The Abyss

" A man named Charlie Fogarty once wrote on a wall 'When you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks back at you'. I thought I understood, but, as I was about to find out, I didn't..."

The pounding in his head told Darien Fawkes that it had been a bad one this time. He tried to hold in a moan but a low sound escaped, and he moved his head restlessly from side to side without opening his eyes. Just another few seconds and he'd be able to steel himself for whatever unpleasant revelations were to come.

He couldn't even remember what had happened before the Quicksilver madness had taken hold of him. That was unusual, but it had happened before. It always meant that he'd been in the grip of the madness for at least a couple of days, and he wondered why. It didn't happen very often, now that Claire had perfected the process of making the counteragent.

"Fawkes. We know you're awake."

The voice was one he'd never heard before. Darien prised his eyes open reluctantly to look at the speaker. There were three men standing in front of him and Darien recognised none of them. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't organise his scattered wits enough to get the words out.

One of the men was wearing a lab coat. He frowned and stepped forward. "Darien, how are you feeling?" He lifted Darien's wrist and took his pulse. "You've been out for nearly a week."

A week! Darien fought a rising sense of panic. "Where..." His voice came out as a croak and he swallowed. "Bobby... th' Keeper..."

"We'll talk about that later. Just rest now." The stranger patted his arm gently. He produced a cup of water and a straw and held it to Darien's lips.

He drank gratefully, swallowing again as the water eased his parched throat. "Thanks. What happened? Where's..."

"Later, Fawkes." One of the other men stepped forward. He was wearing a blue suit, while his companion was in a black suit. "All you need to know is that you're with us now."

Darien pushed himself upright and the room swayed dizzyingly. Now that he getting his head together, he realised that the room was as unfamiliar as its occupants. "And who the Hell are you?"

"That's classified." Black Suit snapped the words when it seemed like Blue Suit might actually answer.

"What's going on?" Darien grabbed at his lab-coated helper's arm. "Tell me."

"Darien, try to keep calm." The other man took a syringe from the tray beside him and lifted it significantly. "I'm just going to give you something that'll make you more comfortable."

That was all Darien needed to hear. He threw himself off the bed he'd been lying on and dived towards the door. Predictably he didn't get very far. His legs folded under him and even if the two men in suits hadn't grabbed him, the only way he would have made it through the door would have been on his hands and knees.

They dragged him back to the bed and forced him onto it, snapping leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles. Even though he knew struggling would do no good, Darien couldn't stop himself. He yelled as the needle stung his arm. "Let me go! I want to see the Official, dammit. Claire! Hobbes, help me! Bobby..."

The drug slowed him, sapping the panicked response even as Darien fought to maintain it. He subsided with a choked sob, his vision blurring from the drug as well as the tears that filled his eyes. He blinked them away, but it was no use. One last, slow blink, and his eyes refused to open again. He could hear the three men arguing, but it sounded distant and unreal.

*

"Darien?"

It was the voice of the man in the lab coat. Darien didn't move. His hands were still cuffed and he felt exhausted.

"Darien, my name is Ted Bailey and I'm your new keeper." From his voice Bailey was standing close beside his bed.

Darien opened his eyes. "I've already got a keeper. Thanks all the same."

"Not any more, I'm afraid." One of his cuffs was released and footsteps circled the bed. The other cuff loosened and fell away. "It would make both our lives a lot easier if you could just accept that."

"Why should I?" Darien sat up and rubbed at his chafed wrists. "I don't know you. I want to talk to the Official. Or Eberts. I want to know what's happened, and where Bobby is."

Bailey studied him for a long time before he spoke. "I'm sorry. There's no easy way to tell you this. Mr Hobbes is dead. The Official and your other keeper were badly injured. You attacked them in the grip of Quicksilver madness. We were able to capture you and keep you safe, but you're no longer in San Diego."

There must still be some drug in his system, Darien decided. All he could feel was a deadly numbness. Bobby was dead, Claire and the Official hurt. None of it was real. He stared at his hands and blinked repeatedly, but they remained obstinately normal. They couldn't be the hands that had attacked Claire... killed Bobby... not Bobby... Darien realised he was muttering the words under his breath and clamped his lips shut.

"I'm afraid so." Bailey was standing close. "You shouldn't blame yourself. You can't be held responsible for what happens when the Quicksilver builds to toxic levels. Mr Hobbes was trying to restrain you. You broke his neck and attacked the Keeper. Then you got out of the lab and went after the Official. While you were beating him, Eberts managed to get help."

