Zechs moved to where Duo was laid out on an emergency exam table, ignoring the paramedics moving around them as he brushed Duo's too-long bangs out of his face. The younger man was still unconscious, though his pulse rate had slowed a bit from the frantic pace when they'd first reached him.
"Lowell... how bad is the leg?" Sally asked, glancing up from where she was scraping some of the slime off of Duo into a sample vial. Zechs followed her gaze to see Lowell leaning heavily against another table; he hadn't noticed that the agent was favoring one leg slightly, blood mixing with the filth on his jeans.
"Not bad..." the tall agent shrugged a little. "Keep working on Duo. I'm fine. It's just a graze."
"Right," she glared at him, then sighed. "But I will get to you. If you're not bleeding at the moment though, there's a shower through that door. Try to get as much of that crap off as you can... keep it out of the wound too, as much as possible... shit." Sealing the bottle in her hands, she set it aside and tossed an empty one to Zechs. "Merquise... give him a hand. And get a sample of that stuff from him too."
Zechs raised one eyebrow; reluctant to leave Duo's side even to help Lowell.
"I think I can manage by myself, thanks," Lowell glanced at him and then shrugged a little sheepishly. "No offense."
"You sure?" Zechs handed Lowell the vial, and then reached out to put a hand on the other man's shoulder.
"Uh... yeah." Lowell glanced down at Duo, as the younger pilot shifted with a low groan. "I think he needs you more."
Zechs nodded, turning back to place a soothing hand on Duo's forehead; stilling the restless tossing.
"There are extra scrubs near the showers. Help yourself." Sally frowned at both of them this time, as Lowell took the vial from Zechs, then headed for the shower. "Men. Can't live with them... and get arrested for shooting their stubborn asses."
"I'm sorry... what was that?" Zechs wished he had enough humor left to smile at the disgruntled mumble.
"Nothing. I suppose as long as you're here... you might as well be useful," Sally admitted grudgingly as she turned towards the table, holding a mobile monitor in one hand. The blonde doctor threw him a last measuring look before glancing at the paramedics milling by the door. "Johannes... go with Lowell. I want samples of that stuff. And make sure he stays conscious. Grisham... you're with me."
The shorter of the two paramedics moved around to stand at Duo's feet, mirroring Zechs' position at Duo's head. "Keep him as still as you can."
Zechs nodded, gripping Duo's hands firmly in his. "No one has died on this exam table... have they?"
"What?" She blinked at him. "No, of course not."
"Just checking," Zechs muttered. Come on Duo... wake up...There shouldn't be anything trapping you in the loop here...away from the fence... unless it's that slime on you that was the trigger. Raising his eyes slightly, he met Sister Helen's worried gaze across the table; then both of them turned to watch Sally as she ran the scanner down Duo's body.
To his relief, Dorothy burst in the door a moment later with a bundle of clothing in her hands, as well as the small velvet bag containing Duo's cross.
"Did you find...?"
"Yeah," she nodded, dropping the clothes onto one of the chairs. "I brought you guys some clothes too, figured you'd want to clean that shit off as soon as possible."
"Thanks." He glanced at Sally, who was frowning down at the monitor in her hand. "What?"
"There's no sign of a blow to the head... no injury to account for the shock. I don't know why he passed out... " She broke off. "Or has he stopped sleeping again?"
"He... hasn't been sleeping a lot, but he is sleeping," Zechs winced. "Sally, I don't think it's physical trauma..."
"Then what is it?" She stepped back a little. "You two know something... I want to hear it. Now."
"No. Not now." Steeling himself, he caught a glimpse of Grisham's eyes taking in the scene with morbid fascination. "Let us take care of Duo first... then I... we'll... explain. You have to trust us."
"So you keep saying." The flat tone in her voice warned him that she wouldn't be put off for long. "But none of you are leaving this room until I have answers."
"We promise... But we'll only tell you... and Lowell. No one else," Dorothy snapped, and there was no doubting the steel in her voice. "The paramedics... they don't have the clearance for this."
Sally looked ready to argue, then suddenly sighed. "Fine. Grisham... Take the samples to the lab and start running them, I want the results as soon as you can get them for me."
