The Guinea Pig Incident

Consciousness, necessary as it was, turned out to be a less than pleasant experience to return to. His head throbbed with what could only be a tranq hangover, making his stomach do its usual imitation of a small boat on choppy seas. His mouth tasted like his gym socks from high school, cottony and less than clean from having been left abandoned in his locker over vacation, and he was therefore a miserable thing to behold. When he opened his eyes, he flinched at the light level, blinking until he had adjusted to it. Even after realizing the lighting was quite dim, he still squinted, looking about the room to see where he was. He figured out pretty quick he was in Lab Three, and wondered where the hell everyone else was.

Attempting to raise a hand to run through his hair, he was shocked to discover he was unable to move it more than a few inches. Shifting and squirming, he knocked the light blanket off enough to see that he was strapped hand and foot to the bed he was on. He was also no longer wearing the clothes he vaguely remembered being in and was instead dressed in a set of dark green scrubs, the kind the Claire always seemed to have lying around for some reason.

Yanking on the straps hard enough to shift the entire bed, he shouted, “Claire! Hobbes!” He was hoping that he would actually get a response and not discover that this was some punishment or, perhaps, a precursor to having the gland pulled out of his head. At that tht, ht, fear coursed through him. What if they had already done so? What if he was waking up from that required long-term nap post-removal? What if the Official had ordered the removal of the gland after the stunts he and Alyx had pulled. Deciding to cut his losses, to eliminate one of his problems. Maybe even giving him up to the police, to pay his dues for the theft of the gemstones.

That pushed him over the edge and, to both his surprise and relief, the Quicksilver flowed, rendering him invisible in seconds. Leaning back against the pillows, he swallowed hard and calmed himself down. He was fine, all in one piece, and sane for the moment.

Claire walked into the room then, in response to his call he assumed, and frowned. “Damn it. How did he get loose?” She was about to turn away when Darien called out.

“Claire, what the hell is going on?” He tried not to laugh as she jumped in reaction, her hand going to her throat. “Sorry,” he said as he finally convinced the Quicksilver to fall away.

“Darien. Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?” She shook off whatever she was feeling and came to his side, checking his monitor, blood pressure, all the usual doctor crap he knew he’d have to endure.

“Hung over and in need of a shower. Now answer me, why am I strapped to this bed?” His memory was a bit fuzzy - okay, a lot fuzzy actually - but that was pretty normal after a bout of Quicksilver madness. It sometimes took a few hours for it to come clear, but it eventually would.

“You hit Stage Five last night and I had to tranq you with one intended for Alyx. It was a bit stronger than I like to use on either of you.” Claire had begun undoing the straps that held him down.

As soon as he was free, he shifted, sitting up and drawing his legs in towards his chest. “Alyx…. Shit, is she okay?”

Claire tipped her head to the side and looked at him as if weighing her options. “Get cleaned up and meet us in the Keep. I’ll explain everything there.” She turned away from him to leave the room.

He slipped off the bed and went after her, scooting in front of her before she made it out the door. “Come on, Keepy, tell me.”

“No, Darien. Trust me on this. Now go.” She pushed him out of the way and left him standing there in confusion.

“Damn it. I hate this.” But he did as she directed. Someone, probably Hobbes, had fetched some clean clothes and other necessities for him, so after getting human, the shower helping with the hangover immensely, a toothbrush taking care of the gym locker his mouth had become, he entered the Keep. Both Bobby and Claire were waiting for him.

“Well, Fawkes, hope you got that out of your system, ‘cause the Official is pissed. Drake is currently totaling up the amount of damage you caused and is probably planning to dock your pay for it.” Bobby’s tone was a combination of anger and humor.

“Bobby, that’s not entirely true,” Claire said in admonishment, then turned to Darien. “We know Alyx drugged you into madness.” She shrugged. “Once there… well there wasn’t much you could do about it.”

That reminded Darien of what had started this whole mess. “Claire, are you okay? What happened, anyway?”