"No." Darien spoke in a whisper, but he was already beginning to believe it.

Bailey put a hand on his shoulder and Darien looked up. His face showed only sympathy. "I can show you the photos, if you like. We brought you here and kept you sedated for several days while I made up a batch of counteragent. All the counteragent the Agency had was destroyed in the struggle."

It was all beginning to make an awful kind of sense. The numbness was dissipating but Darien clung to it, afraid to face what lay beyond.

"Would you like a mild sedative, Darien? It's a lot to take in at once." Bailey lifted another syringe. "It's up to you."

He could feel the pain hovering somewhere in the distance. Bobby was dead. Everybody he knew was gone; his life was turned upside down for the second time in little more than a year. He wasn't ready to face that. Silently, Darien offered his arm for the needle.

*

Bailey folded his arms across his chest decisively. "No. I'm sorry Darien, but this has been going on for too long."

"Just give me the damn shot." Darien halted his pacing in front of the shorter man and glared down at him from a distance of about three inches, "I mean it, Bailey."

Bailey shook his head. "It isn't doing you any good, either physically or emotionally, to keep you sedated."

He stayed where he was, eyeballing Bailey, but the keeper remained unmoved. Bailey was even more stubborn than Claire... Abruptly, Darien turned away. Just a couple of steps took him to the wall. "I need it."

Still no response. Darien leaned into the wall, pressing his face against the cool plaster. It was easier, sometimes, if he couldn't see his surroundings; everything around him reminded him of what he'd lost. He had to convince Bailey that he needed the sedative, and that meant talking about... about... "I see him sometimes."

"Your partner." Bailey sounded sympathetic.

"My... yeah, partner. Friend. He was my friend." Darien choked on the word. "I loved him."

"The bond between partners can run very deep. You depend on each other in life threatening situations." From the sound of his voice, Bailey was standing very close behind him. "I understand, Darien, but..."

"No, you don't understand!" Darien turned to face him. "You don't." He pushed past Bailey and began pacing again. "I killed him, Bailey. I don't want to see... I can't face him. Not yet."

He was shaking. Darien wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes, standing miserably in the centre of the small room. He heard Bailey sigh and then his footsteps retreating. It seemed like an eternity before the footsteps returned. The brief sting of the needle sent a shudder of relief through him.

"I'll give you a sedative at night to help you sleep, but this is the last one in the daytime." Bailey sounded resigned. "It isn't going to make the pain go away, Darien. All this will do is put off the moment when you have to deal with it."

"Yeah, well that sounds pretty good to me." The sedative was starting to take effect. Darien walked over to the bed and flopped onto it, turning his face to the wall.

*

...warm tongue, teasing at his lips. He parted them just a little, allowing the sensual invasion to proceed. Everywhere was Bobby-sense – taste, scent, touch... he could feel the soft tickle of hair at Bobby's nape with one hand, and the ripple of hard muscle under silken skin with his other hand. Bobby's tongue in his mouth, Bobby's body, pressed against him... Bobby...

For the first few moments Darien could still feel the pressure of those lips, the raised tissue of the scar on Bobby's shoulder. Bobby had never told him how he'd got that scar, and now he never would... Darien closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing slowly.

Somehow dreaming about making love with Bobby again had been worse than the nightmares that his mind usually spawned, creating over and over again the events he couldn't remember of the day he'd killed Bobby. Tears prickled beneath his eyelids and he clenched them more tightly still.

He knew now that his room was watched, had located the camera yesterday, and he had no intention of giving his watchers a floorshow. It was bad enough that he woke from his nightmares with his covers in a twisted sweaty mass around his legs. He was not going to let them see him curled up into a foetal ball sobbing his guts out.

At least he managed the second part, but when Darien heard his door open he was lying curled around one of the pillows, shivering.

"Rise and shine, Fawkes. It's time you started earning your keep." The nameless man Darien had begun to think of as Black Suit shook his shoulder impatiently. "Get up."

Darien didn't even bother to snarl. He could feel the beginnings of the pressure that heralded another bout of Quicksilver madness, but he didn't care. If he went crazy again, maybe they'd shoot him.

Black Suit grabbed his wrist and twisted it upwards. The tattoo was showing half red. He made a satisfied grunt and let Darien's wrist drop again. "Time to go."