Grisham looked a little disgruntled, but within moments had retrieved the second sample vial from the bathroom, and vanished out the door.
"Happy?"
"Yes." Dorothy moved over to take Duo's other hand before meeting Zechs' eyes over his prone body. "You sure about this? Introducing more trauma at this point, something we know is going to cause nightmares...."
"I..." He glanced over to see Sister Helen nod slightly. "I don't think we have a choice. We have to break the loop. And at least this one we're all accustomed to dealing with."
Biting her lip, she held out the bag to him. He couldn't help hesitating as he took it; no more sure of what he was doing than she was.
"What about this...?" She held out a plain silver ring as well. "Will it work?"
He couldn't help glancing at Sister Helen for reassurance. The nun looked thoughtfully at it. 'You will need to charge it.'
'How?'
'Duo only seems to sense strong emotions... but they don't have to deal with death or tragedy.' She smiled at him. 'I can see the way you both feel about him... and each other. You have to find a way to lock that emotion... onto that.' Transparent fingers reached out to brush the ring. 'Have faith...'
"I don't believe in your God..."
She shook her head. 'This isn't about my God. This is about... the closest thing to a son I ever had. And he needs the two of you now more than he's ever needed my God...'
"What?" Dorothy prompted softly, interrupting his thoughts as he tried to unravel the nun's words. Looking up, he fell into worried blue eyes...and understanding hit.
"I... Duo pulled us out of our shells... it's time we returned the favor." Ignoring Sally's presence at the foot of the table, he reached across Duo to lace his fingers with Dorothy's and tugged slightly; until she leaned across the table far enough that he could whisper in her ear. "I know you love him. He needs you...hold onto that. We can pull him out of this."
"But..."
"We... just have to have faith." Seeing the doubt in her eyes, he smiled faintly and felt the last pieces fall into place. "I love him too... I love both of you. And I need both of you alive and whole and sane. We figured out months ago that we'd all been alone too long. Don't let go of that. It's our link to sanity... remember?"
Closing his eyes, and concentrating on how he felt about both of his partners, he barely heard a sharp, indrawn breath against his cheek. "Oh..."
Time stilled for a long moment, then abruptly lurched to a start again as the door to the bathroom opened. "Doc..." Startled, both of them let go and jumped back; the ring clattered softly to the floor as Johannes halted in the doorway in surprise. "What the hell is going on...?"
"Shit..." Dorothy reached down to pick up the ring, but stopped as Zechs' caught her shoulder.
"Not yet... we have to break this cycle first. Leave it for now. And don't touch it with your bare fingers... just in case."
"This had better work..." she groaned, as he pulled the cross out the bag.
"Doc? What is this, an exorcism?"
"Grisham's in the lab." Sally's voice was tight, and from the expression on her face she was undecided whether to trust them or start calling for the men in white to come take them away. "Go help him with the sample analysis."
"But... what the....?"
"Go."
"You heard the Doctor." Lowell spoke up from behind the man. "Zechs? Dorothy? You two okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost...."
Dorothy couldn't quite bite back a laugh, though it bordered on hysterical. "You have no idea. Let's get this over with, hm?"
Barely hearing the door close behind the paramedic, Zechs held his breath as he pressed the cross into Duo's lax fingers. The effect was immediate and frightening; even expecting something to happen, neither of them was prepared for Duo to convulse as if he was holding a live wire. It took all four of them to catch him before he could roll off the table.
"Zechs... that's enough..." Dorothy whispered. "Please..."
'Now...' Sister Helen whispered.
Zechs didn't even glance in her direction as he pried the cross back out of Duo's fingers and dropped it carelessly to the ground. Please let this work... don't let us have hurt him this badly for nothing.... Dorothy bent to snatch the ring off the floor, using a corner of her sleeve to shield the metal from her fingers until she could force it into Duo's hand. The younger man groaned, and his fist closed tightly around the metal; staying tight even as the rest of his body went limp and he collapsed back onto the table.
"What the...?" Lowell whispered softly.
Zechs just sighed and leaned against the table, unable to do anything but stare helplessly at his partner. Duo was lying very still, his eyes closed and his skin pale beneath the grime. But the rigid tension that had racked his narrow frame since they'd pulled him out of the alley had eased, and the lines of pain were fading from his face.