“I’m fine. She just got me with a mild sedative. Mild for her, that is.” She moved to sit on a chair, looking tired. “As to what happened to Alyx... I’m still trying to figure that out. Even though you both can Quicksilver and that Quicksilver is essentially the same, there are still some major differences between the two of you.”

Darien knew this, but stayed patient to allow the Keeper the time she felt she needed to explain.

“We wanted to test Alyx’s reaction’s to the madness toxin for reasons you know about, but we thought we knew what her reaction would be. While on the borderline, it’s still within the group of compounds that she has what I call a ‘level tolerance’ to. In other words, they do affect her in a traditional manner, but only to a point.” Claire looked at the two men, waiting for them to acknowledge they were keeping up, or even listening for that matter.

“Like the kid can get tipsy, but not much beyond that,” Hobbes stated from where he leaned against the metal stanchion.

“Exactly. Her body begins flushing the alcohol by actually altering it chemically once her blood level reaches a certain saturation point, preventing her from getting drunk. However, that is not what happened this time.” Claire rubbed her face with one hand. “I’ve spent hours trying to figure out what went wrong, where we miscalculated, and I’m still not entirely sure.”

“You’ll figure it out, Keepy, we know that,” Hobbes said with complete confidence.

“So what do you think happened?” Darien asked, debating grabbing a stool to sit on. Somehow, he thought he might not want to be standing when he heard this.

“Keep in mind we were duplicating what happened to you over the course of several weeks in just a few hours.” Darien nodded, just wanting her to hurry up and explain it to him. “Over the course of the afternoon, I gave her injections of the synthesized madness toxin and periodically tested her blood to see how she was reacting to it. She seemed to handling it fine, no adverse reactions, though she had commented about being light-headed at one point. I’m afraid I attributed it to skipping lunch. Out of boredom, and with my approval, she began doing…. tricks with the Quicksilver.” She grinned as she remembered. “Alyx is capable of some rather unique tricks that require an astonishing degree of skill to perform. She’s still far more impressed with your ability, though. She keeps insisting that conscious control over your adrenal and hormonal system is far more impressive, since for you it is not a natural ability.”

Darien made no comment. He knew Alyx’s opinions on the subject, and agreed with her in fact, but he was trying to find out what had happened to her, how she was - hell, where she was. “Keep, could we stay on subject here?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. There’s not much more to tell, about yesterday anyway. I turned to check the results of one of the earlier blood tests, and moments later she was injecting me with a sedative. No apparent discomfort or pain, no obvious signs beforehand. We’d been chatting, and she showed no signs of the madness, no raised temperature, no increased irritation, no bloodshot eyes, and yet within minutes she was in Stage Five.” Claire pressed some keys on the keyboard and called up the most recent data that had come in. “As near as I can tell from tests I’ve run since we caught her, when she began practicing Quicksilvering, the toxin attached itself to the new Quicksilver flooding her bloodstream. It kept her from being able to flush it from her system. It just kept building up until her system finally registered it. By then I had flooded her with more than enough toxin to send her into Stage Five.”

Darien did sit then, finding the nearest seat by memory and falling into it. “But the counteragent worked, right? She’s fine and just sleeping off the tranq, right? Right?”

“Not exactly, my friend,” Hobbes answered quietly. “There were a few complications.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Darien waited for the hammer to fall.

“Her system…” Claire stopped, changing tracks. “She can’t process the altered Quicksilver, and she’s still producing her own normal Quicksilver, so the combination is driving her system into confusion. That’s why she began to involuntarily shed tears laden with both blood and Quicksilver. Her body is trying to eliminate it, by any means. I didn’t dare give her counteragent until she was stable - it might just make things worse. It may not even work at all,” she admitted with great reluctance.

“Where is she?” He got to his feet and, with a look, made sure they both understood he was not going to be put off any longer.
he whe white room,” Bobby said softly. “It was safest. She kept snapping the restraints on the bed.”