He pulled Darien upright and then led him towards the door. Darien went. He didn't do much of his own accord any more. He neither knew, nor cared, how many days he'd been in this windowless room. Beside the enormity of what he'd done nothing mattered much to him, least of all his life.

Black Suit led him through deserted corridors to an office that was remarkably like the Official's office, even down to the shield on the wall. Except that it bore the symbol of the CIA. Looking from Black Suit to the equally impassive Blue Suit, Darien felt a vague satisfaction. He deserved these bastards and they deserved him.

The man behind the desk was younger than the Official, though not by much. He was as thin as the Official was fat, and there was not even a trace of the good humour that the Official could radiate when he was pleased with himself. Somehow Darien was aware that the thin man was pleased with himself, and that was the most frightening thing of all. Survival instincts started to kick in and Darien straightened a little from his defeated slouch.

"Darien Fawkes. The invisible man." A hint of Southern drawl accentuated the smug possessiveness of the man's tone.

It only took a second's thought. The Quicksilver chilled his skin briefly and his vision changed. The thin man didn't seem very worried. "Take even one step towards me and my assistant will use his gun. A tranquilliser gun only, but I'm sure you'd rather avoid the experience."

Crap. Another thought, almost subconscious, and the Quicksilver shivered away from his body. He didn't look down at the tiny shards. "All right, you've got me. Now what're you gonna do with me?"

"You can call me Mr Carter." The thin man steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "It's not my real name, of course, but there's no need to be too formal, unlike your former... protector."

Darien shied away from the memory of what he'd done to his boss. They'd shown him the photos of that. Bailey had stopped them before they got to the photos of Bobby and Claire, and Darien was sickeningly grateful for that. It had helped ease his resentment of Bailey a little.

There was a chair a few feet behind him. Darien backed up and flopped into it. He wasn't going to show Carter just how frightened he was, and it was surprisingly easy to fall back into old habits. "You didn't answer my question."

A hand smacked into the side of his head, and before Darien knew what was happening he was face down on the floor with the two Suits kneeling on top of him and his arms were twisted up behind his back.

"You ought to learn as soon as possible, that I'm not going to be as tolerant as your former boss, Mr Fawkes." Darien heard a chair being pushed back. After a moment a pair of beautifully polished black shoes appeared in his limited field of vision. The toe of one shoe slid under his shoulder and nudged it upwards. Combined with the twisted arm, it was enough to send a jolt of pain into his back and chest. The shoes retreated a few steps. "You can let him up now."

Darien was released, but took his time getting to his feet. He stood, swaying slightly and praying for the madness to overwhelm him now, but it was too soon and he knew it. Just let that sadistic bastard still be here in a couple of hours...

"As to your tasks..." Carter smiled faintly. "You will obey orders. That's all I expect of you, Mr Fawkes. You don't need to pretend you're an agent. You're a tool. Or, perhaps I should say… a weapon. A weapon doesn't need to think, it merely needs to do what it was designed to do. Borden's mistake was to forget that. It won't be mine."

The interview was over. The Suit Brothers hustled him out and back down into the basement lab. He hadn't seen any other person during the whole journey there or back, and was beginning to wonder if he ever would.

*

Two hours later the Suits returned. Darien went without a murmur. Back to Carter's office.

"I have an assignment for you." Even the illusion of affability was gone now. Carter opened a folder to display the photo of a fair-haired middle-aged man. "You don't need to know who he is. You will kill him."

"No!" Darien leaned forward, then froze as the two Suits shifted menacingly. "I won't kill for you, or anybody else."

Carter smiled. "I was told you'd be reluctant. You might as well get used to the idea, Mr Fawkes. You will do as you are ordered, it's only a question of how much you have to suffer first."

"I won't..." As if on cue, pain stabbed at the back of his head. Darien dropped to his knees in front of the desk. Black Suit hauled him upright again. "No. I won't."

"Take him downstairs." Carter waited until the two men had dragged Darien as far as the door. "I assure you, Mr Fawkes, you will beg me to allow you to kill this man."

The absolute certainty in Carter's voice made Darien shudder. Two minutes later he was in the padded room in the basement, wearing a straightjacket, and the madness was rising.

*

Bailey came just as the madness was getting close to the point that Darien wasn't trying to fight it any more. He slipped the needle efficiently into Darien's arm and stepped back.