"Is he...?" Dorothy looked equally stunned, and Zechs reached out a hand squeeze her shoulder softly. Sally brushed them aside to pass the monitor over Duo again, and despite the sudden release of tension in the room, they all instinctively leaned closer to read it.
"Nobody... better yell...clear," Duo's voice was ragged beneath them. Zechs glanced down to see two hazed blue eyes peering up at them warily. "What the...fuck...just happened?"
"Duo?" Dorothy's voice cracked, and he blinked up at her in confusion. "Are you alright?"
"No," he muttered. "I think... I got stomped on... by a Gundam... or two." He took a slightly deeper breath and coughed a little. "Maybe...more. Christ... what the...fuck?"
"Duo..." Sally's voice intruded firmly. "What happened?"
"I... Uh... shit. I'm not...sure." He glanced around a little uncertainly. "I... remember fighting a... bunch of... nuts in black... and then... starting to stand up. And then I just remember... a lot of pain."
"Do you remember the fence?" Zechs asked softly.
Duo blinked up at him, paling even more. "Oh...fuck..." He tried to sit up, the motion as frantic as it was uncoordinated, but his aching body appeared unwilling to cooperate. Finally giving up on vertical motion, he resorted to just rolling to the edge of the table before emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Zechs and Lowell both jumped out of the way, though Zechs kept one hand on Duo's back to hold him on the table.
"I'll take that as a yes..." Zechs sighed.
"Okay. He's awake... and the two of you are somehow responsible for it. So start talking," Sally Po growled, stalking around the table to hand Duo a towel. "What the hell is going on here?"
"Right." Dorothy threw Zechs and Duo a questioning look. "Um... we...uh..."
"Don't... look at me," Duo shrugged. "I had to explain it last time. It's somebody else's turn." He coughed again. "Crap... what the...fuck... is this... all over me.... Shit!"
"Duo...?" Zechs threw an arm around him worriedly, as he nearly lurched off the table.
"My skin is crawling.... Get it off!" Pain and exhaustion were rapidly shifting into outright panic in the younger man's voice. Without even pausing to think about it, Zechs reached down to scoop his partner off the table and headed for the bathroom.
Sally stared at the bathroom door as it slammed shut behind them, then turned to Dorothy with a baleful glare. "Okay. Looks like you're elected. Start talking."
"Duo..." Taking a deep breath, Dorothy bent down to pick up the cross from the floor. "Duo is an... empath. Sort of...."
"An empath." Sally's tone was flat, giving no indication of her thoughts. "I thought Quatre was the empath."
"He...is. I don't suppose either of you are familiar with the term Psychometry?"
"No..."
"It's the ability to pick up psychic impressions from physically touching an object." Dorothy sighed. "Duo...is extremely sensitive to touch. Especially towards objects that... were... impressed with strong emotion or trauma."
"And his reaction tonight?"
"We... have been after a serial killer, Sally. Apparently an entire cult full of them. And all of their victims were tortured and killed..."
"Oh shit," Lowell muttered softly, and both women turned to glance at him. "They killed them there... on that fence?"
"According to Zechs... and Duo's reaction... yes." Dorothy dropped the cross into her pocket. "It was too strong for Duo to control, and he overloaded. At a guess, it was similar to if the fence was actually electrified, and he reacted physically to that trauma by... shutting down."
"And that business with the cross?" Sally prompted. Dorothy still could not read any expression to tell her if the woman was buying the explanation or not.
"The... cross... is imprinted with a... pattern from Duo's childhood. The Maxwell Church massacre. It's how we found out about him, actually. He... had a lot of recurring nightmares when we first... um... became partners." Dorothy shrugged. "We... Zechs that is... figured that we needed to break the loop that he was trapped in... and that a similar trauma might do it."
"What about the ring?"
"We... needed to give him a focus... something to ground him once the... feedback loop was broken. Since the cross... wouldn't do that for him... we needed to come up with something... previously neutral...."
"I see." Dorothy threw Sally a nervous look, not sure how to interpret the older woman's voice. "So how does Zechs tie into the fact that Duo is ... sensitive to touch."