“Damn it, she hates that room.” Darien rushed from the Keep, not interested in any sort of justification they might have for putting her in there.

“Fawkes….” Bobby caught up with him fairly quickly, with Claire right behind him. “She doesn’t even know she’s in there. Claire’s keeping her sedated until we know what’s going on.” He steered Darien to the viewing room, hoping it would calm him down a bit to see that the kid was okay.

Darien looked through the glass at the pitiful figure that was Alyx, huddled in the far corner, wearing a set of dark blue scrubs and hugging a blanket to her chest. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be shivering. “You said you had to get her stable?”

Claire nodded. “I ended up giving her more of the toxin to balance out her system. So long as she doesn’t use any more Quicksilver, she should be okay. She’s semi-conscious, fighting the sedatives.” At Darien’s look of anger, she tried to explain. “Darien, she’s still Stage Five, and she tried to escape once she had her control back. I had no choice. Would you rather she ran off again?”

Darien relaxed slightly, realizing Claire was right. She was doing what she could to deal with a new situation that no one, including she, understood yet. “Well, try the counteragent then, do something.”

“I’m running tests, but it takes time. I need her conscious for a while first, but…” She trailed off, letting Darien figure it out for himself.

“She’ll run unless she thinks she has a reason to stay, and you’re hoping I can do that.” He looked at his right wrist, the reminder - now fully green - of what all this was about, of his life. “She won’t want to.” He leaned against the glass looking more at his reflection than at Alyx. His brown eyes reflected back at him, looking so normal, so ordinary. “It’s very freeing, being without conscience. Without having to worry about what others think or feel. Without having to deal with the guilt, shame, or pain of past deeds.” He sighed, knowing he was going to have to take it from her. Steal away the freedom that she’d found, the… happiness and pleasure of answering to no one, including one’s self. “And I can’t say I blame her.”

Darien pushed away from the window without waiting for his friends to comment. There was no way for them to understand, not unless they were to experience it for themselves, and they were never likely to, not after this debacle.

When he entered the room, he pulled off his sneakers and left them by the door, padding softly across the cushioned floor to where Alyx was, still curled up in the corner and shaking. He knelt down next to her and ran a hand down her arm. She opened her eyes, which were still solid silver, and looked up at him.

“Dare, sweets, is that you?” she asked groggily. She hated being sedated, but at least they hadn’t forced the inhibitor on her. She could still feel; her control was just whacked all to hell. She was able to maintain her shields just well enough to not be in a lot of discomfort from the voices and emotions drifting through her mind. In fact, she’d been finding it rather pleasant, allowing herself to just be carried along without worrying about separating herself from them and, though there was some urge to play with them, insert thoughts and ideas, encourage them into activities better not performed at work, she instead just fell. With no one to catch her, it was a heady experience, like one of those dreams where you fall, but without the sudden stop at the end - free fall forever. She no longer had to be herself, she could be any of a score of people, all of whom had far more mundane, far more real lives than hers. She was tired of being called back to this room, this body, even by Darien.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He sat down, leaning against the wall, and lifted her so that she lay upon him, her head resting on his chest. He covered her with the blanket, not knowing if she was really cold or just shaking from the drugs. “Heard you’re not cooperating.”

“Cooperate? Why the hell should I? They drugged me and dragged me back here against my will. They have no right…” She tried to push away from him, but he was able to hold her in place easily. She began to shake harder, angry at the whole damn situation. Wishing she could focus enough to escape, but Claire, with Kat’s help, had come up with quite a few drugs to keep her off balance when necessary and, fool that she was, she had helped test them. “Let go.”

“No.” Darien ran one hand up and down her back, trying to get her to relax, maybe sleep off some of the drug. She smelled of soap and antiseptic, which meant someone, most likely Claire, had helped her get cleaned up at some point. He wondered how bad she’d gotten after they’d been dragged back here.