"Thanks." Darien watched the other man cautiously as Bailey released him from the straightjacket. Bailey seemed okay, but he was working for Carter, and that made him automatically suspect. He stood and stretched, then glanced at his wrist. The tattoo was still red, except for the last segment. He looked over at Bailey in alarm.

Bailey looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, but it's orders. Just enough counteragent to keep you from going into Quicksilver madness."

"That's crazy! I'll just need another jab in a few hours." A warning stab of pain told Darien it might not even be that long. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I think you should consider your options carefully, Darien." Bailey took his arm and led him over to the bed. "Sit down and let me check you out." He was silent as he took Darien's pulse and blood pressure. "Mr Carter is quite ruthless. He always achieves results. That's how he's got as far as he has."

"I'm not going to be one of his pet assassins." Darien met Bailey's eyes, but Bailey simply shrugged.

"If you need to use the... ah... facilities, you should do it now. The straightjacket will have to go back on soon."

"Thanks for nothing." But practicality won out over anger. In the half-hour Bailey allowed him, he cleaned up and did a few stretches to loosen his muscles. He was under no illusion about what was going to happen next.

*

Bailey opened the door to the padded room and edged his way inside. Darien didn't raise his head, but his reddened eyes followed the cautious movements. One part of his mind watched with a predator's eye, the other wanted to scream at Bailey to run. That situation, he knew, was not likely to last much longer; the violence battering at the inside of his skull would not be denied. What frightened Darien most was how much easier it was becoming to give in to his raging Id.

"Darien?" Bailey held up the syringe. "It's time for your shot."

For the moment reason won over madness. Darien lurched to his feet and staggered towards his new keeper. The syringe held the promise, not of sanity, but at least the lessening of the pain for a while. As the drug hit his bloodstream Darien moaned. He waited almost apathetically for Bailey to unfasten the straightjacket and then sagged against him.

"Let me help you." Bailey half dragged, half carried him to the bed in the other room. "It's been four days, Darien. Your body won't stand this much longer."

Darien ignored him. It wasn't anything he didn't already know, but all he wanted to do right now was to lie on the bed and try to forget his aching muscles and pounding head. He only had thirty minutes or so before Bailey would have to put the straightjacket on again.

He must have dozed off. It seemed like no time at all before Bailey was shaking his shoulder and urging him to sit up. Darien groaned as tense muscles protested his every movement. Already he could hear the insidious whisper of the Quicksilver in his mind, and he made no attempt to resist the straightjacket.

Bailey fastened the last strap and took hold of Darien by his shoulders. "Think about it, Darien. If you're really trying to kill yourself, you're close to succeeding. If you're not... you won't beat Mr Carter. He'll let you die rather than allow you to dictate to him. He'll still have the gland, and we have enough expertise to transfer it to another volunteer."

It was hard to think. For the last four days he hadn't slept, had hardly eaten, and had been in almost constant pain. Most of the time he'd been too caught up in the madness to care. It was only during the brief respites following the shots of counteragent that he had the chance to consider Carter's words. ... you will beg me to allow you to kill this man...

He'd die first. Wouldn't he?

It wouldn't be the first time he'd killed. There had been that henchman of Arnaud's, but he'd helped murder innocent people at the complex. He'd kill Arnaud, if he ever got the chance, but Arnaud had killed Kevin. He'd killed Bobby...

He'd killed Bobby, and somehow it felt obscene to want to continue living after doing that. He wanted to die. Except for that small part of him that refused to accept that it could end like this. The part of him that didn't want Carter to win. But if he did what Carter wanted, wouldn't that mean that Carter had won anyway?

That question never got resolved. When Bailey came in to check on him, Darien summoned the last shreds of control. "Tell Carter I'll do it."

*

It was easy. Too easy. Carter had refused him the counteragent until after he'd actually killed the target and that cushioned any emotion Darien might otherwise have felt. The Suits drove him to a wealthy suburb and pointed to a quietly elegant house. In spite of the fact that Darien hadn't been outside in weeks, he took no interest in the surroundings. He sat in the back of the dark green sedan wearing sunglasses to hide the redness in his eyes and allowed the scenery to flow past unnoticed.

"He's alone. Just ring the doorbell and when he comes, shoot him." Blue Suit held out a small gun with a silencer. Darien took it impassively, allowed the Quicksilver to flow over him, and slid out of the car.