"Huh?"
"You said according to Zechs' and Duo's reactions... implying that he also picked up something at the site. And Zechs' has never struck me as the type to throw up in an alley just because of a smell. No matter how foul it was."
"Well...er... no. He's not." Shit. I was hoping she hadn't caught that slip...
"So?"
"Um... he...uh..." Closing her eyes, Dorothy took a deep breath. "I... this is the part we didn't want to tell anyone. I promise you we aren't crazy. It's just...going to sound like it."
"I'll believe that," Sally sounded almost amused. "Go on. I'm listening."
"Zechs... sees ghosts." There was silence from the two people watching her. "And talks to them." She cracked open her eyes and glanced quickly at Lowell and Sally; both of whom were staring at her in bemusement. "It's...actually rather useful in... homicide investigations."
"He...sees ghosts." Lowell stared at her, his brown eyes filling with sudden pain. "That's how you knew Seely hadn't been kidnapped. And why you kept searching the house..."
"Yeah." She shrugged. "But we had to find her body in order to prove it." She started to rub her forehead, then realized her fingers were still covered in grime from holding onto Duo. Looking around, she finally wiped her fingers off on the sterile sheet from the empty exam table.
"And when he said he could find us...but the rest of the Preventer's couldn't..."
"He...had two ghosts... tailing you. They led him through the maze."
"I...see." Lowell sank down onto a chair against one wall of the exam room, looking more than a little stunned. "That... would explain a few...things. I guess...."
"This is insane..." Sally Po shook her head. "You honestly expect me to believe that you are using psychic phenomena to solve homicide cases? That's not going to stand up in court..."
"We don't exactly advertise our methods," Dorothy snapped. "And it doesn't have to stand up in court. We don't give you results based solely upon that. Everything we give you has hard forensic evidence to back it up. And you can't deny that. The fact that we have a little...extra help finding the evidence doesn't mean that it's not valid evidence."
"This is..."
"Sally, believe us or not. Whatever you have to do. Fire us if you want to. But we didn't ask for this, and we can't just turn it off. So we might as well be making good use of it, right?" Zechs spoke from the doorway to the bathroom. Duo was leaning heavily against him, and both of them were dressed in scrubs. For the first time, Dorothy realized that Zechs hadn't bothered to take the time to pick up the spare clothes on his way into the bathroom with Duo. "All we ask is that you keep this... a secret for now." He included Lowell in that, looking from the doctor to their occasional partner. "We didn't want to hide it from you...because we didn't trust you... it's just...well... not something we choose to tell people."
"I can understand that." Lowell shook his head a little, still looking stunned. "I wouldn't have told me either."
"And Sally... you can't tell Une. Not yet."
"What? Are you insane?" She looked up at him, her eyes blazing with indignation. "Wait, forget I asked that..."
"No, we aren't. Not yet anyway." He grimaced. "But... one of the ghosts... I really don't think she's ready to deal... with this aspect of it...."
Sally stared at them for a long moment, and Dorothy saw the moment understanding hit her. "General...Khushrenada...?" Her eyes traveled to Duo, who appeared only half- conscious at best as he let Zechs hold him on his feet. "And Duo agreed to work with you?"
"Yes."
"Damn... but he must have been desperate for friends or you are one smooth talker...."
"Let's just say...we've come to an understanding about Treize's presence," Zechs sighed wearily. "Besides...the other ghost is Duo's." His arm tightened around his companion. "And it's been a long day. Can we continue this conversation tomorrow? Or are you going to throw us in a detention cell?" He quirked a small smile at her. "Besides... you're about to have your hands full."
"What...?" She broke off as the door opened to reveal the first arrivals of injured suspects from the crime scene. "Shit. Fine. Go. But we will talk about this again, I promise you that."
"Understood." Zechs nodded to her, then turned to glance at Lowell. "Lowell... you were... thanks. For watching his back through this."
"No problem," Lowell smiled faintly. "He was watching my back too. And it was... interesting working with you."
"Any time," Dorothy added, as Zechs and Duo reached her and she slipped her shoulder under his other arm. "You know where to find us."
Turning away, they headed back to Purgatory.
TBC