“Dare, either get me the hell out of here or get the fuck away from me.” Alyx just wanted her freedom back, wanted to play, and she refused to understand why they were trying to stop her. She so wanted to get up and slam her way out of here, but she didn’t have the strength to even stand up at the moment, she was so drugged. Besides, the sound of Darien’s heart beating was oddly comforting right now.

“Alyx, I can’t let you do that and you know it.” That was the wrong thing to say, as she somehow found enough energy to pull out of his hold and lurch away. She didn’t get very far, just making it to her knees a short distance away, swaying slightly.

“Why the hell not? Come on, lover, how long ‘til you could join me again, 30 minutes?” She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. “Try and tell me you don’t want to.” She was steadier now, knowing she was right, knowing how he’d reveled in the freedom of it last night.

Darien shook his head, not willing to say anything but finding words spilling from him unbidden. “Doesn’t matter anyway. They’re not likely to just let it happen again.”

“How can they stop you? You have the gland, not them. You control the Quicksilver, not them.” She backed away until sitting beneath the mirror where those she knew were behind the glass, were watching this confrontation, were trying to figure out how far gone she was. Glancing up at the two cameras aimed at this side of the room, she sent a less-than-controlled burst of energy at them and fried them, one of them actually sending sparks and pieces of its casing raining down into the room.

Darien flinched and moved out of range, ending up on the bed in the middle of the room looking down at her. “They can’t, I guess. I’m making the choice. Yesterday you didn’t give me one; you made it for me.”

“And you should be thanking me for it, should have fought harder to get away, and to hell with me,” Alyx snarled at him. Forcing herself upright, her back pressed tightly against the wall for support, she turned about and dug the speaker cable out from under the padding and disconnected it. Now they could no longer hear what she and Darien talked about. Slumping back to the floor, she drew her legs up and hugged them. “I like this, Dare. Not giving a damn is so much easier, so much simpler.”

“Why did you try and help me in New Mexico, then? Why bother trying to find me? I had chosen to stay as I was and yet you came and all but forced me to take the shot of counteragent,” Darien countered with conviction in his voice.

“I didn’t know. I couldn’t know.” She crawled forward, her head coming rest on the padding of the bed. “But I do now, and I’m asking you to come with me. They can’t stop us and won’t be able to find us once that thing in your wrist is permanently off. Fuck this duty, fuck Chrysalis, fuck Changeling. I want to live for me for a change, and that won’t happen if I let them give me that shot.” She tipped her head and smiled slyly. “If they even can.”

That threw him. As far as he knew, Claire was just waiting to make sure she was completely stable and a bit more willing to cooperate and not try and blow the place up to get away. “Huh?”

“Sweet, you just believe what they say, don’t you?” Alyx laughed, a full-throated laugh that left her shaking. “If Claire thought the counteragent would work, she would have given it to me already. She knows it works in principle. She’s just trying to figure out of I’m already too far gone for it to do any good.”

Darien stared at his reflection in the mirror, trying to see beyond the silvered glass to the faces on the other side. Claire's comment suggesting the possibility of the counteragent not working now seemed far more ominous. “Shit. They just said they wanted you a bit more conscious…”

“And wanted you to convince me to behave.” Lifting herself up, she sat next to him. “What they really want to see is if you can control me like this, ‘cause if not…” She tipped over against him, the sedatives hitting again as her anger burned away.

She stared at the reflected image of the two of them in mirrmirror; they were an odd pair, she decided for the thousandth time. Her eyes were even more startling than usual, but she was growing to like the effect even if it did mean she’d have to wear tinted glasses most of the time.

“If not? What? What do you think will happen?” Part of him didn’t want her to answer, was afraid of the answer, afraid he knew what it would be.

“Drugged to the gills on inhibitors and sedatives and dumped in some Agency asylum. Just another failed experiment to be tossed away and forgotten. Unless, of course, they just put me down like a rabid bitch.” Her voice dropped, becoming softer. “A little too much sedative and… oops. Problem solved.” She yawned and shifted a bit, his arm coming around her shoulders and drawing her closer.