The rage was building inside him, but Darien was far beyond the point where it had any direction. He could as easily have killed the first person he saw. Luckily, there weren't any pedestrians on the street. He walked nonchalantly up the path and pressed the doorbell. The target arrived before the last echo had died away.

He looked just like his photo. Allowing the Quicksilver to dissipate, Darien smiled and raised the gun.

The target stared at him in shock for a moment, then he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Please... whatever you want, I'll give it to you, just don't..." He began to back away.

Darien used his free hand to slide the sunglasses down his nose, exposing the red madness of his eyes, and the target froze. Darien's smile widened. He pulled the trigger. It was that easy.

*

Darien slept. It was the first real sleep he'd had since Bailey had stopped giving him sedatives. Even so, his dreams were filled with blood. Bobby and blood...

…blood on his hands, blood everywhere. He walked through streams of blood towards the house. Rivulets of blood flowed over his shoes and up his legs and body, like Quicksilver, only in reverse. The door opened and it was Bobby standing in front of him. Silent screams tore at his throat. Not Bobby... please, not Bobby... The sound of the shot was deafening, in spite of the silencer. Blood spread across Bobby's chest, spilled out of his mouth and eyes and nose, gleaming like Quicksilver. Bobby was still smiling as he fell.

"Bobby!" Darien jerked himself upright, breathing hard. "God, no..."

The images from the dream were still vivid and he had to fight the dry contractions of his gut, but there was nothing in his stomach to bring up; he hadn't eaten in days. Only the adrenaline from the Quicksilver madness had kept him on his feet yesterday.

Yesterday he'd killed a man. Today, for the first time in nearly a week, he didn't hurt all over his body. Was that all it took to get him to kill?

Rationally, Darien knew that it wasn't so simple, but his heart wasn't telling him that right now. He wondered what Bobby would think of what he'd done. It was so damned hard to remember that Bobby was dead... he bit back a sob and swung his legs off the bed. What was done was done and now he'd earned himself six days to try to get out of here.

There was food on a small table by the wall. Darien stumbled towards it, almost instinctively glancing at his wrist. Already the tattoo was over three fourths red.

"Bailey! Bailey, get in here!" Darien was at the door. As he'd expected, it was locked. He pounded his fist on the door and yelled even louder. "Get the Hell in here!"

"I'm here, Darien. Calm down and I'll open the door." Bailey's voice sounded strained.

It took all of Darien's self control to do as Bailey asked. He was still breathing heavily when Bailey opened the door. Behind the keeper, one of the Suits was standing guard. "Not him. He doesn't come in."

"All right." Bailey left the door open. "What is it, Darien?"

Darien held his arm up, wrist outwards. "What the Hell is going on?"

"I'm sorry Darien, it's orders." To do him credit, Bailey looked regretful. "You get enough counteragent to last twenty-four hours. As long as you behave, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Don't I?" Darien turned away and then glared back at Bailey over his shoulder. "Nothing to worry about. If Carter told you to stop giving me the shots, you'd just do it, wouldn't you?"

Bailey smiled reassuringly. "He won't do that. You're too valuable to him."

"You mean the gland is." Darien turned to face Bailey.

"Well... yes. But it would cost a lot of money to transfer the gland to another volunteer."

"Well, that makes me feel real secure. Dammit!" Darien strode over to the table and swept the food to the floor. It didn't make him feel any better. "I'm gonna take a shower."

A part of him had hoped that somehow he could get back to San Diego; that Claire would brew up a batch of counteragent and he'd convince the Official to take him back. Even being back at the Agency without Bobby, painful as it would have been, was a better option that staying here. Now it wasn't an option at all.

*

…blood. So much blood. The walls and floor were splattered with it, and the smell of it made him want to puke. The men and women standing around the table were covered in blood. One of them held a scalpel. They drew back as he got closer and he saw the man lying face down on the table... the gaping hole in the back of his head, filled with blood. The gland was lying in a dish with blood all around it. It gleamed with silvery highlights through the scarlet smears. Then the man on the table moved. He knew he could not, must not, see the man's face... to see that face would be worse than dying. He turned and ran.

The pounding of Bobby's heart woke him and he lay sweating and breathless, waiting for the panic to subside to the point where he dared to move. His mouth was dry... too many meds, taken for too long. It wasn't like he had a choice, though. The dream had haunted him for weeks, growing stronger every time, until he was so afraid to go through it again that he couldn't sleep without help from a pill bottle.

