense second where she thinks they might be about to have fisticuffs, he simply looks away with a murmured: "On it."
"I don't think I can fight." Bill stammers, leaning in nervously.
"I'm hoping you won't have to." Emma concedes. "But you might. Can you prepare for that?"
Bill runs a hand through his hair, down over one side of his face. Then he sighs. "What kind of a lover can a man be if he can't also be a fighter?"
"What the shit, Bill?" Ted is clearly taking out his justifiable anger with Emma on poor Bill.
"It means that fighting to protect something you care about is an act of love, not violence." He snaps back, surprisingly elegant in his retort. "It means I'll try."
...
Not long after Paul is back on his feet, they finally start getting sent to the lab again. Emma wonders for the first time if the lab is supposed to be a sort of punishment - still necessary, in the eyes of PEIP, but perhaps McNamara knows how they hate it more than even the ring. Maybe her attempts to behave, in order to convince the Professor to trust her, were actually working against her by delaying her next visit.
Either way, their stunt with Char's dream-walking (PEIP don't actually know exactly what went down but they can tell it was pretty major and have decided to take it out on their subjects) seems, in a bizarre twist, to have benefitted them. Because in what feels like no time at all, Emma is led back to the lab, and strapped down to the usual paper-covered chair.
She has to focus hard to stop a sigh of relief when Hidgens walks in, not Schaffer or anyone else as hostile.
"Good evening, Emma." He smiles warmly, shooing the guards away without looking at them. They hesitate only for a moment, checking she is secured, before following his command.
"Good evening." Emma returns, twisting her wrists in the cuffs in an attempt to ease their rubbing. "Long time, no see."
"Yes, well," Hidgens retrieves a pair of blue disposable gloves from a shelf and snaps them on. "I hear you've been off on an adventure of your own."
"I haven't Professor, not really." She tries to laugh it off. "Just a misunderstanding."
"Hm?" He ties the usual rubber band around her upper arm, twists it tighter.
"Well, Paul was hurt pretty badly, so he needed to rest." She winces. She isn't sure if Hidgens was involved in the hurting in the first place, but she suspects. The man is not devoid of guilt, and maybe she can use that to her advantage.
"And this was a problem because?" He jams a syringe into the crook of her elbow.
"McNamara didn't think he needed it, and we didn't let McNamara touch him." She explains shortly, averting her eyes.
The Professor removes the needle from her arm surprisingly gently. "I'm sorry to hear that. The incident with your friend... it was regrettable."
Bingo. Emma seizes the moment, hating manipulating her genuine emotions like this but knowing it is what has to be done. She blinks tears into her eyes. "I just... I wish I could understand, what's happening to us." She sniffs, and it is more sincere than she had expected. The words, the sentiment, just spill out.
"Oh, my dear..." Hidgens' hands hover over her shoulders, wavering.
"I just want to know something." She hiccups, and then stops because she doesn't want to be too obvious.
"There, there," He is reaching now for a tissue, having pulled his gloves off, and pats it against her cheeks carefully. "Perhaps... Would you like to take a look at the microscope slides?"
Emma sniffs again to cover her excitement. "Could I?" She tries to sound hesitant instead of eager.
"I don't see why not." He reaches for the straps of the chair, begins to loosen them. Emma grits her teeth against the sudden urge to attack, to run away, because she knows that now is not the time, and they will only have one shot at escape.
"That would be fascinating, thank you." When her right arm is freed, she brings that hand up to wipe at her face.
"My pleasure." Hidgens finishes with her restraints and she levers herself to a standing position gingerly. "Just don't tell the General." He taps his nose with his index finger conspiratorially.
"You can count on that." Emma murmurs with a small smile.