“That won’t happen, Alyx.” He leaned back, legs hanging off the bed and drew her down atop him. She didn’t fight him, though she did grumble a bit. “I won’t let it.”

She snorted. “Like they’d be sure to inform you first.” She rolled, curling up so that she could look at him. “I have no gland to be harvested and dumped on someone else. If I lose my value to the ‘Fish, he’ll just cut his losses and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know it,” he whispered as her eyes drifted shut. Within minutes she was asleep, looking deceptively sweet and innocent while in the throes oug-iug-induced slumber, considering what was going on with her mind at the moment. He caressed her face as she began to shiver again. He heard the door swing open and turned to see both Claire and Bobby step in. Bobby stayed by the door, while Claire fetched the blanket and tossed it over Alyx, then checked her pulse, frowning as she did so.

“We need to talk,” Claire said softly.

Darien nodded in agreement. “Give me 15.”

“No more.” Claire patted him on the shoulder and headed back towards the door.

Bobby moved over to the mirror and reconnected the wires for the speakers in the room without a trace of guilt. It was obvious they both knew Alyx had said more than enough to put Darien on the fence about helping them. “She’s not herself. Remember that, Fawkes.”

“Remember who did this to her,” Darien snapped at a harsh whisper.

“She volunteered. To help you, I seem to recall,” Claire added from the doorway, ending the discussion and leaving Darien fuming silently.

Once they were gone, he wrapped his arms about Alyx and cursed quietly. “I told you this was a dumb idea. I told you something would go wrong. I told you it wasn’t necessary, that I was fine with the way things were, but no. You had to go and be little miss guinea pig just ‘cause you see something in me no one else seems to. Little fool.” Shifting her so she lay on the bed, he kissed her lightly. “Thank you.”

Alyx didn’t react, the drugs finally having temporarily won the battle for her consciousness, thanks to him. He felt like he was betraying her, because he knew he was going to walk out of that door and demand that Claire try the counteragent before Alyx had a chance to regain consciousness. Before she had a chance to try and escape or, worse, convince him she was right. He knew how she was going to feel when she came down from this - the guilt, the embarrassment and self-doubt. He could only hope she wouldn’t hate him for it.

One last caress of her face, which she instinctively responded to by sighing softly, and he got up, grabbed his sneakers, and left the room, leaving the two agents wearing thermals guarding the door. Darien wondered if they realized how useless those glasses were, or how dead they were likely to end up if she really decided she wanted out. He made his way back to the Keep, where he expected to find Claire and Bobby. When the door slid open, they both turned to look at him, having obviously been talking mere seconds before.

“Give her the counteragent.”

“Fawkes, it’s not that simple…” Hobbes began.

“Bullshit. It is that simple. Unless the Keeper has suddenly created rats to duplicate Alyx’s metabolism, tests aren’t going to tell you shit. I know for me there is a time limit, a point after which the counteragent won’t work any longer and I’ll go permanently insane. The longer you wait, the greater the chance that happens to her,” he hissed at them, trying to keep his aggravation in check.

“What if it makes her worse?” Claire asked him in a quiet voice.

He rounded on her. “Do you know it will? Damn it, Claire. She dragged the two of you through the fucking mountains to save my ass from this same situation, and you want to just watch her fall, to lose her. I find that very hard to believe.”

“Darien, there are other problems. Her control is shot. She’s been allowing herself to get… lost. She may not have a mind left, even if we reverse the Stage Five.” Claire tried to use a soothing tone, but it only seemed to anger him more.

Darien recalled her at Lethe the night before, the way she’d simply allowed herself to be carried along the tops of all the other emotions in the room, never really focusing unless they found a potential target, and never really worrying about it. She’d enjoyed it, and he’d found it oddly pleasant as well. Not having to feel for oneself and just be carried along with everyone else. No conscience, and no resistance to the dangers that were inherent in her own abilities. “How long can we - dare we -wait?”