He struggled out of the bed and walked on wobbly legs to the bathroom. The harsh neon light did nothing to improve his unnatural pallor, or the bags under his reddened eyes. He splashed water on his face and then drank. It didn't help much. He went back to the bed and sat on the edge, ignoring the twisted, sweat dampened sheets. He wasn't ready to lie down, in case he fell asleep again.

Something about the dream nagged at him, but the emotions were so intense they drowned out whatever it was the dream was trying to tell him. Bobby rubbed his hands over his head and face and then let his shoulders slump with exhaustion.

"Damn gland." His muttered words sounded loud in the silence. "Damn murdering, lousy freaking gland..."

Losing Darien had been the worst thing that had ever happened to him, in a life that seemed to have more than its fair share of bad things. Even separating from Vivian hadn't been as bad as this. At least Vivian had still been alive. For years Bobby had been able to tell himself he still had a chance, so that, by the time she'd met Brock, he'd got used to the idea of being alone. Sure, it had hurt to give up that hope, but Darien's death had left him with no comforting illusions.

Even now, thinking about that was enough to bring Bobby to the verge of tears. He fought them back, grimly aware that if he gave way to them he'd probably be in for another bout of depression and paranoia. The Official wouldn't like that. He'd stretched all their tolerances to the limits in those first weeks. He'd very nearly self destructed again, and the Official had made it clear that if he did it would be the last he saw of the Agency.

So he'd put his life back together again, piece by painful piece, and tried to look like he was in control. His shrink kept telling him to let the grief out, but Bobby knew better. Without the Agency, his life would be meaningless, worthless. And if he let himself feel what was roiling inside of him, he'd never be able to keep it together. So he kept it inside.

Bobby yawned. God knew he didn't want to sleep, but he was tired... and if he went back to sleep that damned gland was just waiting to get into his head. He lay back on the bed, then sat up suddenly. The gland! What had happened to the gland? There was no way the Official would leave the gland in Darien's dead body, but if he'd found a new volunteer, Bobby would almost certainly have heard about it.

Or maybe not... he'd been walking around like a zombie for weeks, and even now nobody wanted to know him. Claire was the only person who'd been willing to talk to him about anything that wasn't strictly business. If only he'd demanded to see Darien's body he would know, right now, whether it was all a lie. As it was, he'd have to wait until morning.

Bobby relaxed back into the damp pillow and slept dreamlessly.

*

"No, Bobby." Claire turned away from him and picked up a beaker. "I'm sorry. I know you were very close to Darien, but this is ridiculous."

"Yeah?" Bobby was so sure now that he did no more than smile ironically. "What's ridiculous is you and the Official thinking that Bobby Hobbes wouldn't figure it out."

She glanced at him and then quickly away again. Her head bowed over the beaker and a long strand of hair partially veiled her face. "I saw him die, Bobby."

"Of a heart attack while he was going gland happy." It made his stomach lurch to say it, but her reaction only strengthened his conviction that he was onto something. "And you just buried him with that seventeen million dollar gland in his head."

"What do you want?" Claire turned on him angrily. "That gland had killed two people. Who would have been crazy enough to let us put it into their head?"

Bobby just smiled again.

"You? Bobby, you were in no condition to make a choice like that." Her expression softened.

"Since when would that have made a difference, if the Fat Man wanted another victim?" His bitterness was all too obvious, and Bobby tried to shrug casually. "That's okay. It's business. I understand that. I just want to know the truth."

"Listen, mate..." Claire put her hand on his arm. "Darien was your friend, but you can't..."

He shook her off. "Oh yes I can." It was so obvious to him that she was lying, and he took a step closer pointing an accusing finger at her. "Darien's more than just a friend. He's my lover, and I am not gonna let you bullshit me any more."

Her hand went up to her mouth and Claire stared at him in horrified silence for a moment. Then her face hardened. "Bobby, I can't..."

"You have to tell me." His chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. "Claire, you have to. I can't take this much longer."

His gaze held hers for several beats of his heart, then Claire looked away and he knew he'd won.

*

Unfortunately, Claire knew very little more than the bare fact that Darien was alive and in the hands of another agency. They had Darien, and the formula for the counteragent, and she was pretty certain that Darien was not in San Diego. It only took a moment's consideration for Bobby to decide that asking the Official straight out was a good way to get his ass kicked out of the Agency forever. That really only left one option.

"Robert, please unhand me." Eberts glared at him but Bobby simply tightened his grip and dragged the reluctant aide into a small interview room that was seldom, if ever, used. "You really can't afford to have any more complaints made about you. The Official…"

"Yeah, let's talk about the Official." Bobby released Eberts and leaned against the door. "Let's talk about why the Official would let some other agency take Fawkes away and then tell Fawkes' partner that he was dead."

Eberts' eyes widened before he hurriedly looked away. The guy was hopeless at lying. "That's ridiculous. Have you been forgetting to take your medication again?"

"I'm taking it." The time was long past when Bobby was fazed by somebody talking about that. "I know Fawkes is alive, okay? I'm not asking, I'm telling you. I want to know where he is, and I figure that anything the Fat Man does, you're gonna know about. You're practically joined at the hip. Sometimes I wonder about what's goin' on between you two."

He'd only thrown in the last remark to rattle Eberts, but it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Eberts went pale and then red. "That's… that's… how dare you?"

"Look, I don't care if you're doing it on the desk in your damn lunch hour. I want answers." Bobby grabbed the front of Eberts' jacket and dragged him up close. "Where's my partner?"

"He's not your partner any more." Eberts pulled away and then smoothed his lapels fussily. "You might as well just accept that."

"Yeah?" Bobby stared him out. It wasn't particularly difficult. "You'll be doing the Fat Man a favour, Eberts. There ain't no way he'd give up Fawkes willingly. So help me get Fawkes back and he ain't gonna ask too many questions about how I did it. He doesn't have to know about you tellin' me."

Eberts seemed to be debating internally. Finally he met Bobby's eyes. "I don't know everything, but I do know that the orders came from the President, and that the people who took Fawkes away were from the CIA. I believe they took him to Washington, DC."

"I thought the Fat Man had the President on his side." Bobby frowned. This was going to make things difficult. "Didn't he get the President to call off the CIA before?"

"Exactly." Eberts smirked a little. "We believe that the CIA must have some kind of hold over the President, but the Official has been trying to find out what that is ever since Fawkes was removed. So far we haven't succeeded."

"Well Bobby Hobbes isn't going to hang around waiting for you guys to come up with something. I'm gonna find Fawkes and bring him back." Bobby opened the door and then hesitated. "Don't you go telling the Fat Man about this."

Eberts looked superior. "I wouldn't dream of it. If things don't go well, and I don't suppose they will, he'll be able to deny all knowledge of your actions."

"He'd do that anyway." Bobby couldn't help but feel a grudging respect for his boss. He'd do the same if he was in charge of the Agency. "And you watch too many Mission Impossible reruns, my friend."

*

If Darien was in Washington DC, then Bobby had a pretty good idea how to find him. He lost no time in buying an airline ticket and grabbing a cab out to the airport. Normally he would have kept a watch out for any suspicious looking people in his vicinity, but today he was far too preoccupied. The hand that came to rest on his arm nearly startled him out of his skin.

"Bobby, are you sure you're taking your meds?" Claire examined him closely.

With a sigh, Bobby pulled the little pill bottle out of his pocket. "Wanna count them?" He waited for her to shake her head. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm coming with you." She held up her hand to silence his objections. "You may need the counteragent. I started a new batch after we talked two days ago." She pulled a small padded case out of her hand luggage. "Besides, I want to help. You're going to need help, you know."

"Bobby Hobbes does not need..." he gave it up with a shrug. Truth was, to get Darien back, he'd take any help that was offered, do anything that was necessary. And Claire was right, Darien might need the counteragent. "Okay. Just do as I tell you. This could get dangerous."

"Of course I will, Bobby." Claire smiled sweetly.

He eyed her uncertainly, but the boarding call came then, and since they were seated in different sections of the plane, he had plenty of time to think about how he was going to handle things. They wouldn't have much time before they were missed. If it had been just him, he probably would have been okay. The Official would have assumed he'd gone psycho and left it at that. But with Claire along for the ride, he'd have at most two or three days.

There were a couple of people he knew who could tell him where a covert group of CIA agents might stash somebody. He knew a few places himself, but it was years since he'd been in that kind of loop, and things changed rapidly. So, first step: get a base of operations, then shake down a couple of his old FBI buddies for the information he needed. The FBI hated the CIA, and Bobby knew exactly who to ask.

*

"No, Hobbes. No way am I putting my career on the line for you." Jones made to shove past him, but Bobby grabbed his arm.