Claire shook her head. “There’s no way to know. And she’s going to need more of the toxin soon to keep from going into a reaction again.”

“Which will just make the situation worse,” Darien argued. He was getting ready to do it himself, if necessary.

“The Official hasn’t approved it yet,” Bobby said quietly, stunning Darien into silence for several minutes.

He closed his eyes for a second, not quite able to comprehend what Bobby had just said. “Claire, you can’t let this happen.”

Claire glared at Bobby. “Until I can assure him of a reasonable chance for recovery, he’d rather take the risk of her adapting. Even if it’s a bit uncomfortable for her. Remember the SWRB?”

“Claire, what if she adapts by figuring out how to create the toxin on her own? Maintaining the current status quo?” Darien knew he hit a nerve with that one, and silently thanked whoever it was that caused the idea to spring to mind.

“Is that possible, Keepy?” Now Bobby sounded worried. They all walked a fine line between loyalty to the Agency, to the ideal, and to each other.

“Bloody hell. Yes, it’s possible. The Official can sod off; I need to break the cycle now.” Rushing about, she retrieved all the necessary items. “I’ll need your help.”

“Like I’d be anywhere else,” Darien muttered as he and Bobby followed her out of the Keep and down the hall back to the padded room. Hobbes chased off the two guards and opened the door.

Claire handed Bobby the tranq gun she’d grabbed as a precaution. Going to the bed, she uncovered one of Alyx’s arms and began to prep her. “I’m hoping she’ll stay asleep… oh, bum.”

Alyx came back to awareness as the tourniquet was being wrapped about her upper arm. “What the… Get away from me.” She shoved Claire with her mind, but with her control still shot, she only managed to dump Claire to the floor instead of tossing her into the wall as she had wanted. Then she tried to push herself up off the bed.

“Hold her,” Claire ordered in a tight voice as she got to her feet.

There was moment of hesitation by both men, but then they moved. Hobbes took Alyx's legs and literally sat on them to keep her from moving, while Darien took her torso. Coordinating with Bobby, he managed to get behind her back and wrapped both his legs and arms about her, leaving only the arm Claire wanted free. He was almost too large to do this; her far smaller frame swallowed up by his. She struggled as hard as she could, but drugged to the gills and with only the one arm free, there wasn’t much she could do.

“Calm down, kid. We’re not gonna hurt you,” Bobby said in a shaky voice. The look of terror on her face was more than enough to make him want to second-guess this move, but then he saw those eyes, the solid silver orbs that gave away nothing, and he knew - knew with all his heart and soul - that this had to be done. “We’d never hurt you, kid.”

“Then let me go!” she howled at them, struggling to free herself. “Dare, love, don’t do this. Don’t force this on me.” She saw Claire move back over to her, with a syringe filled with a dark opalescent blue liquid. She swung at her with her free hand once Claire was near enough.

Claire avoided the blow easily. “Hold her, god damn it.”

Hobbes grabbed Alyx’s free arm and pulled, straightenin, ma, making it nearly impossible for her to do more than tug futilely. He wanted to say something, anything to calm her, but found his mouth dry. This was just not the same as having to deal with a Quicksilver-mad Fawkes. This was the kid, Alyx, this was not supposed to happen to her. “Got her, Keep. Hurry up.”

“Ah, crap, no. Don’t do this. Please.” She was begging now, the lights in the room flickering in her distress. “Darien, don’t let them do this. You know what it’s like, how hard it is to live the way we do.”

“Alyx…” He lowered his head to lean against hers, speaking softly. “I know, but this doesn’t make life any better, just… easier.”

Claire was there then, the needle poised to slide into the vein standing prominently in the crook of her arm. “Just relax, Alyx.”

Alyx tried to flinch away as the needle broke through her skin and the counteragent burned its way into her. “Don’t I get to live any part of my own life?” she snapped at Claire. “I just wanted to play for a little while.” She stiffened and jerked her arm out of Bobby’s hold as soon as the needle was withdrawn. “Ah, damn, it burns.”