People were looking at them. With a quick glance around, Bobby pulled Jones over to a bench and stood over him until he sat, scowling. "Look, you are not gonna lose your job over this. I've never ratted on a friend in my life, and I'm not gonna start now."

"You're not my friend, Bobby. We hate each other."

Bobby acknowledged the truth of this with a dismissive shrug. "You do this for me and you'll be the best friend I ever had."

"You're missing something, here." Jones leaned forward. "I don't want to be your friend. Is that clear?"

"Sure, but you're gonna tell me anyway." Bobby fixed him with a level stare. "You hate the CIA as much as I do. More, maybe. Besides, they took my partner. Nobody messes with a Federal Agent's partner and gets away with it. Right?"

"He's your partner, why should I care?" Jones made to rise and stopped as Bobby shoved a gun into his side. He dropped back onto the bench. "On the other hand, it's a matter of principle, I guess."

Bobby pressed the gun a little more firmly into Jones' side. "You'd better believe it, Jonesy. And while you're having a change of heart, just remember that if you don't do this, and anything happens to Fawkes, I won't stop until I've hunted you down. You got that?"

He thought, from the look on Jones' face, that the agent had got it very clearly. He smiled slightly as he strolled away. Sometimes being psycho paid off.

*

Claire met him at the door of their hotel room. "Well? Did you get anything?"

"Not yet." He pushed past her and dropped onto his bed. This was going to be the hard part. He'd never been good at waiting. "I'm gonna get some sleep. If the phone rings don't answer it. I don't want anyone knowing you're involved."

Belatedly, he toed off his shoes and shrugged out of his jacket. When he lay back and looked up at her, Claire was glaring down at him, hands on hips.

"That's it? Aren't you going to… I don't know… go out looking?"

"If I start asking too many questions someone's gonna hear about it. So, the answer's no. I am not gonna go out looking."

Something of the frustration he was feeling must have shown, because her expression changed from annoyance to concern. "Are you all right, Bobby?"

"I'm fine." He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together on his chest. He hadn't slept much in the last three days, and he doubted he'd be sleeping much tonight. "Why don't you go do something? Shopping, maybe."

He heard her snort, then the sound of her moving around the room. After a few minutes the door opened and closed. Bobby sighed with relief. He needed her, and God knew, he was grateful she was willing to help him, but…

When the phone rang, he was dozing lightly. Before he was completely awake, his hand was lifting the receiver. "Hobbes."

It was Jones. He scribbled down the addresses Jones gave him and hung up with a sense of grim satisfaction. Time for a shower. Then, when Claire came back, they could check the addresses out. He knew the area they were in, and he figured a couple would attract a lot less attention than a man on his own would. Yet another reason to be grateful for Claire's presence.

*

The first address was a bust. Whatever the CIA had been doing here, they'd obviously shut up shop and gone away. The second was a possibility, but Bobby wasn't convinced. He was starting to worry. Jones had only given him four addresses; maybe the sneaky bastard was yanking his chain. At the third address they hit pay dirt.

"Isn't that…"

Bobby dragged Claire back around the corner. "Yeah. What was his name again?"

She shook her head. Bobby couldn't remember either, but he had no doubt it was the sneaky CIA bastard who'd tried to get Darien away from the Agency.

He eased himself up to the corner of the building and looked. The street was clear of any suspicious looking people, though no doubt somebody on the street would be an agent. After a minute, Bobby had the woman pegged. He pulled Claire close to his side and they walked around the corner, heads bent together, apparently absorbed in each other.

It looked ordinary enough. A small office building with people wandering past, not paying much attention to it; but it had a single, small entrance, easy to protect, and the second floor had a large billboard offering rooms to lease that effectively covered half the windows on that floor.

"Nice set up, Keepie." Bobby smiled as he murmured the words. "It's not gonna be easy to get in there."

She laughed softly. "We don't even know if Darien's inside."

"Oh, he is. But we'll check out the last address, just in case." He put his arm around her waist. "Let's just stroll down this way."

They wandered past the building and turned down the next side street. A few yards further on there was a dead-end alley running parallel to the street at the front. Bobby glanced down it to see a metal rollup door that was well and truly padlocked. There was no way to tell if someone was watching from the inside. There would certainly be hidden cameras.

The last address, like the first, was a bust. They headed back to the office building in their hired car, parked where they could watch the front of the building, as well as see anything coming out of the alley, and settled in for a long wait.

Part Two