Darien had very little memory of what he had felt when receiving the Stage Five counteragent; even from the two occasions when he’d been conscious for the administration, but a burning sensation was part of what he felt with the regular counteragent. “Easy. It’ll be over soon.” He relaxed his hold slightly and placed one hand on her face, surprised to find it overly warm. “Claire, should she be warm?”

“I have no idea,” Claire said in complete honesty.

“Oh, this is not fun,” Alyx complained, going limp in Darien’s hold.

Bobby climbed off her when it became obvious she was not going anywhere. “Claire, what’s happening?”

Claire had been staring off in the distance, thinking. “The counteragent should be clearing the affected Quicksilver from her system, which should leave… Oh bloody hell, she’s going to bottom out.” She got to her feet and dashed from the room without an explanation.

“Bottom out?” Bobby asked Darien.

“Umm, if it’s clearing out the Quicksilver, it would, uh, leave her with too little in her system.” Darien understood now, having worked it out. “Giving her headacand…and…”

“A case of the red-eye,” Bobby finished. “We have this one handled, kid.”

Alyx didn’t even groan. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, and her head was quickly turning into a throbbing ache that began between her eyes with a needle thin ice pick and radiated out in tendrils that pounded in time to her heartbeat. And that wasn’t the worst of it. She suddenly had no control at all over her mind or body. She jerked back, cracking Darien in the chin with the back of her head, making him flinch away with a stifled curse and release her.

“What the hell?” Darien tried to hold her steady once the brilliant pain had eased. She shuddered and convulsed, the lights in the room suddenly deciding to flicker and spark, though by some miracle they didn’t explode.

Bobby’s eyes narrowed slightly; actually relieved to see this reaction. Fawkes had hit this stage sooner that one time with Arnaud and Doc Rendell, but being the kid and all, he wasn’t surprised to see some minor differences. “Normal, Fawkes. You do the exact same thing.”

“Are you sure?” Darien wasn’t convinced. Alyx’s temperature was shooting upwards, and the convulsions didn’t seem to be easing up any. Then she suddenly went limp, her breathing harsh, a weak, pitiful moan escaping from her.

Her eyes opened, revealing the blood filled pools Bobby had been hoping to see. “Yeah, I’m sure. She’s gone to red.”

“Easy, baby. It’s almost over. I promise you.” Darien cradled her, hoping to keep her calm. He could feel her heart fluing ing in her chest, like that of a frightened bird, far too rapid to be healthy. He faced Bobby. “Where the hell is Claire?”

“She’ll be here, Darien.” Even as he spoke, he moved to the doorway and stuck his head out to look for her. The kid was looking just awful.

“Ohhh, hell. I’m gonna be sick,” Alyx moaned. She pushed herself off Darien and hung her head over the edge of the bed, her stomach trying to get rid of contents idn’tdn’t have, leaving her dry heaving until she was sure she was going to faint just from the pain. Alyx knew Darien had been kind enough to pull her hair back and could hear him murmuring soothing words to her, but she couldn’t focus enough to translate them into anything intelligible. Collapsing where she was, she did the only thing she could think of to escape, opening what remained of her shields and letting the voices pull her away.

As soon as Darien was sure she was over this bout of nausea, he gently rolled her over, not liking how limp she had become. Her breathing was shallow and just plain sounded wrong. “Alyx, wake up for me.” Her eyes may have been half-open, but she wasn’t seeing a thing and it scared him. “Bobby, find Claire, now.”

Bobby bolted from the room, leaving Darien alone with what was left of Alyx. “Sweet thing, you’re scaring me here. Just wake up a bit. Let me know you’re in there.” When this garnered no reaction of any sort, he lifted her into his arms and pulled her close enough to rest his forehead on hers. *Please, Alyx. Come back to me.*

That achieved a reaction, but not the one he was expecting. Suddenly he found himself with dozens of voices in his head, emotions pouring into him. He jerked himself away, breaking the connection he’d managed to establish. “Crap, Alyx, that’s not the answer either.” He wished he knew why she was fing ing so hard to get away. He’d thought she was fine, reasonably happy with the current situation, with the way their lives were going, but obviously not or she wouldn’t be trying so damn hard to run away from it.

Bobby arrived, towing a rather flustered Keeper with him. “The Chief was chewing her out for giving the kid the counteragent,” he explained as he assisted her in getting set up.

Claire had the special booster shot ready in less that a minute. “Hold her still, Darien.”

“Just hurry, Claire.” He did as she asked, though he suspected Alyx would never even notice what was happening. He watched as Claire got the vein in Alyx’s arm to stand up again and then slipped the oversized needle into her arm. She slowly pressed the plunger in, not wanting to release the contents too fast. No point in shocking Alyx’s already abused system again; even he realized it could do more harm than good right now.

Once the syringe was empty and set aside, Claire monitored Alyx’s pulse for a several minutes, giving the drug a chance to work. When she checked Alyx’s eyes, she smiled slightly. “Back to normal,” she informed both men, trying not to laugh when they, in unison, let out sighs of relief. “Try and wake her.”

Darien shook his head. “Can’t, she’s gone. Still trying to run away.” He met Claire’s eyes. “Is there something you know that I don’t?”

“Always,” Claire said, hoping he’d drop the subject with that.

“Damn it, Claire.” Darien didn’t need this run-around bullshit right now. He’d obviously missed something in recent weeks, and it must be something big for Alyx to try and do something this stupid.

“Darien, I can’t tell you. Doctor-patient.” When he glared at her, she unbent a little, giving him the barest of hints and no more. “All I can say is that she got some bad news out of her lab.” Claire began to clean up the assorted items she’d brought in. “I have to go deal with the Official. Keep trying to wake her. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Fawkes…. This is not your fault. It’s not even her fault, really. Try and convince her of that.” Bobby patted him on the shoulder and then followed Claire out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

For a long while, Darien did nothing but hold her, trying to understand what news could have been bad enough to make her long for this total freedom from responsibility. She had always been the one who took everything too seriously, the one who worked as hard as she could to get the job not only done, but done with the greatest success possible. He was the lazy one of the two, always looking for the quick solution, the easy way out, looking to get done with the work to find more time for the play.

Play. That had been her running commentary last night. That she wanted to play. Hoping he was onto something, he went over the last six months or so in his mind and realized that, except for recovery from some damn serious injuries, including paralysis and torture in his case, they’d been extremely busy, with very little time for any real ‘play.’ They hadn’t even made it back up to Cold Springs for a weekend since the funeral. The timing just never seemed to be there, something always coming up, another threat to avert, another evil-doer to stop. Add to that Alyx being co-opted by other agencies and out of town at least two weeks out of every month, and he realized she’d had no chance at finding free time, time to be nothing more than the person reflected back at herself in the mirror. It was no wonder she’d taken full advantage of the situation. Thinking of it that way, it had been kind of thoughtful of her to invite him along at all. She could have just taken off on her own and no one would have ever found her.

He shook his head. The things they’d done last night, the mood they’d created, the pure escapism, and it was an overcompensation. He could see that now. She normally had to use such an incredible amount of control to just appear to be normal. It wasn’t surprising that, once free of those boundaries, those limits she placed on herself, she became just the opposite, and had reveled in it. Or that she enjoyed He He knew there was one hell of a hedonist hidden underneath that carefully proper exterior. He saw it every time they were alone, with no one to answer to but themselves.

Now, he just had to convince her she wasn’t really losing anything by putting those constraints back in place. That she could live with what she’d done, the way she’d felt, the knowledge of what truly lay inside her. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed and calmed his mind. He was nowhere as skilled as Alyx at this, but she had been patiently teaching him, to increase their combined talent at communicating with one another. Once again setting his forehead against hers, he tried to find her.